February 2012
2 posts
David Foster Wallace and the Fun in Working
This post is so insanely beautiful. READ IT.
I first ran across Max Kennerly when I was researching a piece on Aaron Swartz last year; he had written by far the best analysis of the legal issues surrounding that crazy indictment. I might have known that Kennerly, Esq. would be equally insightful about a lot of other things.
plus ça change
[T]he debauchery of politics and business by great dishonest corporations is far worse than any actual material evil they do the public.
Theodore Roosevelt’s Fifth Annual Message, Dec. 5, 1905. (This website is amazing, too.)
January 2012
4 posts
This person is just terrible. →
No, lady, I do not hate my husband, nor do I drink myself into a stupor because I can’t stand him, nor do I fantasize about leaving him day and night. Jeeps, what a weirdo.
1 tag
lol
Have you considered starting your own website with your ex-Gawker colleagues, perhaps a kinder, gentler Gawker? Wouldn’t a kinder, gentler Gawker be hideously unreadable? No, we never talked about that. It would be hysterical but we haven’t.
Choire Sicha, 12/5/2007, in an interview with Gothamist.
December 2011
4 posts
Stop #SOPA telethon →
Here’s a very easy link to call your Representatives today, before this thing gets any worse. Well worth the five minutes or less it will take.
so thrilled to be part of the #longreads thing. →
longreads:
Maria Bustillos is a journalist who writes frequently for The Awl.
***
The power of Allison Benedikt’s “Life After Zionist Summer Camp” (The Awl) derives from the purity of its point of view, which is that of one person’s lived experience, minutely and honestly detailed. Benedikt…
2011 longreads
I was without internet for two days, so while I was spinning my wheels a bit, I made a spreadsheet of all the #longreads through 11/21 from their main feed. I wound up choosing some that were not on that list, though.
You’re supposed to choose only five!! very difficult. There’s been so much great writing this year.
November 2011
4 posts
“Imagine if the Democrats offered Republicans a deficit deal that had more than...”
–
More from geeky dreamboat Ezra Klein on the Republicans’ dual trigger nightmare here. (via ibad)
I love Ezra Klein so much.
(via c-newt)
This is a lovely little theory that’s been bandied about recently, although it gives me cold comfort to think that the best thing Congress can do for the...
on the heels of yesterday's chat about unexamined... →
Here’s Lapo Elkann—33-y.o. grandson of Gianni Agnelli, “obscenely rich playboy” and product consultant at Ferrari, cover boy of this week’s How to Spend It in this week’s FT—explaining how you can buy a “Tailor Made” custom Ferrari, but only within certain parameters of, erm. Taste. The photographs are utterly boggling.
“The Ferrari of...
yakkin' about butter with david roth
(no, not yak butter)
I love everything David Roth says ever. So this was the most fun thing. It’s really more about Adam Gopnik and how mad people get about luxury, specifically writing that describes luxury. But there’s a lot of butter in there, as well.
October 2011
2 posts
This might be my favorite song that Michael Mullen...
Theological reflections on Wikipedia, incl. Fire!
Librarian Melody Layton McMahon of the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago assigned her students to read my Wikipedia piece at The Awl, and then they wrote some fantastic things about it here.
!!!
September 2011
10 posts
evanfleischer asked: Sorry to hear that. Too much noise -- and weird, warped noise at that -- does not a happy writer make.
on having people get really mad at you
That thing I wrote about Jon Stewart and Rick Perry at The Awl some days ago had people really shrieking at me a lot, one way and another. It is kind of perverse how attracted to that kind of reaction I am, and also weird because I am such a peaceable and yielding guy in regular life. But I guess am a moth to the flame of rage, because I always want to say, how come you are so mad? I really want...
Me too.
hiredgoons:
Adam thinks Vincent Price is sexy.
6 tags
child labor at the Huffington Post →
futurejournalismproject:
Last Friday Forbes reported that AOL’s Huffington Post Media Group is launching HuffPost High School, a vertical aimed at the teen set.
