Tuesday, November 7, 2023
As we've seen, when kings appear in the historical record, they tend to leave unmistakable traces.
— David Graeber and David Wengrow, The Dawn of Everything
Monday, November 6, 2023
President Biden's influence over Israel and Ukraine seems far more constrained than expected, given his central role as the supplier of arms and intelligence.
— New York Times subheadline
Sunday, November 5, 2023
The world presents itself to those who travel on foot.
— Werner Herzog, "Werner Herzog: Conan O'Brien Needs A Friend"
Saturday, November 4, 2023
It was vast and, in that vastness, more closely resembled a naturally occuring phenomenon than something man-made.
— Justin Beal, Sandfuture
Friday, November 3, 2023
What inspires me is that the work is a long continuum and never ending. I take stewardship of collections very seriously, as long in the future someone will benefit from my collection building and caretaking– as I have from past librarians. Preparing for an unknown future is an exciting and challenging puzzle. What we think is a great collection today is continually changing.
— Holly Hatheway, "What inspires you? Holly Hatheway, Head of Marquand Library"
Thursday, November 2, 2023
Birds in the Americas Will No Longer Be Named After People
— New York Times headline
Wednesday, November 1, 2023
Was farming from the very beginning about the serious business of producing more food to supply growing populations? Most scholars assume, as a matter of course, that this had to be the principal reason for its invention. But maybe farming began as a more playful or even subversive kind of process - or perhaps even as a side effect of other concerns, such as the desire to spend longer in particular kinds of locations, where hunting and trading were the real priorities.
— David Graeber and David Wengrow, The Dawn of Everything
Tuesday, October 31, 2023
American societies typically reffered to themselves by some term that can be roughly translated as 'human beings' - most of the tribal names traditionally applied to them by Europeans are derogatory terms used by their neighbours ('Eskimo', for example, means 'people who don't cook their fish', and 'Iroquois' is derived from an Algonkian term meaning 'vicious killers').
— David Graeber and David Wengrow, The Dawn of Everything
Monday, October 30, 2023
Looking back at the work Linda van Deursen and I made over the last 20 years, I count around 120 books, all of which fit on one shelf. Our whole career is just 100 inches wide, printed in small print runs.
— Armand Mevis, "Every Book Starts with an Idea: Notes for Designers"
Sunday, October 29, 2023
They often write as if all important ideas in a given age can be traced back to one or other extraordinary individual - whether Plato, Confucius, Adam Smith, or Karl Marks - rather than seeing such authors' writings as particularly brilliant interventions in debates that were already going on in taverns or dinner parties or public gardens (or, for that matter, lecture rooms), but which otherwise might never have been written down. It's a bit like pretending William Shakespeare had somehow invented the English language. In fact, many of Shakespeare's most brilliant turns of phrase turn out to have been common expressions of the day, which any Elizabethan Englishman or woman would be likely to have thrown into casual conversation, and whose authors remain as obscure as those of knock-knock jokes – even if, were it not for Shakespeare, they'd probably have passed out of use and been forgotten long ago.
— David Graeber and David Wengrow, The Dawn of Everything
Saturday, October 28, 2023
This is a performance art... You need to know something about the ambitions of the people you're talking to.
— David Cornwell, The Pigeon Tunnel
Friday, October 27, 2023
Concerned that he lacked a native facility for remembering names and appointments, and believing that “a politician who sees a man once should remember him forever," Weed consciously trained his memory. He spent fifteen minutes every night telling his wife, Catherine, everything that had happened to him that day, everyone he had met, the exact words spoken.
— Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln
Thursday, October 26, 2023
SPEED DEMON
I CAST THEE OUT
DRIVE THE LIMIT
I CAST THEE OUT
DRIVE THE LIMIT
— Message on highway sign
Wednesday, October 25, 2023
In a recent interview on @fallontonight, Jacob Elordi, who is playing Elvis Presley in @SofiaCoppola's #PriscillaMovie, admitted that the most he knew about the King of Rock and Roll was from 'Lilo & Stitch.'
— @bustle
Tuesday, October 24, 2023
Vintage
Polaroid
Pictures
You
Will
Never
Regret
Polaroid
Pictures
You
Will
Never
Regret
— Sign in Central Park
Monday, October 23, 2023
To the end of his life, he was haunted by the finality of death and the evanescence of earthly accomplishments.
— Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln
Sunday, October 22, 2023
They call it Q-Day: the day when a quantium computer, one more powerful than any yet built, could shatter the world of privacy and security as we know it.
— Zach Montague, "The Race to Save Our Secrets From the Computers of the Future," via @bmwiseman
Saturday, October 21, 2023
The gross occurrence of human activity is relatively easy to document. The date and time of an event is easy to pinpoint. Personal recollections about the step-by-step progress, on the other hand, are fickle. As Arthur himself says, "Being largely based upon memories that provide something less than total recall, and covering a period of my life more than two-thirds a century, a full accounting of my life would be an impossible undertaking..."
— John Szimanski, Younger Women, Faster Airplanes, Bigger Crocodiles: The Story of Arthur Jones - the Man Who Invented the Nautilus Exercise Machines, Revolutionized the Health Club Industry, and Forever Changed the Way Every Human Being Exercises
Friday, October 20, 2023
The past was always personal for Tony: during a gallery talk for the In 08:44 Out 20:16 exhibition @princetonarchitecture @drawing.matter in 2017, John Ruskin's stone collection was both a chance to reflect on the legacy of Ruskin's "Stones of Venice," and an opportunity to share the story of his own Venice journey at the age of 15--the moment he decided to pursue architecture.
— @phillipdenny
Thursday, October 19, 2023
Without the march of events that led to the Civil War, Lincoln still would have been a good man, but most likely would never have been publically recognized as a great man.
— Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln