February 2012
11 posts
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“That was the idiot hopefulness of humans, always to love what was unformed.”
– Chad Harbach in The Art of Fielding. Cf. John Cage:
I am frankly embarrassed that most of my musical life has been spent in the search for new materials. The significance of new materials is that they represent, I believe, the incessant desire in our culture to explore the unknown. Before we know...
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Are people who dwell on their problems more... →
Because rumination may allow an idea to stay in one’s conscious longer and indecision may result in more time on a given task, it was expected that these two cognitive processes may predict creativity. Self-report measures of rumination, indecision, and creativity were electronically distributed to 85 adults (28 men, 57 women; M age = 32.96 years old). Reflective rumination significantly...
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“We expect too much from January and not enough from February.”
– @mlarson, aka me. I think I’m on to something here.
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“Don’t be dour about it. Straight gay black white young...”
– Chad Harbach in The Art of Fielding.
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“We know the cruelest of fanatics by their exceptionally clear consciences.”
– Adam Gopnik.
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Amy Rebecca Klein: The Last Thing I'll Ever Write... →
When the world decided that Lana totally bombed on Saturday Night Life, we could see Lana telling us nothing other than what we already tell ourselves about women in music. We already assume that the feminine is inauthentic. So, I mean, why does everyone care so much if she has had plastic surgery, or if her management company created an image for her? What’s the big deal with being deceived?...
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Eli Manning's Burden | The Classical →
He took the burden of history, carefully placed it in the garbage, and lit the garbage on fire.
I just thought that was a nice turn of phrase.
January 2012
46 posts
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Me, Reading: In the Mind of a Subway Reader - The... →
Patricia Marx nailed it.
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“I owe my livelihood to technology and I love the raw capability it offers us as...”
– Brian Lam.
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“I’m almost annoyed when something I’ve been interested in becomes valuable. Then...”
– William Gibson.
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“I was always somebody. I was famous at the Chevron. I’ve had some trials that...”
– Young Jeezy on staying optimistic. (via howtotalktogirlsatparties). And don’t forget:
I don’t give a fuck if you’re doin’ petty shit or big shit. […] Get your motherfuckin’ money and make other people’s lives better.
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“I have saved the world so many times in video games that lately I have felt a...”
– Tom Bissell in Extra Lives, which you should read.
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“I think that part of my experience of growing up in the American South in the...”
– William Gibson.
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An interview with William Gibson | The Verge →
I think it’s an expression of our old hunter-gatherer module. I think that’s the module that lights up for everybody on eBay, regardless of what they’re looking for. It’s the flea-market gene. It’s hunting a bargain, sometimes. But when I went through my “watch process,” at the end of it I realized it was about information, about trying to master a body...
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I Don't Understand What Anyone Is Saying Anymore -... →
I was at a Hilton a few weeks ago. They had taken this absurdity to its logical end. There was a huge sign in the lobby that said, “Our goal is to exceed the customer’s expectation.” The best way to start would be to take down that bullshit sign that just reminds me, as a customer, how cosmic the gap is between what businesses say and what they do.
Filed under: bullshit.
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Hibbert showcasing post-up fundamentals | NBA... →
One of the fundamental aspects missing in today’s game is the ability for players (of any position) to work hard to get good spots on the floor (For post-up opportunities, that usually means getting at least one foot in the paint on a post catch). Contrary to popular opinion, this isn’t always derived from laziness. In fact, most times it’s because players are so used to being so much...
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“Do your work for six years; but in the seventh, go into solitude or among...”
– Leó Szilárd, from his ten commandments. (via)
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BrightestYoungThings: Futurenomics: The Tyler... →
I was born in 1962 which was like the end of an era of breakthroughs. The moon walk, wow! That was exciting. Maybe it didn’t lead to anything, but we were all stunned. We saw it as a kid. I was like seven and thought “oh my god, this is awesome!” and you are like “science brought us this” and everyone was like “woah, science,” and then you have this long period of science not bringing that much...
