December 2010
29 posts
New Year's Time
From the NYT Editorial section, New Year’s Day 2003:
“Somehow it’s always a surprise when the old calendar comes to an end and it’s time to hang up a new one. It hardly seems possible that all those days, so empty and abundant just a year ago, have now been used it. To an electronic calendar - the kind you find on computers and PDA’s and cellphones - all years are...
The Boss
From the NYT Magazine’s annual “The Lives They Lived,” about George Steinbrenner (with an added Dubya bonus!):
Coincidentally, a week or so after George was allowed back into baseball, there was a Major League Baseball owners’ meeting. George and I had been down in Tampa. We flew to either Dallas or Chicago for the meeting on a Wednesday afternoon. We had lunch and walked...
Merry Christmas to All
From the Nativity poems, by Joseph Brodsky.
Imagine striking a match that night in the cave:
use the craks in the floor to feel the cold.
Use crockery in order to feel the hunger.
And to feel the desert - but the desert is everywhere.
Imagine striking a matcch in that midnight cave,
the fire, the farm beasts in outline, the farm tools and stuff;
and imagine, as you towel your face in the...
Sometimes The Onion headlines, they just make...
Headline on ESPN’s front right news block:
“New York Jets’ Rex Ryan: Foot fetish report ‘a personal matter’”
Only Christmas poems from here on out
Technically not a Christmas poem, this poem by James Joyce, but it was written for his grandson, and reminds me of the Christmas season.
Ecce Puer
Of the dark past A child is born; With joy and grief My heart is torn. Calm in his cradle The living lies. May love and mercy Unclose his eyes! Young life is breathed On the glass; The world that was not Comes to pass. A child is sleeping: An old man...
“I’m just a leaf on a tree right now. We’re just passing through, but in that...”
– Gilbert Arenas (via jamiemottram)
Let it Dough!
These Christopher Niemann posts are always amazing.
I created a beautiful grid. But I didn’t use enough flour. Thus I created the West Village.
http://niemann.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/16/let-it-dough/
Your birthday and our Thanksgiving
My cousin had gave birth to a beautiful baby girl this afternoon. I was reminded of the poem Cecil Day Lewis wrote for his (now famous in his own right) son Daniel Day Lewis on the occasion of his birth.
The Newborn
This mannikin who just now Broke prison and stepped free Into his own identity— Hand, foot, and brow A finished work, a breathing miniature— Was still, one night ago, A...
Wham, Literally →
Best of Times, Worst of Times
One reality of my recent move to the suburbs (living with my parents…the opposite of college, no parents) is that I am always in my whip listening to the radio because I am a safe driver and find the whole iPod while driving thing distracting and weird. Radio listening is a blessing and a curse: some songs are awesome and you get that excited feeling when it comes on; other songs blow and...
Pop Music PhD's →
If you enjoy reading highly sophisticated breakdowns of the pop music of the past few years, look no further than Keith Harris on Useful Noise. He ZINGS Beyonce in this once, in his ever so slight way.
