October 2010
28 posts
Touche
me: I feel like my capacity to think intelligently is melting.
Abram: I think that's the first step in whatever twelve-step program we need.
Time to do my lions.
pantherhooves:
HOKUSAI
Anger is a bitter lock. But you can turn it.
Hokusai aged 83 said, Time to do my lions.
Every morning until he died
219 days later he made a lion.
Wind came gusting from the northwest.
Lions swayed and leapt from the crests
of the pine trees onto
the snowy road or crashed together
over his hut, their white paws
mauling stars on the way...
September 2010
28 posts
“Who doesn’t regret the 80s to some extent?”
– -Christine O’Donnell, talking with Fox’s Hannity about allegations that she “dabbled in witchcraft” during high school
Amen, Christine. Amen.
Thanks Lev Nikolayevich!
“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” And isn’t it somehow…almost cathartic to read about a particular family’s form of unhappiness as compared to your own?
Just started Anna Karenina. Let the fall/winter of Sufjan electronica and Russian literature begin.
On the importance of hip slang to teachers
I’m currently studying to take the CBEST this Saturday. I thought the following question on the practice test to be amusing, especially if you imagine some of the answers as opaque colloquialisms:
Which of the following is closest to the meaning of “the joint was already hopping” as it is used in the passage?
A: Massage therapy had already begun
B: There was soon going to be a...
Kafka's Last Trial →
I just finished reading The Trial, appropriately enough while I was dealing with the bewildering intricacies of the Greek educational bureaucracy. Now I’m home and discover Elif Batuman’s fascinating NY Times piece on the state of some Kafka manuscripts in Tel Aviv. The big talk is that they’re in Max Brod’s old secretary(/lover?)’s apartment which is FULL of...
“By “nerd central” I mean he is bald, mustachioed, sweatervested, and...”
– Rachel
NPR FIRST LISTEN AGE OF ADZ!!!!!! →
SO excited to finally listen to the whole album. But, ugh, god, Robin Hilton, why are we still talking about the 50 states project so sincerely? Wasn’t it obvious that he wasn’t being serious from the beginning?
Anyways, thanks for the blessing, Sufjan.
[photo cred: Marzuki Stevens]
Speaking of minimalists
Arvo Pärt
Currently listening to...
&
Minimalists! (apologies if you’re not a fan of that term)
"the persistence of a present past..."
I finally got to see the Hauntology exhibit (I posted a link to this sometime back) at the BAM/PFA today. It was very, very good. Lots of interesting work by Rudolph Ingerle, Robert Gutierrez, and Marie Krane Bergman and Cream Co, Ivan Seal, and others. They also had Goya’s El sueno de la razon produce monstruos there, which was cool to see up close [also speaking of which, Wikipedia has a...
Picture this and be horrified
Me: can we be Sonny and Cher for Halloween this year?
Rachel: which one would I have to be
“People sometimes ask me why I keep a framed $20 bill on my desk. I tell them:...”
– Elif Batuman, from an interview about her workspace at this blog. Franco Moretti would be proud.
This is some badass new Neil Young →
The Graduate
Mr. Braddock: Ben, what are you doing?
Benjamin: Well, I would say that I'm just drifting. Here in the pool.
Mr. Braddock: Why?
Benjamin: Well, it's very comfortable just to drift here.
Mr. Braddock: Have you thought about graduate school?
Benjamin: No.
Mr. Braddock: Would you mind telling me then what those four years of college were for? What was the point of all that hard work?
Benjamin: You got me.
“Woe to the people into whose language Andrey Platonov can be translated.”
– Joseph Brodsky
“Take it down a notch for America.”
– the inestimable Jon Stewart
Ginsbergian Lens →
The PM Comes to Visit
Some photos from last night’s demonstrations. Sorry the quality isn’t better, but most of the marches happened after dark, and my camera viewing screen is broken, so I can’t actually see what I’m taking a picture of…
Ohhhh Mike Birbiglia...
I find him very entertaining. Today I was reading his Secret Public Journal and I saw the following:
I’ll be performing, most likely making fun of both Ira and MSNBC.
The really exciting part of the night for me is that I (and you!) get to watch This American Life’s Ira Glass interview MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow. Last fall I saw Ira interview Jeff Garlin at the 92nd Street Y and it was...
Of course →
Why wouldn’t the Prime Minister come this week amidst angry, shoe-throwing mobs?
Express Yourself →
Another amazing article from Richard Beck at n+1. The article starts, ostensibly, as a book review of Thomas Chatterton Williams’ book Losing My Cool: How a Father’s Love and 15,000 Books Beat Hip-Hop Culture but quickly becomes…much more than that. Beck does provide a quasi-defense of hip-hop as a genre, but it’s really more an attack on any critical theory of hip-hop as a...
Listening to The Suburbs in Thessaloniki
Since I arrived in Greece last Saturday I have spent a total of about three days (well, maybe two full days spread out over three days) walking around Thessaloniki in a black suit and tie in the 40 degree (Celsius) weather. The experience, so far has been…strange. And to keep my wits about me, I have resorted to a few coping mechanisms, the strangest of which, perhaps, is pumping myself up by...
“…the luxuries of civilization satisfy only those wants which they...”
– Apsley Cherry-Garrard, The Worst Journey in the World, page 171 (Penguin Edition)
Another NPR First Listen →
Jose Gonzalez’s band Junip is about to release their album Fields, and really, it’s quite good. You can stream the whole album from NPR Music until September 14th (when the album actually comes out), which I highly suggest you do. Starting now. Ready, set, go!
Franz Kafka Airport (hint: you will laugh) →
