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I'm finally feeling brave enough to link to my newest blog, simply called Another. Initially, it was meant to be a diary, a dumping grounds for posts that felt too personal and self-indulgent to inflict on this Cup's readership. But the new blog changed genres and became something more specific when I realized that the only posts I'm hesitant to put here are the ones dealing with depression; and so, Another became a "literary" mental health blog, focusing on the relationship between writing and depression, but also linking to abstracts of clinical studies, essays about therapy, and reviews of recent and relevent books.
Some posts that may (or may not) appeal to this Cup's readers include
Over the past two days, I've deleted more than 100 blog comments by spammers. But, rather than think on the time wasted by my DIY resistance to MT-Blacklist, I prefer to finally acknowledge that spammers are some of my most loyal and bright comment-ers. More importantly, no other group of writers is so devoted to the art of the aphorism -- trying to revive it and reintroduce it to popular culture. Here, the aphorisms posted by spammers in only the past twenty-four hours:
Advertising
-Advertising is 85% confusion and 15% commission.
Dreams
-Both dreams and people crash down.
Ethics
-Ethics is not necessarily the handmaiden of theology.
Foresight
-People who do not think far enough ahead inevitably have worries near at hand.
Freedom
-You are free and that is why you are lost.
-He who gives up freedom for security deserves neither.
Friends
-The shifts of Fortune test the reliability of friends.
Genius
-Genius hath electric power which earth can never tame.
Gifts & Giving
-One must be poor to know the luxury of giving.
-There is no benefit in the gifts of a bad man.
Gratitude
-Gratitude is born in hearts that take time to count up past mercies.
-Gratitude is merely the secret hope of further favors.
Humility
-The professor makes the syllabus, not you.
Ideas
-Ideas on Earth are badges of friendship or enmity.
Inertia
-Inertia is not limited to matter.
Knowledge
-The important thing isn't doing, but knowing how you do it.
-You cannot learn without already knowing.
Life
-Often the test of courage is not to die, but to live.
Love
-With love comes strange currencies.
-'Love -- a grave mental disease.' Plato
Mind
-'Of course' is cyanide of the mind.
Morality
-Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what's right.
Newness
-Newness is relative.
Other
-That which does not kill us makes us stranger.
Pain
-Anyone can learn from pain.
Passion
-To be a human without passion is to be dead.
People
-Don't worry that other people don't know you; worry that you don't know other people.
-There are no weird people - some just require more understanding.
-People are just smart enough to not be happily ignorant.
-People are exponentially funnier when they're in rant mode.
Prosperity
-When prosperity comes, do not use all of it.
Religion
-Believing in God does not require believing in religion.
Speech
-Only when we have nothing to say do we say anything at all.
Tolerance
-Please remember that the labels are your own.
Travel
-A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving.
Virtue
-Virtue never stands alone. It is bound to have neighbors.
Wisdom
-Some nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men.
World
-The world is a beautiful book for those who can read it.
It's hard to know when a link's too old to post, and the longer you think about it, the older it gets. So, I've devised a quick formula for calculating lit links' freshness:
(P ÷ 10) ÷ (DL + C),
where P is the number of pages you've read of the author (or genre) profiled, quoted, or excerpted in the linked-to page; D is the number of days since the link first appeared on a weblog that you read; L is the cumulative number of lines in posts about the link; and C is the number of comments left on those posts. If the resulting number is equal to or greater than 1, the link is fresh enough to post. If the resulting number is < 1, posting the link will broadcast that your blog is the web equivalent of a) a 20-something who recaps episodes of Friends to his family over his cellphone, b) a LES-er who just took up smoking, or c) a mother in a high school carpool who sings along to hip-hop and wears chunky-soled sandals with capris.
An example: I noticed earlier this week that TMFTML had linked to an essay by James Hynes, the author of Publish or Perish. I've read (and liked) P or P, so P is 335. D is 3, L is 7, and C is 4. Plugging the numbers into the formula, I get 1.34. And I'm good to go!
links catch-upmedia
-'Apprentice' manages mythic, cheesy finale / Bill Gets the Job on 'The Apprentice' / Apprentice After Party
-Twins are copies and so are their films
-"The runner-up in the competition admitted during her interview that her proudest achievement was founding a program pairing 'stray animals with stray children'": Amy's Robot watches Miss USA.
-"The Hung craze has arrived on the heels of a cinematic season seemingly devoted to emasculating Asian males."
-band name origins
-celebrities-eating.com (via New Yorkish)
-Jennifer Garner's yearbook photo
-The Cinetrix, for the benefit of those without Wall Street Journal subscriptions, quotes from a WSJ article on "Machinima," "an emerging genre of low-budget videogame-generated films." More on Machinima here, here, and here.
blogs + web things
-Sharpeworld's back
-A9 combines Google results with Amazon's "Search Inside the Book" service.
-And now Google does the same?
-Also: a 3D search engine
-RSS feeds for your favorite ebay searches
-unconscious mutterings, a free association meme
more
-Chinese ice sculptures
-pigments through the ages
-Frankfurt Artist Marie Krebs has designed a uterus room for expectant parents to crawl into. (via quasimeta)
-TieGate! and The Bush Press Conference Response Generator
-Cicada: The other, other white meat
-What songs should you avoid when driving?
the art-of-factwriting
-Spike Magazine interviews J G Ballard.
-On the Nature of Literary Friendship, A Web Del Sol series (last two via Rake's Progress)
-Alice Hoffman writes on fairy tales for the Washington Post
-The Boston Globe looks at the American Library Association's "Celebrity READ" poster series and suggests alternate book selections for the celebs. (last two via bookslut)
-Maud quotes from a great exchange between Vladimir Nabokov and Edmund Wilson.
-Slate's Jack Shafer, on the Pulitzers, asks "Who cares?" and Ed answers, "Who cares about Jack Shafer?"
-Meanwhile, Terry describes and comments on the runners-up for the Pulitzer drama prize. On Omnium Gatherum: "In an inept attempt at subtlety, each guest is made to say one or two things inconsistent with his or her caricature—though somebody ought to tell the authors that making the fey Brit a raving Israel-hater was more accurate than they might have guessed."
