February 2012
13 posts
“I considered my fellow human beings and thought that it wasn’t that...”
– Ryan Boudinot, BLUEPRINTS OF THE AFTERLIFE
January 2012
7 posts
“Anytime things were going right for you, the future of the world seemed bright....”
– Ryan Boudinot, Blueprints of the Afterlife
Debacle Timeline: The Pratfall of Penny Arcade - A... →
Looooong post (sorry if it clogs up your feed), but I think it’s important. It has a lot of very smart - and bafflingly foolish - comments from many sides about humor, feminism, speech, the acceptability of certain types of humor, misogyny in game culture, artist accountability, and a dozen other things.
via Critical Distance, which is quickly becoming one of my favorite websites.
...
December 2011
6 posts
Top 10 Books of 2011 →
danfaust:
Okay…there are more than ten. My blog. My rules.
Good list.
MIT is going to offer free online education for... →
Comic Shots: LOKI and Pranqster →
livingthescilife:
Otherwise you’d never know what to drink whilst you read.
“Sometimes you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeal,...”
– John Green, “The Fault in Our Stars.” (via potterwhovian)
YES. THIS. (via jennirl)
November 2011
6 posts
Bookrageous Episode 29: Short Stories, with... →
bookrageous:
A doozy of an episode with a floppity jillion book recommendations AND special guest Adam Ross.
Rapture Lite: An Atheist Reads "Heaven Is for...
[via open.salon.com]
From the first page to the last, the authors of Heaven Is for Real fail to raise the most obvious questions concerning Colton’s mini-rapture. Why doesn’t Jesus vouchsafe these eschatological day trips to children more benighted than Colton—kids growing up in a Buddhist households, say, or youngsters afflicted with atheist parents, or preschoolers in Tehran? Why was Colton...
October 2011
14 posts
“There’s only one rule that I know of, babies - God damn it, you’ve...”
– I know a lot of people would pick “So it goes” as their go-to Vonnegut quote, but this line from God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater is my KVJr line to live by.
"Gawker Is Big Immature Baby" on Slate
Cosigned.
But then it occurred to me that perhaps I had misunderstood Gawker. If you are pumping out autopilot schadenfreude all day long, maybe there is nothing personal in it. The rage, the dissociated nastiness, floats through the ether and attaches itself fleetingly to a subject, but really, taking it personally is like being annoyed at the wind for messing up your hair.
- Katie...
Bookrageous Episode 28; Fall Trade Shows →
bookrageous:
The podcast elves stayed up late last night show-noting this one for you, so you’d have it bright and early. In our latest episode, Jenn, Josh and Rebecca get excited about meeting authors and forthcoming books. And bees!
Episode 109 – Clam Slams and Poster Jams →
livingthescilife:
00:00:00 – This week the Paleopals are joined by Giacomo Bernardi from UCSC. He filmed fish using tools for the very first time, and is happy to tell us all about just why that’s so…
“King James, The Chosen One. The Whore of Akron. I dropped the last one on him...”
– from Scott Raab’s Lebron bio / fandom meditation / memoir / Cleveland sports history Whore of Akron.
The book is brilliantly furious - Raab cuts open a fetid, boiling vein of anger and sprays it on the page.
And this is coming from me, a guy that just barely knows what a floor violation is.
Episode 108 – Man-Made Monsters →
livingthescilife:
00:00:00 – The scientific world was ‘rocked’ when news came out of GSA reporting a giant hyper-intelligent cephalopod discovered in the Triassic. But does the story hold water? (hint:
New Doomtree Single - The Grand Experiment →
Featuring Bookrageous favorite Dessa.
Thanks, Wired!
5 tags
Washington Post on I Married You for Happiness →
You also won’t un-read this odd little book once you’ve finished it. It will make you chafe. It will strike a chord. Like love itself, it is an irritant as well as a comfort. In a way, “I Married You For Happiness” is like the body upstairs in Nina’s house. It weighs; it is deeply sad. It is the ultimate one-way function. But it will also remind you that unlike that shattered egg — at least in...
1 tag
Word of the Day for Saturday, October 1, 2011
danfaust:
weltschmerz \VELT-shmerts, noun:
Sentimental pessimism; sorrow that one feels and accepts as one’s necessary portion in life.
Weltschmerz comes from German welt, “world” and schmerz, “pain.” The term was coined by Jean Paul Richter in 1810.
================================
Those Germans…they have a word for everything. I mean, “world pain”? Come. On. How awesome is that?
September 2011
35 posts
Nina leans over Philip. Lightly, she touches his cheek. How can this have happened? How can this be?
Philip is so robust, so healthy, so - she tries to think of the right words - so engaged in life.
Come back, she whispers. Please, come back.
How can he leave her?
Without saying good-bye.
Without a word.
Please, she pleads.
Putting her head down on his chest, she listens.
From Lily...
“But the truth is, that when a Library expels a book of mine and leaves an...”
– Mark Twain
“An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all.”
– Oscar Wilde, in The Critic as Artist
Banned book week continues!
“If some books are deemed most baneful and their sale forbid, how, then, with...”
– Herman Melville, in The Encantadas