tumbly.

In [James Blake’s] world, the instruments that play the chords and those that supply the rhythm are the same thing. The melody is the beat. It’s inside of the meter, flitting furtively about, struggling not to be found.

Erik Martz, MFR: The Golden Age: Bleeps and Bloops

I really like the rhythm of that phrase.

James Blake and Jamie Woon go hand-in-hand in so far as I became aware of and interested in both around the same time. I like Blake’s minimalistic production for the same reason I like Woon’s by turns lush and twitchy style: they do it well.

Don’t worry too much about “normal”; worry about “awesome” instead.

Sars with excellent advice.

Americans, good. American leadership, bad. Americans, nice. President Bush, glass bowl.

Gene Weingarten describing the gist of French opinion on America(ns) in “Pardon My French…” in The Fiddler in the Subway; “glass bowl” having been previously defined as a substitute for a description he couldn’t have printed.

“Glass bowl” is officially on my list of favorite substitute words, now.

I have to tune something out in order to focus on something else.

random lady at Starbucks talking to her mother, explaining why a busy Starbucks is the kind of place she liked to study at during college and simultaneously articulating why I work better when I have more than one project on my plate.

Thanks, random lady! (Your kids are adorbs.)

…in a world where YouTube stars are made and broken in a matter of tweets.

-Seattlest’s Hanna in “Portlandia: Where Young People Go to Get Tired of Stale Comedy”

Hee!

Games are good, points are good, but games ≠ points.

Can’t play, won’t play (via Mike D.)

Lots of good to be found here.

Games give their players meaningful choices that meaningfully impact on the world of the game. Deciding to run two miles today rather than one, or drink two liters of Coke instead of four are just choices of quantity. Deciding to dump my sniper rifle for an energy sword is a meaningful choice. It’s going to change how I move, who I fight, when I run. It’s literally going to change whether I live or die, and that - for which I thank the stars – is currently something Nike and Coke can’t match.

The Steelers’ coach said, as far as NFL officials commenting on how his players play, “It would be tough for me to care less about their opinion, to be honest with you.

Love that guy.

On the Steelers: Tomlin, NFL see things differently

You’re blocking, you’re blocking, you kind of feel him start drifting away and you’re like, ‘Why is he drifting away?’ You don’t hear the crowd yelling or ahhhing, so it’s like ‘Oh, God, Ben’s coming this way so let me adjust and get him in front.’

Max Starks (left tackle) talking about what’s different for the o-line when Roethlisberger’s playing.

Hee.

Refusing to speak to or about a person takes a certain amount of effort and maintenance; sometimes it’s necessary, but patrolling that emotional border means that you DO have a relationship with [that person]…

Tomato Nation, The Vine October 6, 2010

Patrolling that emotional border… so good.

Why is it, do you think, that right before the first football game of the season, everyone wants to predict who will win the last football game of the season?

Probably the result of a contagion directly related to Mel Kiper’s draft board, now listing the top 10 picks for the year 2026, all subject to change, obviously, once Mel gets a better look at the initial September video of kindergarten recess.

Too many NFL issues growing tedious, Gene Collier

Zing!

It’s very pretty,” a statement that is to art as using “bring” when you mean “take” is to the beauty of language.

Renée, p. 199 The Elegance of the Hedgehog, Muriel Barbery

Hee.

telemachy:

“Every object, however near the eye, has something about it which you cannot see, and which brings the mystery of distance even into every part and portion of what we suppose ourselves to see most distinctly.”

from Modern Painters I, John Ruskin

20 minutes later, I came across the following in The Elegance of the Hedgehog:

Some people are incapable of perceiving in the object of their contemplation the very thing that gives it its intrinsic life and breath…

tumbly. by dotsara!