thank goodness

Someone besides me is taking The Atlantic to task for their reliably sh*tty and alarmist coverage of, well, anything related to women. (Also here)

the saddest poem in San Francisco

Biking to work this morning, I passed a Muni bus going the opposite direction. The screen on the front of the bus said: "MUNI TURNS 100"* and then as I passed it, the screen changed to say, "OUT OF SERVICE."

If only it could have been like this.
*I am paraphrasing. It may have said, "100 Years of Muni," but I think you see my poem.

princesses v. pandas

"I used to think that the interesting issue was whether we should have a monarchy or not. But now I think that question is rather like, should we have pandas or not? Our current royal family doesn’t have the difficulties in breeding that pandas do, but pandas and royal persons alike are expensive to conserve and ill-adapted to any modern environment. But aren’t they interesting? Aren’t they nice to look at? Some people find them endearing; some pity them for their precarious situation; everybody stares at them, and however airy the enclosure they inhabit, it’s still a cage."

– Hilary Mantel, in this article

Also, stop what you're doing and go read Wolf Hall. Then we can talk about it! Thanks!

unrulyidiom productions

We have increased our video productions. You may view them via our tumblr, tiffanytellsyousomething.

It is best said of Tiffany that she has a lot to say.

how it fits

This afternoon I was at Davies Symphony Hall, viewing a performance by organist Chelsea Chen. She was wearing an asymmetrical dress with only one shoulder strap. The organ is a big instrument, and requires a lot of movement to play: the lifting and pulling and crossing over of arms, the swinging of legs and tapping of feet. I thought of the small tests I run in fitting rooms, lifting my knees, sitting and standing repeatedly, trying to gauge whether a skirt or dress will be easy to bike in. I wonder what strange fitting room contortions professional organists go through, stretching and bending in tiny spaces, trying to see if the fabric will tear here or chafe there, before purchasing a dress for performance.

the epiphany itself

"This was again very dumb because Frau H. failed to perceive the true meaning of the epiphany that had come unto her, which was not, as Frau H. thought, that she had been chosen to bring the beauty of dust to the world, but rather that she, Frau H., was just as whole, as profound, and as valuable, as the epiphany itself."

– Stephan Sprenger, "Dust," trans. from German by Dustin Lovett, Best European Fiction 2011

someone else's thoughts about George Orwell

"You used to be bullied and sat last in class, but now you break windows with the eagerness a brick has for glass."

"In addition to social connections of a pragmatic or idealistic kind, there is a third way of understanding the relations of individuals to the state. It was first demonstrated, as far as I can calculate, by Socrates, when he refused to avoid his death penalty and escape Athens. We need to see society as an extension of ourselves, an invisible part of our anatomy that assists us every day without dominating us and that, like our own arms and legs, we tend when injured, and whose welfare we consider at all times. The relation resembles that of a violinist to his instrument – useful but more than something useful, cared for like an esteemed friend. If such a part of us fails, we do not discard it for a peg leg, nor are we fired from our job because we cannot play hopscotch. We may be a disposable member of the symphony, but our violin is us to us. The relation is sometimes – oh dear – called love."

– William H. Glass, "Double Vision: George Orwell's contradictions," Harper's, October 2012