Started writing this for something else, but it ended up being a little too elaborate and didn’t fit, so here. Everybody is born in a car, and the car is driving rapidly down a major highway. When each person comes to life, they know nothing, a reality not unlike John Locke’s posited tabula rasa. Each person knows not where they are, what direction in which they are heading, and especially neither the cause nor the destination of the mysterious car ride. Unbeknownst to every person as they are born is that the destination is a town called Success,...
Continue reading...New York Times Columnist Line of the Day
If you frequent this here premier “web log,” there’s a good chance you may once or twice have read the New York Times op-ed page. You might even recognize the names of the columnists, who every day spout the most conventionally wise of the conventional wisdom. This is a feature that is dedicated to these folks, highlighting one line that is either funny, ridiculous, strange, or actually intelligent or well-written. Today\’s is from David Brooks, who in his column today, \”The Devotion Leap,\” seems to have sad about what sounds like some disappointing experiences with online dating: I have to guess some...
Continue reading...Parks and Rec creator says smart thing about government in random interview
I definitely don’t want it to fly by when somebody says something randomly that is very smart about government. Mike Schur, man behind some of the best sitcoms of all time, one of which is Parks and Recreation, was asked about the era that led to the creation of a show about local government: And then there were a couple of other things, the biggest of which I think obviously is that at the time Greg and I were developing the show around the summer of 2008, the world economy was collapsing around us, the McCain/Obama campaign...
Continue reading...Panda loves snow
So, it’s snowing today in the nation’s capital, which is friggin’ annoying, but you know who fucking loves it? That’s right, that little bastard Bao Bao, our resident kind-of-a-baby panda at the National Zoo. It’s his first snow, and he friggin’ loves it. Like the bastard he is. Anyways, carry on with your miserable day.
Continue reading...New York Times Columnist Line of the Day
If you frequent this here premier “web log,” there’s a good chance you may once or twice have read the New York Times op-ed page. You might even recognize the names of the columnists, who every day spout the most conventionally wise of the conventional wisdom. This is a feature that is dedicated to these folks, highlighting one line that is either funny, ridiculous, strange, or actually intelligent or well-written. Today\’s is from David Brooks, who in his column today, \”The Problem with Meaning,\” writes: Meaningfulness tries to replace structures, standards and disciplines with self-regarding emotion. Honestly, the rest of it makes...
Continue reading...Favorites in Your Face from 2014
I’ll bite. I’ll share with you what 2014 licks I was humming in my head, what I was tapping my foot to, and what I was singing loudly at my dashboard. Adding to previous posts, here are my favorite albums of 2014. Disgraceland – The Orwells Don’t know where I found this, most likely songza, but this found its way into my Spotify. Music genres never die, even if they fade from the pop charts, and so garage rock lives in these young lads. This album is rocking, energized, even when the lyrics get mellow or twisted....
Continue reading...The Favorites of WA
Pop started us off yesterday, listing his favorite albums of 2014, and hoping we’d hop into his post. I would do that, but I’m both lazy and selfish, so I’ll throw in three albums in this post. Before I start with the music, I need to mention that I listen almost exclusively to NPR. I hear bumper music on Here and Now and think to myself, well that sounds wicked fresh. So don’t buy anything on my recommendation unless you think 8 year old My Morning Jacket riffs are the height of innovation and cool. Also, this is in...
Continue reading...Our favorites, 2014
I‘m starting this post, and hopefully the rest of the V+V team will come in and add theirs. Come back and see if they do. Poplicola: Here are my three favorite albums of 2014. I could argue that they’re also the best records of 2014, but you know, that’s all subjective and shit. You’re free to argue; you’d just be wrong. Run the Jewels – Run the Jewels 2 It was damned hard to believe that Killer Mike and El-P could release a better record than 2012’s R.A.P. Music. But they did, just a few months later,...
Continue reading...For the 2014th consecutive year, perennial favorite Christmas has won the yearly skirmish in the eternal War on Christmas.
Oh well, we tried. We really tried. Finally successfully completed the annual Christmastime journey from V+V HQ to New England and looking forward to some solid carousing down at the V+V Boston Office this weekend. From all of us at Verities and Vagaries, however your celebrate, we hope the best for your wintertime festivities (or solemnizations).
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