November 2010
27 posts
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“The heart is a small, cracked cup, easy to fill, impossible to keep full.”
– James Richardson (By the Numbers: Poems and Aphorisms)
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Thanksgiving at my house.
Me: We need sour cream for the corn casserole.
Mom: We don't have sour cream. Can't we just use balsamic vinegar? It's sour.
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Siblings Share Genes, But Rarely Personalities →
(from NPR)
“In fact, in terms of personality, we are similar to our siblings only about 20 percent of the time. Given the fact that we share genes, homes, routines and parents, this makes no sense. What makes children in the same family so different?”
So this explains why I’m so awesome while my brother is, well, my brother.
Okay kidding. Kind of.
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Ragging on someone, 6 a.m. edition.
TG: just her archetype is so common
TG: the world around me grows into cliche whenever i see her
TG: the novel of my life gets WORSE WHEN I SEE HER
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The Sociology of the Hipster →
(from the New York Times)
“The attempt to analyze the hipster provokes such universal anxiety because it calls everyone’s bluff. And hipsters aren’t the only ones unnerved. Many of us try to justify our privileges by pretending that our superb tastes and intellect prove we deserve them, reflecting our inner superiority. Those below us economically, the reasoning goes, don’t appreciate...
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“‘People are nuts!’ he had spat.
‘In a human sort of way,...”
– Richard Wright (A Father’s Law)
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The Shadow Scholar →
(from The Chronicle of Higher Education)
“In the past year, I’ve written roughly 5,000 pages of scholarly literature, most on very tight deadlines. But you won’t find my name on a single paper.”
Muckraking and all that. I’m impressed and mortified.
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This Is Your Brain on Metaphors →
(from the New York Times)
“Symbols, metaphors, analogies, parables, synecdoche, figures of speech: we understand them. We understand that a captain wants more than just hands when he orders all of them on deck. We understand that Kafka’s “Metamorphosis” isn’t really about a cockroach. If we are of a certain theological ilk, we see bread and wine intertwined with body and blood. We...
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I am reading such a bad book.
This dialogue is unbearably bad.
A: You know this town well?
B: Oh, like a book. In fact, I've written a book on it.
Later,
A: I thought you were going to say that I was the murderer.
B: You're murdering my logic.
This author is apparently respectable too.
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Budget Puzzle: You Fix the Budget →
(from the New York Times)
“Today, you’re in charge of the nation’s finances. Some of your options have more short-term savings and some have more long-term savings. When you have closed the budget gaps for both 2015 and 2030, you are done.”
I think I’m politically unsound. Motto: TAX ‘EM. TAX ‘EM ALL.
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Interview: Amy Hempel: The Art of Fiction →
(from The Paris Review)
“Amy Hempel does not enjoy interviews. She quotes her friend Patty Marx: ‘I’m not good at small talk; I’m not good at big talk; and medium talk just doesn’t come up.” Talking about the self is both unseemly and unnerving, she feels, and dissecting her own deliberate process of composition through, in her words, “pointy-headed questions, tends to provoke her...
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“Tailor Made,” produced by Natalie...
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What Are You Going to Do With That? →
(from The Chronicle of Higher Education)
“It’s been said—and I’m not sure I agree with this, but it’s an idea that’s worth taking seriously—that you guys belong to a “postemotional” generation. That you prefer to avoid messy and turbulent and powerful feelings. But I say, don’t shy away from the challenging parts of yourself. Don’t deny...
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The New Yorker: Susan Orlean's Social Index for... →
newyorker:
Human relationships used to be easy: you had friends, boy- or girlfriends, parents, children, and landlords. Now, thanks to social media, it’s all gone sideways. I decided to try to index these new entities—to draft a sort of Social Media Bestiary.
Just a bit o’ fun.
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“That is the substance of remembering—sense, sight, smell: the muscles with...”
– William Faulkner (Absalom, Absalom!)
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