Jake Paul

Memorial Day with Cesar

Tue, 29 May 2012 19:19:09 -0400

Memorial Day with Cesar

subtilitas: Luca Deon - Youth house, Meggen, 2008.

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 22:03:00 -0400

subtilitas:

Luca Deon - Youth house, Meggen, 2008.

Somewhere

Fri, 16 Mar 2012 04:07:09 -0400

I started writing this post a couple weeks ago, after reading Spencer Tweedy’s Lana Del Rey & The Fake Game and then the Spin article that inspired it, Deconstructing Lana Del Rey. I’m intrigued by Lana Del Rey, but she was just my way into trying to write something about authenticity, and this notion of the authentic, which I think about too much, and have been, for at least four years.

I couldn’t finish it. I started writing an argumentative essay, but I ended up not knowing what to argue. The question I ran up against is whether, or why, we care about Lana Del Rey’s authenticity, or the authenticity of any art. This is not a new question. Plato even answered it, reductively: all art is representation, as opposed to truth (philosophy)—authenticity is impossible. I disagree. At least, everything is approximate. Even philosophy is a castle of words.

Rejecting out of hand the representative, casting it as the opposite of truth, is clever theory, but little more. Of course, there are more thousands of pages on this subject. But we must have invented the idea of truth, too. Perhaps we’ve thought ourselves in circles. A reductive conclusion? Sure, but what more do we know? It seems to me like we’ve merely invented ever more complex and arcane ways of disagreeing with ourselves. Talk about the narcissism of small differences. And it’s perpetual.

What does this have to do with Lana Del Rey? Well, Spencer’s post and the Spin article are insightful and compelling, but at some level they’re both replying to a challenge of Del Rey’s authenticity. And I’m wondering, why is her authenticity even suspect? What difference does it make? Do we know what’s authentic, or true, in art, or existence? Or do we only imagine we might know?

Surprise: I don’t have an answer. Earlier tonight, I read a post by Meagan Fisher that brought back into focus an idea that’s been percolating lately. In her words:

Writing is hard because it means we must think deeply, take risks, and get comfortable with asking questions instead of having all the answers.

And so, I’m trying to ask more questions. Starting here.

James Nord

Tue, 28 Feb 2012 22:56:11 -0500

James Nord

Art and space and time and memory.

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 01:47:39 -0500

One of those expansive, everything is beautiful nights.

Comment: Running Wild

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 00:10:08 -0500

Comment: Running Wild:

Jeffrey Frank in the New Yorker:

In 1959, Vice-President Nixon, speaking to members of California’s Commonwealth Club, was asked if he’d like to see the parties undergo an ideological realignment—the sort that has since taken place—and he replied, “I think it would be a great tragedy … if we had our two major political parties divide on what we would call a conservative-liberal line.” He continued, “I think one of the attributes of our political system has been that we have avoided generally violent swings in Administrations from one extreme to the other. And the reason we have avoided that is that in both parties there has been room for a broad spectrum of opinion.” Therefore, “when your Administrations come to power, they will represent the whole people rather than just one segment of the people.” Ten months before the general election, the increasingly angry, suspicious, and divided party of Romney, Gingrich, Santorum, and Perry seems ever more immersed in its current orthodoxies. None of the candidates, though, seem the least bit interested in even addressing how they, or their party, might actually govern the “whole people” of a fractious nation.

"The main thing is not to hurry. Nothing good gets away."

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 13:59:30 -0500

“The main thing is not to hurry. Nothing good gets away.”

- John Steinbeck (Letters of Note)

17th St at Cole

Sun, 08 Jan 2012 19:06:00 -0500

17th St at Cole

3 December 2011

Sun, 18 Dec 2011 23:01:49 -0500

3 December 2011

"It’s the difference between something that makes sense, and something that makes you fall in..."

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 01:20:41 -0500

“It’s the difference between something that makes sense, and something that makes you fall in love.”

- John Gruber, The Talk Show 66

Top of his game, right here.

