boofboofboof

loveletterstobasketballplayers: Dear Iman, Hi. I have to...

Tue, 12 Feb 2013 17:01:21 -0500

Dear Iman,

Hi. I have to say, I’m nervous. I think with all this other love lettering I’ve done, it has been implicitly known that, though I’ve been trying to woo NBA stars who are seemingly out of my league, I am still a reasonably attractive woman and that sort of trumps everything. But you are really incredibly sexy. I know this because I saw you in real life.

Do you remember when we met? On December 17th 2012? We met. We locked eyes at Madison Square Garden. It looked like you wanted to go out with me, to a sushi restaurant maybe. I sense that since then, you have been searching everywhere for me. But how would you find me? What would you say? “Where is that beautiful yet average-looking girl I saw that one time for 7 seconds? Why can’t I stop thinking about her? How can I find her, Tyson?”

You’ve had a lot going on and maybe not a ton of time to search for me, but I think your coming back to play for the Knicks is one of the ways you’ve been signaling to me. A lover’s call through his trade. It’s incredibly romantic. Furthermore, you’ve been calling out to me on twitter. You have said things like ”She’s much too busy for me…somehow I’m attracted to that…how does that make sense?” and ”I lik her to look exotic…she shud stick out like a sore thumb…I sure do.” I know that these romantic tweets were addressed to me because I am both busy and exotic. Now, whereas your exoticness is mostly expressed in your beautiful hair, your beautiful face, and your unbeatable name, my sore-thumbness lies mostly in my hair which is kind of weirdly shaped and big and poofy in its own special way, such that at least .4% of the number of people who have commented on your special hair have commented on my special hair.

Anyway, there is more that we share. For months you were unable to do your favorite thing, play basketball, because you hurt your knee. Ugh it was terrible I just wanted to love you right then! During your time off you probably felt an intense longing, not just for the woman you knew you would meet and fall in love with on December 17th, but for your game, at which you dominate. It’s maybe not exactly the same, but I know longing as well. Sometimes when I am on my 5-week winter break from grad school, I pine for school to start again just so that I can have work to do to make you think I am too busy for you. Also, sometimes when I have class from 12 to 2, I feel so much desire to eat lunch because that is when my body wants to eat lunch, but I can’t because I am in class. The point I’m making is that neither of us is a stranger to difficulty and heartbreak, but our soon-to-blossom relationship will only be better for it.

Part of the reason I know we are right for each other is you are committed and loyal to your team. When I met you in December, you couldn’t even play, but you were there, on the court, cheering on and counseling your team while JR Smith looked annoyed. You also wrote this song of Knicks love, and to be honest, I’m not sure why it’s not on the radio everywhere and always. Another big part of the part is that you are really insightful about music and outrageously cute while having insights! I’m telling you right now I am already relieved knowing you are the kind of man who is devoted and qualified enough to take on most of the lullaby-singing duty during the years that our four sweet children need lullabies.

Look. It is almost Valentines Day. I think you are fine because. What do you say we see where that 7-second eye lock that happened two months ago takes us?

Love <3

Catherine

loveletterstobasketballplayers: James, I Think This is Our...

Mon, 19 Nov 2012 10:41:41 -0500

loveletterstobasketballplayers:

James, I Think This is Our Chance.

Dear James,

Something everyone knew a few weeks ago was that it was a good day for basketball. Even the Thunder thought for like two seconds that it was a good day for them, and then they were like ef, bad day. But something I’ve known since the trade happened and you made your move to Houston and I saw grown men giggling with delight in the streets is that this is our moment for love.

Something you should know is that as soon as I started writing this love letter, Beyonce’s 1 + 1 came on my iPod and IT IS ON SHUFFLE. There are a lot of important things to be analyzed in this sign. First, Beyonce is a great lover of basketball. She attends many games with the love of her life Jay-Z. She wears fly outfits to all the games. What Beyonce is telling me by coming on my iPod at this moment is that to win you, I must be like her. Luckily, I already am a lot like her. Here is how:

Neither of us is a mathematician, but we both know the careful arithmetic of love and the careful arithmetic of responsible birth control. What I mean is, 1 + 1 will = only 2 until we’re ready for our baby, Taupe Holly Harden.

I wear fly outfits whenever possible, which admittedly is less often than Beyonce wears them, but we both work equally hard within our respective means to look really good, all the time. With you, my means would increase literally ten thousand fold (assuming that you believe in relationship equality and plan to share everything with me) and then I am sure that I will look exactly as fly if not flyer than Beyonce every time we go out.

Beyonce and I both have the same favorite activity, dancing, though she is slightly better at it then I am.

I love President Obama, just like Bey.

