“There’s another kind of activity that we call ‘People just standing there, alone.’ Life swirls about them, and they let it all pass by. They just ... stand there.” From The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces, by William H. Whyte.
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ideas
Thinking about the various clustercusses in the world, and reading William James, I came across this optimistic notion: Secret retributions are always restoring the level, when disturbed, of divine justice. It is impossible to tilt the beam. All the tyrants and proprietors and monopolists of the world in vain set their shoulders to heave the [...]
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(Also known as those pickled vegetables from the taco truck.) ... Mara made some this weekend, and I’ve basically been living on it for the last three days. The recipe originated in The Essential Cuisines of Mexico, but we found a previously adapted version at Simply Recipes. ¡Horale! ¡Vamos a do this! Ingredients 1 lb jalapeño [...]
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Amidst the many changes around and within journalism, the journalist — as an actor in creating the news — is becoming more recognizable, identifiable, and individual. For instance, I’m “friends” with New York Times reporter Nicholas Kristof. (Okay, it’s on Facebook, but still). Kristof himself is a media decathlete: In addition to being a NY Times columnist, he has a [...]
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Last night I read the New Yorker profile of Matthew and Michael Dickman, poets from Portland, Oregon who happen to be identical twins. (Here’s the abstract). In their work, they have very different voices, but there’s a strange sort of twin telepathy that seems to exist within it. They also edit each other’s work, providing [...]
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Last night, Lynne told a story about a friend who, upon seeing movie star James Franco in the New York subway, experienced a feeling of ecstatic clarity, of time slowing down. I don’t recall if Mihály Csíkszentmihályi covers celebrity sightings in Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, but this sounds like a state of flow [...]
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Incoming White House chief-of-staff Rahm Emanuel recently discussed the next administration’s approach to the financial crisis, telling the Wall Street Journal, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.” Linking politics, crisis and opportunity, Emanuel’s sentiments evoked either Milton Friedman’s Capitalism and Freedom or Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine, depending on your level [...]
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I love reading, and I’ve been thinking a lot about how technology is affecting the way that we read now and in the future. I keep thinking about something Sven Birkerts said in a 1998 interview with Harpers: “If you touch all parts of the globe, you can’t do that and then turn around and [...]
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My name is Doug LeMoine. I work both on, and for, the Internet. You can find more about me in the 
