Death
“He is terribly afraid of dying because he hasn’t yet lived.” Franz Kafka
Actually, the more passionaitely you live the more terrifying death can seem. After all, it's all that much more you have to lose.
"Nobody owns life, but anyone who can pick up a frying pan owns death." William S. Burroughs
High as a kite no doubt.
“The funny thing about facing imminent death is that it really snaps everything else into perspective.” James Patterson
Hilarious.
“From my rotting body, flowers shall grow and I am in them, and that is eternity.” Edvard Munch
On his way back to "star stuff".
“Death must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one’s head, and listen to silence. To have no yesterday, and no tomorrow. To forget time, to forgive life, to be at peace.” Oscar Wilde
And then Heaven of course.
“What is called a reason for living is also an excellent reason for dying.” Albert Camus
And there are suckers born every minute.
Quote of the day
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iambiguous
- Posts: 7464
- Joined: Mon Nov 22, 2010 10:23 pm
Re: Quote of the day
Mysterious Skin
Wendy: You'd better be careful.
Eric: Of what?
Wendy: I'm serious, Eric. You're not in Modesto anymore. I see the way you look at him.
Eric: He's so beautiful. I can't help it. He's like a god.
Wendy: You don't have to tell me, I was infatuated with him too once. But I know all Neil's secrets and there's shit there you don't even want to know about. Trust me. Once I'm gone, you'll be all Neil has and you have to understand one thing. Where normal people have a heart, Neil McCormick has a bottomless black hole. And if you don't watch out, you can fall in and get lost forever.
Mysterious childhoods let's call them.
Neil: I hate it when they look like Tarzan but sound like Jane.
Not to mention [for some] the other way around.
[narration voice-over]
Neil: I met Wendy Peterson when I was ten. She was eleven, one grade ahead of me in school. If I wasn't queer we would have ended up having sloppy teenage sex and getting pregnant, contributing more fucked-up unwanted kids to society. But instead, she became my soulmate. And...one true partner in crime.
Anyone here want to be mine?
Eric: [in a postcard to Neil] So you still haven't written - big surprise - but Wendy says you're doing OK, which is cool. I've been wanting to tell you about this strange guy I met 3 weeks ago. No, we're not fucking, get your mind out of the gutter, perv. He's not even gay, I don't think - in fact, his vibe is kinda weirdly asexual. His name is Brian Lackey. He lives in Little River and, like yours truly, attends Hutchinson Loser Community College... So anyways, the day you left, your mom and I found him literally on your doorstep, looking for you. He says you and him played Little League together like 10 years ago. He was the worst player on the team, blah-blah-blah-blah-blah... He's full of questions about you. But, of course, I haven't told him much, i.e. about your "line of work". I did say you were queer like me, only 'cause I figured you wouldn't care. But now, are you ready for the good part? He thinks that when you and him were little, you were both abducted and examined by space aliens. How brilliant is that? But he was completely serious when he told me this. Like you should've seen the look in his eyes. So, what's the story, dude? Were you abducted by a UFO or what? P.S. - Are your crabs gone yet?
Yo, Coach!
Neil: As we sat there listening to the carolers, I wanted to tell Brian that it was over now and that everything would be okay. But that was a lie, plus I couldn't speak anyway. I wish there was some way to go back and undo the past. But there wasn't. There was nothing we could do. So I just stayed silent and tried to telepathically communicate how sorry I was about what happened. And I thought of all the grief and suffering and fucked up stuff in the world, and it made me want to escape. I wished with all my heart we could just leave this world behind. Rise like two angels in the night and magically disappear.
Next up: your past.
[first lines]
Brian: [narration voice-over] The summer I was 8 years old, five hours disappeared from my life. Five hours. Lost. Gone without a trace.
Brian: [narration voice-over] Last thing I remember I was sitting on the bench at my Little League game. It started to rain. What happened after that remains a pitch black void.
That ever happen to you?
Wendy: You'd better be careful.
