MetaFilter posts tagged with essay

"He had his life. And he did not yield."

zarq — Fri, 24 May 2013 14:08:25 -0800

The Final Days of 'Macho Man' Randy Savage Savage, previously on Mefi * His obituary thread * Wrestlemania III * 25 Greatest Matches in Wrestlemania History * Rap into a Slim Jim!

"Makes you feel kind of desperate, doesn’t it?" Mblgpf.

Rory Marinich — Sun, 05 May 2013 22:43:26 -0800

"By the time Cathy began, the sexual revolution had ended, so the strip stands as a perfect artifact of a moment when the cultural understanding of coercion changed completely—a moment when, one could argue, second-wave feminism basically died. With its baby-boomer characters, Cathy dramatizes the aftermath: the ’60s ended when it became clear that a revolutionary movement toward a just society wasn’t happening; the ’70s ended up being about trying to navigate the wreckage of the ’60s. The ’80s were largely about looking for strategies to accept injustice and inequality, and to construe that acceptance itself as a positive value.

"Cathy takes its place in this cultural progression by drilling in the notion that it doesn’t matter what the law says: you are being coerced not by the state but by your desire to be valued."

In a few cases, the start dates are well-informed guesses

mwhybark — Sat, 04 May 2013 09:25:05 -0800

Predicting Google Shutdowns. "In the following essay, I collect data on 350 Google products and look for predictive variables. I find some while modeling shutdown patterns, and make some predictions about future shutdowns. Hopefully the results are interesting, useful, or both." Gwern exhaustively analyzes Google products past and present with an eye to establishing what's not long for the bitverse. tl;dr? Results.

They're not the same men

Potomac Avenue — Sun, 07 Apr 2013 11:06:12 -0800

Mad Men Season 6 (and simultaneous saturation coverage) begins again tonight. As the show winds down, along with the decade that defined it, the 1960s, critics are wondering "What's the best ending for the best series on TV? Can it survive the onset of the 1970s?"

Good photos of cool rich midcentury Americans on yachts in New England.

maiamaia — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 12:47:45 -0800

Good photos of cool rich midcentury Americans on yachts in New England.

"There was no return from apostasy."

zarq — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 07:11:10 -0800

Leaving the Witness. "In one of the most restrictive, totalitarian countries in the world, for the first time in my life, I had the freedom to think." The author is Amber Scorah.

The longest sentence ever served in an American prison: 64 years.

zarq — Sat, 16 Mar 2013 22:28:47 -0800

William Blake has been held in solitary confinement at Elmira Correctional Facility in New York State for nearly 26 years, after he murdered a Sheriff's Deputy and wounded another in a failed escape attempt back in 1987. Sentenced to 77 years to life, he will be eligible for parole in 2064. But Blake has no chance of ever leaving prison alive, and almost no chance of ever leaving solitary — a fate he considers "a sentence worse than death." (Via) For other essays like this one: Voices from Solitary Interview with Mr. Blake: Part 1, 2

Usà puyew usu wapiw!

theodolite — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 09:22:04 -0800

It seems that the utopian imagination is trapped, like capitalism and industrialism and the human population, in a one-way future consisting only of growth. All I’m trying to do is figure out how to put a pig on the tracks. — Ursula K. Le Guin, "A Non-Euclidean View of California as a Cold Place to Be"

They never stop. They usually stop when they kill you.

MOWOG — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 11:06:27 -0800

Photographer as Witness: A Portrait of Domestic Violence

"once having given a pig an enema there is no turning back,"

the man of twists and turns — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 11:43:03 -0800

Death Of A Pig, E.B. White.

I spent several days and nights in mid-September with an ailing pig and I feel driven to account for this stretch of time, more particularly since the pig died at last, and I lived, and things might easily have gone the other way round and none left to do the accounting. Even now, so close to the event, I cannot recall the hours sharply and am not ready to say whether death came on the third night or the fourth night. This uncertainty afflicts me with a sense of personal deterioration; if I were in decent health I would know how many nights I had sat up with a pig.

Via Related EB White, Previously

Slip Sliding Away

taz — Sun, 24 Feb 2013 04:40:19 -0800

The Englishman and the eel is a photo essay of 93 images (thumbnails here; 2 pages) and article by London photographer Stuart Freedman that "attempts to look at (amongst other things) the significance and the decline of the eel and its fading from the changing London consciousness" with snapshots of "those palaces of Cockney culture, the Pie and Mash shops." As reported here, the European eel is officially "critically endangered," and the interesting "British Food: A History" blog recently discussed The Eel Paradox.

"I wanted to say: it’s nothing personal, it’s monarchy I’m staring at."

Fizz — Sun, 17 Feb 2013 06:02:11 -0800

Royal Bodies by Hilary Mantel

"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?"

"Don't you see? If no one were watching, I would not dance at all."

zarq — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 08:46:16 -0800

The Old Man at Burning Man. "When I mentioned to friends that I was going to Burning Man with my 69-year-old father, 'Good idea' were the words out of no one's mouth."

"I still don’t understand what happened."

zarq — Mon, 04 Feb 2013 10:42:13 -0800

Sick by Amy Butcher (Via)

What Made "The O.C." Great, Bitch

infini — Sun, 03 Feb 2013 07:30:25 -0800

What Made "The O.C." Great, Bitch

Essay: Moral Shortcomings in the Technology Debate

infini — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 01:56:59 -0800

Digital and genetic techniques increasingly influence life. Our belief in progress through technology stands in the way of a moral debate on this development. ~ by Rinie van Est

The Phantom Phonebooth

EvaDestruction — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 10:57:16 -0800

Whether made of wood or glass, the phone booth stands apart, and is made to stand apart, from the normal flow of life in which it is situated.

Twelve Missives from the Roi des Belges

Kattullus — Mon, 31 Dec 2012 10:25:30 -0800

Perched high up above the Thames in downtown London every month this past year a different writer has spent four days living in a replica of the Roi des Belges, the boat Marlow travels up the Congo in Joseph Conrad's The Heart of Darkness. Each author would write a short text during their stay "which explores London, rivers, the work of Joseph Conrad, or even all three." They would be visited on the last day by a journalist from The Guardian who recorded them reading their essay, poem or short story. Among the poets, historians and novelists were Adonis, Jeanette Winterson, Teju Cole, Michael Ondaatje and Kamila Shamsie. These recordings, each prefaced by a short interview, are all available on the Guardian website, to stream or download. Below the cut there is a link to each recording, with a short description. January: Juan Gabriel Vásquez, Colombian novelist, delivers an essay about his relationship with Joseph Conrad's fiction and the man himself, but both have inspired his own writing. February: Jeanette Winterson, who writes fiction and memoir, recounts her experience of watching the city and the river below her. March: Sven Lindqvist, Swedish historian and reporter, writes about how he learned at a young age through books of the people on the wrong end of economic exploitation and genocide. April: Caryl Phillips, novelist and screenwriter, describes the attraction of London to West Indian immigrants and their integration into English society. May: Maya Jasanoff, American historian and Harvard professor, writes about rivers from a personal and historical perspective, and Conrad's personal and authorial journey up the Congo. June: Michael Ondaatje, Sri Lankan born Canadian novelist and poet, recounts his own journey to London from Sri Lanka and explores the role of seafaring and river journeys in history and literature. July: Alain Mabanckou, Congolese novelist, recites his essay about Conrad and the history of the Congo river. August: Teju Cole, Nigerian-American novelist and essayist, relates the story of meeting V. S. Naipaul and writes about how Africans have been described by outsiders in writing. September: Ahdaf Soueif, Egyptian novelist and political activist, writes about the history of resistance by oppressed populations. October: Kamila Shamsie, Pakistani novelist, writes about female travelers and their invisibility in history. November: Adonis, Syrian poet, recites a poem, translated into English by Khaled Mattawa, about the war that has enveloped his home country. December: Colm Tóibín, Irish novelist, reads a short story inspired by the character of Marlow. The short little descriptions reflect the content of the various texts poorly, as they are generally wide-ranging and mix contemplation with personal history. Listening to all twelve in order also gives a portrait of London changing through the seasons in a year that included both the Olympics and the Jubilee.

