Monkfish Reblog
(Source: alexstursberg, via lettersiwillneversendtoyou)
Yes yes yes!
Barack and Michelle’s expressions.
There is really nothing not to love about this photo.
Challah!
One of the coolest bookstores in America: Prairie Lights Books, Iowa City, Iowa.
Imagine walking into a silent room where a woman is mending. Now imagine that she’s sitting underneath 1,500 pairs of sharp Chinese scissors that are suspended from the ceiling, precariously pointed downwards. This was the idea behind The Mending Project by Beili Liu.
http://www.beililiu.com/index.html
(via catseyegreen)
Charles Frazier chooses five of the best hardboiled novels
“Hardboiled crime fiction came of age in Black Mask magazine during the Twenties and Thirties. Writers like Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler learnt their craft and developed a distinct literary style and attitude toward the modern world. As in the film noir that they would inspire, the best hardboiled novels make style a primary means of delineating character and place.
Hammett’s first novel, Red Harvest (1929), is a bloody, amoral tale of a private detective in a corrupt mining town. Violence escalates almost comically, but the tight language is like Hemingway describing a Sergio Leone movie.
The Postman Always Rings Twice (1934) begins with one of the greatest hardboiled opening lines: “They threw me off the hay truck at noon.” From there, James M Cain weaves a confessional tale of lust, greed, jealousy and murder.
The Long Goodbye (1953) has my vote for Chandler’s best novel. It’s not as finely honed as his earlier work, but feels richer and deeper, with an autumnal mood.
Jim Thompson’s bitter, cynical pulp masterpiece, Pop. 1280 (1964), is probably an acquired taste. The first-person narration, though, is brilliant, and the humour couldn’t be much blacker.
Daniel Woodrell’s Give Us a Kiss (1996) is one of my favourite modern descendants of the genre. I’d place it on the Chandler branch of the family tree, mostly because Woodrell’s prose style is a sentence-by-sentence delight.”
—Charles Frazier is the author of COLD MOUNTAIN and the forthcoming NIGHTWOODS
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Consumerism interferes with the workings of society by replacing the normal common sense desire for an adequate supply of life’s necessities, community life, a stable family and healthy relationships with an artificial ongoing and insatiable quest for things and the money to buy them, with little regard for the true utility of what is bought. An intended consequence of this, promoted by those who profit from consumerism, is to accelerate the discarding of the old, either because of lack of durability or a change in fashion [planed obsolescence]. This makes people to work for long hours to have more income to place themselves in a conspicuous position in the social hierarchy through acquiring latest consumer appliances, accessories and fashions. This is a vicious cycle [cyclical consumption].
People have less time because they work more. They work more because they want more to maintain a higher standard of living. That means, as a society we are choosing MONEY over TIME. It creates anxiety and stress, and undermines physical and mental health and family relationships. Spending time with spouse and children, and having rest and relaxation become secondary to the chasing of mirage called social status and identity in a consumer society. The moment we think we have got it, entrepreneur invents new consumer goods and with that the social identity and status will change. We will never arrive there in our life time, because it is a MIRAGE.
(via solitaryforager)
