June 16, 2010

five bits out of context

"This may sound silly, but I’m cutting back my internet use this summer… as I work on writing a book about the internet." (Tomorrow Museum)

"To me, there were three separate "tragedies of 9/11." One was the day itself and all the resulting carnage. The second was the invasion of Iraq and distortions of U.S. policy and values carried out in response. And the third was the failure to use a once-or-twice-per-century moment of true national unity to address true national problems. In the long run, the third tragedy could prove to be the worst." (James Fallows)

"Katy Perry binges on baking chocolate she keeps in the pantry to dull the pain of a sex life without intimacy." (The Awl)

"Allen didn’t make this on a lark, it was a specific response to Prince’s refusal to grant an online magazine the rights to reproduce his own reproduction. Is it deep? No. And I DON’T CARE. The event itself makes clear that the issues are still very relevant. Allen’s remake was the most straight forward and logical way to address the problem, and that’s why I like it. I’m not asking it to be something else, because I don’t want it to be anything else." (Art Fag City)

"Mr. Joyce manages to give the effect of unedited human minds, drifting aimlessly along from one triviality to another, confused and diverted by memory, by sensation and by inhibition, is, in short, perhaps the most faithful X-ray ever taken of the ordinary human consciousness." (Edmund Wilson, with thanks to Jim Coudal)