Eric: Of what?
Wendy: I'm serious, Eric. You're not in Modesto anymore. I see the way you look at him.
Eric: He's so beautiful. I can't help it. He's like a god.
Wendy: You don't have to tell me, I was infatuated with him too once. But I know all Neil's secrets and there's shit there you don't even want to know about. Trust me. Once I'm gone, you'll be all Neil has and you have to understand one thing. Where normal people have a heart, Neil McCormick has a bottomless black hole. And if you don't watch out, you can fall in and get lost forever.
Mysterious childhoods let's call them.
Neil: I hate it when they look like Tarzan but sound like Jane.
Not to mention [for some] the other way around.
[narration voice-over]
Neil: I met Wendy Peterson when I was ten. She was eleven, one grade ahead of me in school. If I wasn't queer we would have ended up having sloppy teenage sex and getting pregnant, contributing more fucked-up unwanted kids to society. But instead, she became my soulmate. And...one true partner in crime.
Anyone here want to be mine?
Eric: [in a postcard to Neil] So you still haven't written - big surprise - but Wendy says you're doing OK, which is cool. I've been wanting to tell you about this strange guy I met 3 weeks ago. No, we're not fucking, get your mind out of the gutter, perv. He's not even gay, I don't think - in fact, his vibe is kinda weirdly asexual. His name is Brian Lackey. He lives in Little River and, like yours truly, attends Hutchinson Loser Community College... So anyways, the day you left, your mom and I found him literally on your doorstep, looking for you. He says you and him played Little League together like 10 years ago. He was the worst player on the team, blah-blah-blah-blah-blah... He's full of questions about you. But, of course, I haven't told him much, i.e. about your "line of work". I did say you were queer like me, only 'cause I figured you wouldn't care. But now, are you ready for the good part? He thinks that when you and him were little, you were both abducted and examined by space aliens. How brilliant is that? But he was completely serious when he told me this. Like you should've seen the look in his eyes. So, what's the story, dude? Were you abducted by a UFO or what? P.S. - Are your crabs gone yet?
Yo, Coach!
Neil: As we sat there listening to the carolers, I wanted to tell Brian that it was over now and that everything would be okay. But that was a lie, plus I couldn't speak anyway. I wish there was some way to go back and undo the past. But there wasn't. There was nothing we could do. So I just stayed silent and tried to telepathically communicate how sorry I was about what happened. And I thought of all the grief and suffering and fucked up stuff in the world, and it made me want to escape. I wished with all my heart we could just leave this world behind. Rise like two angels in the night and magically disappear.
Next up: your past.
[first lines]
Brian: [narration voice-over] The summer I was 8 years old, five hours disappeared from my life. Five hours. Lost. Gone without a trace.
Brian: [narration voice-over] Last thing I remember I was sitting on the bench at my Little League game. It started to rain. What happened after that remains a pitch black void.
That ever happen to you?
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iambiguous
- Posts: 7464
- Joined: Mon Nov 22, 2010 10:23 pm
Re: Quote of the day
Philosophy
“The first and most important thing an individual can do is to become an individual again, decontrol himself, train himself as to what is going on and win back as much independent ground for himself as possible.” William S. Burroughs
Yep, high as a kite then too.
“He was free, free in every way, free to behave like a fool or a machine, free to accept, free to refuse, free to equivocate; to marry, to give up the game, to drag this death weight about with him for years to come. He could do what he liked, no one had the right to advise him, there would be for him no Good or Evil unless he thought them into being.” Jean-Paul Sartre
Click, of course.
“The beauty of a living thing is not the atoms that go into it, but the way those atoms are put together.” Carl Sagan
Next up [maybe]: the beauty of a dead thing.
“Freedom is the only worthy goal in life. It is won by disregarding things that lie beyond our control.” Epictetus
Ah, of course: the pinheads.
