My foreign #language textbooks weren't remotely as relevant to my young life as the Tudor-era "English-to- #Latin Vulgaria puerorum" Catherine Nicholson quotes in her 6/22 #NYRB article was to schoolboys of the day:

"I am weary of study. Thou stinkest. I beshrew thee. Thou art a false knave. Thou art worthy to be hanged. His nose is like a shoeing horn. What the devil doest thou here? I shall kill thee with thine own knife. Though art a blab. He is the veriest coward that ever pissed."
@Minimus

If anyone's interested (and in a place where the postage cost isn't ridiculous), nyrb are having a sale atm on their website https://www.nyrb.com #books #nyrb #reading

Marina Jarre's spot-on description of a certain writerly/linguistic #revelation, courtesy of Vivian Gornick's 6/8/23 #NYRB article on Jarre: "... there came the moment 'when I understood that #words placed in a certain order—following an absolute necessity—were beautiful."

#reading #writing #language

Marina Jarre's spot-on description of a certain writerly/linguistic #revelation, courtesy of Vivian Gornick's 6/8/23 #NYRB article on Jarre: "... there came the moment 'when I understood that #words placed in a certain order—following an absolute necessity—were beautiful."

#reading #writing #language

The Ultimate Deal
Fintan O’Toole

Trump’s hoarding of official secrets is both breathtakingly careless and utterly calculated.
https://www.nybooks.com/online/2023/06/10/the-ultimate-deal/
New York Review of Books #NYRB #Trump #trumpindictment #maralago #MAL #treason

"Secrets are a kind of currency. They can be hoarded, but if kept for too long they lose their value. Like all currencies, they must, sooner or later, be used in a transaction—sold to the highest bidder or bartered as a favor for which another favor will be returned. To see the full scale of Donald Trump’s betrayal of his country, it is necessary to start with this reality. .. #NYRB

Preach it, Jed Perl: #NYRB 5/11/23:

"I worry that the artists featured in 'Coded' and 'Signals,' infatuated as they are with some new or newish medium, have confused means with ends, experiments with results... suggest[ing] that the creative spirit is no longer the maker, the homo faber of classical thought, but is now an operator or facilitator with a shiny high-tech toy."

#art #quote #review #criticism

Preach it, Jed Perl: #NYRB 5/11/23:

"I worry that the artists featured in 'Coded' and 'Signals,' infatuated as they are with some new or newish medium, have confused means with ends, experiments with results... suggest[ing] that the creative spirit is no longer the maker, the homo faber of classical thought, but is now an operator or facilitator with a shiny high-tech toy."

#art #quote #review #criticism

Union fans can be heard at #NYRB: Uhre! Mikael Uhre! #DOOP

TIL in 2008 the New York Red Bulls #nyrb won the #MLS Western Conference Final #wcf

Yes you read that right. Western Conference Final. They were not even in the Western Conference. But, reasons.

From G. S. Morson's Apr. 6 #NYRB #review of Bob Blaisdell's book on #Chekhov: asked for his bio, Chekhov responded, "In 1890 I made a trip to Sakhalin across Siberia... In 1891 I toured Europe, where I drank splendid wine and ate oysters. In 1892 I strolled with V. A. Tikhonov at [a writer's] name-day party... I have been translated into all languages with the exception of the foreign ones... I am a bachelor. I would like a pension."

N.B., I would also like a pension.

@bookstodon #books #quote

What started as a day full of hope has turned to disappointment, now have to wait for this evening's match between #AtlUtd and #NYRB. Still love ya #Reds #YNWA #mastodonfc

Might just be the no-brain aftermath of finishing an exhausting project, but Andrew O'Hagan's 3/23/23 #NYRB review of a couple of #HBO histories featured an observation that made me laugh-choke on my #coffee:
"Producing genuine #stories —to say nothing of making #art —is an expensive struggle, especially when so much of the young audience, raised on #TikTok, has an unquenchable desire for free content featuring dancing #cats and videos of their schoolmates being kicked in the nuts."
#quote

It made my morning, reading in Tim Flannery's 2/23/23 #NYRB article "Monotreme Dreams" that "Igor #Stravinsky was likewise not impressed [by koalas], saying that the #koala he held while visiting Taronga #Zoo... had the face of a banker."
A somehow hilariously accurate description, even if it doesn't result in my being unimpressed with koalas.

https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2023/02/23/monotreme-dreams-platypus-matters-jack-ashby/

#reading #articles

This, from Verlyn Klinkenborg, relates to tomorrow’s newsletter: “The atoms in an ancient tree and those in a human being are equally old, formed billions of years ago in the big bang and the early universe. Only the evanescent, organismic shapes those atoms take, as tree or human, can be said to differ in age.”

https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2023/03/23/trees-in-themselves-elderflora-jared-farmer/

#trees #NYRB

@HibaIssa most Red Bulls fans prefer RBNY, even if the club is officially called New York Red Bulls. It’s shorter. It also prevents confusion with people using the hashtag for the New York Review of Books (#NYRB).

#NYRB get their equalizer.

Andrés Reyes gets 🆙 to make it 1-1.

Original Post: http://twitter.com/MLS/status/1634750069801877507#m
Major League Soccer / @MLS

Really loved learning from Frances Wilson's 2/23/23 #NYRB article on #KatherineMansfield that among the author's many pseudonyms was "the Tiger." One day, I shall attain that level of confidence.

https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2023/02/23/very-free-and-indirect-katherine-mansfield/

#authors #writers #review #reading

📚 🔥 The Winter Sale is on! Choose from 101 books from across @NYRB_Imprints. Buy 2 books and save 20%; 3 and save 30%; or 4 or more and save 40%. Free US shipping when you spend $50 or more.🔥 📚 https://www.nyrb.com/collections/2023-winter-sale #nyrb #booksale #books

Bad news/good news

Bad: I had to go get a pcr test on Delancey St because a co-worker tested positive for #covid. We do wear masks, I'm vaccinated, and probably okay.

Good: The only book in the little free library on Suffolk was this one by Magda Szabó, whose novel The Door blew me away recently. #nyrb #books #littlefreelibrary