The Professorial Literary Swag Collection (free of charge), a.k.a. the reading list for the lit class I’ll be teaching in the spring. Course topic: “Rebels, Outsiders, and Madmen.”
From top left, clockwise: The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Other Stories, by Ernest Hemingway; Blankets, by Craig Thompson; A Streetcar Named Desire, by Tennessee Williams; Othello, by William Shakespeare; The Bell Jar, by Sylvia Plath; and On the Road, by Jack Kerouac.
Not shown: Selected works by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Edgar Allan Poe, Oscar Wilde, William Carlos Williams, James Joyce, Allen Ginsberg, e.e. cummings, T.S. Eliot, Flannery O’Connor, Donald Barthelme, William Faulkner, James Baldwin, David Foster Wallace, William Hazlitt, Henry David Thoreau, Frederick Douglass, George Orwell, et al.
Slate: Obama’s Facebook Feed / Dec. 4, 2009
YEAAAAH BOOOOOYYYY
Oh dear.
(via notthatkindagay)
“During this general period of media gloom and doom, it is worth pointing out that in many ways the media landscape is getting way way better. Over the summer I listened to David Blight’s lectures on the civil war and have been following along with Brad DeLong’s lectures on economic history. Someday soon I’ll catch up on [Michael] Sandel’s justice class. And over time more-and-more of this kind of material is going to be available to more-and-more people. It’s a huge win for human knowledge and quality of life that’s probably never going to be measured in the national output statistics. Fundamentally, though, this kind of thing is one of the reasons why I’m an optimist about the trajectory of human history. It’s just a small thing—a PBS show based on a college course available on the internet—but it’s part of a big positive change.” — Matt Yglesias
“I don’t have a problem if [Morgan] Freeman goes for a looser interpretation — there’s nothing duller than biopic performances where more effort has gone into mimicking mannerisms than locating a human being inside the shell. It seems to me that the most crucial element to capture in a portrait of latter-day [Nelson] Mandela (particularly given the less-than-strenuous demands presented by Anthony Peckham’s script) is his wit and intelligence. If Freeman chooses to channel that through his own star persona, fair play to him.
I do, however, scratch my head every time someone mentions the ‘striking physical resemblance’ between Mandela and Freeman — beyond the fact that they are both gracefully composed, senior black men, they look about as alike as Frank Langella and Richard Nixon. Which is to say, not at all.”
— Guy Lodge
Dr. Spaceman (after administering laser eye surgery to Liz): Can you read that top line?
Liz: “Dear Dr. Spacemen, Thank you for … your submission … The New England … Journal of Medicine does not publish … X-rated cartoons”?
The back cover of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith, due March 2.
“History shows that wars financed heavily by higher taxes, such as the Korean War and the first Gulf War, end quickly, while those financed largely by deficits, such as the Vietnam War and current Middle East conflicts, tend to drag on indefinitely.” — Bruce Bartlett
Pizza King — It’s what I crave every day of my life. I’m seriously considering moving back home, not because of the proximity to family, but so I can visit Clara’s at least four times a week. Royal Feast, how I miss thee.
I finished dinner not a mere ten minutes ago and you’ve made me hungry again.
Henderson Bridge in Singapore (via szymon)
“After Mr. McCartney was buried near Beaconsfield Road in Liverpool, Beatles bass-playing duties were secretly assigned to William Campbell, a McCartney sound-alike and an NBA-caliber smokehound. This lineup change resulted in the companion albums Rubber Soul and Revolver, both of which are okay. Despite its commercial failure, Rubber Soul allegedly caused half-deaf Brian Wilson to make Pet Sounds. (I assume this is also why EMI released a mono version of the catalogue—it allows consumers to experience this album the same way Wilson did.) If you like harmonies or guitar overdubs or the sun or Norwegian lesbians or taking drugs during funerals, you will probably sleep with these records on the first date.”
— Chuck Klosterman
Happy 44th birthday, Rubber Soul!
Greenpeace is running a clever ad campaign in the Copenhagen airport in preparation for the Copenhagen climate negotiations that start on Dec. 7. They’re a series of ads featuring Photoshopped images of sad-looking world leaders, apologizing for not addressing climate change when they had the chance.