16 Publications, 37 Posts, 9 Links
[Weekly Review] Weekly Review Adjust by Paul Ford , November 20, 2007 At the third OPEC summit in 47 years, held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said that the price of crude oil could reach $200 a barrel. “The basis of all aggression,” said Chavez, “is oil.
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I came up with 100 Ways to Say I Love You at The Morning News.
Scott Rahin told me, “the other day I was watching this video and I just started crying. ” “What was it?
[Commentary] Supreme Court Upholds Appeals Court Decision in Favor of Harper’s Magazine Adjust by Paul Ford , October 1, 2007 New York, NY, October 1, 2007 — The United States Supreme Court today upheld the March 23, 2007 decision of the 10th U. S.
[Weekly Review] Weekly Review Adjust by Paul Ford , September 25, 2007 Israel, a few days before Yom Kippur , declared that the Gaza Strip is now a “hostile entity,” and the office of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert (who is under investigation for corruption) announced a collective-punishment plan that includes “limiting the transfer of goods to the Gaza Strip, cutting back fuel and electricity, and restricting the movement of people to and from the Strip. ” Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum condemned Israel’s “criminal, terrorist Zionist actions.
Word Rectangle Write a program to find the largest possible rectangle of letters such that every row forms a word (reading left to right) and every column forms a word (reading top to bottom). Words should appear in this dictionary: WORD.
I put on a black suit with a blue shirt and orange tie and got married to Mo, who wore a burgundy dress. September 15, 2007, a few minutes after 6:00PM.
[Commentary] The Shock Doctrine: A Short Film by Alfonso Cuarón and Naomi Klein Adjust by Paul Ford , September 11, 2007 Alfonso Cuarón, director of Children of Men, and Naomi Klein, author of No Logo , present a short film from Klein’s book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism . An essay adapted from the book will appear in October’s Harper’s Magazine and is available on the web now .
I was upstate at a birthday party. A nice group of people.
I’ve decided to geek out on Wednesdays. Today, I want to include a Twitter RSS feed (which, inspired by Joshua Allen , I tentatively plan to fill not with news of my clever doings but rather with filth about a fictional evil family) on the front page here at Ftrain.
Often in novels the dreams of characters relate to the action of the main narrative. A man fights with his wife, goes to bed, and dreams his house burned down.
In 1981 when I was seven or eight and on my way to visit my grandparents across town, I would always stop in the alley behind the phone company and jump up so that I could see across a fence and into an uncurtained window. What I’d see were banks of tangled colored wires.
Rather than purchasing goods made by overseas laborers —who are often forced to work in unsafe conditions for low wages—I have kidnapped and enslaved a group of neighborhood children and chained them to a bench in my garage, where they make my clothes and build my gadgets. ¶ I carpool or ride my bike to Klan rallies.
I read a lot of computer language hermeneutics on various websites . It’s rare to see people talking about syntax but instead they discuss how the language will be interpreted and understood.
Walking uptown or through Brooklyn Heights I will see a window stuffed with papers and books, or catch a glimpse of an old woman in a fading housecoat stepping out to get her Times , and I will wonder which room in New York City has been empty the longest. Is there, for example, a bedroom in Brooklyn that was sealed up after a son didn’t return from Vietnam, and that has remained locked ever since, mustard paint peeling and a faded poster of Grace Slick on the wall?
When a story of extraordinary hollowness--one of our Whore Laureates drunk and in jail--saturates the entire government-sold spectrum, sanctimonious purselips condemn the media for its banality, its P. H.
Somewhere in Brooklyn or Manhattan. A bell rings when you enter.
After many years of focused self-loathing I have reversed the flow of hatred and entered into a lengthy phase of purifying misanthropy. I fear and hate other humans: their innate violence, apelike grins, and peculiar smells.
[Weekly Review] Weekly Review Adjust by Paul Ford , July 24, 2007 Executive power was transferred to Vice President Dick Cheney for two hours and five minutes while President George W. Bush underwent a routine colonoscopy .
[Sentences] Interview: Wyatt Mason on Leonard Michaels Adjust by Paul Ford , June 26, 2007 Contributing Editor Wyatt Mason wrote about the neglected works of author Leonard Michaels (1933–2003) in “The Irresponsibility of Feelings” in the July Harper’s. Subscribers can read his essay now ; non-subscribers can read it in late July.
[Weekly Review] Weekly Review Adjust by Paul Ford , May 22, 2007 Paul Wolfowitz announced that he would resign as president of the World Bank on June 30; the Bank in turn said that it accepted Wolfowitz’s assurances that he had acted “in good faith” when he oversaw a promotion for his girlfriend Shaha Riza. Fin24 MSNBC The Guardian James B.
It makes sense to associate the word “launch,” previously for boats and rocket ships, with the release of new websites. The word evokes the landing pad, crowds of onlookers, and the fact that the craft, from the moment the countdown ends, could suddenly explode, raining loose tiles and human remains over southern Florida.
Dear Internet, I made you something.
No pig noises in Saudi Arabia?
The Simpsons in . .
Walking home from the train we were so happy to see the snow, because there has been so little of it. “God,” said Mo.
Ne-Yo, “So Sick” Ne-Yo has said he got the idea for the song from an old girlfriend he used to have. He really did like her but he listened to the advice of his friends and wound up cheating on her.
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Read Lawyering , by Paul Ford, over at The Morning News.
Yes, Scott, said Rebecca. We were at her place.
My recent dreams have terrified me. “Push!
It’s late and I can’t sleep for nerves, but I should. So I look at the cat to relax.
It’s so good when people put their love back into pure web after being away. I like reading Choire because’s he’s a human being in an industry without any.
My friend Scott Rahin came over and offered to do the dishes if I spoke to him for a while. “Okay,” I said.
I’ve watched this video sixty times. Translated lyrics are here (out of order--read bottom to top).
Sometimes we play a game called “person or stuff. ” It’s a dark night; we’re walking down 4th Avenue below Union Street, or through some other bleak-looking part of Brooklyn.
Back to fiction!
And they said, Go to, let us build us a city, and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.
I occasionally read a web essay or a newspaper article where a man—so far, always a man—owns up to the “guilty pleasures” on his iPod. You’ve seen this too?
LazyWeb: The idea that if you wait long enough, someone will implement that wacky idea you had . . . (or already has!) —IAWiki
A version of this piece was originally broadcast by NPR on the 26 December 2006 edition of NPR’s All Things Considered. It can be heard on their web site via RealAudio or Windows Media Player.
http://www. npr.
A few months ago I went to a panel discussion where several novelists and essayists discussed the modern novel, and modern book sales, and modern despair. They criticized the Internet, too, for destroying everything.
Making sense of the Barley Standard.
The quality of heaviness.
“Dreiser looked handsomer in death than in life; his face expressed a repose and an acceptance which his pugnacious idealism had seldom permitted him before.
Finally—the Amy Goodman/CIA connection is made clear (scroll down for essential chart).
“# :GIRL a :WITCH .
Not writing enough means that everything feels uncooked—like my stomach is filled with cake batter. I’ve been off the wagon for two years and now is the right time to get back on, if I can.
A friend of mine, a brilliant woman whom I knew for six years, was a natural at confrontation. Discussions could feel like they were being held in a room filled with eggshells and spun glass.
“I just sat around,” I said. “It’s my least favorite holiday.
The first thing I see biking to work are the casket trucks loading up, each with the same soothing and ambiguous sunset painted onto it. That’s right around the corner on Union Street.