Evolution is Convenient

Mina Loy

Mountain Goats

Chimps can giggle

Moose in the lake

From a New Yorker interview with Wells Tower:

There’s this metaphor I settled on for revisions. I was in Alaska on a kayaking trip, and I was warned by this park ranger to be really careful in the arctic lakes when the moose are around. A male moose will jump into the lake with the idea that a female moose is on the other side, and then he’ll get to the other side and think that the female is on the other side, and often the moose will continue to go back and forth until he drowns from his own indecision. To me, it’s a sitting metaphor for revision. You can’t keep mindlessly pacing from one impulse to another or you’ll drive yourself insane.

Ira Glass at work

Two movie recommendations

Anvil, the Story of Anvil


Guest of Cindy Sherman

Bob Dylan, on Obama's writing style

"It makes you feel and think at the same time and that is hard to do."

More here.

Never again

"You realize there'll never be another January 17, 1944? Never again."
Au Revoir Les Enfants

A minimum of illusions

"When he was asked, as he had so much money, and was besides so afraid of death, he chose to live in a house which was both flimsy and dangerous, Grimace said only that this form of habitation allowed him to live with a minimum of illusions."

Paul La Farge, Haussmann, or the Distinction