May 2013
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Vinegar and Oil, Jane Hirschfield
Wrong solitude vinegars the soul, right solitude oils it.
How fragile we are, between the few good moments.
Coming and going unfinished, puzzled by fate,
like the half-carved relief of a fallen donkey, above a church door in Finland.
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The Great Gatsby (2013) →
brightwalldarkroom:
AMONG THE WHISPERINGS AND THE CHAMPAGNE AND THE STARS.
by Chad Perman
I can’t handle how quickly modern culture moves. Mostly, I’m simply ill-equipped—needing time to think and reflect and sort out one’s thoughts feels dangerously close to being a handicap in the digital age. But at the…
My Gatsby thoughts, yo.
Yahoo in Talks to Acquire Tumblr - Adweek →
No no no no. Me no like. No no.
“What’s the impulse behind art? It’s saying in whatever language is the language...”
– Greil Marcus, 2013 commencement address at New York’s School of Visual Arts
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A Great Gatsby Book Report by a Kid Who Only Saw... →
By Jordan Asher Major Brogan III, age 16
The Great Gatsby is a very important and famous book which tells its story through many pages, all of which I enjoyed reading very much. It was written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, who lived from 1896 to 1940 and truly wrote many books. Through its use of characters, garbage falling from the sky all the time, and black people constantly playing the trumpet on a...
“Going through a drawer I found the submissions/applications log I’ve kept off...”
– Cheryl Strayed | Facebook
Cheryl knows.
(via therumpus)
Here is Today →
I can look at something like this for hours.
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“I think we all have this little theatre on top of our shoulders, where the past...”
– Dennis Potter
Millsin' About: An Important Fact About Your... →
millsinabout:
Although he’s viewed with much contempt and many of his ideas are now considered at best “interesting metaphors to ponder while thinking about yourself,” Freud continues to inform how many people think of the processes that produce selves and personalities. That is: the form of his ideas —which…
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How To Correspond With A Writer →
ecantwell:
Like many other writers on Tumblr and on the Internet in general, my inbox is full of messages like this:
“Hey can you look at my writing when you get a chance?”
“When are you going to respond to my email?” “I write poems and it would be great if you could look at them when you have time!”
IMPORTANT IMPORTANT IMPORTANT.
Read this whole thing. Listen to Elizabeth. Seriously.
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apoetreflects:
“It’s a most distressing affliction to have a sentimental heart and a skeptical mind.”
—Naguib Mahfouz, from Sugar Street: The Cairo Trilogy, Volume 3 (Anchor, 2011)
The Loop Magazine →
parislemon:
Following in Marco Arment’s footsteps, Jim Dalrymple has released a bi-monthly magazine on Apple’s Newsstand.
I really like the movement towards self-publishing of original content that is paid for by the readers (The Loop Magazine is $1.99 per month). And I love the move away from the bloated 700 MB magazine downloads that big publishers puke up once a month.
Here’s more in...
“Oh we’re a mess, poor humans, poor flesh—hybrids of angels and animals, dolls...”
– Richard Siken, Black Telephone (Spork Editor’s Page)
Woody Allen Extremely Busy Updating WoodyAllen.com... →
Everything about this is the best.
“Additionally, Allen recently incorporated an integrated blog where the 77-year-old posts entries about his personal life several times a day. The posts range from shorter entries such as “It’s a gorgeous day in New York City! What do you guys like to do when it’s nice outside?” to longer musings in which Allen openly discusses the ups and downs in his...
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“Let’s face it. We’re undone by each other. And if we’re not, we’re missing...”
– Judith Butler, Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence
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“I want him pissed off at politicians, ill at ease, trying to manipulate me into...”
– Karen Green, on her late husband, David Foster Wallace
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“…Art is simply inevitable. It was on the wall of a cave in France 30,000 years...”
– Steven Soderbergh
You’ve probably seen this everywhere, and if you haven’t yet, make the time to read it. (via restinvermont)
“Watching someone, even someone to whom you’re close, will always emphasize the...”
– Helena Fitzgerald, “All Our Little Lives” (The New Inquiry)
a bright wall in a dark room.: Scott Pilgrim vs.... →
brightwalldarkroom:
by Andrew Root
“At least it’ll give us something to complain about.”
I have a coffee mug without a handle. Granted, it’s difficult to drink anything hot out of it without constantly shifting the cup from hand to hand, or sipping quickly then setting it back down. It’s a warm shade of…
Andrew absolutely knocks it out of the park with this essay. A must read.
April 2013
Poem Without Forgiveness, Dean Young
The husband wants to be taken back into the family after behaving terribly, but nothing can be taken back, not the leaves by the trees, the rain by the clouds. You want to take back the ugly thing you said, but some shrapnel remains in the wound, some mud. Night after night Tybalt’s stabbed so the lovers are ground in mechanical aftermath. Think of the gunk that never comes off the...
The Electric Typewriter: 10 Excellent Essays →
tetw:
As Chosen by Roxane Gay
Roxane Gay, author, essayist, editor (at Pank, The Rumpus and Bluestem), and professor, has picked 10 of her favourite essays for us. As she rightly says, “their excellence speaks for itself”:
The Love of My Life by Cheryl Strayed Notes From…
I Love Winnie Cooper
newyorker:
“Winnie Cooper was, in a sense, the first pretty girl to smile at me—at all of us—and for that reason, because of her benevolence and sympathy—because she appeared to understand—she continues to endure while so many others have fallen away.”
Mike Spies on the cultural impact of The Wonder Years’s Winnie Cooper: http://nyr.kr/11BGwlE
This is a gorgeous, wonderful essay, not...
“After “Friday Night Lights” ended, my wife and I were adrift. I still talk to...”
– Jad Abumrad (Radiolab)
For the record, I am never not talking to Coach Taylor in my head, at all times.
WatchI Need My Girl - The National
(live on Jimmy Fallon, 4/25/13)
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“Film criticism was a great accident for me. Although I studied film in school,...”
– Michelle Orange
(This. Exactly.)
a bright wall in a dark room.: Out of Sight (1998) →
brightwalldarkroom:
YOU’RE A BANK ROBBER. THAT’S NOT A VERY MARKETABLE SKILL.
by Taylor Long
For years, I considered my love for Out of Sight to be a “guilty pleasure,” but I’m not sure why. I don’t remember the first time I saw it – probably on a late night run on HBO, Encore, or Starz – but I know I…
One of my favorite films made in the last 15 years, no joke. Great essay.
infinitegestures:
pitchfork:
The National will...
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“Movies are so rarely great art that if we cannot appreciate great trash we have...”
– Pauline Kael
a bright wall in a dark room.: Bill & Ted's Bogus... →
brightwalldarkroom:
YOU MIGHT BE A KING OR A LITTLE STREET SWEEPER, BUT SOONER OR LATER YOU DANCE WITH THE REAPER
by Michelle Said
I assume that you are familiar with Bill S. Preston, Esquire and Ted Theodore Logan, they of metalheaded duncehood and the time-travelling phone booth. And I will assume…
Tis a sigh that is wafted across the troubled wave, Tis a wail that is heard upon the shore Tis a dirge that is murmured around the lowly grave Oh hard times come again no more.
Hard Times Come Again No More (1854)
Interview with Elizabeth Cantwell →
laurabeckner:
I guess one thing that’s probably pretty obvious about me from my poems is that I have a very strained relationship with the body. I spent a lot of my life wishing that I could be just a mind — no body at all, just a perfect, incorporeal mind — and I’ve spent the last few years trying to come back around to some sort of truce with the body. I think perhaps the unreal elements...
