louisa marion makes us look good

None better. Email her. Hire her to take amazing photos. Smile.

there's nothing like finding yourself quoted in a wikipedia article

Read it in context.

the obvious conclusion (actual conversation edition)

lit kitsch

Lauren, possibly my most bibliophilic friend (given how many times she scoops me on cheap first editions over at AbeBooks) thought I would enjoy Out of Print Clothing.

And I do.

It's certainly a step above The Great Gatsby t-shirt at Urban Outfitters, which filled me with equal parts lust and disgust. I guess I just don't want my favorite books kitschified (um, go with it) and slapped on a pre-distressed overpriced t-shirt like TMNT or Sesame Street.

Of course, I couldn't resist buying a Where the Wild Things Are shirt last summer. But somehow the reselling of my childhood bothers me less than the marketing of wearable representations of lit classics.

But, buy a shirt and give a book? Admirable. And that Moby Dick cover is killer.

this year i... (return of)

...buried my father. The last five months have been rough.

Really, I'd just like to thank all of you. For distracting me, listening to me, picking me up. Sometimes literally.

Thanks.

this year i ... (strikes back)

(photo via Roxie)
...grew a ragged beard (and smiled at least once).


...shaved, except for the mustache (thanks, Abby).


(photo via Louisa)
...realized I was better off without the mustache (but with the beard at a more manageable level).

Yes, I learned a lot about facial hair in 2009. And about looking creepy.

this year i...

...bought a bike. It's orange with blue tires. Like a can of Fat Cat. I named it Oscar. I rode it all over MPLS and wore striped socks. It was a good summer. Aside from the Joose.

This was Sam's idea. You should do it too.

megan inghram

So I don't know Megan Inghram, but her illustrations are rad. She did the Franny and Zooey cover redesign I posted yesterday (which I just realized she sold on etsy back in April. Sad.) I found some more of her work today. Peep her blog.

Perhaps I should commission a Gatsby cover redesign...

Also, does the second image remind anybody else of one of my favorite Roxie creations?

i like to ride in trains too much. you never get to sit next to the window anymore when you're married.

I stumbled across this image today. It's fantastic. I needed it and I didn't even know.
source

new giant drag. yessssss.

Yessssss. Somebody sign this girl. More meows, please.
source

let the wild rumpus begin!

Then he stopped. His father had explained that the journal was for positive wants, not negative wants. When you wanted something negative, it didn’t count, he said. A want should improve your life while improving the world, even if just a little bit.

So Max began again:

I WANT to get out of here.
I WANT to go to the moon or some other planet.
I WANT to find some unicorn DNA and then grow a bunch of them and teach them to impale Claire’s friends with their horns.

Oh, well. He could erase it later. Just writing it felt good. But now he was sick of writing. He wanted to do something. But what did he want to do? This was the central question of this day and most days.

You know you want to read (what I assume to be) an excerpt from Dave Eggers' Wild Things called Max at Sea.

Source: The New Yorker.

good morning

I was slightly concerned I might lose a finger, but the Monster Mug kept his teeth to himself.

post-game appreciation

I didn’t really get to know my father until pretty late in the game.

It was like watching Paul Molitor get his three-thousandth hit in a Minnesota uniform. People cheered, but it wasn’t how they would remember him.

The metaphor is appropriate, I think, because even when we had nothing to talk about, we could talk about sports. My Dad and I stuck to the locals, mostly: Twins, Timberwolves, trade rumors.

When I’d visit his clean, unadorned room at the care home, he’d run through the usual series of questions. How’s the job? How’s the car running? Have any girlfriends? He liked that last one best—especially when I had a story to tell. How’d you meet this one? he’d ask. And when they’d change, or I’d go weeks (months) without a new name to share, he didn’t mind. He’d just suggest I try the bars around town.

My Dad was consistent, like a sideline reporter interviewing a key player after a win. There was a script, an expected call and response, and we nailed it. We had it down. We could have worked for ESPN. Okay. Fox Sports.

There was a time when I didn’t think I could handle it, hearing those same questions again and again. When it depressed me to run through the same answers, recount the same basic facts. But eventually, I realized how much they mattered. The questions. Because even if he forgot the answers a week or an hour later, he wanted to know. He wanted to know enough to ask every time. And he always listened.

Once we exhausted the interview portion of my visits, my Dad and I would settle in for some Monday Night Football or a Sunday afternoon snoozer between the Yankees and the Angels. We even watched golf. Sure, we didn’t always watch sports. There’s a reason I consider myself a Wheel Watcher.