Thunder is good, thunder is impressive; but it is lightning that does the work

Wordshore — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 00:03:05 -0800

The author Samuel Langhorne Clemens, a popular MetaFilter topic, was born 177 years ago today (November 30th 1835) in Missouri. The printer, riverboat pilot, game designer, journalist, lecturer, technology investor, gold miner, publisher and patent holder wrote short stories, essays, novels and non-fiction under the pen name Mark Twain. This included The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (recently adapted into a musical), one of the top five challenged books of the 1990s, published in 1884-85 to a mixed reception and with an ending that still causes debate. The extensively quoted author of the Tom Sawyer stories, Mark's work and life are still the subject of research, imitation, analysis, interpretation (disturbing claymation) and inspiration (nsfw). Mark lived his last few years in Redding, Connecticut, where he donated many books to the local public library association. Footage of Mark Twain at his home; photographed in 1867, 1902, with family, as a lecturer and with various friends. Mark died on April 21st 1910 and is immortalised in Google doodles, stamps, benches and forthcoming commemorative coins. His works are widely available online in various digital formats, for ebook readers and at your local public library and bookshop. He also liked cats.

Imagine a frozen ocean

zarq — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 20:16:27 -0800

"Entering into one of the fiercest competitions in existence, I found art."
Sixteen mushers. 120 dogs. An adventure across one of the longest mushing trails in the world: the Beringia, a dog sled race stretching 683 miles across eastern Russia. Twilight on the Tundra Italicized quote at the top of this post is from an essay by the author at the Fulbright Russia website. For more from Julia Phillips: From November 3, 2011 - August 13, 2012 she kept a blog at The Moscow Times: The Kamchatka Observer. (That's a link to her first entry. Main page is here.)

"[T]he best essays show that the name of the genre is also a verb"

gladly — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 12:36:02 -0800

Robert Atwan, editor of the Best American Essays series, chooses the top ten essays since 1950 for PW's Tipsheet. All but three of the top essays are available to read online and linked in the article. (via)

Convince me. Convince me. Convince me.

Rhaomi — Mon, 05 Nov 2012 10:21:00 -0800

Charlie Pierce is a longtime sportswriter and author who has, among other things, reported for Grantland, Slate, and the Boston Globe, paneled on more than a few games of Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!, and fished diapers out of trees as a state forest ranger. He's also made a name for himself as one of the sharpest and most incisive political columnists since Molly Ivins. The lead writer for Esquire's Politics Blog ever since a caustic article on former Delaware Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell cost him his Globe job, Pierce has churned out an uninterrupted stream of clever, colorful, and challenging commentary on the 2012 election season and its implications for the nation's future, dispatches often seething with eviscerative anger but shot through with deep love of (or perhaps grief for) country. Look inside for a selection of Pierce's most vital works for some edifying Election Eve reading. Greetings from Idiot America

Creationism. Intelligent Design. Faith-based this. Trust-your-gut that. There's never been a better time to espouse, profit from, and believe in utter, unadulterated crap. And the crap is rising so high, it's getting dangerous.

(Also a seedling for his 2009 book Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free, discussed previously.) The Cynic and Senator Obama (June 2008)

There is one point in the stump speech, however, that catches the cynic up short every time. It comes near to the end, when Obama talks about cynics. Obama says that cynics believe they are smarter than everyone else. The cynic thinks he's wrong. The cynic doesn't think he's wiser or more clever or more politically attuned than anyone else. It's just that he fears that, every morning, he'll discover that his country has done something to deface itself further, that something else he thought solid will tremble and quake and fall to ruin, that his fellow citizens will sell more of their birthright for some silver that they can forge into shackles. He has come to believe that the worst thing a citizen of the United States of America can believe is that his country will not do something simply because it's wrong. It would be a mistake for anyone -- but especially for a presidential candidate -- to believe that the cynic thinks himself wise or safe or liberated. In 2008, the cynic is more modest. He considers himself merely adequate to the times.

