Link Log

To April 10, 2007

What grown ups sound like to kids by Simon Rich:

FRIEND FROM WORK: Hey, guess what! My voice is pretty loud!
DAD: (laughing) There are actual monsters in the world, but when my kids ask I pretend like there aren’t.
MOM: I’m angry! I’m angry all of a sudden!
DAD: I’m angry, too! We’re angry at each other!
MOM: Now everything is fine.
DAD: We just saw the PG-13 movie. It was so good.
MOM: There was a big sex.
FRIEND FROM WORK: I am the loudest! I am the loudest! (Everybody laughs.)
MOM: I had a lot of wine, and now I’m crazy!

via All New Yorker blog

New Yorker article about kids books:

The story begins with the little rabbit, drawn with wonderful flatness by Clement Hurd, already in bed. It is seven o’clock. A few pages later, according to the blue clock on the mantelpiece and the yellow clock on the bed table, it is seven-twenty. Then it is seven-thirty, then seven-forty. When the “good-nighting” begins, it is not clear who is doing the speaking. The moon is rising, yet the light grows dimmer. The clocks tick on—seven-fifty, eight o’clock.
A parent is bigger than a child, but still a person. He or she can be appealed to, as in “Bedtime for Frances,” or even tricked, as in “Good Night, Gorilla.” The arrangement in “Goodnight Moon” is completely uneven. Time moves forward, and the little bunny doesn’t stand a chance. Parent and child are, in this way, brought together, on tragic terms. You don’t want to go to sleep. I don’t want to die. But we both have to

To read:

Mythologies by Roland Barthes

'KATE: The Woman Who Was Hepburn' reviewed by the NY TIMES:

“I put on pants 50 years ago and declared a sort of middle road,” Hepburn explained in 1981, with more candor than was typical of her. Mann does the best he can with the complicated sexual algebra: “She was, in her soul, neither woman nor man, though it was men — straight men — with whom she identified. ... But it was only with women that she could set Jimmy free and be herself” — Jimmy being the short-haired boy she’d renamed herself around the time she was 10.

More on Happiness:

Initial results with the interventions have been promising, but sustaining them is tough. Months after a study is over, the people who have stopped the exercises show a drop in happiness. Like a drug or a diet, the exercises work only if you stick with them. Instilling habits is crucial. Another key: "fit," or how well the exercise matches the person. If sitting down to imagine your best possible self (an optimism exercise) feels contrived, you will be less likely to do it.
The biggest factor may be getting over the idea that happiness is fixed--and realizing that sustained effort can boost it. "A lot of people don't apply the notion of effort to their emotional lives," Lyubomirsky declares, "but the effort it takes is enormous."

Via ALDAILY

To listen and watch:

Kochalka podcast

A Trip To The Moon

To April 2, 2007

Finally, I've found a guy who has posted a tonne of Wiretap episodes back to 2004. Thanks, guy

LA Times article that sort of sums up my current feelings:

There is no question that many people do good things in the name of their faith — but there are better reasons to help the poor, feed the hungry and defend the weak than the belief that an Imaginary Friend wants you to do it. Compassion is deeper than religion. As is ecstasy. It is time that we acknowledge that human beings can be profoundly ethical — and even spiritual — without pretending to know things they do not know.

90 Gasoline Alley Sundays (1923-1999)

I find this image really powerful:

Martín Ramírez (1895–1963) created nearly 300 drawings of remarkable visual clarity and expressive power within the confines of DeWitt State Hospital in northern California, where he resided the last 15 years of his life

To March 18, 2007

Free audiobooks:

Children's

To March 4, 2007

Bo Lozoff was on CBC's Tapestry today. I want to read his book We're All Doing Time. I also want to read The Blackwater Lightship by Colm Toibin, who was on right after on Writers and Co (because I like the title, no other substantial reason to give).

To March 1, 2007

LSD article in The Guardian I want to read. Via Pete Ashton's Linkfarm

To February 28, 2007

Coal

I've been listening a lot to radio discussions around sustainable energy alternatives over the past couple of months. Last night the current had a discussions about Coal use in Ontario, BC, the US and the world that is short and sums up a lot of the discussion I've heard (but is more specific to Canada, which is nice) You can listen to it on the CBC site (and hopefully they'll include it in their 'Best Of' Podcast (Just podcast every episode damn it!)

While the current only talks about the costs to the 2 billion in healthcare dollars that taxpayers have to spend, The episode of Radio Open Source about Coal Power was better though, and truly comprehensive, as it covers the costs to our environment. It might be the most plentiful and cheap form of energy, but you have to dig up mountains to get it, which is a bit of a cost.

To February 27, 2007

Kids today:

"Whenever young people are allowed to indulge in something old people are not allowed to, it makes us bitter. What did we have? The mall and the parking lot of the 7-Eleven? It sucked to grow up when we did! And we're mad about it now." People are always eager to believe that their behavior is a matter of morality, not chronology, Shirky argues. "You didn't behave like that because nobody gave you the option."

Vial ALDAILY

Book to read:

Gregory Berns Satisfaction (Henry Holt, 2005),

The pursuit of pleasure lands us on a never-ending hedonic treadmill that paradoxically leads to misery. "Satisfaction is an emotion that captures the uniquely human need to impart meaning to one's activities," Berns concludes. "While you might find pleasure by happenstance--winning the lottery, possessing the genes for a sunny temperament, or having the luck not to live in poverty--satisfaction can arise only by the conscious decision to do something. And this makes all the difference in the world, because it is only your own actions for which you may take responsibility and credit.

Via Scientific American (via Aldaily.com)

Music:

Basiabulat
Vert
I heard the Divorcees and Catherine Macllan on the East Coast Music Awards and liked them.
Thee More Shallows
Ohbijou
The Museum Pieces from Halifax are good