“If, on balance, you focus more on remembrances than projects, something (central) in you is starting to decay. This also applies to groups, institutions, and countries.” — Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Twitter
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Category Archives: Commonplace Book
John Bate
From Humans of New York:
“I’ve danced in every major theater on Broadway. My specialty was screwing up the choreography.”
Elizabeth Hardwick
In The Paris Review, “The Art of Fiction, No. 87”
INTERVIEWER
I was present a few years ago at a panel discussion where you were asked who was the greatest American female novelist, and you said Henry James. I had the feeling you meant something serious about that.
HARDWICK
Such remarks don’t bear scrutiny. Did I actually say that? I do remember saying once that maybe the greatest female novelist in English was Constance Garnett. Sometimes I try to lighten the gloom of discussions but I notice that no one laughs. Instead you see a few people writing down the name.
“Foreshadowing”
Lexicon.
About a week before Bloom County went on a substantial sub-plot about Bill the Cat being a Russian spy, there was this glorious 3-day sequence. It has even been quoted in academic papers.
“Foreshadowing” — Your clue to quality literature.
Here, have a link to the very first Bloom County strip, December 8, 1980. Then, you can read through the whole thing. If you want.
Not enough specimens
Before Alfred Kinsey took up human sexuality, he studied wasps — thousands and thousands of them, whose bodies he minutely examined. Yet when asked what he could say about The Wasp, he replied that he hadn’t really seen enough specimens to generalize.
David berreby, “Quelle Différence?” slate, SEPT 11, 1996
Chaucer’s Salons
From a long-time favorite novel, Steven Minkin’s A No Doubt Mad Idea:
“On to the library. And all through his time at the card catalog, combing the shelves, filling out the request cards, he danced a silent, flirtatious minuet of the eyes with a rosy-cheeked redhead in the biology section, pages of notes spread before her. All his life, he had had a yen for women in libraries. In a cerebral setting, the physical becomes irresistible. Also, he figured he was really more likely to meet a better or at least more compatible woman in a library than in a saloon. Ought to have singles libraries, with soups and salads, Bach and Mozart, Montaignes bound in morocco; place to sip, smoke, and seduce in a classical setting, noon to midnight. Chaucer’s Salons, call them, franchise chain.”
You know what they say…
“You know what they say: ‘A kitchen divided against itself… that dog won’t hunt.’” — Ben Napier, Home Town
“Secret code”
Lexicon. Björk discusses her notebook of lyrics. “This is the lyric to a song about my best mate, Jóga. But all the other pages? There’s absolutely no way I’ll open for you, whatever you offer me. Because that’s so private it’s scary. And I’ve got a beautiful little secret code which is called ‘Icelandic,’ so you guys will never find out what it says in this.”
“The New Cruelty”
Lexicon. Derived from this bit in Steve Martin’s 1991 movie, L.A. Story:
L’Idiot is the hot restaurant of the moment, and pronounced as if French (as one might expect from the apostrophe). The phrase is generally used when someone is being a dick.
“I see Congress has cut Medicaid spending.”
“Part of the New Cruelty?”
Interestingly, the New Cruelty also shows up with lightning speed in this deleted scene that featured John Lithgow:
“Of all the gin joints in all the world…”
Lexicon. From the movie Casablanca. Once, I would have thought this was such a widely seen film I wouldn’t need to explain, but as the years go by, even societal memory fades.
Like many quotes from this movie, somewhat mangled. It should be, “Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world… she walks into mine.” The towns, alas, get dumped.
Usage: Something incredibly rare and unexpected happens.
“My god!”
”What?”
”That car that just cut us off, like an asshole?”
”Yeah?”
”It’s a Bugatti Veyron.”
(respectful pause) “Of all the gin joints, in all the world…”