-remains of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's plane have been found (via TMFTML)
art
-a surprisingly serious conversation on art criticism at TMFTML
-art by J.S. Rossbach (via Mock Turtle Soup)
-art by Jean-Jacques Gaude (via Penny Dreadful)
-art by rabotando (?) (via neurastenia)
-photography by Petr Salek (via cipango)
web and tech
-play the Kinja music digest
-share your Netflix queue
-your phone can alert you when friends are nearby
other
-Gymnast's Skills Save Him in Fourth-Floor Fall
-The Kingdom of Loathing
-Totally Ick.
lit links latermusic, tv, film
-Largehearted boy, truly largehearted, has rounded up a great collection of mp3 downloads that includes a hard-to-find Morrissey and Siouxsie Sioux duet.
-Dahlia Lithwick writes on "Average Joe, Adam Returns": "There is, for one thing, an odd National Geographic vibe to the new show, mostly in the resemblance between the cooped-up female contestants and their cousins, the orangutans; both devote relentless hours to fighting and grooming each other."
-Celebs pick their all-time favorite films for The Guardian.
-ABC's adaptation of Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time (a childhood favorite) premieres May 15. (via GirlHacker)
-The Black Table looks back at Kurt Cobain. (My response reading it: something like this.)
tech and computer stuff
-Playfair decodes purchased iTune songs into regular AAC Audio Files. (via boing boing)
-Vivienne Westwood Moto phone (via ashleyb)
-Mac OS X icons (via angiemckaig)
more
-"He says he now has a happy marriage, although, like many ex-gays, his opposite-sex attraction has so far been confined to his wife." (quote and link via Emma)
-Queen Stone and Prince TMFTML
-Suicide Girls to become a magazine
-Sarah reminds me that my family members aren't very good Jews. Twenty or so years ago, my grandmother wrote her own Haggadah, which is sweet and all, but it accidentally calls pork "kosher." Also, no one ever told me that on Passover even your medications should be kosher. I guess that's a subtlety best addressed, though, after removing the porkchops from the table.
Enter Tiffany Alana Stone, a literary disciple of the legendary Jack Kerouac, a professional Hollywood script reader, and unofficial queen of the ever-growing world of the Internet web logs, or blogs as they have come to be known……Enter Tiffany Stone, a graduate with a bachelor of arts in writing and literature from the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University in Boulder, Colo., a school founded by the poets Anne Waldman and Allen Ginsberg…
…Enter the real Tiffany Stone.
I have to tell you, this article kind of makes me feel like I'm at a gang bang. (link via TMFTML)
UPDATE: I should have read the comments at TMFTML first.
UPDATE 2: And I shouldn't have started reading Tiffany's blog. Because nothing hurts like a bad writer describing your family's restaurant. Don't read it. I'll pass along the highlight: a link to someone else's post on the property's previous life as mob hangout. (This little bit of history continues to induce ghost sightings among waitstaff and family.)
A couple days ago, I skimmed an article (available here) on spammers' festive spirit; they love celebrating holidays, adjusting email subject lines to each holiday's theme and mood. But I'm not convinced spam couldn't still be better, especially comment spam, which I've become something of an expert in over the past year.
Each month, the art of comment spamming improves, but never enough to convince me that the spam's not spam. Shouldn't that be the point? I mean, why embrace honesty and self-disclosure, when you're hawking spyware and penis enlargement pumps?
This past month's improvements have been commendable, revealing a new awareness of theme and relevancy. I'm, at least, now getting spam about books and movies. But, still, they're not fooling anyone:
It makes me think of something prozac out of High Fidelity, which paxil is a movie I liked, although soma a part of that is certainly olimpositaca because it was a movie about, cialis partially for, and potentially levitra by, music people. I want tramadol to read the book it was adapted ambienI don't know why they ruined an otherwise almost-coherent sentence with "olimpositaca" (Is that some kind of territorial marker, like dog piss or graffiti? Like, Yo, the olimpositaca spamgang's been here?) But the real problem, like I've said, is the total transparency of spam's attempts at trickery. They need to be more Crying Game, not having their goods hang out while thinking a cheap wig's going to trick you. Comment spam should be so good that it's indistiguishable from other comments, so good that any non sequiter or grammatical mistake will immediately prompt suspicion among the other comment-ers.
And so, that brings me to the real point of this post. This month, have spam comments finally gotten that good?
While I was sleeping, spam killed my hotmail account. If you sent me an email and it bounced, try again now.
(By the way, the TV's on in the background, and I just heard an ad for The Girl Next Door. It was one of those interview dazed non-critics leaving the theatre ads, which is always a bad sign. But worse yet, the quote the ad chose to end on was, "The previews don't really do it justice." I guess all standards are relative, but relative to a movie's past publicity?)
tongue snapping dry roof soundsIf I post again today, it will probably be sometime in the evening. And while most of the links I've got queued up for posting require some context or commentary, there are a few I can just throw out quickly:
-We hate Choire.
-Metafilter post goes blah blah blah Chuck Palahniuk.
-I feel okay putting off an investigation into what this link's about until tomorrow.
-Something on libraries.
-RP stumbles across a large mp3 archive of lit-related recordings.
Reserved for later: some TT linkage, commentary on all the lit bloggers filling their heads with big ideas, some excerpts from a wonderful book I'm reading, and what converting to my newly founded religion would entail of you. No. Yes. I'm a little serious. Some nice man emailed Cup with a request to start a cult for him to join, and I don't think it was spam. Oh, also, I've an article on spamming strategies that I'd like to respond to. But for now, a time-bridge of ellipses…
I've noticed that comments have been trailing off lately, despite an unprecedented abundance of offensive posts. To bring us up to date: I announced that Disney creatures have issued a fatwa on young children, had fun with the idea of both fat people and teens falling to their deaths, played my part in ignoring the reality of Africa's AIDS crisis, conflated blonde hair with a love for Nazis, laughed at people trying to find help in the privacy of their jail cells, placed the (probably very nice) CEO of Montblanc North America on silk sheets, and spun him round an ultra lux ass fulcrum, and, finally, said that I think happy third-worlders are, well, "gross."
