September 2011
1 post
“You don’t have to ‘Like’ a book, you can just read a...”
– An amazing quote from Facebook’s unveiling of the new Timeline. So many thoughts all at once!
June 2011
5 posts
the bad deal: ava lounge | bad deal | gilt →
baddeal:
Imagine a guy walks up to you on the street and says:
“Hey man, my name is Gilt City and I got a great deal: Four margaritas at Dream Hotel’s Ava Lounge for $24 bucks, half the regular price.” You say: Sure, I’ll head over right now.
Then he says, “Well, thing is, it’s not that…
Facebook, according to Zadie Smith
Zadie Smith takes an interesting look at Facebook and our generation in her review of the Social Network. It’s worth the full read, but I pulled the graphs I really liked:
When a human being becomes a set of data on a website like Facebook, he or she is reduced. Everything shrinks. Individual character. Friendships. Language. Sensibility. In a way it’s a transcendent experience: we lose...
“I’m 79 years old. I worked for 10 years for the Times, and I wrote a whole book...”
– Gay Talese in Vanity Fair
“When I was the age of these guys here that are in the film, I was always...”
– Gay Talese in Vanity Fair
Sometimes at work I literally have flashbacks to learning to write my first big research paper in high school. I still follow the same steps: research/gather information, copy it out long-hand into my notes, organize notes/highlight which quotes and info I want to use, (occasionally) outline, write. That’s kind of amazing, when you think about the fact that at 15 I had no idea what I would...
May 2011
3 posts
“We had more in our lives than just men; we had our work, travel, friends, Then...”
– Fear of Flying by Erica Jong (via lenachen)
April 2011
11 posts
http://inindieinus.wordpress.com/2011/04/06/the-dif... →
USA Literary Map
scribnerbooks:
Want.
“There are too many people running around out there with ungodly expensive...”
– Jennifer Peebles, Digital media skills every young journalist needs
[h/t Anthony DeRosa]
(via katykelley)
“The trouble with anthropology is that it doesn’t consider people at full depth....”
– Saul Bellow, in a letter to a friend.
Is this true? If it is the case that what is anti-poetic is unfaithful to human reality, are materialist sciences unfaithful? Is it to the arts that we turn because their poetry is more faithful, has greater fidelity, is truer to humanity in some sense? Does...
“Ultimately, they find out everything:
How you chew, how you sip, how you hum,...”
– Paul Reiser and his astute relationship observations in his aptly titled book, Couplehood. It’s one of my favorites. (via yellowonesdontstop)
Love this.
(via lizlemon)
“APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing ...”
March 2011
5 posts
Way Up Here, Guys! On My High Horse
A convincing (to me) argument for the merits of Obama’s rail plans fromTreehugger. Built here, planned here, implemented here, and run by people that live here? Sounds good to me:
Transit Secretary Roy Lahood has an op-ed in the Hill today, where he writes: “People often ask, ‘Why are President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden so devoted to high-speed rail?’ I have a...
How Not To Write About Disaster
“Amid an unprecedented double-whammy of massive earthquake and devastating tsunami…”
February 2011
5 posts
mills: To Replace Religion →
mills:
Let’s posit the following: religion as such is in decline. The furious retrograde fundamentalisms we encounter here and there notwithstanding, it is everywhere being beaten-back by forces we might associate with secular materialism, the ascendency of technology, ordinary atheism, and even some…
My Seasonal Employment Affective Disorder is really going away now that it’s getting warm out. Productivity increased 200% this week. You’re welcome, employers.
“A major finding is that many of these are are large arterial roads, with many...”
– Oh. Four lane highways of strip malls aren’t good for transportation and humans and communities after all? Whoops!
Still on My Soapbox
This headline appeared on the Asbury Park Press homepage today:
Scientist Works to Grow Meat in Lab
The story doesn’t take place in any of our coverage areas, or even in New Jersey, but this “revolutionary” science was deemed homepage worthy.
The scientist in the story calls LabMeat™ a “disruptive technology.” Doesn’t that sound appetizing? Entree: filet of...
Hawking Mental Health Goods, Free Alienation
Our state’s department of mental health & addiction services held a meeting yesterday, which I covered for the paper, in which they asked “consumers” of their services to come give input on changes within the department.
Perhaps I was being hyper-aware due to some rereading of Wendell Berry over the past few weeks, but the word “consumer” in this context—...
January 2011
2 posts
I Agree. We Are Not Joking.
