December 2009
162 posts
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Against Camel Case →
On account of the hump, midword capitals are sometimes called “camel case.” Other terms include “intercaps” and “incapping.” There is some precedent for the unsightliness. Dictionaries list a variety of apple known as a McIntosh, for example, and the language has long tolerated such identities as Ian McEwan, Louis MacNeice and even Myles na gCopaleen. In my considered opinion, the juxtaposition of...
November 2009
90 posts
brentgilliard:
Today’s podcast recommendation:...
“And what is a kiss, specifically? A pledge properly sealed, a promise seasoned...”
– Edmond Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac, Act 3 (via popcornandpretty)
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““That was the first time I saw the Taliban. I’d seen them on TV, on the...”
– The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (via id0be1ieve)
James Woods Parodies Paul Auster
stuartinwashington:
He writes an elaborate and entirely accurate parody of Auster’s oeuvre:
Roger Phaedo had not spoken to anyone for ten years. He confined himself to his Brooklyn apartment, obsessively translating and retranslating the same short passage from Rousseau’s “Confessions.” A decade earlier, a mobster named Charlie Dark had attacked Phaedo and his wife. Phaedo was beaten to within...
Beyond Borders: the future of bookselling →
infoneernet:
Amazon does not set the synapses crackling the way the sight of a pristine shelf of books does: it does not surprise you, nor does it fuel book hunger. You click on what you came for, and then you leave. This, then, is where the independent store, with its carefully edited collection, comes in. Lutyens & Rubinstein has been open just seven weeks but things are going twice as...
Black women’s bodies and theory « Sisterscholar's... →
wocsurvivalkit:
“To McKittrick, black matters are spatial patterns. Black women have always had a meaningful relationship with geography, she says. She places these women firmly as subjects in these cartographies of struggle rather than relegated to objects as much of human geography has done throughout history. Black women’s geographies are bound up with practices of spatial domination. As she...
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Cormac McCarthy on The Road →
Novelist Cormac McCarthy shuns interviews, but he relishes conversation. Last week, the author sat down on the leafy patio of the Menger Hotel, built about 20 years after the siege of the Alamo, the remains of which are next door.
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The Neuroscience Of Reading →
A fascinating discovery, made by the American researcher Marc Changizi, is that all of the world’s writing systems use the same set of basic shapes, and that these shapes are already a part of the visual system in all primates, because they are also useful for coding natural visual scenes. The monkey brain already contains neurons that preferentially respond to an “alphabet” of shapes...
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“Mention the word “slush” to anyone who’s worked in publishing...”
– A Good Author Is Hard to Find
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Watchsupjasmine:
“109 Lighting Books” by Airan Kang.
You’ll have to watch the video to see the colors change. It’s worth it.
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Poem of the Week: Reconstruction by Zoë Skoulding →
These days you forget how the bricks were piled up all over again, their edges just where they were before as if nothing had happened. As if nothing had happened they hold the shop-fronts up, the bricks under stucco and paint again making a surface as they did before the words fell down. The words fell down and nobody knew what had happened to the places that bricks were not the edges of. Making...
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The Uncollected Stories of JD Salinger →
Aside from his Nine Stories, JD Salinger published twenty-two stories in various magazines which remain uncollected. Several attempts have been made to compile these stories together but have met stiff resistance by the author. Spanning his literary career between the years 1940-1965, these stories display changes in both the author’s style and message. While some are plainly of commercial...
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My Horrible New York Times Review →
syrahjuanjuan:
An author reflects on being trashed by the New York Times books section.
If only that had been as mercifully succinct as the one Spinal Tap got for its album release in 1980. A terse “Shit sandwich.”
[…]
My novel is, in fact, one of the worst books some people have ever read. An insipid waste of paper. Readers writhed in agony at florid prose, gnashed teeth at familiar...
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Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita:
serpentskirt:
I recall certain moments, let us call them icebergs in paradise, when after having had my fill of her–after fabulous, insane exertions that left me limp and azure-barred–I would gather her in my arms with, at last, a mute moan of human tenderness (her skin glistening in the neon light coming from the paved court through the slits in the blind, her soot-black lashes matted, her...
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“The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own...”
– Oscar Wilde (via quote-book) (via cassket)
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“Can you imagine what video supplements on a portable reading device will do for...”
– Tom Alderman: All Hail, or Hurl — The Hybrid Book is Here!
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Magic comic ride - Salon.com →
In his fantastical “Promethea” series, WATCHMEN creator Alan Moore indulges his fascinations with tantric sex and the tarot — and reveals his take on kabbalistic philosophy.
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Watch1984: The Movie
Some one on Google Video was kind enough to put up the ENTIRE thing. So, especially if you haven’t seen it, watch it before some asshole pulls it down. It is GREAT!
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“A foreign language is a perfect stand-in for a parent: stern but accomodating,...”
– whore of babel | identity theory nonfiction
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Look at book. →
(via asparagus)
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“Only by identifying her with an unwritten, half-written, rewritten difficult...”
– The Original Of Laura by Vladimir Nabokov Excerpt in Playboy
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“Silver filaments emerge from spice. Create a rainbow. They form in a water...”
– Alejandro Jodorowsky - Unseen Dune
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“In trying times, when he has trouble forgetting that he owes more money than he...”
– Snide and prejudice Jane Austen: moralist or vicious gossip?
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“Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.”
– E.L. Doctorow (via kristincashore) (via renisanz)
Anthropodermic bibliopegy is the practice of... →
(via jjjjasmine)
“All the books we own, both read and unread, are the fullest expression of self...”
– Nick Hornby
Same thing with music I think…
(via casinegro)
How To Use An Apostrophe →
guy:
I’m a fan of good looking grammar lessons.
The Chameleon: The many lives of Frederic Bourdin. →
labeledbones:
This was in Best American Nonrequired Reading and it was so fascinating. And kind of haunting. It’s about this man who pretended to be young kids and then pretended to be the missing son of this American family for a long time and it’s just all very twisted and strange.
Of course, you probably don’t want to read 13 pages online so you should probably just buy this book because...
Analogies are not for the faint of heart
monsterbeard:
Ugh.
Look. I’m in a rut. Creatively though. Well, maybe life-wise too, but not in a bad way. I mean I’m unemployed so that’s a rut but I’m not down about that or pissed off at myself.
So I’m in a creative rut. And it’s been for about 3 months now.
I didn’t want to talk about it because talking about it means one of two things:
A not-so-secret begging of people to say...