May 2012
1 post
“The plain fact is that the planet does not need more “successful” people. But it...”
– David W. Orr (via Doug Noon)
December 2011
1 post
“Comedy … is not only possible within a Christian society, but capable of a much...”
– W. H. Auden (via ayjay)
March 2011
3 posts
These are some scenes and lines from Infinite Jest I couldn’t quite let go of without first highlighting:
(pg. 42) ‘Hey Hal?’
‘Don’t cry, Booboo. Remember the flag only halfway up the pole? Booboo, there are two ways to lower a flag to half-mast. Are you listening? Because no shit I really have to sleep here in a second. So listen—one way to lower the flag to...
My 12 Steps of Infinite Jest Withdrawal/Recovery
Confusion
Denial
Research
Depression
Rumination
Close Rereading
(Repeat)
“I think we’re created deep and simple, and society doesn’t nurture that. Society...”
– Fred Rogers (via lauracricket)
January 2011
1 post
“I got married a very long time ago… Ten years at this point. [Applause.] Thank...”
– John Darnielle (via foolishoptimism)
November 2010
1 post
i'm good at other things in life
portraitoftheartistasayoungman:
I still have not figured out when you’re supposed to hug other people. This is something that most people figure out in middle-school. I’m twenty-five. I generally just avoid it—which is why I hate the passing of the peace in liturgical services—but that makes for awkward situations. Like last night when I said goodnight to two girls with a half salute.
You...
October 2010
1 post
sometimesagreatnotion:
Work - John Engman
I wanted to be a rain salesman, because rain makes the flowers grow, but because of certain diversions and exhaustions, certain limitations and refusals and runnings low, because of chills and pressures, shaky prisms, big blows, and apes climbing down from banana trees, and dinosaurs weeping openly by glacial shores, and sunlight warming the backsides of...
September 2010
4 posts
“Language can create faith but can’t sustain it. This is true of all human...”
– Christian Wiman (via rampart-walls)
The Extra Glenns — Going to Marrakesh
(via...
“Go, eat your food with gladness, and drink your wine with a joyful heart, for it...”
– Ecclesiastes 9:7-10
Hyperbole and a Half: The Four Levels of Social... →
(via portraitoftheartistasayoungman)
August 2010
1 post
You know you’ve hit rock bottom when you find yourself wearing crocs with socks out of the house. Unless you’re one of those well-adjusted people who doesn’t care about things like that.
July 2010
4 posts
“Your grandfather bought the most expensive insurance policy. A man from the...”
– Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer, pg. 174
“He fell. For a moment he staggered, then fell prostrate, God in the dust.”
– Michel Quoist
“Shyness is a tribute paid to the gravity of human interaction, a proper dread at...”
– Shyness - The Boston Globe (via meganannaneff) (via wesleyhill)
“And I thought you’d come roaring in and frighten all the enemies away—like...”
– C.S. Lewis, Prince Caspian (via thrumminginthemixture)
June 2010
6 posts
The Mountain Goats - Sign of the Crow
Of the...
“If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should see sorrow and...”
– Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (via sometimesagreatnotion)
“They say a watched pot won’t ever boil. Well, I closed my eyes and nothing...”
– Neighborhood #4 (7 Kettles) by The Arcade Fire
David Foster Wallace's Kenyon commencement speech,... →
“This is a song about when you run across something in your house that belongs to...”
– John Darnielle, Brisbane 2007
April 2010
3 posts
Egg, C.G. Hanzlicek
I’m scrambling an egg for my daughter. “Why are you always whistling?” she asks. “Because I’m happy.” And it’s true, Though it stuns me to say it aloud, There was a time when I wouldn’t Have seen it as my future. It’s partly a matter Of who is there to eat the egg. The self fallen out of love with itself Through the tedium of familiarity, Or this little self, So curious, so hungry, Who...
streamrunningover: One of those things that you... →
Grab the nearest book.
Open the book to page 123.
Find the fifth sentence.
Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
Don’t search around and look for the coolest book you can find. Do what’s actually next to you.
a notemily / brocatus / …
I got a real cheery one from Numbers (14:35): “Surely this will I do to all this wicked congregation who...
March 2010
3 posts
No rum
Right there, out in the open:
all of your collected slaves
conspiring
to friendly mutiny.
They’ll give you a gun
and a glass of champagne.
Then they’ll let you go.
Like a bucket of angry seagulls,
and you’ve been hiding stale
marshmallows
in your back pocket.
Better get them out of there.
“The next real literary ‘rebels’ in this country might well emerge as some weird...”
– David Foster Wallace (via lukescommonplacebook) (via kristieneff)
February 2010
5 posts
“With regard to the opponent, don’t fight [argue] with anybody you don’t pray...”
– Douglas Wilson (via christianity)
“Secular reason — reason cut off from any a priori stipulations of what is good...”
– Are There Secular Reasons? - Opinionator Blog - NYTimes.com (via ayjay) (via portraitoftheartistasayoungman)
“To see the truth in someone is not only to penetrate behind appearances to some...”
– Rowan Williams (via) (via wesleyhill)
Seek quite simply, as one who serves, to win the confidence of what seems poor: then everything will become easier, more coherent and somehow more conciliatory for you, not in your intellect, perhaps, which lags marveling behind, but in your inmost consciousness, waking and cognizance. You are so young, so before all beginning, and I want to beg you, as much as I can, dear sir, to be patient...
January 2010
6 posts
figcrumbs by Michael Crowe →
“No Children” by The Mountain Goats
(via...
“Alright so, this here is a song which I want you to sing to the one you love...”
– John Darnielle introducing “No Children” at The Empty Bottle in Chicago, IL 2/28/04. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nVEJoibyso&feature=related
“Now we can see why friendship has become the characteristically modern...”
– http://chronicle.com/article/Faux-Friendship/49308/ (via lukescommonplacebook)
December 2009
6 posts
“Isaiah 45:23” The Mountain Goats
“And I won’t...
“At this point everything becomes clear or unclear, bright or dark. For here we...”
– Karl Barth (via wesleyhill) (via ayjay)
“A problem delayed is a problem denied.”
– the big moral of House this week. Not really though.
(Who are you?)
If only I could capture in a glass bottle,
lovely lovely —no, but no, I
only I. Only this thing that loves, here
the thing that loves, here it is.
Take it.
November 2009
6 posts
“We like lists because we don’t want to die.”
– Umberto Eco, via Arts & Letters Daily (via lukescommonplacebook)
“I shall regret the absence of your keen mind. Unfortunately, it is inseparable...”
– Gary Cooper, as Professor Bertram Potts, in Ball of Fire (via filmosophy2)
“Throw me a kid, God, throw me a knife,
So tell me Lord, am I the Antichrist?”
– (Antichrist Television Blues) by The Arcade Fire
“If you think you’re enlightened go spend a week with your family.”
– Ram Dass (via psychotherapy)