December 2008
77 posts
two things
Reading Lolita in Tehran
Philip Roth in Khartoum
Like Le Corbusier, I am known for my stark...
magicmolly:
Tonight’s decision is whether or not to go to a party with a bunch of kids I knew in high school. Except it isn’t really a decision, because there’s no conflict. I don’t want to go, and I ain’t gonna.
It is always hard to know whether I should heed my perennial urge to be alone or force myself to socialize. I spent so long feeling ashamed of my (involuntary) aloneness that I feel...
"An American renowned as an anti-kidnap expert has... →
Via John Robb. Shouldn’t we be very worried about Mexico?
my world is different
Things that make me nauseous:
Drinking tea on an empty stomach. (Coffee’s perfectly fine.)
Things that don’t make me nauseous:
Reading on the bus.
PoDW transcripts →
derrinyet:
Anybody want to start a re-enactment group?
Yes. Let’s start with the first episode, “The Quest”. I’ll play Ren. Ahem:
There, I saw it again!
“The only problem is that we’ve developed a terrorist’s mindset in which the...”
– JN
Rick Warren
If I’m remembering correctly, my hero Prof. Roberto Mangabeira Unger once condemned Rick Warren — to his face, in a lecture hall — as a “pharisaical perverter of Christianity.” I was not there, but when he later recounted the story in another class, he seemed proud to have upset the guy.
Clipse
“the coke that I push is as pure as a child’s heart”
deflation has ruined my life
Suddenly I don’t feel so great about having bought those “forever” stamps.
“We’ll set the grass on fire as our rocket ship shoots to the sky.
Leave...”
– Elysian Fields, “Set the Grass on Fire”, from the album Bum Raps and Love Taps (2006). Good “grass vs. spaceship” anti-Wall-E imagery. Also: space poetry?
“One of [Bernanke’s] first tasks was to deliver a monthly economics...”
– John Cassidy, “Anatomy of a Meltdown: Ben Bernanke and the Financial Crisis”, New Yorker 12/1/08, 53-4. Amazing.
Chinese bridge constructed with rockets to span a... →
“A few weeks before I left Berkeley, I ran into one of my psych-department...”
– SR
sexuality
mortgagez: "whoa" was in re: you having this pdf [of a journal article about monetary policy, from JSTOR]
mortgagez: what is your secret?
me: ladies never tell
me: i have an acquaintance who's still at harvard, so i got her to give me her access info
mortgagez: "her" huh
mortgagez: she sounds hot
noösphere
Yesterday Mrs. K. and I watched an episode of Top Chef in which the Foo Fighters, oddly, acted as judges. The contestants were encouraged to make foods inspired by the band’s “rider”, which said, among other things, that they enjoyed bacon. Dave Grohl, the “frontman”, said repeatedly that he “like[d him] the bacon”, etc.
I complained to Mrs. K. that...
“Jason Thomas had a nagging feeling.
The New Century Financial Corporation, a...”
– NYT. Now, at last, I have a job to want; the task now is to dress for it.
“If you consider the loot of every human adventure - everything that was ever...”
– EY
a misunderstanding
One day recently, when I was on the subway, some guy was annoying everyone by listening to Young Jeezy songs on his cell phone; he was basically broadcasting them. Another guy was sitting across from him, affecting nonchalance and neutrality, holding a brown bag with a bottle-shaped object inside it.
Guy 1: Yo, is that that Grey Goose?!
Guy 2: No. It’s…it’s just wine.
Guy 1:...
At CVS today
hartman:
I saw two employees enthusiastically pantomiming the shoe-throwing incident in slow motion. They repeated it several times, and in between takes the guy playing Bush would say things like “No, man, it was more like… and then he ducks so quick… “
I first learned of the incident in question while waiting at the “local” laundromat (quotation marks justified because at least one...
there's still hope
Me: $50? Psh. I can't even get a whore for that kind of money.
Mrs. K.: Oh, I don't know, honey -- deflation!
"Mr. Madoff’s fraud appears to have been designed...
katiebakes:
White-collar crime professor Peter J. Henning writes a compelling and ultimately depressing argument that Madoff’s scam differed in its means from the classic Ponzi scheme:
…Judging from the indictment, Mr. Madoff’s program was, in many ways, the exact opposite of the pyramid schemes that offer outsized returns on investments in everything from solar-powered gadgets to the...
NOT the chosen generation?
mortgagez: we missed dotcom, missed hedge funds, and we'll *just* miss immortality
mortgagez: we suck
me: don't count us out yet, there could still be some kind of nuclear catastrophe
“On October 14, West, in collaboration with Italian artist Vanessa Beecroft,...”
– Wiki again
“[Kanye] West himself openly stated that he loves using Auto-Tune and is dismayed...”
– 808s and Heartbeak Wikipedia article
“Krlind all nonprofit leaches
Forthis sort of left commerce and industry sudpe...”
– me, taking notes on my iPhone. I…don’t know what my point was.
“The food truck man, Mr. Samolis, said he often gives free food to inmates who...”
– Corey Kilgannon, “Selling Baubles in the Shadow of Rikers Island”, NYT 9/25/08. Rather heart-breaking, despite the funny joke at the end.
“Saying you want to do something weird for value or symbolic belief reasons is...”
– RH, re: cryonics (“Hated Because It Might Work”) — but he could have just as easily been talking about the paleolithic diet, or certain forms of drug use…
phantom torso →
WARNING: extremely disturbing imagery.
Sine-wave speech →
Despite the “boring” description here YOU MUST GO TO THIS LINK AND LISTEN TO THE THINGS IT TELLS YOU TO LISTEN TO IT IS AN AMAZING EFFECT ::brain explosion::
Space.
MySpace.
Kottke:
Just Like the Movies is a short film by Michal Kosakowski that samples footage from movies that were made prior to September 2001 to recreate the events of 9/11.
It’s…exceedingly strange. It strongly implies that Jeff Goldblum did terrorism. And maybe it’s even a little offensive?!? (Caper music.) Worth watching!
UPDATE: I guess this really belongs elsewhere, but...
“Cryonics, to me, makes two statements.
The first statement is about...”
– Eliezer. I added the bold. He added the Joker reference. Hey! That’s our thing.
Me: Serial killers are the horses of humans for girls.
Mrs. K.: Yes.
Me: ...
Mrs. K.: Because...they like them?
Me: Yes.
“When the war with the machines starts, Africa will be humanity’s last...”
– Kottke. So much to say…
Dunkin' Donuts coffee drinkers apparently correct...
This story is amazing:
Bernard L. Madoff, a legend among Wall Street traders, was arrested on Thursday morning by federal agents and charged with criminal securities fraud stemming from his company’s money management business.
Maybe he lost $17 billion of investor money? Maybe $50 billion? Difficult to say from what’s been released so far. As of a few hours ago, S&P futures were down...
the meme that wouldn't die
Beginning on national television today, a new spot will depict vignettes of hard-working Americans who have taken a blind taste test during their busy daily routines. A poll-taker seeks their vote and makes a checkmark on a clipboard to illustrate the results. The spot … offers an entertaining, light-hearted approach that leaves the unmistakable message that consumers prefer Dunkin’...