The Dailies

Word of the Day

Brio (n., BREE-oh)

Energy and enthusiasm, especially in performing! A name for disappointing Italian restaurants! What we don't have today! The byproduct of coffee!

Gif of the Day

TagsAnimalsDeerAnimals in the houseThree different speedsChasesPerfectly looping gifsHunting seasonBambi, perhaps

Link of the Day

Dakota Thanksgiving

Good morning! Hope your weekend was good. We didn't get as much time as we hoped over the weekend to discover new nuggets for you but we did enjoy Joseph Bottum's wonderful reflections of his teenage Thanksgiving in South Dakota. Seriously, just listen to the prose sing:

Exactly why did my father want us to know how to rewire the toaster? Or at least, since that’s not necessarily a bad thing to know, why did he insist we be able to rewire the toaster and recite all 108 lines of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven”?

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December (First make sure the toaster is unplugged) and each separate dying ember (Now take a Phillip’s-head screwdriver) wrought its ghost upon the floor (I said a Phillip’s-head. A Phillip’s-head. The one with the pointy cross on the end). Eagerly I wished the morrow (Finally. Now turn the toaster over and look for the screws on the bottom), vainly I had sought to borrow (Um, yes, I did forget about the crumbs falling out all over the kitchen floor) from my books surcease of sorrow (No, your mother is not going to be mad), sorrow for the lost Lenore (Yes, I’m sure). For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore (That’s all right. It’s supposed to spring out like that), nameless here for evermore (See? That’s where the insulation has worn through). And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain (Yes, that’s why the fuse has blown every morning for the last three days. No, you can’t plug it back in and watch it spark) thrilled me—filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before.

It's a long but great read over at First Things. (And we've been very, verrry careful not to spoil anything. There's a lot of interesting angles to the article.) Go give it a look at lunchtime.

TagsWritingSouth DakotaThanksgivingFamilyTeenagersEdgar Allen Poe