February 2012
3 posts
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January 2012
16 posts
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Notes On The Wire
I think because I just cringed my way through this entire twitter feed, and also maybe because in the back of my head somewhere I know that people are starting a new semester, I’ve been thinking about how Anthropology and Sociology Departments are increasingly holding up The Wire as a valuable text in building an understanding of America’s collapsing inner city.
And, of course, I am as guilty of...
n+1: Raise the Crime Rate →
America’s prison system is a moral catastrophe. The eerie sense of security that prevails on the streets of lower Manhattan obscures, and depends upon, a system of state-sponsored suffering as vicious and widespread as any in human history. Dismantling the system of American gulags, and holding accountable those responsible for their operation, presents the most urgent humanitarian imperative of...
Not speaking the lingo, I grin a lot—a genial,... →
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“Dude! I didn’t know you lived out here. What’s up?”
“Yeah. Well, actually I live in Bushwick and I think you might have the wrong person.”
“You are exactly right. You are not Michael Freewell, are you? Sorry.”
“Yeah. No. Sorry.”
“So Bushwick, huh. Lots of churches out there. Everyone’s looking for deliverance.”
...
A Kafkaesque tour de force, the literary event of... →
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“What is Tumblr?”
– Whit Stillman.
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Consciousness-Raising
Jenny Turner’s long long essay in the December 15th issue of The LRB is one of the more incomprehensible collections of half-thoughts I have read in months. This week’s letters to the editor rightfully take it to task.
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This is why I don’t take it lightly that everyone talks about Ellen Willis testing her records by dancing in front of her mirror. Dancing is often belittled because it’s seen as an anti-intellectual response to music, plus it’s something girls like to do. But it’s actually a great way to evaluate your records, especially if what you’re searching for is the experience of freedom that rock and...
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"So I’m going to lay this down, just to clarify,... →
December 2011
13 posts
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WatchSister crosses the Brazos (2011)
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It is 10pm on Christmas day, and a Sunday to boot, and the only place open near the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport is a 7/11 so Emma and I get hot dogs and jalapeño taquitos for ourselves and two Cokes for Mom and Dad and then climb back into the rental car where a Hertz branded GPS unit reprieves us for taking that detour in a way that would make you think it cared about our health.
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What We Talk About When We Talk About What We Talk...
What We Talk About When We Talk About Lust (The New York Times, Aug. 1998)
What We Talk About When We Talk About Doughnuts (The New Yorker, May 1999)
What We Talk About When We Talk About Editing (The New York Times, July 2005)
What We Talk About When We Talk About Art (The New York Times, Dec. 2007)
What We Talk About When We Talk About Swimming (The New York Times, Aug. 2008)
What We Talk About...
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Office Emails pt. 1
To: Crown Publishing Group
Subject : Sorry about the smell!
Hi Everyone,
I accidentally opened up a jar of kimchi near the fax machine on the 6th floor, sorry about the smell. No need to be alarmed, it is just spiced fermented cabbage and radishes. My apologies.
-Kevin Sweeting - Crown Marketing
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"Derek Boogaard was scared. He did not know whom...
The NYTs feature on Derek Boogaard and hockey enforcers is really great and everything, but this opening sentence from the second installment is probably the most over dramatic thing I’ve seen since Doug Funnie’s older sister.
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“For the first hour, attendees, most in their mid-20s and many dressed in...”
– Bah, everyone is always trying to fuck everyone all the time. Don’t let a dog eared copy of Debord and a MA convince you otherwise.
November 2011
12 posts
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WatchI resisted for years. I don’t like watching my food get made. I don’t want to decide between Pimento beans and black beans. I don’t want to hear a high school senior tell me that guacamole is going to cost extra or watch them schlop delicious, liquid sour cream onto my Barbacoa Burrito Bowl. I don’t want unhinge my jaw, snake-like, and vacuum down mouthfuls without even...
“Then, midway through this tuned and calculated Christmas reverie, Mr. Gingrich...”
– I basically assume all of you have read Joan Didion’s 1995 bodying of Newt Gingrich, from the NYRB? If you haven’t, you should; especially now. Check out the name that shows up at the end of the first paragraph! (via celebraterickysargulesh)
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This mysterious and forever-dribbling blonde is just one of the many reasons you might enjoy browsing Hannelore Knuts’ fashion editorial for Opening Ceremony.
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Karen and Ellen and Mark
I’ll resist cluttering your dashboard with the dramatics of my landlord situation but you should probably be following the landlord/tenet correspondence at Karen and Ellen.
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“Ali and Shah said geopolitics that divide Muslims and Jews have no bearing on...”
– Whatta Town!
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Herfra Hvor Vi Står
I spent Halloween 2010 in a Copenhagen University dorm building that is famous for throwing huge parties and has, like most places in Copenhagen, an impossible to pronounce name. I was in Copenhagen having the worst time of my life while ostensibly “studying abroad” but mostly just sulking around alone and chaining packs of House Of Prince cigarettes while trying not to spend any...
October 2011
11 posts
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FYI, if I still ran the show at SkidmoreUnofficial.com every post would just be a picture of a freshman boy trying really hard at a Scribner party with the caption “Who Is This Motherfucker Right Here?”.
Nothing more, nothing less.
Tuesday Morning
Here are two things to read at your desk and then frantically minimize every time you hear a suggestion of approaching footsteps.
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Tyler Coates: I am fifteen pages into 'The Art of...
tylercoates:
I don’t know much about how colleges recruit athletes, but I am pretty sure that actual baseball players do not find high school seniors and get them enrolled.
Having worked in university admissions, I am 100% certain that college baseball players who are freelancing as recruiters cannot call high schools and obtain transcripts.
The kid shows up to the college on the first day...
