Alexandra Scaggs

"It was an uncharted wilderness along the Aguarico River—a forest Eden roamed by small groups of..."

Tue, 14 May 2013 22:27:12 -0400

““It was an uncharted wilderness along the Aguarico River—a forest Eden roamed by small groups of naked Indians, some of whom believed that the only real world is the world of dreams. They hunted with blowguns, drank hallucinogenic brews, made love in the jungle, and sometimes shrank enemy heads. Dear God, these were people who deserved to be left alone. But God by then had created the United States. In Texas in 1902, in a nasty little town called Sour Lake, the Texaco oil company was born. Equally troubling, a half-century later Oklahoma emerged into the 1950s feeling proud of itself. It equipped missionaries with small airplanes and sent them winging south. Other states did the same. The missionaries flew south intending only to harvest souls, but by contacting and settling the potentially hostile tribes, they served as the advance agents for oil.””

- Just recently discovered William Langewiesche, my hero/role model/etc.

explore-blog: Salesmanship, another ingenious newspaper...

Tue, 14 May 2013 22:24:29 -0400

explore-blog:

Salesmanship, another ingenious newspaper blackout by Austin Kleon. (Psychologists would agree.) Find more in his fantastic Newspaper Blackout and let him tell you how to steal like an artist

"We are not built for this. We are not designed, at our core, to be able to absorb, at a glance and a..."

Thu, 02 May 2013 10:48:35 -0400

“

We are not built for this. We are not designed, at our core, to be able to absorb, at a glance and a click, a tweet and a ruthless video feed, all the ills and horrors of the world, all at once, all manner of chaos and destruction in a nonstop bloody flood over which we are powerless to influence and impotent to stop.

The Boston bombings have forced us, once again, to ask: Are we in an age of miracles or misery? Unhindered magic or cruel dystopia? Is it both? How can it possibly be both? This tech-enabled onslaught of violence and pain the likes of which our ancestors, even as recently as 50 years ago, never had to deal with and could not possibly imagine? It is not within our emotional capacity. Not without serious scarring, anyway.

[…]

The answer is almost always the same, but increasingly lost in the modern bedlam of technology: In times of violent, faraway tragedy, you do the only thing possible: You gather in, hold tight, and take care of those close to you. As feeble as it sounds, as meek as you feel, this is the only way. This is also the best way. To help. To be a part. To avoid shutting down, hardening, adding more suspicion and mistrust to the world.

”

- More than half a century after Henry Miller’s meditation on war and the meaning of life, SFGate’s Mark Morford explores the challenge of exploding your emotional bandwidth at times of violence. (via explore-blog)

Structure and Style: One Art

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 16:06:00 -0400

Structure and Style: One Art:

structureandstyle:

The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing…

Love this poem.

Can. Not. Wait.

Tue, 26 Mar 2013 08:53:27 -0400

Can. Not. Wait.

"An old Cherokee chief took his grandchildren into the forest and sat them down and said to them, “A..."

Wed, 20 Feb 2013 22:27:53 -0500

“

An old Cherokee chief took his grandchildren into the forest and sat them down and said to them, “A fight is going on inside me. This is a terrible fight and it is a fight between two wolves. One wolf is the wolf of fear, anger, arrogance, and greed. The other wolf is the wolf of courage, kindness, humility, and love.” The children were very quiet and listening to their grandfather with both their ears as he then said to them, “This same fight between the two wolves that is going on inside of me is also going on inside of you, and inside of every person.”

They thought about it for a minute, and then one child asked the chief, “Grandfather, which wolf will win the fight?”

He said quietly, “The one you feed.”

”

- Old Cherokee legend, quoted in Someday You’ll Thank Me for This! (via explore-blog)

theweekmagazine: Some wisdom for your Friday afternoon. And...

Fri, 11 Jan 2013 19:52:25 -0500

theweekmagazine:

Some wisdom for your Friday afternoon.

And this, as a caveat to my previous post.

"Responsibility to yourself… means that you refuse to sell your talents and aspirations short, simply..."

