Driving Blind: Crime Fiction and Strange Bedfellows
“All the things which had uses. All the mountains which had names. We’ll give them new names, but the old names are there, somewhere in time…”
Noam Chomsky lists the many paths to disaster.
One he didn’t mention: delivering Pizzas by drone.
It could be a long, hot summer for those in the market for a house.
Zynga’s slash-and-burn approach to mobile gaming finds it caught between layoffs and stock drops.
Samual Goldman comments on an older essay by Michael Young on meritocracy, arguing that when it comes to the “dangerous illusion,” socialists, libertarians, and traditional conservatives are on the same page.
I know you’ve been waiting for the doughnut breakfast sandwich, and thankfully the wait is over.
Adrian McKinty compares crime fiction to punk rock, lauding the former as the “literature of the proletariat.”
A strange alliance brews between Justice Scalia and lefties over DNA swabs, and Jeffrey Rosen praises his dissenting opinion.
Adi Robertson explores Kindle Words and what Amazon gets wrong about the fan-fic genre and why people write it.
Throwback: David Wallace-Wells interview with Martin Amis from last summer in New York Magazine,
“The only time you came out with how worried you were in this war, the only time you fought it, this cold war, was when you were asleep, in your dreams. That’s where you did your army service, in your sleep. Eric Hobsbawm called it the contest of nightmares—a very good phrase, a deep phrase, because that’s what it was. Bad dreams from the Western bloc to the Eastern bloc.”
Noam Chomsky: “More than at any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly.”Report
I admit the thought of donut, bacon and egg sandwich is a bad portent and sounds gross, but no need to go overboard.Report
“We are a people who lack defined goals. We have never leaned to love. We lack leaders and coherent programs. We have no spiritual center. We are adrift alone in the cosmos wreaking monstrous violence on one another out of frustration and pain. Fortunately, we have not lost our sense of proportion.”Report
Worst Dunkin Donuts ad ever. Not saying it won’t move some donuts and bacon, just a bit over the top.Report
“My good friend Jacques Monod spoke often of the randomness of the cosmos. He believed everything in existence occurred by pure chance with the possible exception of his breakfast, which he felt certain was made by Dunkin’ Donuts.”Report
“We are a people who lack defined goals. We have never leaned to love. We lack leaders and coherent programs. We have no spiritual center. We are adrift alone in the cosmos wreaking monstrous violence on one another out of frustration and pain. Fortunately, we have not lost our sense of proportion.”
Fortunately, at Dunkin Donuts we can lead you to a special you can love: our Love and Sense of Belonging Combo. That is an Egg and Bacon French Toast Sandwich, served with an ice mocha chocolate coffee, and three donuts glazed to spiritual perfection.
So don’t wreak monstrous violence. Avoid that incoherent frustration and pain. Come on down to Dunkins.
No, we haven’t lost our sense of proportion. Get a super-large coffee and an extra 3 donuts for only 99 cents more!
Hurry on down and set your goals for Dunkin Donuts.Report
Plus a million everybody. This gave me a really good laugh.Report
LMFAO!
Beautiful!Report
Does the path to total extinction take us close to Target? Because I have shopping to do, and I’d rather not take any path that takes me too far away from my errands.Report
Heh…Report
Oops, that was meant as a response to Glyph.Report
And you guys think I am not familiar with the works of the great modern minds…Report
We know you are familiar with great modern minds…….you read and comment on the LOOG.Report
Every time I think of Chomsky, I think of his (in)famous debate with Foucault. In fact, the one time I met Chomsky, I asked him about it. I think that thought of a real event may now have been replaced with a hypothetical one: Chomsky’s debate with Woody Allen.
Chomsky, “That means trying to overcome the elements of…”
Allen, “I… uhh… insurance salesman?”
Chomsky, “No, repression and oppression.”
Allen, “Have you ever spent an evening with an insurance salesman?”Report
this thread is brilliant.Report
And caloric.Report
I started to say that McKinty thing was a stretch, despite the fact that he’s nicking Moz lyrics and talking about bands I like (and, well, crime fiction) – maybe I just felt my interests were being pandered to and was overreacting against that, because upon further reflection I think he might be onto something.
I know Irvine Welsh is technically Scots, but Trainspotting is crime fiction, and it was one of the biggest international literary splashes to come out of the UK in the last couple of decades (well, that and JK Rowling, obvs.)Report