Sunday, January 21, 2024
Have you found that runny noses are harder to count?
— One of many jokes from museum visitors
Saturday, January 20, 2024
We've always counted the dogs in the galleries. Everyone has something they count. But never noses.
— RISD museum guard
Friday, January 19, 2024
I might keep this error in the catalog description as a small treat to myself.
— @bibliophagist on "A couple of faint ink splashes to the sloth."
Thursday, January 18, 2024
There is something AI can’t replace yet. The uniquely human need to connect with the maker.
— Pablo Delcan, via Debbie Millman, "Pablo Delcan’s Non-A.I. Art Generator Goes Viral"
Wednesday, January 17, 2024
By drawing in the box above I understand and agree that this is a legal representation of my signature.
— Digital form for dentist appointment
Tuesday, January 16, 2024
Aaaaa its the little slide pullouts you cant get in if you put the top on first
— Eli texting about the Denzer desk
Monday, January 15, 2024
Americans, we do what we need to, can do.
— Guy in Mark Twain house who was also taking photos once the tour guide moved to the next room.
Sunday, January 14, 2024
Dozens of Chabad outposts all over the world have built replicas of this structure, from Dharamkot, India to El Paso Texas. What's expecially facinating about these replicas is that each one reflects the local style.
— Narration on @hyperallergic "Did you know there are 35 replicas of the Chabad Headquarters at 770 Eastern Parkway around the world?" video
Saturday, January 13, 2024
Another instance of a fact found out ages and ages ago that no man's glory is safe until he is dead. There is always a chance that some little ghastly accident will happen, unforeseen, unexpected, unpreventable, and turn it to a shame.
— Mark Twain, Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume 3
Friday, January 12, 2024
In an interview, Mr. Johnson said he didn’t care what present-day people thought of him. “I’m more interested in what people of the 25th century think of me,” he said. “The majority of opinions now represent the past.”
— Christopher Beam, "The Meme King of Longevity Now Wants to Sell You Olive Oil," The New York Times
Thursday, January 11, 2024
The plane’s streamlined front end resulted in a narrower space with less headroom, leading to a denser arrangement of buttons, dials, and switches.
— @starworldlab
Wednesday, January 10, 2024
Memory is the major element in cognition, in everything that we call the humanities. If you cannot remember, then you can't think and you can't imagine, and you can't write, and you can hardly read.
— Harold Bloom, "Harold Bloom," Charlie Rose
Tuesday, January 9, 2024
a recent post by @bkulok reminded me of this little moment in Zoe Leonard's Whitney retrospective several years ago. Leonard had made a piece reminiscent of Carl Andre's Lever, but instead of bricks the line was made out of her collection of Kodak "how to" paperbacks. They were arranged chronologically, and I always thought it would be interesting to research the impetus for changing the verb in the title from "make" to "take" in the mid-1970s.
— @canaljones
Monday, January 8, 2024
These and all the other artful fictive shades which give to a recited tale the captivating naturalness of an impromptu narration, can be attempted by a book reader, and are attempted, but they are easily detectable as artifice, and although the audience may admire their cleverness and their ingenuity as artifice, they only get at the intellect of the house, they don't get at its heart; and so the reader's success lacks a good deal of being complete.
— Mark Twain, Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume 3
Sunday, January 7, 2024
Because at least to me, I don’t think stagnation or slowing down is actually an option. Fundamentally life and the whole system, our whole civilization wants to grow. And there’s just far more cooperation when the system is growing rather than when it’s declining and you have to decide how to split the pie.
— Guillaume Verdon, "Guillaume Verdon: Beff Jezos, E/acc Movement, Physics, Computation & AGI | Lex Fridman Podcast #407"
Saturday, January 6, 2024
In 1928, the New York Daily News enlisted Thomas Howard from the Chicago Tribune to secretly photograph the electrocution of convicted killer Ruth Snyder. Howard made the photo by strapping a pre-focused miniature glass plate camera to his left ankle with a cable release snaking up his pant leg into his pocket.
— @patrickwitty
Friday, January 5, 2024
I know how to do it now. There are nearly 13 million people in the world. I mean, can you imagine that many people? And none of those people is an extra.
— Philip Seymour Hoffman, Synecdoche, New York
Thursday, January 4, 2024
I suppose you have read about this man. I had a chance to hear him make a speach.
— Postcard about Joe Mikulec potmarked Erie, PA Jun 16, 8:30pm, 1908
Wednesday, January 3, 2024
One big difference is that, since I fancy myself a writer, I am trying to avoid, wherever possible, the statistically most common solution.
— Louis Menard, "Is A.I. the Death of I.P.?," The New Yorker
Tuesday, January 2, 2024
Things were real to Alexander. He had his social and political ideas and his gods. He undoubtedly looked upon them as important enough to be permanent. To us these things are little more than names.
— Mark G. McElhinney, "The Broader View," via Mark Twain, Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume 3