“Because there are three classes of intellects: one which comprehends by itself; another which appreciates what others comprehend; and a third which neither comprehends by itself nor by the showing of others; the first is the most excellent, the second is good, the third is useless.” Niccolò Machiavelli
Let's connect the dots between this and, say, Alexis Jacobi or Veritas Aequitas or...roydop?
“When someone sees the same people every day, as had happened with him at the seminary, they wind up becoming a part of that person's life. And then they want the person to change. If someone isn't what others want them to be, the others become angry. Everyone seems to have a clear idea of how other people should lead their lives, but none about his or her own.” Paulo Coelho
Of course, he's only paraphrasing me paraphrasing him.
I think.
“The first and most important thing an individual can do is to become an individual again, decontrol himself, train himself as to what is going on and win back as much independent ground for himself as possible.” William S. Burroughs
Yep, high as a kite then too.
“He was free, free in every way, free to behave like a fool or a machine, free to accept, free to refuse, free to equivocate; to marry, to give up the game, to drag this death weight about with him for years to come. He could do what he liked, no one had the right to advise him, there would be for him no Good or Evil unless he thought them into being.” Jean-Paul Sartre
Click, of course.
“The beauty of a living thing is not the atoms that go into it, but the way those atoms are put together.” Carl Sagan
Next up [maybe]: the beauty of a dead thing.
“Freedom is the only worthy goal in life. It is won by disregarding things that lie beyond our control.” Epictetus
Ah, of course: the pinheads.
“Because there are three classes of intellects: one which comprehends by itself; another which appreciates what others comprehend; and a third which neither comprehends by itself nor by the showing of others; the first is the most excellent, the second is good, the third is useless.” Niccolò Machiavelli
Let's connect the dots between this and, say, Alexis Jacobi or Veritas Aequitas or...roydop?
“When someone sees the same people every day, as had happened with him at the seminary, they wind up becoming a part of that person's life. And then they want the person to change. If someone isn't what others want them to be, the others become angry. Everyone seems to have a clear idea of how other people should lead their lives, but none about his or her own.” Paulo Coelho
Of course, he's only paraphrasing me paraphrasing him.
I think.
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iambiguous
- Posts: 7464
- Joined: Mon Nov 22, 2010 10:23 pm
Re: Quote of the day
Hard Candy
Hayley Stark: It's not me you need to worry about. It's Janelle. I called her, told her I was Lieutenant Hayley from the LAPD. How far does she live, Jeff?
Still I kid, sure. But a very, very precocious one. Though I don't know about Janelle.
Jeff Kohlver: Look. I'm not the monster you think I am. But, okay, I crossed a line. Just call the cops. I'll turn myself in.
Hayley Stark: [as if narrating a headline] Cute Pedophile Pleads Guilty.
[speaking as a defense attorney]
Hayley Stark: "Aww, it's not his fault. He's sick. He has an addiction."
Jeff Kohlver: I'll do jail. Isn't, isn't that what should happen?
Hayley Stark: Yeah. You might. You might get jail time. I dunno: therapy, drugs, group discussions, notifying people when you move into a new house. How bad is that, really?
Jeff Kohlver: It'll ruin my career, ruin my life.
Hayley Stark: Well, didn't Roman Polanski just win an Oscar?
Anyone castrate him?
Jeff Kohlver: God, who are you?
Hayley Stark: It's hard to say for sure. Maybe not a Calabasas girl. Maybe not the daughter of a med school professor.
Jeff Kohlver: Maybe not even a friend of Donna Mauer.
Hayley Stark: Maybe not even named Hayley.
[Jeff sighs and looks around in desperation]
Jeff Kohlver: Who the hell are you?
Hayley Stark: I am every little girl you ever watched, touched, hurt, screwed, killed.
She found his stash.
Jeff Kohlver: You've been stalking me?
Hayley Stark: Okay, okay, let's get something straight. YOU have been stalking me. I went into different chat rooms with different nicknames and you would get to know each one. And as soon as you found out they were any bit older than me you would just drop them like that. You took your time sniffing out someone my age.