Peter: did you watch JS last night
me: no i missed it
Peter: i seriously think it is one of the most wholesome shows on tv after 9pm
me: okay i totally agree!
like those kids are oozing family values
seriously.
i'm so sick of the criticism around here about it
Peter: you should see how upset vinny and pauly get when sammi and ronnie miss sunday dinner in this episode
and then there's a scene where deena and snooki play kickball by themselves on the roof
me: yeah i read the dinner thing in a recap and thought the same thing
i don't care what people say these are like the best kids in america
Peter: im so thankful for it. i left nj and never wanted to go back because of these people, and in one year this show has completely changed my attitude
“If you really believe that death leads to eternal bliss, then why are you...”
– Doug. (via likepolishingfirewood)
December 2010
7 posts
“But I do hope, I really, earnestly hope, that the next decade will be as...”
– I wrote that just about a year ago , and can’t believe how much the last year lived up to those standards.
“And if your strife strikes at your sleep
Remember spring swaps snow for leaves...”
“Coveting possessions is unhealthy. Here’s how I look at it:
All of the...”
– A fine comment from one Pastabagel on Collect ‘em all! (via Code for Something w/ a fist-bump for Johanna) (via jackcheng)
And thus together we share the world. Well said, pastabagel
(via john)
COLLEEN. read this.
(via tickled)
I’d like to withdraw my NY Times job & West Village...
Haven't We Gotten Past This Yet?
Floating through my day to day life of municipal budgets and crime blotters and feature stories about 6 year olds, I had kind of forgotten how strongly I felt about those larger, kind-of-important overarching ways society works.
To wit:
I was sitting on the couch watching tacky Christmas movies with my best friend recently, when she started relaying the previous night’s drunken antics to...
Play Up Your Strengths
My mom, as I’m heading out the door for an interview this morning: “Remember, your greatest asset is your hair!”
Remember that feeling in school, when you were struggling to understand something (if you ever did struggle to understand something), and then finally, out of nowhere, after a million different ways of trying to think about it so you could understand it, you just got it. Boom. The equation made sense. Looking at every other problem on the page, you could instantly see how you could solve each one....
“Yes, an idea is the worst thing to start building a poem from. By that I mean a...”
– Les Murray (via madething)
November 2010
5 posts
“I love Disney movies. Except I haven’t seen any in awhile. Did you see...”
– My oh-so-open-minded roommate. I’ve decided my strategy will be this: next time she says offensive things, I’ll just pretend that whoever she’s talking about features prominently in my life. Black people? My brother is an adopted black kid. Etc. Etc. Or I’ll just punch her....
“Lower-income families in health plans with high deductibles are more likely than...”
– Medical News: High-Deductible Health Insurance Results in Less Care - in Washington-Watch, Reform from MedPage Today
Health Insurance =/= Health Care Being Poor =/= Being Confused
(via sexartandpolitics)
I don’t consider myself poor, but this definitely applied to me over the past year. I...
My Christmas list just changed.
1. Jay Z’s Autobio
2. Kanye’s new CD.
I used to loathe boring stuffy white people who pretentiously liked rap.
The Art of the Sentence
There was something in Lima that was wrapped up in yards of violet satin from which protruded a great dropsical head and two fat pearly hands; and that was its archbishop.
- Wilder, The Bridge of San Luis Rey
The Ethicist
I have a roommate who feels fine using derogatory racial and homophobic slurs. Yesterday, she called her boyfriend a faggot while the three of us were sitting in the living room. I’m kind of appalled and find it totally offensive, regardless of who’s around. On the other hand, I’m of the philosophy live and let live. Do I say something?
October 2010
4 posts
“It’s actually a rare and precious thing to discover what it is you love to do,...”
– Jonathan Ive
(via msg)
Condolence Note: Los Angeles →
madething:
A poem of iPods, etiquette, and loss.
A lovely poem of iPods, etiquette, and loss.
“So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the...”
– Chris McCandless, via a good friend trying to convince me to do something different for a change.
September 2010
9 posts
“If you reveal everything, bare every feeling, ask for understanding, you lose...”
– Don DeLillo in Point Omega, quoted by Slaughterhouse 90210. I haven’t read DeLillo, but I would like to know if this is indeed the case. I can think of no epistemological justification for why only unshared knowledge could constitute self-knowledge, but this has the ring of truth to it and would...
sometimes you just miss people, i guess.