Monkey!

This is why Shorpy is awesome.



And you can order prints! Rachel and I have this poster in our apartment.

Pause

Yes, I haven't written here in awhile, and I keep saying I'll be back, sometime. I'm sure I realized it before, but maybe never really admitted it until I read my friend Andrew's blog post: I don't want to write here because all that's going on is the election. At work, we keep receiving books about the 24 hour news cycles and the media's role in politics/elections and how they've clogged the channel that used to bring people actual information. Anyway, I expect I'll write a lot more in a month. Now that is hard to believe: election day is less that one month away. Yes, I am taking the election seriously and attempt to keep myself informed, but I'm burnt out. I'm sure a lot of people are too. Plus, it gets a lot harder to take this whole thing seriously when only one party seems to be think this election deserves to be treated as the significant, historical event that it is. The whole situation is depressing, and at times I feel as if I'm teetering on the edge of breakdown.

That being said, there are happier things going on, like Nina Katchadourian's sorted books.

Pirate Day, Funny Ads, Nice Pictures

Today is International Talk Like A Pirate Day. Pirates are cool and all, but I'm not celebrating because pirates have been ruined for me ever since I heard the lady who started Talk Like A Pirate Day tell my lit. class about how she wanted to be present for her husband's vasectomy because she thought he and the male doctor would simply go into the O.R. and joke about the fast one they pulled on the old ball and chain. Those were her words.

So instead, I'll just show you something I found funny. Energizer (the battery company) has a sense of humor, and they're not afraid to show it in this ad.



More of these funny funny things can be seen here.

Also, if you like looking at pretty pictures, check out Boston.com's Big Picture.

Absent

I haven't been writing here much, but I will soon. In the meantime, enjoy this:


MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

More cool stuff here.

New Books

Marilynne Robinson's new book, Home was released today. Buy it. Buy it because Robinson can write, because her last novel Gilead nabbed her a Pulitzer, because her novel before that, Housekeeping, was just as good, and because damnit you should be reading good books.

Rachel and I were talking about this trend in people not reading anymore, but when we take the train anywhere, people are packed like sardines with their ipods in their earholes and books in front of their eyeholes. This is just another reason cities should have better mass-transit (coughSeattlecough): reduce traffic, reduce pollution, create jobs (?), lotsa other stuff, oh, and people might read a little bit. Maybe that's just a side-effect of all the schools here in Bostonia, but anyone who's been to college will tell you going to school doesn't necessarily make you a reader.

Also, issue #28 of McSweeney's Quarterly Concern was released a week or so ago, with eight tiny, separate books that fit together to make two gorgeous pictures. The best part: each book contains an illustrated fable. This only makes me want a nice copy of Aesop's Fables even more.