we don’t even ask happiness, just a little less pain.
“
| — | Charles Bukowski (via henrycharlesbukowski) |
But I don’t want comfort. I want poetry. I want danger. I want freedom. I want goodness. I want sin.
“
| — | Aldous Huxley, Brave New World (via thesetelevisionblues) |
I can be changed by what happens to me, but I refuse to be reduced by it.
“
| — | Maya Angelou (Submitted by natashanicoleann) |
“I think books should have secrets, like people do. I think they should be there as a bonus for the sensitive reader or there as a kind of subliminal quavering. I don’t think that the duty of the twentieth-century fiction writer is to retell old stories only.”
Well-run libraries are filled with people because what a good library offers cannot be easily found elsewhere: an indoor public space in which you do not have to buy anything in order to stay. In the modern state there are very few sites where this is possible. The only others that come readily to my mind require belief in an omnipotent creator as a condition for membership. It would seem the most obvious thing in the world to say that the reason why the market is not an efficient solution to libraries is because the market has no use for a library. But it seems we need, right now, to keep re-stating the obvious. There aren’t many institutions left that fit so precisely Keynes’ definition of things that no one else but the state is willing to take on. Nor can the experience of library life be recreated online. It’s not just a matter of free books. A library is a different kind of social reality (of the three dimensional kind), which by its very existence teaches a system of values beyond the fiscal.
“
| — | Zadie Smith, in the New York Review of Books. (via thebronzemedal) |
The Great Gatsby
Release Christmas December 25th 2012
Adapted from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel first published in 1925
Everyone and their mother has read this book and I have heard opposite sides of the spectrum when it comes to feelings towards this “great American novel”. My feelings are a tad bit on the indifference side. The roaring 20s and the times of prohibition in the US greatly fascinate me, and I truly believe that Fitzgerald captures post-modern America in this piece effortlessly. But that doesn’t take away from how much I distaste the characters themselves. Daisy is a dumb materialistic blonde, Nick Carraway is the submissive outsider meant to (but epically failing) give an unbiased perspective, and Jay Gatsby is a hopeless romantic crook. Now I hated pretty much every character in this book besides Jay Gatsby (and I can’t explain to you why because I can’t fathom what he can find so enchanting about the horrid Miss Daisy), but in the end that was Fitzgerald’s intention, or whatever (this isn’t meant to be a book review).
I digress, so despite my fickle relationship with this book, the movie looks wonderful. It appears to have every captivating aspect about what made Fitzgerlad’s novel one of the greats. The casting couldn’t have been better in my eyes. Just from the trailer I can already tell that Carey Mulligan’s portrayal of Daisy is spot-on, I already hate her.Tobey McGuire I am pretty much indifferent about, which is how I feel about Nick Carraway anyways. And Leonardo DiCaprio, well I love this man anyways, but I believe if anyone could embody what Jay Gatsby is supposed to be about it is Leo.
