Hot or Naut: Dick Cheney
(via Gawker) A photo of Dick Cheney’s bookshelf was leaked from a then-public Picassa album for some party that the Cheneys hosted at their home. We feel a Haut or Not is called for.
Had Cheney known The Great War was about World War I and not Iraq, we would’ve saved his amazon credit for a new pacemaker. That phallic shaped thing adorning the silhouetted figure on Liberty! is, of course, a gun. Glad to see him exhibiting tolerance for the french Photo du Jour. Prior to such internationalism, the only thing “of the day” concerning him was Lipitor™. One wonders if Dick can read Arabic, as seen on one of the spines. As for Kuwait, he c-couldn’t k-wait to get started.
Of course, eyes are really on those Matryoshka dolls, which has metaphorical meaning to Russians as “similar object-within-similar object,” so we can assume that the irony, while intentional, was lost in translation. “Matryoshka” comes from the latin “mother,” and the whole incumbency thing symbolizes fertility — though when looking at the dolls, the only mother that comes to mind is motherfucker.
Rating: Not
A Book Lover’s Guide to IKEA seating
Say what you will about cookie-cutter culture, IKEA offers affordable furniture that doesn’t smell like the 1970’s. When enjoying your favorite book, it’s important to be seated properly — or at least in a way that compliments your reading experience. Here is a guide to what to read, and in what chairs.
—
I.
Expensive couch
This is a really expensive leather couch, ideal for books which reflect the opulent lifestyle, like American Psycho and The Great Gatsby. We learn in literature that money is not good, like all the bad people are rich and all the good people are poor. I don’t think this is a healthy attitude — now there’s some artistic nobility to being unemployed. I know I’m not your dad, but “get a job.” If I were the guy in American Psycho, I would not “freak out” (murder, crying into voicemail, etc.) and just keep my kick-ass job and eat good filet mignon at lunch and have sex with a lot of models.
Power Quote: James Joyce
If you would like to read again, or (I’m hoping) for the first time, an excerpt from the penultimate chapter “Ithaca” in Ulysses, wherein Stephen (of A Portrait of an artist as a young man) escorts a drunken Leopold Bloom home, click after the break.
Friday Fuck Books, Let’s All Do That Thing With Our Lips and I Love This Girl
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7U66tYpzQTE
html giant vs. htmlgiant
word.
It’s really hard to make a new compound word, especially when one of those ‘words’ is an acronym. Those of us born before, say, 1990 will remember that html stands for “hypertext markup language.” That the former two words are themselves compound words leads this post to a place a don’t wanna go. 70% of the time people searched the erroneous “html giant,” which I think points to a reluctance, even skepticism, of new words. I wonder how long it took for “the morrow” to become “tomorrow.” The revolutionaries wanted it today, and they said the morrow. So I say to you today: htmlgiant
Talking back at quotes on writing
I came across these nice quotes about writing, and since I can’t talk back at my mother, I figure I would talk back at famous writers. I’d rather get a roll in the grave than a slap in the face. All in fun, and much respect to these writers’ ideas on writing, but it kinda annoys me when people tell others “the final word” on writing, or art, or life in general. What makes Faulkner & Orwell (just a random pair) each so awesome is their completely different approach/goal, thus their completely different audience. I think the same applies to politics and religion, and other stuff people like to fight about. Certain arguments or dialogs are futile — writing just is, and I’m grateful to be able to choose what I read and to enjoy it. I’m happy that we all enjoy words, and that’s about it. Check out the linked quotes, some are really special. After the break is just for fun.
Philo$ophy and the Mirror of Nurture
Many years ago, my fiancee attempted to lend me a bit of responsibility by introducing me to my would-be mother-in-law as a future PhD in literature. “From Columbia,” I added, polishing the apple of my prospects. She wasn’t buying it. “A doctor of philosophy,” she said. “What’re you going to do, open an philosophy store?”
— Mark Slouka
Jimmy Chen—
Greying Ghost/Corduroy Mtn. introduce Let Us Make a Story, a sprawling exquisite corpse experiment in which one anonymous sentence is added on to the former, without context or, it seems, editorial discretion. This just may be the perfect way to get published, but not credited. Maybe what’s more at stake is the ever manifesting story — let’s see, and see wide.