You know you’re really a prisoner of television when . . .

. . . you pass an exit sign for Lebanon and the first thing you think is Levi.

[Lebanon: in St. Clair County, Illinois.]

The greatest pencil story ever told

At Contrapuntalism, Sean tells the story of his journey to Stein, Germany, the home of pencil manufacturer Faber-Castell. These posts form what must be the greatest pencil story ever told. Beautiful photographs too. “The Stein Way” is in three parts: 1, 2, and 3.

*

January 8: And now there’s an epilogue.

Brookline Booksmith blog

I am happy to discover that one of my favorite bookstores, Brookline Booksmith, has a blog: brookline blogsmith. As a student in Boston, I spent many hours in this bookstore, back when it was called Paperback Booksmith (est. 1961). Now I get to visit once or twice a year. Booksmith has an excellent selection, a helpful staff, late hours, and no coffee.¹ The store feels to me like a necessary part of its community, an exceptionally bright spot in the general brightness of life at the intersection of Harvard and Beacon Streets. Visiting Booksmith makes me want to live in Brookline again.

Why bother with the blog of a bookstore you might never visit? It can be a good way to learn about books you might otherwise miss. So it is that a copy of Jǐrí Gruša’s novel The Questionnaire recently came home with me from the library.

¹ All pluses, to my mind. If you want coffee, just walk down the street. And if you want a bookstore with snarky brats at the front desk, keep going, to the other side of the River Charles.

[Ben, you’re so lucky.]

Mark Trail makeover (2)

In the world of Mark Trail, all bad guys have facial hair. By their sideburns, mustaches, and beards ye shall know them. Back in December, I altered a Trail strip, removing facial hair and bad-guy intentions from kidnappers Juan (left) and Otto. Look:


[Mark Trail, November 21, 2012. Click for a larger view.]


[Mark Trail, modified by me. Click for a larger view.]

Now look again:


[“Come on, Juan, this is Otto, your friend! Don’t you recognize me?” Mark Trail, January 3, 2012, not modified by me. Click for a larger view.]

What happened? Trail saved Otto from death by shark, and Otto gave back the two-million-dollar ransom he once demanded. And now Otto is missing his mustache. He also appears to have treated his eyebrows to a threading. He is beginning to look a lot like Mark Trail. Many amenities on this island. And many chances for redemption.

The only other strip in which I’ve seen characters’ hair change without warning: yes, Hi and Lois.


[Otto still has his sideburns, for now.]


[January 4: Otto’s eyebrows and mustache have returned.]

On an unrelated note, I’m impressed by the hyphens in used-to-be friend.

Related reading
All Mark Trail posts (Pinboard)

Happy birthday, Van Dyke Parks

Van Dyke Parks turns seventy today. Sail on, sailor!

Related reading
All Van Dyke Parks posts (Pinboard)
Mark Twain’s seventieth-birthday speech (PBS)

Buzzwords and education

Diana Senechal on ”the utilitarian view of education”:

[I]n recent years it has overtaken education discourse. It can be attributed to the loss of a literary culture, the introduction of business language and models into education, and the resultant streamlining of language. Schools and industries have become less concerned with the possible meanings of words, their allusions and nuances, than with buzzwords that proclaimed to funders and inspectors that the approved things are being done — goal setting, “targeted” professional development, identification of “best practices,” and so forth. Thus we lose the means to question and criticize the narrow conceptions of success that have so much power in our lives.

Republic of Noise: The Loss of Solitude in Schools and Culture (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Education, 2012).

I should know better, but I am still surprised by how readily academic communities embrace buzzwords and platitudes. Everything, it seems, is subject to critical inquiry except the language that purports to define our purposes.

Also from Republic of Noise
“A little out of date”
Fighting distraction
Literature and reverence

Local listings

On C-SPAN: The House debate on the bill to avoid the so-called fiscal cliff.

On Syfy: The Twilight Zone marathon.

As a friend of mine from high school would have said, “Same difference.”

A related post
Avoiding and averting

[The bill just passed.]

From a letter to David Rakoff

From a letter by New York Times reporter Ariel Kaminer to David Rakoff:

Here is the simplest lesson you taught me: Don’t trade up.

In terms of three-word volumes, it ranks right up there with “It gets better.” Like that more famous line, it starts out as a bit of simple, practical instruction — don’t back out of a social engagement just because a snazzier offer came along — and broadens out into an entire perspective on how to live. Don’t grade friendships on a hierarchical scale. Don’t value people based on some external indicator of status. Don’t take a competitive view of your social life. There are very few rules I carry around with me every day. Don’t trade up is one of them, and I truly can’t tell you how many seemingly complicated situations it resolved into clarity and fairness. I am grateful to you for that.

Read the letter; there’s much more.

Related posts
David Rakoff (1964–2012)
For use in “seemingly intolerable situations”

Resolution Generator

Monina Velarde’s New Year’s Resolution Generator is up and running for 2013. I am happy to see that “Drink more tea” is still available.

Happy New Year

[Nancy, January 1, 1943, from Nancy Is Happy: Complete Dailies 1943–1945 (Seattle: Fantagraphics, 2012). Click for a larger view.]

Happy New Year, everyone.