The most beautiful truck on earth—Don Ainsworth’s present sapphire-drawn convexing elongate stainless mirror—gets a smidgen over six miles to the gallon.
In a nice moment of literary convergence, I finished this awesome essay by John McPhee while taking a break from the photography book Truckers. Creative Loafing did a nice interview with writer Mary Richardson. It’s a whole different world.
A Fleet of One: Eighty thousand pounds of Dangerous Goods - The New Yorker
I am angry and curious. These two things propel me forward. I come from the minimum-wage working world. I have no illusions as to where I should have ended up. I have really nothing to lose, and so I go.
Henry Rollins. (via)
Josh Smith Down The Lane Slam vs.Celtics. He just comes skipping into the frame so beautifully. Hasn’t gotten old yet.
(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Two hours of dumb fun followed immediately by regret.
Terry Riley and Big Boi. American heroes. (via)
Memento. Third viewing, but hadn’t seen it in 7-8 years. This one holds up pretty well. Funnier than I remembered.
The Faux-Vintage Photo: Full Essay (Parts I, II and III) » Cyborgology. On social media and “nostalgia for the present”. (via)
Faux-vintage photo will no longer be able to conjure the importance associated with physicality if the vintage look begins to be more closely associated with smartphones than old photos.
In a hundred different ways, we have slowly marginalized an entire category of critical professions, reshaping our expectations of a “good job” into something that no longer looks like work. A few years from now, an hour with a good plumber–if you can find one–is going to cost more than an hour with a good psychiatrist. At which point we’ll all be in need of both.
Mike Rowe’s Senate Testimony on why we still need to work with our hands.
One guy’s rules of thumb for books, movies, etc.
4. Long descriptive passages very rarely work.
8. It is wonderful to think you’re watching story X and then discover you’re watching story Q.
17. Enough with the Christ imagery!
18. Don’t speak the subtext!
Shyness had made me so deficient in empathic experience that I could only view social life in terms of risk rather than opportunity. The best way to manage that risk, I thought, was to be unapproachable but legibly fascinating at a distance, to present myself as an object to be read but with a message that’s inscrutable and fleeting, one that could convey the complexity of the real me without reducing it to something superficial. I could not get past the wish to broadcast my identity without having to interact with anyone.
Facebook, of course, caters to that desire.
Stevie Wonder - Heaven Is 10 Zillion Light Years Away.
It’s taken Him so long
‘Cause we’ve got so far to come
Amazing song on an amazing album - but I stand by my tweet. Mental note: tumble music more often.
(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)
You act like mortals in all that you fear, and like immortals in all that you desire.
Seneca, On the Shortness of Life. (via wehr)
It’s okay to not like things. (via)
(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)
My daughter just turned 16 years old, and you can see it on MTV’s [‘My Super Sweet Sixteen’], where they get cars, and things that depreciate and just don’t mean nothing. I wanted to give my child something that she can grow and build and nurture. So I gave her her own label.
Big Boi. (via andyhutchins)
Shotgun Stories. Two sets of half-brothers feud after their father dies. Similar themes of family, justice, resentment, forgiveness, etc. that you see in the v. good Winter’s Bone, which is also set in the same region. None of what happens will surprise you that much, but the way it’s handled is excellent. Great movie. Ebert agrees.
When it’s midnight and it’s raining and you’re on the steepest hill you’ve ever climbed and you’re bleeding from briars and you’re alone and you’ve been alone for hours, it’s only you around to witness yourself quit or continue.
The Believer - The Immortal Horizon. One reason I “enjoy” long days hiking.
Via David Hayes, who said it best:
There’s no single solid takeaway from this essay about the culture we feel obligated to consume, but I think it’s a good and valuable thing to think about and pay attention to.
One guy’s favorites from 2010. Just when I was approaching Instapaper Zero again. (via)