January 2010
48 posts
WatchBecause the windows in my bedroom are seven-feet-tall and inevitably leak cold air, my room is freezing. This season brings on melancholy, doesn’t it? It feels unavoidable, widespread. I both fight and give into the seasonal sadness. Tea and Bikini Kill are for the fighting, but Basia Bulat for now.
After the Boomsticks →
Because “Not Penny’s Boat” and “We Have To Go Back” were already taken.
The Baffler: Volume 2, No 1
A stack of Bafflers arrived in the office today — with an extra one for me to sneak home. I’m looking forward to much of the issue; both Christine Smallwood’s piece “What Does the Internet Look Like?” and A.S. Hamrah on Thomas Kinkade are already up on their site, but tonight I’ll get to read from the likes of Astra Taylor, Walter Benn Michaels, Naomi Klein...
Fiction: Hapworth 16, 1924 : The New Yorker →
toasterwaffles:
Samizdat no more.
Dan on 'Reading vs. Writing' over at if:book →
“The problem here is that we tend to think of cultural production in economic terms. Historically, the book has been terrific at spreading ideas; however, as a vehicle for getting creators paid, its record isn’t the best. An example: if I go into a book store and buy a copy of Tristram Shandy, we can be sure that Laurence Sterne isn’t making any money off the deal because...
Consider the Lobster
I dug through the old Gourmets and re-read DFW’s “Consider the Lobster” today. (It’s available online too, but sorry what a pain, reading DFW footnotes on the internet.) I enjoyed reading it for a second time, with a different lens from before. I first picked it up in excitement over DFW on anything Maine (“There’s a comprehensive native apothegm: “Camden by the...
Subject: further adventures in the Lost education...
I promised myself I wouldn’t let this tumblr become simply re-blogs of things Eichler emailed me about Lost, or video clips, video parodies, links to AV Club discussion threads, links to io9 articles, etc. as the new and final season approaches. But that’s probably why The Hurry Through has been particularly silent for the past week or two (with the exception of Puppet Chang). ...
I remember reading a story where the main...
“To live without self-respect is to lie awake some night, beyond the reach of...”
– Joan Didion
Washed Out - New Theory
The game is not worth the candle. →
“The best defense against a love affair is to tell yourself over and over again till you are dizzy: “This passion is simply stupid; the game is not worth the candle.” But a lover always tends to imagine that this time it is the real thing; the beauty of it lies in the persistent conviction that something extraordinary, something incredible, is going to happen to us.”
I ate sea urchin tonight!
For our FCI educational department dinner, we went to Emporio, where they filled us with wine, cheeses, salamis, pasta, and an appetizer, which was a sort of breaded olive stuffed with veal. But yes, the main excitement, a crostini with a sea urchin base, wrapped in prosciutto. Sea urchin is surprisingly creamy while still salty and tangy! It’s like swimming at...
In which we can see ourselves at age six
Sontag: [Photography] also does queer things to our sense of time. Never before in human history did people have any idea of what they looked like as children. The rich commissioned portraits of their children, but the conventions of portraiture from the Renaissance through the nineteenth century were thoroughly determined by ideas about class and didn’t give people a very reliable idea of what...
“All things seem mention of themselves
And the names which stem from them...”
– John Ashbery
somesongsconsidered:
“Summertime Clothes” –...
“It was once suggested to me that, as an antidote to crying, I put my head in a...”
– Joan Didion
On Curation Culture
tumbledore:
culled:
I think I found the tables fascinating because they presented these objects, some of which weren’t even Orozco’s works, with such care and intent. Crafted, selected, arranged, fetishized, the pieces tell me something about the way Orozco functions as an artist, but also something about the act of creating an artistic world to inhabit, of making a universe in miniature, of...
Stories, by John Edgar Wideman
A MAN WALKING in the rain eating a banana. Where is he coming from. Where is he going. Why is he eating a banana. How hard is the rain falling. Where did he get the banana. What is the banana’s name. How fast is the man walking. Does he mind the rain. What does he have on his mind. Who is asking all these questions. Who is supposed to answer them. Why. Does it matter. How many questions...
Molly Lambert's "Men in Revolt" →
“As a girl you grow up seeing yourself in male characters, because (unfortunately) the cool ones are still mostly men.”
“Acquaintances showed up, along with colleagues, along with strangers. The people I see and speak to all the time were also there. Those people interest me the most, which is probably why I see and speak to them all the time. They interest me because the very fact of them is so strange. What makes you stay close to another person over time? Though I am not stupid—or because I...
“Write long novels, pointless novels. Do not be ashamed to grieve about personal...”
– Elif Batuman
Sontag: ...I'd junk my typewriter.
From The Boston Review (June 1975), Geoffrey Movius interviews Susan Sontag.
Movius. Do you think that this breakdown is coincidental with the rise of photography, or do you think there is some direct causal relationship?
Sontag: Narration is linear. Photography is antilinear. People now have a very developed feeling for process and transience, but they don’t understand any more what...
EASY TO BE HARD vs. HEAVEN HELP US ALL →
Ben Greenman at Moistworks:
“…I have rationalized this meddlesome attitude as a means of escaping self-absorption—which can, remember, take the form of either isolation or its purported opposite (but secret twin), bird-in-oil soulfulness. But now, thanks to age, thanks to my wife’s evolution, it occurs to me that my ideas about these matters might be wrong. For starters,...
Dispatch from JP
Vanessa: In other news: today I went to a yoga class at noon and found out my favorite cheap wine can be purchased, at an economically beneficial discount, in box form. I love being semi-unemployed. Except I did have a moment of self reflection after I asked the guy in the hardware store if they sold modge podge- “you know, for decoupage?” Scary.
Bjork - Unravel
Babies — Meet Me In The City
I absolutely...
An Interview with Andrew Zornoza →
I had Andrew Zornoza as a professor at Gotham. It was a delight to find this interview with him at Bookslut:
“I’ve read a lot, so I’ve got a lot of influences. I didn’t realize that until recently. There’s always some jerk who’s read more and lets you know it — and I have massive gaps in my reading, so I just assumed I was fairly uneducated. Saul...
andrewjay:
(I’m taking a course called “Cyberlaw: Difficult Problems” with Jonathan Zittrain and Elizabeth Stark for the next three weeks. A lot of the course will unfold here in case you’re interested.)
Want it.
Francis Ford Coppola gave up goose fat
In the current issue of The Believer, they pair up Francis Ford Coppola and Ruth Reichl to “discuss Coppola’s cooking, the role of food in cinema, and the importance of family dinners.” Only the excerpt below is online, but I will probably pick up a copy at McNally Jackson tomorrow to see where the rest of this goes.
FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA: When I involved food in my films it wasn’t...
On Density
I found Joakim Dahlquvist’s imaginary cityscape at Things Magazine. I didn’t post an image, because it’s worth traveling to the site yourself. Link here to the drawings, which you can navigate in Google Maps (zooming closer, pulling away, dragging left). From Things Magazine:
An artificial kingdom, Joakim Dahlqvist’s epic pen and ink drawings of imaginary lands -...
Snooki on lobster, Ep. 105
andrewjay:
“They’re alive when you kill it - that’s disgusting.”
You did say, need me less and I’ll want you more.
I’m still shellshocked at needing anyone,
used to being used to it on my own.
It won’t be me out on the tiles till four-
thirty, while you’re in bed, willing the door
open with your need. You wanted her then,
more. Because you need to, I woke alone
in what’s not yet our room, strewn, though, with your
guitar,...
Unable to mobilize.
