Toast is a slice of bread that has been browned by exposure to radiant heat. Thanks, Wikipedia.
By Alisha Giampola (Writer/Performer)
You know how when you're famous, and you have a Wikipedia page and it lists all of your fabulous accomplishments and also sometimes your "influences"? Like if you're a famous songwriter, maybe your influences were Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell. Or maybe you're a stand-up and you were influenced by Carol Burnett and Louis CK; or you were a famous horrible person and you were influenced by Osama Bin Laden and whoever is currently in charge of the Westboro Baptist Church. I'm not a famous person, but my secret goal in life is to be the kind of person whom people just sort of assume was "influenced" in equal parts by Amy Sedaris, Sarah Silverman, and Madeline Kahn. Ideally, I would be the kind of person whom people would only be able to describe by using an invocation of those women's names. (And also possibly Ilana Glazer, for further clarification.)
A current female writer who falls into my special Venn diagram of "personal influences" and "badass ladies" is Mallory Ortberg, creator of Texts From Jane Eyre, current writer for Slate, and founder of my favorite corner of the internet: The Toast. No other place on the world wide web, or possibly the wide world in general, has unified my need for incredibly specific absurdist intellectual commentary with my need for hysterical interpretations of what is actually happening in most of Western Art History.
So I was one of the many saddened people of the internet when I frolicked over to The Toast a couple weeks ago to see if there were any brilliant reviews of Martin Luther's 95 Theses or if there was another "The Entire Comment Section From Something On The Internet" article to brighten my day, and found out that THE TOAST IS CLOSING ON JULY 1ST. This is incredibly sad news for me, as a writer, as a person who likes to laugh at Greek mythology, as a human. This should be sad for you too: Mallory Ortberg and her writers on The Toast are a group of smart, funny people with a healthy sense of how to mix current social commentary with classical literary references. There was an amazing running series on converts, which was basically just smart and fascinating interviews with people who had changed religions. There were rants on why possums are the worst; there was a weekly celebration of Madeline Kahn called Madeline Kahn Monday (you know I was into that); there were two wild and crazy monks who liked to invent things; super interesting essays on Shakespeare and feminism; Bible verses with some of their words replaced with other words, to the possible improvement of everything; an entire series focused on Every Meal Eaten In [This Classic Book]; another series where all your favorite stories are ruined/made better(?) by Ayn Rand... I could go on, but you should probably just head on over to The Toast and read the entire website. I'll wait.
Wasn't that great? Seriously, though. I'm so sad this haven of wonderful, smart, niche-interest writing on the internet is going away and I hope everyone goes and supports their last month of funny, whimsical content. This is a loss for all writers and bloggers- we should all be devastated that something as wonderful as The Toast could not remain profitable for its editors to keep open while remaining committed to their goal of paying every freelance writer that contributed. It was a noble goal, and deserved reward, and I respect them for ending things while everyone was still into them, Breaking-Bad-style, instead of fizzling out long after everyone was over it but still felt kind of badly for not wanting to watch anymore, The-Office-style.
So head on over and pour one out for The Toast. And best wishes for Mallory et al...I can't wait to see what projects they get involved with next.
A Toast, from Western Art History.
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Also, in Important Hedwig Tour News: THIS. (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
ALISHA GIAMPOLA is an NYC based actor/teacher/writer who kind of wishes that Carrie Brownstein was her girlfriend.
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