February 2012
3 posts
5 tags
written quickly for small amounts of money
Then, in a twist that I don’t understand even though I read it three times, the NYC narcotics squad ends up getting the suitcase and Parker barely catches a train out of Grand Central Station alive. But that’s the best thing about books like this. Even if the plots don’t make sense, and they often don’t because they’re written quickly for small amounts of money, the character and the mood can...
6 tags
I decided to love books as well.
My father, who is one of the few Indians who went to Catholic school on purpose, was an avid reader of westerns, spy thrillers, murder mysteries, gangster epics, basketball player biographies and anything else he could find. He bought his books by the pound at Dutch’s Pawn Shop, Goodwill, Salvation Army and Value Village. When he had extra money, he bought new novels at supermarkets,...
4 tags
Whatever else is going on...
He sent back a fifty-dollar bill and he said, “Whatever else is going on, make sure that you keep buying typewriter ribbon.”
Sherman Alexie, in conversation with Neko Case, in the new issue of The Believer
January 2012
3 posts
“There is an issue with some aspiring musicians, the ones who continue long into...”
– “When Should Amateur Musicians Call It A Day?”
aka If You Spam New Friends on Facebook With Your Band’s Kickstarter, You Are The Worst.
aka Somehow Wendy Got “Baba Booey” Into A Guardian Article. (via marathonpacks)
My writing lately →
If you follow me here because you like me or like my writing, especially my “music writing”, I’d like to point yr attention to this other thing I’m doing http://emmetlistens.tumblr.com/
If you’re just here for the Elliott Gould GIFs, carry on.
“…And there are people who prefer to read books and stories where the author...”
– Stephen Elliott (via staceymayfowles)
December 2011
11 posts
“For all the supposedly progressive politics of rock and pop, the structure of...”
– “Miss Independent: Why Kelly Clarkson’s Ron Paul Endorsement Makes Complete Sense.” (via marathonpacks)
“This transformation of the viewing public into a nation of smug Bela Karolyis,...”
– “The Killing vs. Homeland.” (via marathonpacks)
“On the Polar Express, which must stay at the same speed, Sandra Bullock...”
– (via notthischristmas)
3 tags
they read nothing but comics
I think one of our problems now is that we have guys who love comics. But they read nothing but comics. They’re people with limited education and limited views, so they keep feeding back into comics what they’re reading in comics. What comics need is an educated mind, a cultivated mind — it needs somebody with other ideas to come in, and it needs to step away a little, I...
5 tags
November 2011
10 posts
backleftlitz: On the terrace of the same suburban... →
backleftlitz:
On the terrace of the same suburban bar I blogged about a couple of days ago a girl who I once loved unrequitedly and who also follows me on Tumblr hey what’s up if you’re reading this later said that at her prestigious liberal arts college there is graffiti that says “the revolution will not be…
3 tags
“They say hurry up, give me some, I want it...
“Preacherlike, the president draws the crowd into a call-and-response. ‘Do you...”
– “How the GOP Became the Party of the Rich.” (via marathonpacks)
“Just tell the truth, and they’ll accuse you of writing black humor.”
– Charles Willeford (via writingquotes)
October 2011
7 posts
“There was also a special box about Martin Beck, ‘the well-known detective...”
– from Cop Killer, by Maj Sjöwall & Per Wahlöö
“What about the cop shows? Cars are continually swerving out of control,...”
– Phillip K. Dick. Excerpted from How to Build a Universe That Doesn’t Fall Apart Two Days Later, a 1978 speech published in the I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon collection. via Hookers or Cake, trembling adored (Tousled Bird Mad Girl) and J. Scott Grand. (via conservativeradical)
1 tag
small, soft, dirty and weak
The smell of floor wax and disinfectant filled Kapak’s nostrils. It was the smell of governments, the smell of the physical power that dragged people in who were dirty or bleeding or vomiting and made them invisible in some cell or interrogation room, and then cleaned up the mess. It was a reminder that the government was big, its surfaces hard and enduring and polished, and that human...
