miscellaneous monday

i need to upload some pictures from my birthday weekend.

it was fantastic and once i have the pics i'll do a post letting you all know about it.

for now, however, i can only provide mumbling facts, anecdotes and quotations to fulfill (most of) your Monday's with some offering.




On Books:

33% of high school graduates never read another book for the rest of their lives.
42% of college graduates never read another book after college.
80% of US families did not buy or read a book last year.
70% of US adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years.
57% of new books are not read to completion.
70% of books published do not earn back their advance.
70% of books published do not make a profit.


The Economist: "A lot of the people who read a bestselling novel, for example, do not read much other fiction. By contrast, the audience for an obscure novel is largely composed of people who read a lot. That means the least popular books are judged by people who have the highest standards, while the most popular are judged by people who literally do not know any better. An American who read just one book this year was disproportionately likely to have read ‘The Lost Symbol’, by Dan Brown. He almost certainly liked it."


“The prettiest dresses are worn to be taken off.” -jean cocteau



Strapped for cash in the mid-1950s, Kurt Vonnegut took a job at Sports Illustrated, though he “didn’t care or know squat about sports.”

They asked him to write a piece about a racehorse that had jumped the fence at the local track.

He fed a page into his typewriter, stared at it for several hours, typed “The horse jumped over the fucking fence” and left.




The Cat in the Hat uses 225 different words.

Dr. Seuss’ publisher, Bennett Cerf, wagered $50 that the author couldn’t reduce this total to 50 in his next book.

So Seuss produced a new manuscript using precisely 50 words, and collected the $50.

The book was Green Eggs and Ham.




“Oh, isn’t it a lovely sunset?” a young woman asked (poet) Robert Frost.

He said, “I never discuss business after dinner.”







my birthday resolution:

draw one self-portrait everyday. write one haiku alongside it.


...........I am trying to learn how to draw better (more responsibly, if you will)

WATCH OUT FOR ME ZUCKER




lastly, it's strange how all of the sudden everyone knows the word "vitriol" - i've seen it pop up on news comment sections amongst people who tYpE LiKe THis.

that poor little girl, though? my god. had just won student council and wanted to go see a real politician.
i know the media likes to embellish these stories for emotional significance but this one played out for itself.it's sad fact that a mentally unstable person can walk into a Walmart and buy bullets, having both already easily purchased a gun for himself and having been already denied from a different Walmart across town.

what is it going to take for America to become sensible about guns?
-unfortunately, the answer is: more catastrophes like Tucson.




-e.g.


p.s. - i started a tumblr - a blog more focused on the immediacy of pictures. it's just a place to post things I find on the internet - not much "creation" so to speak.

alengthoftaupe.tumblr.com