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)
Category: general
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”.
I like too many things and get all confused and hung-up running from one falling star to another till I drop. This is the night, what it does to you. I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion.
Jack Kerouac, On the Road, Part 2, Ch. 4 (via crookedtooth)
Model for a 21st Century Newsroom. Text and pics via Online Journalism
The model in action:
- Alert: ‘Lord Smith: “stop ‘Mickey Mouse’ degrees”‘ – link to…
- Draft: gives more detail, and is open to comments and discussion, linking to other blogs. One commenter points out that Lord Smith studied English Literature. Journalist seeks ‘official’ comment to put in the…
- Article: two blog post comments incorporated into a version that goes in the printed newspaper.
- Context: best links taken from blog post comments, as well as full transcript of speech, audio and some mobile phone video taken by one attendee. Tags (’LordSmith’) used to link to ongoing coverage and provide an instant ‘portal’.
- Analysis: one particularly well informed blogger who linked to the Draft post is paid to write a longer piece for the paper. A commenter – an academic – is invited to a podcast discussion with Lord Smith.
- Interactivity: website visitors are invited to ‘attempt an essay question’ from a ‘Mickey Mouse’ degree, giving a real first-hand understanding of what is involved in the subject.
- Customisation: an RSS feed or email alert is available for any stories tagged ‘LordSmith’
rodomontade
noun • /rod-uh-muhn-TADE/ or /roh-duh-muhn-TAHD/ • braggadocio, vain boasting
adjective • pretentiously boastful
verb • to boast or brag pretentiouslyAlternate spelling: rhodomontade. From Rodomont, a boastful character in two famous Italian Renaissance epic poems.
anagnorisis
noun • the moment in the plot of a drama in which the hero makes a discovery that explains previously unexplained events or situations
in my office, on my desk, is a copy of miles gone by. last night someone defaced the book cover. the book was intended to be a gift. really odd & disappointing on many levels.
So much of what passed for political coverage last night was like watching a manure spreader in a windstorm.
somewhere recently i read the phrase “politics is the opiate of the people” (i’m not sure if it is related to this article). it got me thinking that a lot of americans don’t or can’t distinguish between words & ideas of politics, government & civic life. years ago i read thomas paine’s common sense. at the risk of a sophist overview, the book’s theme expresses that america is a people with a government (not a government with a people).
[on reviewing what i just wrote, i hope i am not mistaken for matt mittan]
anyway, i voted for the city mayor and three city council members.
10 Things Social Media Can’t Do
social media will not replace your marketing campaign efforts & social media should not be confused with cheaper, more effective alternatives to a company’s marketing campaigns. those are my two of my observations.
from 10 Things Social Media Can’t Do by B.L. Ochman (for AdAge.com):
- Substitute for marketing strategy.
- Produce meaningful, measurable results quickly.
- Replace PR.
Read the rest of the list here.
this is something I continue to tell the marketing department, but for some reason i have been moved to the basement with a red stapler…
Coffeehouse Junkie 