Links Worth the Click

February 8th, 2010

1. “38 Ways to Win an Argument”—AKA “How to Be a Major Dickhead at Parties“—from Arthur Schopenhauer’s The Art of Controversy

#38 is timeless:

Become personal, insulting and rude as soon as you perceive that your opponent has the upper hand. In becoming personal you leave the subject altogether, and turn your attack on the person by remarks of an offensive and spiteful character. This is a very popular technique, because it takes so little skill to put it into effect.

2. “‘It just doesn’t matter!”: The philosophy of Bill Murray

(Thanks, Marc, for the link.)

3. William Deresiewicz’s “Carded” in The New Republic, about Vladimir Nabakov’s The Original of Laura*

4. Greg Beato’s “Love Means Never Having to Say 404 Error” in The Smart Set

5. vanceperry’s a cappella multitrack cover of Jay Sean’s “Down”

* I have not read it yet. I still have Ada, or Ardor waiting for me on the shelf.

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The Minuteman Project and Foreigner

February 3rd, 2010

I am interested to know how the Minuteman Project feels about Foreigner.

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Links Worth the Click

February 1st, 2010

1. “Is It Just Corporate Free Speech?” by LiberalViewer

2. More on lab pork

3. New York Times Editorial, “Super Bowl Censorship” and “The Invisible Dead: The grisly truth about the Super Bowl abortion ad.” By William Saletan

4. The changing nutrition of some fruits and vegetables

5. “Mexican Govt. Moves to Ban Soundtrack to the War on Drugs

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Somnambulist

January 31st, 2010

Somnambulist = Sleepwalker

Whenever I see the word “somnambulist” —I never hear it spoken—I always think of this famed scene from Macbeth (ACT 5, Scene 1)*:

Enter LADY MACBETH, with a taper

Gentleman: Lo you, here she comes! This is her very guise; and, upon my life, fast asleep. Observe her; stand close.

Doctor: How came she by that light?

Gentlewoman: Why, it stood by her: she has light by her continually; ’tis her command.

Doctor: You see, her eyes are open.

Gentlewoman: Ay, but their sense is shut.

Doctor: What is it she does now? Look, how she rubs her hands.

Gentlewoman: It is an accustomed action with her, to seem thus washing her hands: I have known her continue in this a quarter of an hour.

LADY MACBETH: Yet here’s a spot.

Doctor: Hark! she speaks: I will set down what comes from her, to satisfy my remembrance the more strongly.

LADY MACBETH: Out, damned spot! out, I say!–One: two: why, then, ’tis time to do’t.–Hell is murky!–Fie, my lord, fie! a soldier, and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account?–Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him.

Doctor: Do you mark that?

LADY MACBETH: The thane of Fife had a wife: where is she now?– What, will these hands ne’er be clean?–No more o’ that, my lord, no more o’ that: you mar all with this starting.

Doctor: Go to, go to; you have known what you should not.

Gentlewoman: She has spoke what she should not, I am sure of that: heaven knows what she has known.

LADY MACBETH: Here’s the smell of the blood still: all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh, oh, oh!

Doctor: What a sigh is there! The heart is sorely charged.

Gentlewoman: I would not have such a heart in my bosom for the dignity of the whole body.

Doctor: Well, well, well,–

Gentlewoman: Pray God it be, sir.

Doctor: This disease is beyond my practise: yet I have known those which have walked in their sleep who have died holily in their beds.

LADY MACBETH: Wash your hands, put on your nightgown; look not so pale.–I tell you yet again, Banquo’s buried; he cannot come out on’s grave.

Doctor: Even so?

LADY MACBETH: To bed, to bed! there’s knocking at the gate: come, come, come, come, give me your hand. What’s done cannot be undone.–To bed, to bed, to bed!

Exit

Doctor: Will she go now to bed?

Gentlewoman
: Directly.

Doctor: Foul whisperings are abroad: unnatural deeds
Do breed unnatural troubles: infected minds
To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets:
More needs she the divine than the physician.
God, God forgive us all! Look after her;
Remove from her the means of all annoyance,
And still keep eyes upon her. So, good night:
My mind she has mated, and amazed my sight.
I think, but dare not speak.

