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Drink in hand, he settled into the numb nothingness of his...
Drink in hand, he settled into the numb nothingness of his self-imposed isolation.
(Photo: Daniel Hennessy; Dwell, November 2006)
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"LeBron James isn’t honoring the greatness of No. 23, but manipulating Michael Jordan’s marketing..."
“LeBron James isn’t honoring the greatness of No. 23, but manipulating Michael Jordan’s marketing savvy. The changing of his jersey number as a nod to M.J.’s basketball career is a purely fictional cover story. It’s a tribute to Jordan all right, but more like a cynical ode to his business sense. James wants to grow his global brand and push product; flooding the market with a fresh jersey number does the job.”
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LeBron’s M.J. tribute is all about business - NBA - Yahoo! Sports
Volcán de Villarrica, Chile
Volcán de Villarrica, Chile
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"If you’ve spent any time trolling the blogosphere, you’ve probably noticed a peculiar literary..."
“If you’ve spent any time trolling the blogosphere, you’ve probably noticed a peculiar literary trend: the pervasive habit of writers inexplicably placing exclamation points at the end of otherwise unremarkable sentences. Sort of like this! This is done to suggest an ironic detachment from the writing of an expository sentence! It’s supposed to signify that the writer is self-aware! And this is idiotic. It’s the saddest kind of failure. F. Scott Fitzgerald believed inserting exclamation points was the literary equivalent of an author laughing at his own jokes, but that’s not the case in the modern age; now, the exclamation point signifies creative confusion. All it illustrates is that even the writer can’t tell if what they’re creating is supposed to be meaningful, frivolous, or cruel. It’s an attempt to insert humor where none exists, on the off chance that a potential reader will only be pleased if they suspect they’re being entertained. Of course, the reader really isn’t sure, either. They just want to know when they’re supposed to pretend that they’re amused. All those extraneous exclamation points are like little splatters of canned laughter: They represent the “form of funny,” which is more easily understood (and more easily constructed) than authentic funniness. I suppose the counter-argument is that Tom Wolfe used a lot of exclamation points, too… but I don’t think that had anything to do with humor or insecurity. The Wolfe-Man was honestly stoked about LSD and John Glenn. I bet he didn’t even own a TV. It was a different era!”
- Chuck Klosterman, Eating the Dinosaur
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"Ilgauskas will get bought out soon, and he’ll be back in the Cavs’ lineup before March Madness is..."
“Ilgauskas will get bought out soon, and he’ll be back in the Cavs’ lineup before March Madness is over. And in the end, the price of Antawn Jamison, perhaps the final chip to a championship, will be the 29th or 30th pick in the 2010 draft. That’s all. Business as usual in the Don’t-Ask, Don’t-Tell NBA.”
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NBA investigates a lot, catches very little - NBA - Yahoo! Sports
Dulles Airport Terminal, 1958
Dulles Airport Terminal, 1958
Pierre Ochs of France performs an acrobatic jump during the...
Pierre Ochs of France performs an acrobatic jump during the qualifications of the Men’s Moguls Freestyle Skiing event, on February 14, 2010 at Cypress Mountain venue in Vancouver, Canada.
United States skip Debbie McCormick releases the stone during...
United States skip Debbie McCormick releases the stone during the women’s curling round robin game between Japan and the United States on day 5 of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics on February 16, 2010.
They found it was the best way to greet the neighbors. Though...
They found it was the best way to greet the neighbors. Though their throats became raw from shouting “hello,” at least the conversations were brief.
Photo: John Clark; Dwell, April 2009)
"Google and Facebook’s entire business model is based on the notion of “monetizing” our privacy. To..."
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Google and Facebook’s entire business model is based on the notion of “monetizing” our privacy. To succeed they must slowly change the notion of privacy itself—the “social norm,” as Facebook puts it—so that what we’re giving up doesn’t seem so valuable. Then they must gain our trust. Thus each new erosion of privacy comes delivered, paradoxically, with rhetoric about how Company X really cares about privacy. I’m not sure whether Orwell would be appalled or impressed. And who knew Big Brother would be not a big government agency, but a bunch of kids in Silicon Valley?
The problem with buying things with your privacy is you really don’t know how much you’re paying. With money, five bucks is five bucks. But what is the value of your list of friends? If it’s not worth much, your membership on Facebook may be the deal of a lifetime. If it’s incredibly valuable, you’re getting massively ripped off. Only the techies know how much your info is worth, and they’re not telling. But the fact that they’d rather get your data than your dollars tells you all you need to know.
”
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Lyons, on Buzz, etc. (via newsweek)
Tom Waits
Tom Waits
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"Americans are historically a tough lot. But the policies and rhetoric of the Bush-Cheney years,..."
“Americans are historically a tough lot. But the policies and rhetoric of the Bush-Cheney years, which set the tone for the current GOP attacks, are infantilizing: be very afraid, we’re told, and let the government take care of you. The tough-guy bluster has led to a permanent state of anxiety—and a slew of counterproductive policies, from harsh visa restrictions to waterboarding. Our politicians rail about apocalyptic threats while TSA officers pat down toddlers at the airport. The irony is that many potentially lethal terror attacks—from United Flight 93 to Richard Reid to the underwear bomber—have been foiled by regular citizens.”
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Klaidman, on how politicians are scaring us to death. (via newsweek)
