In the midst of the story is a bravura scene where a tarantula and python turn on their showman during a visit to an elementary school. My only complaint is the ending feels a little preordained; any other direction would have been more satisfying. But that’s a small part of the story, which is well worth a read.

Update: Just saw this quote from Erdrich in the interview, which is fitting:

You probably read more short stories than anyone else on earth, so you know the rules. If a person gets romantic justice in the story, the dog must suffer, or vice versa. Also, I have never liked cocker spaniels.

Member of all-white waitstaff barks at member of all-Hispanic busboy staff in way that makes customers feel like those who just stood by and watched in Vichy France.

Paul Simms had a pretty funny short piece in the April 23 New Yorker.

Designer Jer Thorp breaks down membership trends in the Avengers in far more detail than anyone needs (i.e., enough for a Marvel fanboy to go gaga over).

Edited to add: It reminds me of this X-Men relationship chart, which is also great.

ht Flowing Data

Reading more, it turns out it’s a true story! But I enjoyed it nonetheless.

The Ioffe article called up a 2011 story by Burkhard Bilger about Homer Sean Brock, a Charleston chef committed to rediscovering classic southern recipes, going as far as to establish his own farm to grow the right ingredients. That one’s also top-notch.

But perhaps the most influential person on the list is here, Sara Blakely. The inventor of the Spanx.  Give it up.

No one, no one has done more to control women’s bodies, except maybe Cardinal Dolan.

Cardinal, congratulations, sir, you are a feminist icon.

Stephen Colbert’s White House Correspondents address is probably my favorite bit of comedy ever, but his recent talk at the Time 100 Gala is pretty great too.

Today offered another fun one as Cursive and Cymbals Eat Guitars teamed up to cover the Gin Blossoms’ “Hey Jealousy,” one of my all-time guilty pleasures. Fun stuff.)

Cursive and Cymbals Eat Guitars cover Gin Blossoms

They stood near the rail, an infirm man and his only child, and said their goodbyes. As they were speaking, one of the ship’s enormous smokestacks came crashing down. Dick darted out of the way. Charles was crushed, instantly killed. At that point Dick jumped into the ocean.

In the April 2 Sports Illustrated, L. Jon Wertheim has a fascinating story about two Hall of Fame tennis players who survived the sinking of the Titanic, played each other three months later and never quite revisited their ordeal on the ocean.