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.
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)
A field study, in these Hard Times, of the Homeless (as observed in the H Street Encampment, Fresno, California). Being an examination of who they are, how they think, and what they do.
See also the excellent Homeless in Sacramento: Welcome to the new tent cities.
Great read. (via)
I’ve been surprised—and upset—to find that ideas I had then were very similar to the ones I have now.
Also:
This younger I seemed far more engaged than the venal goon I remembered. Why did I want to judge him as lacking? Jealousy? Fear that what was lacking was my own progress?
“We also have to acknowledge that these cities that come top of the polls also don’t have any poor people.” (via)
Where before we silently cursed the dumb coach in our living room while remaining unsure whether we were pissed because we were right or because we had had four beers, today we take to the Internet and find thousands of people who also think we are right, and some more who have done the math that demonstrates that we are right, and therefore we know.
Could being the best “3rd-best” player in NBA history actually make Rodman the best player in NBA history?
The Moscow film company behind some of the greatest classics of Soviet cinema on Wednesday said it had agreed to make dozens of its best-known movies freely available on YouTube.
Now I need someone to tell me what to watch.
“Thirty-Five Runners Face Hollers and Hells, a Flooded Prison, Rats the Size of Possums, and Flesh-Flaying Briars to Test the Limits of Self-Sufficiency.” Essay about the most ridiculous footrace on the planet.
c-d:
Here’s You’re No Good, a live performance using moog and tapes from 1968. He takes Harvey Averne’s r&b song of the same name and cuts it up, layering and multitracking parts above and below.
1968. Terry Riley, OG.
I love this whole series. Statistics class would have been so much better if these were the lessons. It makes both basketball and math a lot more interesting than you’d think.
The Case for Dennis Rodman: Outline » Skeptical Sports Analysis
Taking a moment to hunt for an interpretation that makes an argument good — before you denounce it as a bad argument — is a nice heuristic that forestalls the tempting leap from “There exists an interpretation that makes this a bad argument, but it may not be what he had in mind,” to “This is a bad argument!”
Arguments and opinions might be my favorite tags. (via)
Economonomics: Charitable arguing
A certain literary discourse, about what others should or shouldn’t be doing with their art, will probably always exist as a distraction from writing novels.
After all, this is America, where the only art more popular than the art itself is the art of being a dick about the art.
A really, really good episode about the business of hip hop from the beginnings to now. Worth a listen/read.
Dan Charnas, Author of The Big Payback: Interview on The Sound of Young America
Good stuff. I also liked Nicholson Baker’s article about video games last fall.
Why I’m a pacifist: The dangerous myth of the Good War – By Nicholson Baker (Harper’s Magazine)
Actor Levar Burton had my all time favorite. The tweet was “It’s a good night for natural light in LA” and then he posted a picture of his fireplace, but on the mantle above it were like 20 Emmy awards. A masterpiece!
Mark Larson 