The New Yorker's Book Bench blog discovered these sad, young, hard literary men, all of whom say they work in "law, publishing and high technology." When these hard guys meet up, they just don't talk about books, they also do hard things like playing paintball and gambling and shooting guns and engaging in contests involving feats of strength. The group's founder, who goes by the hard name of Tanaka, had this to say about why he started a book club exclusively for Boston's rock hard swinging dicks:

I started this club as an anti-establishment book club that spits in the faces of the traditional girlie clubs where people don't discuss the book, and just drink wine and talk about relationships. I have a good number of smart, successful friends who are very well read, and want to kick ass like I do. Throw in beer, competition, and seedy locations, and we had the perfect recipe to have fun while motivating us to continue to read and kick ass collectively.

According to their website, these hard boys love books by hard authors like Cormac McCarthy and Ernest Hemingway, but hated C. D. Payne's Youth in Revolt because it just wasn't hard enough for their tastes. Shockingly, there are no Chuck Palahniuk books on their list of past selections, but just give it some time — after reading Chuck they'll probably all spontaneously drop their pants and start masturbating in front of each other, because that's the type of shit hard guys do when they're totally intellectually stimulated, and there wouldn't be nothing gay about that at all because it's all about being hard baby!

Long live the Scorpions! If there's one thing this world needs more of, it's "anti-establishment" book clubs.

Here's a classic little detail from one of those profiles that basically tells you lots of things you already knew, like "Shep Smith is from the South and right-wing bloggers don't like him," but throws in a couple fun new anecdotes to keep you reading them:

Smith does spout strong opinions throughout the day, but they tend to be directed at LSU - the rival of his alma mater, Ole Miss - or at the Red Sox, eternal foes of his beloved New York Yankees. Trash talk comes with the territory; in the main newsroom at Fox News's Sixth Avenue headquarters, a fan on his desk bears the brand name "Boston," and underneath it, Smith has scrawled the word "Sucks."

Hah. This is from a profile in The Boston Globe, too.

"Is the Atlantic's move to DC transforming it into a supersize U.S. News & World Report?" It is "arguably" getting worse! (Please everyone do not ever use the word arguably again. If you are making an argument? Make an argument. NO DOUBT some people will disagree with you!)

"When the Atlantic was founded 150 years ago, Boston could lay legitimate claim to being America's cultural and intellectual capital; it was also a center of finance." But now Boston sucks!

With "cultural and financial gravity concentrated in New York and political power concentrated in Washington, Boston had cultivated something else: a kind of shared civic arrogance, rooted in memories of past glory, that drove Bostonians to sit in intellectual judgment on the great events of the day...."

Don't get distracted, Adam! The Atlantic actually is obvious and dull and insular! It just used to be obvious and dull and insular from Boston.

Capitol Loss [Boston Phoenix]

Boston Fashion Week

Do you hate Boston, or do we just really suck? I recently got into an argument about which city sucked more, DC or Boston, with a friend and she countered by saying there is no way DC can suck more than Boston because they have a later last call, a better mass transits system and a Gawker media blog dedicated to their gossip, while in Boston nobody gives a fuck about us, the T kinda sucks and smells like human feces and our last call is retrograde at best. I don't feel like I need to explain why I think DC sucks, but does Boston actually suck more?

Generally we try to avoid thinking about Boston or D.C. at all, because to do so is boring, but occasionally our hands are forced. So we considered Boston. First, those accents, oh my God. They're like nails on a blackboard. (Did I mention I'm from Boston? Yeah.) Then there are the mass transit issues (the T shuts down by 1 a.m.), the drinking issues (last call is at 2), the white-hat issues (blech), the weird WASP-Irish-Italian nexus, the segregation, the ridiculous real estate prices (and for WHAT?), the Celtics suck, the Red Sox obsession is pathological... oh, we could go on, but we should cede the floor to D.C.

D.C. sucks, according to one of our number who's from that city, because "people are HIDEOUSLY UGLY. It's the land of people just dressing for their boring ass office all the time and actually having no idea how to dress when they're not in their sweatpants on the couch. Like, girls wear flared black pants and Nine West chunky heels, guys wear Dockers." All true, per our own observations! Also, the bars really suck, and there are faux-exclusive clubs like Last Night's Shots, which are filled with former frat brothers and sorority sisters from Southern schools. Oh, and everyone works for the Federal government, which right now means the city is crawling with smarmy Republicans. Including George Bush.

Wow, this is hard. So! We put it to you.

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Also, remember last July, when the Times announced it'd be reducing the width of its pages? That's happening in August for the Times, and in the fourth quarter for the Boston Globe. Easier subway reading! And those foreign bureaus that the company closed? Why, that was done "to focus on local coverage and journalism that most directly affects our readers." Other tidbits: The move to the new HQ will be complete by July, Times CEO Janet Robinson says "it's important for us to be very disciplined with regard to acquisitions," the hotel industry is "exploding" in Boston, the Times is increasing its English as a Second Language efforts "to increase the exposure in the immigrant market," and if you didn't take advantage of the old "deeply discounted introductory offer" for home delivery, you're out of luck, because it's been discontinued, you cheap bastard. —Doree

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[PHOTO: Forbes]