Ray Lewis on Writing
If you’re trying to please the world, you’re going to confuse yourself.
The only danger is writing a check you can’t cash.
It don’t matter about me.
I monitor, sort of watch, some people.
Like some people aren’t happy with their job or their wife, they say it. That’s all it was, him voicing his opinion. He has a right to do that.
You know, consistency is everything.
But we don’t need no hope. Y’all can keep your hope because we’ve got enough hope over here. We’re packing our bags, and we’re not packing our bags to come play water polo.
You know that you’re pretty much in serious trouble.
Honestly. I don’t know what’s going on over there.
That’s what I want to get back to, just having fun and letting them deal with me.
All you can do is move on, live on. … Don’t let nobody pull you back into it, don’t let nobody make you keep talking about it.
We’ve heard it all week.
Once it’s done, it’s done.
These Things May Dismay You
Snooki of Jersey Shore fame is going to publish a novel. I have, previously, expressed enthusiasm for Tyra Banks’s opus, Modelland and I don’t have a problem with celebrity books (I support them, in fact, not that it matters), but I admit I am struggling mightily to feel anything but a profound sense of hopelessness at the idea that a young woman who has read only two books in her life (Twilight and Dear John) is going to “write” a book.
Tucker Max has been on the New York Times bestseller list for 150 consecutive weeks and he has some advice for how you, too, can make that happen.
On Genius
When I was 19, I had a late adolescent identity crisis and proceeded to get seven tattoos on my arms in a very short amount of time. I have no idea what I was thinking. On the underside of each forearm, I got the Japanese kanji for “genius.” Yes, I know, it’s ridiculous, but I was 19 and at 19, we do all sorts of ridiculous things without understanding we’ll have to bear the consequences of those choices in, say, our thirties. The idea of genius is really interesting to me and it’s something I feel I’m always trying to reach for, despite my limitations. As a culture, we are fascinated with the idea of genius. Genius this, genius that. In the public school system they try to ferret out little geniuses by calling them “gifted and talented,” even when sometimes a kid’s only gift and talent is managing to keep up. Bright children who demonstrate an aptitude for math or chemistry are fast tracked so they can become the next Doogie Howser who was a child genius who became a doctor as a teenager. Doogie Howser isn’t real, but it’s a sexy idea that someone is so brilliant they not only achieve greatness, they do so at an extraordinarily young age. The bar for genius is not always high. At the Apple store, when you need your products repaired you go to the Genius Bar where, more often than not, you will encounter someone who is decidedly not a genius. Not all geniuses are created the same. Albert Einstein was a genius. He had theories, all things being relative, and they were sound. He also had wild hair but he was a genius, so that was okay because for geniuses, the rules are a little different. I once helped a friend solve a problem and she shouted, “You’re a genius,” and squeezed my cheeks. I am no Albert Einstein. Most parents think their children are geniuses. They scrutinize their progeny for any sign of prodigious ability and if they can, say, sing or dance with remarkable aptitude, they shuttle them into reality television shows like America’s Got Talent, a show that makes it clear that when we say genius we are not always saying the same thing. My niece is six weeks old and in my family, we’re all fairly convinced she’s a genius because she stares with an unwavering intensity that is, frankly, a little creepy. She makes you look away she stares so hard and once during the fourth week of her life, when we were cooing at her like idiots and she was staring at us like the freaks we are, she said something that sounded like, “Hi” while throwing up a baby power fist. My sister in law and I looked at each other, high-fived and I said, “Baby genius, obviously.”
Toward the Sunlight: Lady Folk and Psych-Rock from the 60s and 70s
If you are feeling fall, check out this mix I made of psych-folk/rock music from the 60s and 70s. Features mostly women vocalists. For fans of Vashti Bunyan, Linda Perhacs, Nico, and Josephine Foster.
Morita Doji
Toward the Sunlight: Lady Folk and Psych-Rock from the 60s and 70s
1.”Towards the Sunlight” — Kim Jung Mi (6:53)
2. “Perfilados De Miedo” — Teresa Cano (4:03)
3.”Nothing lasts” — Karen Beth (5:27)
4. “Frijdom” — Irolt (3:16)
5. “Goodbye” — Cheryl Dilcher (3:58)
6. “Minstrel Boy — Wendy Erdman (3:12)
7. “Topanga” — Kathy Smith (3:32)
8. “Break Out The Wine” — Jan & Lorraine (3:06)
9. “in the corner of my life” — Bojoura (2:44)
10. “Sweet Mama” — Cheryl Dilcher (2:34)
11. “Song Celestial” — Windflower (4:47)
12. “Rainy Day” — Susan Christie (3:10)
13. “A shower” (驟雨) — Morita Doji (森田童子) (3:05)
14. “Number 33” — Jan & Lorraine (1:41)
15. “Last Ditch protocol” — Elyse (2:58)
16. “The joys of life” — Karen Beth (4:38)
17. “Dedication: Fred Neil (River Trilogy) Noah’s Dove/A Man Is/Water Is Wide” — All That The Name Implies (7:09)
6 sculpture drinks of FM-three
14. Who gives a damn about Lady Gaga’s meat dress? People have been wearing meat dresses for years. It’s called leather.
6. A list of supernatural collective nouns (a caucus of shamans, a flurry of yeti, an indulgence of leprechauns). Thank you Paul Symons, and also anyone who lives the Darkon way.
23. As a flash writer, I want to thank Vestal Review for their submission manager. While I enjoyed reading the mag, submitting was once crumpling cot. The prior guidelines Byzantine, bizarre, off-putting (rich text, curly quotes, something). But now it’s all OK. Thanks.
99. So-so Jim Harrison interview here.
Have you ever noticed the painters tend to be more sensual, and better cooks than writers?
5. Book borrowing: Look, here’s the law. You loan the book, consider it flown. If it returns, feel great, like you just dug a musty $20 out your winter jacket pocket. But consider the book gone, and be happy. Customarily you spread skin cells and STDs. Today, you just spread literature! Glow.
24. There is no # 24.
from the 1900 page suicide note of Mitchell Heisman
It is a test of whether America can be true to itself.
…
The first superhuman AI might merge all of the computational power on the internet into its own power, master all of the significant information on the internet, and then reorganize the entire global brain of the internet so that it “wakes up” as the global mind of God.
…
From this late biological phase, I count myself as, among other things, genetic replicator, eukaryote, animal, vertebrate, gnathostome, chordate, mammal, primate, ape, Homo sapien, and Jew.
…
I took Gilbert’s recording of Bach’s Well Tempered Clavier, eliminated all time gaps between the tracks, and listened repeatedly in a loop.
…
But wait a minute. Why am I doing this? Ah, yes, now I remember the punchline:
I’ll try anything once!
(according to Mitchell’s wishes, the website will be ‘kept up as is, free for access for all’)
Lily Hoang—
How much time do you spend on the internet on an average day, and how much of that time is waste v. productive? (I took a sick-day today, thought I’d get a bunch of reading done. Instead, I wasted away in front of my laptop, just like any other day.)