December 2010
10 posts
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Throw Away The Ladder After You Climb Up It →
This is the intro to the recent pub. of DFW’s undergrad phil. thesis. It’s a good narrative about the evolution of Wallace’s work, starting with his focus on philosophy before he moved onto fiction (although he never really left phil.).
Highlights:
Wittgenstein draws from the picture theory of meaning some arresting philosophical conclusions. The Tractatus regards as...
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How to open an essay →
Love/hate the guy, you can’t deny the quality of this first paragraph:
I have more than once in my time woken up feeling like death. But nothing prepared me for the early morning last June when I came to consciousness feeling as if I were actually shackled to my own corpse. The whole cave of my chest and thorax seemed to have been hollowed out and then refilled with slow-drying cement....
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Good Advice for the perpetually adolescent: be... →
I’m not a huge fan of Kevin Smith’s work (although Mallrats was a fun movie to watch in high school—it has its charm in a Weekend @ Bernie’s kind of way), but I’ve always been a fan of his persona and earnestness. His screw-the-world POV could be mislabeled a shtick if it wasn’t so genuine. From what I know of Smith, he grew up in a lower middle class NJ...
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The problem(s) w/ the scientific method →
“For Simmons, the steep rise and slow fall of fluctuating asymmetry is a clear example of a scientific paradigm, one of those intellectual fads that both guide and constrain research: after a new paradigm is proposed, the peer-review process is tilted toward positive results. But then, after a few years, the academic incentives shift—the paradigm has become entrenched—so that...
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musicvagabond:
Lil’ Wayne feat. Cory Gunz - 6’7”...
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Video: Living in 1 of 6 time zones →
Interesting take on personal perspective. “All addictions are addictions of present hedonism.”
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Pop Matters Best Singles of 2010 →
This is the composite of the lists for singles of the year submitted by the staff and I @ Pop Matters. I mostly disagree w/ the majority of the picks. My submitted list is below. The album list w/ some comments from me will run in ~ 2 weeks.
Top 10 Singles
“I Only Know (What I know)” James Blake
“You” Gold Panda
“Dance Yrself Clean” LCD Soundsystem
“Free Translator” The Books
“Power” Kanye...
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"No. I’m against schedules." →
INTERVIEWER Do you have a daily schedule you try to stick to when you’re working? MOODY No. I’m against schedules. Write when you feel excited by the prospect. Otherwise, don’t bother. Break your deadlines, default on your due dates, wander in the streets, go to the movies, eat lavishly, fornicate, blaspheme, bless a street urchin, browbeat a civil servant, and when you’re done with these things,...