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“The long sentence is how we begin to free ourselves from the machine-like world...”
– Pico Iyer. Here’s mills:
Pico Iyer, in a pleasant Los Angeles Times article noted by Schmudde, defending his use of “…longer and longer sentences as a small protest against —and attempt to rescue any readers I might have from— the bombardment of the moment.”
Iyer chooses two sorts of...
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thoughts on films: WGA 101 BEST SCREENPLAY LIST... →
Here are 15 things I learned from watching and writing about these 101 movies.
I loved following along with @jamesfflynn’s screenplay series.
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Gary Taubes on Dieting | FiveBooks | The Browser →
If you look and see who is healthier, you’ll find out that people who were mostly vegetarians tend to live longer and have less cancer and diabetes than people who get most of their fat and protein from animal products. The assumption by the researchers is that this is causal – that the only difference between mostly vegetarians and mostly meat-eaters is how many vegetables and how much meat...
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“Introspection means talking to yourself, and one of the best ways of talking to...”
– The American Scholar: Solitude and Leadership - William Deresiewicz. First sentence.
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Because You Asked About the Line Between Prose and... →
Sparrows were feeding in a freezing drizzle That while you watched turned to pieces of snow Riding a gradient invisible From silver aslant to random, white, and slow.
There came a moment that you couldn’t tell. And then they clearly flew instead of fell.
(via)
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“One purpose of children is to shred parental black-and-whites into gray...”
– Carolyn Hax.
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A Prayer That Will Be Answered
Lord let me suffer much and then die
Let me walk through silence and leave nothing behind not even fear
Make the world continue let the ocean kiss the sand just as before
Let the grass stay green so that the frogs can hide in it
so that someone can bury his face in it and sob out his love
Make the day rise brightly as if there were no more pain
And let my poem stand clear as a windowpane...
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Turning words into touchdowns: Does a player's... →
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“When you’re in denial about how invested you are in a single outcome, that’s...”
– Carolyn Hax.
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“Uncouple your own grief from the hopes you pin on others. All relationships...”
– Carolyn Hax.
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A Different Take on Empathy | RyanHoliday.net →
It’s not simply that you have something to do or say, there is another person who will be responding to you and that response is equally daunting.
Empathy is an ongoing interest of mine.
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“They say you only live once but every time I come to work I feel like I’m...”
– Kanye West on the transformative power of creative endeavors.
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Louis CK Q&A - JonahWeiner.com →
Well, this is awesome. (via) Here we have an edited transcript of Jonah Weiner’s interview with Louis CK that was used for the Rolling Stone profile last fall. Lots of good stuff here. Here’s Louis CK on the importance of those early failures and growing experiences:
Stand-up, I didn’t know what that was going to feel like. I guess I thought it would feel like it does in TV shows or...
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Right on Cue - Ta-Nehisi Coates - The Atlantic →
Age, like all power constructs, (race, gender, class) encourages it’s own ignorance. To not know is a luxury of power. You don’t have to know Their Eyes Were Watching God. But I damn sure better know The Scarlet Letter. (It’s bad enough I’m slipping on Twain.) Age turns ignorance into a luxury, and worse, if you don’t recognize it as a luxury you start to think...
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Super 8 as an Allegory on the Triumph of Digital... →
When a filmmaker makes totally 100% sure that even the most moronic audiences notice some non-plot thing in his film, there’s almost always a solid reason for it.
This brings to mind complaints about, for example, Mel Gibson’s detailed, graphic violence or Tarantino’s fountains of blood and foul language. It might be excess, it might be artistic signature, it might mean something....
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The Gollum Effect →
Extreme couponers, if you count the value of their time, basically make a modest living doing below-minimum-wage marketing work for the coupon-based marketing universe that welcomes them as raving fans.
From the point of view of the stores, far from being hostile opponents in some asymmetric game of chess, these are merely cheap and committed marketers. They are encouraged to model, in extreme...