s e t e c q

• 2012-04-30

  The antidisco frenzy reached its peak in Chicago on a hot July night in 1979. Desperate to revive sagging attendance at home games, the White Sox sponsored Disco Demolition Nite at Comiskey Park. Before a game with the Detroit Tigers, the master of ceremonies detonated a mountain of disco records piled up on the stadium floor. Thousands of white teenagers flooded onto the field; the resulting riot lasted for two hours, causing much damage, many injuries, and isolated incidents of mayhem in the surrounding black community. The White Sox forfeited the game.

  — Schulman, The Seventies

• 2012-04-11

  In adolescence, I hated life and was continually on the verge of suicide, from which, however, I was restrained by the desire to know more mathematics. Now, on the contrary, I enjoy life […] Partly it is due to having successfully dismissed certain objects of desire - such as the acquisition of indubitable knowledge about something or other — as essentially unattainable.
  But very largely it is due to a diminishing preoccupation with myself. Like others who had a Puritan education, I had the habit of meditating on my sins, follies, and shortcomings. I seemed to myself — no doubt justly — a miserable specimen. Gradually I learned to be indifferent to myself and my deficiencies; I came to centre my attention increasingly upon external objects: the state of the world, various branches of knowledge, individuals for whom I felt affection.

  — Bertrand Russell, “The Conquest of Happiness”

• 2012-01-15

  When Dostoevsky met Dickens in 1862 — a meeting that is hard to imagine — Dickens explained that there were two people inside him, ‘one who feels as he ought to feel and one who feels the opposite.’ […] Out of these two people he constructed his universe of characters, good and evil. Dostoevsky’s comment is laconic and ambiguous. ‘Only two people?’ he asked.

  — Verlyn Klinkenborg, “The Whirling Sound of Planet Dickens” (via fwriction)

  (via laphamsquarterly)

  Source: The New York Times

• 2011-10-19

  “You see, I’d recently committed to a non-negotiable understanding with myself. I’d committed to “The End of Suffering.” I’d finally managed to exile the voices in my head that told me my personal happiness was only as good as my outward success, rooted in things that were often outside my control. I’d seen the insanity of that equation and decided to take responsibility for my own happiness. And I mean all of it.”

  Source: The New York Times

• 2011-10-18

  3. Money is like a child—rarely unaccompanied. When it disappears, look to those who were supposed to be keeping an eye on it while you were at the grocery store. You might also look for someone who has a lot of extra children sitting around, with long, suspicious explanations for how they got there.

  “Thirteen Observations made by Lemony Snicket while watching Occupy Wall Street from a Discreet Distance”

  Source: occupywriters.com

• 2011-10-14

  wwnorton:

  Michael Lewis, best-selling author of The Big Short, Liar’s Poker, Moneyball, and most recently Boomerang:
  “I think it could be a big deal…The reason I think [Occupy Wall Street] might have legs is that I think they have a point. There is a horrible unfairness at the heart of our economy right now. We have essentially socialism for capitalists and capitalism for everybody else.”
  [watch the Reuters interview on YouTube]

  Source: wwnorton

• 2011-09-08

  dcpierson:

  Once we rehabilitate the environment,

  withdraw from foreign conflicts,

  and restore the economy,

  my generation’s biggest challenge will be

  being attracted to someone

  who is nice to us.

  Source: dcpierson

• 2011-09-07

  “The best part is when you drive so hard that you mistake the gas pedal for the volume knob.”  James A. Reeves

  Source: bigamericannight.com

• 2011-08-31

  We know a lot about the ideal environment for a happy whale or a happy mountain gorilla. We’re far less clear about what constitutes an ideal environment for a happy human being. One common measure for how clean a mountain stream, is to look for trout. If you find the trout, the habitat is healthy. It’s the same way with children in a city. Children are a kind of indicator species. If we can build a successful city for children, we will have a successful city for all people.

  — Enrique Peñalosa (via selbadri)

  (via selbadri)

  Source: yesmagazine.org

• 2011-08-30

  What Does It Mean To Be A Man?

  wwnorton:

  “A man has insurance, stock options, an investment portfolio, a dentist, mutual funds, and knowledge of his blood pressure. I don’t have any of these things, although I do own a pair of cuff links that I keep on my dresser. I never wear them, yet they impart a protective power: the image of a company man with a dental plan and a definite hairstyle.”

  -James A. Reeves, from The Road to Somewhere: An American Memoir

  Source: wwnorton

• 2011-08-29

  A rural person expects to know every person in his world, and therefore thinks of every person as an individual. An urbanized person never expects to know the people he comes into contact with, and therefore rarely focuses on them as individuals. Stating the same thing in a different way, when you have more categories in your mind than people, you tend to see the categories as characteristics of the people. […] But once you have more people in your world than categories, you start to sort the people into categories.

  — Bill James in Popular Crime. Food for thought. (via mlarson)

  Source: mlarson