People who read my blog regularly know that I'm usually more sensitive and caring. But I haven't had a good night sleep in weeks and the result is a tipsy, continual, public handling of a funny boner that, like my penis, is imaginary and only funny in that oh-gross way. If you don't depress this recent mania with a load of frightening, antagonistic, or senseless comments, I can't return as quickly to writing
-depressing riffs on my inability to finish books
-numbered lists of the numerous misreadings of canonical philosophy implied by reality TV
-and earnest apologies tomorrow for thinking any posts here merited re-reading, though at the time it was obvious I was only pretending to not find myself funny at 3:30 am so you could tell me that I do, using as your evidence the fact that self-reflexive commentary is always-already self-satisfied and juvenile, though more typically male in its psychology, because men are more likely to think you won't notice their self-deprecation isn't the sound of verterbrae snapping as they attempt self-fellatio -- much like the delusion that endless defensive joking implies self-awareness rather than a stunted self-esteem overcompensated for by unnaturally long sentences.
Thanks, everyone, for your submissions to Cup of Chicha’s “keywords that brought you here” contest. Over the past year, we’ve received thousands of creative, intriguing, and unabashedly candid entries, but sadly, not all of them could make the cut. To allow for as many winners as possible, though, we’ve created several new categories, including Don’t Come Back*, You Tell Yourself That, and Just Not Going to Happen. Thanks again for your hits, and feel free (*except for you) to enter the 2005 contest, starting (…hold on…) now.
CUP OF CHICHA'S “KEYWORDS THAT BROUGHT YOU HERE” CATEGORIES AND WINNERS
Best Typo
first place:
pubic humiliations (1, Google)
Just Not Going to Happen
first place:
contest for johnny depp (1, Google)
runners up:
sofia coppola address (3, Google)
nell freudenberger nude (12, Google)
lemony snicket nude (1, Google)
chuck palahniuk literary canon (4, Yahoo)
We’ll Look Into That
first place:
cheatsheet writing a novel (1, Google)
runners up:
gifts for narcissists (1, Google)
anthropomorphic implants (1, Google)
celebrities with shared psychotic disorder (2, Google)
do men like pubic hair (2, Google)
where do mfas work (1, Google)
Most Delightfully Gay
first place:
what male fairy are you quiz (2, Google)
Search Requests Most Likely to Gain Our Sympathy
first place:
jonathan safran foer loathsome (3, Google)
runners up:
she needed a cigarette (3, Google)
ptsd christina britney (1, Google)
i don t care about ben marcus (1, Google)
Best Example of Honesty
first place:
penis size doesn t matter aphorisms (1, Google)
Best Reminders to Take Our Medication
first place:
internet suicide novel (1, Google)
runners up:
do you ever fully recover from a nervous breakdown (1, Google)
what good is intelligence if you can t discover a useful melancholy (1, Google)
examples of hobbies and manic depressives (1, Yahoo)
pulling all nighter cigarettes (1, Google)
sometimes i want to cry (3, Google)
suicide via helium (1, Google)
shower psychology breakdown (1, Google)
life is horrible (9, Google)
my heart hurts (23, Google)
all things bleak and sordid (2, Google)
Suggestions for the Name of Our First Novel
first place:
encyclopedia of girls kissing (1, Yahoo)
runners up:
slobs in airports (3, Google)
horrible poopy ghost (2, Google)
Sounds Most Unpleasant
first place:
amputee dorm disease (1, Google)
runner up:
sex and the city syndrome (2, Google)
Proof that Cup of Chicha is the Web’s No.1 Authority on Evil Animals
first place (tie):
dolphins and satan or evil (1, Google)
fear that somewhere somehow a duck is watching you (6, Google)
runners up:
feral chihauhaus (5, Google)
sammy the killer squirrel (1, Google)
electrocuting squirrels (3, Google)
lifelike squirrel attack (1, Google)
Best Turn of Phrase (That We Think Was Ours)
first place:
unibrow crosshatch (12, Google)
Yeah, You Tell Yourself That
first place:
bipolars are genius and creative (1, Google)
Subcultures, Fetishes, and Procedures We Were Previously Unaware of
first place:
egoless porn (1, Google)
runners up:
toe shortening (4, Google)
smoking peanut shells and its effects (2, Google)
sneezing fetish stories (1, Google)
medical fetish injections (2, Google)
Best Examples of Knowing What You Want and Going For It
first place (tie):
chastity devices home built (3, Google)
streisand look a like porn film (2, Other)
runners up:
kelly osbourne feet pics (8, Google)
pictures of self cunnilingus (4, Google)
tennessee albino midgets (1, Google)
hermaphrodite hair braid pics (1, Google)
bea arthur smoking (3, Google)
in jungle animal fuck the pregnant women (2, Google)
scooby doo story erotic (1, Google)
anthropomorphic porn (2, Google)
tina fey barefoot (2, Google)
sexy meat dumpling (3, Google)
nudist new years eve party los angeles (2, Google)
fantasy photos of mermaids sexy (1, Google)
stiletto amputee (2, Google)
picture of identical twin boys fucking each other (5, Google)
If your search request is listed here Don’t Come Back
first place:
how to send my teen to german nudist camp (1, Google)
runners up:
freeze dry taxidermy dog (4, Google)
toddlers raped pics (2, Google)
sodomized my sister (2, Google)
platter woman head fantasy (1, Google)
pictures of carson daly s chest (2, Google)
bear rape trainer 27 inch penis (1, Google)
breakable girls porn (1, Other)
sexy cannibalism (3, Google)
very little girl fucking (1, Google)
If your search request is listed here We See Right Through You. (Don’t Come Back.)
first place:
poetry gang raped by boyfriends (1, Google)
runners up:
teenage nude art models beauty appreciation (1, Google)
family fun nudist pictures (1, Google)
educational photos of red pubic hair (1, Google)
horny old child (1, Google)
And to the Googler who got here with the search phrase "fake erotic guillotine execution," you didn't win any awards, but we do happen to have a hotel recommendation for you.
cutting the internet into links; snortinglit-related
-John Updike's won the PEN/Faulkner Award for his story collection, The Early Stories. "What signal is being sent here about the state of American fiction?" asks the Lit Saloon. "…Its contents were all previously published -- the newest story almost three decades ago (and some half a century ago)." Meanwhile, Rake's Progress quotes from Nicholson Baker's U&I: "…and I was stunned to recognize that in Updike we were dealing with a man so naturally verbal that he could write his fucking memoirs on a ladder!"