Afternoon on Haight

Sun, 11 Dec 2011 19:42:35 -0500

A small man in a slightly undersized decorative sombrero eats a salad on the sidewalk next to a brand new Audi R8 sports car. He tells me and a few other people, “That’s my car. You can have it. For free.” He waits a beat and adds, “I’ll pay the taxes.”
Whole Foods is selling only organic broccoli. We have always been at war with Eurasia.
A questionably homeless man violently kicks a vending box belonging to a free weekly newspaper. He yells that it is 4pm on a Sunday afternoon. One of the people standing next to him says, “I gave him a dollar an hour ago.”
Four members of a surprisingly pleasant five-man folk band stand in a vestibule on the stoop leading to an apartment. Their keyboardist is alone on the sidewalk.
The angular-faced man leaning on a parking meter and quietly touting beans for sale is actually selling beans. (This one is false.)

Welcome to San Francisco.

iwdrm: “You never seem to be waiting for me, but we kept...

Sat, 03 Dec 2011 02:23:50 -0500

iwdrm:

“You never seem to be waiting for me, but we kept meeting at every turn of the paths. Behind every bush, at the foot of each statue, near every pond. It is as if it had been only you and I in all that garden.”

Last Year at Marienbad (1961)

"Don’t just go through the motions. Don’t accept dogma. Look for ways that you might be wrong, don’t..."

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 17:01:01 -0500

“Don’t just go through the motions. Don’t accept dogma. Look for ways that you might be wrong, don’t look for ways to prove you’re right. Think. Express your thoughts with as much precision and care as you can muster.”

- John Gruber

We Are the One Per Cent

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 00:07:07 -0500

We Are the One Per Cent:

Humorous piece by John Kenney in this week’s Shouts and Murmurs.

Our numbers may be smaller than those demonstrating in New York and other cities, but we are still a movement, coalesced around a cause, sleeping two and sometimes three people to a villa.

matthewb: The new video for “No Way” from the debut album...

Fri, 18 Nov 2011 00:11:02 -0500

matthewb:

The new video for “No Way” from the debut album Passive Me, Aggressive You by The Naked And Famous. Directed by Campbell Hooper and Joel Kefali for Special Problems. These guys can do no wrong.

Wow. Watch this.

Like Crazy

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 15:49:00 -0500

I haven’t been quite sure what to say about Like Crazy, this year’s Sundance Grand Jury Prize-winning love story. It’s a beautiful movie. The wonderfully small cast delivers superb acting all around, the pacing is almost perfect, and even the soundtrack is remarkably attuned. Shot on a Canon DSLR, the picture shares the quality of some of my favorite short films.

But on Saturday, I walked out of the theater without being given the sense of a decided ending, and that’s what I like most about Like Crazy. The film expertly glosses over years worth of detail and even compresses its premise (love) into montage. Instead of overtly dramatic and romantic scenes, it lingers almost completely on moments of emotional ambiguity.

While they’re separated, the two lovers, Jacob and Anna, each pursue another relationship, but their breakups happen offscreen. Even in their onscreen fights, the sense of drama comes less from what is said than what is left unstated: doubt, hope, and despair. They are mostly left to grasp at understanding their own feelings.

The film’s cut to black elicited a short derisive huffing sound from much of the audience around me, some of who will probably write off the ending as a cheap cop-out. I would disagree. A story like this can end in only a few ways. It could exult in hope for love or bolster a certain satisfaction in its failure, but both of those would be naïve endings. No such certainty exists. The ending doesn’t pretend to solve an unsolvable problem. It ends.

★★★★

A superb concept, and beautifully executed. Complements the song...

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 02:20:00 -0500

A superb concept, and beautifully executed. Complements the song and adds something new: an unexpected story. A few of the cuts could be better-timed, but still. Iceland is beautiful.

3 minutes, 28 seconds of bliss. So good.

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 14:39:00 -0500

3 minutes, 28 seconds of bliss. So good.

xkcd 137

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 01:17:14 -0500

xkcd 137:

When did we forget our dreams?

5 Books I Found At Goodwill

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 19:55:00 -0500

5 Books I Found At Goodwill:

My friend Stephanie Dinkmeyer:

Actually, without the “The Story of David and Goliath” subtitle, one might be tricked into thinking this was a coming-of-age story about a gay farm boy who gets his first jockstrap, through which he changes the minds of the local bigoted livestock. I don’t know how the dead bear gets involved there, but I’m sure you can think of something.