January 2012
7 posts
“As virtuous men pass mildly away, And whisper to their souls to go, Whilst some...”
– (via classicpenguin)
THE COMPASS METAPHOR
“I doubt it,” said the person he talked to. “There’s a 99...”
– The state of literary journalism.
The Believer Logger: The Young Man Who Opened for... →
believermag:
Jacob Otting is a young undiscovered comedian whom I hereby discover in this blog post. When he sent me a private YouTube link of his act opening for Bonnie Prince Billy (aka Will Oldham, aka Palace Brothers, et al), I was so delighted and amazed that I felt compelled to email him some boldface…
December 2011
3 posts
November 2011
2 posts
A reader calls in with a novel idea for removing...
October 2011
3 posts
“Why would we think that only people who have the right bloodlines can write...”
– Ron Charles quoting Stephen Greenblatt
"Books don't go viral."
”The precise thing that makes idea-driven books so valuable to readers — their immersive qualities, the intimate, one-on-one relationship they facilitate between authors and readers — also make them pretty lousy as actual sharers of ideas.”
Setting aside the white-hot irony of this statement, Megan Garber makes some interesting points about the evolution from book-as-final-product...
“Madeline’s love troubles began when the French theory she was reading...”
– Jeffrey Eugenides, on Fresh Air. (via nprfreshair)
September 2011
5 posts
“About twice a year I make myself laugh when I’m writing.”
– Calvin Trillin (via theparisreview)
August 2011
3 posts
8 tags
4 tags
The definitive record of 9/11 TV coverage →
Haven’t spent much time with this, but there’s something poignant about the loungey jazz of the credit refinancing ad that CNN interrupts with their first report of the attack. Internet Archive deserves a lot of credit for making 3,000 hours of TV broadcasts very easy to navigate; that doesn’t make any of it easier to watch.
July 2011
5 posts
June 2011
4 posts
The subject-journalist relationship, ca. 2011 →
Hard to know what to make of Edith Zimmerman’s profile of Chris Evans in GQ, “American Marvel.” A brilliant send-up of the conventions of the celebrity puff piece, or blatant flouting of journalistic integrity? “Since we’re both single and roughly the same age, it was hard for me not to treat our interview as a sort of date,” she writes matter-of-factly. What...
Some midnight riders →
“[T]he poem proved so enormously popular that it came to be read not as poetry but as history.”
—Jill Lepore
May 2011
1 post
Another cat (music) video →
April 2011
2 posts
March 2011
2 posts
“Don’t want any more gay crap in the...
Someone in charge of humorous scientific summaries once told me that anything involving bears was funny. A corollary to this is that anything that takes place in Kentucky is funny. Exempli gratia, Lady Gaga appears at a drag show: not funny. Lady Gaga appears at a drag show in Kentucky: funny.
February 2011
6 posts
“And, with the exception of the cover, which has been outsourced, it’s the most...”
– Roger Hodge explains why Uncle Sam is on the cover of Harper’s EVERY DARNED MONTH. Also, why it’s probably doomed.
Poncey jerk thinks horses aren't fancy enough →
“If we’re in full white tie, and completely bedazzled,” he said, “the horses should be, too.”
January 2011
2 posts
The story of the bridge
On a balcony, an elderly woman looked at the crowd and threw her hands in the air. On other balconies, there was applause.
“Peaceful,” the marchers shouted. At the foot of the bridge, the security services were waiting, with other plans.
This narrative piece from today’s NYT reminded me a bit of Kapuscinski’s Another Day of Life. Kapuscinski is trying to make sense of a...
December 2010
1 post
We regret to inform you that tomorrow we will be... →
“And yet, as a foreign correspondent, I have always had to bring my own with me, because—American hegemony be damned—try finding a proper Kentucky bourbon or rye alongside Johnny Walker and J&B in the bars of Kampong Cham, Cambodia, or the cabarets of Kisangani, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, or even in most cafés in France.”
November 2010
2 posts
"This is not at all how this story was meant to... →
Really spectacular piece of writing today in the NYT Style section, a profile of Courtney Love. I almost skipped this, having read quite enough about Love last spring when the new Hole album came out. But I’m glad I didn’t. Eric Wilson has written a riveting, fair, and even tender piece—with a depth that’s rare for any section of the Times, let alone Sunday Styles. I like...
October 2010
11 posts
1 tag
What was the most important news this week?