It Sounded Better in My Head

"Too soon, too late, so many missed opportunities - you’ve got to recognize luck when you see..."

Mon, 05 Sep 2011 13:00:00 -0400

“Too soon, too late, so many missed opportunities - you’ve got to recognize luck when you see it. He has a lot of friends who waste time waiting for a miracle that will redeem them, transform the life they perceive as a melancholy pencil sketch into a richly-hued oil painting, friends blind to moments of happiness while waiting for that miracle to arrive. What’s more, you’ve got to be able to stand being lucky. Many of his friends do everything they can to destroy it because they’re sure that fulfillment could be worse than failure. They’re driven by the conviction that nothing is more like hell than heaven, that heaven exists only until they get there, or comes into existence only once they’ve left. They’re not convinced that something was right until it’s over.”

- A Happy Man by Hansjörg Schertenleib

"I can’t see how anybody who claims to love language can fail to marvel at the beautiful slipperiness..."

Wed, 29 Jun 2011 20:51:14 -0400

“I can’t see how anybody who claims to love language can fail to marvel at the beautiful slipperiness of meaning that puns, like aquarium nets, momentarily catch and bring shimmering to the surface. Puns act to shatter or at least compromise meaning; a pun condenses unrelated, even opposing meanings, like a collapsing dwarf star, into a singularity. Maybe it’s this antisemantic vandalism that leads so many people to shun and revile them.”

- Michael Chabon, ‘The Phantom Tollbooth’ and the Wonder of Words.

"If we only wanted to be happy it would be easy; but we want to be happier than other people, which..."

Sun, 10 Apr 2011 22:35:29 -0400

““If we only wanted to be happy it would be easy; but we want to be happier than other people, which is almost always difficult, since we think them happier than they are.””

- a Montesquieu quote in Is Facebook making us sad?

Worry Isn't Work

Sat, 11 Sep 2010 15:17:45 -0400

Worry Isn't Work:

ampersandean:

A Monday morning reminder from the HBR:

Worry isn’t work. Being stressed out isn’t work. Anxiety isn’t work. Entertaining a sense of impending doom isn’t work. Incessant internal verbal punishment isn’t work. Indulging the great unknown fear in your own mind isn’t work. Hating yourself isn’t work.

(via cubicle17)

Talking Heads - This Must Be the Place (Naïve Melody) It does...

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 13:20:48 -0400

Talking Heads - This Must Be the Place (Naïve Melody)

It does not really get better than this.

"Style is a simple way of saying complicated things."

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 20:35:36 -0400

“Style is a simple way of saying complicated things.”

- ~Jean Cocteau (via theimpossiblecool)

"To function efficiently as a writer, 95% of your brain has to teleport off into nowhere, taking its..."

Mon, 16 Aug 2010 02:46:30 -0400

“To function efficiently as a writer, 95% of your brain has to teleport off into nowhere, taking its neuroses with it, leaving the confident, playful 5% alone to operate the controls. To put it another way: words are like cockroaches; only once the lights are off do they feel free to scuttle around on the kitchen floor.”

- Charlie Brooker from Forget those creative writing workshops. If you want to write, get threatened.

I got the opportunity to remix my favourite song from Au...

Sun, 08 Aug 2010 23:51:00 -0400

I got the opportunity to remix my favourite song from Au Revoir Simone’s beautiful album Still Night, Still Light. While listening to the song I realised how nice it’d be to transform their straight 4/4 time synthpop into a whirlwind waltz or maybe a barcarole if you will. It took a long time to chop up all the syllables and the tiny tiny samples, but I think the result got the song into a whole swirling new direction.

While making the remix, my mind started working in 3/4 and 6/8 time. I started looking around for tracks in that time signature to make a mix, I wasn’t intending to but I couldn’t help it. It was all a big swirl. After a while I heard it everywhere. In soul ballads, in polyrhythmical african pop, in old movies. In the ocean waves tumbling in against the shore, in the beat of a lovers heart. One two three, one two three..

Jens Lekman on this mix entitled “A Summer in 3/4 Time.”

This mix deserves a sweltering night, but it looks like it will be a week before Seattle gives us anything resembling heat. For tonight at least, the mix can serve a yearning for real summer weather.

Edit: Jens also has a new single out entitled “The End of the World is Bigger Than Love” that you can download if you’re willing to hand over your email address.

Names blurred to protect the sycophantic innocent. I miss these...

Thu, 24 Jun 2010 13:00:00 -0400

Names blurred to protect the ~~sycophantic~~ innocent.
I miss these kids so much.

I guess this is pretty old, but I’m just so happy to see...

Mon, 14 Jun 2010 12:00:00 -0400

I guess this is pretty old, but I’m just so happy to see Richard E. Grant again. It’s certainly an amusing juxtaposition to his role as Withnail.