The Cynic and President Obama (October 2012)

Perhaps all our best presidents are the ambiguous ones, the ones hardest to figure out, because they force us to take more of the obligations of citizenship on ourselves, and not to look for some Great Man to lead us. Too often, the president had been criticized for not being what other people made him out to be four years ago — the conservatives who fell for him were particularly lachrymose in this regard, the liberals more angry — and the cynic thought that was a dodge. He has no obligation to be what you wanted him to be, what you wished he would be. No person owes anyone else that. The rain fell more steadily as the cynic sat there on Mr. Madison's back porch. Another guy, thought the cynic, who did his best with what was available, who hated "faction" so much that he designed a system against its poison, but who also helped found the longest surviving political party in the history of the world, the party that had just renominated Barack Obama to be president of the United States. Of all the possible presidents in 2012, Barack Obama was the best of them. But that wasn't the point anymore. The country needed more than a president. The country always had needed more than a president.

The Comeback Speech Romney Should be Giving

How'd you like it? You wanted me to be authentic and you got it, both barrels, gold-plated with a lovely mahogany stock, perfect for killing varmints. Put me on a podium in front of an auditorium full of mouthbreathers I wouldn't hire to park my car and I turn into an ice sculpture. But put me in a room with sentient piles of currency, and I can relax and explain the way the world works in the only language they understand, the only language that counts. I speak Money, bitches, and if you didn't learn it when you were young, there ain't no Rosetta Stone you can use to play catch-up now. We spoke Money at home. We spoke Money at prep school. Parlez-vous franc? Sprechen sie Deutschmark? You don't speak Money, you don't speak to me, because, well: I'm Mitt Romney, bitches, and I'm all you got left.

2010 State of the Union flashback: Last Night, Barack Obama Became President

Who else is there? The Democrats are a timorous collection of trimmers and hedgers, one more bad beat away from whimpering themselves into a gelatinous goo just liquid enough to ooze under the door of some lobbying shop. They couldn't get laid in a whorehouse if they drove up in a Brink's truck. They spent a flat year trying to get one vote out of Olympia Snowe. And the Republicans are simply insane. Poor old John McCain is being primaried by J.D. Hayworth, once the dumbest man in Congress, at the behest of what might be called the lunatic fringe, if it wasn't the very mainstream of the party now. The energy of the party is wholly directed from the ancient, dark heart of American conspiracy theories, where it is not directed at simply standing athwart anything this president wants to do. Republicans repeatedly have voted against measures they have previously supported. Meanwhile, angry seniors in goofy hats have got them all terrified.

Murderer of Opportunity, Political Coward, Candidate for Vice President of the United States

Paul Ryan is an authentically dangerous zealot. He does not want to reform entitlements. He wants to eliminate them. He wants to eliminate them because he doesn't believe they are a legitimate function of government. He is a smiling, aw-shucks murderer of opportunity, a creator of dystopias in which he never will have to live. This now is an argument not over what kind of political commonwealth we will have, but rather whether or not we will have one at all, because Paul Ryan does not believe in the most primary institution of that commonwealth: our government. The first three words of the Preamble to the Constitution make a lie out of every speech he's ever given. He looks at the country and sees its government as something alien that is holding down the individual entrepreneurial genius of 200 million people, and not as their creation, and the vehicle through which that genius can be channelled for the general welfare.

