10:08 May 23rd, 2012 | 1 note
i finish books + yet the pile never shrinks. today’s additions on top. (Taken with instagram)
8:55 May 8th, 2012 | 692 notes
People say, ‘Oh, Mr. Sendak. I wish I were in touch with my childhood self, like you!’ As if it were all quaint and succulent, like Peter Pan. Childhood is cannibals and psychotic vomiting in your mouth! I say, ‘You are in touch, lady—you’re mean to your kids, you treat your husband like shit, you lie, you’re selfish… That is your childhood self!
Maurice Sendak, on what childhood means.
(via theatlantic)
2:33 May 2nd, 2012 | 1 note
I was too often trapped in the traffic patterns that Moses had set up in and around New York City, and I was afraid that the knowing of more than was necessary about their provenance might lead to my arrest for having committed a criminal form of road rage.
10:33 Apr 11th, 2012 | 2 notes
Our hunch is that publishers know that DRM doesn’t stop piracy. What it does stop — and what they hope it will stop — is casual sharing: people lending books that they love to their friends. But casual sharing has always been a part of the reading experience, and when we think about why publishers are feeling desperate enough to want to take it away, we start to understand what’s really at stake here.
…
We’ve all heard about the crucial role that independent bookstores play in supporting young writers and new talent, and we know that supporting small local businesses is good for the long-term health of our economy. But there’s an even more compelling reason that we need indies to exist in the e-book market: The Amazon/Apple near-duopoly on e-book sales is cripplingly destructive for readers, writers, and publishers. Once one of the big “A”s can freely set the price of e-books, they can determine the conditions of the market for everybody. They can charge consumers anything, pay publishers very little (for who will exist to sell their products otherwise?), and leave writers hoping for some small crumb of the pie. Everyone who reads or writes or cares about books has a reason to support the existence of a viable alternative.
Ruth Curry’s persuasive argument on the uselessness - and destructive power - of DRM
1:01 Mar 21st, 2012 | 4,994 notes
“I am very cold”
“The parchment is very hairy.”
“Oh, my hand.”
—Notes from medieval monks and scribes in the margins of their work
Our latest issue “Means of Communication” is now online. Take a break from the scriptorium to check it out!
This is awesome.
Yup.
10:24 Mar 20th, 2012 | 143 notes
Dirt is the price you pay for a place being interesting.
Maureen Corrigan, Two Books That Delight in New York City’s Dirt
(via nprfreshair)
7:23 Mar 1st, 2012 | 0 notes
Il était devenu différent. Tout le monde pouvait le voir. Voir qu’il n’était plus celui qu’on croyait. Lol le regardait, le regardait changer.
Marguerite Duras, Le ravissement de Lol V. Stein
3:23 Feb 26th, 2012 | 8 notes
Tennis’s beauty’s infinite roots are self-competitive. You compete with your own limits to transcend the self in imagination and execution. Disappear inside the game: break through limits: transcend: improve: win. Which is why tennis is an essentially tragic enterprise, to improve and grow as a serious junior, with ambitions. You seek to vanquish and transcend the limited self whose limits make the game possible in the first place. It us tragic and sad and chaotic and lovely. All life is the same, as citizens of the human State: the animating limits are within, to be killed and mourned, over and over again.
David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest
