October 2008
31 posts
My Halloween Costume
This year I am going as Kierkegaard’s Knight of Faith.
I have embraced the infinite’s paradoxical emergence in the finite (and all of that movement’s ethico-religious implications). For the day.
There is, of course, no outward transformation.
“The drink in your hand was also a nice touch at this holiday party with an open...”
– Todd Levin Pre-Compliments All of Tonight’s Don Drapers
“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself … and also the underlying...”
– Planet Money’s Adam Davidson on Consumer Confidence
“I wish I could put a morning like this one in a jar and enjoy it ten seconds at...”
– Merlin Mann
ONE MAN SHOW →
Fred Armisen is so good.
WatchPILLOWDROME
Extended family vacations, with their rich mix of boredom, frustration, and prison-like social entrapment, become laboratories of game innovation. From a sleep-deprived Christmas condo in Maui, I present to you:
PILLOWDROME
NUMBER OF PLAYERS Standard play: 2 Tournament play: 3 - Infinite
EQUIPMENT 2 identical pillows 1 suburban-style kitchen island Alcohol (recommended)
RULES
...
Did yez see the game last night?!
Two exciting, surprising teams made it to the World Series this year. And I’d be happy if either side won, except: each victory for Philadelphia energizes Philly Boy Roy in his plot to sneak in and steal the mayorship of Newbridge. And folks, this guy is scary. Look how he turned on his team after they lost tonight:
If I had a long range battery launcher I would have shot a batch right into...
Shane MacGowen: A Life in Wikipedia Chapter Titles
History Fame Self-destructive behavior Dental problems
Tom Friedman Explains a Bar Fight →
Brilliant work by Yankee Pot Roast. It’s so good it’s hard even to pull an excerpt, but here goes:
It was then that I realized all power came from the Sun. As I stumbled from my car to a roadside saloon a PowerPoint graph slid into my head of what organisms need to do to achieve PhotoSynthesis. I call them the PhotoSynthesis Superchargers:
Be a living organism: Sitting on the fence...
The Cotton Spinners of Lancashire
This story is tucked inside Adam Gopnik’s great survey of John Stuart Mill’s thought:
[Mill] helped to save the American Union. Few Americans learn that the cotton spinners of Lancashire were among the heroes of the Civil War. Out of work and starving, because of the Union blockade of cotton imports from the Confederacy, the workers nevertheless supported the Union out of pure...
“Contrary to the rumors that you’ve heard, I was not born in a manger. I...”
– B.O. Kills at the Al Smith Dinner
“Today’s stock market crash is nothing. I was there for the Great Stock...”
– Tim Siedell, the best lay-Twitterer in re:TGSMCo’08. (The best pro-Twitterer is Planet Money.)
Why does The New Yorker gotta be like that? →
Insightful short piece about how a single comma reveals editorial bias w/r/t a common colloquial phrase: “like.”
The Rest Is Noise: Audio Guide →
Oh geez, I’m going to get lost in here for the rest of the day. Audio, video and text excerpts and notes to The Rest Is Noise, Alex Ross’s guide to 20th Century classical music.
The online guide is fascinating on its own. No having-read-the-book required.
(via TMN)
Genki no Moto →
“Genki” (元気) is the one Japanese word that consistently slips into my English. It means, in casual conversation, “pep, good energy,” and is the small-talk answer to the question “How are you?” I reach for it in English when I see someone up and about, lookin’ good after being sick or stressed.
Anyway, Matt Treyvaud’s got a really cool essay on the...
Ply It Forward
My son is learning to use the bathroom by himself. After we’ve washed and dried our hands and thrown our paper towels into the trash can, he insists that we prepare some paper towel for the next person. He goes over to the dispenser and hits the lever a few times, enough for the next guy to dry his hands.
Everyone should do this. Imagine: you’ve just washed your hands at a...
John Ashbery : The Virgin King →
They know so much more, and so much less, “innocent details” and other. It was time to put up or shut up. Claymation is so over, the king thought. The watercolor virus sidetracked tens.
Something tells me you’ll be reading this on a train stumbling through rural Georgia, wiping sleep from your eyes as the conductor passes through carrying a bun. We’re moving today, today on the couch.
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