The Myth of a Fixed Personality

A person’s authentic nature is a series of shifting, variegated planes that establish themselves as he relates to different people; it is created by and appears within the framework of his interpersonal relationships.
--Philip K. Dick

Life is a train of moods like a string of beads, and, as we pass through them, they prove to be many-colored lenses which paint the world their own hue…Temperament is the iron wire on which the beads are strung.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson

A man has as many social selves as there are individuals who recognize him.
--William James

via Brain Pickings

Advice from Aurelius

"They cannot admire you for intellect. Granted—but there are many other qualities of which you cannot say, “but that is not the way I am made”. So display those virtues which are wholly in your own power—integrity, dignity, hard work, self-denial, contentment, frugality, kindness, independence, simplicity, discretion, magnanimity. Do you not see how many virtues you can already display without any excuse of lack of talent or aptitude?"

-Marcus Aurelius

petarded

What was the last word you learned? And I don't mean those flash-in-the-pan Internet portmanteaux that fizzle as soon as they're sparked. Mine is petard.

A list of foods named after people. 

As we speak, Cabrini Green is getting torn down.  Project Cabrini Green is an art installation that illuminates the empty building with staccato flashes of light, haunting the apartments and reminding passers-by of the lives lived between those concrete walls:


I've been holding out on you: April is National Poetry Month. Here's where I get my daily fix.

Pick one, but choose wisely: 10 Short 'How To' Guides for the Modern Internet Persona.

Lil Wayne is, apparently, only one stretch of skin away from achieving his dream of a full-body tattoo wetsuit. Guess which stretch.

Smokey Robinson, on Being Sampled: "Sample all of mine. (Laughter) Please. I beg of you, sample all of mine, man, because – really, because first of all, what better form of flattery is that, for a young artist who wasn’t even born when that song was written to hear that song and say, “Hey, man, I love this song so much I’m going to include it in one of my songs,” you know what I mean?" More.

r kelly

interviewed by will oldham.

On Love: "Hey, man, love has never failed. It has won every battle. And today and forever more it will go on undefeated. I’m also a very loving person."

On Concept Albums: 'I felt like people have fun with concepts like that—even when you throw a party. You say, “Okay, everybody gotta come in with a broom and a witch hat and it’s a witch party.” You know what I mean? “Everybody gotta come already drunk.” '

On Recording in the Middle of the Night: "Well, my engineers kind of switch shifts like bus drivers, you know?"

On Busking in Chicago: "So I started coming down and sing­ing and got me enough money to get a little keyboard, put some batteries in it, and start messing around and writing my own little songs. I was the highest-paid street performer, probably, in the history of Chicago. I was making like $800 a day."

Dawdling

"Even the most productive writers are expert dawdlers, doers of unnecessary errands, seekers of interruptions – trials to their wives or husbands, friends, associates, and themselves. They sharpen well-pointed pencils and go out to buy more blank paper, rearrange offices, wander through libraries and bookstores, chop wood, walk, drive, make unnecessary calls, nap, daydream, and try not “consciously” to think about what they are going to write so they can think subconsciously about it." - Donald Murray

Miss Thinkinboutit: The Wild One

Johnny: It begins here for me on this road. How the whole mess happened I don't know, but I know it couldn't happen again in a million years. Maybe I could of stopped it early, but once the trouble was on its way, I was just goin' with it. Mostly I remember the girl. I can't explain it - a sad chick like that, but somethin' changed in me. She got to me, but that's later anyway. This is where it begins for me right on this road.

Charlie Thomas: I've seen hoodlums like this before. If you don't get tough with them the minute they get out of line you're sunk. You're the cop, aren't you? If you can't boot these jerks out there's plenty of us can, even if we have to bust a few heads.

 

Mildred: What are you rebelling against, Johnny? 

Johnny: What've ya got? 

RIP JD

"How terrible it is when you say I love you and the person on the other end shouts back 'What?'" - Raise High the Roofbeams

"Aim without aiming." - Seymour

"Jesus knew — knew — that we're carrying the Kingdom of Heaven around with us, inside, where we're all too goddam stupid and sentimental and unimaginative to look..." - Franny & Zooey

"Somewhere along the line — in one damn incarnation or another, if you like — you not only had a hankering to be an actor or an actress but to be a good one. You're stuck with it now. You can't just walk out on the results of your own hankerings. Cause and effect, buddy, cause and effect. The only thing you can do now, the only religious thing you can do, is act. Act for God, if you want to — be God's actress, if you want to. What could be prettier? You can at least try to, if you want to — there's nothing wrong in trying." There was a slight pause. "You'd better get busy, though, buddy. The goddam sands run out on you every time you turn around. I know what I'm talking about. You're lucky if you get time to sneeze in this goddam phenomenal world." - Franny and Zooey

"I was six when I saw that everything was God....My sister was only a very tiny child then, and she was drinking her milk, and all of a sudden I saw that she was God and the milk was God" - Nine Stories

“The worst thing that being an artist could do to you would be that it would make you slightly unhappy constantly.” - Word

Sleep Talkin Man

So this guy in England talks in his sleep and says some of the nastiest, most batshit insane stuff I've ever heard.  And his wife records it on her blog for our collective laffs.  A few gems:

"Hey I know you, but I don't like your face. Take it off... That's much better, much better."

"Of course the zombie loved me. She gave me her heart. Mmmmm-hmmm. And her hand in marriage."

"I've got a really terrible terrible feeling about this custard tart. Terrible."

"Let me hold you in my arms. Feel me squeeze the living fucking breath out of your bastard body. Bliss. Lovely."

"Don't... Don't put the noodles and the dumplings together in the boat. They'll fight! The noodles are bullies. Poor dumplings." [ed. This statement is actually true.  Fucking noodle thugs]

"You're pretty. pretty pretty pretty pretty pretty.... [long pause] Now fuck off and be pretty somewhere else. I'm bored."

(From)