a portrait of the artist as a young man

I will now exclusively open my bottles of wine like this

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:53:53 -0600

I will now exclusively open my bottles of wine like this

“For the past ten years, Luis Soriano, a teacher in the...

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 22:23:00 -0600

“For the past ten years, Luis Soriano, a teacher in the small town of La Gloria, Colombia, has been following the same ritual. Every week-end, he gathers his donkey in front of his house, straps on the “Biblioburro” pouches to its back, and loads them with a selection of books from the eclectic collection he has acquired over the years. Off on his mobile library, he travels into the hills and through the fields to the villages beyond where children await his visits impatiently. He firmly believes that bringing books to people who don’t have access to them can improve the country and open up possibilities for the future generation of Colombia.”

more at Ayoka

[via Alan Jacobs at TextPatterns]

My old roommate sent me a picture of what may be the one of the...

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 22:51:00 -0600

My old roommate sent me a picture of what may be the one of the better Halloween costumes of this season: Osama Bin Latte

"… those of us who have the nerve to call ourselves Christians will do well to be extremely reticent..."

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 22:48:28 -0600

“… those of us who have the nerve to call ourselves Christians will do well to be extremely reticent on the subject. Indeed, it is almost the definition of a Christian that he is somebody who knows he isn’t one, either in faith or morals. Where faith is concerned, very few of us have the right to say more than—to vary a saying of Simone Weil’s—“I believe in a God who is like the True God in everything except that he does not exist, for I have not yet reached the point where God exists.” As for loving and forgiving our enemies, the less we say about that the better. Our lack of faith and love are facts we have to acknowledge, but we shall not improve either by a morbid and essentially narcissistic moaning over our deficiencies. Let us rather ask, with caution and humour—given our time and place and talents, what, if our faith and love were perfect, would we be glad to find it obvious to do?”

- W.H. Auden [via luke]

two to read (shameless self-promotion)

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 15:21:12 -0600

P.E. Logan’s review of How I Became a Famous Novelist

The lost Halloweens of one writer’s fundamentalist childhood.

It’s National Novel Writing Month. Join in.

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 14:24:20 -0600

It’s National Novel Writing Month.

Join in.

The “Oasis of the Seas,” the world’s new...

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 19:12:00 -0500

The “Oasis of the Seas,” the world’s new largest cruise ship was recently christened. If you have read David Foster Wallace’s essay, “A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again,” this should strike you as horrific.

[via Dagens Nyheter]

The New Yorker: Last-Minute Costume Ideas

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 13:07:25 -0500

Halloween is tomorrow, but you don’t have a costume? Here are some classy, simple ideas you can whip up in a jiffy.

A bug: Cover yourself in dead bugs.

Scary dog: Get a scary dog from the pound and let it loose in a party. The next day, tell everyone that the dog was you.

A fireman: Light yourself on fire. Ta-da! It is Fire Man! (Or Fire Woman, depending on you.)

Your twin brother or sister: You don’t even need to have a twin to pull this one off. No one will know if you’re lying.

A radiator: Get in a metal box. Light yourself on fire. Voila! Radiator Man!

And remember kids, never take candy from strangers, except for Halloween, when that is all that you do.

[here]

"Rand’s particular intellectual contribution, the thing that makes her so popular and so American, is..."

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 11:24:18 -0500

“Rand’s particular intellectual contribution, the thing that makes her so popular and so American, is the way she managed to mass market elitism — to convince so many people, especially young people, that they could be geniuses without being in any concrete way distinguished. Or, rather, that they could distinguish themselves by the ardor of their commitment to Rand’s teaching. The very form of her novels makes the same point: they are as cartoonish and sexed-up as any best seller, yet they are constantly suggesting that the reader who appreciates them is one of the elect.”

- Adam Kirsch on Ayn Rand

"There are three things I have learned never to discuss with people: religion, politics, and the..."

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 11:15:32 -0500

“There are three things I have learned never to discuss with people: religion, politics, and the Great Pumpkin.”

- Linus (via krzywonos)

Rock and Roll Suicide

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 09:44:56 -0500

Rock and Roll Suicide:

JM Harper on Kanye West’s We Were Once a Fairytale

This poster was created for the Illinois Statewide Library...

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 19:17:19 -0500

This poster was created for the Illinois Statewide Library Project. It shows a boy holding a book in his raised hand: “September. Back to work. Back to school. Back to books.” Illustrated between 1936 and 1940 by the WPA Art Project in Chicago. [via Vintagraph]

This is one of the most unusual motorcycles I’ve seen in a long...

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 19:10:00 -0500

This is one of the most unusual motorcycles I’ve seen in a long time: it’s a ‘Killinger und Freund’ built in 1935 in Munich, Germany. The art deco styling is obviously eye-catching, but it’s hiding something even more interesting: this machine has a driven front wheel, like the Rokon. And underneath that huge front fender is the engine itself. The motor is a sizeable 600 cc two-stroke triple—or perhaps three one-cylinder engines joined together. Yet the bike was reportedly very light, at just 135 kg. There’s obviously a story behind this picture too: is the soldier an American who found the bike in the dying days of the war, and posed for a picture taken by a colleague? The Allies rolled into Munich on 30 April 1945, and Wikipedia reports “One motorcycle was discovered by the US Army in the spring of 1945 at a German military installation, but it is not known if this was the original prototype or another Killinger und Freund Motorrad.”

[via Monoscope via Bike EXIF]

Stockholm's bunnies burned to keep Swedes warm

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 18:56:53 -0500

Stockholm's bunnies burned to keep Swedes warm:

Sounds like it should be an onion article.

Heaven or Hell?

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 14:05:56 -0500

Being confined confined to a country chateau for ten days with seventy-five academics who are obsessed with deconstruction is some people’s idea of heaven and other people’s idea of hell.

[Mark C. Taylor in Field Notes from Elsewhere]

Free Douthat

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 12:45:10 -0500

Free Douthat

Writers as Readers

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 13:28:04 -0500

Underlying the series’ preference for writers appears to be…the belief that someone’s being a good writer makes her eo ipso a good reader—which is the same reasoning that undergirds most blurbs and MFA programs, and is both logically invalid and empirically false (trust me).

[David Foster Wallace in his introduction to The Best American Essays 2007]

from The Worst Homemade Star Wars Costumes [via richarddreyfuss]

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:52:57 -0500

from The Worst Homemade Star Wars Costumes

[via richarddreyfuss]

“i just threw out the love of my dreams” Weezer...

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 12:51:30 -0500

“i just threw out the love of my dreams” Weezer & The Rentals

"Some sort of personal quota was exceeded at around age thirty-five.I now actually want to know less..."

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 16:30:24 -0500

“Some sort of personal quota was exceeded at around age thirty-five.I now actually want to know less than I know about most celebrities.”

- David Foster Wallace