why yes, there is a two-plus year gap between the last post and the previous one. and there is a two-year-old toddler going crazy on her art supplies in my dining room right now. coincidence?
why yes, there is a two-plus year gap between the last post and the previous one. and there is a two-year-old toddler going crazy on her art supplies in my dining room right now. coincidence?
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose has always meant that the constant novelty and flux of modern life is all superficial show, that the underlying essences endure unchanged. But now, suddenly, that saying has acquired an alternative and nearly opposite definition: the more certain things change for real (technology, the global political economy), the more other things (style, culture) stay the same.
+ kurt anderson, vanity fair +
Liberal power of all sorts induces an organic and crazy-making panic in a considerable number of Americans, while people with no particular susceptibility to existential terror — powerful elites — find reason to stoke and exploit that fear. And even the most ideologically fair-minded national media will always be agents of cosmopolitanism: something provincials fear as an outside elite intent on forcing different values down their throats.
okay, not him so much as his link to this devastating, beautiful photo essay.
One friend confessed “utter panic” at the sight of tomatillos. When I asked another what he did with his mustard greens, he responded, straight-faced, “I take them home, put them in my refrigerator, and wait until they rot.” Cabbage, kohlrabi, collards, bok choy—everyone, it seems, has their problem vegetables. And, like me, many feel guilty about it.
+ slate +
To help Obama put the full scale of his rescue plan into perspective, one trillion seconds would take you back 31,709 years to the time of the hunter-gatherers.
+ guardian.co.uk +
every day a new piece of inexpensive, limited edition artwork pops up in my google reader. i can’t help it — i want, want, want. expecting another trip to ikea for cheap frames in very near future…
A simple melody with a simple rhythm and repetition can be a tremendous mnemonic device… Really great jokes, on the other hand, punch the lights out of do re mi. They work not by conforming to pattern recognition routines but by subverting them.
+ new york times +
9. Give it that Wallace shine. Replace common words with their oddly specific, scientific-y counterparts. (Ex: ‘curved fingers’ into ‘falcate digits’). If you can turn a noun into a brand name, do it. (Ex: ‘shoes’ into ‘Hush Puppies,’ ‘camera’ into ‘Bolex’).
+ james tanner, reprinted on kottke.org +
