Emmet Reads

otherwise, logically, he would not be called Road Runner

Mon, 13 May 2013 23:42:00 -0700

Asked to discuss the violence in Road Runner cartoons, Mr. Jones quickly replied that ”there was nothing we ever did that wasn’t preceded by something in Chaplin or Keaton.”

”Everyone in America under the age of 45 grew up on our cartoons,” he said. ”Now, do you think they’ve been damaged by them?”

”And we had very strict rules about Road Runner,” he added, citing the list in his book, which includes the following: (1) The Road Runner cannot harm the Coyote except by going ”beep beep.” (2) No outside force can harm the Coyote - only his own ineptitude or the failure of the Acme products. (3) No dialogue ever, except ”beep beep.” (4) The Road Runner must stay on the road; otherwise, logically, he would not be called Road Runner. (5) All materials, tools, weapons or mechanical conveniences must be obtained from the Acme Corporation. (6) The Coyote is always more humiliated than harmed by his failures.

from “Chuck Jones on Life and Daffy Duck”, New York Times, November 7, 1989

My kingdom for a Martha Kent Slurpee cup.

Mon, 13 May 2013 14:18:23 -0700

My kingdom for a Martha Kent Slurpee cup.

"In political jargon, useful idiot is a pejorative term for people perceived as propagandists for a..."

Mon, 13 May 2013 12:44:00 -0700

“In political jargon, useful idiot is a pejorative term for people perceived as propagandists for a cause whose goals they do not understand, and who are used cynically by the leaders of the cause.”

- Useful idiot - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (via iamdavidbrothers)

See also “Useful anonymous questioner”.

(via highway62)

craigfernandez: Mexican Noir by Paco Ignacio Taibo II

Sun, 12 May 2013 19:13:56 -0700

craigfernandez:

Mexican Noir by Paco Ignacio Taibo II

a denim suit that made him look more like a social anthropologist than a detective

Sun, 12 May 2013 19:10:26 -0700

Hector Belascoarán Shayne had two exotic last names, a degree in engineering from the National University, and one eye less than most people. He was thirty-five years old, with an ex-wife, an ex-lover, one brother, one sister, a denim suit that made him look more like a social anthropologist than a detective, a .38 automatic in a drawer in his office in Mexico City, a slight limp from an old bullet wound in his right leg, and a private investigator’s licence he’d gotten through a correspondence course. He had a marked predilection for soft drinks, lemon-scented aftershave, crab salad, the bossa nova, and certain Hemingway novels (the first ones and the next to the next to the last). His heroes were Justin Playfair, Michel Strogoff, John Reed, Buenaventura Durruti, Capablanca, and Zorro (although he knew he was never going to get very far with a cemetery-full of heroes like that one.) He slept less than six hours a night, he liked the soft sound ideas made when they came together inside his head, and he’d spent the last five years bearing up under the strange weight of an inexplicable fatigue, awash in a sea of memories, reliving wasted passions, idiot love affairs, old routines that had once seemed exciting. He didn’t think too highly of himself in general, although he did have a good deal of respect for his capacity for bullheaded stubbornness.

Maybe all of this somehow explains-aside from the fact that explanations tend to be unnecessary-why Hector kept playing with the sand until he’d dug himself a regular-sized hole in which he buried the dead man, dead six months now, and the injured boy. Elisa waited until the sand was smooth again and then led Hector back toward the house, preparing herself for the story she had to tell, working hard to resist the drowsy, gentle murmur of the waves.

-from Some Clouds, by Paco Ignacio Taibo II, translated by William I. Neuman

the Mexican detective hero rejects ratiocination

Sun, 12 May 2013 18:34:49 -0700

In the Cuban detective novel, individuals do violence to the state by undermining its institutions. In the Mexican detective novel, it is the institutions— police, government, unions— who are the criminals. They attack individuals who threaten their hegemony, brutalizing whole sectors of society in their drive for money and power. As Paco Ignacio Taibo II puts it, the primary element of the neopoliciaco is “the characterization of the police as a force of chaos, of the barbarous system ready to suffocate its citizens in violence.” Since order is the instrument of tyranny and subjugation, the Mexican detective hero rejects ratiocination, legal process, and the scientific method as means to truth, offering his physical body as both a catalyst and a stage for the battle between good and evil.

-from Crimes Against the State, Crimes Against Persons: Detective Fiction in Cuba and Mexico by Persephone Braham

citizendev: Source voices of east anglia

Sat, 11 May 2013 07:05:16 -0700

citizendev:

Source voices of east anglia

I’m not sure where I found this, but it’s evidently...

Fri, 10 May 2013 23:48:47 -0700

I’m not sure where I found this, but it’s evidently Richard Meltzer talking about the Monkees with a McLuhan reference highlighted. I bet it’s from Aesthetics of Rock.

What a difference an issue makes! Shazam! would only last one...

Fri, 10 May 2013 23:35:22 -0700

What a difference an issue makes! Shazam! would only last one more issue after this radical shift in tone.

"Avoid passive voice. When you write in the passive voice you sound like a landlord or a lawyer; you..."

Fri, 10 May 2013 14:26:49 -0700

“Avoid passive voice. When you write in the passive voice you sound like a landlord or a lawyer; you sound like you mean to avoid responsibility. Is that true? Do you eschew responsibility? Were you up until four a.m. writing on the walls of girls’ Facebook pages before you started this paper?”

- Andrea Lawlor, ”The Adjunct” (via millionsmillions)

seattlemysterybooks: twofistedpulp: Unknown magazine. Covers...

Thu, 09 May 2013 14:18:10 -0700

seattlemysterybooks:

twofistedpulp:

Unknown magazine.

Covers by H.W. Scott.

