October 2010
38 posts
“The pendulum of fashion has swung against Chatwin, and it is now decidedly unhip...”
– Under the Sun: The letters of Bruce Chatwin, reviewed by William Dalrymple - TLS
“He looked at the thong, looked at his teammates and decided that desperate times...”
– San Francisco Giants Go After Texas Rangers Hammer and Thong - Wall Street Journal
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Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow
The documentary (and perfect phrase) Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow was mentioned in a headline we linked to yesterday. It continued to haunt me when I bumped into it today at an art gallery that was showing the movie as part of an Anselm Kiefer exhibit.
Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow is Koyaanisqatsi slowed to universe-speed. The camera meanders through the industrial ruins, undergrounds...
“Thank you, Kentucky, for forcing us to ponder deep etymological questions like...”
– Rand Paul Head-Stomper Was Merely Trying to ‘Hold Her’ With His Shoe Until the Cops Came — Daily Intel
“Man faces charges after springing his poodle with a lawn tractor. The dog, Buddy...”
– Hydro man lands in jail over poodle rescue | NewsOK.com
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Iran Pays President Karzai's 'Office Expenses'...
It’s crazy, but actually, in a world in which people need to get shit done, it’s also totally understandable that Iran’s ambassador to Afghanistan was caught passing bags stuffed with Euros to President Karzai’s chief of staff.
The “official aid” used for “office expenses” amounts to around $1,000,000, delivered once or twice a year. Sounds a...
“In California, we’re partying like it’s 1997: a moderate-to-pulseless Republican...”
– Sacramento Über Alles - Reason Magazine
“Other areas in addition to the countertop were reported in a mess, police said,...”
– “Squirrel surprises La Grange homeowner.”
Also on the front page of the Pioneer Local: “Boy doesn’t like dinner, calls 911,” and “Western Springs family may provide Chicago tree.” (via TMN’s Kevin Guifoile)
“I have always been deeply terrified to really be someone’s wife since I know...”
– Making Ignorance Chic - NYTimes.com
“I propose reducing by 50 per cent the number of kidneys currently held by those...”
– http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2010/10/20/james-meek/osbornes-kidney-cuts/
“It is unfortunate that even the White House is conveying the message that there...”
– A Question of Appearances - Obama Will Bypass Sikh Temple on Visit to India - NYTimes.com
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Norway makes hacking the stock market look...
Switzerland has long led the European independence and wealth race, but Norway is racing through on the outside. Both countries are small and mountainous, talk big and walk tall on human rights and democracy, and both share similar suspicions of the E.U. Where Switzerland had Nazi gold, Norway has incredible stockpiles of the new Nazi gold: fossil-fuel derived wealth, and trillions of dollars more...
“Shimmy: used to express one’s pride over a modest achievement.”
– A Comprehensive Glossary Of Gifs
“The need is completely different for each individual. It may be the search for...”
– Higher, Colder, Deadlier | Culture | Vanity Fair
“No one, including me, especially anymore believes till death do us part, but I...”
– Windchime by Tony Hoagland : The Poetry Foundation [poem] : Find Poems and Poets. Discover Poetry.
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We must ask of reality: how important is it,...
We already know that Werner Herzog pulled Joaquim Phoenix from a car wreck (watch the animated version) and got shot while doing an interview with the BBC (also on YouTube). Having just read a wonderful and idiosyncratic speech he gave on the nature of truth and the sublime, I was drawn to another story he told to illustrate the confusing concept of reality:
…a boy, described by witnesses as...
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The Girl with the Swedish Guerrilla Coach
Following the announcement of a new book in the “Millennium” series come fresh details about Steig Larsson’s time in Eritrea:
1977 was a dramatic year. Stieg spent part of it in Eritrea, where he had contacts in the Marxist EPLF liberation movement and helped to train a company of women guerrillas in the use of grenade launchers. But he also contracted a kidney inflammation and...
“Ladies, do you enjoy it when your man refers to his personal junk with a Dune...”
