adjective • insipid, dull, stupid
From Latin insulsus: in- ‘not’ + salsus ‘salted’.
Month: November 2009
just returned from the river arts studio stroll… number one kidlinger is jazzed, but can’t decide what to do, ‘dad, i can’t decide if i want to paint or do ceramics or glass works’ … awesome! & to top it off… clear blue sky, 72°F outside, plus 12 bones for lunch (we ate outside next to the river in the middle of november)… how cool is that?
what i learned on npr.org this morning…
https://youtube.com/watch?v=-tYdX08txuY%26hl%3Den_US%26fs%3D1%26
around 2 i walk into the fiddlin pig for lunch & the waitress has my table ready… as i slide into the booth this song by johnny paycheck comes on the sound system… i’m just glad the kitchen staff didn’t revolt & leave the place… because the bbq & ribs were delicious…
(Source: http://www.youtube.com/)
want to write my next book this antique…speaking of… it’s national novel writing month… i didn’t participate this year, but i do have a 1000-page manuscript on my desk & i need either an editor or a lighter… i think a lighter is cheaper…
(via affair)
Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: “What! You too? I thought I was the only one.
C.S. Lewis (via justbesplendid) (via fluffynotes)
How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.
Annie Dillard
(via justbesplendid) (via quote-book) (via ireadintothings)
some days i dream of steamer trunks & where they might take me… (via creativeinspiration)
Poet Charles Simic on military installations in Iraq:
Can one imagine what it’s like for an ordinary Pashtun or Iraqi to pass by one of these monuments to our wealth and our arrogance? (via nyrob)
badinage
noun • /bad-NAHZH, BAD-nahzh/ • banter
(via sophiniesom)
today’s running soundtrack
Bang! You’re It! – Sophomore
Massive Nights – The Hold Steady
When We Were Young – Dolores O’Riordan
Light Up Ya Lighter – Michael Franti & Spearhead
Now I’m Gone – Juliana Hatfield
Right Hand On My Heart – The Whigs
99% – The Mooney Suzuki
Gilt Complex – Sons and Daughters
today the hill won…
maybe it was the temperature: 38°… or maybe it was the 5% grade… or the 170-foot ascent… or maybe it was the cookies & milk before i went to bed after the concert…
whatever it was… it took me 33.10 to finish 5k…
In defense of readers
Reading is a necessarily solitary experience—like dying, everyone reads alone—but over the centuries readers have learned how to cultivate that solitude, how to grow it in the least hospitable environments. An experienced reader can lose herself in a good text with anything short of a war going on (and, sometimes, even then)—the horticultural equivalent of growing orchids in a desert.
Despite the ubiquity of reading on the web, readers remain a neglected audience. Much of our talk about web design revolves around a sense of movement: users are thought to be finding, searching, skimming, looking. We measure how frequently they click but not how long they stay on the page. We concern ourselves with their travel and participation—how they move from page to page, who they talk to when they get there—but forget the needs of those whose purpose is to be still. Readers flourish when they have space—some distance from the hubbub of the crowds—and as web designers, there is yet much we can do to help them carve out that space.
… the people of the creative class are fairly certain they are destined to be creative, but can never be certain about just how creative they are. So they must seek outward signs of their blessed inner superiority, must seek or contrive recognition for their creativity whenever possible. This is that class’s essential self-consciousness, and when it is acute, it becomes hipsterism.
“Creative writing and crippling self-consciousness,” Marginal Utility (via somethingchanged)
crowdsourcing
noun • leveraging the wisdom of the crowds; getting someone else to do your job for you
Here at Word Journal, we love words. That much should obvious by now. But we don’t know all the words, and now that Tumblr has added user submissions, we think this is a great time to expand our vocabularies. So if you’ve seen any interesting or unique words recently, do let us know!
liz: sujay: “The Designer You Treat Like Shit Has Quit Unexpectedly” (via dan)
yeah, that’s about right… either i need a new job or i need to start my own design studio…
Young people may regret tomorrow what they make public today but I think we will all be protected by the doctrine of mutually assured humiliation (I won’t dig up your college-party picture if you don’t dig up mine).
Jeff Jarvis, “Openness and the Internet,” BusinessWeek (via somethingchanged)
malty: My post-it note confession
All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they had really happened and after you are finished reading one you will feel all that happened to you and afterwards it all belongs to you; the good and the bad, the ecstasy, the remorse and the sorrow, the people and the places and how the weather was. If you can get so that you can give that to people, then you are a writer.
Ernest Hemingway in Esquire, December 1934 (via 52books)
beattitude: apsies: Generosity Appearing at a San Francisco soup kitchen, the Dalai Lama spoke of his position as Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader, saying “Me too, homeless person.”
equivoque
noun • /ˈɛkwɪvəʊk/ • 1) a play on words, a pun. 2) ambiguity. 3) a double meaning.
From Latin æquivocus, “ambiguous”.
Coffeehouse Junkie 