Posts tagged as Stuff
Joyce: "When I wrote them I was a strange lonely boy"
"I like to think of you reading my verses (though it took you five years to find them out). When I wrote them I was a strange lonely boy, walking about by myself at night and thinking that some day a girl would love me. But I never could speak to the girls I used to meet at houses. Their false manners checked me at once. Then you came to me. You were not in a sense the girl for whom I had dreamed and written the verses you find now so enchanting. She was perhaps (as I saw her in my imagination) a girl fashioned into a curious grave beauty by the culture of generations before her, the woman for whom I wrote poems like ‘Gentle lady’ or ‘Thou leanest to the shell of night.' But then I saw that the beauty of your soul outshone that of my verses. There was something in you higher than anything I had put into them. And for this reason the book of verses is for you. It holds the desire of my youth and you, darling, were the fulfilment of that desire." READ MORE
"I have more stuff than I could ever possible use or need."
I've been thinking about the way I buy things, the when and where and why of it all, and how totally dumb most of the purchases (big and small, from gum to Apple products) that I make are. So I'm very into Make It Do, which is about a year of wearing things out, mending things, and buying minimally. (But what about pedicures? That's not in the FAQ!) It's nice that it's not a crusade ("my year without any animal products"!) or a stunt ("my year as a cavewoman"!); it's just a way to pull-back, look at the way we interact with products and see what one learns.
Gird Yourselves for August
Oh my God, what are you guys doing this weekend? READ MORE
Varieties of Things That One Rarely Bothers to Mention or Document
The week I had my wisdom teeth removed, I saw a man in line at the corner bodega drop a pencil, a nice-looking one, without noticing. I was fixed in a Percocet fog and stared at the pencil (handsome wood, something an architect would use) instead of telling the man he had dropped it. His transaction completed, he left, and I stepped up to the register, placing my beer next to it. I then turned to watch as an employee mopping the floor discovered the pencil, picked it up and admired it. I regretted not doing the same when I had the chance, but it seemed fair that all I should receive was the moment of transfer, as one man would never know where the pencil went, and one would never know where it came from, and I alone knew both. READ MORE
Something About Uganda That I'd Know About: Filson!
I'm really sorry about how my thoughts work, but all this talk of Uganda and the gays is horrifying and depressing and scary and then totally reminds me of the fact that Uganda is partially responsible for this one maybe incredible thing that you can get tyrannized into spending loads of money on for the holidays. It's the Filson Original Briefcase in a super limited-edition (only 200!), quickstrike colorway that isn't Otter Green, Brown or Tan. It's the first Filson collaboration ever and made from 17.5oz Ugandan cotton sourced by the nonprofit Invisible Children. This is just where my brain went because it goes UgandaSadfaceGaysHappyfaceFilson. And instead of pre-ordering one I'm going to buy a benefit calendar and hug myself.
A Taxonomy Of Bros
So very true: "One of the problems with crafting a reliable definition of 'douchebag' is that the term is built from the outside. Nobody wants to identify as a douchebag. And so, each individual's interpretation of the term will necessarily exclude characteristics which they share. Not so with the term 'bro.'"
