Haruki Murakami Bingo by Grant Snider for Sunday’s New York Times Book Review.
News coverage of Quebec almost always focuses on division: English vs. French; Quebec-born vs. immigrant; etc. This is the narrative that has shaped how people see us as a province, whether or not it is fair. But this is not what I feel right now when I walk down the street. At 8pm, I rush out of the house with a saucepan and a ladle, and as I walk to meet my fellow protesters, I hear people emerge from their balconies and the music starts. If you do not live here, I wish I could properly convey to you what it feels like; the above video is a start. It is magic. It starts quietly, a suggestion here and there, and it builds. Everybody on the street begins to smile. I get there, and we all—young and old, children and students and couples and retirees and workers and weird misfits and dogs and, well, neighbours—we all grin the widest grins you have ever seen while dancing around and making as much noise as possible. We are almost ecstatic with the joy of letting loose like this, of voicing our resistance to a government that seeks to silence us, and of being together like this.
—from “An Open Letter to the Mainstream English Media” by translatingtheprintempserable
(Source: translatingtheprintempserable)
(via translatingtheprintempserable and translatingtheprintempserable)
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From the Smiling Victorians Flickr group. Not all old photos are grim & glum!
(Source: flickr.com)
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“It is what the internet lures out of us—hubris, daydreams, avarice, obsessions—that makes it so potent and so volatile. TV’s power is serenely impervious; it does all the talking, and we can only listen or turn it off. But the internet is at least partly us; we write it as well as read it, perform for it as well as watch it, create it as well as consume it. Watching TV is a solitary activity that feels like a communal one, while the internet is a communal experience masquerading as solitude.”
—Laura Miller, discussing “how novels came to terms with the internet”Permalink
Enal plays with his pet shark. Part of a photo essay on the Bajau Laut community of “sea nomads” by James Morgan.
(Source: james.photoshelter.com)
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“You can lose playing on the lowest difficulty setting. The lowest difficulty setting is still the easiest setting to win on.”
—Great line from John Scalzi’s layperson explanation of straight white male privilege: if life is a role playing game, it’s like playing on the lowest difficulty setting there is.
(Source: whatever.scalzi.com)
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“Okay. that was exhausting. Sorry. I didn’t even ask you how you are. How are you? Oh yea? Oh good. That’s great. What? Oh man. That’s tough. I’m sorry… Oh well that sounds like you handled it well, though. So. Yeah. Yeah. I know. I know that’s… yeah. Well… Just remember, time will go by and that’ll just be on the list of shit that happened to you. You’ll be okay. Yeah. Huh?… Oh. Really? HE DID? Oh my GOD! hahaha!! That’s CRAZY! No. no. I won’t tell him you told me. Of course not. Alright well… uhuh? Oh wow. yeah. Alright well.. I really gotta go. Thanks for listening. I’m glad you’re basically okay.”
—Louis CK’s universal empathy at the end of a mass email about all the new stuff for sale on his sitePermalink
Virginia Woolf (then Virginia Stephen) playing cricket, 1880s.
(via Teju Cole)
(Source: woolfonline.com)
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Proust playing air guitar on a tennis racquet, 1892.
(via Elif Batuman)
(Source: classes.bnf.fr)
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Lessons on psyching yourself up, from The Making of The Shining by Vivian Kubrick (GIFs by maudit)