Okay so at this point you are like Catherine, is this a love letter to Beyonce or what? No James, no. It is a love letter to you and here is why:

I don’t even like beards yet I am drawn to you. Because of your beard, I am not even really sure what your smile looks like, but I don’t care. When I have glimpsed your smile though, it seems pretty uniquely shaped, yet somehow appealing. You are younger than me by more than four years. I am concerned about this because you know how boys can be in their early twenties. But somehow I sense you are not this way at all. Perhaps it is your beard, which makes you seem wise and calm and old. Perhaps it is the fact that you are 1.16 feet taller than I am and you weigh 100 pounds more than I do that prevents me from seeing you as a young little 23 year old baby. Whatever it is, these contradictions are signs of transcendent love.

The way you play basketball is my favorite way – you are crazy good. And on top of that you are not a flashy player. You channel all your flash into your interesting grooming choices so that you don’t have to show off how good you are at basketball by being all in-your-face about your stats and skills. I mean, you score a crazy three point shot and sometimes you do a little understated braggy thing, but most of the time you just run to the other end of the court looking confused. I LOVE when people who are really good at things don’t brag about them. Because then that leaves me all sorts of room to give you sweet little compliments like “James do you know how good you are at dressing?” Or “James have you been working out!?” Or “James when you make green beans it just reminds me of how no one can make green beans like you make green beans, let’s be married.”

I know I did a lot of bragging earlier in this letter but you are an NBA star and I’m trying to get you to love me. Plus you need to know the truth. I hope by now you do know it. But in case, let me summarize my main points : 1) You are so cute and good at basketball, let’s date. 2) Beyonce is on our side. 3) I’m really proud of you and happy for you and you look great in red and I hope you have a great season in Houston! Number 3 is just a preview of how sweet and loving I can be. So let’s get to number 4, which is us sharing uninhibited love while on a double date with Bey and Jay-Z. My schedule is open.

Love,

Catherine

Video

Tue, 23 Oct 2012 11:33:53 -0400

Audio

Mon, 08 Oct 2012 23:33:57 -0400

thetickr: Dear Enrique Tomas, Or is it just Tomas,...

Tue, 07 Aug 2012 13:49:46 -0400

thetickr:

Dear Enrique Tomas,

Or is it just Tomas, or just Enrique, or a cute little nickname like En-To-To or something?

So yesterday you came in fourth in the Men’s Vault, which means you didn’t win a medal, but really who cares, because you have a lot of other special things going on. Before talking about your special things though, I need to tell you that even though I think Yang, Denis, and Igor are all really cute and did really great and deserve their medals, you were not given enough credit for how much style and sweet smiley-ness you have in addition to having outrageous vault skills.

Now to your special things. You have a mustache, which is the first thing that made me notice you. And then I noticed that you also have an eyebrow piercing. This was a confusing moment because I went from being certain that we would have a life filled with fancy cocktails in candle-lit rooms to picturing a life filled with danger and Jncos. But what I decided is that the multi-facetedness of your personality will act as an undying flame to ignite our passion, and your big, beautiful muscles will act as a means of you being able to bench press me, which is just something I’ve always wanted to be able to do in a relationship.

At this point you are probably a little put off by how much I am fixating on your physique, so let me add that I think we would have a deep intellectual bond that is anchored in the very elaborate body language we would develop to circumvent our language barrier. Eventually I will learn Spanish and you will learn English, but let’s not rush things, first I have to find out if it is fun to kiss a mustache.

Enrique Tomas, I think there is a chance that love could be the right thing for us so let’s try! If it lasts, we would have an unbeatable “how did you meet” story, and if it doesn’t, we can at least say “hey, it was a crazy idea, but we tried.” All I ask is you think about it on your way back to Santiago, but also that you make up your mind before about 5 pm because there is someone else I am thinking about loving if you’re not that excited about what we might have. Anyway, no pressure, I want you to make sure you’re ready, and when you are, I’m here.

Love,

Catherine

-catherine @cathyprovy

risingtensions: this is the ananas (pineapple) from...

Tue, 31 Jul 2012 20:14:32 -0400

risingtensions:

this is the ananas (pineapple) from telefrancais
true childhood quebecois french nightmares

Or USA French Class nightmares!

thetickr: Dear David Leyva, You Didn’t Win a Medal Today, But...

