Weekend Reading

"Some people have made seduction a way of life. Incapable of resisting opportunities, they give priority to the nascent state; they are collectors of beginnings." - On Seduction

When Hans Christian Anderson parties with Charles Dickens, he parties RIGHT: "He gathered nosegays in the woods, cut figures from paper, invited Dickens’ son Charley to shave him, and explored London in cabs while hiding his valuables in his boots. He found that Dickens had an excellent supply of dinner whiskey and could offer a large tumbler of gin and sherry afterward. He watched Dickens perform in The Frozen Deep, burst into tears at the death scene, drank champagne with the cast, and returned to see it again a week later."

Image: The Evolution of the Modern Bookshelf.

"When Paul Rosenblatt answers the phone, he says “Bananas!” - on the banana distribution industry

From the same blog: mapping the city through smellscapes. I'd love to do this for Chicago, parts of which, especially in summer, reek of chocolate, melting hard candy and bread. Sometimes, walking home, I feel sorry for people in other cities, for whom a waft of saturated cocoa-laden air doesn't mean 'welcome home' in quite the same way.

Language Immersion

From the source:

This bath is made entirely out of books which Vanessa cut and fitted together over a metal frame to form a bath of books, which is suspended by four antique bath tub, lion-shaped feet. She intends to later cover it in layers of resin and has already applied proper taps and drain, so that it will be a utilizable, functional bath at all effects.

The idea is of immersing oneself in knowledge, books, truths, and 'cleaning' or ‘purifying’ one's mind with from external, every day life bombarding from media, by reading ad reflecting on books,- ‘pure sources’, which is of course, metaphorical, implying we can become polluted by ideas of truths and knowledge, which we can only 'clean' by reading our way through to our own ideas and reflections.

(from, via)

Lists of Note

Big ups to the NYTimes Sunday Magazine for pointing out the Lists of Note blog. Among their offerings so far:

Eye Flirtation

Winking the right eye—I love you.
Winking the left eye—I hate you.
Winking both eyes—Yes.
Winking both eyes at once [ed. – also known as blinking?]—We are watched.

Rescue Etiquette, by Mark Twain

Partiality, in the matter of rescue, to be shown to:

1. Fiancées.
2. Persons toward whom the operator feels a tender sentiment, but has not yet declared himself.
3. Sisters.
4. Stepsisters.

Who Killed JFK? by his secretary

Lyndon –
KKK –
Dixiecrats –
Hoffa –

Harry Houdini’s Rider

Require a small trap in center of stage, not less than 8 inches square (8x8 inches) two feet in rear of front cloth…
100 gallons of Boiling water (must be boiling)…
A small, clean looking (mahogany colored if possible) step ladder about 3 feet 6 inches high.

What a delight to find a Sunday magazine this late in the week. It makes you wonder about their life cycles. Where do they go so quickly? They can’t all be dumpster bound. Somewhere there’s a table made entirely of back issues, or perhaps a bed. And of course all the bathroom magazine racks absolutely stuffed with these things, wrinkling in the cold humidity behind the tank…

Barack Obama on Love

This quote from Barack Obama on his relationship with Michelle has popped up a few times over the last four years. It continues to stand out as one of the most empowering, energizing, just downright true descriptions of love I've ever heard:

Michelle is a tremendously strong person, and has a very strong sense of herself and who she is and where she comes from. But I also think in her eyes you can see a trace of vulnerability that most people don’t know, because when she’s walking through the world she is this tall, beautiful, confident woman. There is a part of her that is vulnerable and young and sometimes frightened, and I think seeing both of those things is what attracted me to her.

And then what sustains our relationship is I’m extremely happy with her, and part of it has to do with the fact that she is at once completely familiar to me, so that I can be myself and she knows me very well and I trust her completely, but at the same time she is also a complete mystery to me in some ways. And there are times when we are lying in bed and I look over and sort of have a start. Because I realize here is this other person who is separate and different and has different memories and backgrounds and thoughts and feelings. It’s that tension between familiarity and mystery that makes for something strong, because, even as you build a life of trust and comfort and mutual support, you retain some sense of surprise or wonder about the other person.

Happy Valentine's, y'all.

25 Extremely Upsetting Reactions to Chris Brown at the Grammys

25 Extremely Upsetting Reactions to Chris Brown at the Grammys

This makes me sick. Not just angry. Physically nauseated. Three years after Brown's brutal and extremely public assault on Rihanna and this is how we treat him? By welcoming him back to mainstream pop society with accolades and open arms? What does that say to a generation of young women growing up with Brown & his apologists & champions at the helm of the music industry?

That domestic abuse is okay. That women's bodies, concerns, and voices are secondary. That their personal safety and well-being isn’t such a big deal, and why are we still talking about it, anyway? That their status as human beings worthy of respect is up for negotiation, depending on album sales.

Perhaps I shouldn’t be so shocked at this casual normalization of misogyny and violence. After all, Brown’s comeback has been gaining steam for years. At first, I felt deep disappointment with artists like Busta Rhymes and Ludacris who decided to collaborate with Brown after his return. I’m still disappointed, I guess, but it’s transmogrified into a sort of blunted resignation. If I stopped listening to everyone who still works with him, I'd have to delete half my iTunes library.

This shit is just ridiculous. It's a statement made by Grammy producers on finally getting Brown back after two years of benching him:

“We’re glad to have him,” said executive producer Ken Ehrlich. “I think people deserve a second chance, you know. If you’ll note, he has not been on the Grammys for the past few years and it may have taken us a while to kind of get over the fact that we were the victim of what happened.”

Good work, Grammys. You were definitely the victims here. Not Rihanna, whose face we've all seen, beaten and bloodied. Not the women who now think it's desirable, or at least kind of funny, to talk about how much they want Brown to punch them. Nope. You had to twiddle your thumbs a few years before getting this monster back on stage. What a fucking imposition.

burning questions for snowy evenings

Master blues harpist Sonny Boy Williamson - Who's Gonna Take Care of You? (Thanks, Simon)
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UPDATE: God, this footage is fantastic. MTV TRL, eat your heart out:

It's Raining Outdoors Baby


Nine Below Zero (peep the audience at the end. whatta buncha herbs)

for valentine's

It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas and for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry, in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.

(via)