October 2010
51 posts
September 2010
66 posts
“And since I write this column mostly as a weekly monument to my own ego but also as a public service to the Duke community, I thought I’d share.”
—Alex Fanaroff.
Can't quite think right now
OK so I shouldn’t have to explain any more, but J.R. Moehringer wrote about spending two years in Las Vegas for October’s Smithsonian, and it is so, so good:
And it’s not just books. Vegas discourages everything prized by book people, like silence and reason and linear thinking. Vegas is about noise, impulse, chaos. You like books? Go back to Boston.
She said a mega-rich couple had hired her for the night. (Beckham and Posh?) They were hitting all the hot spots, and at each spot they wanted her to appear as one of the Seven Deadly Sins. Currently the couple was cloistered in a private back room, “doing something,” and she was keeping out of sight, waiting for her cue.
“What sin are you right now?”
“Sloth.”
I’d have bet the farm on Lust. I wanted to ask if she was free after the traveling sinfest, but the couple was waving, calling her name. They were ready for some Sloth.
When I first opened a checking account in Vegas, my personal banker’s name was Paradise. I wasn’t sure I wanted to entrust all the money I had in this world to a woman named Paradise. In Vegas, she assured me, the name is not that unusual. She spoke the truth. I met another Paradise. I also met a girl named Fabulous and a girl named Rainbow. She asked me to call her Rain for short.
I would excerpt more—or, like, the whole thing—but that is probably illegal and mostly it’s just unfair because I don’t want to spoil every good part for you. Just the juicy bits from the first half.
“
Did you hear that the Barnes & Noble in this film, the one on 66th Street, is closing?
I did! I had this fantasy about a scene in a romantic comedy where I would go there, realize it was closed, and run into a guy who had the same idea. And then we’d walk to the next Barnes & Noble together and fall in love.
” —Mindy Kaling!It was the night before the night before Tailgate
- Peter: banana costume or $100 bill costume?
- me: wow
- maybe the latter
- it's gonna be hot
- Peter: hmm
- I think they're equally shitty costumes, meaning they won't be insulating either way
- me: true
- so which one?
- Peter: I think I'm going to go with banana
- I'll wait and see what it looks like, maybe return it and get the $100 instead
“It’s the idea that writers can speak in a voice that wasn’t handed down to them by Medill or Mizzou or ages of journalistic how-tos muddling and mixing and creating an unremarkable beast out of what was once a talented and of-him/herself writer. The idea that I can toss out a 43-word sentence like the one you just struggled through, and not have it be covered in red ink a day and a half later.”
—Kelly Dwyer on blogs.
