mom explains the movies

ME: would you watch jaws? i want to see jaws
MOM: why?
ME: because i’ve never seen it
MOM: but you know what happens
ME: i mean sorta
MOM: he goes after a shark

END SCENE

here lies nicole

i played the oregon trail the other day

our curse

Margo Jefferson. Photo by Michael Lionstar.

great interview between the writers and critics claudia rankine and margo jefferson:

CR: Much of what you describe in Negroland is really another way of saying that the body had to be “evidence” of black goodness 24/7. It’s like you and your sister were so busy fighting off stereotypes that there was no room left for authentic living or being.

MJ: It’s not that there wasn’t space for an authentic life; it’s that you never knew when that space would be invaded, taken away from you. I feared that I could be ambushed at any moment by stereotypes, by contempt, by the demands of holding up the race. I’d have had to take the stage at the most improbable, lighthearted moment and instantly perform the role of the Ideal Negro, the Exemplary Negro Girl.

So we were always shoring up—stacking up worthy deeds, the accomplishments, the glamour of black women, knowing full well that in those years, as you say, none of this had any lasting value in the eyes of white America.

and one more about colby

Colby sans type.

(via handheldheart)

colby wood type

Composed entirely of broken type from the Colby Wood Type collection.

Collaboration with Chris Michlig.
Edition of 30.

RIP COLBY Poster Printing.

(via handheldheart)

colby poster printing in LA was awesome — i was very late to the game but got lucky enough to work with someone who introduced me to the company in their final months. i wrote a little bit about it for ballroom; watch a video about the company here.

and everyone thought it was awesome

from chuck klosterman’s interview with taylor swift:

Here we see [Taylor] Swift’s circuitous dilemma: Any attempt to appear less calculating scans as even more calculated. Because Swift’s professional career has unspooled with such precision, it’s assumed that her social life is no less premeditated. This even applies to casual, non-romantic relationships. Over the past three years, Swift has built a volunteer army of high-profile friends, many of whom appear in her videos and serve as special guests at her concerts. In almost any other circumstance, this would be seen as a likable trait; Leonardo DiCaprio behaved similarly in the ’90s, and everyone thought it was awesome.

somehow i bought this today

“margarita with a twist” (of bud light lime) (but more than a twist actually)

do hope your life is full of sweetness and love

a sweet email / good reminder. maybe we should all be surfers.

the ghost in our machines

loved this — “the ghost in our machines,” where a writer finds Google Maps photos of his deceased mother:

The confluence of emotions, when I registered what I was looking at, was unlike anything I had ever experienced—something akin to the simultaneous rush of a million overlapping feelings. There was joy, certainly—“Mom! I found you! Can you believe it?”—but also deep, deep sadness. There was heartbreak and hurt, curiosity and wonder, and everything, seemingly, in between.

I cried for a minute. Then I chuckled. I shook my head. It was as though my mind and body had no clue how to appropriately respond, so I was made to do a little bit of everything all at once. But almost immediately I realized how fortunate I was to have made the discovery: at some point in the future, and probably quite soon, Google will update the pictures of my mom’s old street, and those images of her will disappear from the Internet.

to allow one to access the higher registers of gentleness.

george saunders and his wife paula in 1986

from george saunders’ “My Writing Education: A Time Line”:

On a visit to Syracuse, I hear Toby [Tobias Wolff, writer and Saunders’ teacher at Syracuse] saying goodbye to one of his sons. “Goodbye, dear,” he says.

I never forget this powerful man calling his son “dear.”

All kinds of windows fly open in my mind. It is powerful to call your son “dear,” it is powerful to feel that the world is dear, it is powerful to always strive to see everything as dear. Toby is a powerful man: in his physicality, in his experiences, in his charisma. But all that power has culminated in gentleness. It is as if that is the point of power: to allow one to access the higher registers of gentleness.