Sunday, September 28, 2008

Thursday, September 25, 2008

George Saunders on Sarah Palin

One of my favorite people on maybe my least favorite person ever.

The full piece is here, in The New Yorker.

In summary: Because my candidate, unlike your winking/blinking Vice-Presidential candidate, who, though, yes, he did run as the running mate when the one asking him to run did ask him to run, which that I admire, one thing he did not do, with his bare hands or otherwise, is, did he ever kill a moose? No, but ours did. And I would. Please bring a moose to me, over by me, and down that moose will go, and, if I had a kid, I would take a picture of me showing my kid that dead moose, going, like, Uh, sweetie, no, he is not resting, he is dead, due to I shot him, and now I am going to eat him, and so are you, oh yes you are, which is responsible, as God put this moose here for us to shoot and eat and take a photo of, although I did not, at that time, know why God did, but in years to come, God’s will was revealed, which is: Hey, that is a cool photo for hunters about to vote to see, plus what an honor for that moose, to be on the Internet.

Friday, September 19, 2008

Expressionless Little Animals

Oceans are only oceans when they move… Waves are what keep oceans from just being very big puddles. Oceans are just their waves. And every wave in the ocean is finally going to meet what it moves toward, and break. The whole thing we looked at, the whole time you asked, was obvious. It was obvious and a poem because it was us. See things like that, Faye. Your own face, moving into expression. A wave, breaking on a rock, giving up its shape in a gesture that expresses that shape. See?

- David Foster Wallace

Thursday, September 18, 2008

¡Viva Chile! ¡Viva el pueblo! ¡Vivan los trabajadores!


Find Salvador Allende memorials around the world!

Bear


"Lord Suffield, having shot this bear in Russia, subjects it to the further indignity of being stuffed by Mr Ward and made to serve as a dumb waiter."

Lincoln without his beard


In the vein of this...

Monday, September 15, 2008

RIP, David Foster Wallace

"What you're scared of has always been what moved you."

- David Foster Wallace

Sunday, September 14, 2008

The Handmaid's Tale

There is more than one kind of freedom, said Aunt Lydia. Freedom to and freedom from. In the days of anarchy, it was freedom to. Now you are being given freedom from. Don't underrate it.

- Margaret Atwood

Saturday, September 13, 2008

Moonshine

One time Bill Murray made moonshine and took 50 people from the cast and crew of What About Bob to an MC Hammer concert in rural Virginia, and Bill Murray went on stage high on moonshine and ripped his pants while he was dancing.

Dumbo



One of my fondest childhood memories, but also maybe the saddest thing ever. Except even now I chuckle (through my tears) when the hyenas laugh.

part two of stephanie's post



A follow-up to this.

Friday, September 12, 2008

Delicious Food

It's almost fall. I'm excited that it is cool enough to cook big, labor-intensive meals again. This weekend I am going to make Tyler Florence's Arroz con Pollo, which is one of the most delicious things I've ever eaten. It ends up looking a little bit like this.

Saturday, September 6, 2008

So small

Frans Masereel

Summer Night


Salvador Dali

Dog jumps

Who's Afraid


JJ Grandville



Struwwelpeter



When I was little, my grandma gave me this German book that terrified me. Its subtitle is "Merry Stories and Funny Pictures" but it's the farthest thing from that. Some of the stories were popular in America (The Little Match Girl) but others didn't catch on (The Story of Little Suck-a-Thumb). They're basically all tales to scare kids into minding their manners, but they're incredibly frightening. It's all available on Project Gutenberg - worth taking a look.

Animals Appear as Plants

Asa Ames




Meghan and I went to the Dargerism exhibit at the American Folk Art Museum, but the only good stuff in it was from Henry Darger himself or Amy Cutler. The rest of the museum was great though, like the Asa Ames exhibit.

Friday, September 5, 2008

This would be so very funny if it wasn't so very scary

The Moor's Last Sigh - post one of one hundred

"in the beginning and unto the end was and is the lung: divine afflatus, baby's first yowl, shaped air of speech, staccato gusts of laughter, exalted airs of song, happy lover's groan, unhappy lover's lament, miser's whine, crone's croak, illness's stench, dying whisper, and beyond and beyond the airless, silent void.

"a sigh isnt just a sigh. we inhale the world and breathe out meaning. while we can. while we can.

"we breathe light, the trees pipe up. here at the journey's end in this place of olive-trees and tombstones the vegetation has decided to strike up a conversation. "we breathe light," indeed; most informative.....

"henceforth, ill turn a deaf ear to prattling foliage with its arboreal metaphysics, its cholorophyllosophy. my family tree says all i need to hear."

Salman Rushdie

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

The National Enquirer

Two things you didn't know about the founder of the National Enquirer, Generoso Pope, Jr.

- He attended Horace Mann and MIT
- He worked in psy-ops for the CIA