-The NY Times reports on Anne Fadiman's departure from The American Scholar. "[John Churchill, the publisher of the journal] declined to specify what changes the society envisioned for the journal, saying only that Ms. Fadiman's successor would be asked to reduce a budget deficit of about $250,000 by 50 percent."
-The NY Times finally gets around to Andrew Sean Greer's The Confessions of Max Tivoli. (Btw, I didn't know Andrew has a twin brother, an unpublished novelist. Given their identical DNA, do you think Andrew's success gives the brother hope, or suicidal ideations?)
-Ralf Zeigermann (aka, the Cartoonist) has updated his page of Finnegans Wake illustrations.
media
-Pocket movies, clips designed for your Pocket PC or Smartphone.
-Another lame Virginia Heffernan piece, this time about Kerry's appearance on MTV's "Choose or Lose." (I've always hated the vacant young person finally confronts politics and feels something trope, which V-Heff uses to frame this piece. Its last sentence, piggybacking on its first: "Somewhere, the girl in the red sweatshirt is nodding with great intensity, furrowing her young brow for the first time." Oh, give me a fucking break.)
-I don't think she looks good.
more, other
-test your site's readability
-eblots: cut rate internet therapy
-vintage toy collection
-another instance of creepy food anthropomorphism
-It's an easy transition from being "quirky children" to being "quirkyalones." "George has an unusual obsession — the vacuum cleaner. 'We have photos of him hugging it at 6 months of age,' the authors write."
i took my first adderall 30 minutes ago and, so far, nothin' doin'books and lit
-In the "Bards of Bromley," William Wordsworth, George Eliot, August Strindberg, Goethe, and A. A Milne are forced to suffer the indignities of a writing workshop. Listen here. (via …something slant)
-The NY Times profiles Anne Carson
-The Guardian reviews Mirror, Mirror: A History of the Human Love Affair with Reflection.
-The Literary Saloon reports on Alicia Keys' literary ambitions. : (
media
-handicapping the remaining apprentices
-related: NY Times piece on casting the second season of "The Apprentice"
other
-Wilo's Laws. "1.3 If communication seems to succeed in the intended way, there's a misunderstanding."
-artist paints an iceberg red
-PowerPoint to the people
quick hitslit
-"Some of the UK's best-known writers are to give budding authors the chance to write endings for their short stories." (via Maud)
-The Literary Saloon reports that Alain Robbe-Grillet has been elected to the Académie française.
-The Reading Experience hates on the NYRB.
media
-The NY Times' Heffernan spews nonsense on "America's Next Top Model."
-at New Yorkish: Honest Movie Posters
-Law and Artier
-I didn't realize Chaise, a digital arts magazine, was run by Brown seniors I've had classes with. Congrats, guys.
more
-Lindsayism's new design is awesome.
-iPods in 20 different colors.
-what people have done to their babies' ultrasound pictures (via idle type)
hyper leekslit
-Golden Rule Jones rounds up links to sites and articles about writers' homes.
-Gillian Slovo rereads Anna Karenina. Slovo's new novel, The Ice Road, is coming out soon and, based on this piece, I'll make sure not to read it. (link via bookslut)
-The London News Review has launched a book blog. (via TMFTML)
-The NY Times looks at Ma Yan's Diary: The Daily Life of a Chinese Schoolgirl, "which has sold 45,000 copies in France and has already appeared in eight languages in addition to French."
-IMPAC shortlist
-Pulp.net (via Sarah's Confessions)
film, music, tv
-Mischa Barton's iTunes playlist, with commentary by Uncle Grambo
-Yohanna is America's Next Top Model, aka Tyra's indentured servant. Meanwhile, Elyse, my favorite contestant from last year's season, has written an article for Bust magazine, available here.
-Britney, My Tanned Lady. (via the blueprint)
(-You're right. They do.)
other
-Standard Deviance relays -- and suggests -- new uses for pregnant women.
-Scientists calculate how high heels can go. You tall women don't know how fucking important this research is. (via kottke's remaindered links)
-Which Completely Random Person are You? (via Confessions)
One of the largely unacknowledged difficulties of keeping a weblog is properly timing your posts: on the one hand, you can only post when you have time, and, on the other hand, a links and commentary weblog must be timely. And by timely, I mean both new and under-blogged; you have to catch a link before it's gone mainstream, and that can happen in the span of several hours.
Throw in depression, outside commitments like oversleeping, and blogging starts to require the reflexes of an athlete. Act fast, or lose the inning. You can collect all the interesting links in the world at 5 am, too tired to paste them in MT, but too guilty over all your various forms of unproductivity to stop reading and fall asleep. But when you wake up at 2 PM and all those people doing under-cover blogging at their workplace snagged your bookmarked links in the AM, you realize: the laziness and procastination-tendencies that originally made blogging so appealing don't make you a good blogger. You can't procastinate procastination. Or you can, but it feels mighty shitty knowing you're too lazy or tired to even do your procastination properly. On that note, I'm going to finally start writing my promised review of the now-untimely Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind…
Poor Viagra. She didn't understand why, despite all her compliments on people's posts, she always found her comments deleted when she checked back for responses.
sleeping doesn't helpI'll add to this list as the day progresses.
lit
-David Cronenberg is set to direct an adaptation of Martin Amis' London Fields. (via Gothamist)
-The Howling Fantods bring more news on David Foster Wallaca's upcoming story collection, Oblivion. (via Rake's Progress) (Also, looks like DFW's The Broom of the System is getting reissued on Oblivion's release date.)
-The Reading Experience rounds up new or little-known lit-centric weblogs. Among them: Inside the Missouri Review, Spurious, and Long Pauses.