Jeff Kohlver: I didn't talk to the others because they were boring. You and I connected.
Hayley Stark: [nodding sarcastically] Right.
Jeff Kohlver: Oh, come on, you think I faked all that?
Hayley Stark: You know, actually, it's kinda funny. Because every time I would mention some obscure singer or band, you knew so much about them. But not right away, it was like a few minutes later. Maybe enough time to look them up on the web? Jeff, you used the same phrases about Goldfrapp as they do on Amazon.com. Busted! Oh, and by the way, I fucking hate Goldfrapp.
Cue Chris Hanson, Perverted-Justice and the ID channel.
Jeff Kohlver: Look, I'm a decent guy. Ask anyone. Go ahead. Ask these models. Call them; they'll tell you.
Hayley Stark: Of course they will. You're not an idiot, Jeff. You don't piss where you live. Those girls were your work, and I, on the other hand, was your play.
Jeff Kohlver: You were coming on to me!
Hayley Stark: Oh, come on. That's what they always say, Jeff.
Jeff Kohlver: Who?
Hayley Stark: Who? The pedophiles! 'She was so sexy. She was asking for it.' 'Oh, she was only technically a girl, she acted like a woman.' It's just so easy to blame a kid, isn't it! Just because a girl knows how to imitate a woman does not mean she's ready to do what a woman does.
[pause]
Hayley Stark: I mean, you're the grown-up here. If a kid is experimenting and says something flirtatious, you ignore it, you don't encourage it! If a kid says, 'Hey, let's make screwdrivers!' you take the alcohol away, and you don't race them to the next drink!
He's fucked.
Jeff Kohlver: You're getting yourself in terrible trouble.
Hayley Stark: Oh? Oh, and how's that?
Jeff Kohlver: If you cut me in any way, you won't forget it. It changes you when you hurt somebody.
Hayley Stark: Oh, and you speak from experience, I guess.
Jeff Kohlver: I've just lived. Unlike you. The things you do wrong... they haunt you.
Hayley Stark: Tell me what you're haunted by.
Jeff Kohlver: Do you wanna remember this day when you're with a guy? On a date? On your wedding night? 'Cause I promise you, you will. Don't do that to yourself.
Hayley Stark: Wow... You know, that is so thoughtful! You are speaking to me so selflessly! I mean, you just don't want me to castrate you for my own benefit? Wow, I'm touched. Jeff, why don't we imagine someone saying the same thing to you at a random moment? Imagine that when you downloaded this little girl... I was sitting by your side, saying, "Stop, don't do that to yourself." Would you have listened? "Stop. Don't do that to yourself."
Let's parse all this logically.
Hayley Stark: It's not me you need to worry about. It's Janelle. I called her, told her I was Lieutenant Hayley from the LAPD. How far does she live, Jeff?
Still I kid, sure. But a very, very precocious one. Though I don't know about Janelle.
Jeff Kohlver: Look. I'm not the monster you think I am. But, okay, I crossed a line. Just call the cops. I'll turn myself in.
Hayley Stark: [as if narrating a headline] Cute Pedophile Pleads Guilty.
[speaking as a defense attorney]
Hayley Stark: "Aww, it's not his fault. He's sick. He has an addiction."
Jeff Kohlver: I'll do jail. Isn't, isn't that what should happen?
Hayley Stark: Yeah. You might. You might get jail time. I dunno: therapy, drugs, group discussions, notifying people when you move into a new house. How bad is that, really?
Jeff Kohlver: It'll ruin my career, ruin my life.
Hayley Stark: Well, didn't Roman Polanski just win an Oscar?
Anyone castrate him?
Jeff Kohlver: God, who are you?
Hayley Stark: It's hard to say for sure. Maybe not a Calabasas girl. Maybe not the daughter of a med school professor.
Jeff Kohlver: Maybe not even a friend of Donna Mauer.
Hayley Stark: Maybe not even named Hayley.
