Each Friday we compile a list of interesting links and articles our editors find from across the web. Here’s what’s catching our eye this week.
An illustrated guide to Don Draper’s romantic liasons:
“I really wanted to see exactly how promiscuous Don was. I figured it’d be interesting to see how the ladies would look as a group. I wondered if there was a pattern or a certain type he was attracted to,” Choi told me. “Plus it was fun to focus on some female characters outside of the Peggy and Joan world.”
On Rachel Held Evans returning to church:
This Easter, the Paschal candles were lit. And, as she has done most Sundays for the past year, Evans attended St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Cleveland, “a bustling little congregation” 45 minutes outside Dayton. It marks the popular blogger’s return to church. It may also mean for Evans, I imagine, a more peaceful relationship with the evangelical tradition that nurtured her early faith.
Mark Galli’s “The True Man”:
I found myself in the presence of an old man with a scraggly and unkempt beard, mostly gray with flecks of black, that framed a welcoming smile. But it was his eyes that caught me. Definite lines with crows’ feet at the edges. As for the eyes themselves—well, I didn’t think love could be communicated with only a look. I sensed I was in the presence of my loving heavenly Father. But as the conversation ensued, I began to wonder if he was just a spacey octogenarian.
Taco Bell prepares to deliver:
Few things can be as delicious as a pile of quesadillas, chalupas, gorditas, cheesy quesarito crunchers, quesalupa chasers, and supreme Doritos-flavored Mountain Dew balls from Taco Bell when you’re as high as humanly possible. Or, you know, really drunk, or a teenager, or whatever other reasons people have for going to Taco Bell and not some pretentious “authentic” restaurant that doesn’t even serve Mountain Dew balls. The only problem is that sometimes you’re so high/drunk/teenaged that you simply can’t drive to the Taco Bell. What are you supposed to do then? Eat Doritos in chip-form like an actual human, instead of the monster that you are?
How long do home run records last?
This is a classic case of a record once set by a transcendent performer that transformed into a record fueled by the changing nature of the game. When Babe Ruth hit 54 home runs in 1920, it was more than four times the average of the next 15 on the list that season. (And it was more than any team hit in the American League that year.) But Ruth’s home run prowess triggered a change in the game, and by the time he hit 60 in 1927, it was “only” about three times the average of the next 15.
The New Yorker muses on the state of the memoir:
In the not-so-distant past, Rothman says, “people kept diaries, and then you took a creative-writing workshop and wrote thinly disguised autobiographical fiction about your life. And now, part of what’s defined the last decade or so is a lot of new ways to accomplish this.”
Professional chefs weigh in on how to make a better sandwich:
Fair warning: Making a better sandwich means avoiding the shortcuts. “People see a sandwich as so casual, so last minute,” said Gil Calderon, the chef and general manager of Meat Hook Sandwich and a man who gets swept up in very serious discussions of “textural play” and “temperature contrast.” “The best sandwiches are the ones that have a little more time devoted to them.”
Kanye West looks to expand from music into fashion:
West is one of the true music superstars of the 2000s, the rare artist respected as both a pop musician and experimenter, renowned as much for his creative endeavors as for his tabloid exploits. He has remade hip-hop’s sonic palette three, maybe four times. His musical legacy is peerless. And yet, as accomplished as he is, West has, for the past five years, openly sought success and acceptance in the world of fashion. It’s a pursuit that many see as a quixotic fixation, and has often been poignant to watch: West, ever-earnest and transparent about his sartorial ambitions, has attempted to launch himself in a new realm where his massive, inescapable celebrity does not necessarily confer any significant advantage.
John Oliver asks the nation to reconsider its vehement hatred of the IRS: