Humor is not a mood but a way of looking at the world. So if it is correct to say that humor was stamped out in Nazi Germany, that does not mean that people were not in good spirits, or anything of that sort, but something much deeper and more important.Wittgenstein
I get paid peanuts to get decent ideas rejected on a weekly basis. My outrage:
Me: WHY IS THIS NEWS?
Friend: hahaha, no clue
Me: someone gets PAID for that
Me: this is one of the most prestigious business news sites in the world
Me: HOW DO YOU EVEN PITCH THAT?
Friend: YOU GUYS, CAN WE JUST STOP TALKING ABOUT THE FACEBOOK IPO FOR FIVE MINUTES SO I CAN TELL YOU ABOUT MY GOSSIP GIRL IDEA!?!?!?!
But even though America has plenty of problems – from high levels of joblessness, significant inequality, comparatively high levels of crime and violence, substantial poverty and political dysfunction in Washington – which make life ever more difficult for working- and middle-class people, the reality is that it still remains the most entrepreneurial place in the world. It’s not just New York that fits the adage, “if I can make there, I can make it anywhere”: Nowhere else can match the pull and opportunity of Silicon Valley for those who want to make it in tech, Hollywood for film, and even smaller places like Nashville for those who want a career in popular music. Despite the fact that the government has erected all sorts of obstacles to ambitious immigrants who want to come to the United States, America continues to attract the lion’s share of the world’s best and brightest.
Sounds like a rallying cry for the 1209348120948235 anxious, unsatisfied, tryptophan-deficient and unemployed twentysomethings in America who can’t even afford a domain+hosting plan. (See ‘implicariasis’, soon, hopefully on McSweeney’s but I wouldn’t keep my fingers crossed or they’ll cramp up).
I’d like to believe in Richard Florida’s ‘creative class’ as much as I’d like to believe in the Mahayana view of reincarnation. Both philosophies boast valuable points in too optimistic a light, and for the most part play to pre-cognitive human desires that require sodium for proper interpretation.
Earlier this week, a friend confessed to me how much it depressed him to realize Lebron James is just one year his senior. I brushed him off and mumbled something about genetics.
With that said, I built up the courage to check out Forbes’ 30 under 30, only to learn Pete Cashmore is both younger than Lebron and runs the second most trafficked blog on the Internet.
The series has now been archived as one of those things I’m really curious about but am too afraid to check out, like Synecdoche, New York.
W-4 = BCBS = Lithium = TLD brainstorming = Yes
Use ‘deontology’ for a blog piece on Rick Santorum’s healthcare views at work? Praised first, called ‘collegiate’ and ‘sharp, then forced to edit.
Still think I was clever.
It’s a very American illness, the idea of giving yourself away entirely to the idea of working in order to achieve some sort of brass ring that usually involves people feeling some way about you – I mean, people wonder why we walk around feeling alienated and lonely and stressed out.
David Foster Wallace.
My thoughts exactly.
I saw Ian today, for the first time in months. His first words were, “Wow, you look like shit.” He says I seem really strung-out and twitchy. I thought I had been doing ok! I got a full night’s sleep last night and everything. I have no life. I never see any of my non-work friends, and I’m wasting away my one and only youth. I ought to be out doing fun things and active things, the kind of things I won’t be able to do when my mind and body finally decay. But instead I’m stuck inside under fluorescent lights, pushing bits around inside a computer in ways that are only interesting to other nerds. I glanced at a movie listing and there are movies out that I haven’t even heard of. How did that happen? That freaks me out. I bought some wrist braces at a drug store, and I’ve been typing with them for a couple of days.
-Jamie Zawinski, Netscape engineer, 1994
…who journeyed to [Miami], who died in [Miami], who came back to [Miami] & waited in vain, who watched over [Miami] & brooded & loned in [Miami] and finally went away to find out the Time, & now [Miami] is lonesome for her heroes.Ginsberg, re-imagined. A month and a half later and I still can’t shake the ‘prodigal son’ feeling.
…aaaaaand my studio would be far less cluttered. Nerdgasmic with a little European flair. I’d take a cubicle chair over my brittle Walmart desk any day. FourDesign.dk
I had never spent time in Jersey sans an afternoon in Union City hunting Cuban pastries. Atlantic City, Always Turned On.
New York’s 43 Fortune 500s versus Miami’s 2 (five in all of South Florida).
If only the skies would open by next week and paper airplane me a W2 form…
…at an Internet cafe, near Alexanderplatz, surrounded by gutter punks bearing makeshift tattoos and safety pin piercings, plagued by a dastardly cold, eating cheaply mimicked American fast food, going over a police report for my missing passport by the light of a mid-90s computer monitor.
“OK. This might be sad that I’m sharing this with you but whatever. Your bro (me) just made out with (easily) the two hottest girls (I’m talking model sort of hot) at a Hollywood club tonight…at the same time! Unclassy of me to say, yes, agreed, but this is a sort of milestone against which I will judge all other nights for the rest of my life and since no one I know was really there to witness I feel like it’s ‘the old man and the sea’ sort of thing…except I caught the fish! And I have an iPhone! My faith in God is restored. Life is awesome.” - Best Text Message Ever
His night sounds like a Tyler Shields photo.
