December 2011
50 posts
2 tags
“Yet, mental illness is still taboo, especially in young women of dating age. And...”
– Sheila McClear. Investigate! Do not merely catalog!
dpdsprings:
One of the many things I don’t understand about Ryan Gosling’s fans on the Internet (besides which of his dud 2011 movies they saw that so inspired them) is: who wants to hear “hey girl”? Women who love being patronizingly addressed? Fag hags? Both?
I say “Hey girl” pretty often. Is that bad?
Top Thoughts of 2011
11) My favorite photograph of all time shows two friends sitting with their elbows on their knees. They look like they’re about to clink the beer cans they’re holding. Merry Christmas.
Top Thoughts of 2011
10) A certain type of person can tell a great story or throw out a killer one-liner in casual conversation, and that might be the best thing that person does all day, which is probably a fine use of his or her talents.
Top Thoughts of 2011
8) I went surfing with an economist this morning. He had just attended a friend’s funeral. This friend of his died very young and had had a promising life ahead of him. The economist remarked that many of the people who were at the funeral were high-powered big-achiever types with loads of potential, but many of them had decided to take jobs at big corporations where they made lots of money...
Top Thoughts of 2011
7) In New York this year I was at a bar trying out a half-assed theory about how children provide a way for young adults to transfer their narcissism onto someone else and that procreation might make certain young adults less self-centered. The woman I tried this theory out on said that that was an idea that only a certain type of privileged person might try out, and I said, “You’re...
Top Thoughts of 2011
6) For most people, it’s probably better to try to be good than to try to be famous, not least because being good, for most people, is probably less difficult.
Top Thoughts of 2011
5) Even though it is the most fun activity known to man, surfing is plagued with an entirely humorless culture. Except for the old coots who yell “Yahoooooooooie!” when they take off on waves, almost no one in a lineup ever smiles. I’m told my idea for novelty wetsuits that look like tuxedos would not succeed as a business.
Top Thoughts of 2011
4a) This next thing I’m about to describe is not always funny to me and in fact bothers me, but I’m going to describe it as funny anyway. There are two modes of expression in personal writing that bounce off one another in a sort of disgusting way. The first mode combines clipped, declarative sentences with unexamined depictions of fleeting emotions. It then adds enormous attention to...
Top Thoughts of 2011
3) I sometimes think it would be cool if 3-D printers got so sophisticated and cheap and everyone got so educated and rich that a person could just design his or her own high-tech device and use it to go on the internet — or do anything at all — without worrying about signing terms of use, or being marketed to, or being tracked in any way. But then I start to worry about this 3-D...
Top Thoughts of 2011
2) When I see some people make suggestions that would actually make the world a better place if everyone followed them, I get sort of mad. For example, someone wrote the other day that when people ask him for presents, he says, “Don’t give me anything. Instead, just make a small donation to charity.” Another guy wrote on Facebook, “If you’re wishing me a happy...
Top Thoughts of 2011
1) I often joke with my classmates that I’d like to work for an economic regulator so I could put bad capitalists in jail. This is unsettling to some of them because, for starters, we are in an MBA program. When they press me for details about why, I can’t really explain myself. This is partly because we’re usually drinking in a bar or surfing, but mostly because I remember...
Top Thoughts of 2011
9) The theme of some Greek tragedies, according to a class I took in college, is that sometimes you have to choose between love and duty. Nowadays, that can still be true, provided you love someone and also are morally obligated to do something.
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Careful with your Neti pot or amoebas will eat... →
keyholez:
seedz:
keyholez:
seedz reblogged a post from The Economist that began:
GENE MARKS’S blog post on Forbes.com, ostentatiously headlined “If I Was a Poor Black Kid”, didn’t actually offend me as much as it did many of the plethora of bloggers who’ve pilloried it over the past few days. As Forbes’s Kashmir Hill later posted, most of the vitriol seemed to be responding to the title....
“I understand that debates are not conducted in front of perfectly rational...”
– EY (via keyholez)
Wikipedia: List of Games With Concealed Rules →
“This was our fifth visit to Isla and one we looked forward to through the rough...”
– Chicago Tribune
What insensitive, brainless ding dong is running the Tribune’s travel wire? (Wait, is “editor” even still a job at the Tribune Company?)
This purported dispatch from Isla Mujeres manages to be utterly tone deaf, light on facts and full of cliches: call it the Tribune trifecta....
keyholez:
seedz reblogged a post from The Economist that began:
GENE MARKS’S blog post on Forbes.com, ostentatiously headlined “If I Was a Poor Black Kid”, didn’t actually offend me as much as it did many of the plethora of bloggers who’ve pilloried it over the past few days. As Forbes’s Kashmir Hill later posted, most of the vitriol seemed to be responding to the title. The post itself went...
Sady Doyle: My Top 5 Longreads of 2011 →
longreads:
There is no slogan more misunderstood, or more widely abused, than “the personal is political.”
“One thing I find paradoxical is that highly numerate people, people in the...”
– (via rustbelts)
Objective Correlative: Surprisingly, I am less... →
towirr:
A gentleman named Farhad Manjoo just posted a proudly contrarian article on Slate explaining why independent bookstores are not only irrelevent but maybe even harmful. I work at an independent bookstore, so that’s an argument I’d be very very curious to see made well.
Genuine question: To what extent are indie bookstores competing directly with Amazon? Obviously Amazon would destroy...
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Ruth: Neither of us I think have been people who 'always wanted to' start our own company. That was like literally last on my list of Dream Occupations.
Emily: Really? I always sort of knew I would eventually have to.
Ruth: Yeah, no.
Emily: I was, like, dreading it.
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“It would also not be fair to the protesters because then you’re running...”
– Mike Bloomberg.
Can you believe?
alexanderbasek:
I’ve lived on the Internet this long and this was the first time I wrote a slideshow?
This reeks of collusion.
“Every week, as he gets to know the two teams, he quickly comes to view their...”
– This New Yorker profile of Jon Gruden shows that David Roth’s whimsical free associations are not artistic embellishments so much as shamanistic premonitions. People sometimes really are as insane as they appear on television.
“Things are falling apart in Houston, where center Chris Myers does not hold, but...”
– How do you feel about Mike Tanier?
“Ultimately, I know what I’m doing and why I’m doing it. I’m trying to be a...”
– Ian MacKaye Talks Fugazi Live Archives, Legacy, Nostalgia, Occupy Musicians (via zachbaron) 