Commonplace

“ Our whole life is an attempt to discover when our spontaneity is whimsical, sentimental irresponsibility and when it is a valid expression of our deepest desires and values.”
Helen Merell Lynd

— Revisiting AF1 - Discussion Forum - Get Everything Done

“ If 2009 represents the death-throes of an industry, well, the end won’t be pretty - because Nook or no Nook, publishers this year went to just the same exorbitant lengths to churn out mountains of crapola as they did when no electronic readers threatened their existence at all.

— stevereads: Worst Books of 2009! Fiction!

via 2.bp.blogspot.com

“ It won’t surprise me if neuroscientists eventually succeed in unlocking the mystery of music. I don’t fear that prospect, but I do have a sneaking suspicion that part of the charm of music lies in the fact that we don’t know what it means, any more than we can explain the equally mysterious charm of a plotless ballet by George Balanchine or an abstract painting by Piet Mondrian. “We dare to go into the world where there are no names for anything,” Balanchine once said to Jerome Robbins. Most of us, on the other hand, live in a prosy, commonsense world where everything has a name and most things have an explanation. That’s why it is so refreshing to enter into the presence of great art, and why the greatest works of art always contain an element of ambiguity. A masterpiece doesn’t push you around. It lets you make up your own mind about what it means—and change it as often as you like.

— Sightings : Terry Teachout on the Mystery of Music - WSJ.com

“ This wonderful but cruel game never stops testing or teaching you. “The only comment I can make,” Watson told me after, “is one that the immortal Bobby Jones related: ‘One learns from defeat, not from victory.’ I may never have the chance again to beat the kids, but I took one thing from the last hole: hitting both the tee shot and the approach shots exactly the way I meant to wasn’t good enough. … I had to finish.

— Op-Ed Columnist - 59 Is the New 30 - NYTimes.com

“ There are times when I am terribly presumptuous, to visit my personal feelings on other people’s way of living a life. In truth, I’m very egalitarian in that way. I’m an elitist because I think there are too many stupid people in the world. But one must not pity them; one must take an AK-47 and kill them. You just need to kill as many stupid people as you can find. Go out in the streets and ask them if they have ever heard of Guy de Maupassant. No? Bam, you’re dead. Have you ever heard of Bessie Smith? No? Bam, you’re dead.

— Still has a mouth, and still must scream - Beyond the Multiplex - Salon.com

“ Work inspires inspiration. Keep working. If you succeed, keep working. If you fail, keep working. If you are interested, keep working. If you are bored, keep working. —Michael Crichton

— Keep Working « Submitted For Your Perusal

“ I do know what the deal on the comic is: It’s $2.99 for 23 pages of story and art (the first issue is 23 pages, the others are 22), wonderfully painted by the talented and popular Jill Thompson (Scary Godmother, Magic Trixie, Sandman et al). Dogs and cats versus the supernatural. Come on, that sounds okay, doesn’t it? It’s at least half as good as a kid bitten by a spider who gets superpowers and can’t make money even though he invents all this great stuff and sews a costume all in one night. Don’t you think? Well, okay, maybe not, but it’s still okay in my book. And it’s only three bucks! Three lousy bucks. Cripes, you people, really, don’t tell me about the economy, I don’t want to hear that jive talk. Just take it out of your mom’s bag, or your dad’s wallet. Bring some beer bottles in for redemption. Roll the town drunk. Busk. Do something. Hell, my daughter has three bucks, and she’s only four. Don’t give me any excuses this September. Please. I beg of you.

— evandorkin: Beasts of Burden #1 in July Previews — A Call to Arms!

“ Genuine self-confidence exists in a vacuum, requiring no one of lesser worth to be near it to justify itself. The best way, in my view, to build that kind of self-confidence is to fall in love with your own life.

— Happiness in this World » The Three Realms Of Confidence

“ Jean Plaidy wasn’t the only pen-name she used, far from it: most famously she was also Victoria Holt and Philippa Carr, but if memory serves, there were many, many others. For decades, her novels (a great heaping mass of them historical novels) fell from her creative teats and hit the floor like baby rats - fully-formed, stripped bare for function, and avid for survival.

— stevereads: The Queen Victoria Series!

The Kinsey Institute | Juried Art Show 2009 - Artwork Gallery

“ I have a dear friend who sometimes dabbles in this kind of idiocy, though she bloody well knows better; she’ll finish a piece of poop by somebody like Yiyun Li and say, “Boy, reading that really made me want to meet the author,” when she knows perfectly well good fiction will only prompt the response, “Boy, reading that really made me want to read something else by the author

— stevereads: the New Yorker Fiction Issue in the Penny Press!

“ To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything, is to succumb to the violence of our times,” wrote the wise Trappist monk Thomas Merton in the 1960s, long before the web, or BlackBerrys, or the first use of the word “multitasking” as applied to human activity. “Frenzy destroys our inner capacity for peace.” Were he alive today, he presumably wouldn’t have a Twitter account.

— This column will change your life: We’re all too busy, but is it just an excuse? asks Oliver Burkeman | Life and style | The Guardian

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“ The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). It has intense violence and frequent repetition of every true New Yorker’s favorite word.

— Movie Review - The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 - Stand Clear of the Closing Doors - NYTimes.com