The season finale of AMC’s brilliant Breaking Bad is tonight. The New Yorker recently had an...

Sun, 13 Jun 2010 19:00:00 -0400

The season finale of AMC’s brilliant Breaking Bad is tonight. The New Yorker recently had an article on La Familia Michoacana (subscribers only), a violent drug cartel that has captured parts of the state and the private sector in Mexico. The piece offers a fascinating look at the real world of drugs and violence that likely inspired the fictionalized turf across the border from Walter White’s Albuquerque. Much of the violence that once seemed sensational (such as what happens to Danny Trejo’s character) now appears grounded in a disturbing reality. If you have a subscription, I definitely recommend you read the article, however, the next best thing is this 16 minute interview with William Finnegan, the journalist who reported the story.

inky: The glorious return of The Perry Bible Fellowship. I...

Tue, 08 Jun 2010 21:38:00 -0400

inky:

The glorious return of The Perry Bible Fellowship.

I don’t think I’ll ever tire of seeing Nicholas Gurewitch follow his cute premises to their hilariously dark conclusions.

Wild Nothing - Chinatown (by Jack Tatum)

Tue, 08 Jun 2010 17:30:00 -0400

Wild Nothing - Chinatown (by Jack Tatum)

Leap Before You Look

Mon, 07 Jun 2010 11:15:55 -0400

ampersandean:

W. H. Auden, December 1940:

The sense of danger must not disappear:
The way is certainly both short and steep,
However gradual it looks from here;
Look if you like, but you will have to leap.

Tough-minded men get mushy in their sleep
And break the by-laws any fool can keep;
It is not the convention but the fear
That has a tendency to disappear.

The worried efforts of the busy heap,
The dirt, the imprecision, and the beer
Produce a few smart wisecracks every year;
Laugh if you can, but you will have to leap.

The clothes that are considered right to wear
Will not be either sensible or cheap,
So long as we consent to live like sheep
And never mention those who disappear.

Much can be said for social savior-faire,
But to rejoice when no one else is there
Is even harder than it is to weep;
No one is watching, but you have to leap.

A solitude ten thousand fathoms deep
Sustains the bed on which we lie, my dear:
Although I love you, you will have to leap;
Our dream of safety has to disappear.

From Vintage Seattle: The night of Nov. 11, 1957, the...

Wed, 02 Jun 2010 10:22:00 -0400

From Vintage Seattle:

The night of Nov. 11, 1957, the largest and most expensive sewer collapse in the U.S. to that date occurred at Ravenna Boulevard between 16th and 17th Avenues NE. The hole was 60 feet deep but the sewer trunk in question is 145 feet below the street. Repairs took two years to complete, including first a sewer bypass through Ravenna Park, then stabilizing the broken trunk with a newly devised grout material and re-boring the tunnel.

Just to make a comparison, the now famous Guatemalan sinkhole is estimated to be 60 feet wide and 30 stories (approximately 300 feet) deep.

"Therefore, the odds of being on [a] given departure which is the subject of a terrorist incident..."

Mon, 28 Dec 2009 07:49:00 -0500

“Therefore, the odds of being on [a] given departure which is the subject of a terrorist incident have been 1 in 10,408,947 over the past decade. By contrast, the odds of being struck by lightning in a given year are about 1 in 500,000. This means that you could board 20 flights per year and still be less likely to be the subject of an attempted terrorist attack than to be struck by lightning.”

- FiveThirtyEight: Politics Done Right: The Odds of Airborne Terror

Maybe if Obama wasn’t so soft on lightning we could all sleep more soundly.

"I think that surprise…whether it occurs in love, war, business, or what have you, produces the..."

Tue, 26 May 2009 17:07:00 -0400

“I think that surprise…whether it occurs in love, war, business, or what have you, produces the greatest effect of any single element. It gives the added momentum to the sort of see-saw of emotion from one position to another, and you get this extra push of thrill and discovery.…People don’t like to be told anything—I mean I don’t think they even like to be told their pants are open.”

- Stanley Kubrick from Doctor’s Orders by Bilge Ebiri - Moving Image Source

A Disturbance in the Force

Sun, 10 May 2009 19:05:00 -0400

You feel a disturbance in the force…
Me: Why did you disturb the force for no reason?
David: ??
Me: On Adium when you start typing me a message the window opens and says, "You feel a disturbance in the force…"
David: As if a thousand keys typed out in horror, and were suddenly silenced.

David Lynch: Problem Solver (Via Laughing Squid). (More videos...

Mon, 04 May 2009 15:00:00 -0400

David Lynch: Problem Solver (Via Laughing Squid). (More videos here)

The Dirty Projectors - Stillness is the Move (from the upcoming...

Thu, 30 Apr 2009 16:51:00 -0400

The Dirty Projectors - Stillness is the Move (from the upcoming album, Bitte Orca.) The digital single is available here.