February 2012
7 posts
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The Rest of History →
Good comments all around here from Devin Faraci (and Karina Longworth), but I think this is the really important PSA/takeaway:
But here’s the upside: we don’t have to hear about The Artist anymore after this. The film will win big at the Oscars tonight, we’ll bitch and moan a bit this week, complaining that our favorites didn’t win (or weren’t even nominated) and...
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Reliving Oscar's Biggest Mistake →
Mark Lisanti live-blogs 2006 Best Picture-winner Crash:
40:15 — “Maybe I won’t hate it as much this time,” he said to his editor while pitching this awful, misbegotten idea. “Maybe it’s not as bad as I remember.” [Editor’s note: I warned him.] What’s that saying? “Famous last words?” Or is it only “famous last words” if I...
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Finger-pointing the Way to Progress
Robert Koenig, STL Beacon, today:
WASHINGTON — As gas prices soar at the pump, Republicans are blaming the White House, President Barack Obama is lashing back at the GOP for a shortsighted “drill, baby, drill” policy, and others are calling for tapping oil from the “strategic reserve.”
Robert Koenig, STL Beacon, almost a year ago:
WASHINGTON - As gasoline prices continued to rise this week...
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The Long Goodbye
It was Ted Leo who delivered the pronouncement:
Our beloved Lookout Records, which ceased releasing new material in 2006, but carried on keeping the catalog in print until this past December, has, sadly, shuttered it’s windows for good.
Though many predicted the cause of death well in advance — by most accounts Lookout Records, like much of the recording industry, was primarily undone not...
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“Football combines the two worst things about America: it is violence punctuated...”
– George Will (via Let’s Make Mistakes #39)
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And thus the nation -- brutally, physically,... →
BLDGBLOG on Cool Hand Luke:
This relentless growth of the well-policed roadway is perhaps the film’s central motif. For instance, in one scene where a particularly manic Luke successfully challenges the rest of his crew to treat the day’s road-paving assignment like a race, they’re left confused and dumbfounded when the tar truck drives away. The inmates are left staring at a...
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“The great ages did not perhaps produce much more talent than ours; but less...”
– T. S. Eliot
January 2012
16 posts
6 tags
“Publishers are selling drinks on the Titanic." →
Brad Stone writing on Amazon’s foray into publishing and the publishing industry’s fumbling defiance:
Kirshbaum’s rivals predict, perhaps wishfully, that Amazon is about to get an education in the burdens of book publishing… The late-night phone calls from neurotic authors, the frantic edits on awful manuscripts—this is a business that demands more handholding than Amazon...
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The Most Dangerous Lie →
Stephen March:
Every instinct in the American gut, every institution, every national symbol, runs on the idea that anybody can make it; the only limits are your own limits. Which is an amazing idea, a gift to the world — just no longer true.
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“Hey guys, it’s cool, we’ve got paper. No more... →
Given how down I’ve been on Hollywood lately, you’d think I’ve just seen a new film.
Pretty soon there won’t be such a thing.
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American Beauty Revisited →
Natasha Vargas-Cooper offers a timely reminder that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences doesn’t know what the hell it’s talking about:
It’s not a tremendous shock, of course, that the Academy would pick a mediocre movie as the Best Picture of the year—this happens all the time. What is downright bewildering is how often American Beauty was identified as instant...
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“Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem, first make sure...”
– William Gibson (via sabino)
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The Movie Studios Hate Us →
Marco Arment on the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America):
The MPAA is a hate-sink, a front to protect its members from negative PR. But unlike the similarly purposed Lodsys (and many others), it’s easy to see who the MPAA represents: Disney, Sony Pictures, Paramount, 20th Century Fox, Universal, and Warner Brothers. (Essentially, all of the major movie studios.)
The MPAA studios hate...
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iFault
You don’t have to dream about some sci-fi dystopian Blade Runner 1984 bullshit; you can go to Shenzhen tomorrow. They’re making your crap that way today.
That’s from the first half of this week’s episode of This American Life, where humorist Mike Daisey recounts his implausible, revealing infiltration of the Chinese factory where many electronic devices — Apple...