Fri, 11 Jan 2013 19:50:49 -0500

“Responsibility to yourself… means that you refuse to sell your talents and aspirations short, simply to avoid conflict and confrontation. And this, in turn, means resisting the forces in society which say that women should be nice, play safe, have low professional expectations, drown in love and forget about work, live through others, and stay in the places assigned to us. It means that we insist on a life of meaningful work, insist that work be as meaningful as love and friendship in our lives. It means, therefore, the courage to be ‘different’; not to be continuously available to others when we need time for ourselves and our work; to be able to demand of others that they respect our sense of purpose and our integrity as persons… The difference between a life lived actively, and a life of passive drifting and dispersal of energies, is an immense difference. Once we begin to feel committed to our lives, responsible to ourselves, we can never again be satisfied with the old, passive way.”

- Adrienne Rich

explore-blog: Pico Iyer on favorite book and his ideal...

Tue, 13 Nov 2012 09:43:41 -0500

explore-blog:

Pico Iyer on favorite book and his ideal bookshelf.

"Like Omar Sharif materializing out of the shimmering desert as a man on a camel in “Lawrence of..."

Thu, 05 Jul 2012 09:11:29 -0400

“Like Omar Sharif materializing out of the shimmering desert as a man on a camel in “Lawrence of Arabia,” the elusive boson has been coming slowly into view since last winter, as the first signals of its existence grew until they practically jumped off the chart.”

- Huh?

explore-blog: “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be...

Thu, 28 Jun 2012 10:07:39 -0400

explore-blog:

“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.”

Truth from writer and futurist Alvin Toffler, creator of Future Shock.

(↬ It’s Okay To Be Smart)

"One source I’m trying to get in touch with has an @aol.com email handle, and his phone went..."

Thu, 07 Jun 2012 15:16:52 -0400

“One source I’m trying to get in touch with has an @aol.com email handle, and his phone went straight to a busy signal when I called. I feel like I just transported back to 1996.”

- Southern Reporter Friend

"People really don’t like to hear success explained away as luck — especially successful people. As..."

Wed, 06 Jun 2012 23:36:00 -0400

“People really don’t like to hear success explained away as luck — especially successful people. As they age, and succeed, people feel their success was somehow inevitable. They don’t want to acknowledge the role played by accident in their lives. There is a reason for this: the world does not want to acknowledge it either.”

- Michael Lewis, to Princeton University’s graduating class of 2012. (via theatlantic)

So true. Also, kudos to Michael Lewis for being able to admit it. It seems to me that attributing your own success entirely to your own worthiness/brilliance/work ethic/whatever is a great way to end up with a life with a lot of rat-race-related stress. And if you watched Mad Men last weekend, you know that you do NOT want a life like that.

Today in celebrity spirit animals: Jessica Pare, aka Megan...

Tue, 05 Jun 2012 20:09:47 -0400

Today in celebrity spirit animals: Jessica Pare, aka Megan Draper.

theparisreview: Such a great archive.

Mon, 04 Jun 2012 06:36:52 -0400

theparisreview:

Such a great archive.

Photo

Mon, 04 Jun 2012 06:34:45 -0400

In media reports on women’s issues—abortion, birth control, Planned Parenthood—men are quoted around five times more than women, a new study shows

Thu, 31 May 2012 19:25:43 -0400

In media reports on women’s issues—abortion, birth control, Planned Parenthood—men are quoted around five times more than women, a new study shows

"Self-respect is a discipline, a habit of mind that can never be faked but can be developed, trained,..."

Mon, 21 May 2012 20:46:14 -0400

“Self-respect is a discipline, a habit of mind that can never be faked but can be developed, trained, coaxed forth.”

- Joan Didion (via explore-blog)

Perfect.

"You must admit that Kanye West is at least some kind of musical genius."

Fri, 13 Apr 2012 11:57:57 -0400

"You must admit that Kanye West is at least some kind of musical genius.":

From The Atlantic: “The impulse to turn a rap song with a good beat into something that actually feels like art is both abstract and liberating for Kanye, for Jay-Z, and for the audience. Anyone who can use Jay-Z as a prop and make him like it—and make the rest of us like it, too—can do anything he wants.”

Too Good To Not Post.

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 10:25:46 -0400

NYC Reporter Friend: so I made sammies for lunch today //

and put them in the freezer? //

I thought that was a good idea //

but now they’re still frozen //

so I’m just letting them thaw in the heat from behind my computer //

I’m a hobo, is what I’m saying.