Claire McNeill
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Lately: 2

6/18/2013

 
Picture
Vincent van Gogh | Plain Near Auvers | 1890
This week: a trivia win, more tacos, the totally laughable Man of Steel, two new beaches. Began reading The Secret History, finished up Last Night by James Salter. It’s also my last week on edit board. Next Monday I’m a reporter again.

Here are some things I’ve been reading and thinking about.

My favorite thing this week was Drew Magary’s hilariously absurd journey on the loud-and-proud redneck party dubbed Kid Rock’s Chillin’ The Most Cruise, which is as booze-soaked and insane as you’d expect. Two things: I want to go on that cruise. And when people ask me what I want to do, it’s this. Tell incredible stories like this.

That said, the single greatest thing I have read this year is John Jeremiah Sullivan’s retelling of his family’s trip to Disney World, featuring a kid named Lil’ Dog, covert weed-smoking, a fascinating history of the Disney Empire and incalculably funny sentences. 

Karma repair kit.

The U.S. redrawn as 50 states with equal population. I want this as a wall map in my house (which they’re working on!).

“Qualities you need to get through medical school and residency: Discipline. Patience. Perseverance. A willingness to forgo sleep. A penchant for sadomasochism. Ability to weather crises of faith and self-confidence. Accept exhaustion as fact of life. Addiction to caffeine a definite plus. Unfailing optimism that the end is in sight. Qualities you need to be a novelist: Ditto.”

An everythingist: “the sort of person who is greedy for the benefit of all new experiences, but unwilling to put the work in to fully commit to any of them… It is the deadly combination of perfectionism plus narcissism plus utter laziness.”

Huxley vs. Orwell in a comic.

One of my favorite poems.

The most endearing thing about Norway, which I have just learned, is the country’s unabashed love for boring TV: 30-hour interviews, 18-hour live streams of salmon swimming, endless hours watching wood burn. Amazing, really.

Short Term 12 looks really good. I’ve watched the trailer a few times now.

For fellow Cheryl Strayed fans and also anyone one else: here’s some amazing advice about life, writing, jealousy and humility. “I really do believe that keeping faith with the work itself has a wonderful way of keeping one’s ego in check.”

“#Menswear loves girls in menswear, rarely women; certainly never large women displaying any sign of strength.” Ayesha Siddiqi on ‘Waifs and Wifeys,‘ or the troubling aestheticization of bone-thin girls in the men’s fashion world. She’s also brilliant on Twitter at @pushinghoops.


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    Lately:

    My collection of the best things to read & think about in the last month or so, but usually less often than that

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