January 2009
73 posts
Casiotone for the Painfully Alone - “Old...
Beirut - My Night with the Prostitute from...
Toward Evening
From where he sat, dinner done, smoking a cigarette, Rafe could look across the Hudson to the Palisades, surmounted y seeming villages. A purple sky was being lowered over a yellow one. The Spry sign came on. The sign, which by virtue of brightness and readability dominated their night view, had three stages: Spry (red), Spry (white) FOR BAKING (red) and Spry (white) FOR FRYING (red). Rafe...
Final paragraphs of A&P
“Did you say something, Sammy?”
“I said I quit.”
“I thought you did.”
“You didn’t have to embarrass them.”
“It was they who were embarrassing us.”
I started to say something that came out “Fiddle-de-doo.” It’s a saying of my grandmother’s, and I know she would have been pleased.
“I don’t think you know what you’re saying,” Lengel said.
“I know you don’t,” I said. “But I do.” I pull the...
WatchWe live in Greenwood Heights:
Green-Wood Cemetery is best known as the final resting place of famous New Yorkers like Boss Tweed, the Steinway family, and Leonard Bernstein, but it’s also a treasure trove of hidden sculpture and architecture.
Established in 1838, Green-Wood Cemetery became a destination for American and European tourists. Every year, thousands flocked to the cemetery to enjoy...
Flip
“With the fuel economy measures and clean energy investments in the recovery package, President Obama has done more in one week to reduce oil dependence and global warming than George Bush did in eight years.”
Page 35
The fact remains that getting people right is not what living is all about anyway. It’s getting them wrong that is living, getting them wrong and wrong and wrong and then, on careful reconsideration, getting them wrong again. That’s how we know we’re alive: we’re wrong. Maybe the best thing would be to forget being right or wrong about people and just go along for the ride....
Noah Baumbach's Shouts and Murmurs
JANUARY 26, 2009
Red wine may be much more potent than was thought in extending human lifespan, researchers say in a new report that is likely to give impetus to the rapidly growing search for longevity drugs. The study is based on dosing mice with resveratrol, an ingredient of some red wines… . [In a related study] scientists used a dose on mice equivalent to just 35 bottles a day. —The...
What am I doing with my life?
24 January 2009Thailand’s ‘Scorpion Queen’ seeks to break own record Thailand’s ‘Scorpion Queen’ Kanchana Kaetaew, 38, is set to break her record of 32 days by staying in a glass enclosure with over 5,000 scorpions for 33 days.
YOU BE THE JUDGE
Several years ago, McSweeney’s rejected my list of intellectually pun-ridden porn titles. Ten months later, the same McSweeney’s decided to publish a similarly themed list of “Phrases on the Marquee at the Local Strip Club to Cater to a More Literate Crowd.” I post both lists below and ask you, ladies and gentlmen of the internet, to write to your local congressional...
NANO-SOLVED
ID#: 113
From: James Wood
Nanoproblem: mcsweeney’s rejected my list of possible pseudonymous sequels to my fit book /how fiction works/
Nanosolutions:
If it’s any consolation, we will post it here: Possible Pseudonymous Sequels to James Wood’s How Fiction Works How Conditional Statements Work by James Would How Antagonistic Relationships with Women Work by Norwegian Wood How...
George W gives an unedited tour of the art of the... →
He thought this was going on MTV cribs.
This book is going to be good
Yet, although the book is about a word, is it not about mere words, not merely about words. For the social philosopher, for the social scientist, words are not “mere”; they are the tools of his trade and a vital part of his subject matter. Since human beings are not merely political animals but also language-using animals, their behavior is shaped by their ideas. What they do and how...
4 tags
Holder's crab dribble
Basketball | 10:59 a.m. Asked by Senator Herb Kohl whether Mr. Holder would do everything in his power to defeat President-elect Obama on the basketball court, Mr. Holder joked, he’s 10 years younger and plays more frequently but “I’ve got a New York City game.” And then he laughs that if he’s given a little time to get in better shape, “I think I can hang one.”
Now back to interrogation...
6 degrees of Kevin Bacon algorithm →
From MMB NanoSolutions ID#: 43 From: Rihana
Nanoproblem description: when it rains, everyone tries to crowd under my umbrella
Nanosolutions:
Stop making oaths all over town that you’ll stick it out to the end.
Stop carrying an umbrella. Consider a waterproof jacket with hood.
Watch
Watch
WatchI’ve made my decision.
This is in the top five best things he’s ever done.
WatchRobert Creeley — “Bresson’s Movies”
Yet another film of Bresson’s has the aging Lancelot with his awkward armor standing in a woods, of small trees, dazed, bleeding, both he and his horse are, trying to get back to the castle, itself of no great size. It moved me, that life was after all like that. You are in love. You stand in the woods, with a...
“If it is true that, as Arendt once observed, “in the works of a great writer we...”
– Beware of Pity, Adam Kirsch, The New Yorker
A well-written, slightly nomadic piece on all topics Hannah Arendt.
What’s your consistent metaphor?