-"An analysis published in Berlin says that [Nabokov's] Lolita … was originally the creation of a leading Nazi journalist." (via moorish girl)
music
-Magnetic Fields: new album and tour dates
-Nick Drake rarities and remixes to be released, May 24 (via the fold drop)
-"Beginning May 24, Morrissey is confirmed to appear for an entire week on CBS' 'The Late Late Show With Craig Kilborn.'" (via the blueprint)
other
-SBaGen is freeware (for Windows, Mac and Linux) that affects brain waves. "Four bands" are available: "Delta - deep sleep, Theta - dreaming and intuitive stuff, Alpha - awake, focussed inside, Beta - awake, focussed outside."
-Mind Balance: a video game that turns brain waves into movements. "If the Mawg slips to the right, the participant can help shift the creature’s balance back to the left by staring at the orb flickering on the left-hand side of the screen. The subsequent change in brainwave electrical activity is detected by the system as a VEP, and transformed into a one-dimensional analog control axis that can be used to get the Mawg back on track." (via btang phlog)
-I want my second language to be Vampire.
-PSA: might as well not drink Dasani.
I've been wondering why, given the constant increase of spam coments on my site, I don't give in and install MT Blacklist. But then I realized spam comment-hunting has become, for me, an online duckhunt. I paste in an IP address, click to add it to my list of banned IPs, and it's like Pow, a bird shot dead.
dwarf and midget linkslittle lit
-Jessica Lee Jernigan reviews Hotel World and interviews its author, Ali Smith. Meanwhile, the NY Times reviews Smith's latest, The Whole Story and Other Stories in today's "Books in Brief."
-The Seven Basic Plots, by John Leary
-lit on your iPod (last 2 via Maud )
-Dennis Lim's Codex scores good reviews in the NY Times and Village Voice
-In the Guardian (which now requires registration, Godfuckit), "writer Sarah Champion gives an exclusive account of how it feels to be mistaken for the notorious 'Belle de Jour'"
-Sara Nelson writes for the Observer on The Sleeping Father's dark horse success.
-The New York Review of Books looks at Solitary Sex: A Cultural History of Masturbation.
art projects
-the untitled project: text scrubbed from photos
-World of Awe, reviewed in the NY Times
-Michael Kenna 's photography
-Jeff Bohlander's retro collages
more
-firsthand accounts of Ph.D.'s on landing jobs and working in academe
-Stereogum posts 2 tracks from Modest Mouse's latest album
-taxonomy, with illustrative links, of online loser-types
-Resonant Frequencies and the Human Brain
-dwarf and midget cats
-celebrity yearbooks
I left New York at 6 am, having only slept an hour -- the night before that, three. And as the plane crossed half the country, sinking and rising in slow cycles, I fell into dreams, and was lifted from them by new altitude. In my dreams, I woke up to the plane setting down in Iowa, but I couldn't move, so limp from fatigue. And then I'd rise from the dream as the plane ascended, and descend into dreams of waking as it fell.
When we finally landed, stairs were wheeled up to the plane. I walked down them (--like a president greeting a crowd, except I swayed with nine days' worth of clothes and books in carry-ons--) and I thought I'd trip. And I struggled hard to keep my balance against the morning light (-- the anticipation of a crowd, I thought, not much different than my count-down, taken step by step, to level ground).
I could see, from the plane's window and then again, outside the airport, that Iowa had finally won its spring. But it wasn't a pleasant spring. The cornfields were dry and, since the land was flat, they looked like sand, and desert. I took an airport shuttle home, hoping, for my body's sake, that the monotony of fields was a fair compromise between the the nill of sleep and my short-term need to stay awake.
And now I'm home. And, as sad as this sounds, home partly means my own computer -- my email, weblog, cable modem -- which domesticate my apartment like pets do, waiting to be attended to when I come in from trips.
I've been feeling guilty about not writing more, or better, posts while in NY. It's not that I'm worried about my readers (-you-), but that I hate thoughts and ideas going to waste -- not being properly stored (in my weblog, my internet refrigerator). There's lots of things I did in NY that I want to post about -- and god no, not as journals. I might nap now, but I want to put up my thoughts on the Whitney Biennial, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and some books I'm reading. And I've bookmarked dozens of sites that I should sort through, discarding the links that other sites have used, and hoping some remain for blogging. So, this post means to say I'm back, and my weblog will, again, have links and commentary, and I hope you'll relapse into the habit of reading it.
(Ok: now to my bed, for napping.)
Until I'm feeling better, please refer to my blogroll for good blog reading. I'll be posting occasionally, but the TV commentary will manage to be both heavy-handed and irrelevent, the literary links five-days-stale, and the journals unusually self-pitying. But the redesign, previously a hypothetical, will be ready soon (thanks to Bill), and its premier will mark my transition from sickness to health: my old page, swarming with germs, will be burned, and a clean new (style)sheet will be set down in its place.
Everquest Daily Grind: partners of EQ addicts tell their stories. Here, frightening, sad excerpts from five of them:
-What really has me concerned is that she has an in-game boyfriend now. he is a nice guy and i have grouped with him a couple of times, but now i can not get the comp if he is on and can only play after he has left. she assures me that it's only in the game and that i am still her #1, but she spends every chance she can get with him.
-I'm so angry with him now. I don't even want to talk to him. I have never been like that. I am starting to think that I'm wasting my breath. I am tired of going to bed alone each and every night. When I lay in bed at night I start to cry thinking about how things used to be before "the game".
-I called my attorney and talked to them. I told them what she was doing and I was sure she was leaving the state to be with her internet "husband". (She married her boyfriend in the game) All they did was shake their head and say,"She's done nothing other then get a attorney of her own to help her own case. This will bite her in the ass big time."
-I was visiting an old friend and I went into premature labor. I couldn't get through to my husband b/c he was online via dialup. I had to call a neighbor to go over there and tell him to get off the computer. I called back a little later and talked to him and told him what was going on. This was a dangerous situation b/c I was only like 4 months pregnant and having contractions with my second child. Well when I tried to call back a few hours later to give him and update on what was going on the phone line was busy again. He had gotten back on the computer. He was more concerned about his game than he was me and his unborn child. That tore me up inside and I will never forget it.
