December 2010
75 posts
Get On the Bus
This is a superior list of superior Tumblr entities. Precious jewels, all.
kateoplis:
citadelnow: Our List: The Best News Tumblrs
washingtonpoststyle:
Seriously? Another list that omits us? In favor of The Huffington Post’s Tumblr, which hasn’t been updated IN A MONTH? GET ON THE BUS, PEOPLE.
I’m not going to comment on this ‘list’; instead, here’s mine in no particular order:
TheAtlantic
...
"Is Patton Oswalt the Heidegger of Our Time?" →
“Enframing means the gathering together of that setting-upon which sets upon man, i.e., challenges him forth, to reveal the real, in the mode of ordering, as standing-reserve. Enframing means that way of revealing which holds sway in the essence of modern technology and which is itself nothing technological.” (That’s Heidegger, not Oswalt, but sometimes it’s hard to tell!)
“I know that a lot of what I’m listing here seems like it’s outside of the “nerd...”
– Friend of LQ, the virtuous Patton Oswalt in an op-ed piece about pop culture digestion. (via soupsoup)
Hatching Monsters: Lessons in Fame from P.T.... →
longreads:
“Put on the appearance of business, and generally the reality will follow.” And what follows then? Profit. How is this miracle achieved? First, through false superlatives and inflated rhetoric, e.g., “The world-famous _______ is the greatest one ever seen.” Then, through repetition: if one asserts a claim often enough, the claim (true or untrue) achieves, as we say now, traction. But...
becomingbrey asked: I just a few minutes ago received my very own Volume II of Lapham's as the first present to be opened on Christmas morning. I can't express how excited I am to get reading :) thank you and a happy Christmas to everyone at Lapham's!
Ben, 18, from Venice, CA.
Ben, 18, from Venice, CA.
“If a child has concluded, all on her own, that it’s impossible for a man in a...”
– Hank Stuever, while scrutinizing the famous “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus” editorial, in his book “Tinsel: A Search for America’s Christmas Present.” (via washingtonpoststyle)
He lives, and he lives forever...
DEAR EDITOR: I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, ‘If you see it in THE SUN it’s so.’ Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus? VIRGINIA O’HANLON. 115 WEST NINETY-FIFTH STREET. VIRGINIA, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except [what]...
Best if played with the silent 1898 Christmas film...
“I need not tell you that the scintillating evergreen was a pretty sight—one can...”
– Edward Johnson, c. 1882. An associate of Thomas Edison, Johnson made this observation while gazing at his new electric-lit Christmas tree. From “How the Christmas Tree Got Its Lights.”
"Aristophanes’s 400 B.C. Hit Spider-Man Seems... →
Spi. Shall I do any of those old tricks, Goblin, At which the audience never fail to swoon? Nor. Any trick you please except “soaring through the air,” Don’t use it yet—we’ve enough time before us
Today Nathanael West died in a crash while driving... →
So says @ebertchicago. Full of facts that one.
“I found it impossible to concentrate. It worried me. I remember staring at my...”
– Vincente Minnelli, 1974
On NPR’s Weekend Edition, Paul Collins...
Weekend Read: Vanishing Act →
Thanks Longreads!
longreads:
“Some prodigies flourish, some disappear. But Barbara did leave one last comment to the world about writing—a brief piece in a 1933 issue of Horn Book that earnestly recommends that parents give their own children typewriters. ‘Perhaps there would simply be a terrific wholesale destruction of typewriters,’ she admits. ‘An effort would have to be made to impress...
“Reputation ought to be the perpetual subject of my thoughts and aim of my...”
– John Adams, from his diary at age twenty-three, expressing the thoughts of ambitious twenty-three-year-olds everywhere.
christinaaar asked: Lapham's Quarterly, what is the name of your tumblr theme?
c. 1874: Gossip Girl
One morning I twisted a piece of black velvet into a toque, stuck a quill through it, and went to Sandown Park. A few days later this turban appeared in every milliner’s window labeled “The Langtry Hat.” “Langtry” shoes, which are still worn, were launched, and so on and so on. It was very embarrassing, and it had all come about so suddenly that I was bewildered. If I went for a stroll in the...
“Men think highly of those who rise rapidly in the world, whereas nothing rises...”
– Augustus Hare, c. 1870
“Worldly fame is but a breath of wind that blows now this way, now that, and...”
– Dante, c. 1315
The Metaphysics of a Onesie
Theodor Adorno once said: “Not only is the self entwined in society; it owes society its existence in the most literal sense.” Which I’m pretty sure means that this picture of him in a onesie is required to go viral, for like, the good of mankind or something.
housingworksbookstore:
mcnallyjackson:
From loyal customer Anna comes this. She says, over twitter: “I see your...
“This frozen daiquiri, so well beaten as it is, looks like the sea where the wave...”
– Ernest Hemingway, on the mystique if the frozen daiquiri, from Islands in the Stream. (via The Atlantic)
Great Beatdowns in Literature →
Holden Caulfield vs. pimp. Bond vs. Le Chiffre. Frankenstein vs. angry villagers. Earl of Gloucester vs. sharp, pointy objects.
“Literature and butterflies are the two sweetest passions known to man.”
– Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977)
It’s Friday. Time to pour out some...