- Seattle Mystery Bookshop

Wowza.

highway62: Dig this groovy Ditko cover from THE MANY GHOSTS OF...

Wed, 08 May 2013 22:25:41 -0700

highway62:

Dig this groovy Ditko cover from THE MANY GHOSTS OF DOCTOR GRAVES #65.

Cover via Comic Vine.

Looks like Jack Davis to me.

Tue, 07 May 2013 14:54:50 -0700

Looks like Jack Davis to me.

"We present for work, for our friends, for women, for people we don’t even know anymore. We present..."

Mon, 06 May 2013 23:15:32 -0700

“We present for work, for our friends, for women, for people we don’t even know anymore. We present an image of ourselves that we think would impress some teacher who told us we’d never amount to anything back in sixth grade. Humans, we’re presenters. We compose what we want people to see, and hope that they read it as we wrote it.”

- Sleepless, Charlie Huston (via fairytalecreatures)

natepatrin: southtwelfth: publiccollectors: An anti-New Wave...

Mon, 06 May 2013 14:06:17 -0700

natepatrin:

southtwelfth:

publiccollectors:

An anti-New Wave t-shirt offered by the entrepreneurs at Barbaric Enterprises. From the August 1984 issue of Hit Parader.

Sick of wimpy display typefaces? Support Windsor!

“Goddammit, dude, we can’t move none-a these ‘DISCO SUCKS’ shirts no more! Ain’t nobody even callin’ that shit ‘disco’ — it’s all ‘techno’ this and ‘freestyle’ that! We gotta find a new scapegoat.”

“Wotta’bout that boomfsh-biffsh hippedy-hop stuff? I hear that garbage comin’ outta ghetto blasters when I go into the city every other week. Buncha dumbshits spinnin’ around on cardboard every time I try ta wait for the C train. It’s a nuisance.”

“It’s a fad is what it is. I ain’t goin’ broke printin’ 10 thousand ‘RAP IS CRAP’ shirts just to see the whole ennerprise goin’ toiletwards by ‘86.”

“Well, I’unno, man. What else sucks? What else can we do to get Barbaric back onna rocker-shirt gravy train? I usedta move units out in Coney and Atlantic City by the truckload every day, now it’s all remaindered ‘FUCK GO-GO’ merch gettin’ sent back to us from D.C. ‘cause we misread the national market.”

“Wait. You got that cousin in Brooklyn who’s inta that whole punker scene, right?”

“Yeah, he knows a couple-a the boys in Murphy’s Law. They drink together sometimes.”

“An’ what pisses them off?”

“Shit, just about everything. The bad news is punkers don’t like headbangers that much, but at least there might be some crossover potential there. Ever hear Suicidal Tendencies?”

“Yeah, that ‘I wanna Pepsi’ song kicks some ass.”

“Right. So anyways, I was hangin’ out wid ‘em last month, and they were just so pissed off about MTV an’ all-a the skinny-tie shit, the Duran Duran pretty-boy crap. One’a them said somethin’ that sounded like it’d make a good t-shirt slogan, I dunno if he was quotin’ somebody else or what, but I think —”

“Just spit it out, man.”

“He said, ‘do you want new wave or do you want the truth’?”

“Huh.”

“I know, right?”

“Yeah, yeah… but that’s a lotta words for a shirt. Maybe if we distill it down to the essence o’ the thing…”

“I got some Ballantines if you wanna brainstorm.”

“Fuck yeah, man.”

dankennedy-nyc: How perfectly fitting/mildly depressing is it,...

Mon, 06 May 2013 14:04:01 -0700

dankennedy-nyc:

How perfectly fitting/mildly depressing is it, that this mildly dejected line of mine about obscurity from a great book about writing by Kevin Smokler is now an anonymous greeting card of some sort on a tumblr called mypoetcard?

"At a workshop not too many years ago a newer writer began to condemn a best selling novel, pointing..."

Sun, 05 May 2013 23:12:36 -0700

“

At a workshop not too many years ago a newer writer began to condemn a best selling novel, pointing out all its flaws and jagged edges. I listened for a long time, nodding.

“All those things are true,” I said. And gave him the C.C. Finlay quote. “But until you learn what the good parts were that excited the reader, you’re always going to be bitterly upset about what is wrong with that bestseller. Learn to spot what worked in that book, and you’ll be able to move forward. And you’ll be a lot less upset all the time as well.”

”

- Tobias Buckell on “The fate of today’s book bloggers”

The C.C. Finlay quote: “A novel doesn’t excite readers because you took all the bad stuff out of it, it excites them because of all the good stuff that’s in it, regardless of the bad.”

(via malindalo)

In short: quality matters, but not in the way you often think it does.
(via highway62)

70scomiccovers: Batman Family 11, May 1977

Thu, 02 May 2013 07:50:22 -0700

70scomiccovers:

Batman Family 11, May 1977

from An Unlikely Prophet, by Alvin Schwartz

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 21:44:14 -0700

from An Unlikely Prophet, by Alvin Schwartz

lareviewofbooks: Photo courtesy of Wayne White. Artist Wayne...

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 16:33:23 -0700

lareviewofbooks:

Photo courtesy of Wayne White.

Artist Wayne White remembers George Jones’s reaction to his giant puppet head at the Rice Gallery:

When I got back to LA, the phone rang. “Wayne, this is George Jones,” the man on the other side of the line said. I couldn’t believe it. “That’s the nicest thing anybody’s ever done for me, son. I can’t believe you did that. That is something’ else.” He was the sweetest, most appreciative guy. “Son, next time you’re in Nashville, you call me up and I’ll take you out to the biggest steak dinner you’ve ever had.”

Find out the artist’s only regret here.