-I have seen a therapist, because I can no longer function at work. I have talked to the woman's husband, who is also devastated. I have talked to other members in the game who know my husband, one of them had the audacity to tell me to let them be and wish them happiness. THEY ARE BOTH STILL MARRIED!!!! I will never rest until I know where my husband is, and he gives me an explanation of why he has done this. His child loves and adores him so much, he has lost it all. I have learned also that his character was causing trouble, he was using his "power" and ego to make everyone miserable. He lost everything in real life, so he had to turn to the game to regain that power.
Link via BoingBoing.
weekend linkslit
-The Guardian looks at Chuck Palahniuk's new short story, "Guts," "a cautionary masturbation tale writ large." (And, similarly, my contribution to literature may be this link: the random masturbation synonym generator. Read it when you're not hitting the tube of toothpaste, doodling the beefsteak, or cleaning out the bayonet.)
-serialized novels, delivered to your phone
-Book Babes Watch. Binoculars, bikinis, hysterical blindness.
-NYT review of Paul E. Dinter's Other Side of the Altar: One Man's Life in the Catholic Priesthood and Anthony Swofford's Jarhead: A Marine's Chronicle of the Gulf War and Other Battles. In part, I'm linking to this because Tony read at Iowa recently.
-And guess who else is coming to U. of Iowa, on March 29: Salman Rushdie.
-How, how, how can Lucina Rosenfeld write novels when she can't write [columns]?
film, tv
-Daily Refill has a mini OC episode for those who don't like waiting.
-The Apprentice blog asks, Which apprentice are you?
-Ed links to an excerpt from a crazy Tim Robbins-penned play.
-A SATC reunion: between the show's clothes and its fans
After seeing this and this, I don't think I need to take my SSRIs today.
And I'm not sure I'll have time to post again until tomorrow. So, here's some quick, quick links:
-Sarah rounds up the nominations for the British Book Awards.
-Birnbaum interviews Flaherty (The Midnight Disease). Seems even neurologists have no sense of humor when it comes to author photos.
-how to gauge buzz in NYC (via Gawker)
-When you're eating pork from a serial killer's farm, you might not be eating pork.
Have you ever sent an email with the wrong information in it?Bigstring: Erasable-Recallable EmailHave you ever sent an email to the wrong person?
Have you ever sent an email without the attachment?
Have you ever sent an email that you wish you could just erase?
Have you ever sent an email that you wanted to self-destruct in a day, week month or more?
web drivel-"Hi, Jeanie. Tell me, how did you get into 'dead mouse' art?"
-strawberry poptart blow torches (via caterina)
-random Law and Order plot generator (via web zen)
-human washing machines (via b-tang)
-World Ice Art Championships
-Kelly Ripa Ripped (via web zen)
BugMeNot.com lets you bypass news sites' registration. (Site found by way of SixDifferentWays' remaindered links.)
quick linksblogs on psychology and, sometimes, art
-Follow Me Here… links to an article on the possibility of suicide -- for the sane and healthy -- ever being rational.
-Brainworld, infrequently updated, looks at "brain studies" in relation to art and literature. Similarly, Cinebrain is about "brain science and cinema."
-The Nautis Project tracks scholarship on Rupert Sheldrake, C.G. Jung, Henri Bergson, and Joseph Campbell.
other
-Iron Chef America (via GirlHacker)
-The Official Rules of Calvinball (via Mefi)
-iSkip.com: "Skippers of the world unite!" Here's where he's rolling. (via J-Walk)
and media
-Cinetrix has seen Prozac Nation. "And while it's no Showgirls or Mommie Dearest, you'd be hard-pressed to find a more infuriating and unlikeable non-serial-killer female protagonist."
-Omarosa has a webpage.
-Kidman's set to play the White Witch in the film adaptation of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.
sunday links, to be updated throughout the daylit
-Maud Newton reviews The Island of Bicycle Dancers in today's Washington Post.
-at I Love Books, Novels about novelists. Related: a TLS review of Muriel Spark's The Finishing School.
-The Guardian posts a short story from Julian Barne's newest collection, The Lemon Table.
-From the Village Voice's review Matthew Sharpe's The Sleeping Father: "It's resplendent with aching absurdities, word salads, inspired semicolon deployment, golden-eared teenage monologues. It's the best thing I hope to read all year—and if it isn't, this will be a very good year indeed."
other
-"New Nietzschean Diet Lets You Eat Whatever You Fear Most"
-Mefi post on shoes and practices that are cruel to feet.
-More disturbing feet, thanks to Pony's new ad campaign. (via ad rants)
-Gaultier: “I think I like marionettes better than models!”
other, part II
-Guess My Name. (via Idle Type)
-Alice in Wonderland syndrome (via quiddity)
But today, TMTML quotes from an article on Morrissey --
[H]is brand of loneliness and longing and hopelessness (all the stuff he sings about) is that of a person who finds it natural to have relationships with the unreachable - that's to say, with images and works rather than people. Nostalgia is the be-all-and-end- all of pop, and Morrissey is the king of all that, so when he became a star himself (and began featuring his own mug on his record sleeves) he had succeeded in creating an audience literally after his own image, a tribe inured to the modes and manners of heightened fandom."-- and then names his next post, on 'holy anorexia,’ Some Girls are Bigger than Others. So, yes, a crush, definitely.
Found at MeFi: strange and unusual sea creatures. In a Pixar rendition of the blogosphere, which would you be? Some suggestions:
TMFTML and Maud Newton.
Any 2 lit bloggers.
Whitney Pastorek complains about blogs in the Village Voice. From the intro:
It takes a lot to make me rethink my place in this city, and even more to make me question my very existence. But lately, irrational social fears are keeping me up at night. Something is going horribly wrong, and I have finally traced the problem to its source: blogs.Or, more specifically, the Blogosphere—a land where the smart get smarter, the connected connect to one another, and the losers go home. The Godfather here is Nick Denton, owner of Gawker Media, a top-tier blog conglomerate named for its flagship, gawker.com. Launched by Denton in January 2003, with Elizabeth Spiers as editor, Gawker made its name by skewering New York media culture—what are the funny signs up in the bathroom at Condé Nast? Who was spotted going into the Condé Nast building wearing something awful?— but Spiers lost her indie cred when she moved on to the New York magazine-owned The Kicker and started blogging about how she goes to parties and hangs out with the very people she used to skewer. Other sites under the Gawker umbrella are Wonkette (Gawker for D.C.), gizmodo.com (Gawker for techno-geeks), and Fleshbot.com (Gawker for porn).