But in the end, it came down to sports, even though I’m not entirely certain how much we each even liked them. Sure, he was a high school and college athlete, and I have a deep appreciation for Joe Mauer’s swing. But I don’t feel about Kevin Garnett quite the way I do about F Scott Fitzgerald. And my Dad? I’m not sure what his dreams were, what he aspired to be, to do.

That’s the thing about knowing my Dad. I don’t, really. I’ve heard stories of his humor, his kindness, his easygoing nature. And in the past few years, I’ve seen flashes of those things, hints of a person that I never got to meet.

Parents aren’t people when you’re a kid. They’re heroes, villains, legends. They’re Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, Joe DiMaggio. They make the rules, feed you, pick you up when you fall. But it’s not until you’re older and on the way to becoming some kind of grownup that you really get it. That they stumble. That they are not always right. That they might not be around forever like you always thought they would be. That they’re human. Like you.

I won’t have a father to help finish the basement of that future home in South Minneapolis. I won’t have a father to phone for financial advice and support, both solicited and not. I won’t have a father to say, don’t worry, son, I have a good feeling about this one, while I’m nervously adjusting my tux.

I won’t have those things, but that’s okay. My Dad left me something else: he left me his sloppy, beaming, ear-to-ear grin. He left the smile that spilled across his face every time I popped my head through the door to his room. The smile I can’t deny every time I see my reflection in the mirror. The smile that was like a late-inning catch at the wall, the kind that Kirby Puckett made again and again to rob the opposing team of a go-ahead home run. It was the kind of smile that made you think, sure, maybe things have been bad, but we have a chance. We can do this. It’s gonna be all right.

That much I know.

wbanyc

My mustache loves clouds, so how could I not sit in a window seat?


Paula looks pretty at Yaffa Cafe.


Jesse expresses his appreciation for the server's suggestion.


I discover something interesting at the HiFi.


We are the only people on the train.


Right where we belong.

my dear child, this is NOT a birthday party.

Am I more excited about any other movie right now than I am about Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland?


No. No, I am not.




Peep more photos at Wired.com's first look at the 2010 film. And for good measure, watch this trippy remix video constructed from snippets from the 1951 Disney film.

jenny

Gosh, she's pretty.

Jenny Lewis was in town last night, and she stopped by The Current studios to play a few songs. The new tune "Just Like Zeus" is pretty rad, and Johnathan Rice did an admirable job filling in on Elvis Costello's part during "Carpetbaggers". But the interview portion with Mark Wheat is real reason to check it out. Listen on the Current website. My good friend Lindsay Kimball produced. Well done, I say.

i don't seem to remember ever owning a droid...

...well now you can.

But does it have a special spring-loaded lightsaber compartment? That's the real question.



via Wired.com

hugging used to mean something

Sometimes, The New York Times Style Section, I'm just not sure about you.

Here are some of best lines from the Sarah Kershaw's article, For Teenagers, Hello Means ‘How About a Hug?’.

But now there is also the bear claw, when a boy embraces a girl awkwardly with his elbows poking out.

(Yes! These are best with glaze.)

There’s the shake and lean; the hug from behind; and, the newest addition, the triple — any combination of three girls and boys hugging at once.

(I kept expecting Ms Kershaw to throw some teenager triple stats at me.)

“If somebody were to not hug someone, to never hug anybody, people might be just a little wary of them and think they are weird or peculiar,” said Gabrielle Brown, a freshman at Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School in Manhattan.

(What about that kid with no arms?)

But pro-hugging students say it is not a romantic or sexual gesture, simply the “hello” of their generation.

(As opposed to, oh, I don't know, 'Hello'?)

She added: “I hug people I’m close to. But now you’re hugging people you don’t even know. Hugging used to mean something.”

(Is this article really about something else? Maybe I still have Bonk on the mind.)

we the lions you the cheetahs

As if they somehow knew I've been listening to Black Star nonstop for the past couple months, Talib Kweli and Mos Def are back together again. For two shows. In New York. Of course.

And this shirt, via Hypebeast:


Dope is the only word.

enough, bub

Dear Hollywood blockbuster screenwriters,

Please stop writing pivotal emotional scenes during which our hero lets loose a howl of anguish that echoes across the landscape.

Love,
Christian

p.s. Tell your director buddies that pulling the camera up and away from the bellowing protagonist is over. No more. Please.

p.p.s. Also, please write stories that A) have some meaning, however slight, and B) function under some internal logic.

p.p.p.s. What a waste of Deadpool (and Ryan Reynolds). And Weapon XI? Seriously? That ending was weaker than the special effects they used for Wolverine's claws. Snikt. Argh.