The Bronze Medal @thebronzemedal - Tumblr Blog

for misterbrainley

And what next, he asked, to which I had no answer. New subjects, I told him, and new verbs. I had no idea what those would involve, I admitted, but my days would have something like a new vocabulary.

Chloe Aridjis, Asunder

"We respect your privacy. And we are not going to peek into your emails anymore. You can consider this an early birthday present, which you are receiving two days before the surprise party at Red Lobster that your family has been planning via Gchat conversations for the past two weeks."

paperbackgirl

Unlikely truths are useful and life is full of them, far more than the very worst of novels, no novel would ever dare give houseroom to the infinite number of chances and coincidences that can occur in a single lifetime, let alone all those that have already occurred and continue to occur. It’s quite shameful the way reality imposes no limits on itself.

Javier Marias, The Infatuations. (via paperbackgirl)

But really good artists had lots of empty in their paintings or whatever they did. They left everything out, or most things anyway, but suggested something, so that she could take her own things into the painting, and the best art of all was when she didn't really know what she was taking in with her, but it felt right, and when she looked at that art and took herself into it she felt amazing.

Keith Ridgway, Hawthorn & Child

Paul Simon was joking that his upcoming tour with Sting should be called "The Sound of Every Breath". My coworkers and I thought of some other options at lunch today:

"50 Ways to Leave Your Englishman in New York"

"You Can Call Me Roxanne"

"Don't Stand So Close to Me and Julio Down By the Schoolyard."

If a painting really works down in your heart and changes the way you see, and think, and feel, you don't think, "oh, I love this painting because it's universal." "I love this painting because it speaks to all mankind." That's not the reason anyone loves a piece of art. It's a secret whisper from an alleyway. Psst, you. Hey kid. Yes you.

Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch

We have had enough of a story to settle into; events have taken place; relationships have been developed or shattered; people have died, or simply grown up; and then there is one step more, that Munrovian step, that takes the story suddenly to a new place. Then, instead of leaving us there, reeling, astounded by the shift—as a lesser writer might—Alice gently carries us forward, through the revelation, through the surprise or shock of it, to some kind of understanding, some acceptance, whether rueful or joyful. Nothing is neatly wrapped up, but we are shown a path through the wilderness.

Deborah Treisman, on Alice Munro.

Maintaining the front lawn had become a point of pride for Eddie's father, who wanted to set an example for the young families, to show them that just because the world often seemed to reward ugliness was no excuse to give up on beauty.

Kathryn Davis, Duplex

paperbackgirl

I made a Breaking Bad bingo drinking game for the finale. Bottoms up!

thebronzemedal

This is great.

Ugh, I hate it when my library's catalog has outdated authority records. The LOC clearly has "Questlove" as preferred. Plus that's what his new book's published under. More importantly, though: anyone read it yet?

#just added myself to the wait list for it

If I was willing to see the simplicity, the purity, of my own desire, then I also had to see the entire landscape - the way desire rises from every corner and intersects, creates a wilderness over the earth.

Rebecca Lee, Slatland

Could it be that Mr. Leonard has heard a few too many times that the thing he’s done professionally now for four decades, or thirty-seven times, is really easy because he makes it look easy? Just because it’s an amusement park and people are entertained by what you do, does that mean it’s not a serious skill? Could it be that he’d like to see a few of those kinds of commentators try jumping off the tower themselves? If you’ve been to the crossroads, and made the deal, and got the mojo—which turns out to be dependent on a great deal of hard work and practice, just like sleight-of-hand—wouldn’t you maybe get a trifle riled by that kind of misjudgment from time to time?

Margaret Atwood on Elmore Leonard

The plot's dizzying profusion of murder suspects plays like something out of early Raymond Chandler, under whose bright star Bleeding Edge unmistakably unreels. Shoals of red herrings keep swimming by, many of them never seen again. Still, reading Pynchon for plot is like reading Austen for sex. Each page has a little more of it than the one before, but you never quite get to the clincher. Luckily, Pynchon and Austen have ample recourse to the oldest, hardest-to-invoke rule in the book --when in doubt, be a genius. It's cheating, but it works.

PW reviews Pynchon's Bleeding Edge.

You work on something until it feels correct, and then it’s done. But nothing is ever perfect. It’s like a very bad mosquito bite. You put some calamine lotion on it, and it stops itching. But pretty soon it’ll start itching again. You’re motivated to keep scratching at it. Every single medium, you know when a thing is done. How do you know? They say it’s gotta be intuition. You use that faculty to tell when something is not right and when it is right. It’s the only thing you’ve got.

David Lynch

We got a new bookshelf and its been sitting in the librarians' office for a few days now. Every morning someone prints up a new face for it.

The truth is, most of us like or dislike the characters we encounter in books, whether we ought to or not. It’s all part of fiction’s fantasy that we get to pal around with a charming drug dealer or a righteous butler or an angry socialite we’d otherwise never get to know. Every time we read a good novel, we are essentially befriending a new incorrigible person—which makes sense, really, because most of us love incorrigible people all throughout our lives.

Katherine Hill, The Tournament of Literary Friends

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