Word: dork
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...specializes in young-adult novels. So when Steven Malk, 33, used his job as an excuse to talk to Dr. Frank, as Portman is known, after a show, he was surprised when Dr. Frank said yes, sure, he would write a novel for teenage boys. That novel, King Dork, is far more successful than all the songs Portman has ever written put together. Already in its sixth printing, it has been showered with positive reviews. Will Ferrell's film company just bought the film rights, and, per society's new semiotics of success, coolly disaffected kids are obscurely celebrating...
Even after the cutting and streamlining, the book is deeply nuanced--a teen novel in the way that Mark Twain wrote teen novels. Or J.D. Salinger. In fact, the punk conceit of King Dork is that the main character rails against "the cult of Catcher in the Rye." The cover of King Dork is a faux red Catcher cover, with the title and Salinger's name erased and replaced by Portman's. "I always felt a lot of people might have been faking the adulation of it, to impress their parents or their teachers," says Portman. Plus, he knew that...
...sweaty, dusty ascent to see arguably the most important piece of architecture in the world. But I would always go to the beach or sunbathe (the most perfect word in Greek, “heliotherapia”) on my balcony instead.I know this sounds extremely vapid. The history dork in me was thrilled by antiquity and when I finally got up to the Acropolis, it was amazing. But everyone expected that I would see really really old stuff when I went to Greece; no one, including myself, expected me to come back with any semblance...
...your companions from the diaper crowd. Your classes are no longer cemented to a daily, regimented schedule that starts at seven and ends at two. You are finally free from those defining middle school years that eternally labeled you as the quiet girl, an “orch(estra) dork,” or that kid who wore jumpers every day in seventh grade. Tabula rasa. The slate is clean...
...every other actor, but he's really, really good at it. And to help a struggling documentarian pal, he got the Travel Channel to bankroll a two-part series they made together in India, Jeremy Piven's Journey of a Lifetime. Although the title made him sound like a dork, he came off as sensitive, curious and awed by the culture. And after our interview, he stayed at the restaurant to talk to people who work there about their live-music nights and the fact that the owner is from Chicago--which I discovered after he sprinted after...