Saturday, March 28, 2009

They don't look so different

. . .except in the first one I get to sit in the comfy chair.

Thursday, March 26, 2009

As said by B.K. Geraghty, Educator

Dear student: some years from now, when you are asked by your boss to prepare a report about energy efficiency and you hand her a copy of your most recent electric bill, I want you to remember the time I gave you a 12% for handing in a stack of magazine photos instead of a family tree project.

Notes on a New Job (and other briefer notes)

I've started a second job (during a recession, I hoard jobs) and I now remember how much I dislike not knowing how to do things. It's nice to be asked to do the things I already know how to do--chop vegetables, sauté things, and use a spoon, for instance--but doing anything else is slightly depressing. My ham-handedness with a portafilter, for example, is frustrating. My poor timing is also. I'm optimistic that these things will improve with time.

All I've consumed today is super-fresh espresso and water and I've got a mean tremor going on--something to consider when using the giant deli slicer.

Jessica and I probably agree on one point: putting me in an apron at 6am with a knife in hand is a dicey proposition.

Unrelatedly, do come to the bookstore on April 10th at 6pm. Adina Hoffman (of Ibis Editions) will be reading and discussing her new biography of Taha Muhammad Ali.

Also, ErHo the Evacuatee has returned. She brought me peppers and a sort-of knife!

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Well put, W.E.B.

"We are peddling freedom to the world and daring them to oppose it and bribing them kindly to accept it and dropping death on those who refuse it." -W.E.B. Du Bois

Friday, March 20, 2009

More of the same. . .

Earlier this week, the Publishers Advertising and Marketing Association held its annual spring luncheon, where special guest Jon Karp of Twelve offered his perspective on what it will take to survive the "post-apocalyptic" publishing scene. "Publishers have got to control themselves," Karp warned the audience. "We're not unlike the banks that sprung up... offering credit cards and loans to everyone who walked in the door. There are too many books, and too many of them are derivative of each other." Instead of Gresham's Law, he joked, book publishers seem to operate under Grisham's Law, or the idea that any hit book should be imitated as soon and as often as possible.

From GalleyCat again. I'm sick of new books. I'm quite sure we could very well with the books we have. A moratorium on new books!

Seriously.

Addendum:
Olga makes an excellent point! Books that should be blogs should not be books. Blogs should be blogs and books, books. They're different media and making one into another is obscene. It'd be like experiencing a movie by turning pages between frames. Not exactly, but also stupid. . .

Additional Addendum:
Also, Doctors this-and-that, you cheapen your undoubtedly cheap degrees when you put your name, Psy.D. on the cover of your bullshit books. See A RARE BREED OF LOVE.

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Rivka Galchen, & more

"If publishing is dying, i think it's kind of exciting that we get to be part of the swan song. . ."-Rivka Galchen

More here, if you care. I'm sorry, but I don't.

A nice essay on the most interesting of topics: The higher police: Vladimir Putin and his predecessors

Also, here's that one shoe I wanted to show you:


Also neat? ODD BOOKS!

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

From Pravda

"Thus, those who are eager to violate the law quick-and-dirty should turn to suburban roads. With any luck $100 would be your entrance ticket to a whole night with two pretty women. Nevertheless, there is no guarantee that the women would be really pretty; they can turn out to be slaphappy women on the wrong side of thirty who just want to turn a penny after an exhausting workday at the market."

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Things I Do

Before I fell heels over head into Google Reader, I used to (not that I don't still, but anyway) send dozens of links to people without any commentary and certainly without any expectation of a response--except, maybe, that they would do the same.

Today I sent an elderly correspondent of mine an article from the New Yorker about Dracula. Her response was swift and included this phrase:

"Thanks Jeff, you provided a much needed break from the lengthy chapter on fine needle aspirations."

How lovely.

Saturday, March 07, 2009

What We Do.

What we do, we do completely.
Beyond sense or reason.
What we do, we do well.

We're late. We've arrived on time, but we're late―
too late for anything approaching a decent lunch,
too late for dinner at all.

We wait. We're on time, but we're late and we're late because we wait.

We move. Slowly, but we move. From place to place―
always too late, always we wait.

But what do we do? What we do is we walk away.
We know when to walk away.

And when we walk away, we're gone.
Like the sun and anything resembling night.