Richter: Painting What's Fun

Atlas:

Do you know what was just great? — To notice that such a stupid, absurd little act like copying a postcard can result in a painting. And then the freedom to be able to paint what’s fun. Deer, aeroplanes, kings, secretaries. Not having to invent anything any longer, forgetting everything one understands by the concept of painting: colour, composition, spatial depth; and everything else that one knew and thought. That was suddenly no longer a prerequisite for art.

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Above: My own snapshots of a photograph in Atlas (partial) and Richter’s resulting painting, “Sekretärin” (partial), which we saw in Dresden in 2010.

Jason Fried on a Reader's Motivation

Customers come to learn something, research something, consider something, buy something. If they are motivated, they may not mind spending 5 minutes reading. They want to read, they want to know. They’re OK investing their time to find something out if they really care about the answer.

The Ecosystem Known As Reading

Andrew Piper, writing in Book Was There: Reading in Electronic Times:

Books will always be there. That is what they are by definition: there. Whether in the classroom, the library, the archive, the bookstore, the warehouse, or online, it is our choice, however, where books will be. It is time to stop worrying and start thinking. It is time to put an end to the digital utopias and print eulogies, bookish venerations and network gothic, and tired binaries like deep versus shallow, distributed versus linear, or slow versus fast. Now is the time to understand the rich history of what we have thought books have done for us and what we think digital texts might do differently. We need to remember the diversity that surrounds reading and the manifold, and sometimes strange, tools upon which it has historically been based. The question is not one of “versus,” of two antagonists squaring off in a ring; rather, the question is far more ecological in nature. How will these two very different species and their many varieties coexist within the greater ecosystem known as reading?

The Risks of Rereading

I really like this bit from Katherine Boo, taken from her interview for the New York Times Book Review’s “By the Book” series:

I was working my butt off trying to investigate the violent deaths of some homeless children, under circumstances that had been covered up by the police, when I reached the section of “2666” entitled “The Part About the Crimes.” It begins with a relentless, near-forensic account of corpses and injustices (closely based on the murders of poor women in Juarez) that opens out into this fevered exploration of both the psychological cost of paying attention to the tragedies of others and the social cost of looking away. That section of the book undid me so thoroughly that I’ll probably never reread it, even though I surely grasped only a sliver of what Bolaño was trying to say. And I suppose that’s the built-in sorrow of my life’s most profound encounters with books, beginning with “A Wrinkle in Time” in third grade. To reread what you loved most at a particular moment is to risk the possibility that you might love it less, and I want to keep my memories undegraded.

Asimov: Why Wine

From Eric Asimov’s How to Love Wine, which I quite enjoyed:

To assert that tasting notes amount to an “intellectual dissection” of a wine is to ignore the fact that the more specific the description of flavors and aromas, the less one is actually saying about a wine and what it has to offer. People drink wine for many reasons. It makes them happy, it cheers them up, it is delicious, it makes meals better, it is intoxicating, it enhances friendships, it serves a spiritual purpose, and that is only the beginning. Wine can be transporting. It can, in one glass, embody culture, science, economics, personality, history, and much more. Fine wines stimulate conversation. We may be moved to debate what makes it so fine. But very rarely, if ever, does a true intellectual dissection of wine consist of sticking one’s beak into a glass and reciting the components of a cornucopia. 

Remnick: "Scenes from the Inauguration"

Not content with being The New Yorker’s EIC, David Remnick remains — even in “a few thoughts” blog post sent from a returning train — one of its sharpest writers.

Yep, Retailers Can Have Editors-in-Chief

The Independent profiles Jeremy Langmead, the former editor of Wallpaper* and Esquire.

For a little over two years, Langmead has been editor-in-chief of Mr Porter, the men’s fashion division of Net-a-Porter. It now produces a weekly online magazine, The Journal, in addition to a 40-page print edition called The Mr Porter Post (soon to grow to 80 pages), an electronic missive that goes out three times a week, an annual paperback and an iPad app called The Tux (featuring an interactive guide to knotting a bow tie).

As to whether this is “journalism,” a question this article (and this one) poses, I think it’s clearly not. It’s not independent. What it can be, though, is compelling and creative, thoughtfully structured and well-edited. It’s not “brand journalism,” as some people put it. It’s content with a strong editorial sensibility. 

Favorite Photos From Our Year in Europe

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Feeling nostalgic about our time living in Europe during 2010 and 2011, I decided to post a few of my favorite photos from that time. Having done so, I’m now also feeling lucky.

