He did not, contrary to popular lore, release a product called Purple Haze; in interviews, he sounded quite miffed that anything emerging from his laboratory could be thought to cause haziness rather than the crystalline clarity for which he personally vouched.
Owsley Stanley, Artisan of Acid, Is Dead at 76 – NYTimes.com
“Here is a list of popular endings to New York Times pieces. It’s totally free.” A few of my favorites… (via)
- The apartment is really that small, and people really do live there, but somehow it just works for them.
- The old restaurant/bar is unaffected by changes to its neighborhood.
- Though restaurant’s use of sustainable ingredients attracts a young, creative clientele, buttoned-up, more conservative patrons will also enjoy the food.
- The neighborhood’s recent gentrification has not always been a smooth cultural and economic transition for longtime residents.
- The situation in that country you’ve been hearing about is even worse than you thought.
- It’s not worth it to spend 36 hours in a place to which roundtrip airfare is $2,500.
- Maureen Dowd disapproves.
Behind the Paywall: How New York Times Articles End | VF Daily | Vanity Fair
The way to kick [competitors] in the gut is to surge… But who does that? A guy who’s trained to do it for the last six months.
There was a time when you had to earn the right to draft a memoir, by accomplishing something noteworthy or having an extremely unusual experience or being such a brilliant writer that you could turn relatively ordinary occurrences into a snapshot of a broader historical moment. Anyone who didn’t fit one of those categories was obliged to keep quiet. Unremarkable lives went unremarked upon, the way God intended.
This is really cool. (via)
“Sunset Portraits, From 8,462,359 Sunset Pictures on Flickr, 12/21/10”. A photo illustration by Penelope Umbrico for The New York Times. I’ve probably become inured to news images, but this was one of those rare ones that stopped me in my tracks. If there were a print of this, I’d probably buy it. Cyberspace When You’re Dead.
“Melisma has retreated, while pop, which has just wrapped up one of its best years in at least a decade, has benefited from a return to less frilly, less bombastic vocal showcases.”
Out With Mariah’s Melisma, In With Kesha’s Kick – NYTimes.com
Visualizing Slavery – NYTimes.com. Map showing the distribution of the slave population of the southern states of the United States. I didn’t realize there was so many along the Mississippi River. I’d always imagined more along the Piedmont and coastal plains. The LOC has some great map collections.
July 16, 1989 article by Hans Fantel. He writes about a CD his father gave him, a Vienna Philharmonic performance of Mahler’s 9th–the very show that they’d attended together 50 years earlier, which also happened to be the last the Vienna Philharmonic would give before Hitler rolled in.
But it wasn’t the music alone that cast a spell over me as I listened to the new CD. Nor was it the memory of the time when the recording was made. It took me a while to discover what so moved me. Finally, I knew what it was: This disk held fast an event I had shared with my father: 71 minutes out of the 16 years we had together. Soon after, as an “enemy of Reich and Fuhrer,” my father also disappeared into Hitler’s abyss.
That’s what made me realize something about the nature of phonographs: they admit no ending. They imply perpetuity.
All this seems far from our usual concerns with the hardware of sound reproduction. But then again, speculating on endlessness may be getting at the purposive essence of all this electronic gadetry – its “telos,” as the Greeks would say. In the perennial rebirth of music through recordings, something of life itself steps over the normal limits of time.
(via Alex Ross’ new book)
Poignance Measured in Digits – New York Times
Ann’s Snack Bar in Atlanta – NYTimes.com. Home of the Ghetto Burger. Photo by David Walter Banks.
Marilyn Monroe’s Stuffing Recipe. Found in the new book, Fragments.
Long phone calls were supposed to be a girly addiction, but those calls of the ’70s and ’80s were the only way to court girls, so boys learned the art of them, too.
(via)
We need some delusions to keep us going. And the people who successfully delude themselves seem happier than the people who can’t.
Learn in different locations. Mixing related skills in one study session makes them easier to learn. Spread your study sessions and testing/reviews over time for best retention. Highly-focused immersion is not always better than a more eclectic approach. I think the overarching theme here is that making it easier for yourself isn’t always the wisest thing. If you give the brain some variety it will do remarkable job of pulling things together.
Gratuitous sports pr0n. Oh, New York Times. What next?
Women’s Tennis — The Beauty of the Power Game – Video Feature – NYTimes.com
“Look for a creamy patch. It’s called the field spot — the place where the watermelon rested on the ground. The deeper in color, the longer the fully grown melon was on the vine getting sweet.”
“Jaywalkers were involved in fewer collisions than their law-abiding counterparts who waited for the "walk” sign, though they were likelier to be killed or seriously hurt by the collision.“
New York Study of Pedestrian Victims Leads to Unexpected Conclusions – NYTimes.com
It’s signaling, folks. Really interesting stuff. Geoffrey Miller talks about this in Spent: Sex, Evolution, and Consumer Behavior, which I recommend highly. In my review I summarized Miller on the three basic ways we signal through our purchases: conspicuous waste (in this context, perhaps fine fabrics, oversized garments, layering, duplicated accessories), conspicuous precision (luxury watches, perfect cut & fit, subtle hand-stitched details), or conspicuous reputation (recognizable logos, patterns, etc.). Few books have affected my everyday thinking so much. (via putthison)
Psychoanalysis is about what two people can say to each other if they agree not to have sex.
Mark Larson 