[Jeff sighs and looks around in desperation]
Jeff Kohlver: Who the hell are you?
Hayley Stark: I am every little girl you ever watched, touched, hurt, screwed, killed.
She found his stash.
Jeff Kohlver: You've been stalking me?
Hayley Stark: Okay, okay, let's get something straight. YOU have been stalking me. I went into different chat rooms with different nicknames and you would get to know each one. And as soon as you found out they were any bit older than me you would just drop them like that. You took your time sniffing out someone my age.
Jeff Kohlver: I didn't talk to the others because they were boring. You and I connected.
Hayley Stark: [nodding sarcastically] Right.
Jeff Kohlver: Oh, come on, you think I faked all that?
Hayley Stark: You know, actually, it's kinda funny. Because every time I would mention some obscure singer or band, you knew so much about them. But not right away, it was like a few minutes later. Maybe enough time to look them up on the web? Jeff, you used the same phrases about Goldfrapp as they do on Amazon.com. Busted! Oh, and by the way, I fucking hate Goldfrapp.
Cue Chris Hanson, Perverted-Justice and the ID channel.
Jeff Kohlver: Look, I'm a decent guy. Ask anyone. Go ahead. Ask these models. Call them; they'll tell you.
Hayley Stark: Of course they will. You're not an idiot, Jeff. You don't piss where you live. Those girls were your work, and I, on the other hand, was your play.
Jeff Kohlver: You were coming on to me!
Hayley Stark: Oh, come on. That's what they always say, Jeff.
Jeff Kohlver: Who?
Hayley Stark: Who? The pedophiles! 'She was so sexy. She was asking for it.' 'Oh, she was only technically a girl, she acted like a woman.' It's just so easy to blame a kid, isn't it! Just because a girl knows how to imitate a woman does not mean she's ready to do what a woman does.
[pause]
Hayley Stark: I mean, you're the grown-up here. If a kid is experimenting and says something flirtatious, you ignore it, you don't encourage it! If a kid says, 'Hey, let's make screwdrivers!' you take the alcohol away, and you don't race them to the next drink!
He's fucked.
Jeff Kohlver: You're getting yourself in terrible trouble.
Hayley Stark: Oh? Oh, and how's that?
Jeff Kohlver: If you cut me in any way, you won't forget it. It changes you when you hurt somebody.
Hayley Stark: Oh, and you speak from experience, I guess.
Jeff Kohlver: I've just lived. Unlike you. The things you do wrong... they haunt you.
Hayley Stark: Tell me what you're haunted by.
Jeff Kohlver: Do you wanna remember this day when you're with a guy? On a date? On your wedding night? 'Cause I promise you, you will. Don't do that to yourself.
Hayley Stark: Wow... You know, that is so thoughtful! You are speaking to me so selflessly! I mean, you just don't want me to castrate you for my own benefit? Wow, I'm touched. Jeff, why don't we imagine someone saying the same thing to you at a random moment? Imagine that when you downloaded this little girl... I was sitting by your side, saying, "Stop, don't do that to yourself." Would you have listened? "Stop. Don't do that to yourself."
Let's parse all this logically.
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iambiguous
- Posts: 7464
- Joined: Mon Nov 22, 2010 10:23 pm
Re: Quote of the day
Shattered Glass
Adam Penenberg: [During a conference call] A few other people we can't seem to locate: Julie Farthwork, Frank Juliet, and Ian Restil's agent Joe Hiert. We called the numbers you gave us, got voicemails for all three, and the emails were sent back. "No address" or "account closed".
Stephen Glass: Really? Because I've emailed them about a million times each. Hiert's online all day long.
Adam Penenberg: Did you ever call these people and get them directly?
Stephen Glass: No. I always left messages and spoke to them when they called me back.
Adam Penenberg: And the references in the article to Nevada law enforcement officials... was Jim Ghort the only one you spoke to?
Stephen Glass: Yes.