A step down from Denton's cabal are blogs like TMFTML (The Minor Fall, the Major Lift), independently run by some guy sitting in a room. Sort of the P. Diddy to Gawker's Sting, they remixed the hit song and made it . . . different. Plus he maintains total anonymity—which really pisses bloggers off. On his level are sites like Cup of Chicha, Old Hag, or the Elegant Variation. Here, you're less likely to find breaking news about media culture, but you will learn a lot about the drinking patterns of articulate twentysomethings. They're all friends, the bloggers on this level, and they're in a constant state of link-swapping, making it possible to actually click through the Web in a giant circle all day, like Tigger bouncing through the Hundred Acre Wood.
ice cream, pajamas, cigarettesbooks
-an online petition to replace Poynter's Book Babes. Commentary here.
-On the subject of friends and foes:Jennifer Howard to temporarily become a lit blogger.
-The short-listed writers for storySouth's Million Writers Award talk about their nominated stories over at Moorish Girl.
-the NY Times reviews Kureishi's latest. "But Kureishi with his good idea is sadly like his narrator with the hot new body: he doesn't know what to do with it."
-the new rage online: summarize a novel in 25 words
-Optic Nerve is back. More info on Tomine at Bookslut.
-a nice Calvino site, courtesy of wood s lot
-On The Shelf: "Peabody Institute Library news, book reviews, and other items of interest."
entertainment
-on movie taglines (via pullquote)
-Academy Awards cookies
-Aeon Flux the movie? Starring Theron?
other
-ice sculpting
-watch a woman age. Given my cig addiction, I don't need time-lapsing.
-how to fake your own death (last two via idle type)
-how to create a ghost. (via number one hit song)
Quoted from The Reading Experience:
Literary criticism is in a sorry state these days. Discussion of books and writing has been superseded by gossip about writers (Elias Canetti/Iris Murdoch) and even about critics (Naomi Wolf/Harold Bloom), the most talked-about critic has become so because he indulges in hysterical and ad hominem attacks on writers who don't write books like his own (Dale Peck), not a single book nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award in the category of "criticism" is actually a work of literary criticism. Literary webloggers have so far focused their attention on what passes for literary "news" (a useful enough service nevertheless), book reviews of fiction are gradually being abandoned, academic critics concern themselves with literature at all only to the extent of instructing their students to despise it.
And I'll admit something horrible: I had to look the word up.
kind of like bloggingcousin lit
-The Literary Saloon, not at all surprised by Milan Kundera's popularity, links to a relatively recent profile (or, strangely, an interview of an interviewer) of Kundera, in which Kundera states, "I don't like [North] American literature."
-Something Slant recommends the latest issue of U. of Iowa's 91st Meridian. While you're in the neighborhood, also take a look at this page, which links to several university-affiliated lit. journals, from the Iowa Review Web to eXchanges.
-I just discovered, but haven't yet explored, BookBrowse.com and LibraryLookup.
vaguely related to music, tv, film, etc.
-I didn't bother either uploading or downloading The Grey Album, but I will, today, link to some free MP3s (left column)
-Low Culture interviews movie goers exiting screenings of The Passion of the Christ in Jerusalem and Brooklyn.
-prank calls with film clips
kind of like art
-bar code drug paintings
-many links to sand sculptures
-hand-carved guitars (via the Presurfer)
-music nesting dolls
fonts and logos
-famous fonts
-the HOT or NOT of logo design
-logos across the globe (last two via danelope)
Amazon's wishlists are now sortable by priority, from "must have" to "don't buy this for me." But I've already moved on to WishCentral, which lets me list, categorize, and prioritize items from any store website. (The less money I have, the more organized my wishing.)
linkagebooks and writing
-Notes from Underground is officially the most over-used title in journalism. The article, found via bookslut, is about the ULA, The Paris Review, and Yiyun Li, an Iowa classmate and winner of the Paris Review's Plimpton Prize.
-rules for better writing (via boingboing)
-Novelist Sarah Dunant's top 10 books on the Renaissance.
-The Constant Critic: tri-weekly poetry reviews
-an experiment in speed reading
-Nobody wants you to turn your blog into a book except for me.
-Gawker looks at Nick and Jessica's book proposal
media
-A blog devoted to reviewing Entertainment Weekly.
-Best Picture Nominees Turned TV Series: 2007-08 (via Amy's Robot)
-The Guardian examines the high school movie genre.
-SATC behind-the-scenes tensions might derail the planned movie. "'By the end, no one would talk to Kim. Not even in the makeup room,' our on-set insider said."
sex
-Beautiful Agony: faces during orgasm. I'm building up the courage to watch no. 15. (via idle type)
-Experiment: To have sexual relations with "the world's finest love doll."
-Fleshbot wishes you a happy Mardi Gras.
other
-Manual of Traffic Signs. (via G3RM)
-"Amaze is the hand-held maze that changes as you play. Once you set up one of sixteen different maze challenges the fun begins!" I want this. (via Tom McMahon)
-The Onion one-ups my typo-riddled attempt at parody.
inspiration for hypothetical redesign
-Simple clean CSS rollover menus with lists
-Well Designed Weblogs, Volume 2
-CSS Design: Custom Underlines
-CSS bugs and solutions
Network Images. From left to right, high school dating, high school friendship, and the internet.
Link via Spitting Image.
blog laxativebooks and writing
-The Shanghai Translation Publishing House has sold more than 1 million copies of Milan Kundera's books, making Kundera the best selling foreign author of literary works in the city. "Since the publishing house released the first title, 'Jacques and His Master,' last April, the book has created a 'Kundera craze' in domestic book markets, the publisher said yesterday." Have I mentioned before -- no, probably not because it's creepy -- that both my mother and I find Kundera really hot? Link, btw, via Ed, who may not even want credit after that last sentence.
