I finally saw Looper.  It was good, like better-than-I-thought-it-would-be good.  Joseph Gordon Levitt and Emily Blunt were very good.  Bruce Willis was Bruce Willis, but the better Bruce Willisy parts of Bruce Willis.  The plot was not exactly like I expected, and in a good way.  It ain’t Blade Runner, but it’s better than most science fiction that comes out these days.

Good article, but best article title.

(via Never Underestimate the Power of a Paint Tube | Arts & Culture | Smithsonian Magazine)  Great article on the invention of the tin paint tube and how it changed art.  Especially interesting if you like impressionism.  Good read.

vovat:

Oz in Four Parts

It seems that the division of Oz into separate countries is rather too neat, with all four…

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I’ve been reading a chapter a night of The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz to my five year old girl, and she loves it.  It is totally new to her, and that renews it for me.  It’s a thrilling adventure, there are twists and turns, and fun and bravado to go around for every character.  I’ve tried hard to do different voices for every character, though I admit to being a bit influenced by the voices of Ray Bolger, Jack Haley, and Bert Lahr for, respectively, the Scarecrow, The Tin Woodman, and The Cowardly Lion.   I love the idea that she will know the story when she sees the movie.  Now, I adore the movie; I think it’s a fine and clever adaptation of the book, and it’s simply gorgeous.  It may be one of the most gorgeous movies ever made.  I remember reading the book as a child, though, and thinking that there was so much more that didn’t make it in.  We finish the book soon and then we will watch the movie, which I finally ordered.  I hope she enjoys that, too.  Reading to your kid really makes you work at a piece of literature.  You feel more responsible for it, and you want to live up to it.  It makes it pop out for me, having the entire book run through my mouth.  Reading with just the eyes is a fine thing, indeed, but your brain works differently when you have to read aloud.  It’s wonderful.

laughingsquid:

What Is This Unknown Pleasure, A Joy Division Album T-Shirt For the Tumblr Generation

There’s this article on the image, the album cover, and the Pulsar PSR B1919+21, also called CP1919, including many interesting bits about the image and how it ended up in publication in the first place.

(via runjuliet)

theparisreview:

In Japanese, tsundoku means, “the act of buying books and not reading them, leaving them to pile up.”

For more of this morning’s roundup, click here.

I’m telling everyone I work with.  Booksellers often fall prey to an abundance of books for sale around them at all times.  I, ahem, cough cough, may have been like this once or twice.  Cough cough.

nevver:

Biblio-

Me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me.

(via 4tones)

jesspinkman:

being a pessimist is great i’m always either right or pleasantly surprised 

#the optimistic look on pessimism  

“The nice part about being a pessimist is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised.”  ~George F. Will, The Leveling Wind

Was anyone pleasantly surprised this was lifted almost verbatim?  I say almost, but it surely lacks the grace and wit of the original, as well as the capitalization and punctuation.

I almost never mind when people toss off a well-known or not-so-well known quote and attribute it to anonymous or ‘someone once said’; we don’t all know everything and sometimes things are obscure.  But this was all too easily Google-able.  Also, throwing out a quote with attribution does not make you any less cool.

(Source: xcyst, via shoebie-love)

I just gave my two year old son a mint.  An Altoids.  Even I think they are powerful.  He just smiled and said “Elicious!”  Close, kid, close.

I’m trying to give him some of the stuff he regularly steals from me.  Maybe it will dissuade him from theft.  The other week, my wife said to me “You really need to clean up your desk.  There’s like 20 gum wrappers on it.  Can’t you just throw those in the trash?”  He had eaten two packs of gum and left the wrappers behind.

It’s important to note that nothing horrible happens to children who eat a insane amount of gum.  There were no disturbing consequences.  If you get my drift.

I’m either raising a master jewel thief or an extreme sports aficionado.

(Source: quotes-shape-us, via ktothestein)

Camera Obscura - Lloyd, Im ready to be heartbroken (by VidZone)  Great pop music.  Why is it that the best pop songs are tinged with melancholy?  This is as great as the song it references.

Don’t Do Drugs, Kids!

(via All of Murray’s New Zealand Tourism posters from Flight of the Conchords)

(via George Takei’s Nine Favorite Star Trek Memes - The Daily Beast)