duly footnoted

"We found that Martha’s Vineyard was a summer retreat frequented by people of a great variety of..."

Wed, 18 Jul 2012 23:28:28 -0700

“We found that Martha’s Vineyard was a summer retreat frequented by people of a great variety of opinions on the left. There were Communists, Trotskyites, independent socialists of all kinds, and even one or two rather moth-eaten Anarchists. Arguments raged on all kinds of topics, from art forms to politics, from theories of psychoanalysis to someone’s latest novel.”

- Jessica Mitford, Hons and Rebels

In a couple weeks I’ll be looking for the ghosts of moth-eaten anarchists. Lillian Hellman’s too.

One of the little boxes of my childhood that inspired that song....

Wed, 18 Jul 2012 23:11:51 -0700

One of the little boxes of my childhood that inspired that song.

"Finding or cultivating ideas is the heart of the game. Unlike basic needs, which can be actively..."

Wed, 18 Jul 2012 15:53:49 -0700

“Finding or cultivating ideas is the heart of the game. Unlike basic needs, which can be actively found, made, or purchased, or even natural specimens, which can be discovered, ideas are linked to the player’s overall balance with nature. When the player is in balance, the woods themselves seem rich with ideas, sparkling like the native artifacts that Thoreau was good at finding. These “arrowhead moments,” as the development team calls them, are key thoughts culled from the text of Walden that are the highlights and the narrative thread of the game. Like the arrowheads of a long-past civilization that Thoreau found while digging his cellar at Walden, his writings will be embedded in this virtual landscape as “durable relics” of another life, one that may point the way for the player’s own meandering philosophical sojourn.”

- Tracy Fullerton, director of USC’s Game Innovation Lab, on Walden, a game

"And then there’s the lesson in peeling oranges—pull from one end of an orange to the other to create..."

Mon, 09 Jul 2012 21:14:00 -0700

“And then there’s the lesson in peeling oranges—pull from one end of an orange to the other to create a swath of rind, about an inch thick and three inches long, that is twisted to express its oils and dropped into drinks as a garnish. I am confident I’ve mastered this until I see a customer (a fairly well-known bartender himself) pick his orange peel out of the glass and hold it up to his buddies, laughing. The peel, split in the middle, looks like a vagina.”

- Julia Kramer, “There are tears in your cocktail”

Take it from me: it is such a treat to have a food critic as your tour guide in Chicago.

"When I was very young, I most wanted to be a scientist, isolated and brilliant, probing and..."

Mon, 02 Jan 2012 21:38:55 -0800

“When I was very young, I most wanted to be a scientist, isolated and brilliant, probing and illuminating mysteries, a pure soul floating in a laboratory universe, detached, cool, exalted. Then I wanted to be famous and a bit rich, noted for having political power without the mess of political responsibility, a speech-writing ghost but still a sort of pure soul floating in a marble-halled universe, detached, cool and celebrated. What I want now is so different. It requires nothing but space and time and work. It does not float, it walks in the neighborhood. It is not detached, it is a mosaic of meetings, friendships, tasks, celebrations (without celebrity). It still includes science but it knows science as the most social of human actions, a shared heritage, an age-long persistence of reason, something that floats beautifully in the head, but not in outer space, an occasion for the pleasures of creativity more than the proddings of pride. For honor it substitutes, simply, honesty and for loyalty it certainly substitutes friendship.”

- Karl Hess, Dear America

Photo

Tue, 02 Nov 2010 01:20:00 -0700

Timex Social Club - “Rumors” Starting Five on...

Mon, 12 Jul 2010 23:47:03 -0700

Timex Social Club - “Rumors”

Starting Five on Berkeley High’s alumni new jack swing team

Silver Jews - “Night Society”

Sun, 11 Jul 2010 23:23:00 -0700

Silver Jews - “Night Society”

George Butler, sketching his way through Central and West Africa

Thu, 17 Jun 2010 06:28:42 -0700

George Butler, sketching his way through Central and West Africa

letterheady: Marlene Dietrich, date unknown | Source

Thu, 17 Jun 2010 06:05:54 -0700

letterheady:

Marlene Dietrich, date unknown | Source

Martine Franck, Paris, (1975) by Henri Cartier-Bresson

Thu, 17 Jun 2010 03:12:00 -0700

Martine Franck, Paris, (1975) by Henri Cartier-Bresson

Children’s Library, (1965) by Martine Franck

Thu, 17 Jun 2010 03:08:50 -0700

Children’s Library, (1965) by Martine Franck

Photo

Wed, 26 May 2010 14:05:33 -0700

cursivebuildings: The Cement Sea Meant … ?While we all...

Mon, 17 May 2010 01:43:50 -0700

cursivebuildings:

The Cement Sea Meant … ?
While we all lead some kind of hurried life, this town of white buildings on windy hills breathes & has moods, slower & deeper than me or you.

anthologist: Is it stealing if you were there? (I’ll post a...

Fri, 14 May 2010 01:53:39 -0700

anthologist:

Is it stealing if you were there?

(I’ll post a click-through only if you want me to.)

Let’s call this one “Looking for Astronauts in Los Angeles.”

“Are you comforted by the assertion that there are yet people on Earth who know what they are...

Wed, 05 May 2010 23:58:00 -0700

“Are you comforted by the assertion that there are yet people on Earth who know what they are doing? Or, like me, do you subscribe to the notion that people who knew what they were doing began to die off about 1945 and are now on the brink of extinction? That they have been replaced by fakes and poseurs? That in ten more years, when everyone rides a Segway talking on cell phones imbedded in their iTeeth, the clueless world will be painfully immanent? That a large number of the world’s folk will be fervently annihilating themselves, if they have not already starved, and a small number of the world’s folk will be excited by rapid online acquisition of an exorbitant T-shirt?”

- Padgett Powell, The Interrogative Mood

Photo

Tue, 04 May 2010 22:59:37 -0700

Microsoft, WORD.

Mon, 03 May 2010 17:53:00 -0700

Microsoft, WORD.

Photo

Sat, 01 May 2010 02:38:37 -0700

"[Xie Zhiliu] painted a Yosemite that simply doesn’t exist, at least to those of us on the..."

Fri, 30 Apr 2010 16:06:37 -0700

“[Xie Zhiliu] painted a Yosemite that simply doesn’t exist, at least to those of us on the Western side of the globe. Actually, his Yosemite doesn’t exist on the Eastern side, either. It exists only in Xie Zhiliu’s head. His Chinese tradition was in a locked battle with a landscape he didn’t recognize. Yosemite doesn’t look like the mountains of China. The stone is different. The mountains came forth because of different geological forces. The foliage is made up of different species of tree and shrub. Reality doesn’t show itself in Yosemite the same way it shows itself in Taishan Mountain. The paintings Xie Zhiliu made in Yosemite don’t reconcile that confusion, they simply record it. One of the deepest ongoing philosophical and aesthetic problems is whether we have access to reality as it really is, or whether we always see our own version of it. In no ways can Xie Zhiliu’s Yosemite paintings be said to solve this problem. They do reflect, however, what a wonderfully, productively, beautiful problem it is and, I suppose, ever shall be.”

- Morgan Meis, “East Meets the American West”