On RNC Opening Night, Republicans Dare to Build a Lie

It was an entire evening based on a demonstrable lie. It was an entire evening based on demonstrable lies told in service to the overriding demonstrable lie. And there was only one real story for actual journalists to tell at the end of it. The Republicans simply don't care. They don't care that they lie. They don't care that their lies are obvious. They don't care that their lies wouldn't fool an underpaid substitute Social Studies teacher in a public middle school, who would then probably go out one night and get yelled at by Chris Christie. ("They believe in teacher's unions. We believe in teachers," he said in his speech. Yeah, you just don't believe in paying them.) They don't care that their history is a lie and that, by spreading it, they devalue the actual history of the country, which is something that belongs to us.

The Problem with the New American Exceptionalism

The will not to believe is the shifting sand beneath the unstable entire architecture of American Exceptionalism. Because our attachment to the idea is theological, and not empirical, we can neither look at our history nor our politics honestly. Eventually, the lies pile up, one atop the other, and you get a Willard Romney, who runs an entire campaign based on self-refutation and deceit. Eventually, the elections become electronic Kabuki. Our elections must be honest, not because we make them so, but simply because they are ours. It will all work out right in the end because this is America, fk yeah, the shining city on a hill. Faith eventually undermines reality. We start believing in spirits and incantations. And then we fall, hard.

The Post Office Is Not an Other. The Post Office Is Us.

There is a reason why we used to build buildings the way we built the post office in Geneva, with its mural and its marble, and its great arching windows and its Doric entablature. It wasn't because we were profligate. It was because we considered self-government, for all its faults, to be something precious that belonged to all of us, and that it should be housed in places that looked as though we valued it enough to celebrate it and protect it at the same time. They were monuments we raised to ourselves, because we deserved them.

Elizabeth Warren: The Politics Blog Interview In Line for the Early Voting That Wasn't: Scenes from the World's Greatest Democracy in Inaction, in Florida

He had been waiting since 9:30 that morning. Three hours later, he'd finally gotten through the doors and into the library, where he had shown the ladies at the desk his photo ID, and he'd been given his ballot and directed to another line leading into another room. He waited another half-hour, and he eventually wound up at another desk. The man told him to put his ballot into a machine. Reynolds did as he was told. The problem was, of course, that he hadn't actually voted. He'd followed the precise instructions of the only two election officials he'd encountered and he wound up casting a blank ballot. Brooks, who'd admitted that she'd never seen a situation quite like this one, could only offer Reynolds an opportunity to fill out an report on what had happened. "There's nothing else," she told him. "Technically, you already cast your vote." Deliberate? An understandable accident? It was probably the latter, but that didn't matter to Brian Reynolds, who was sitting despondently on a curbstone. "Three hours," he said. "Three hours, I wait here to vote. I want to vote. It's important to vote. And I do everything they tell me to do, and my vote does not count. That is not right. They should educate the people in there to do what's right." The line went past him, all the way to the end of the parking lot. Brian Reynolds sat on his curbstone and watched the other people who were waiting to vote. His day as part of the World's Greatest Democracy was over. He had cast his vote. For nobody.

Why I'm Voting to Re-Elect President Obama

This is not "fear" talking. I watched the Republican primaries. I went to the debates. I saw long-settled assumptions about the nature of representative democracy thrown down and danced upon. I heard long-established axioms of the nature of a political commonwealth torn to shreds and thrown into the perfumed air. I saw people seriously arguing for an end to the social safety net, to any and all federal environmental regulations, to the concept of the progressive income tax, and to American participation in the United Nations, the latter on the grounds that a one-world government threatens our "liberty" with its insurance-friendly national health-care reform bill. I saw Rick Santorum base his entire foreign policy on the legend of the 12th Imam, and I saw Herman Cain and Michele Bachmann actually be front-runners for a while. I saw all of this and I knew that each one of them had a substantial constituency behind them within the party for everything they said, no matter how loopy. When you see a lunatic wandering down the sidewalk, howling at the moon and waving a machete, it is not fear that makes you step inside your house and lock the door. It is the simple logic of survival. Fear is what keeps you from trying to tackle the guy and wrestle the machete away from him. And, as much as it may pain some people to admit it, the president is the only one stepping up to do that at the moment.

