Bill Cheng's Blog, page 39
March 30, 2014
March 28, 2014
"No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality."
- Shirley Jackson (via giganticworlds)
March 25, 2014
nprbooks:
Left: Samuel Taylor Coleridge, circa 1815. (Hulton...
Left: Samuel Taylor Coleridge, circa 1815. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images) Right: J. Cole, circa 2013. (Ethan Miller/Getty Images for Clear Channel)
Mental Floss pairs famous literary first lines with rap lyrics:
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE/J. COLE
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
Pay dues like a hair salon
(“Kubla Khan”and “The Last Stretch”)
ROBERT FROST/2PAC
Whose woods these are I think I know
Creep with me through that immortal flow
(“Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” and “Thug Passion”)
VIRGINIA WOOLF/WALE
Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself
Fall in love with defeat, throw my endeavors on the shelf
(Mrs. Dalloway and “The Artistic Integrity”)
OK, just one more:
ALLEN GINSBERG/2PAC
I saw the best minds of my generation
Destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked
See me and hope I’m intoxicated or slightly faded
(“Howl” and “Ain’t Hard 2 Find”)
Brilliant.
-Nicole
March 24, 2014
theworkshopblog:
Phil Klay joins us to talk about masculinity,...
Phil Klay joins us to talk about masculinity, writing trauma and the uses of the first person in this week’s episode of The Workshop!
March 19, 2014
jtotheizzoe:
Eat Your Tardigrades or You Don’t Get Dessert!
You...
Eat Your Tardigrades or You Don’t Get Dessert!
You know this little guy, right? It’s the mighty tardigrade, as featured in the new Cosmos. Tardigrades, also known as water bears, also known as FREAKIN’ MOSS PIGLETS, are microscopic eight-legged animals that can withstand temperatures from near absolute zero to boiling water, absorb extreme doses of radiation, go without food or water for ten years, and even survive the vacuum of space. They can even be completely dried out and ride on the wind to a new home, where they rehydrate and go about their tardibusiness. Tardigrade rain, folks.
In other words, they are BAMFs (bad-ass microfauna).
Oh, and you’ve probably eaten them. Thanks to Meg Lowman, I found out that these water-dwelling super-critters live not only on wild mosses and wet plants, but on grocery store produce like lettuce and spinach. Do you think that a mere rinse or shake under the faucet (or even cooking) is enough to dislodge a radiation-eating space pig? Ha! Not by a long shot, according to Lowman.
So yeah… trying to go strictly vegetarian? You’ve almost certainly eaten some tardigrades. Sorry. Don’t worry, though. They’re totally harmless. I like to imagine that when I eat them, I absorb their power, and become a little bit mightier.
New motto: For strength, eat your vegetables and eat your tardigrades.
Meg Lowman has more about your local tardigrade friends. Also check out Lowman’s awesome research project that helps wheelchair-bound students climb to the top of the forest canopy where they help study tardigrade biodiversity. Science is for everyone!
March 17, 2014
guernicamag:
Our special issue The American South is...
Our special issue The American South is out!
Whether you’re partial to images or prose, attempt to capture the American South and you will soon find yourself deep in a thicket of contradiction. And there, not least among your struggles will be the very challenge of defining where exactly it is that you’ve wound up. When we talk about the South, are we referring to a stretch of states below the Mason-Dixon, a frame of mind, a variant of culture, or a region sill reeling from having once ardently defended Jim Crow and the “peculiar institution”? Writing in the Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, Patrick Gerster includes among the stereotypical characters we might encounter: Bible-thumping preachers haunted by God, nubile cheerleaders, demagogic politicians, corrupt sheriffs, football All-Americans with three names, and neurotic vixens with affinities for the demon rum. Add to this roster a host of poets, painters, farmers, freedom fighters, and citizens—scattered north and south—coping with the uncertainties of post-industrial America, and we may just begin to grasp this entity that remains in equal parts a place on the map and a place in the mind.
In this special issue of Guernica, the first of four made possible through your generous support to our Kickstarter campaign, we offer fresh takes on a familiar landscape, where the American South is at once a geographical distinction and a bright spot in the imagination, where burden vies with birthright, and where ignorance and renaissance exist side by side.
Hey Mama, I’m feeling alone this morning. I miss Mississippi. I miss you. How you feeling?
Hey Kie, I’m tired. I’m wearing the pearl bracelet that you gave me. It is so beautiful. This morning I managed to get it locked alone. Did you hug yourself this morning?
Mama, you always say that. How am I supposed to hug myself?
You hug yourself by not allowing haters to distract you and by believing in yourself. You hug yourself by practicing the speech of respectability.
Oh, lord. Mama, some people theorize about the politics of respectability but the crazy thing is how that’s literally your theme music. How are you gonna sing your own theme music, though? I don’t care about the speech of respectability. Respectability ain’t got nothing to do with me.
Don’t say “ain’t got” Kie.
Or what? Or nothing. Just don’t say “ain’t got.”
Nah, I’m serious. Or what? I know the language, Mama. You know I know the language. I know the rules. I know how to break and bend the rules, too. Plus, who would win in a contest between “doesn’t have” and “ain’t got”? It depends on the judges. Mama, how have we been having the same conversation about language for thirty years?
You are a grown man, but you’re still a black boy from Mississippi to people that want to hurt you. Speaking and writing in a respectable way is just one small way to protect yourself. How do you not understand this?
