Posts tagged as ‘Essays’
Touching and slightly macabre at the same time. # § Essays, father, latimes, Opinion
Neither macabre nor self-indulgent, a poignant, unflinching and I think cathartic examination on what suicide does to the living, from the journalist herself. # § Essays, journalists, suicide, washingtonpost
With any luck, the economy will never recover # § Anthropology, capitalism, Culture, Essays, finance, Politics
Bing-freaking-go. # § Culture, education, Essays, humanities, school
"How should we parse a documentary image that directly or indirectly portrays evil, injustice, anguish? What rights and duties, if any, does our understanding engender?" # § Essays, Photography, wiliam.vollman, Writing
"From your happy, relaxed state, you can model real success, which is only what so many people in the world really want. They may buy endless cars and houses and furs and gobble up all the attention and space they can manage, but this is because it is not clear to them yet that success is truly an inside job. That it is within the reach of almost everyone." # § Essays, Life, obama, Politics
Brutally honest and fitting. This is what happens when an incompetent who has gotten by on privilege his entire life becomes the most powerful political figure on the planet. # § Culture, Essays, Politics, presidency
From Alice Walker # § Culture, election, Essays, Literature, People, Politics
A letter to my son Kai, as part of a culmination project for the Mountain School.
There is never really enough time to say everything, only moments and fragments in the soft haze of memory that allow us to make sense of it all. I write this letter at a time in my life where you are already a little boy readying for school, perhaps not even realizing the wide world around you. But I imagine myself leaving this letter for you in a drawer on the bureau, perhaps with other loved items, only later to be forgotten, untouched for years until one day, you happen upon it in a fit of serendipity. For you to read this as the person you will become, I can only picture bemusement on your face, perhaps embarrassment at the wistful dispatches of your father. But for now, in this present moment, I can only write you words - words of hope and joy, words from a younger father whose thoughts may seem foolish and naive compared to the one I may become, but words whose resonance will hopefully echo beyond what I put down on paper. What I cannot convey in this letter is to show you just how deep and wide the human heart can be, how open it is to all things, how resilient it can be in the face of loss and how unending it is in its capacity to love. These are words, perhaps you won't understand now as a little boy, but you feel them even now: when I hold your hand and we walk along the street as sunlight pours over our faces, the scent of jasmine on our noses like a secret finally unkept after a long winter. You feel it when I get you ready for bed, and I hug you towards me, serene after your nightly bath, and we giggle about everything that has happened during the day. And when I leave for work every morning and you walk me out of the house in your pajamas to wish me goodbye and to say I love you, it is there like a golden strand, from my heart through the tips of my fingers and towards you heart, to even beyond where human eyes can see. For you to smile at these memories as you read these words as the person you will become years from now, is to say that perhaps I've done the right thing after all. That you can see the world as it is, imperfect and troubled, but always wondrous and always beautiful for those who can see beyond the darkness. From the father I am now to the son who is and who will be, I want for you the world as it is always is, and to pass that which connects both of us as a gift towards the future where your heart is always wide open to the possibilities of love. Dad
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§ Essays, Kai, Life
Question: I need 100 ways to say “I love you” to my girlfriend. We made a bet last night that I couldn’t come up with 100 and I can’t lose! Help me pa-pa-pa-pa-please non-expert. —Rod"It gets even better and more poetic from there":http://www.themorningnews.org/archives/the_nonexpert/how_to_say_i_love_you.php. A terrific essay by Paul Ford. # § Essays, Love
Answer: Here’s the way to say “I love you”: rarely. To say it a hundred ways is to cheapen a pure sentiment; to place a bet with your girlfriend on your ability to do just that is to participate in a culture that has commoditized affection and thrown it into the remainder bin; and to ask someone else to come up with your hundred ways represents love at its nadir—pure romantic sloth. Why not deep-fry a bag of candy hearts and toss them on the rug for her to eat?
A question I ask myself time and again. You can add Facebook to that as well. # § Essays, Web-2.0