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Gone hunting
If you’re going to try, go all the way. Otherwise don’t even start. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives, jobs. And maybe your mind. It could mean not eating for three or four days. It could mean freezing on a park bench. It could mean jail. It could mean derision. It could mean mockery, isolation. Isolation is the gift. All the others are a test of your endurance. Of how much you really want to do it. And you’ll do it, despite rejection in the worst odds. And it will be better than anything else you can imagine. If you’re going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the gods. And the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It’s the only good fight there is.
-Factotum
- 12/25/2006 2:46:21 PM |
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Unanswered. Need answer.
Slate’s Explainer has some ’splaining to do.
Sample question:
I have a sister that stresses the hell out of me. For example this one sister out of three knows that I am recovering from a serious car accident. I thank God for saving my life, and healing me each and every day. My question is can a person who complains and talks about the same complaining crap every day stress you completely out? About four days ago I had to tell this one sister (Annie) basically to get a life and stop bugging me with her problems and everybody else’s. I reminded her that I am still in a neck brace and healing … I really need to know if a person can really stress you out with the same old thing over and over and over again. PLEASE ANSWER BACK ASAP.
- 12/21/2006 9:38:17 PM |
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I might like Christmas
It’s become so fashionable to trash Christmas that I’m taking the high road.
I might like it.
What does that mean in practice?
Get a tree, but it’s got to be kitsch aluminum old school fake.
Really try to wrap your own presents before taking them to the mall to have them gift-wrapped.
Smile when people say Merry Christmas. Don’t make some stupid point of saying Happy Holidays or Merry Xmas or some other idiotic knee-jerkism. Don’t say anything back, just smile. Maybe say Thank You.
Drink egg nog. Mix with Bailey’s and Rum. Try it.
Listen to Nat King Cole.
Watch A Christmas Story. Watch it twice.
Go work at a soup kitchen. Or some homeless shelter. Do some meaningful non-selfish shit. If you’re too tired, don’t drink so much egg nog.
Read more Chuck Klosterman. It has nothing to do with Christmas, but he’s funny. You’ll like him and probably agree with everything he says. For instance, YouTube is quite possibly reinvigorating the guitar rock hero. This might not prove there’s a Christ, but it certainly proves there’s a Satan and where there’s a Satan, well, you get it...
Early in his career, Eddie Van Halen turned his back to the audience whenever he played solos, supposedly because he was afraid rivals would steal his techniques. Had he insisted on doing this forever, very few people would have cared about his music. (We would probably assume "Eruption" was performed on a German synthesizer built from the spare parts off a fire engine.) People needed to see how his fingers worked. Only then could they understand that Eddie Van Halen was doing something they could not understand. His guitar was not a primitive machine that made it easier to meet girls and get free drinks; his guitar was a futuristic machine that was fucking hard to fucking operate.
Did I mention watch Eruption on YouTube? Yeah, do that too.
- 12/21/2006 5:16:09 PM |
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The Best of Everything Ever
Via Carlos: The best-of best-of lists list.
Stephen King lists Cormac McCarthy’s The Road as being el numero uno. I thought that was interesting. And that the New York Times shocked everyone by including a Richard Ford novel. That must’ve been a tough call.
- 12/11/2006 4:46:34 PM |
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