March 2012
“Every now and then we enter the presence of the numinous and deduce for an...”
– Mary Karr, Lit
February 2012
“You know what’s getting me? My twenties may turn out to be the best years...”
– Ally McBeal
“When one’s in their 20s, I think one still feels that one can be destroyed by...”
– Writer Nick Flynn was working in a homeless shelter in his 20s when his father – an alcoholic and self-proclaimed writer who left when Flynn was a baby – showed up as a client. His story is now a movie called Being Flynn, starring Paul Dano and Robert De Niro. (via nprfreshair)
I fucking LOVE Nick...
from Hippocampus Magazine's Interview with Dinty...
Lori M. Myers: How truthful must CNF/memoir writers be? Where is that drawn line?
Dinty W. Moore: I take the term nonfiction very seriously. Don’t make stuff up, period.
What I want a nonfiction writer to offer me is her best effort at memory, flawed as it is, with fact-checking, and motive-checking, which means a scrupulous look inside to explore why she sees and remembers the way she does. If as a writer you are unsure, tell me. If you are speculating, tell me. Nonfiction doesn’t offer irrefutable “fact,” since we all see the world though subjective lenses, but what I want is the truth of what the writer sees, and thinks, and feels, and remembers, not some manufactured story designed to entertain or educate me.
If you want to change things to improve a story, write fiction. It is a wonderful genre as well.
“So whether you’re writing or not writing, it’s all the same. The...”
– Louise DeSalvo, Crazy in the Kitchen
“To some, the movie version of To Kill A Mockingbird may play as typical...”
– To Kill A Mockingbird | DVD | DVD | The A.V. Club
“Today, 32.7 million Americans are singletons; they represent 28 percent of all...”
– Freakonomics » Introducing “AI: Adventures in Ideas,” a New Blog Series from Sudhir Venkatesh. Episode 1: Going Solo
Michael Ian Black, a New Yorker Cartoonist, and... →
23 Free Essays & Stories by David Foster Wallace... →
“9/11: The View From the Midwest” (Rolling Stone, October 25, 2001)
“All That” (New Yorker, December 14, 2009)
“An Interval” – (New Yorker, January 30, 1995)
“Asset” - (New Yorker, January 30, 1995)
“Backbone,” An Excerpt from The Pale King (New Yorker, March 7, 2011)
“Brief Interviews with Hideous Men” (The Paris Review, Fall 1997)
“Consider the Lobster” (Gourmet, August 2004)
“David...
“Take their coming out to you as a holy moment. A holy moment where they, as your...”
– When Your Child ‘Comes Out’ To You
Remember that time I moved to Pittsburgh and listened to “Flashdance” for four of the seven hours it took to make the drive from Virginia?
(Basically, I stopped at the Haggerstown Dunkin Donuts on the way to my parents’ today and have been full of feelings ever since.)
“There’s a grotesque irony in declaring that what is portrayed in Bully...”
– ‘Bully’ Problems: The MPAA Gives A Scarlet ‘R’ To A Thoughtful Documentary : Monkey See : NPR
Run TV
At the request of Jamie Bono, I present to you my TV theme song playlist (running version). (I’ve been collecting TV theme songs since middle school—the complete collection is even weirder and more extensive.)
Alice
Ally McBeal (Full)
Animaniacs
Baby-Sitters Club
Beverly Hillbillies
Charles in Charge (84 ver)
Chip N Dale Rescue Rangers
David The Gnome
Different Strokes
...
“My point of is that the infinite monkey theorem has slowly become a meme whose...”
– Image ◊ Good Letters: The IMAGE Blog ◊ The Infinite Monkey Meme
Flavorwire » Aziz Ansari’s 25 Best Tom... →
17 tags
“My birthday is coming up, so I’ve been thinking about Sally Rogers. Funny Sally,...”
– The Gift of Sally Rogers « Amy Whipple
1 tag
The Gift of Sally Rogers
My birthday is coming up, so I’ve been thinking about Sally Rogers. Funny Sally, with her blonde hair bobbed and curled, a black bow affixed on the left side, flowered dresses that cinch at the waist and billow over the hips. She’s the type of woman who wears a single strand of pearls that settles just above the collarbone when she goes out for the evening.
