Mac King
Characters make a story memorable: jokesters, geniuses, gossips, children, octogenarians, your neighbor Maureen, your uncle Jerry, cobblers, clock-winders, professional foosball players, artisan mayonnaise-makers. In this job (and in life), I like to think I seek out characters. I'm a reader (fiction, non-fiction, books, magazines, the entire Internet). I'm a TV/movie-watcher. I'm a former camp counselor. I'm an intramural sports enthusiast. Every story of my little league career is at least mildly exaggerated. I grew up on Bainbridge Island, Wash., with two sisters, Newfoundland dogs and Siamese cats. My parents still live there with all of those pets and all of my favorite sports teams. I went to high school at Andover, where I spent more time playing stickball than studying for chemistry (Mr. Cardozo gave me a C). I then attended Bates College, where I wrote a sports column for the school paper filled with more drinking jokes than game stats (thankfully, the online archives seem to have vanished). I went to graduate school at Northwestern, where I once submitted a story about the most delicious cinnamon brioche in all of Chicago.
The latest from Mac King
Cuomo to Trump: Do something—you're the president
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said the state needs help from the federal government, especially the Army Corps of Engineers. He snapped back at the president who suggested he wasn't doing enough.
NJ town closes road so frogs, salamanders can safely cross
Why did the frogs and salamanders cross the road? To breed.
Hard cider made from New York's wild 'spitter' apples
Abandoned Hard Cider makes hard cider from wild apples.
Bodega customers with math skills get five-second shopping spree
The son of a bodega owner in the Bronx gives customers five seconds to answer a math problem. If they get it right, the customers can take whatever they want in the store within five seconds.
“Meet the Breeds” with the American Kennel Club
This weekend the American Kennel Club hosts its 11th annual Meet the Breeds at the Javits Center on Manhattan’s West Side.
'Subway car of the future' has more doors and fewer seats
Maximizing capacity on the next generation of subway car apparently does not mean adding seats.
Turning rubber into art in the East Village
For the last couple of decades John Casey's spent the majority of his waking hours within the depths of his narrow East Village workshop.
Popular Birdcamp no longer accepting boarders
Birdcamp owner Rosalee Gibson has stopped accepting boarders.
Quality coffee office delivery service in Manhattan
Goffee delivers a thousand 12-ounce cups of coffee, lattes and cappuccinos—each tailored exactly to the drinker's specification, down to the brand of java and number and varieties of milks and sugars—to 45 different companies every weekday morning.
Lyft to begin offering car rentals
The ridesharing company Lyft sent a shockwave through the global car-rental market on Thursday when they announced that they plant to start renting vehicles to customers in the Bay Area and Los Angeles.