February 17, 2014 #
There are some men I know who are teaching and writing who are single fathers. But not many. Most of them have these great devoted wives, some version of Vera Nabokov. Writers all need Vera. She famously taught some of his classes. He would say, ‘My assistant will be teaching the next class,’ and, apparently, when Nabokov gave the lectures, he needed notes. When Vera gave the lectures, no notes.
—
Lorrie Moore on the difficulty of teaching and writing simultaneously, and the great help of Veras.
February 5, 2014 #
A rather awesome, and excellently designed, collection of posts on music and design with an emphasis on Japan.
January 30, 2014 #
One of the very first sentences you’re taught to say in Foreign Policy Community College is, ‘Russia without Ukraine is a country; Russia with Ukraine is an empire.’
—Explaining the importance of Ukraine to Russia in this informative
9 questions about Ukraine you were too embarrassed to ask.
January 23, 2014 #
AIGA celebrates 100 years of design that connects, informs, assists, delights and influences with an experience that does all five.
January 16, 2014 #
DeBock’s fascination with the SRF-39FP began when he realized that it could receive AM signals from places as distant as Japan and Korea at his home in Puyallup, Washington. “Since then, I’ve probably had more exposure to the SRF-39FP than anyone else who has managed to stay out of prison,” DeBock said.
—On the
proliferation of the Sony SRF-39FP portable analog radio in prisons.
January 15, 2014 #
The Letterform Archive collects inspirational analog artifacts to digitize in high fidelity, for all who love letters. Includes a very impressive collection of WA Dwiggins specimens.
January 14, 2014 #
Readers admired my views on literature and my deep understanding of women — things few readers (or women) think here.
—Writer
David Gordon recounts how his novel, translated into Japanese, became a sensation in Japan, spawned a movie
—"It was as if I had fallen asleep and had a weird dream about my own book"
—and made a star of its author.
January 14, 2014 #
Mr. Travers was charged with burglary, although nothing was taken from the apartment and there was no damage.
—A
NY Times article from 1986 about Omer Travers (known locally as “Bum Jovi”) breaking into Yoko Ono’s apartment in the Dakota and leaving “his photograph, name and address, before fleeing by the fire escape”
January 13, 2014 #
We were at Electric Lady Studios in Greenwich Village, and Mr. Baraka came in to add his vocals, which consisted of reading a poem he had written, “Something in the Way of Things (In Town).” I listened to the track again Friday, after he died, and I hear so many things hiding in the corners of the poem and his performance of it. There are traces of early poetry mentors like Charles Olson, there’s a little William S. Burroughs, there’s a reminder of how he opened the door for poetry to speech to recording long before the Last Poets or Gil Scott-Heron. There’s a devotion to making language mean something, even if — especially if — that something isn’t safe and preapproved.
—
Questlove remembers Amiri Baraka. The Charles Olson connection warms the cockles.
January 9, 2014 #
Instead of investing billions of dollars on drones, let’s focus on augmenting economic opportunities and providing basic and essential services like health care and education.
—
Questioning how the US addresses the reality of terrorism developing within urban poverty.