On A Handy Test for Reddit Users: Are You on the Internet Right Now?
Time was, I would have written a rule like #2 as well. But I have recently been informed by trustworthy sources that the Internet has leaked onto certain small objects, like phones and music players (?). Be careful when handling small objects! Apparently they too might put you on the Internet, even if your computer has been turned off.
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On The First Video That Meant Something To Me: The Birthday Party's "Nick the Stripper"
Young Australian men with wild hair held firm by drying egg whites mill about a night near a fire where pigs' heads on sticks are hoisted high.
This is the greatest garden-path sentence in the English language.
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On Today Only: The Awl Is Auditioning New Commenters!
@Minou Last I heard, that job was outsourced to eHarmony.
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On 'The Secret History': I Know What You Did Last Reading Period
@jfruh The fact that the protagonist misjudged the nature of the MYSTERY was sort of interesting; the problem is, her mistakenness about that left, well, no other tension in the book. I wish Tartt had found some other thread to pick up that would make the whole thing feel meaningful. Instead, the whole book sort of felt like it was about nothing, which made me hate it maybe a bit more than it deserved.
All that having been said, the opening chapter of The Little Friend was gorgeous and chilling, arguably better than anything in The Secret History. I'm sad that the promise of that chapter never really paid out.
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On How To Share Your Good News With Friends
NUMBER NINE IS THE MOST IMPORTANT ADVICE IN THE WORLD AND SHOULD BE TATTOOED ON EVERYBODY'S FACES
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On Sympathy For Jonathan Franzen
@barnhouse Michael Chabon, OBVIOUSLY.
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On 46 Things to Read and See for David Foster Wallace's 50th Birthday
@hapax P.S. oh, your headline is so awful and beautiful I can scarcely stand it.
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On 46 Things to Read and See for David Foster Wallace's 50th Birthday
Oh, my. This looks like a post I'm going to return to again and again and again. Thank you for making the effort to curate and share this collection on a sad, sad anniversary.
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On How 'Minority Report' Trapped Us In A World Of Bad Interfaces
PREACH IT. People look at me like I'm crazycakes when I express regret at the fact that I'm no longer able to skip a song on an MP3 player while the player's still in my pocket. And don't even get me started about the steady decline in my texting speed over the past ten years; I think even T9 was faster than Swype. Touchscreens are the devil.