A Tasteful Christmas List

1. Flannel pajamas a la L.L. Bean


2. These J Crew desert boots that I've been salivating over since before they started making them in women's sizes..


3. L.L. Bean's Irish Fisherman's sweater


4. Inner Workings: Literary Essays 2000-2005 by J.M. Coetzee


5. Very warm socks


6. A really dope old edition of Leaves of Grass

Will give handjobs for British Monocaster

"Yes, make it attractive, but make it be what the text needs it to be. Whereas, in the wild and wooly world of computer typography, there are no rules. The old guys got it remarkably right. There was an intuitive understanding of what constituted readable text, and so you can be at home with letterpress. It will die, eventually. Because people will no longer remember how to do it." The letterpress: a mighty machine.

FireFly Letterpress from ilovetypography.com on Vimeo.

Today's commodity

D&AD Entry. Series of experimental covers for Faber’s new POD film range. Inspired by the phenomena of a visual glitch, the design utilizes a logarithm that translates the title and section into a distinct graphic pattern. Original script developed by Ted Davis.

Also, can we just acknowledge the level of badassery in the concept of "Gilliam on Gilliam"? Consider it: Weimer on Weimer.

I got a bird that whistles, I got a bird that sings

And so it's over, and we're too sickly full to care. Sure, Thanksgiving*, but also the year. One month left until this awful decade of millennial uncertainty comes to a fucking end. And I am optimistic for the coming year, I am sure it will be great, but I am also optimistic about this great month of December that lie ahead of us, because I think I have a chance to end this year on a much more phenomenal note than with which I began it. T'will be a month of mulled wine and decorating, of writing more than reading, of drinking espressos in bed and listening to the Mountain Goats and The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan and wearing men's trousers, of feeling the fierce December wind rush through the cracked window and whip against the corners of the room and then carry back out. Of finally saying goodbye to the Grudges of the Year before they carry on to 2010--of letting them dissipate alright, and completely; it's lonely with or without them.

*A quick note on the outcome of the Holiday: everything was extremely edible/non-toxic, and I'd like to give two shout outs, to Lucy and myself, for managing to balance, with a fairly even hand, the acts of preparing a feast, and of celebrating a Great American Holiday via excesses of debilitating substances. Seriously though. Who do you know who can baste a turkey and smoke a joint simultaneously? In this narrator's humble and modest opinion, our performance was admirable. Admirable, and American.

"Isn't it peculiar, Charlie Brown, how some traditions just slowly fade away.."

Year two with the whole National Lampoon's European Thanksgiving thing, only this time, I'm preparing dinner. Yikes. But uh. Yeah. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. I long for the Great American Thanksgivings of yore, but this will have to do, and I am thankful for many things.

On the menu for Thanksgiving

Turkey! (German stuffing, gravy with the giblets & juices), buttermilk mashed potatoes, glazed apples & carrots, roasted parsnip bread pudding, pumpkin pie, and a whole bunch of red wine.

And hopefully it will be edible--I've been doing my research (see video). Bring your own pilgrim hats. Or headdresses.

"but some of us do go nowhere and can con ourselves into believing it to be somewhere"

"It's an epiphany of the soul"

I am in love with this film. Truly, madly, deeply.

Where are the drugs, Chris? I asked him.

"But maybe that's why my woozy, wobbly-footed editor friend was smiling when she stared up at the DJ and made her draconian prediction of a Kindle telling us how to dance instead of the Jersey DJ bumping Top 40 hits all night. Because there's still some esprit de corps amongst book authors, because they still care, because there's still a reason to get crunk. Books might be fucked, but at least they're worth saving. It's not all bad." Gawker gatecrashes the National Book Awards

I'm wearing my Bob Dylan mask

"The seeds of big animals contain little animals; through the process of conception these take on new clothing (so to speak) which they make their own, and which gives them the means to feed and to grow, so as to pass onto a larger state and propagate the larger animal. Human sperm are animals that are not rational and don't become so until conception settles a human nature on them. And just as no animals completely come into existence when they are conceived or generated, so none go completely out of existence in what we call their death; for it is only reasonable that what doesn't begin naturally should not end naturally either. What happens at death is that the animal throws off its mask or its tattered costume and returns to a smaller stage, where it can still be just as sensible and as orderly as it was on the larger one." G.W. Leibniz, Principles of Nature and Grace, Based on Reason

Hm.