The site will be edited by a paid 17-year-old but like much of the Huffington Post, content will be produced for free. In this case by unpaid teenage bloggers.
Running with the strategy, AOL will also solicit unpaid contributions from...
5 tags
Jon Stewart, Stop Hurting America! | The Awl →
thethirdshift:
dorkismo:
titivil:
dorkismo:
thethirdshift:
Maria Bustillos wants to take Jon Stewart to task for criticizing people for cheering the mention of the number of people Texas Gov. Rick Perry has overseen the execution of during his tenure at last week’s Republican presidential debate (the video is on YouTube still, probably, and has already made the rounds). Bustillos goes...
more cheering for death
So at last night’s tea party debate, Ron Paul was asked what he thought ought to happen to a healthy 30-year-old man with no health insurance who suddenly develops a serious illness requiring six months of intensive care. “That’s what freedom is all about, taking your own risks,” Ron Paul replied. This got a big round of applause. An unusually poised, together Wolf Blitzer...
5 tags
Jon Stewart, Stop Hurting America! | The Awl →
titivil:
dorkismo:
thethirdshift:
Maria Bustillos wants to take Jon Stewart to task for criticizing people for cheering the mention of the number of people Texas Gov. Rick Perry has overseen the execution of during his tenure at last week’s Republican presidential debate (the video is on YouTube still, probably, and has already made the rounds). Bustillos goes for the tack that is...
5 tags
Jon Stewart, Stop Hurting America! | The Awl →
thethirdshift:
Maria Bustillos wants to take Jon Stewart to task for criticizing people for cheering the mention of the number of people Texas Gov. Rick Perry has overseen the execution of during his tenure at last week’s Republican presidential debate (the video is on YouTube still, probably, and has already made the rounds). Bustillos goes for the tack that is essentially, “Look, these people...
bless Josh Marshall.
If you listen to the establishment press the president’s speech will determine whether the president listens to “liberals” and ditches the move toward economic austerity or “moderates” and Republicans and sticks to budget cutting. In fact, it’s more like the most of the economics profession, the bond market and the “liberals” on one side and...
August 2011
6 posts
2 tags
maria bustillos: muchlessmuchmore: doctordisaster:... →
muchlessmuchmore:
muchlessmuchmore:
doctordisaster:
If I have to hear one more musical-theater-inflected douchebag completely missing the point of a Beatles song I think I will kill a musical-theater-inflected douchebag who is completely missing the point of a Beatles song.
“Please Please Me” asks the…
Accidental indeed! I swiped that line from here.
What’s the Lester Bangs quote?
(O...
2 tags
muchlessmuchmore:
doctordisaster:
If I have to hear one more musical-theater-inflected douchebag completely missing the point of a Beatles song I think I will kill a musical-theater-inflected douchebag who is completely missing the point of a Beatles song.
“Please Please Me” asks the listener to consider the torment of existence weighed against the anguish of nonbeing. Right?
This is a...
another explosion of the crazy in the WikiLeaks /...
A Twitter account appeared last night, @ex_wl_arch, purporting to be the Twitter of the Architect who left WikiLeaks with Daniel Domscheit-Berg last September. His few posts indicated that he has left OpenLeaks now, as well. Nobody knows if he is for real or not, though, not yet. This is terrible, if so, because it will leave the possibility of a working online leaks platform even more remote than...
We had this big wrangle this morning
over the tax dodges of Google, and whether or not these practices make Google “evil.” I’m like YES transfer pricing should not even be allowed, and even if it is allowed it should not be resorted to, because god knows it is going to be well-nigh impossible to get a Congress that will outlaw this kind of corporate flim-flamming (cf. Warren Buffett’s op-ed in the NYT this...
2 tags
rats!
So sad about Wisconsin. Such a squeaker!