5 tags
'Good lyrics'
At one point, Siobhan asks Rebus if he’s listened to the Mogwai CD she gave him. ‘Good lyrics,’ he tells her.
-Ian Rankin at Spinetingler Mag.
2 tags
“Oh, screw the world. Why should the dumb world know what I think?”
– Maurice Sendak, in interview with the Globe & Mail
mactrasound: "The People's Microphone" →
mactra:
When the protesters in Cairo’s Tahrir Square managed to set up a PA system, their newfound sonic dominance of that space sent a message at least as powerful as the words they transmitted. Indeed, the medium was a message: new voices, amplified.
New York City police have prevented the…
September 2011
7 posts
3 tags
3 tags
“New York has a couple of characteristics that are undeniable and one of those is...”
– Steve Albini.
First: ha. Second: aw. Third: Midwest Represent! Fourth: Wait, this is Chicago, too. Fifth: And L.A. Sixth: And all large metropolitan areas. Seventh: And all college towns. Eighth: And all small cities with more than 2 young people in them. Ninth: And a condition of modernity more...
1 tag
4 tags
4 tags
a lead pencil and a pinch of common sense
At this juncture the political demonstrations during the second half of the sixties had opened up magnificent possibilities. Demonstrators pleading for peace had been suppressed by violence. Hardly ever armed with anything but their banners and their convictions, they had been met by tear gas, water cannons, and rubber nightsticks. Few were the nonviolent demonstrations that had not ended in...
2 tags
The Saskatchewan Man
The Saskatchewan man has thus been shaped by a sterner physical environment than that of most Canadians. Having been compelled to adapt himself to that environment, he has made his own rules for survival and looks with suspicion on traditional values cherished in softer lands. He tends to take a less optimistic view of life than do his neighbours, particularly those who live in Alberta. He is...
August 2011
3 posts
4 tags
If you’ve read his work, you’ll know what I’m...
When I was working on 52, I half-jokingly asked Geoff Johns what it was with him and decapitations. If you’ve read his work, you’ll know what I’m talking about. Black Adam, in particular, had a penchant for removing the top, so to speak. His response was that he’d grown up playing Mortal Kombat. Fatalities were common, as he put it; a decapitation was de rigueur. Me, I was in college...
1 tag
Well, it's a noisy food
“I started speaking to some of the packaging engineers and found that there’s no good reason in terms of product preservation for the noisy packets,” Spence told me. “As far as I can tell, it must just be some intuitive marketing on the part of man or woman who thought, ‘Well, it’s a noisy food, it’s got to have the right expectations for the packaging.’”
-From “Watch Your Mouth: The...
“Dan Jurafsky, a Stanford linguist who blogs on The Language of Food, recently...”
– “Watch Your Mouth: The Sounds of Snacking.” (via marathonpacks)
July 2011
9 posts
“You could waterboard me and I still wouldn’t be able to tell you what Kenneth...”
– I love this line from Alex Pappademas’ The Prescription to Save Ailing Superheroes in the Times today. I agree with most of this piece. But then, I am the guy who dearly wishes that Guy Maddin would be allowed full creative freedom in making a film adaptation of Alpha Flight. (via perpetua)
3 tags
a tumbleweed in an alien landscape
When I travel out of the country for any length of time, including professional visits, I take one precaution against losing my presence of mind and emotional balance while I am a tumbleweed in an alien landscape: I make certain to take along the books I have been reading prior to my departure. Alone in a foreign country, as I am now, I have been able to encourage myself in the face of fear,...
4 tags
the enthusiasm of others
I am a guy who never wins these things. I want the attention as much as the next guy, but by the same token, I don’t care that much about the enthusiasm of others. If I did, I would probably have done different work, so I accept the fact that I am the architect of my own adversity. […] I live a small life. The work speaks for itself. I’m ashamed of some of it because I take...
4 tags
I hated to get up.
I hung up and sat quite still for a moment in Bradshaw’s leather-cushioned swivel chair. The walls of books around me, dense with the past, formed a kind of insulation against the present world and its disasters. I hated to get up.
-from The Chill, by Ross MacDonald