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"Press" Start
The crew behind TumbleOn, a Tumblr photo-viewing app, was kind enough to feature my arcade blog as one of their staff picks.
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The Edges →
You never know how far is too far until you’ve gone there.
Nicholas Carr: Not long before he died, John Updike spoke eloquently of a book’s “edges,” the boundaries that give shape and integrity to a literary work and that for centuries have found their outward expression in the indelibility of printed pages. It’s those edges that give a book its solidity, allowing...
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Alexis Madrigal on the Kodak Way of Life →
While the chemistry and technology in Kodak cameras were important, it was the Kodak life that people were buying…
You record your off-key voice and when you play it back, every note is perfect. That’s the triumph of Kodakery.
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“Do not assume that order and stability are always good, in a society or in a...”
– Philip K. Dick
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"You may by now have gotten the impression that we... →
Meghan Daum:
The nights that we are not watching TV we are out to dinner, at parties or concerts. We may not feel at every minute like one of Tolstoy’s “happy families,” (we argue, we run out of margarine, we wonder what the hell we’re doing with our lives) but nor are we unhappy or lonely and unfulfilled. We always have something to talk about. And part of the reason for that, I would argue,...
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Write Place, Write Time →
This kind of thing is absolutely in no way possibly conducive to actually writing more, but it’s damn tempting to pretend that it is.
And Nicholson Baker’s kitchen is adorable.
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Between the Lines →
Dave Gardetta:
If you ask drivers to pay the actual price of their parking at the Grove or Santa Monica Place or Disney Hall, what would they do? If the fair price of your parking space is $60, would you view your car differently?
In Los Angeles we attend dinner parties and wish out loud for more pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods, increased urban density, more mass transportation, less...
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Best Buy is Going Out of Business...Gradually →
Larry Downes, writing for Forbes:
But the numbers only scratch the surface. To discover the real reasons behind the company’s decline, just take this simple test. Walk into one of the company’s retail locations or shop online. And try, really try, not to lose your temper.
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The Constant Argument
I don’t really celebrate the new year on January 1st. Instead I usually celebrate it on the day after my birthday, literally the start of a new year for me.
That approach took on an extra significance this year as it marked the completion of my 32nd year on this planet.
My cousin Jeff died just shy of his 32nd birthday. Up until recently, he’d always been my older cousin. That...
December 2011
5 posts
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House Speaker John Boehner orders CSPAN's cameras... →
If you can’t say something nice, don’t let the public hear what you’re saying.
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"Harden up, Care Bear" →
Terrible Minds on rejection:
Any creative person has to be a little bit hard of heart — how can you not be? You can’t go sobbing into a potted plant every time you get a bad review. Rejections toughen you up. Step to it. Suck it up. Lean into the punch. We all get knocked down. This is your chance to get back up again with your rolled-up manuscript in your hand and start swinging like a ninja.
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"I sometimes think of what future historians will...
“A single sentence will suffice for modern man: he fornicated and read the papers.”
-Camus
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You are capable of anything, including things you’d never admit.
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"No one had asked the writers." →
Sarah Funke Butler recounts a funny, improbably story of a 16-year-old high school student who, aiming to settle a dispute with his English teacher over the use of symbolism in literature, surveyed 150 well-known authors on the subject — and actually received responses from half of them.
His project involved substantial labor — this before the Internet, before e-mail — but...
November 2011
3 posts
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Roger & Me
While wandering through downtown Chicago one Saturday night in September, I asked my friend Chris (a fellow Ebertist) if he thought Roger Ebert could identify the moment at which he had transcended film criticism and crossed over into his current identity as sort of the Mark Twain of the 21st century.
We both agreed that he probably could, but after reading Ebert’s autobiography (a...
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The Double-Marty Moment
The most badass moment of Back to the Future Part II (a movie full of badass moments, and one that’s way superior to the more widely praised third installment) comes late in the film when “our” Marty McFly, the Marty we’ve been following throughout the sequel, finds himself back in the Hill Valley High School auditorium on November 12, 1955 watching the Marty McFly of the original Back to the...
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Knowing
I’m starting to come around to the idea that every week should feel like a battle. That one thing after another should break you apart. You should feel like you’re getting run over by the goddamn Titanic helmed by Dick Cheney, and if you don’t, you’re doing something wrong.
