January 2012
12 posts
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“I’d melt a bunch of interesting fats, like foie gras and cheeses and pork belly...”
– Shit my boyfriend says while watching the Top Chef Modernist Cuisine challenge. And in case you missed it, that’s a burger. (via noraleah)
Hahahaha. Yeah. Exactly. If he were on Top Chef, the show would devote 5 minutes of explanation to every 30 seconds he spent talking.
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from The Papers of David Smith, "Questions to...
3. Are you a balanced person with many interests and diversions?
11. Have you examined the echoes of childhood and first learning, which may have once given you the solutions? Are any of these expectancies still operating on your choices? 15. Do you think you owe your teachers anything, or Picasso or Matisse or Brancusi or Mondrian or Kandinsky? 16. Do you think you work should be aggressive? Do...
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“The good writer says no more than he thinks. And much depends on that. For...”
– Walter Benjamin, 1928
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December 2011
21 posts
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Films of 2011
Here are some films from the last year. Some are on Netflix, some on their way to Netflix, some are still in theaters. In lieu of a numbered ranking, I’ll link to a video that best exemplifies the sense of urgency you should embody.
A. Ludacris, Move Bitch (Get Out the Way)
A Separation [dir. Farhadi]
Drive [dir. Winding Refn]
Take Shelter [dir. Jeff Nichols]
B. The Weeknd, What You...
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On Fitzgerald
It occurred to me late last Sunday night that Scott Shepard had been on stage reading The Great Gatsby for 32 of the previous 80 hours. The Elevator Repair Service is returning to the Public Theater in March and April for a reprise of Gatz, and I can say this unequivocally; this is an important work. There have been plays - The King’s Men performing King Lear, Edwin Booth’s Hamlet, Sarah...
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Albrecht Durer: Portrait of the artist as an... →
from The Economist’s fantastic double-issue out this week.
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On Shame, Mad Men, and Period Pieces
The style of the Sixties in Mad Men is so relentless and polished in every detail that it actually deals a death blow to authenticity. It is caricature, not authenticity, and although that, in a David Lynch sort of way, can be thrilling and effective if you subvert the style to darker devices, Mad Men isn’t sure whether it wants to be pastiche or historical realism. It wants it both ways, and...
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“As for Robert, scarcely able to keep his place at the table, concealing beneath...”
– Marcel Proust, from Within A Budding Grove
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“Arriving in each city, the traveler finds a past he did not know he had: the...”
– Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities (Le città invisibili, Mondadori, Milan, 2002, p. 26 - 27, my transl.)
[ “Arrivando a ogni città il viaggiatore ritrova un suo passato che non sapeva d’avere: l’estraneità di ciò che non sei più o non possiedi più aspetta al varco nei luoghi estranei e non...
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“She was breathing deeply, she forgot the cold, the weight of beings, the insane...”
– Albert Camus (via ramonaray)
November 2011
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October 2011
4 posts
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“All these questions are purely academic, Russell oracled out of his shadow. I...”
– James Joyce, Ulysses
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September 2011
4 posts
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“And what wine! What variety - from bordeaux to burgundy, from burgundy to...”
– Friedrich Engels, “From Paris to Bern”
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August 2011
5 posts
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“The first known discovery of the island was in 1614. There are claims of earlier...”
– From the Wikipedia entry for Jan Mayen Island.
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Sonny Boy Williamson, “I Been Dealing with...
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“The syringe, which resembles a small turkey baster, kept Smith’s hand off...”
– Michael Brenson, from the introduction to David Smith: To and From the Figure
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“Moonlight in Vermont” is a popular song about the U.S. state of Vermont,...”
– The Wikipedia Entry to “Moonlight in Vermont.” Ella Fitzgerald’s version is particularly disarming, and I hadn’t heard it until just now. Buried among some of her other recordings, it struck me as peculiar, and this provides exactly the explanation I was looking for. Although...
July 2011
3 posts
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“I embraced the medical profession a couple of months ago. My first impressions...”
– William James, 1864, after abandoning painting to pursue a medical degree (which he would earn five years later and never use).