My birthday is in late February and...
Tumblr Staff: A New Policy Against Self-Harm Blogs →
staff:
One of the great things about Tumblr is that people use it for just about every conceivable kind of expression. People being people, though, that means that Tumblr sometimes gets used for things that are just wrong. We are deeply committed to supporting and defending our users’ freedom of speech,…
“karacupcakes replied to your post: A beautiful day at Chatham.
I feel like a...”
– Truth
On Being Blog: Do Nothing for Lent and Be Grateful →
beingblog:
by Amy Ruth Schacht, guest contributor
“Contemplation” (photo: Kasia/Flickr cc by-nc-sa 2.0)
Ash Wednesday is today, inaugurating this year’s season of Lent. Cultural customs dictate “giving something up” for Lent. Without any meaningful or theological reflection, it becomes “giving up for the sake of giving up,” as though the mere act is enough. Is there more to it than just giving...
“Blessed be the longing that brought you here
And quickens your soul with...”
– John O’Donohue, “For Longing”
Last night’s blessing at church, a wonderful way to begin Lent. I thought it might pair nicely with Mary Oliver’s “Wild Geese.” (Thoughts?)
TEDxCMU Gives Some of the World’s Brightest Minds... →
Moving’ on up!
“Procreation has unfortunately been co-opted into a very limited (and very...”
– Procreation, Birth Control, and Choice | onehandclapping
“Lent dares us to expect much of the dark.”
– Image ◊ Good Letters: The IMAGE Blog ◊ The Flowering Dark
“HEY, EVERYBODY: You know how Mormons “baptize” dead people who weren’t...”
– February 22, 2012 : Savage Love | The A.V. Club
On Being Blog: Living in a Material World: Lent... →
Photo by John (mtsofan)/Flickr, cc by-nc-sA 2.0
Remember you are soil, and to soil you shall return.
~Gen. 3:19
The language of “spiritual journey” is commonplace in describing the season of Lent — the 40-day pilgrimage Christians undertake as they trek with Jesus from the wilderness to the garden to the garbage heap of Golgotha and beyond. “Spiritual” in this context, as in almost every other,...
“Humane Vitae, the so-called birth control encyclical promulgated by Pope Paul VI...”
– Contraception Furor v. Catholic Realities | Sexuality/Gender | Religion Dispatches
The Making Of "Homer At The Bat," The Episode That... →
“But back to the ways in which you are amazing… You are here. That may seem...”
– Actively Arielle: A Voice With A Commitment: You’re Invited to a Celebration
I haven’t had a pre-7am coffee date since high school. In retrospect, I’m surprised that Friday Frapps ever happened. Actually, in retrospect, I’m surprised that most things ever happened.
“But though I could not with a crayon get the best out of the landscape, it does...”
– G.K. Chesterton, “A Piece of Chalk”
“To eat of the fruit means to leave the garden because the fruit speaks of other...”
– Jeanette Winterson, Oranges Are not the Only Fruit
“Heterosexuals opted for the one-lifetime house, the freeway, the birth-control...”
– Richard Rodriguez, “Late Victorians”
One of my favorite lines ever in one of my favorite essays ever.
“And, do I even need to bring up Issa’s committee regarding the birth control...”
– Women matter. «
1 tag
WatchReally!? with Seth and Amy — birth control.
“Either way, it’s misguided because …it’s not our tent. It’s God’s tent. The...”
– My testimony at the Colorado Senate Judiciary hearing on civil unions | Nadia Bolz-Weber
“Just as the patriarchy kept women oppressed by telling us we need men to care...”
– Loving Women | onehandclapping
I think about this a great deal w/r/t to my friends who have new babies. I can’t think of another time in your life when you would need more help (perhaps on the other end when you are getting ready to go) and yet I see my friends pushing that help away in the...
“My daughter is 10 years old and has come home on more than one occasion...”
– You Didn’t Thank Me For Punching You in the Face « Views from the Couch
“Whether each one of us actually lives this way is beside the point. This is what...”
– A Priest, a Levite, and a Samaritan walk into a bar… | landon whitsitt (dot) com 