December 2011
9 posts
Tom Chiarella on kissing
I am not saying all kisses are great, nor that all kissers know what they are doing. I’m not saying some people don’t need lessons. They do. Just… you know, Christ, figure it out. With time comes mastery, and its many rewards.
-Tom Chiarella
http://www.esquire.com/the-side/feature/women-advice/how-to-kiss-well#ixzz1i5Yb1EXO
Anthony Shadid on journalism rules
“I spent ten years at the AP. I got those rules beat into my head. You know: Get every adjective out of there, and so forth. It was a great experience, but after you learn the rules, you get to break them. And there’s a lot of leeway, even in journalism, to break the rules. You can take a lot more liberties than people think you can. The more you embrace that, the more you learn how to do...
Literary heavyweights on drinking
Alcohol is like love. The first kiss is magic, the second is intimate, the third is routine. After that you take the girl’s clothes off.
- Raymond Chandler
First you take a drink, then the drink takes a drink, then the drink takes you.
- F. Scott Fitzgerald
There is no such thing as bad whiskey. Some whiskeys just happen to be better than others. But a man shouldn’t fool with...
Michael Lewis on how the economy tanked
The people who had power in the society, and were charged with saving it from itself, had instead bled the society to death. The problem with police officers and firefighters isn’t a public-sector problem; it isn’t a problem with government; it’s a problem with the entire society. It’s what happened on Wall Street in the run-up to the subprime crisis. It’s a problem of people taking what they can,...
Christopher Hitchens on writing and life
I am typing this having just had an injection to try to reduce the pain in my arms, hands, and fingers. The chief side effect of this pain is numbness in the extremities, filling me with the not irrational fear that I shall lose the ability to write. Without that ability, I feel sure in advance, my “will to live” would be hugely attenuated. I often grandly say that writing is not just my living...
Mike Royko on book reviewing
I will begin my review by saying that this is a very solid book. The moment I opened the package and saw what it was about, I threw it against my office wall as hard as I could. Then I slammed it to the floor and jumped up and down on it. I beat on it with a chair for several minutes until I slumped onto my couch, emotionally and physically spent. Although slightly scuffed, the book was still...
Bill Russell on professional sports
“We’re a bunch of grown men playing a child’s game. It’s a child’s game we’ve made into a man’s game by complicating it. Silly, isn’t it? We entertain people for x number of hours during the winter. They may talk about it for a few minutes, maybe an hour; then it’s forgotten. Is this a contribution? No. Analyze it—it’s a silly game....
Mike Sager on Kobe Bryant
“Scito hoc super omnia….Tempus neminem non manet….Carpe diem,” he proclaims in Latin (which he learned in elementary school in Italy) on the home page of his Website, KB24.com. “Know this above all else….Fully use every point, moment, and hour that you have. Time waits for no man….Seize the day.” He wakes at 5:30 in the morning to work out. He eats...
Woody Allen on Earl Monroe
What makes Monroe different is the indescribable heat of genius that burns deep inside him. Some kind of diabolical intensity comes across his face when he has the ball. One is suddenly transported to a more primitive place. It’s roots time. The eyes are big and white, the teeth flash, the nostrils flare. He dribbles the ball too high, but with a controlled violence. The audience gets high with...