Mon, 30 Jul 2012 16:09:43 -0400

thetickr:

Dear David Leyva, You Didn’t Win a Medal Today, But You Look a Lot Like Drake, So Hey

Dear David,

I am sorry you and your boys did not win a medal today. But my little sister alerted me to how much you look like Drake and she is right. Now, I am a Drake fan just as much as they next person, which is to say who knows how much of a Drake fan I am, but the point is, he did come out with an inspirational song with the lyric “I’m so, I’m so, I’m so, I’m so, I’m so proud a you,” and even though you did not win today, that is how we all feel about you. You had a crazy awesome high bar on Saturday, so we all know that you have serious skills, and besides, you did your best, which is what the Olympics is all about (and this of course has been proven by how little the media cares about how Michael Phelps lost that one time, they just care that he did his best when he won 17 gold medals!). Despite the loss today, we will all spend the remainder of the Olympics drinking every night because we drink to your accomplishments, just like we drink to Drizzy’s. Though of course everyone would understand if you wanted to choose some other, body-friendly celebratory practice, given that it is precisely drinking every night (and smoking, and never working out, and staying up until 3am watching Breaking Bad) that makes the rest of us non-Olympians.

I know there are some people in the world that, for various legitimate reasons, would be like “Ugh, why must you compare me to Drake!?” But I think your website indicates that you are not someone who is intimidated by fanciness, nor are you someone who is afraid to look really incredibly handsome while doing really hard things, nor are you afraid to do them naked! As far as America is concerned, you are a victory.

Love,

Catherine

-Catherine, boofboofboof, @cathyprovy

The Tickr: Dear Olympians, Some of You I Love and I Like All of You

Fri, 27 Jul 2012 12:54:42 -0400

The Tickr: Dear Olympians, Some of You I Love and I Like All of You:

thetickr:

Dear Olympians,

First of all, I’m sorry that the 2012 Olympic logo turned out so ugly. Second of all, there are so many of you! Over ten THOUSAND! Which maybe doesn’t seem like a huge deal because there are tons of people in the world, but it is a huge deal because all ten thousand…

thetickr: Introducing The Tickr’s London 2012 Olympic Blogging...

Thu, 26 Jul 2012 09:22:46 -0400

thetickr:

Introducing The Tickr’s London 2012 Olympic Blogging Team

We’re thrilled about the team we brought together and the Olympic coverage they’re going to bring to the masses. It was a tough decision, but in the end we went with 6 diverse and multifaceted bloggers. A group of individuals that we thought would deliver Olympic content you wouldn’t be able to get anywhere else.

From top left to right we have:

Sean Yoo
A Korean-American college senior at Ithaca College studying Television/Radio with a dream to be a sports anchor on ESPN. Currently interning at NBC at 30 Rock, for the highlights factory, which amazingly is located in the same studio as SNL.

Mike McGrath
Graphic Designer and artist born and raised in the beautiful Cleveland, OH. Enjoyer of beer, sports, music and classic video games in that order. Fan of all sports with basketball serving as a first love which led to the Co-Founding of Double Scribble, the world’s leading daily basketball art blog, which will host it’s first charity gallery show October 21st at BuckBuck gallery in Cleveland. Still has posters of Andre Agassi and Scottie Pippen hanging in his bedroom.

Neeraj Grover
17 year old sports-junkie or whatever you call a sports-addicted person from Chandigarh, India. Founder of the Tumblr sports blog Culture of Sports.

Josh Eisenberg
Creator/writer of obitoftheday.com, named one of the forty best history blogs by Tumblr. You can also find him posting occasionally on mlboffseason.com, named one of the 25 best sports blogs on Tumblr by Bleacher Report. When he is not writing about, quadrennial athletic competitions, the National Pastime, dead people, Josh is a stay-at-home dad of five in Oak Park, Illinois and a professional tour guide in Chicago.

Catherine Provenzano
A resident of New York and a doctoral student in ethnomusicology. But what she’s really interested in is athletes and how they know how to be athletic.

Nathan Hayhoe
An English teacher currently residing in Montréal, Quebec. An avid sports fan and has proudly watched every Olympic games since Ben Johnson won (and then lost) his gold in Soeul. Nathan uses his hobby, sports card collecting, as a means of writing about his favorite athletes and teams on his blog, Canadian Cardboard.

Happy Olympics everyone! See you at the opening ceremonies!

Hey! Come!

Thu, 19 Jul 2012 13:19:50 -0400

Hey! Come!

"INTERVIEWER Is it true your father paid you a nickel for every story you wrote as a..."

Thu, 07 Jun 2012 15:46:18 -0400

“

INTERVIEWER

Is it true your father paid you a nickel for every story you wrote as a child?

ERDRICH

Yes, he did, and he’s sick of hearing about it. It’s also true that, about a year ago, he gave me a roll of antique nickels and said, I owe you.

”

- read full interview here: http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/6055/the-art-of-fiction-no-208-louise-erdrich#.T75HtpGTreI.twitter

"“His mother’s hope was that he would use the names to affix himself to the world. As in,..."

Wed, 23 May 2012 23:11:00 -0400

“

“His mother’s hope was that he would use the names to affix himself to the world. As in, You do not see the mayapple until you know that’s what it’s called, and then you see it everywhere, the words teaching you to love the things they name. But this isn’t why he’s telling himself, Thats a samovar, that’s a pencil sharpener. He never used the words as his mother intended. He uses them to keep material things at bay. And by now, in fact, the words have replaced the things themselves.