"How Tide Detergent Became a Drug Currency"

A fascinating New York Magazine piece on an out-of-nowhere topic.

Floral scents, for their part, have been known to evoke strong feelings of maternal love and kinship. (Home visits by Saatchi researchers have found that very ardent Tide fans sometimes carry bottles as if cradling a baby.)

"The sirens had hoarse throats"

From William H. Gass’ forthcoming novel, Middle C:

Joey … rails ran across France then, rails ran through the mountain passes and through tunnels into and out of the mountains, rails ran along the Mur, through forests of fir trees, because the war was over, the sirens had hoarse throats, all the bombs they’d dropped on one another had gone plode, and so we could have traveled home together, because there were no more warplanes, no more lights fingering the sky, no more Nazis; it was, we used to say when we slunk from our underground huddle, the large lot of us, and looked to see if our rubble was still standing, we used to say that the sirens said — the sirens said, All clear.

Virginia Woolf, Observing

A passage of exceptional precision in The Diary of Virginia Woolf, Vol. 1:

On Sunday Lytton came to tea. I was alone, for L. went to Margaret. I enjoyed it very much. He is one of the most supple of our friends; I don’t mean passionate or masterful or original, but the person whose mind seems softest to impressions, least starched by any formality or impediment. There is his great gift of expression of course, never (to me) at its best in writing; but making him in some respects the most sympathetic & understanding friend to talk to. Moreover, he has become, or now shows it more fully, curiously gentle, sweet tempered, considerate; & if one adds his peculiar flavour of mind, his wit & infinite intelligence — not brain but intelligence — he is a figure not to be replaced by any other combination.

The Dish's Readers

At The Atlantic, Conor Friedersdorf recalls his days working for Team Sullivan:

At The Daily Dish, I once asked readers in advance of a road trip across The South what I should see. I didn’t just get hundreds of suggestions; I didn’t just get extended essays on the geography, sociology, and competing styles of barbecue that characterize the region; I didn’t just get notes from people in eleven states; I also got invitations to stay overnight with Dish readers in a dozen cities, or to stop by for dinner at the houses of their parents, or to please write if I passed through where they live so they could at the very least buy me a cold beer. I was just a guest blogger. I don’t doubt that Sullivan could live rent free for five years if he asked nicely.

TOKY's 2012 Annual Report

This was a fun piece to work on.

Year in Review: 2012

This post is part of my Annual Favorites list I’ve been keeping for the past decade-plus.

Favorite Books (Goodreads profile)

  1. The German Genius, by Peter Watson (choice passages)

  2. Journey to the Abyss: The Diaries of Count Harry Kessler, 1880-1918 (choicepassages)

  3. Life Sentences, by William H. Gass

  4. Nox, by Anne Carson

  5. A Hologram for the King, by Dave Eggers

  6. Rineke Dijkstra: A Retrospective

  7. Donald Judd

  8. Every Love Story is a Ghost Story: A Life of David Foster Wallace, by D.T. Max

  9. The Long Goodbye, by Megan O’Rourke

  10. Gerhard Richter: Panorama

  11. Where Good Ideas Come From, by Steven Johnson

  12. The Lifespan of a Fact, by John D’Agata and Jim Fingal

  13. Chip Kidd: Book One: Work, 1986-2006

  14. The Oath: The Obama White House and the Supreme Court, by Jeffrey Toobin

  15. The Obamas, Jodi Kantor

  16. Some of My Lives, by Rosamond Bernier

  17. The Art of Fielding, by Chad Harbach

  18. Berlin Stories, by Robert Walser

  19. The Address Book, by Sophie Calle

  20. The Englishman who Posted Himself and Other Curious Objects, by John Tingey

  21. Art and Activism: Projects of John and Dominique de Menil

  22. The Sense of an Ending, by Julian Barnes

  23. The Bridge on the Drina, by Ivo Andrić

  24. Shards, by Ismet Prcić

  25. The Promise: President Obama, Year One, by Jonathan Alter

  26. Elizabeth Costello, by J. M. Coetzee

  27. How to Live: Or A Life of Montaigne, by Sarah Bakewell

  28. Death in Spring, by Mercè Rodoreda

  29. The Art of Intelligence, by Henry A. Crumpton

  30. Zoe Strauss: 10 Years

  31. Mortality, by Christopher Hitchens

  32. Karaoke Culture, by Dubravka Ugrešić

  33. The Fate of Greenland, by Philip W. Conkling

  34. Redheaded Peckerwood, by Christian Patterson

Happy to have read Karen McGrane’s Content Strategy for Mobile, Frank Chimero’s The Shape of Design, and Mike Monteiro’s Design Is a Job, but would keep them off the ranked list. Same with “Mark Owen”‘s No Easy Day.

