more of what i like

Limits

There is a line of Verlaine I will never remember

There is another street I can no longer walk down

There is a face in the mirror I have seen for the very last time

There is a door that is closed until the end of the world.

Among the books of my library (I am seeing them now)

There are some that will never be read.

This summer I will be fifty:

Death consumes me, constantly.

—Jorge Luis Borges, trans. Rebecca Walker; original

Image of Borges, Hôtel des Beaux Arts, Paris, by Pepe Fernández, 1969

Borges auto-reblog rule in effect.

+

“ If you sit on, sleep on, stare at, or touch something for more than an hour a day, spend whatever it takes to get the best. Marco Arment.

May 31

Interview with Craig Mod… « instantbight

Q. If you could be president for one day what would be your first order of business?

A. […] Everyone gets free pizza making lessons (dough, sauce, etc). Crazy, right? No! It’s about teaching people to have an eye (and tongue) sensitive to quality. Pizza seems simple, but boy it’s tough at first. But then it’s pretty easy once you know what you’re doing. And you’re like: Wow! I make the best pizza in the ‘hood! And chances are, you’re right. You do. So, once you know great pizza, it’s *shocking* how little is out there. How much *bad* pizza is out there. It’s everywhere! Great pizza is actually a pretty low bar. And doesn’t have to cost that much. So it gets you thinking: “Why are these bad pizza places so bad? Why don’t they make great pizza? It’s not that hard!” And then: “Why don’t more people know what great pizza tastes like? Don’t they know how much pleasure they’re missing out on?” And then it spirals into more generalized notions of quality and sensitivity and experience. And then, *poof*, suddenly America is Japan. Or something like that.

May 30

The Iced-Coffee Economy: Why the Cold Stuff Costs More

+

The Last Days of Disco: Abebe Remembers Donna Summer and Robin Gibb

Disco’s success at capturing glamour and sex as an aesthetic can be frightening — in approximately the same way it’s frightening to watch the world do similar things to weddings, turning them into sites of glittery yearning where one’s sense of self and love turns strangely prop-filled and expensive. This seems like one of the more-flattering reasons why rock fans treated disco with so much hostility: It’s a puritan’s gut instinct that there’s something dangerous about a sex-and-glamour bubble floating too exuberantly beyond the realm of reality, becoming too stylized and commercial. And of course straight, white, male rock fans were the ones who’d feel that fear and loathing most strongly: They’d have been the listeners with the least to gain from actively reimagining love, sex, and glamour. Disco claimed the audience with the most critical stake in reframing those things — gay, black, female, and Latino listeners chief among them.

Cf.

May 28

Dark City. Thoroughly enjoyable. Great sets and costuming and general noiriness. Bonus points for sparing us hours of dialogue about how the movie works (see: The Matrix, Inception, etc.).

May 25

“ A happy childhood is poor preparation for human contacts. Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette.

+

kochalka:

Up on the Dirt Pile.

May 22

“ Whatever it is you have never done before in your life and have no interest in doing, that’s probably what you’ll need to learn in order to keep your business running. Accounting, sales, inventory management. These are all things I’ve had to take on. These are also things that I would rather not do for the rest of my life. And while I’ll never be a crack accountant or a star salesman, it’s better to be mediocre than incompetent. Lessons from a craft beer startup. My buddy Jonathan and his two co-founders Jeff and Joel make the best beer in Atlanta.

+

“ The question arose as to what we would do differently if we were immortal. […] I answered that I would travel more. Later the question was asked, what would you do differently if you found out you had only a short time to live. I answered again that I would travel more. Click, buzz, whirr…does not compute, does not compute. […] Given that I would travel more if I was to live either less or more, the probability that I was at just that level of mortality that I should not be traveling now must be vanishingly small. Alex Tabarrok. Swap out “travel” for whatever it is that you happen to value a lot. (Got reminded about this post via Ben Casnocha.)

+

Eating on Buford Highway. (via)

+

Casino Royale. I admitted on Twitter that I’d never seen a post-Dalton Bond film and asked for recommendations. This was the clear favorite. I like this reboot. Craig is excellent. The movie is kinda Bourne-y, and therefore great as an action film. It’s kinda eehhhhh if you’re looking for clever spy things. (Chasing baddies by text messages they leave behind on cellphones? Surely it’s harder than that…) It has basically no sense of humor. It’s a bit too long. Appropriately glamorous photography. Soundtrack is nothing special, but I really appreciate withholding the main theme until the closing credits. The arc of storytelling is not the revelation and denial of a grand evil plot; it’s gloomy, reckless Bond becoming Bond. Looking forward to Quantum of Solace!

May 21

Mean Girls. This is one of the great comedies of our era. So quotable, awesome characters, great pace. Talent is put to perfect use here. I really hope Lohan bounces back some day.

+

Best Room Fan | The Wirecutter

Just in time. The Wirecutter is wonderful.

+

Mark Larson | Mindless Eating (review). In which I write about a really fantastic book and an episode with a cake.

more of what i like

Some that will never be read