Adam Penenberg: Do you have a phone number for him?
Stephen Glass: Yeah. Definitely.
Adam Penenberg: By the way, what was your basis for writing that Jukt was a "big-time software company"?
Stephen Glass: I didn't. That was added by the copy desk.
Adam Penenberg: And, uh, was the hacker's conference where you first met the Jukt executives?
Stephen Glass: No, that part of the article is misleading. I, uh... I was never in the Restils' home at all.
Adam Penenberg: You weren't in Restil's home with the Jukt executives?
Stephen Glass: No, I didn't mean to imply that I had been.
[later]
Stephen Glass: Sorry about that. Did the fax come through OK?
Adam Penenberg: Yes, it did. I think the address must've gotten garbled. We can't find the site.
Stephen Glass: OK. You want to read it back to me?
Adam Penenberg: Sure. You gave us "members.aol.juktn.html".
Stephen Glass: Wait. Was that an "M"?
Adam Penenberg: I'm sorry?
Stephen Glass: After Jukt, was that an "M", as in "Micronics"?
Adam Penenberg: No, it was an "N". As in "not working".
Stephen Glass: Try "M".
Kambiz Foroohar: OK.
Stephen Glass: Sorry about that. I was just rushing.
Kambiz Foroohar: Of course. But I do find myself wondering, Stephen, why would a major software company put their website where only AOL members can access it, as opposed to the entire web?
Stephen Glass: I have no idea. I don't have a website, so I don't really know that much about them. I would trust you guys to know better than me.
Kambiz Foroohar: [while looking at the fake website] OK, looks like... we have the Jukt website up now. I have to say, Stephen, this looks very suspicious to me.
And thus the expression, "when you're in a hole, the first thing you have to do is to stop digging".
To wit....
Kambiz Foroohar: [Over the phone] In light of all this: how confident are you in this story of yours?
Stephen Glass: Are we off the record?
Kambiz Foroohar: If you like.
Stephen Glass: Well, off the record, some of the things that you've brought up: the website, the idea that I was always speaking to these people through voicemail, that is, that they were always calling me. It didn't seem strange before, but clearly, there are some problems with the story. You've pointed them out. One portion of it was structured in a way that - I just, well, in light of all this, I just, I'm... I'm increasingly beginning to believe that I've been duped.
Still digging.
Adam Penenberg: [refering to the discovery that Stephen fabricated his stories] This guy is toast.
They were really, really, really "mad at him".
Stephen Glass: [to Mrs. Duke's students] It's true, journalism is hard work. Everybody's under pressure, everybody's grinding to get the issue out, nobody's getting any sleep, but you are allowed to smile every once in a while.
Pick one:
1] before he got caught
2] after he got caught
Chuck Lane [over the phone]: His parents live in Highland Park, right?
David Bach: Yeah, or his brother out in Palo Alto.
Chuck Lane: [Surprised] I'm sorry?
David Bach: His brother at Stanford.
Uh-oh, Stephen.
Stephen Glass: [to the students] There are 16,800 magazines in this country. But only one calls itself the in-flight magazine of Air Force One. And that's the thrill of working at The New Republic. You're underpaid, the hours are brutal, but what you write gets read by people who matter. Presidents, lawmakers. Your work can actually influence public policy.
That and then this part: https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/two-m ... sm/29594/5
Adam Penenberg: [During a conference call] A few other people we can't seem to locate: Julie Farthwork, Frank Juliet, and Ian Restil's agent Joe Hiert. We called the numbers you gave us, got voicemails for all three, and the emails were sent back. "No address" or "account closed".
Stephen Glass: Really? Because I've emailed them about a million times each. Hiert's online all day long.
Adam Penenberg: Did you ever call these people and get them directly?
Stephen Glass: No. I always left messages and spoke to them when they called me back.
Adam Penenberg: And the references in the article to Nevada law enforcement officials... was Jim Ghort the only one you spoke to?
Stephen Glass: Yes.