Gentlewoman: Good night, good doctor.

Exeunt

Yes, I just dropped some Shakespeare on your ass, biatch! I went to high school!

* Edited

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Today’s Spam

January 31st, 2010

Sat, January 30, 2010 11:33:42 PM

From Averbach@kidsbowlfree.com using Google Maps: Your bull will ram her …

Wanna get a larger boner?

http://img692.imageshack.us/img692/4656/letsgo.swf#PatWhit.jpg

Maybe after lunch, Averbach.

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John Popper

January 28th, 2010

Today I had a flashback to a thought I must have had in 1994:

Do you think John Popper ever accidentally ate one of his harmonicas mid-song?

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Links Worth the Click

January 28th, 2010

1. “Hold The Hallelujah: The Perils Of Rifles And Religion” by Benjamin Busch

2. “EROTIC FICTION, PURITAN CENSORSHIP AND GYNAECOLOGICAL DETAIL: An Interview With Jack Fritscher

3. “Ross Douthat’s Fantasy World” by Mark Oppenheimer

4. Torn Picasso

5. Heather Mac Donald on welfare

6. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg does not want the trial of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and his co-defendants to be held in New York City

7. How ladies feel about iPads

8. “The Right Has Avatar Wrong” by David Boaz

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Mark McGwire Does Not Want To Talk About Steroids

January 26th, 2010

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Why Are You Doing That, Little Guy?

January 25th, 2010

It was November 28th, 2009. Madison Square Garden was voiding students, alumni, and non-affiliates—most drunken, nearly all white—from the Cornell/BU men’s ice hockey game.

I was talking on my cellphone near the MSG taxi kiosk when I felt a push. There were a lot of people moving around, so I stepped a few paces over and paid the push no mind. Then I felt it again. But this time it was steady, as if some small body were trying to move me into the stream of hockey fans.

When I turned around I saw You. You were 5′ 3″ at the most; you wore a breezebreaker and a cute baseball cap. The short blond hairs on your small head were escaping the lid in lil curls.

“You wanna go?” you said, looking up into my eyes.

The question—which was almost a command—surprised me. I was in the middle of making plans with my girlfriend whom I had on the line at that very moment.

You repeated the line with such shit-faced tenacity that I couldn’t believe this was really happening.

What surprised me even more was how light you felt, Little Guy, when I pushed you away from me. It was like you had no weight to you at all. (Were you on roller skates?)

I thought about where I was going to hit you. Temple? Throat? (Yes, the throat.)

But then I found your Tall Friend lingering a few steps behind you. It looked like his normalize-size stomach had handled the liquor just fine, so I gave him a take-care-of-this-asshole look.

“Come on, dude,” I said to Tall Friend. “I didn’t do anything, I’m talking on my phone.”

Tall Friend put his larger hand to your face—he smooshed it, Little Guy—and said, “Let’s go!”

Tall Friend shook my hand.

“Great game,” I said.

“Yeah, we almost won,” he replied.

I had no idea which team you guys had been rooting for. The game had ended in a 3-3 tie in OT.

I didn’t feel like asking for clarification, but I did want to say, Why are you doing that, Little Guy? Why are you picking on the wrong guy?

But you were on your way elsewhere, where I hope Tall Friend was able to save you from even more stupidity.

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Links Worth the Click

January 25th, 2010

1. “Che Guevara Exposed: The Killer on the Lefties’ T-Shirts” by Humberto Fontova

Note: In the article Fontova incorrectly credits Robert Redford with directing Motorcyle Diaries. The director was actually Walter Salles; Redford was an executive producer on the film.

2. “Killer Chic: Hollywood’s Sick Love Affair with Che Guevara”

3. “Awesome, and Then Some” By Dick Cavett

4. “Whatta ya know, Serpico?

5. “Our Boredom, Ourselves” By Jennifer Schuessler (Thanks, Shay, for the link.)

6. Mr. Show – “Teardrop Award”

7. John McWhorter on “African American”

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