aatombomb

Here are the rules: Don't take too long to think about it. Fifteen books you've read that will always stick with you. They don't have to be the greatest books you've ever read, just the ones that stick with you. First fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes.

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 22:45:00 -0500

Listicle! But seriously, you should read all of these books. Except for Derrida, he might make your brain snap in two. And fuck the haters, Ayn Rand rules. She made me want to be an architect for a couple of months, until it occurred to me that I couldn’t even draw decent stick figures.

1. The Master & Margarita - Bulgakov

2. Dry - Augusten Burroughs

3. Foucault’s Pendulum - Umberto Eco

4. Siddhartha - Herman Hesse

5. That Hideous Strength - C.S. Lewis

6. The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde

7. She’s Come Undone - Wally Lamb

8. Sophie’s World - Jostein Gaarder

9. The Book of J - Harold Bloom

10. Of Grammatology - Jacques Derrida

11. The Fountainhead - Ayn Rand

12. The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien

13. The House of Mirth - Edith Wharton

14. Beyond Good and Evil - Friedrich Nietzsche

15. The Elements of Style - William Strunk, Jr.

A Women's Studies Moment

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 14:27:42 -0500

This is probably well-tread territory, but I just had a powerful moment of insight: homophobia is about women! Homosexuality overtly removes the subjugation of women from the equation. It upsets a well-established power paradigm.

Yes, I had a glass of wine. What? Sunday is for musings.

"Poets say science takes away from the beauty of the stars — mere globs of gas atoms. Nothing is..."

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 12:53:02 -0500

“Poets say science takes away from the beauty of the stars — mere globs of gas atoms. Nothing is “mere”. I too can see the stars on a desert night, and feel them. But do I see less or more? The vastness of the heavens stretches my imagination — stuck on this carousel my little eye can catch one-million-year-old light. A vast pattern — of which I am a part… What is the pattern or the meaning or the why? It does not do harm to the mystery to know a little more about it. For far more marvelous is the truth than any artists of the past imagined it. Why do the poets of the present not speak of it? What men are poets who can speak of Jupiter if he were a man, but if he is an immense spinning sphere of methane and ammonia must be silent?”

- Richard Feynman (via nihilnoetia) (via booklover) (via saturdays) (via ronmarks) (via pukomuko)

according to blue cross blue shield of maryland, if you get a brain tumor while already having cancer, it is considered preexisting. so they deny your every claim.

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 12:46:10 -0500

spontaneouslove:

just an fyi if you needed another reason to hate them.

Fucking death panels.

notthatkindagay: It’s a nice day for a white wedding. OMG, I...

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 13:57:44 -0500

notthatkindagay:

It’s a nice day for a white wedding.

OMG, I think I went to a wedding here. Alexandria?

So I read the Bowden VF piece.

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 13:49:00 -0500

So I read the Bowden VF piece.:

Brutal, fascinating, and based on what I’ve experienced and seen in the killing fields of Internet Sodom, spot fucking on:

He is embarrassed. He has been humiliated.

But he has stayed angry. The classes he attends as a condition of his probation demand that he admit a sexual desire for children. It is considered an essential step toward recovery. J told his instructor that he has no such desire. He never did. He was told that if he persists in this denial he will jeopardize his probation and could be sent back to jail.

So he pretends to be something he is not. He is good at it.

wearetheweirdos: Youth Aids Granting that it is possible...

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 20:01:56 -0500

wearetheweirdos:

Youth Aids

Granting that it is possible (although not as likely in certain quarters) to get HIV by behaving like a typical college-level slutpuppy, they kind of gloss over the 20-30 years between getting sick and dying. You don’t go straight to a hospital bed once you seroconvert for fuck’s sake.

It’s missing about 100 little pictures in the 5th row, in other words.

peterfeld: Oh, great. One year after voting to make it illegal, a majority of California voters now...

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:22:42 -0500

peterfeld:

Oh, great. One year after voting to make it illegal, a majority of California voters now favors gay marriage. But a bigger majority opposes putting it back on the ballot next year.

Exactly. We like the idea of you having rights.

toosweet4rnr: Eagles - Take It Easy This is what we listened...

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:17:00 -0500

toosweet4rnr:

Eagles - Take It Easy

This is what we listened to in the ambulance to Cornell!

