Posts tagged as Things People Write
Do Bears Feel As Indignant As Rick Ross Sounds? Sure, Why The Hell Not
"Powerful, indignant, protective: that’s how a bear feels, and that’s how Mr. Ross sounds, as if nothing could possibly derail him, and everyone who walks with him will be safe." READ MORE
Do You Suffer From Lapham's Disease?
"The symptoms of this malady, named after the longtime editor of Harper’s, Lewis H. Lapham (now of Lapham’s Quarterly), include an elevated, orotund, deeply ironic prose style that, in severe cases, reveals almost nothing about what the topic is or what the author wishes to say about it except for a general sense of superiority to everyone and everything around." READ MORE
Deranged Millionaire John Hodgman Has Some Advice For Other Deranged Millionaires
"But during the previous few years, due to hard work and exceedingly strange circumstance, I had made more money than I had ever conceived of making in my life. I had also paid a huge bucket of local, state, and city taxes, and that was JUST FINE WITH ME. Because I knew that I had very little to worry about when it came to providing for my family and me this holiday season. And I suspected he didn’t as well. But there are many, many people who are VERY worried about this. And out of consideration to them, it seemed to me a little unseemly for wealthy to care so much about the names they might be called. 'From my point of view,' I said, 'I think you and me and other wealthy people should just suck it in and take it.'" READ MORE
Drunk Man Disliked Women
"His drinking was not something to admire, and it was not a charming foible. Maybe sometimes it made him warm and expansive, but I never saw that side of it. What I saw was that drinking made him angry and combative and bullying, often toward people who were way out of his league—elderly guests on the Nation cruise, interns (especially female interns). Drinking didn’t make him a better writer either—that’s another myth. Christopher was such a practiced hand, with a style that was so patented, so integrally an expression of his personality, he was so sure he was right about whatever the subject, he could meet his deadlines even when he was totally sozzled. But those passages of pointless linguistic pirouetting? The arguments that don’t track if you look beneath the bravura phrasing? Forgive the cliche: That was the booze talking." READ MORE
Ask Louis C.K. Anything
Comedian Louis C.K. is answering questions over at Reddit. Also, his new special is available now. You should probably get it.
The Sound of 2011
"If you look for a trace of our economic woes in the music, you’ll be frustrated. People weren’t supposed to sell records, apparently, but if your name was Adele, your second album, “21,” didn’t leave the upper reaches of the Billboard Top 200 chart in the forty weeks since its American release (usually hanging about in the top ten). What about the music-biz truism that people only come out in big numbers for rappers from the gangsta disapora? Well, apparently you can be Drake and wear sweaters and sing and be as hardcore as Pikachu and go to No. 1. (You risk being called “the human croissant” on the Internet by somebody imitating the voice of Ghostface Killah, but you can handle that.) You can also be a hip-hop diaspora unto yourself, made up of largely foul-mouthed young men, and give away almost all of your music on Tumblr—and watch your leader get signed to the same label as Adele." READ MORE
The Classical: Despising Sports And Itself And Everything Else Already
"That’s the NBA we will get in December: One where every bit of action is, for the viewer, shot through with ambivalence. We will love it like never before, while wondering if, just maybe, no one’s having quite as much fun as they once did. We could be projecting, but ultimately, most of what we see in athletes is an attempt to come to terms with what we need them to be. We love this game and yet now we—or the players, or folks paying them—kind of hate everyone. Including ourselves." READ MORE
The Similarity Between Douching And Dial-Up Explained
"Douching, I would argue, is a lot like dial-up. Uncool. On the wane. Never coming back, and with good reason. Yet, for the moment, still profitable."
Germans Like Fake Meat
"He goes on about the ersatz food in Germany. He describes 'meat made of pressed rice boiled in mutton fat (and finished off with a fake bone made of wood); tobacco made of dried roots and dried potato peel; shoes soled with wood.' There are, he notes, '837 registered meat substitutes permissible in the production of sausages, 511 registered coffee substitutes.'” READ MORE
