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Viewing all posts tagged "interesting"
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”Finally, one wonders why epigraphs are always at the beginning of the book. Some stories end and make you want to hold the book to your chest and absorb it directly into your very soul. How moving it would be to me to finish a book and turn the page, sad that it’s all over and read an epigraph that reflects on all that’s come before.
Andrew Tutt, writing on epigraphs today in The Millions.
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Ethiopian Coffee Ceremony
An ornate ritual of appreciation, from the bean’s home country:
Ethiopia’s coffee ceremony is an integral part of their social and cultural life. An invitation to attend a coffee ceremony is considered a mark of friendship or respect and is an excellent example of Ethiopian hospitality. Performing the ceremony is almost obligatory in the presence of a visitor, whatever the time of day. Don’t be in a hurry though - this special ceremony can take a few hours. So sit back and enjoy because it is most definitely not instant.
Inspired by Slade Ham’s celebration of the drink in The Nervous Breakdown.
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Some half-formed thoughts on one future for bookselling
Reblogging this from austinkleon, who writes:
The future seems to be splitting in to directions: print-on-demand on the low-end, and book-as-object on the high-end. Interesting.
Not only that — it seems like Doctorow is looking forward to a future of extremely decentralized and deeply personal publishing. Sounds exciting.
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The Girlfriend Experience And Why We Are All In Grave Danger
Andrew Altschul reviews Steven Soderberg’s latest movie, The Girlfriend Experience. Beginning with a critique of the movie’s sordid and pointless plot he soars upwards to a beautiful and damning critique of so-called Realism. I don’t want to spoil the whole thing for you, but here’s just a taste:
In Reality we don’t need Laurence Olivier or Katherine Hepburn, we don’t need talented “elites” to write our scripts and shove complicated ideas about human nature down our throats. The medium is the message, as Marshall McLuhan showed us, and the message of Reality is that we are all actors, all writers, all of our opinions and abilities are as good as everyone else’s. Reality wants us to understand that the performers can’t perform, the writers can’t write, so as to better discredit and discard the function of true art and artists. They aren’t Real people: Olivier wasn’t better than you or me—just luckier; Toni Morrison’s ideas are no more important than David Duke’s.
The essay is eloquent and illuminating, and well worth the few minutes it takes to read it.
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Frodo and the Great War
This is fascinating: a summmary of a paper by John Garth that compares scenes and features from The Lord of the RIngs to aspects of the Great War that would have impressed themselves on the mind of a WWI soldier like J.R.R. Tolkien.
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The Best Fiction of the Millennium (So Far)
The Millions asks 48 writers, editors, and critics to name their favorite works of fiction of the new millennium, so far. I’m a little impressed that I’ve managed to read five of them, without even trying at all:
20: Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
19: American Genius, A Comedy by Lynne Tillman18: Stranger Things Happen by Kelly Link17: The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem
16: Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
15: Varieties of Disturbance by Lydia Davis14: Atonement by Ian McEwan
13: Mortals by Norman Rush
12: Twilight of the Superheroes by Deborah Eisenberg
11: The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz10: Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
9: Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage by Alice Munro
8: Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson
7: Austerlitz by W.G. Sebald6: The Road by Cormac McCarthy
5: Pastoralia by George Saunders
4: 2666 by Roberto Bolaño
3: Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
2: The Known World by Edward P. Jones
1: The Corrections by Jonathan FranzenThe full list has descriptions of each, along with excerpts, links to audio books, and other materials where appropriate. I should note that Stranger Things Happen, number 18 on the list, is available as a free, CC-licensed download.
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Iowa Sen. Charles E. Grassley is one connected dude. Blah blah blah blah long NYT article but look at that Kindle DX. Compared to the piles and piles of printed pages surrounding him, I’d say he’s ahead of the curve here.
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The Virgin Suicides' Sweet 16
Interesting look back on The Virgin Suicides and its author Jeffrey Eugenides, 16 years after the novel’s original publication. I was interested to learn that, outside of a short story based on the first chapter, it was his first published work.
I can’t remember the exact timeline, but I first picked this book up sometime during high school and was absolutely blown away by its tone and themes. It was also one of the first books that I can remember hearing about over the Internet. I’ve lost my original copy since then, but it remains one my favorite novels.
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Fact labels for credit cards
NYT op-ed on a proposal to radically simplify and standardize credit card information disclosure in order to help customers better understand what they’re getting into. I love this idea, inspired in part by the FDA’s nutrition facts standards — it’s good design that helps empower people.
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In awe of The Beatles: Rock Band opening cinematic by the consistently out-of-this-world Passion Pictures.
This is amazing. Watch it in HD at the link above. Watch it now.
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”Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.
William Morris
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Larkspur Press prints Kentucky books the old-fashioned way — with a real impact type, on fine paper, with hand-sewn bindings. We share some authors with them, but they mainly publish poetry and short fiction, with beautiful handmade engravings.
They serve an entirely different market than we do, but I’ve always loved their books. Perhaps I should organize a field trip to visit them.
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A clip from Buffy the Animated Series has found its way onto the Web. Why couldn’t one of the big networks have picked this one up? (via Jack Shedd)
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Telescopic Text
A cool little bit of JavaScript that shows how much a little copy editing and concision can change a piece of writing. (via matthewb)
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”Until that time … syphilis had been called the “French disease” in Italy and Germany, and the “Italian disease” in France. In addition, the Dutch called it the “Spanish disease”, the Russians called it the “Polish disease”, the Turks called it the “Christian disease” or “Frank disease” (frengi) and the Tahitians called it the “British disease”.
From this Wikipedia article while doing research for a press release. I guess we just name it after the people we don’t like? (My internship is teaching me the most fascinating things.)
Likes
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this is how I want to camp.
sweethomestyle:Camping (via redmann)
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“These Machines Kill Fascists” designed by You and Me, The Royal We
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ADA ad designed by Jeseok Yi
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where do I get trunks like that??
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Just saw a foursquare check-in to a church. I’m not sure God appreciates other people trying to...
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