Also, there's this-

"Thus our happiness won't and shouldn't ever consist in a mind-numbing complete enjoyment with nothing left to desire, but rather in a perpetual progression towards new pleasures and new perfections." (Leibniz)

Vs.

"It's kind of nice to exist less, to live withing the limits of what's bearable and not worry as much about what else there is or how life must be made better." (Radin)

And I don't fucking know; Kundera calls the shots around these parts--

"..flung into the world's misery, man sees that the only clear and reliable value is the pleasure, however paltry, that he can feel for himself: a gulp of cool water, a look at the sky (at God's windows), a caress." Milan Kundera, Slowness

All of the above?

"Credulity--do you all know what that means?"

I am not who I want to be, I probably will not ever be

Okay so. We have one massive Edinburgh street fight that I watched from my bedroom window with Caroline. One impromptu decision to spend my Saturday rearranging my bedroom furniture (with lovely results). One mysterious, sticky white stain on my sports jacket. A whole bunch of new music from the likes of Little Joy and Fruit Bats and Clem Snide. One pint of cookie dough chip. One Washington Irving story, one Tennyson poem, one Dickens novel. One Wii that's come to live with us, and a million games of Mario Kart. One book of naked portraits. One trip to the store in my pajamas to buy cheese. One cheddar/apple omelet. Two well-done burgers with sauteed onions and avocado. One admitted to see the Fantastic Mr. Fox. One candle-lit birthday party; many balloons, one big bowl of punch, two White Russians, and a poetic ode a la Lucy, standing on a kitchen chair. One failed radio show. One "chore chart" hanging in the kitchen. One essay on Gulliver's Travels sitting in the Lit office with the default -20% waiting for those who hand in their work four days late. Two lectures from Jonathan Wild. Two seasons of 30 Rock. One independently-owned video rental place down the block. One ticket home for December. One ticket back for January. One family vacation to Key West. Two mice in the kitchen that scurry back into their hole when I come in silently in the middle of the night.

When you weigh out the pros and cons, I'd say I'm somewhere in the middle.

Mortality

Come see DMG, his decks, and his girlfriend Elliot at Ridhima/Tommy's birthday party!

Chris Brown

Juergen Teller

I had this photo on my binder in high school.

"..letting grease drip in their faces."

A series of scenes from Orson Welles' 1942 film, The Magnificent Ambersons

Starmageddon '09

Here are some pictures from the other night (Guy Fawkes Night) as borrowed off Random Person's facebook. Thank you, Random Person! What a lovely night it was!
Peter in his 'Hunter S. Thompson' attire, aka an unbuttoned Hawaiian shirt and some pajama pants, aka just another day in the life of Peter.




That sacrificial glow..

Huh? Life partners? Me thinkest!

"Pete Souza, the Diane Arbus of place setting photography." -The Awl annotates the White House Flickr feed. Laugh laugh laugh.

"That was some pretty good six last night."

Last night I was taking a break from La Grande Jatte-fest at the bibliotech. Lying on the futon in my candlelit living room, smoking a j, drinking a hot mug of black coffee, watching Eagle vs. Shark, and waiting for Lucy to come home with two French houseguests. All the while, Edinburgh grew colder--the biting wind picked up--and everyone just got that much cuter, with their now windblown cheeks and rosy noses, and their cable knit sweaters and hats.

Now it's FREAKOUT WORKMODE TIME. I should probably go back to the library to ensure that I actually spend the next few hours working instead of dicking around in my room being a pothead and drinking coffee and reading about something completely irrelevant to my MOTHERFUCKIN' SEURAT ESSAY*. Dope. I'm also forgetting how to spell things. Big time. But, the good news is, I don't have to ever think about fucking Descartes' thoughts on GOD ever again! Really! Like, I just tried to think about it some more, and it physically, hurts me, so it's really nice to know that there's absolutely no reason that I will ever have to touch that information again, unless I want to voluntarily reach into my brain for it in order to rape someone in an awesome PHILOSOPHY DEBATE

So whatever. French people in my living room. What.

*Document is at this point hypothetical

I had hoped the salt below, would divorce what was wed above