Play It Again, Sam (and Again, and Again…)
What Bradford Cox did is more interesting than eventful — mostly it’s funny, but also a reminder that a majority of social contracts are bullshit, and that we all tend to kind of resent the people who love us.
The best portraits are self-reflexive: a guest at a party with one eye on the host and the other on the door, a mirror with a carefully-placed layer of grease.
It’s 2:30 in the morning and I can’t go to sleep. Somebody read me a bedtime story.
Luke Skywalker starts on Tatooine, really having no idea about anything, and he ends up a Jedi amidst the rubble of an evil empire. Tim Tebow started out in the swamps of Florida, tossing pigskins and bible verses, and now he’s in Denver — but has he learned anything?
Gossip Girl, American Fever Dream
The audience is, like in all television, clearly voyeuristic, but the catch here is that we are also implied within the narrative: we are the loyal subjects to these young gods.
Van Morrison, Mystical Irish Warrior Poet, or Something Like That
You can talk about Van Morrison, the man, or Van Morrison, the recording artist, but what you should really be talking about is Van Morrison, the poet.
Failure, it seems, in literature and in life, is inevitable. The trouble is not actually the actual act of failing – the trouble is when you hitch your wagon solely onto the star of success.
The question that concerns me the most is not why read Moby-Dick?, but why read Why Read Moby-Dick? I’m still trying to decide whether the fact that this book exists is even a positive thing.