-Robert McCrum writes on 'the curse of the synopsis' in yesterday's Guardian. Maud: "McCrum correctly points out that few novels resemble the one the author envisioned at the outset." TLS: "As we often mention, we do not comprehend how publishers go about their business -- and are surprised that they have any success whatsoever if this is the way they do it." Sarah: "There are a lot of hands that must talk to each other and communicate smoothly, so the author has to at least indulge that--at least a little bit… Also, submitting a proposal is a quicker way--at least in theory--of ascertaining whether a book will actually sell." Ed: "But one thing [Sarah] overlooks is that the new synopsis trend may very well reflect a profit-driven industry looking to cut corners wherever possible. "
-Beatrice has launched 5 Questions With, "brisk conversations with book people."
-Moorish Girl has taken off her glasses, and, amazingly, is the most beautiful girl at Prom (even though other girls might be wearing dresses by the same designer).
-This is a fun post. Maud rounds up first sentences of recently read novels.
-Found at This is comfort: Surrealist Writers and textz, a "free archive of radical writing."
picture books
-Matthew Vescovo, the artist behind Instructoart, has a new book coming out: Instructoart Lesson 1: Informative Yet Aesthetically Pleasing. According to Beautiful Stuff, " His instructions for every day life include things like how to do the hokey pokey, how to make armpit fart sounds, how to air kiss someone, and how to do the elevator fake-out."
-The NY Times profiles Will Eisner, whose latest graphic novel, "The Plot," "tells the story behind the creation of 'The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,' the infamous Russian forgery that purported to reveal a Jewish plan to rule the world."
-The Cartoon Guide to Genetics
tv and film
-David Denby on The Passion: "one of the cruellest movies in the history of the cinema."
-Even though my boyfriend's been singing its off-key jingle on a 24-hour loop, I still heart that Quiznos ad.
-No wonder Matthew Perry's been looking thinner/better. (Scroll down, third item.)
other
-How many ladies can say they've had a song dedicated to them?
-the cult construction kit. I swear I've posted that link before.
-At Harper's: When Killing Just Won't Do
-smelly vision for email? (via the fold drop)
I'm considering adding a new feature to this site: bi-monthly interviews with Iowa Writers' Workshop writers (current classmates, past graduates). Unless I find a poet friend interested in conducting interviews, I'll probably focus on fiction writers, starting with classmates that have already met success. Bad idea/good idea? Recommendations? Suggestions?
hot blog-on-blog action-Emma introduces the NYer's new staff writer, Caitlin Flanagan.
-The Atlantic asks, "Would Shakespeare Get Into Swarthmore?"
-Lee attacks the racism of gossip blogs. Wonkette's Ana Marie Cox responds (scroll down).
-TEV's Mark lets his Believer subscription lapse.
-Jeff MacIntyre passes along a recommendation for a magazine that sounds "better-than-Believer cool."
-The Girls Project: a new initiative featuring award-winning films, videos, and a comprehensive website celebrating young women's lives around the world. (via pullquote)
-Shows that mention witchcraft no longer eligible for closed-captioning
-covers from rare witchcraft books (via the Cartoonist)
-subliminal advertising links
-strange clip art (via Tom McMahon)
-Prentiss Riddle compares handbooks on breaking monotony in talking-heads comics.
-Tijuana Bibles. "A typical bible consisted of eight stapled comic-strip frames portraying characters and celebrities (eg. John Dillinger, Popeye, Disney characters) in wildly sodomistic situations." (via spitting image)
-Compiled by Vitamin Q, a baker's dozen of beauty standards.
-A new craze has drinks being snorted through a tube using an Alcohol Without Liquid (AWOL) vaporiser. "But alcohol experts described the device as 'diabolical' and warned that inhaling alcohol could cause serious brain damage."
-According to a new study, antibiotic use in women is associated with an increased risk of breast cancer. (via medpundit)
links, super-sizedliterary
-sex advice from poets (via bookslut)
-Students Pull All-Nighter for Shakespeare
-Kafka quotations at The Modern World
-A beginner's guide to reading Proust (via Golden Rule Jones)
-More books are getting trailers. Here, one for Douglas Coupland's latest. (via notes from somewhere bizarre)
-"Word Menu, a $35 program from Write Bros. Inc., offers a lexicon of 76,000 words and phrases that are arranged by subject and can be made to appear in alphabetized lists or within colorful concentric circles." Download a trial version here. (I recommend, instead, a used visual dictionary and the onelook reverse dictionary. Also worth checking out, though slightly less useful: plumb design's visual thesaurus.) (first link via Maud)
-"I feel sorry for novelists when they have to mention women's eyes: there's so little choice, and whatever coloring is decided upon inevitably carries banal implications…"
film, tv, music
-The Joni Mitchell Library (via J-Walk)
-Fight Club: Calvin and Hobbes for adults? (via B.A.)
-Found at Splinters: The Ister is a new film by inspired by Heidegger's series of lectures on Holderlin's poem Der Ister. (Strangely enough, a classmate of mine at Brown was working on a film about the same damn thing.)
-an "American Idol" for politics
visuals
-Anatomical Collages and Papier-Mâché Anatomical Models (via the eyes have it)
-Colored dye in toilet bowls: Toilygraph photography. (via J-Walk)
-portraits of famous blondes (Bardot, Buffy, Britney), made from bubblegum (via Boing Boing)
-Aya Takano's The world after 800,000,000 years (via Anarchismo)
-Classic Good Girl & Romance Covers (via notes from somewhere bizarre)
other, more
-What superhero are you? (via J-Walk)
-iPod car stereo system
-"Technology with roots in antiterrorism efforts will soon make the singles scene safer and friendlier, not to mention more efficient, if a software system called the Love Detector lives up to its billing." (via Spitting Image)
sunday night links-via funferal: "According to an article in the Irish Times (registration required) the Joyce estate has informed the Irish government that it intends to sue for copyright infringement if there are any public readings of Joyce's works during the festival commemorating the 100th anniversary of Bloomsday this June."
-Scarlett Thomas on book blurbs (via Confessions)
-Steriogram Walkie Talkie Man music video by Michel Gondry (via abstract dynamics)
-amnesia in Hollywood movies
-the advertising slogan hall of fame (via Angie McKaig)
happy v-dayliterature
-The Independent asks writers to recall early romantic encounters.
-Library Girl Romances
-Stephany (over at Maud's) points out that the Washington Post's review of Helen Fisher's Why We Love has a