This kind of hyper-sensitive crap just makes us look like a bunch of whiny fags.

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:06:38 -0500

This kind of hyper-sensitive crap just makes us look like a bunch of whiny fags.

Sent from the future to destroy the Hadron - with carbs.

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 12:46:07 -0500

Sent from the future to destroy the Hadron - with carbs.:

This collider nonsense is getting creepier. Maybe we should just take the hint, already.

Follow These People, Goddamnit

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 12:30:00 -0500

fek:

Rohin Guha is BlackBook’s ace in the hole: he’s putting up more posts than any of us, and is basically the last working freelance in New York, as I understand it. But really: he’s a gay Indian blogger who’s incredibly strange take on pop culture resembles something between the culinary creations of the guys from Ace of Cakes if there were to consume copious amounts of acid and do tribal raindances to obscure Sugababes B-Sides all throughout the night. I could not appreciate this person more.

I concur! He and I share an obsession with all things Gaga, and he’s got a smart, trendy voice that never veers into pompous territory. Very unusual.

c-newt: I wanted to read my personal statement on paper once...

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 12:25:56 -0500

c-newt:

I wanted to read my personal statement on paper once before I start submitting applications today, but my broke ass is out of computer paper. So, yes, this is printed on lined notepad paper. Don’t judge me!

I think this looks very cool, actually. If you moved your margins just a tad so that the text didn’t cross the red lines it would look even better.

NY TIMES: Authorities identify gunman in Ft. Hood shootings as Lt. Major Malik Nadal Hassan; he was about to be deployed to Iraq or Afgfhanistan

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 18:35:08 -0500

NY TIMES: Authorities identify gunman in Ft. Hood shootings as Lt. Major Malik Nadal Hassan; he was about to be deployed to Iraq or Afgfhanistan:

So tragic.

inothernews:

At least one gunman killed 11 soldiers and wounded 31 others on Thursday afternoon at Fort Hood in Texas. Authorities then killed the gunman, who was identified as Malik Nadal Hasan, an Army major who was about to be deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan.

wearetheweirdos: Lady Gaga //...

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 17:49:34 -0500

wearetheweirdos:

Lady Gaga // Alejandro

<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3!!

This is an instant classic.

On catching predators.

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 17:12:27 -0500

katiebakes:

mikehudack:

newsweek:

Today in Things We Wish We’d Written:

“Crime of Shadows”, Mark Bowden’s Vanity Fair piece about the gray areas involved when police go trolling online for sex predators, is excellent.

This is something that has always bothered me.

Completely agree. This was an excellent article. I really dislike the gotcha method they use and I don’t think it’s very effective either. Whenever I watch To Catch A Predator I end up feeling bad for the Predator.

Emphasis mine. I have always said that this show is the only thing that could possibly make me sympathetic to pedophiles. Can’t wait to read this.

dcwhip: mudwerks: oldauntamy: This is the best thing I have...

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 16:25:09 -0500

dcwhip:

mudwerks:

oldauntamy:

This is the best thing I have learned all day.

livejamie:

This is a Congolese “Sapeur” - They’re gangs of men that spend tens of thousands of dollars on expensive European designer suits while frequently otherwise living in abject poverty.

They have gang battles where instead of fighting each other, they have “Defi de Sape” - They go to another gang’s turf where their presence demands that the host gang run home and change into their finest suits to prove that they’re classier.

Their gangs have names like “L’Association des Anglais” (The Association of Englishmen) and “Deux Grands Dandies de la Capitale” (Two Rich Dandies.)

They are awesome.

right — except, you KNOW there’s a genocide in congo right now?

This is crazy/cool. Emphasis on the crazy. And yeah, FULL DISCLOSURE: I’m so not down with genocide.

Listening to The Eagles, btw. Take it easy, indeed.

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:22:00 -0500

Listening to The Eagles, btw. Take it easy, indeed.

We just crossed the entire island of Manhattan, without stopping once. During rush hour. On fucking...

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:21:00 -0500

We just crossed the entire island of Manhattan, without stopping once. During rush hour. On fucking 42nd St.

Ambulance!

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:02:00 -0500

We finally got a transfer to Jeff’s real hospital, and I am currently in the front seat of a state-of-the-art ambulance and we just got cleared to go through the cones at the Lincoln Tunnel to cut ahead of traffic. I feel 10 years old. Freaking awesome.