July 2010
Reader's Request Week: Punch-Drunk Love (2002)
Reader’s Request Week(s) at BWDR officially comes to an end today with Meaghan’s wonderful essay on one of the very best films of last decade, Punch-Drunk Love…
meaghano:
Besides the fact that I just noticed I said “weeks” twice in the same few sentences and now want to kill myself—I wrote this little 8 year old movie review at Steve Spillman’s behest and I had a lot of fun...
Burden of Tomorrow - The Tallest Man on Earth
I...
a bright wall in a dark room.: Reader's Request... →
by Sarah Malone
Maybe you’ve known couples like George (Richard Burton) and Martha (Elizabeth Taylor). Maybe you’ve gotten similar invitations, unwisely offered, imprudently accepted—a few drinks after the party. Come over; we’d love to have you. It’s no imposition. We’re happy to have…
Seeing the Past in Color
themattsmith:
amazinglarry:
These images, by photographers of the Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information, are some of the only color photographs taken of the effects of the Depression on America’s rural and small town populations. The photographs are the property of the Library of Congress and were included in a 2006 exhibit Bound for Glory: America in Color.
There are...
Young Me/Now Me →
I’m sure everybody has seen this by now, but I’m just finding out about it and I think it’s FANTASTIC.
Reader's Request Week: Lars and the Real Girl...
brightwalldarkroom:
AN ISLAND NEVER CRIES
by Chad P.
“The whole conviction of my life now rests upon the belief that loneliness, far from being a rare and curious phenomenon, peculiar to myself and to a few other solitary men, is the central and inevitable fact of human existence.” - Thomas Wolfe
Lars is a lonely man, as so many of us are. He avoids life as much as humanly possible,...
“We are all so much together, but we are all dying of loneliness.”
– Albert Schweitzer
“No therapy is comfortable, because it involves dealing with pain. But...”
– Elvin Semrad, M.D.
Wolf and fox: The story of the story, →
or how our tumblrs led to a book deal
In April 2008, I started a tumblr.
It’s perfect for you, Alex said. Lazy, but present.
Alex is a cross between Valmont, Svengali and the Wizard of Oz. Craft of Valmont, babes of Svengali and paradoxical powers of the Wizard. He…
I did a guest post over at one of my favorite... →
And you can go read it and download all the musical goodness (including the best cover of “Graceland” that you will ever hear).
back home. vacation over. no rest for the weary.
Driving home from a vacation has to be one of the most melancholy things I can possibly think of. There’s the getting home, which has to be done, and that part is gloomy enough - each mile bringing you closer to where you started from just a week before, all that hope and happiness replaced now by purpose and resignation - but there’s also the awful realization that this thing you...
For the Anniversary of My Death
by W. S. Merwin
Every year without knowing it I have passed the day When the last fires will wave to me And the silence will set out Tireless traveler Like the beam of a lightless star
Then I will no longer Find myself in life as in a strange garment Surprised at the earth And the love of one woman And the shamelessness of men As today writing after three...
Tears are round, the sea is deep: Roll them overboard and sleep.
- W.H. Auden
a bright wall in a dark room.: Reader's Request... →
WHAT MAKES A MAN
by Karina Wolf
Maybe because I’ve only ever been a tourist, I accept the Coen brothers’ version of Los Angeles as plausible. The odd genesis of the city seems to uphold the filmmakers’ vision. Because it houses fame, notoriety and extraordinary wealth, the city also…
I mean, it’s freakin’ Reader’s Request Week, so you knew that a Big Lebowski...
does anything beat vacation?
no.
“All my life, my heart has yearned for a thing I cannot name.”
– André Breton (via unburyingthelead)
a bright wall in a dark room.: Reader's Request... →
IT’S JUST THIS THING THAT HAPPENED ALONG WITH EVERYTHING ELSE
by Chris Cantoni
Have you ever had the feeling that a movie was mirroring your life just a bit too closely? Like, uncomfortably so? You sink lower in your seat and glance around, convinced that everyone else is…
Watchsarah-ball:
Audio of Faulkner doing Q&A at UVA, with what is dually the most authoritative and most honeyed speaking voice ever. Yanked from this wonderful piece by Malcolm, on the university’s collection of such Faulkner files—now available, at last, online.
Wow, what an absolutely fantastic voice.
Monster Ballads - Chad (me)
Here’s a cover...
“You were gone now - I scarcely remember you that summer. You were simply one of...”
– F. Scott Fitzgerald, in a letter to his wife Zelda, 1930
(via)
The Men Who Stare at Screens: 64% higher risk of... →
jayparkinsonmd:
I’m coining the phrase “Screen Disease:”
Men who spent more than 23 hours a week watching TV and sitting in their cars (as passengers or as drivers) had a 64 percent greater chance of dying from heart disease than those who sat for 11 hours a week or less. What was unexpected was that many of the men who sat long hours and developed heart problems also exercised. Quite a few of...
a bright wall in a dark room.: Summer Movies Week:... →
I’M JUST TRYING TO TREAT MY FAMILY TO A LITTLE FUN
by Chad P.
To understand my love of National Lampoon’s Vacation you first have to understand that my dad is Clark W. Griswald. Tone down the more extreme pratfalls and absurdly outlandish behaviors (especially in the film’s final…
My essay on National Lampoon’s Vacation, my Dad/Chevy Chase, and my weird childhood is up today...
The Swimming Song - Loudon Wainwright III
This...
An excellent remix of Ginsberg's "Howl" from... →
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by brevity, over-connectedness, emotionally starving for attention, dragging themselves through virtual communities at 3 am, surrounded by stale pizza and neglected dreams, looking for angry meaning, any meaning, same hat wearing hipsters burning…
Despite all of my supposed training and experience, my very favorite personality test still remains the very first one that I ever took: The Meyers-Briggs. My mom went back to graduate school when I was in 6th grade and brought the MBTI home for my sister and I to take as some sort of homework assignment for her class. I’ve taken it several more times throughout the years, and I get the...
copycats:
Out on the Weekend - The Swell Season...
