Quick links, cheap shots, bon mots….
– Bill O’Reilly and Geraldo Rivera scream at each other in a hilarious video from The Factor. You’d think this video would be evidence enough of how low TV political analysis has fallen. But it’s not just this — Geraldo Rivera is the voice of reason!
– Renee Blodgett excerpts from Saturday by Ian McEwan, a wonderful book:
There are these rare moments when musicians together touch something sweeter than they’ve ever found before in rehearsals or performance, beyond the merely collaborative and technically proficient, when their expression becomes as easy and graceful as friendship or love. This is when they give us a glimpse of what we might be, of our best selves, and of an impossible world in which you give everything you have to others, but lose nothing of yourself.
– SF Chronicle on small colleges admissions. Selectivity rates of small liberal arts colleges has gone “bananas,” in the words of my former college counselor.
– The American Prospect takes on Bob Rubin’s influence in the Democratic party. Grr. When will Dems look at Gore ’00 and Kerry ’04 and realize that they need less Bob Shrum-John Edwards populism?
– The Village Voice has a brilliant dissection of a top rap song. Bay Area fans will like this: “Our quarrel lies with “If you need it hyphy/I take it to the Bay,” an homage to the Oakland–San Francisco Bay Area’s relentlessly knuckleheaded and sorta wonderful hyphy movement, with its proclivities for going dumb, making thizz faces, ghost-riding the whip, etc. (Yahdidabooboo.)”
– Julia Allison, writing in Co-Ed magazine, teaches us about the “Open Sore Test” to be used during spring break trips to Cancun: “Leave a cup full of fresh squeezed lemon juice on the bedside table. When you bring a girl home, dip your fingers in it and if the girl experiences any, uh, discomfort, give her the boot.”
I accidentally came across your blog. I read a few of your posts and I was quite disappointed with the overall quality of your work. Your posts appear to be a random collection of multi-syllables trung together with no particular point or pupose. I have also read many of the books on your list and, frankly, I disagree with most of the brief comments I read on the opening page of your blog.
Gisele — While I always love constructive feedback from people who disagree, this isn’t useful at all. Can you be specific — I’m curious — what books did you find good / bad that I didn’t? What posts did you find pointless?
PCS