jefflink

@DouthatNYT Believe is a pretty good title. Why everyone should believe seems arrogant and presumptuous, especially as belief is not a rational decision but a result of divine providence—at least as I understand it. Was that you or the publisher?

It’s publication day for “Believe,” so let’s answer an obvious question: Why write a book making a case for religious belief as a general matter, rather than just the specific religion that I practice and believe? /long thread zondervan.com/p/believe/

@theJasonTLewis I’ve had this same thought many times. Phillip Glass drove a taxi, so not far off.

I think I should have been a UPS driver.

My earliest convenience is running roughly sometime in the 2050s.

@_motherslug No “No Country?” I’m still having a nightmare about it.

This is *not* a ranking, but just my own personal top five favorite Coen Brothers films. • The Man Who Wasn't There • Barton Fink • The Hudsucker Proxy • Inside Llewyn Davis • Blood Simple

@zachmortice It’s fantastic. One of the few “shocking” films that ever shocked me. And shook me. Not on the same level, but Cuaron is the director in the Disclaimer series on Apple.

I saw Children of Men in the theatre & became obsessed with it; for months I told everyone they HAD to see it. Just started reading Mark Fisher’s Capitalist Realism & I feel vindicated that the opening chapter is a extended riff on what is still a terrifyingly prescient film

@PetreRaleigh Sure, the lobby means nothing, but how the character sees and feels the lobby means everything. I can’t even imagine how you could tell a story with AI standing in for a character’s consciousness. It’s, like, the central enterprise of fiction.

I don't want to sound too unkind here but it is very important that these people understand they are not writers and what they produce is not writing

@sternbergh Appreciate your reading. I found it had much less momentum and force than his earlier works. What was it that gripped you? Maybe I missed something.

@elite_gz I can see this, but what I’d prefer is if it layered on a neosoul sound. What I like about shoegaze is the tone, texture, and size of it. If it could groove and resuscitate some introspective harmonic elements, I’d show up for it.

“shoegaze” will go mainstream in the back half of the 2020s, but as party music. it will be a dubstep situation where the meaning of the word basically changes. the new version will probably layer the crusty distortion of blackgaze over what is otherwise basically pop music

@RogersParkMan @louisachu @rickkogan @NeilSteinberg Also, the brats with sauerkraut and German mustard are dope.

@ingredient_x I remember it, truly, and by smell specifically, a musty, Manila-hemp cardstock smell that lives with me to this day.

@_motherslug Worth it for the soundtrack alone.

Where does everyone fall on O Brother, Where Art Thou? It’s randomly showing on 35mm tonight, so I’m looking forward to rewatching. I remember liking it quite a bit at the time, though it definitely doesn’t land in my top five Coens.

@JoyceCarolOates Not sure of the blue. Yellow could be tire pressure, but alignment problems can cause it too—at least in a Toyota Matrix.

Does anyone know what these cryptic symbols mean in a Subaru? Have looked through the handbook hopelessly.

@zachmortice Civic Signals has done some exploration of this in the social media context. I did a roundup here, which might provide some leads to a deeper dive. The group compares the governance of these platforms to that of public spaces: builtin.com/software-engin…

I think we could avoid a lot of the problems with AI if we all collectively owned the AI algorithms. Maybe this would work for other parts of the economy? Not sure if anyone has written about this. . .

@_motherslug Whoever is furnishing car dealerships in Ohio needs their life’s work amplified with a much larger oompah band.

Portrait of the artist at a Mitsubishi dealership in Ohio as a Carole King song plays on the radio.

@PatThomas1964 There are at least a dozen things I like about this photo.

I like both kinds of music: Country and Western

@seanw_m Feral cats + mint has helped us

Chicago rats have evolved the capability to eat through polyethylene

@newbathmats_ Excellent list. Only thing missing is Marvin’s Gaye

25 today so thought I’d do my 25 favourite albums of all time (which do change on a weekly basis tbh):

@Vinncent Persian food should definitely be higher

Top 10 national cuisines (objective ranking): 1. Vietnam 2. Mexico 3. Indonesia 4. Peru 5. China 6. Lebanon 7. Ethiopia 8. Thailand 9. Italy 10. Japan

@AmericanGwyn Great list

Cormac, Nabokov, Denis Johnson, Ondaatje, Morrison, Conrad, Martin Amis, FS Fitzgerald, Jean Rhys, Joyce, Ruskin, Pater, Bruce Catton, Didion, John Jeremiah Sullivan, Saul Bellow, Philip Roth (in Sabbath’s Theater), Jesmyn Ward, Hem (in A Farewell to Arms), Proust, Montaigne.

@_motherslug this is a great list!

This was really easy and super hard!