June 2009
39 posts
Jun 29th
118 notes
WatchWatch
I saw my first Buster Keaton film yesterday: One Week, a 20-minute short on the joys of home ownership. It’s not always super ha-ha funny, but I love how the directing, acting, stunts, transitions, etc. are so tight and snappy. There are some genuine surprises in there, too.
Jun 28th
5 tags
“You know how you scratch away at a lottery ticket to see if you’ve won?...”
– Twyla Tharp on hunting for ideas.
Jun 27th
4 tags
Jun 25th
4 tags
Jun 24th
6 tags
“I like the idea that you let culture use you as its instrument. What gets in the...”
– Turner prize winner Mark Leckey talks frankly about the whole competition experience | Art and design | The Guardian (via)
Jun 24th
5 tags
Jun 24th
2 notes
4 tags
Marginal Revolution: *Create Your Own Economy*,... →
Tyler Cowen summarizes some of the contents of his new book. Some bits I’m curious about: 2. A new vision for how “autistic cognitive strengths” are a major dynamic element in human history and that includes a revisionist view of the autism spectrum. 3. New ways of thinking about what you’re really good at (and not so good at). 4. A view of why education is much more...
Jun 23rd
5 tags
“An economy that is more entrepreneurial, less managerial, would be less subject...”
– Matthew B. Crawford, The Case for Working With Your Hands. NYT Magazine, 5.24.09. That last sentence is such a winner. (via)
Jun 23rd
3 tags
Jun 22nd
4 tags
Jun 19th
6 tags
Jun 18th
“As if lugging around a book the size of a 2 br. 1¼ bath apartment isn’t enough,...”
– How to Read Infinite Jest. (via infinitetumblr). I checked this out from the library a while ago. Unfortunately, some guy had it requested before I could break into triple-digit pages. Now that I’m armed with my very own shiny new copy, I’m ready to dive back in.
Jun 18th
11 notes
Jun 18th
53 notes
5 tags
Just learned a new word: “Walla is a sound effect imitating the murmur of a crowd in the background.”
Jun 18th
5 tags
Jun 18th
7 notes
4 tags
“One of the tasks of the film critic of tomorrow - perhaps he will even be called...”
– The Film Critic of Tomorrow. Rudolf Arnheim, 1935. Ah, the troubles of understanding and reconciling The New with the vast collection of Things We Already Love.
Jun 17th
5 tags
Jun 17th
6 tags
Jun 17th
4 tags
Jun 14th
3 tags
Jun 10th
6 tags
Trash, Art, and the Movies
Your required reading of the week: Trash, Art, and the Movies. This piece from Pauline Kael appeared in Harper’s, February 1969. I found it in the American Movie Critics anthology and couldn’t put it down. It’s a fantastic essay about high art and low art, what makes movies fun and what makes them tedious. Some good bits… On connecting with like-minded people (It’s...
Jun 10th
3 notes
5 tags
Jun 9th
4 tags
Jun 9th
4 tags
Jun 9th
1 note
3 tags
Jun 8th
5 tags
"The Gangster as Tragic Hero" - Robert Warshow on... →
A notable selection from American Movie Critics: From the Silents Until Now, which I’m working my way through this week.
Jun 8th
4 tags
“You care about things that you make, and that makes it easier to care about...”
– Ya gotta make stuff. That’s Louis Menand talking about Creative Writing programs, but I think it applies to the life outside just as well.
Jun 5th
4 tags
Jun 5th
3 tags
Jun 5th
5 tags
“I never think of anything as finished until it’s released. If you came...”
– Brian Eno in Interview magazine, 1990. By the way, there is a massive archive of interviews with Brian Eno, which I am wont to plunder when I need a little something to think on.
Jun 4th
3 tags
SimplyNoise.com - The best free white noise... →
I prefer the pink and the brown/red noise. They’re all great for the office.
Jun 4th
austinkleon: “My freedom thus consists in my moving about within the narrow frame that I have assigned to myself for each one of my undertakings. I shall go even further: my freedom will be so much the greater and more meaningful the more narrowly I limit my field of action and the more I surround myself with obstacles. Whatever diminishes constraint diminishes strength. The more constraints one...
Jun 4th
1 note
4 tags
Picking Up Girls Made Easy!
“There are a few basic principles that you have to master before you can move on to wild, uninhibited streetplay.” Hilarious. Creepy. ubuweb: “PICKING UP GIRLS MADE EASY will teach you a whole new system for picking up girls — a system that is so complete and so absolutely foolproof you’ll soon be picking up girls automaticallly!!! Absolutely everything is spelled out for you…...
Jun 4th
4 tags
Jun 3rd
4 tags
Jun 3rd
1 tag
“As a kid, I imagined that going on a trip meant either (a) decamping for two...”
– The War on Mediocrity - Trav’lin man. (via)
Jun 2nd
Jun 2nd
3 tags
“I find that more and more nonfiction authors are confusing Book Idea with Long...”
– @bookslut
Jun 1st