From last night: For Obama, the Clock's Running in His Own Head Now

There will not be many more of these. There are three more days, and then Fired Up and Ready To Go will join All The Wat With LBJ and I Like Ike as ancient prayers. If he loses, there will be a powerful movement to render him, and these rallies, as footnotes. If he wins, he will be president again, and it will be a dusty, grinding job for as long as the calendar allows him to do it. At the end, with Stevie Wonder's "Signed, Sealed, Delivered" pouring out of the speakers, he turned from the podium and, just for one second, he did a little dance step. And then you could see the discipline reassert itself again. Ever since he came upon the scene, he has been a candidate who has had to rein himself in, someone who could sing Al Green, but just a line, someone who can dance, in front of an adoring crowd, but just one step, and then gone again. On the press riser, his senior staff was watching him do it, and they all smiled, and the sunset fell across their faces.

More Long Reads from the campaign trail.

SAT 600!

grouse — Fri, 26 Oct 2012 20:05:57 -0800

Colin Fahey goes to great lengths to get the lowest possible score on the SAT. Includes a facsimile of his persuasive essay arguing that he should receive a score of zero.

Pokémon, Paradigmatically

naju — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 13:02:41 -0800

Pokémon, Paradigmatically

"No one wants to hear about how tough it is."

zarq — Sun, 07 Oct 2012 19:05:03 -0800

This summer, Gawker began soliciting and publishing a weekly series of first person essays submitted by their readers: "True Stories." They include ten stories (to date) from struggling, unemployed Americans: Hello from the Underclass. (Those who dislike Gawker's interface can find direct links to individual essays within.) Unemployment Stories * Original request for essays. 1. Hello from the Underclass 2. 'We Are the Unseen' 3. 'Absolute Hell' 4. Pride and Pain 5. ‘I Go to Bed Every Night Hoping I Won’t Wake Up’ 6. ‘If It Weren’t For My Children I Probably Would Have Killed Myself By Now’ 7. ‘When I look to My Future, I See a Wall’ 8. ‘They Use You Up and Then They Throw You Away’ 9. ‘I Went From Being a Thriving Human Being to a Bitter Recluse Who Rants on Facebook’ 10. ‘It Wouldn’t Matter if I Just Disappeared from the Face of the Earth’ Also see: A Discussion of How to Deal With Our ‘Unemployment Stories’ in the Future Other Essays * How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America: A Remembrance * Audacity: Losing My Fear of Outside (This essay describes a sexual assault, and may be disturbing to some readers) * The Crossdressing Room * The Punks on G Street: Tracking Cuba’s Rebellious Youth 50 Years After the Revolution" * Don't Think of Elephants * Origins of a Murder * Kanye West Is Better at His Job Than I Am at Mine (But I’m Way Better at Being a Fake-Ass Feminist)

MetaFilter posts tagged with essay

"He had his life. And he did not yield."

"Makes you feel kind of desperate, doesn’t it?" *Mblgpf.*

In a few cases, the start dates are well-informed guesses

They're not the same men

Good photos of cool rich midcentury Americans on yachts in New England.

"There was no return from apostasy."

The longest sentence ever served in an American prison: 64 years.

Usà puyew usu wapiw!

They never stop. They usually stop when they kill you.

"once having given a pig an enema there is no turning back,"

Slip Sliding Away

"I wanted to say: it’s nothing personal, it’s monarchy I’m staring at."

"Don't you see? If no one were watching, I would not dance at all."

"I still don’t understand what happened."

What Made "The O.C." Great, Bitch

Essay: Moral Shortcomings in the Technology Debate

The Phantom Phonebooth

Twelve Missives from the Roi des Belges

Thunder is good, thunder is impressive; but it is lightning that does the work

Imagine a frozen ocean

"[T]he best essays show that the name of the genre is also a verb"

Convince me. Convince me. Convince me.

SAT 600!

Pokémon, Paradigmatically

"No one wants to hear about how tough it is."

"Makes you feel kind of desperate, doesn’t it?" Mblgpf.