Brian Short's Reading List

  • :  GW: Basically, I mean, ah—well, let’s say that for me anyway when a photograph is interesting, it’s interesting because of the kind of photographic problem it states—which has to do with the … contest between content and form. And, you know, in terms of content, you can make a problem for yourself, I mean, make the contest difficult, let’s say, with certain subject matter that is inherently dramatic. An injury could be, a dwarf can be, a monkey—if you run into a monkey in some idiot context, automatically you’ve got a very real problem taking place in the photograph. I mean, how do you beat it?
    from A Collective Interview with Garry Winogrand


  • :  These pastors say the marriage of faith and fighting is intended to promote Christian values, quoting verses like “fight the good fight of faith” from Timothy 6:12. Several put the number of churches taking up mixed martial arts at roughly 700 of an estimated 115,000 white evangelical churches in America. The sport is seen as a legitimate outreach tool by the youth ministry affiliate of the National Association of Evangelicals, which represents more than 45,000 churches.
    from Flock Is Now a Fight Team in Some Ministries


  • :  Right away, Jonze told me, he could see that the heads were absurdly heavy. Only one of the actors appeared able to walk in a straight line. A few of them called out from within their costumes that they felt like they were going to tip over. Jonze and Landay had no choice but to tell the Henson people to tear apart the 50-pound heads and remove the remote-controlled mechanical eyeballs. This meant that all the facial expressions would have to be generated in post-production, using computers.
    from Bringing “Where the Wild Things Are” to the Screen


  • :  The early 90s called and they want their device back.” The comments on Engadget.com were especially pointed. “It looks like a Timex Sinclair glued to the bottom of an oversized 1st gen Palm device,” Marcus wrote. “That’s some ugly shit,” Johan agreed. “Was this damned thing designed by a band of drunken elves?” Jerome asked. CB summed it up: “It is truly butt ugly. wow. ugly.
    from Can the Kindle really improve on the book?


  • :  Their relationship — the rooster and Ms. Sandrow’s, that is — followed the usual fowl-meets-human trajectory. Ms. Sandrow gave him a name, Shinnecock, for the woods he was found in, and then set about learning how to make him comfortable. The rooster set about charming his new family: flying down each morning from the tree he roosted in (“Who knew chickens could fly?” Ms. Sandrow said) to dance a jig and gently peck their cheeks.
    from An Artist Feathers Her Nest


  • :  The trick,” he yelled in a heavy Greek accent, “is to use certain forces, like temperature and pressure, to preserve the product as a solid mass, so it doesn’t deteriorate.
    from Where Do Gyros Come From?


  • :  The trick,” he yelled in a heavy Greek accent, “is to use certain forces, like temperature and pressure, to preserve the product as a solid mass, so it doesn’t deteriorate.
    from Where Do Gyros Come From?


  • :  Before approaching me, Penn apparently made himself a nuisance to the California Department of Justice. Early on I was in touch with a nice investigator there named Fred Shirasago, who knew Penn’s father and could sometimes get him to make his son stop harassing me for a while. But I guess when you know something terribly important that the entire world thinks is hooey, it gets harder and harder to let it go.
    from Confessions of a Non-Serial Killer


  • :  

    This part happens all the time: A construction crew putting up an office building in the heart of Tysons Corner a few years ago hit a fiber optic cable no one knew was there.

    This part doesn’t: Within moments, three black sport-utility vehicles drove up, a half-dozen men in suits jumped out and one said, “You just hit our line.”


    from Metro Dig at Tysons Stirs Underground Intrigue


  • :  The program lasted eight weeks and participants were followed for an additional three months. Williams said they found those who received the mindfulness training “had significantly less daily hassles, psychological distress and significantly fewer medical symptoms” — like lower blood pressure and fewer aches and pains — than those who were handed a pamphlet.
    from Mindfulness Training Busts Stress


    • bshort's new thing is a snipblog by Brian Short