I have real trouble understanding how anybody in Wisconsin who has endured these last months could still vote for a tea partier. But this is something we Democrats very much need to understand.
now what the heck
This New York Times article regarding the diminished reputation of the US as a financial stronghold is a good place to start in determining how to handle the next election (for progressives, I mean.) Too many of us have been concentrating on the President’s (admitted, and enraging) weaknesses with respect to national ha! security—going after whistleblowers in direct contravention of...
July 2011
2 posts
Could Geert Wilders be any more absurd, NO he...
Check out Wilders’ response to the fact that Breivik claimed him as an ideological ally (it’s true, he is one!) Amazin’.
June 2011
9 posts
Yellow Magic Orchestra at the Hollywood Bowl
They opened with ‘Computer Game’, a sonic madeleine. Both Yukihiro Takahashi and Ryuichi Sakamoto have aged very well indeed. so that they were a joy to see, not only hear. Sakamoto’s thick hair now elegantly grey, and Takahashi (my favorite, truly the Lennon to Sakamoto’s McCartney) still so slender and strong, drumming in a dashing fedora. Philo Hagen came with me and he...
good advice from David House
David House read a statement today after his grand jury hearing in Alexandria.
“The Administration’s goal is to force these individuals to testify against this media organization in an attempt to cast its publications and those of its media partners — the New York Times, the Guardian, Der Spiegel, Le Monde, and El Pais — as acts of espionage. The government has also violated my...
“Because I look at “Modern Warfare,” and I go, “This should be hanging in a...”
– The finale. (via deepomega)
Truth x one million. (I would love to play power chords but I think it would be pretty silly at this late stage. Still: a thought.)
Brooklyn Mutt: Dear Debbie Wasserman Schultz →
titivil:
dragonflyb:
I cannot tell you how many hours I have spent dedicated to the cause of the Democratic Party. I am a party loyalist in Texas. In Texas, where the fight is hard, the hours are long, and the victories few. I live vicariously through people in bluer states and I have pride in all of…
Cosigned, if I may be permitted.
Me too.
... and my response. →
What an amazing exchange! Thank you Prof. Birkerts!!
The Room and the Elephant
Sven Birkerts in a very interesting response to my recent Wikipedia piece @Awl (!) I’m composing a response just now.
lareviewofbooks:
Sven Birkerts Man with Cuboid, M.C.Escher Every so often something will break through the stimulus shield I hold up whenever I go online, which I do far too often these days, we all do, and for various reasons, one being, I’m sure, that the existence...
May 2011
6 posts
A TUMBLE-LOG of various PHILOSOPHICKAL... →
mrteacup, whose writing I have long admired, has written this thoughtful response to my Wikipedia thing from the Awl of a few days ago.
In a lengthy post on Wikipedia, Maria Bustillos writes:
But it’s already clear that Wikipedia, along with other crowd-sourced resources, is wreaking a certain amount of McLuhanesque havoc on conventional notions of “authority,” “authorship,” and even...
How America Lost The War On Drugs →
What really makes me crazy is that nobody ever seems to talk about the success of Portugal, who legalized everything and lo, did the world end in Portugal NO and it won’t, either, not even on Saturday. They just saved a ton of money and also regained their sanity, is all.
aatombomb:
themattsmith:
After Thirty-Five Years and $500 Billion, Drugs Are as Cheap and Plentiful as Ever: An...
Wowie.
A really good post from Mark McGurl at LA Review of Books, containing also a truly withering takedown of Elif Batuman.
the ugly american in fiction: jonathan franzen in... →
A consideration of Franzen the phenomenon is not the same thing as a consideration of his works; both approaches can be interesting. But author Tim Parks (a bit of a braggart himself) has confused the two. He is uneasy with what he alleges is Franzen’s contemptuous superiority to the America and Americans of Freedom, and more broadly with the idea of American Fiction generally, which I guess...
April 2011
6 posts
an objectivist speaks
It is pretty crazy watching an Objectivist let loose in the wild world of the Awl commentariat. The guy just keeps right on blabbing, completely impervious to comments such as, “so, are you saying that jesus does hate the mets?”
When worlds collide.