October 2011
56 posts
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“Choice—preferably an exhaustive menu of it—pretty much defines our status as...”
– “Tower Heist” and “Melancholia” Reviews : The New Yorker
Anthony Lane gives Video on Demand a dressing down, but disguises the effort as a review of Tower Heist and Melancholia.
Happy Halloween!
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“Yes, we were now in that enchanted calm which they say lurks at the heart of...”
– Herman Melville, Moby-Dick, chapter 87 (via mythologyofblue)
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“Reading much of Agee’s work — but especially the articles he wrote for the...”
– From Salon’s Film Criticism 101: The Essential Library
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“It’s entirely conceivable that life’s splendor surrounds us all, and always in...”
– Franz Kafka, from his diaries, cited in Roberto Calasso’s K, translated by Geoffrey Brock. (Thank you, buffleheadcabin & itgivesitthew)
Sorry, but this has been an embarrassment-of-riches Tumblr morning.
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“Cualquier destino, por largo y complicado que sea, consta en realidad de uno...”
– Jorge Luis Borges - Biografía de Tadeo Isidoro Cruz (1829-1874) - El Aleph (1949)
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“Here I end— Krapp switches off, winds tape back, switches on again.
—upper...”
– Samuel Beckett, “Krapp’s Last Tape” (via proustitute)
I need to see this play again.
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“Just because an opinion exists does not mean that the opinion is worthy of...”
– Wouldn’t It Be Cool if Shakespeare Wasn’t Shakespeare? - NYTimes.com (via markcoatney)
I agree with the first two lines completely, and as I tend to consider other people’s opinions in this light, I also put my own opinions out there on both sides of the table. Everyone is welcome to their own...
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“I regard memory not as a phenomenon preserving one thing and losing another...”
– Stefan Zweig, The World of Yesterday (via mythologyofblue)
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“I felt at home, too much so – perhaps that is what stopped me from reading on....”
– This Side of the Pond | Beckett’s Reading List
Samuel Beckett on reading Franz Kafka’s The Castle.
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“Fifteen or twenty years of silence and solitude … I feel this evening that...”
– Samuel Beckett on gardening.
[From Michael Dirda’s review of the soon-to-be-published second volume of Samuel Beckett’s letters.]
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“So our memory is the only help that is left to them [the dead]. They pass away...”
– Theodor Adorno, as quoted by James Wood in his review of W.G. Sebald’s Austerlitz, in the London Review of Books (Oct. 6).
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A Brief Rant About a Review of a Book I Have Never...
A couple days ago, I was flipping through the London Review of Books mostly because my neighbor subscribes, and is nice enough to pass them on after she is done reading them. So far it is the only magazine or journal we “subscribe to” at Tragos HQ, Ankara.
Sometimes, when I read the LRB’s articles, my brows furrow in legitimate interest; and sometimes I sigh, a bit exasperated at expected (and...
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Earthquake in turkey. Hope the tragos family is... →
Thank you Nudawn. The Tragos family is safe and sound. We live in Ankara, far from eastern Lake Van region of the country where the earthquake originated.
We do, though, want to offer our heartfelt condolences to anyone of our friends here with family from the east affected by the earthquake.
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“Masters of narrative have the power to expose the act of fabrication without...”
– Robert Pinsky, reviewing Cain, Jose Saramago’s final novel, in the NY Times. (via thebronzemedal)
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“We now live in a world where information is potentially unlimited. Information...”
– George Dyson | Evolution and Innovation - Information Is Cheap, Meaning Is Expensive | The European Magazine
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“Art can be exhilarating despite the darkness… if the reader is sensitive to the...”
– Don DeLillo (via theparisreview)
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“They don’t mean anything to me. They’re useful for bookstores, obviously....”
– Colson Whitehead on the distinction between “literary” fiction and “genre” fiction. He chats with Joe Fassler about ‘Zone One,’ zombies, and his love for the VCR. Read more. (via theatlantic)
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“What for Nietzsche was a necessary but consistently overlooked feature in all...”
– from Nietzsche: Life as Literature by Alexander Nehamas. We’re reading this book for faculty study group and it is the first time I’ve read anything regarding Nietzsche, but I’m finding it a great and edifying read as it forces me to think below the surface level of things and consider a deeper...
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“No question, one can use a smart phone as an aid to memory, and I do use one...”
– Take Care of Your Little Notebook by Charles Simic | NYRblog | The New York Review of Books
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Why Finland’s schools are great (by doing what we... →
kateoplis:
For the past decade, 15-year-old Finnish students have consistently been at or near the top of all the nations tested in reading, mathematics, and science. And just as consistently, the variance in quality among Finnish schools is the least of all nations tested, meaning that Finnish students can get a good education in virtually any school in the nation. That’s equality of...
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“When Henry Ford introduced the first affordable automobile, a half century...”
– From John Colapinto’s article on brand names in the Oct. 3rd issue of The New Yorker, “Famous Names.” Oh how I wish I could drive a Mongoose Civique! (via ewilcox)
I would drive a Utopian Turtletop in a heartbeat.
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“… tragedy delights by affording a shadow of the pleasure which exists in...”
– Percy Bysshe Shelley, A Defence of Poetry
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If you could subscribe to only one weekly or...
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“The Phantom Tollbooth” is not just a manifesto for learning; it is a manifesto...”
– Norton Juster’s “The Phantom Tollbooth” at 50 : The New Yorker
This is just a really great article about a really great book.
(via ryeisenberg)
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“The little furniture of loss has lips of dirk to stab us.”
– Emily Dickinson, from a letter to Maria Whitney, October 1880 (via proustitute)
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“If you want to get a real education in America you’re going to have to fight—and...”
– Who Are You and What Are You Doing Here? :: Oxford American - The Southern Magazine of Good Writing
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