February 2012
84 posts
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This valentine’s day, say it with Hegel.
— Ian Bogost (@ibogost) February 11, 2012
@ibogost The Pheromonology of Spirit
— W. W. Norton (@wwnorton) February 11, 2012
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The Metaphysicians of South Jersey
Because in large cities the famous truths
already had been plumbed and debated,
the metaphysicians of South Jersey lowered
their gaze, just tried to be themselves.
They’d gather at coffee shops in Vineland
and deserted shacks deep in the Pine Barrens.
Nothing they came up with mattered
so they were free to be eclectic, and as odd
as getting to the heart of things demanded.
They walked...
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“If you want a high literary experience, to be rocked between emotional extremes...”
– The Daily Beast, “Joseph Roth’s Letters Reveal a Great Forgotten Writer”
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“I think it’s really important to go to your room and sit there. I...”
– From A Conversation With Stephen Dunn
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“I am unhappy, confused, wholly unable to leave the four walls I’ve thrown up...”
– Joseph Roth remarking to his friend Friedrich Traugott Gubler on the progress of his novel-in-progress, The Radetzky March.
My Novel is Going Nowhere: Dispatches from a Literary Classic in Progress by Michael Hofmann
(via millionsmillions)
“Poetry is an abstraction blooded.”
– Wallace Stevens, paraphrased from Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction
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The Lifespan of a Fact. John D'Agata (author). Jim...
Jim Fingal: John, do you have a source for this?
John D'Agata: I heard about this from a woman I interviewed at the Aztec Inn.
Jim: Can you send me a copy of your notes from this interview?
John: I didn't keep notes from the interview.
Jim: To be honest, I suspect your "casual" interviewing strategy is going to be a problem, because it means that we're not going to have anything that can remotely come close to proving what you've written.
John: Well it might be a problem, but with all due respect, it's your problem, Jim, not mine. I'm not a reporter, and I have never claimed to be a reporter, and the magazine [The Believer] took on this project with the understanding that I have no interest in pretending to be a reporter or in producing journalism.
Jim: Well, OK...I guess...but this still seems to violate about ten different rules of journalistic integrity.
John: I'm not sure that matters, Jim. This is an essay, so journalistic rules don't belong here.
Jim: I'm not sure it's going to be quite that easy.
Norton Tumblr: Did we get your attention? http://books.wwnorton.com/books/the-lifespan-of-a-fact/
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Random P. G. Wodehouse Quotation Generator →
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The Chitlin' Circuit
I had studied the background of the chitlin’ circuit as best I could in preparation for meeting Sax Kari, but found nothing definitive on its origins. I did, however, notice a trend in many of the books that mentioned the circuit. Artists were relegated to the chitlin’ circuit. Working it was a grind. Even its title is depressing, derived from what black people call a hog’s small...
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“Eventually I realized that Rick likes living in that hole of his own making, and the only way I could be in a relationship with him was to get down in there too. But it wasn’t my hole. It was never my hole. Once I stopped believing when he said I was the cause of his trouble, it was easy as can be to climb out.”
The air around her sentence felt charged with prophecy, like when...
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First Lines from New Books Out Today: February 6,...
“We are two hours out of Sydney when the pilot’s voice comes over the PA system. ‘Ladies and Gentlemen,’ he begins, ‘I’m sorry to tell you this, but our instruments up here are indicating fuel system failure. We’re on the phone with central in Chicago—they are advising us—and we’ve contacted Sydney air traffic to let them know we’re headed...
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thelifeguardlibrarian asked: Source for that quote?
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My Love for You Is So Embarrassingly
grand…would you mind terribly, my groundling, if I compared it to the Hindenburg (I mean, before it burned)—that vulnerable, elephantine
dream of transport, a fabric Titanic on an ocean of air? There: with binoculars, dear, you can just make me out, in a gondola window, wildly
flapping both arms as the ship’s shadow moves like a vagrant country across the country where you...
“Paper books may be the only media remaining that don’t report your...”