Adam Penenberg: Do you have a phone number for him?
Stephen Glass: Yeah. Definitely.
Adam Penenberg: By the way, what was your basis for writing that Jukt was a "big-time software company"?
Stephen Glass: I didn't. That was added by the copy desk.
Adam Penenberg: And, uh, was the hacker's conference where you first met the Jukt executives?
Stephen Glass: No, that part of the article is misleading. I, uh... I was never in the Restils' home at all.
Adam Penenberg: You weren't in Restil's home with the Jukt executives?
Stephen Glass: No, I didn't mean to imply that I had been.
[later]
Stephen Glass: Sorry about that. Did the fax come through OK?
Adam Penenberg: Yes, it did. I think the address must've gotten garbled. We can't find the site.
Stephen Glass: OK. You want to read it back to me?
Adam Penenberg: Sure. You gave us "members.aol.juktn.html".
Stephen Glass: Wait. Was that an "M"?
Adam Penenberg: I'm sorry?
Stephen Glass: After Jukt, was that an "M", as in "Micronics"?
Adam Penenberg: No, it was an "N". As in "not working".
Stephen Glass: Try "M".
Kambiz Foroohar: OK.
Stephen Glass: Sorry about that. I was just rushing.
Kambiz Foroohar: Of course. But I do find myself wondering, Stephen, why would a major software company put their website where only AOL members can access it, as opposed to the entire web?
Stephen Glass: I have no idea. I don't have a website, so I don't really know that much about them. I would trust you guys to know better than me.
Kambiz Foroohar: [while looking at the fake website] OK, looks like... we have the Jukt website up now. I have to say, Stephen, this looks very suspicious to me.
And thus the expression, "when you're in a hole, the first thing you have to do is to stop digging".
To wit....
Kambiz Foroohar: [Over the phone] In light of all this: how confident are you in this story of yours?
Stephen Glass: Are we off the record?
Kambiz Foroohar: If you like.
Stephen Glass: Well, off the record, some of the things that you've brought up: the website, the idea that I was always speaking to these people through voicemail, that is, that they were always calling me. It didn't seem strange before, but clearly, there are some problems with the story. You've pointed them out. One portion of it was structured in a way that - I just, well, in light of all this, I just, I'm... I'm increasingly beginning to believe that I've been duped.
Still digging.
Adam Penenberg: [refering to the discovery that Stephen fabricated his stories] This guy is toast.
They were really, really, really "mad at him".
Stephen Glass: [to Mrs. Duke's students] It's true, journalism is hard work. Everybody's under pressure, everybody's grinding to get the issue out, nobody's getting any sleep, but you are allowed to smile every once in a while.
Pick one:
1] before he got caught
2] after he got caught
Chuck Lane [over the phone]: His parents live in Highland Park, right?
David Bach: Yeah, or his brother out in Palo Alto.
Chuck Lane: [Surprised] I'm sorry?
David Bach: His brother at Stanford.
Uh-oh, Stephen.
Stephen Glass: [to the students] There are 16,800 magazines in this country. But only one calls itself the in-flight magazine of Air Force One. And that's the thrill of working at The New Republic. You're underpaid, the hours are brutal, but what you write gets read by people who matter. Presidents, lawmakers. Your work can actually influence public policy.
That and then this part: https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/two-m ... sm/29594/5
-
iambiguous
- Posts: 7464
- Joined: Mon Nov 22, 2010 10:23 pm
Re: Quote of the day
Suicide
“For as long as I could remember, a part of me had been waiting for the day it would happen; with the cunning that comes to people whose minds have been stripped to one desire, she picked the only day we weren't waiting for.” Tana French
I may have taught her that.
“Suicide, I had understood, is an act not of body against itself but of the will against the body.” J.M. Coetzee
On the other hand, dead is dead.
“That night she listened to the Nirvana album again. In Kurt Cobain's voice, Irene heard a perfect and beautiful misery, a voice stretched so thin with loneliness and wanting that it should break. But his voice didn't break, and there was a kind of joy in it too.” Nicola Yoon
Next up: Nick Drake.
