Stupidfool.org

Parsing words

The New Yorker on the Republican demonization of words:

Literary theorists used to say that their most abstruse prose was "writing the difficulty"--that the sentences were tortuous because there was no briskly commonsensical way of representing a complex issue. Sarah Palin, alas, talks the difficulty. She may claim, as she did in last Thursday’s Vice-Presidential debate, that "Americans are cravin' that straight talk," but they are sure not going to get it from the Governor--not with her peculiar habit of speaking only half a sentence and then moving on to another for spoliation, that strange, ghostly drifting through the haziest phrases, as if she were cruelly condemned to search endlessly for her linguistic home...

Poor Little MacBook

My MacBook is already sad enough, thinking about its numerous scars & blemishes, like the colorful red/blue/brown/green stains on the white plastic from rubbing against a New Yorker in my bag, or the chip (well, the hole) in the plastic at the pressure point where I open the screen.

But now--now!--to add insult to injury, my MacBook has to see this?

It's just too much.

Birthdays

October is a month of birthdays at Six Apart: Vox is celebrating two years; TypePad is celebrating five years; and Movable Type is celebrating seven years (!).

And, of course, Penelope is celebrating her first birthday!

Ride a White Horse

What with the singing whilst riding a white horse, and the "Smells Like Teen Spirit" cover, &c., I really kinda wish I'd seen the Of Montreal show chronicled so faithfully by pretty much every music blogger in New York, by now.

Penelope is one year old!

It's incredible how quickly this first year has gone. From lump to person.

Penelope with her rolling pin

Pen

A year ago, Penelope was born, and--let's face it--she was a lump. A really cute lump, with a good head of hair (that soon fell out) and a sweet face, but a lump, comparatively.

Before going to bed last night, on her first birthday, we watched some videos of her as a baby: a couple of days old; a couple of weeks old; a couple of months old. Pen's fascinated by watching herself. Since she was only a couple months old, I've been adding photos to an iPhoto slideshow that I play for her when she gets fussy, so much so that she now associates the song I play along with it (Maxwell's version of Kate Bush's "This Woman's Work") with the slideshow, and upon hearing the first couple of notes, she rushes over to my computer to watch, smiling and shaking her head inexplicably, as if she can't believe how little she used to be.

The other day, Pen hid the keys, and I couldn't find them for forty-five minutes. Then I asked Pen (again) where the keys were, and she led me to a drawer in the kitchen--where we store the measuring cups, which she loves to play with--opened the drawer, and walked away. And, of course, the keys were in the drawer. It was as if she'd gotten bored of the game, and she wanted to move on to something else.

Happy first birthday, Penelope! A year ago, you were a lump; now, you're the most incredible person I've ever met.

Letters

I love the art of letter-writing--it really is an art, and a lost one, and I miss the idea of it--and nothing captures it better than reading a great collection of letters, like the letters from Normal Mailer collected in last week's New Yorker.

There are loads of quotable passages, but I can't help but quote this letter to Don Delillo, the last sentence of which is just... wow:

What a terrific book [Libra]. I have to tell you that I read it against the grain. I've got an awfully long novel going on the CIA, and of course it overlapped just enough that I kept saying, "this son of a bitch is playing my music," but I was impressed, damned impressed, which I very rarely am. I think we keep ourselves writing by allowing the core of our vanity never to be scratched if we can help it, but I didn't get away scot-free this time.

Robin Thicke's "Dreamworld" & Dubious Science

From Robin Thicke's Something Else--which I actually like quite a bit, overall--comes this contender for most unintentionally funny line of the year, one that, every time I hear it, I can't help but think, "really?". [1]

It's from "Dreamworld", which, I guess, is Thicke's updated version of "Imagine", i.e., it's full of very earnest wishes for what would make our world a little better. And it's this specific line, which you should read as if it's prefixed with, "wouldn't it be great if...":

Energy would just fall down right from the sky, yeah

Which, the first time I heard it, I was like, "hmm?" And then, the second time, I was like, "but... it does!"

And then I started second-guessing myself, sure that Thicke must mean something more profound, like: wouldn't it be great if we used all of the energy coming from the sun rather than being depressingly dependent upon foreign oil?

And that was when I realized that I'd spent far too much time thinking about Robin Thicke and his lack of knowledge about how things work.

[1] And thanks to Anil for reminding me of this yesterday.

Change

The New Yorker editors have made their choice re: their endorsement for President. They've chosen (spoiler alert!) Obama.

The whole article's worthwhile, but I like this particular quote:

The choice between experience and eloquence is a false one--something that Lincoln, out of office after a single term in Congress, proved in his own campaign of political and national renewal. Obama’s "mere" speeches on everything from the economy and foreign affairs to race have been at the center of his campaign and its success; if he wins, his eloquence will be central to his ability to govern.

The article spends a paragraph or two on a bunch of the major failures of the current administration: the economy, foreign policy/war in Iraq, the environment, &c. Condensed into a short article like this one, it's even more depressing to think about how our current government has done its best to ruin this country.

Hungry for Pork

I've been craving pork ever since I saw the photo of this beautiful pork sandwich--at New York's Porchetta--on Serious Eats last week.