But there are moments when his nostalgia for the world of a potbelly stove, bull thistle, Dreema Hannibal behind the church in Prestonsburg, holding his little hand in hers while no one saw, of his mother dipping the comb in the water of the washbasin and parting his hair while the two of them observed in the mirror - moments when his desire to hold a thing, a thing in his hand, to impress himself again with the dumb objectness of it - is so piqued he will do anything his imagination tells him in order to achieve it.

He wants the world and not the name of the world.”

”

- Salvatore Scibona The End

Photo

Wed, 23 May 2012 16:46:00 -0400

birthday wish come true

Mon, 21 May 2012 01:35:37 -0400

birthday wish come true

safetylast: Harold Lloyd…………………..Girl Shy - (1924)

Sun, 20 May 2012 15:40:54 -0400

safetylast:

Harold Lloyd…………………..Girl Shy - (1924)

theparisreview: Something Out of Something: Talking with Etgar...

Wed, 02 May 2012 12:27:50 -0400

theparisreview:

Something Out of Something: Talking with Etgar Keret

degeneratemusic: thesilverowl: You Can Dance - Chilly...

Thu, 12 Apr 2012 12:03:01 -0400

degeneratemusic:

thesilverowl:

You Can Dance - Chilly Gonzales

Pretty sure under the definition of fun in the dictionary is this song.

Website / Facebook

the most honest music video I’ve ever seen

Vernon Macklin, Be My Love

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 14:17:00 -0400

Dear Vernon,

So far, this love letter experiment has not yielded much love. All my boys have been like “Listen Catherine, I can tell you are really great, but you just didn’t prove to me that you like me for me and that our love will be forever. How do I know you won’t break my heart?” The responses have been eerily uniform, which led me to realize that men just want security based on scientific fact. So Vernon, now that I have realized I love you, I’d like to prove to you that you shouldn’t be afraid to love me too. And you don’t have to take my word for it, let’s look at the evidence:

You are number 20 which is my birthday number, and all girls love men who wear their birthday numbers. Plus it is also YOUR BIRTHDAY NUMBER!! which says something about our destiny.

We were both born in Virginia. Have you ever heard of a little expression called “Virginia is for Lovers”? Well, that’s what our parents thought, and maybe our parents are better role models than we give them credit for. Since we share this unique bond, it is only right that we export the special kind of love Virginians are capable of to the love-deprived city of Detroit, and then we can start the slogan “Detroit is for lovers whose parents were once lovers in Virginia.” And then we will have tons of babies and encourage them all to stay in Detroit and generate some much-needed tax revenue for the city we love.

I will admit that the thing I like second most about you is the way you look because you are huge and incredibly handsome (I will get to the first-most thing in the non-scientific section of this letter). But the way you look also happens to provide some real, biological proof of why we are right for each other. First, our attractiveness quotients:

Vernon: 10 Catherine: 10. Compatibility clear.

Now, our body proportions:

Vernon: height 6’10”; weight 227lbs

Catherine: height 5’2”; weight 113.5lbs*

If we plug these numbers into some simple equations, here is what we get:

In height, V=1.33C In weight, V=2C

That’s right, you have twice as much body mass as I do, and you are a full third taller than I am!

If you prefer visual representation, here’s what we look like**:

* After a seven-day juice fast

** Charts not to scale

Now I don’t know of any research that confirms how well enormous men work with little women, but judging by how well the math works out and how great these charts look, I think we can be confident that we are a match.

I know you are thinking, “But Catherine, there are tons of huge guys in the NBA, what makes me different?” Well, in addition to the evidence presented above, I will point out that you are a man whose star is rising. You may be playing for the D-League now, but when you’re back with the Pistons next week, the world will take notice. And when they do, I’ll get to be like, “see I called that, AND we’re in love,” and you’ll get to be like “see, my girl loved me before I was huge (in the fame sense, not the physical sense).” But the thing that makes you most different and the thing I like first most about you is the way you tweet. You present astute observations in the form of funny jokes. You give shout-outs to your mom. And you ask culturally-relevant questions. All of these show your above averageness in charm, intellect, and sweetness - all things I value highly, and all things I want in my life forever.

Vernon, I just think you’re so great, and I think the facts compel us to give it a try. So let’s go for it, let’s fall in love.

Love,

Catherine

Rajon’s twitter photo. It’s hard not to love a man...

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 16:44:48 -0400

Rajon’s twitter photo. It’s hard not to love a man on some stairs.

Baby Baby Baby

Tue, 20 Mar 2012 12:34:31 -0400

Baby Baby Baby