The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie — deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Belief in myths allows the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.
John F. Kennedy (via mihirai)
The Art of Persuasive Writing highlighting selections from Bank Notes. (via)
Mixed company moderates; like-minded company polarizes. Heterogeneous communities restrain group excesses; homogeneous communities march toward the extremes.
The best lines from and in-a-nutshell gist of The Big Sort by Bill Bishop.
Downtown Atlanta at Decatur Street and Peachtree – April 12, 1948. I wish downtown still had this vibe. (from the Lane Brothers and Tracy O'Neal Collections at Georgia State University, via Decatur Metro)
The Big Sleep. It’s got a twisty-turny plot where every encounter turns up some new intrigue. Not bad, but I didn’t fall in love with this one. Out of the Past is still the reigning film noir champion for me.
“Injun Summer,” by John T. McCutcheon, 1907. (via the afore-loved Roger Ebert)
I love Roger Ebert.
I didn’t know there was a word for this: “A mondegreen is the mishearing or misinterpretation of a phrase, typically a standardized phrase such as a line in a poem or a lyric in a song.” For example, CCR’s “There’s a bathroom on the right” and Hendrix’s “‘Scuse me while I kiss this guy”.
Today’s Pictures: Remember the Record Shop? James Dean, 1955.
I think Jones suffers from a common problem some good actors have: the character she has created is so individual that you don’t really realize it isn’t a cliche. You know her, so you feel like she’s a type, even though she’s not. If this is a cliche, who was the last Betty Draper before Betty Draper? I’m not sure there was one.
Complexity, Beauty, and the Underappreciated January Jones. Most interesting character on the show so far, but then I’m only halfway through the second season.
Kevin Huizenga, “Postcard from Fielder”
Weather reports and Google maps! So awesome. What a cartoonist.
Rankings of 19 predictors of work performance. At the top of the list are “general mental ability” (as in IQ and related measures) and “work sample tests” (e.g., Can you type?).
I agree with Arnold Kling: “I love it that ‘years of education’ just barely beats out handwriting analysis.” Age is the worst predictor.
Bob Sutton: Selecting Talent: The Upshot from 85 Years of Research
Photo by Vivian Maier.
“If Beethoven is standard American orchestral fare today, it’s because a group of Bostonians in the 1830s and ’40s decided he was the next big thing.”
Brook Farm group was among the first to hear Beethoven’s brilliance - The Boston Globe
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. It’s hard to adjust to the slower pacing of some of these old films, but it usually pays off. They really had a way with the dialogue. Also, I usually don’t like musicals, but I enjoyed the numbers in this one much more than I thought I would.
Paul McCartney Wake Up Call. In November 2005, Paul McCartney and 15,000 fans in Anaheim, California broadcasted a few songs to the International Space Station, part of the grand tradition of NASA wake-up calls [pdf]. He opens with “English Tea” and closes with “Good Day Sunshine”. Pretty neat moment.
Opening Credits to “Anatomy of a Murder”. Music by Duke Ellington.
(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)
Where the Wild Things Are. I did not enjoy this movie very much. It was kind of tedious, no tremendous highs or lows. The best parts for me were in the few minutes of real-life bookends. I did love the book when I was younger, but don’t have much memory of it now.
Everyday Tastes from High-brow to Low-brow. Life Magazine, 1949.