An Open Letter to Sarah from Love Actually, to Be Delivered In the Two Seconds Before She Answers Her Phone for the Second Time While Karl Is Tenderly Dry Humping Her Dear Sarah, What—and I cannot stress this enough—dafuq? That could be the whole letter, as it really captures the essence of the white-hot, slightly horny rage I feel every time I watch you cockblock yourself with that fucking Nokia, but I honestly feel bad for you, so I’ll spell it out. YOU SHOULD TURN OFF YOUR PHONE AND FUCK KARL. Oh my god, g…

A Producer Attempts to Pitch The Nutcracker (A production office. PRODUCER 1 sits at a desk. Enter PRODUCER 2.) PRODUCER 1: Take a seat. You said you have something Christmassy for me? PRODUCER 2: Strap in, buddy. This one’s gonna be a doozy. PRODUCER 1: Ha! Can’t wait. PRODUCER 2: Okay, so: Curtain up. It’s Christmas Eve. A young girl named Clara is opening gifts. One happens to be from …

I Am Whoville’s Only Home Insurance Provider, and I Am So Screwed It was Christmas in Whoville, time for roast beast and cake. As the sole home insurer, I earned this long break. Finally, a day without contracts or quotes— just presents, and wreaths, and big winter coats. So imagine my shock when my phone started ringing, with claims pouring in and not holiday singing. At the first call, I thought, oh my go…

Donations Matched One-to-One This Week. Please Consider Giving in Honor of a Reader in Your Life. It’s not too late. This holiday, we have the perfect—and most meaningful—gift for the reader who has it all in your life: a charitable gift in their honor. Give before December 25, and it will be matched and go twice as far! We’ve been given an amazing early gift: five anonymous donors have pledged to match every donation up to $30,000 that arri…

Hyper Specific Yoga with Adriene Videos I Wish She’d Make for Me Yoga for Young Adults Who Did Something Weird to Their Backs Fifteen-Minute Yoga for the Modern Woman Who Spent the First Ten Minutes of Her Free Time Having a Panic Attack (Actually Only Five Minutes of Yoga) The Exact Amount of Yoga You Need to Do to Tick That Box Where You Can Confidently Tell Your Doctor and Your Therapist That You’re “Doing…

I’m an Apple News+ Article. Come and Get Me, Baby I start this game of cat and mouse when you least expect it: You’ve swiped right to search for an unused app on your phone that you’re convinced you have somewhere. I lure you in with my headline: “Oolong Tea Is Having Extreme Effects on Health.” Yeah, I knew you’d be interested. You love oolong tea. I’ve been waiting for you. You click, and tha…

The Macbeths Listen and Don’t Judge We listen and we don’t judge. LADY MACBETH: I hate it when you introduce me as your “Dearest partner of greatness.” What’s wrong with “wife”? We listen and we don’t judge. MACBETH: I know I said, “Bring forth men-children only,” but I’ve always dreamed of being a Girl Dad. We listen and we don’t judge. LADY MACBETH: If you invite overnight guest…

Tips for Trimming a Christmas Tree with Small Children If your tree isn’t pre-lit, you might want to be. Divide and conquer. One adult can dole out hot chocolate and cookies to keep the children occupied while the other adult unpacks the decorations that were crammed into boxes last February 23 without even a passing nod to organization. If you are having a frustrating time untangling lights, you ca…

Scrooge and Marley CEO: The Counting House Business Is Flawed. Let’s Fix It OPINIONGUEST ESSAYby EBENEEZER SCROOGE Mr. Scrooge is the chief executive officer of Scrooge and Marley. – – – I know the headline suggests you are about to read some necessary, real-world proposals to reform the predatory accounting, money-lending, and debt-collection industry in 1840s England. I really needed you to read this. How this op-ed i…

Baby, It’s Me, Polio, and I’ve Missed You Can I be vulnerable with you for a second? I always believed we’d get back together. Smallpox thought I was nuts. He kept telling me, “You’re delusional, bro.” Rinderpest was similarly down about it. “They literally eradicated you.” I’m like, maybe look in the mirror when you say shit like that? Because I might be down, but I am not out. And eve…

