Source: “Reaching for the Stars When Space Was a Thrill” (New York Times)
Entries categorized as ‘articles’
The Farther the “Reach,” the More Critical Precision Becomes
March 9, 2010 · Leave a Comment
Categories: articles · design · technology
Tagged: America, popular culture, science, space
From Log to Blog
October 31, 2008 · Leave a Comment
Andrew Sullivan on the origins of the word “log” in the “an official record of events” sense, from which we derive the word “blog”:
A ship’s log owes its name to a small wooden board, often weighted with lead, that was for centuries attached to a line and thrown over the stern. The weight of the log would keep it in the same place in the water, like a provisional anchor, while the ship moved away. By measuring the length of line used up in a set period of time, mariners could calculate the speed of their journey (the rope itself was marked by equidistant “knots” for easy measurement). As a ship’s voyage progressed, the course came to be marked down in a book that was called a log.
Source: Andrew Sullivan, “Why I Blog,” The Atlantic Monthly, November 2008
Late Bloomers
October 20, 2008 · Leave a Comment
Paul Cézanne, The Card Players
Prodigies are easy. They advertise their genius from the get-go. Late bloomers are hard. They require forbearance and blind faith.
Categories: art · articles · quotes · work
Tagged: Malcolm Gladwell
Scott McLemme on BHL
October 3, 2008 · Leave a Comment
Over at Inside Higher Ed, Scott McLemme — without so much as a hint of jealousy — ponders why Bernard-Henri Lévy has become a fixture not just of the French, but the U.S. media. (See, for instance, BHL’s regular appearances on Charlie Rose’s show, or the glowing profiles The New York Times runs of him every so often.)
Ultimately, McLemme (who is easily one of my favorite critics) comes to surprising, Camille Paglia-esque conclusion about the guy:
Clearly it is time to reinvest in America’s fast-thinking infrastructure. Dependence on foreign sources of ideological methane is just too risky. Besides, as a couple of my far-flung correspondents have recently pointed out, the recent embrace of BHL by the American media is raising questions about just how gullible we really are.
Catch-22
October 3, 2008 · Leave a Comment
Sathnam Sanghera explains why men are in an a nearly impossible position when it comes to seducing women:
Men need to be hugely successful, but pretend that they are not. And this is only one aspect of the almost impossible balance that needs to be struck. Men need to convey sexual desire without sexualising the person in front of them, need to be authoritative, opening doors, paying bills, deciding where to go and so on (recent research found that 60 per cent of women would consider it a bad first date if they paid), yet treat women as absolute equals. They need to flatter without seeming overly impressed, they need to care about their appearance (but not too much), and when it comes to chatting up, they need to take the initiative, and absorb any humiliation that comes their way, without seeming at all arrogant or pushy.
Got all that?
Categories: articles · gender · masculinity · sex
The Emptied Prairie
September 25, 2008 · Leave a Comment
This past January, National Geographic ran a fascinating story about the decaying rural North Dakota landscape.
Money Quote:
That’s the rub in rural North Dakota, a sense of things ebbing, of churches being abandoned, schools shutting down, towns becoming ruins. And all this decline exists amid a seeming statistical prosperity: Oil is booming, wheat prices are at record highs, and, as the average farm size grows, the land is studded with paper millionaires living in the lonely sweep of the plains, with surrounding community gone to the wind.
Be sure to check out the accompanying slide show.
Categories: articles · photography
Tagged: decay, North Dakota
Stop Trying to Get Tenure
September 25, 2008 · Leave a Comment
Gary W. Lewandowski Jr., an associate professor of psychology at Monmouth University, says young professors should stop trying to get tenure and start trying to enjoy themselves:
I believe a superior approach is to get a tenure-track position and then immediately remove the idea of “getting tenure” from your daily (or perhaps even moment by moment) thought process. That’s right. Getting tenure should not be your primary goal (though admittedly this is secretly a “how-to get tenure” article). Instead, your goal should be to follow your interests, your passion, your curiosity, and your creativity. In other words, you should follow all of the things that got you into this field in the first place.
What would happen if young professors everywhere started following this advice?
James Wolcott on Mad Men
September 22, 2008 · 3 Comments
Everybody and their mother has fallen head over heels for this show. Here’s a rare dissenting view:
It’s a critic’s darling groomed for greatness despite long inert spells in each episode that leave everything opaque, as if recognizable human behavior would be vulgar coming from such immaculate mannequins. It has a seductive look, a compelling mood, a cast that could have been carved from a giant bar of Ivory soap, but zero grasp of the elastic optimism and vigor of the Kennedy years, the let-go spring of release after the constriction of the Eisenhower 50s. Even the exuberant pop music on the soundtrack is used as a counterpoint to the characters’ enclosed meanness and malaise. The more explaining and self-examination that series creator (and former executive producer of The Sopranos) Matthew Weiner does in interviews and post-episode commentaries, the muddier everything gets. Is he aware that Sterling Cooper is the most incompetent, uninspired ad agency ever to blight Madison Avenue? Meeting after meeting adjourned until the next meeting because Draper’s dimwit team can’t rub two sticks together to spark a decent idea. I don’t mind Mad Men as a mild narcotic, but the raves it’s received smack of self-congratulation, as if its fans in the press and online were fondling their own taste buds. It’s fetishistic praise, better left to the movie critics and their blurb libidos.
Writers Are Hidden Beings
September 5, 2008 · Leave a Comment
Cynthia Ozick – drawing wisdom from Henry James, Vladimir Nabokov, and Rainer Maria Rilke – argues that “writers are hidden beings. You have never met one – or, if you should ever believe you are seeing a writer, or having an argument with a writer, or listening to a talk by a writer, then you can be sure it is all a mistake.”
(Via Arts & Letters Daily.)
Good Idea
August 23, 2008 · 1 Comment
If I were a publisher, though, I’d hire the best critic I could find and have him or her write two reviews: a short one, to be printed the day or week the movie opens and that gives away little of the plot but tells readers whether it’s good or bad (the service aspect); and a longer, more in-depth review that discusses the entire film, to be posted online (the critical aspect). Then I’d put a message board beneath the in-depth review and sit back. Most people don’t want to hear about a movie before they’ve seen it but would love to discuss it afterward. Boy, would they ever.
—Erik Lundegaard, “Why We Need Movie Reviewers”