Because when it’s finally time to leave the front, you have no excuse to do anything but run...
October 2011
6 posts
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“St. Louis is a city that always believes it could be grander, without realizing...”
– Rachel Newborn, Graphic USA: An Alternative Guide to 25 US Cities
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Matt Taibbi's Grand Tour of Griftopia →
Nutshell:
When was the last time the government stepped into help you “avoid losses you might otherwise suffer?” But that’s the reality we live in. When Joe Homeowner bought too much house, essentially betting that home prices would go up, and losing his bet when they dropped, he was an irresponsible putz who shouldn’t whine about being put on the street.
But when banks bet...
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Netflix Shares Tank →
Here’s the thing, guys. No matter how much you paint this as the apocalypse, my Netflix account is still cheaper than cable, cheaper than satellite or pay-per-view, cheaper than buying or renting individual movies (even at Redbox or whatever those things are called — and don’t expect those supposedly inexpensive prices to last much longer, either). I’m paying less, and I’m actually gaining...
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“The notebook is a projection screen for whatever is on your mind.”
– Damned if I know, but it’s good, isn’t it?
Sometimes the rain doesn’t make any sound.
You will most likely impress their socks off.
But ask yourself, do you really want to smell their feet?
September 2011
5 posts
5 tags
"You shouldn't assume things are going to last... →
Bob Cassilly’s passing is a tragedy in the truest sense of the word, not only because it happened without herald. It’s a tragedy of the sickening, Shakespearan kind, proof that the universe is both humorless and capable of great irony.
Regarding what most will call his greatest accomplishment, St. Louis’ City Museum:
“You shouldn’t assume things are going to last...
How to build a spa for dudes
First, no stone gardens or fake palms or beige drywall. If I’m supposed to relax here, it should look and feel like someplace a human being would actually want to hang out; not a McMansion.
Second, no oils or lotions. I hate the way they sputz out of a pump or bottle, and they make my entire body smell like a condiment spill at Whole Foods.
Finally, this music loop. It needs to go....
“Write poorly, in public, until you can write better.”
– Seth Godin
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WatchWhat you do when you’re broke at a race track.
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Use loneliness.
“Its ache creates urgency to reconnect with the world. Take that aching and use it to propel you deeper into your need for expression — to speak, to say who you are and how you care about light and rooms and lullabies.”
-Natalie Goldberg
August 2011
5 posts
5 tags
“The most terrifying fact of the universe is not that it is hostile but that it...”
– Stanley Kubrick
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“It’s better than the movies. Pirates of the Caribbean, the 40-year-old...”
– Geoff Carter | Your Souvenir Guide
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"...all I've got is this pile of words..." →
Tweetage Wasteland:
It’s getting harder to concentrate on anything, even the stuff that’s clearly the most important. My daughter is too young to email us a note that she’s about to jump on the couch, tweet a message from midair, and then provide a link to a YouTube clip of her flight as she heads towards her couch landing. But that’s what it takes to get undivided attention. Little...
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Our Pretentious Then
From one finished basement to another to another we move, our Greenwich Village, our Haight-Ashbury, our Wrigleyville;
our Berkley coffee shop; our LA diner; our Texas truck stop; our Santa Monica mall;
our Goon Docks; our train tracks, and the body at their end.
Our everything first, where sometimes we watch and sometimes we play and sometimes we do it all, shameless, but knowing no...
July 2011
6 posts
3 tags
Mister T
Ultimately, for any open job position in its creative department, an agency’s gonna hire someone who is – drum roll – creative. But the tie’s gonna go to the person who can express creativity over the widest variety of media.
Luke Sullivan | The New Creative Person is T-Shaped
This has been circulating (and recirculating) for a while, but it really hit home with me this week as I started a...
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Raymond Chandler on Hollywood Screenwriters →
The motion picture is a great industry as well as a defeated art. Its technicians are now in their third generation, its investments are world-wide, its demand for material is insatiable. Five hundred pictures a year must be made or the theaters will be dark, countless people will be thrown out of work, financial organizations will totter, and bankers will start jumping out of their office...
Never underestimate the value of being happy, or the friends who make it possible.