– Match 9 Coudal Partners’ Layer Tennis Presented by Adobe CS5 10/15/2010 | Layer 1
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‘J is for jihad’ and ‘K is for Kalashnikov'
Why is the Kalashnikov so popular with child soldiers? NPR asked Times war correspondent C.J. Chivers to explain. He’d know, having written a 496-page history of the gun.
“It’s out there. And the weapon that’s out there is the weapon that tends to get used. But the other reason is the design. It’s very, very simple. It’s almost intuitive. You can take it apart...
“I told him it ain’t that bad. It’ll get better, to put the time and...”
– Atlanta police: T.I. helped talk down jumper - Associated Press
“Animated GIFs—soundless, coarsely textured, and powerless to describe complex...”
– Christina Hendricks on an endless loop: The glorious GIF renaissance. - By Jonah Weiner - Slate Magazine
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Scenes from a provincial English city's anti-Islam...
The far right English Defense League were in the city of Leicester this weekend, protesting against Islamification. The Leicester Mercury was on the scene:
The EDL’s self-appointed leader, Tommy Robinson, delivers his speech to the backs of hundreds of heads. Less than half listen to his clarion calls as rumours spread that Muslims are attacking their buses down the road – another fiendish...
“The foreclosure crisis has yet to produce a Lange or Evans, but its images share...”
– Picturing the Crisis - NYTimes.com
“When the French take to the streets in large numbers it is rarely for the stated...”
– The French: a guide for the perplexed – Prospect Magazine « Prospect Magazine
“I believe fully in the core curriculum as a device of employment for me and my...”
– The Crisis of the Humanities Officially Arrives - NYTimes.com
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The Harmony, the Private Jet, and the Death Ratio...
China revealed yesterday that ”the death ratio per million tons of coal output stood at 0.783 percent, down 13.9 percent over the same period last year.” That’s Beijing’s ‘harmonized’ way of saying that seven of its miners die everyday.
China is already the world’s biggest energy consumer, opening a new coal plant every week. Big pictures of “the...
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TEUROISM
Let’s take a moment to really absorb what happened: Terrorists allegedly plotting a Mumbai-style rampage at the Eiffel Tower or maybe Alexanderplatz were killed in Pakistan by U.S drones. The terrorists left Germany and Britain to train with Al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Deja Vu much? Terrorists plot to blow up the Eiffel Tower and America jets in to save the day? It’s...
“I woke up with a spot of blood over my eye. Why would a man raise his hand...”
– The Scratch - Poem by Raymond Carver
“I question if a single American, right-thinking or left-thinking, thought even...”
– Secretariat was not a Christian - Chicago Sun-Times
“This painting is not available in your country.”
– Paul Mutant
“Eustace makes, builds or kills anything he needs, so it’s somewhat...”
– The Last American Man: Men’s Lives: GQ
“Trains are where those listening to mp3 players air drum without shame.”
– AL Kennedy: Typing on trains | Books | guardian.co.uk
“Thanks to the Internet, we have the technical means to make Jefferson’s dream...”
– A Library Without Walls by Robert Darnton | NYRBlog | The New York Review of Books
“Their “Stop War, Start Tennis” and “Love India, Love Pakistan” T-shirt slogans...”
– Indo-Pak Relations | Tennis | Bopanna | Qureshi
“Each morning for over eight months I woke up and decided that the next morning...”
– What we can learn from procrastination : The New Yorker
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The Rise of Europe's Far Right is no Tea Party
When David Ignatius wrote in the Washington Post that Europe needs its own Tea Party movement, I don’t think that this is quite what he had in mind. Europe’s right wing is at its strongest since the Second World War, and though it’s being moderated by centrists the far right is growing, forming part of coalition governments in Italy and the Netherlands, and preventing majority...
“You may be Weird. But you’re also – in ways no study could hope to grasp –...”
– This column will change your life: Weirdness just got weirder | Life and style | The Guardian 