The glory years
Like many other cardigan-wearing teens, I had an unhealthy obsession with Morrissey and The Smiths. In addition to a binder in which I kept typed sheets of all their lyrics—I even had blank pages for the rare Smiths instrumental like “Oscillate Wildly”—I began to hew to Moz’s philosophy of life. Upon the release of Meat Is Murder, I stood tall in the kitchen and defiantly declared myself a vegetarian to my meat-loving family.
It didn’t last long. In fact, that night my mom dumped a full package of uncooked tofu on my plate, with the rejoinder “you’ve got to get your protein somehow.” I was game enough to dig in, but my uneducated palate couldn’t get past the sticky, watery mess on my plate. I soon reverted to meat, happily so, but the experience only deepened my sense of dislocation.
The horror of remaining a sensitive misfit, surrounded by the drabness of [insert city here], unappreciated, misunderstood—the sentiment fades quickly into yadda-yadda, doesnt it? Its been the interior Muzak of every adolescence since child labor was banned.
What is it about Morrisseys voice that still breaks my heart? – By Stephen Metcalf – Slate Magazine
“Do we need our presidential invocation to be given by a bigmouth clerical businessman who is, furthermore, a religious sectarian?”
Still more reasons to boot Rick Warren from the inauguration. – By Christopher Hitchens – Slate Magazine
From Do The Math, a short list of spectacular early recordings featuring trumpeter Freddie Hubbard. He passed away this morning at the age of 70.
http://tinyurl.com/9szjmw
I’m curious why these Italian chefs’ default expression is a wink. Are they letting you in on a secret? If so, can plaster chefs be trusted with such confidential matters? Or is there deception at work, i.e. if I have to tell you it’s a “True Italian Restaurant” is it really a true Italian restaurant?
Link Here
The only thing that separates a mess of seemingly disparate observations and a song is a moment of excessive confidence. As time goes on words and ideas begin to catch and gather around the original suspiciously arbitrary seeds of inspiration. There are times when I must admit that all the verse has in common with the chorus is that they both came out of my imagination, but isn’t that enough?
Measure for Measure – Opinion – New York Times Blog
My recent interview with Lydia Millet is in the January Boldtype, and has been featured in Flavorpill as well. Good thing, because Millet’s new book, How the Dead Dream, is superb, squaring its shoulders against “big issues” with pathos, humor, and insight.Here’s Millet on the impetus to write the book:
So much of what’s foretold now by scientists, in terms of, say, extinction and climate change, comes at us like a wall of despair. We stand there facing the wall with nothing to do but throw up our hands. I wanted the trajectory of this character’s story, T.’s story, to evoke a less despairing response that has to do with the richness and excitement of animal life—the wild, imaginative heritage that animals have given to culture and art and religion; the recognition that the future of human civilization is deeply entwined with the future of species that are swiftly vanishing.
Read the interview.