Favorite Movies: 2012 (Letterboxd profile

  1. Marina Abramović: The Artist Is Present

  2. Gerhard Richter Painting

  3. Moonrise Kingdom

  4. Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry

  5. Lincoln

  6. The Master

  7. The Queen of Versailles

  8. Something from Nothing: The Art of Rap

  9. Arbitrage

  10. Skyfall

  11. The Dark Knight Rises

Didn’t connect with: Headhunters, We Have a Pope, The Bourne Legacy.

Favorite Movies: Pre-2012

  1. A Separation

  2. Bill Cunningham New York

  3. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

  4. Certified Copy

  5. Margin Call

  6. Notorious

  7. A Dangerous Method

  8. Bridesmaids

  9. Young Adult

  10. Moneyball

  11. Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop

  12. J. Edgar

  13. Too Big to Fail

  14. Hopscotch

  15. Haywire

Music

I continue to be a huge fan of Rdio, which I pay $10 a month to be able to stream music on a desktop, iPad, or iPhone. (This includes, say, streaming the new Nas via my home’s wi-fi as I mow my suburban lawn.) There will always be rituals and a closeness to the music I miss from my CD days, but the advantages of Rdio — especially the ability to discover and immediately listen to new music, particularly hip-hop and classical — are significant. I don’t have a ranked list here, but my listening history is an open book.

Favorite Articles, Essays & Blog Posts (categorized, not ranked)

Affairs

Culture

Tech & Media

Essays

Misc. Reporting, Articles & Posts

Most-Used iPhone & iPad Apps

I start every morning with the NYTimes’ iPad app. I listen to podcasts, NPR, and music via InstacastPublic Radio Player, and Rdio. I journal using Day One, which is synched using Dropbox on all devices. The new 1Password 4 is a slick companion to the essential desktop app. I organize a lot of my work and personal life using Evernote, and keep up with tasks using Things. Other apps I use often: Reeder (every night, to catch up with the day’s articles), GoodreadsFantasticalTweetbot (iphone) and Twitter (iPad), InstagramFacebookCheckmarkInstapaper, PinboardNetflixPBS for iPadSimple, and iBooks (largely for work PDFs).

Final Notes

One unusual memory I have from 2012 is spending several weekday evenings in March walking through my neighborhood for an hour or so, listening to the day’s oral arguments for and against the healthcare act. (My greatest moment of exasperation was hearing Justice Scalia mock-ask whether he was seriously supposed to get through so many pages of material.) In April, I published Abstractions Arrive: Having Been There All the Time, an iPad-only e-book pairing an essay by William H. Gass with photographs by Michael Eastman; New York Times coverage was a cherry on top. May’s Confab conference was one of the best I’ve attended. In August, Tamara and I enjoyed a few highly cultural days in Miami. Surpassing all that, though — we’re expecting a baby in late May of 2013. I expect this should be my best year yet.

A recent work from my father-in-law, whose sculptures can be purchased here.

"Stories at Home, Contributions Away"

I wrote this post — about content trends in 2012 — for the TOKY blog.

Towards the Gass Interviews....

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I’m still at work editing The Ear’s Mouth Must Move: The Essential Interviews of William H. Gass. While I’d love for this to be published in a gloriously beautiful print version, I haven’t yet found an interested publisher. So it’s likely that, as with Abstractions Arrive, I will publish it myself as an iPad e-book using iBooks Author. Life is short, and I get restless waiting for traditional gatekeepers. We’ll see, though.

Here are a few screenshots of the in-process project, posted here mainly to show what’s possible in terms of tappable footnotes. More in time…

Craig Mod: "Subcompact Publishing"

An important and insightful essay. I hope Mod writes a part two that looks a bit more at how exactly (to continue his metaphor) the small vehicles would get made. 

Related: Mod’s round-up of coverage of his essay. This Jim Ray piece from the Mule blog isn’t on there, but I think it’s worth reading.

Andrew Piper on E-Reading

The subtitle of this Slate piece is way too glib, but the essay from Piper — a literature professor at McGill — is worth reading. Thoughtful and thought-provoking. It’s excerpted from Piper’s book, Book Was There: Reading in Electronic Times.

Two Minutes On Video

A sliver of self promotion, as I link to a brief video portrait of me made by Greg Kiger and his Once Films crew for a series of TOKY portraits. You can watch the segments on my friends and colleagues Jay, Geoff, and Katy on the TOKY blog.