The Restless Lens

There is a special providence for drunkards, fools, and the United States of America.

Check out the fascinating usage history of this quote

Boat deck

Intelligence is a process, vague and heavily improvised, not a specifically defined trait born with, bought, or bartered. It is a habit of being practiced only through continuous effort; it’s own reward and it’s own punishment. Trust it carefully, apply it indiscriminately.

A society based on artists could be trouble, but a society without artists could be really horrifying.

Ai Weiwei, in this NY Times conversation with Frank Gehry.

The beauty of baseball is that time can be a tool, not a constraint; an ally, not another competitor.

The camp, late winter

This morning I woke up in New Orleans, my home town, in a French Quarter apartment, to the bright sunlight and stirring yelp and chatter of this Mardi Gras day, put WWOZ on the radio, and marveled at how New Orleans is at the heart and soul of American music. Happy Mardi Gras!

Despite all the suffering in the world, people make beautiful things. Feed this beauty.

Getting back to it! St Roch Cemetery, New Orleans, LA.

…and after the third beer, I become increasingly unsettled by a dim suspicion that people used to be more interesting, which carries me clear through the fourth beer to the fifth beer, when…

Today I learned about the Gin Craze

FYI roasted broccoli-gone-to-seed is amazing.

the season’s last oranges, a bittersweet moment

The boat motor died…the lawn mower motor, on the other hand…

Here, on the internet, is a nowhere space, a shallow time. It is a flat and impenetrable surface. But with a book, we dive in; we are sucked in; we are immersed, body and soul.

Reading in the Age of Constant Distraction

It’s after the end of the world, don’t you know that yet?

Sun Ra

Today a drunk on Rampart Street told me a story about a friend of his who had gone three years without sleeping, and I called bullshit, so he said “well yeah it’s bullshit but you can imagine it being true” and I laughed and he smiled and I agreed and we shook hands.