Quaint Hometown Christmas Festivals Are Costing Me All My Best Employees Look, I want to make one thing clear: I’m not a selfish guy. I’m all for my employees discovering themselves and finding true love. The first time one of my top correspondents emailed out of the blue to say she’d decided to move to a tiny mountain town and take over a struggling antique shop, I said, “Good for you.” The second time it happened, …

Excerpts from The Believer: Ancient to the Future How director Mani Ratnam managed to adapt Ponniyin Selvan, a 2,500-page serialized historical epic and one of the bestselling Tamil novels of all time. – – – Dear Believers, come gather ’round the flames of the hearth as I spin the adventurous tale of Kalki Krishnamurthy—shamelessly adopting his intimately omniscient tone in order to illuminate …

We Will Build a Big Arch for Your City At Emers & Totch architectural firm, we specialize in arches. Not just any arches, but big arches. Monument arches. Think of the Gateway Arch: that kind of arch. No, we did not build the Gateway Arch, but that is the kind of arch we’re talking about. And we want to build an arch for your city, just like St. Louis has the Gateway Arch. Who says o…

Here at Time Magazine, We’ve Decided This Is Another One of Those Years We Pick a Person Who Fucking Sucks Every year, we pick someone to be our Person of the Year, and we put their face on the cover of our magazine. It’s, like, the big thing you know about us. And look, some years we pick incredible people. Folks who have lived their lives for the good of humanity: whistleblowers, silence breakers, Ebola fighters, and brave journalists. This is not …

A Scene from Saw LXVIII: Conference Meeting Icebreaker Eight strangers sit in a circle of folding chairs, dressed in various interpretations of business casual. JIGSAW: Rise and shine, conference-goers. You’re probably wondering where you are. I’ll tell you where you might be. You might be in the room you die in. Or the Rose Room at the Best Western Kachina Village. Gasps all around. JIGSAW: I want …

I’m a Hairy and Disaffected Accountant Competing on the Popular Mid-2000s TV Game Show Wipeout My name: Burnt Pepperidge. My profession: winning. I stand at the starting line and survey the obstacle course like a snake surveys a nest of bird eggs. My body is the serpent. The Wipeout obstacles are my bird eggs. Prepare, obstacles. Prepare to be gobbled up by my hungry snake mouth. My voracious mouth of serpent hunger. I have come here to w…

Positive Affirmations for Terrified Public School Teachers I choose optimism. Yes, they want to dismantle the DOE, increase censorship, and take money from already underfunded public schools to give to private schools, but maybe they’re too incompetent to accomplish all that right away. Maybe the wrestling lady will only last one or two Scaramuccis. Maybe they’ll get sidetracked arguing about whether ad…

Letters to Moms: A Letter to Kevin McCallister’s Mom In this column, Kristen Mulrooney writes letters to famous mothers from literature, TV, and film whom she finds herself relating to on a different level now that she’s a mom herself. – – – Dear Mrs. McCallister, In 1990, I was about the same age as your son Kevin, and he and I were on the same wavelength—that is to say, I judged the hell out of …

An Imagined Conversation Between the People Who Designed Urban Apartment Balconies DESIGNER 1: The investors want us to make extremely small urban apartments more enjoyable. Got any ideas? DESIGNER 2: Yes. Extremely small balconies. DESIGNER 1: That’s genius. How small are we talking? DESIGNER 2: Just big enough for one person to stand. DESIGNER 1: How about half as big? DESIGNER 2: That’s the best idea I’ve ever heard. But is…

A Typical First Date with a Guy in Boston, Chicago, or New York How You Met Boston: Attended the same biotech industry mixer. Chicago: Saw each other’s reflection in the Bean during golden hour. New York: Almost sat in the same pee puddle on the C train. The Pickup Line Boston: “I went to school just outside Boston. No, not Tufts.” Chicago: “Call me Tom Skilling, because I’m forecasting some action later.” N…