How to Fix a Flat: with Lance Armstrong

Me: I'd rather not get into it.
My dad: They let him into your office?!
Me: Yes.
My dad: Lance Armstrong?
Me: Yes. He was here.
My dad: How can they do that?! He lied to everybody! He destroyed people who spoke out against him! What was he even doing there?
Me: You know, Dad, I'm not...disputing, but...sigh...he's a complicated guy, and he gave a lot of money to charity, helped a lot of people, and it's not as if he hasn't paid for what he did.
My dad: They let him into your office?!
Me: I'm just telling you that he was here. I saw him, but we didn't make eye contact. If it was Roger Clemens, I'd have gotten out from behind my desk and spit in his face, but...I'd really rather not get into it.
My dad: What was the video even about?
Me: I don't know. We're not supposed to talk about it until it goes online.

via Outside Online

Lee Moses

Los Angeles council to vote on lifting ban against mural painting

The Mural Conservancy of Los Angeles began restoration work last week on John Wehrle's Hollywood Freeway mural Galileo, Jupiter, Apollo, 1983 

Los Angeles could see a renaissance of mural painting following last week’s approval by the Planning and Land Use Management Committee of an ordinance that lifts a ban on the creation of murals on private property. The city council is due to vote on the ordinance on 20 August, potentially reversing restrictions that have been in effect for a decade. Continue reading in The Art Newspaper.

Saving Badass Dogs From Idiot Humans

Photo © Patricia Jones

Of the dogs who stood in front of NYC Pet on Driggs Ave. on Saturday, a surprising number had both first and last names. There was a collie-shepherd named David Hasselhoff, a basset hound-boxer named Patrick Henry, and a Calhoun hound-pit bull named Faye Dunaway — in addition to a “super mellow” beagle mix, whose dirty blonde erudition and Germanic allure had apparently compelled a previous owner to name her Carole Lombard. Though some of the dogs were still considered puppies, most were at least twice the size of a shoebox, and all of them were hoping to find adopters, as part of the weekly-to-biweekly events organized by Badass Brooklyn Animal Rescue. Read the full post on Greenpointers.

Dave Van Ronk

I was doing some background research on the Stonewall Uprising, where a commemorative plaque was supposed to be installed this week (the ceremony has been postponed), and I came across Dave Van Ronk, a blues guitarist who was among the few people who could confirm having been at the Stonewall on the night of June 28, 1969. Now I can't stop listening to his music.

Bruce McCall's Faux Nostalgia

Danny Wilde

Calvin Trillin Is in a Picture With John Lewis. I Guess We Should Listen to Him.

In the early sixties, in the heyday of group journalism, I spent a year as one of the writers in Time Edit. I’d previously spent a year as a reporter (or “correspondent,” as the masthead had it) in the Atlanta bureau, covering the civil rights struggle in the South, and six months in the New York bureau—a misfit operation in the group-journalism scheme of things, staffed by two or three reporters who sometimes compared themselves to Transit Authority policemen assigned to the tunnels. For half of that year in Time Edit, I was what we called a floater—a utility infielder who was brought in to a section when, say, the person who wrote Sport was home with the flu, or when one of the World writers was on vacation. Since writers were listed on the masthead as associate or assistant editors, I’ve assumed ever since that I could justifiably refer to myself, on occasions when credentials are called out to add weight to a point of view, as the former Art editor of Time (four or five weeks, at various times) or even the former Medicine editor of Time (two consecutive weeks, although I must admit that the section was killed both weeks).
Read the full story on NewYorker.com