February 2012
28 posts
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I can be a damn fool when I’m not watching myself. Every once in a while you start writing how you think you should instead of how you want to. Writing is a discipline, but it’s supposed to be fun, too. For someone who invests as much of the self as I do in my writing, this can be a dark mood and a bitter one: “melancholy midnight of the mind,” was the ugly phrase that was...
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It occurs to me that the reason today’s poetry is almost entirely free verse (free verse, that verse which requires the meanest skill) is that all the best writers of metered verse are now musicians. From skald to star, as it were.
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“Dividing the population into two categories—good and bad—seemed like a more...”
– David Eagleman, “Egalitaire,” from Sum. Brought to my attention by the always-interesting Anaïs Escobar, and after skimming the synopsis, likely next on my reading list. If growing up is not the gradual process of discovering this, repeatedly, and each time finding that your divisions...
Anyone have an informed opinion on the merits of full heads of garlic versus the jars of minced garlic you find in stores? Is there really a noticeable taste difference? Powdered or dried garlic tastes like camel ass, but I’d like to have somethin that keeps longer than a head of garlic.
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“Last night, as I was sleeping,
I dreamt—marvelous error!—
that a spring was...”
– Antonio Machado, “Last night as I was sleeping,” from Times Alone: Selected Poems of Antonio Machado, 1983 Bly translation.
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Wait, wait. I have known that the guy married to Christina Hendricks is some dude named Geoffrey Arend. But this is him? What in the good name of fuck?
Hang on, let me hit you one more time.
It’s like they took Duckie and whoever the chick was who was played by Molly Ringwald, and they made Molly Ringwald hotter, and they beat Duckie with a hideous stick, and then they married them, in an...
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I’d like to see iTunes incorporate the “tagging” sensibility that blogs use into a future version. Tracks within the same band, and even within the same album, often fall into multiple genres simultaneously. Think of the versatility! If you didn’t want to hear vocals, but didn’t care what you heard beyond that, you could set iTunes to display only tracks tagged...
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Day three of having been punched in the face: have recovered all functions one hundred percent, except I can’t blow my nose without giving myself a headache.
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"Preemptive Policing" →
This Village Voice report, on a policy whereby the NYPD is given a quota for random stops and searches of passersby, is disturbing on so many different levels. The article rightly describes the term “preemptive policing” as Orwellian; that this policy is clearly a wanton (and racially weighted) infringement of civil liberties is so obvious from the preponderance of evidence as to go...
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It’s been so long since I’ve been punched in the mouth that I completely forgot how difficult it is to eat the day afterward.
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“She will find what is good for her, you cannot: for there is just this...”
– John Ruskin, Sesame and Lilies. I cannot safely recommend this book of lectures to any woman who considers herself a feminist, though sometimes I gamble with my fate and do so anyway. Although to modern ears it inevitably contains some of the grating rhetoric and views of the Victorian era, it is...
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On Critical Generosity
I share this excerpt of post from The Believer’s blog—it’s the quintessential I am an Artist, don’t you know that? moment, and it bears observation because it highlights a vacancy in much modern writing, or, perhaps, in modern writers.
Julie Hecht was interviewed in the May 2008 issue of The Believer by Andrew Nellins. It begins:
THE BELIEVER: How do you explain your work to...
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“Poetry comes to birth whenever men come to their maturity. It is a thing of the...”
– Robert Payne, “On the Dainos,” from The Green Linden.
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scottiehughes:
Being out in the rain is a lot less romantic when you’re alone in it.
Even less so when you’re out in it with some chick and she wants to make out because it’s just so damn perfect and the rain starts to wash off her makeup and you end up coughing uncontrollably and she gets upset at you for “ruining it” and all you can taste is blush or mascara or...
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“And lonely as it is that loneliness
Will be more lonely ere it will be less—
A...”
– Robert Frost, “Desert Places.”
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My favorite long-form prose authors are mostly male, which is somewhat less than surprising for someone who reads as much pre-modern literature as I do. Interestingly, though, upon doing a quick evaluation of my bookshelves, it appears that my favorite short-form prose authors are overwhelmingly female by an order of something like four to one.
Anyone else have interesting disparities in the...
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Relics →
I missed this piece by Kara VanderBijl in This Recording the first time around, but it’s an excellent read and just the kind of thing I like to ruminate on during a middle-of-the-week afternoon. Do take a look. Incidentally, her blog is always a pleasant diversion, as well.
