March 2012
2 posts
Decisions:
I’ve come to the conclusion that the best way to read John Ashbery is backwards. Not literally backwards, but start with the last sentence and build from there…. I’ve been reading Portrait in a Convex Mirror for around three days now and this is how I’ve had the most success. It also lets me reread my favorite bits over and over:
You will stay on, restive, serene in Your...
"We were never designed to listen to reason" - The... →
January 2012
2 posts
October 2011
2 posts
No Jobs Bill, and No Ideas - NYTimes.com →
THIS
Wall Street Loses Its Immunity - NYTimes.com →
July 2011
4 posts
Ten Things I have Learned →
Milton Glaser. November 22, 2001 part of AIGA talks in London.
Street-View-1982-Storefronts-photo-panoramas-of-New... →
In the East Village, Waiting for the Wrecking Ball... →
East First Street became a crack market. From her fire escape, Ms. Green watched packs of addicts light their pipes, the embers glowing by the dozens and reminding her of fireflies.
Yet she never felt unsafe. “This was a very benevolent neighborhood,” she said. “It looked bad, but you knew everyone.”
June 2011
34 posts
Notes from Tajikistan II:
My ability to read Cyrillic improved 1,000% after just one evening of Russian language Karaoke in a basement bar called The Old Britianya [sic]. There were very few other people there and even though I didn’t get over my fear of singing with a microphone (it’s up there with death as far as fears go); I did get over my fear of reading Russian in front of other people. Win!
There was...
Notes from Tajikistan:
It is 99 degrees (really!) here in Dushanbe and I am sitting without air conditioning and drinking hot tea. I’m only a little bit warm, but I do have a sweater on, so that seems reasonable.
Later today we are going to have Turkish Ice Cream because, as someone said: “it’s great, it tastes more like chewing gum”.
I love Tajikistan.
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“In every career, your job is to make and tell stories, of course. You will build...”
– Iconic science journalist and Radiolab producer Robert Krulwich’s fantastic Berkley graduation address on the future of journalism (via curiositycounts)
Archaeologists Discover Remnants Of Legendary... →
muralgirl:
Though researchers said that they have already learned much during the excavation, some questions, such as why Lauren was being such a cunt to Jenn, will likely forever remain unanswered.
This is spot on.
May 2011
39 posts
The Stockholm Syndrome Theory of Long Novels...
In order for a very long novel to get away with long, cruel sessions of boredom-torture, it has to commit, every so often, an act of kindness such as the counterfeit cash set piece in The Recognitions. This is why Ulysses is so deeply loved by so many readers—as well it should be—while Finnegans Wake has been read almost exclusively by Joyce scholars (of whom I’m tempted to think as the Patty...
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Joseph Brodsky and the Fortunes of Misfortune :... →
“In the fall of 1963, in Leningrad, in what was then the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the young poet Dmitry Bobyshev stole the young poet Joseph Brodsky’s girlfriend. This was not cool.”
(Another entry to my series of posts on Russian-ness)
And here is a really nice Brodsky stanza because it is still poetry week in my brain. From Six Years Later:
So long had life together...
“I was never really insane except upon occasions when my heart was touched.”
– Edgar Allan Poe (via lipsticksmiles)
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“At dawn my lover comes to me
And tells me of her dreams
With no attempts to...”
– Gates Of Eden | Bob Dylan
I just read this article about books coming out about Bob Dylan and it reminded me how wonderful his songs are to read. I warn you now there is going to be some poetry around these parts.