“After a long analysis of Robson’s suicide, we concluded that it could only be considered philosophical in an arithmetical sense of the term: he, being about to cause an increase of one in the human population, had decided it was his ethical duty to keep the planet’s numbers constant.” Julian Barnes
New thread?
“Please don’t be so fucking grateful that we’re about to let you kill yourself again.” The words were dashed against my neck as he heaved me up higher, his nose buried in my hair as he breathed deeply. “It’s so insulting.”
“I don’t know how many more suicides our pride can take,” Jane Washington
No one does, really.
“Suicide, she realizes, isn’t opting out of the future, it’s opting out of the present, for who can see more of the future than that? Reference to the future, to its unbroken promise, is the reflex of those for whom the future's mirage still exists. Such people are lucky, deceived.” Susan Choi
Of course your suicide might be different. On the other hand, dead is dead.
“For as long as I could remember, a part of me had been waiting for the day it would happen; with the cunning that comes to people whose minds have been stripped to one desire, she picked the only day we weren't waiting for.” Tana French
I may have taught her that.
“Suicide, I had understood, is an act not of body against itself but of the will against the body.” J.M. Coetzee
On the other hand, dead is dead.
“That night she listened to the Nirvana album again. In Kurt Cobain's voice, Irene heard a perfect and beautiful misery, a voice stretched so thin with loneliness and wanting that it should break. But his voice didn't break, and there was a kind of joy in it too.” Nicola Yoon
Next up: Nick Drake.
“After a long analysis of Robson’s suicide, we concluded that it could only be considered philosophical in an arithmetical sense of the term: he, being about to cause an increase of one in the human population, had decided it was his ethical duty to keep the planet’s numbers constant.” Julian Barnes
New thread?
“Please don’t be so fucking grateful that we’re about to let you kill yourself again.” The words were dashed against my neck as he heaved me up higher, his nose buried in my hair as he breathed deeply. “It’s so insulting.”
“I don’t know how many more suicides our pride can take,” Jane Washington
No one does, really.
“Suicide, she realizes, isn’t opting out of the future, it’s opting out of the present, for who can see more of the future than that? Reference to the future, to its unbroken promise, is the reflex of those for whom the future's mirage still exists. Such people are lucky, deceived.” Susan Choi
Of course your suicide might be different. On the other hand, dead is dead.
-
iambiguous
- Posts: 7464
- Joined: Mon Nov 22, 2010 10:23 pm
Re: Quote of the day
Mysterious Skin
Neil: You're the only one I ever told.
Wendy: I know.
Neil: I never told Eric or my Mom. And I know some people might think it's fucked up, or whatever? But what happened that summer... is a huge part of me. No one ever made me feel that way, before or since. Like I was special.
Wendy: Neil, you were eight years old.
Neil: Yeah, but he really loved me. I mean, there were other kids sometimes, but...I was his prize. I was his one true love.
The fool?
Neil: I am so sick of this stinkin' little buttcrack of a town!
The bigger buttcracks are in the city.
Man: I know what you’re thinking. That wasn’t safe. But we’re in Kansas, thank God, not some big city full of diseases. Plus, you’re only a kid.
Safe sex!
Wendy: We’re not in Kansas anymore, Neil. You have got to be so careful.
Neil: I know.
Wendy: Don’t “l know” me, Neil McCormick. This is New York City. You do the wrong thing with the wrong person and you die.
Or you wish you were dead.
Dad: Brian, don’t be like this. I drove all this way. I just wanted to see how you’re doing.
Brian: Well, let me tell you what I want to know. Something happened to me when I was little. Do you know what I’m talking about? What happened to me that night I woke up bleeding in the cellar? Where were you that night?
Dad: You’re drunk.
Brian: Quit avoiding the subject! I was bleeding, I kept passing out! I wet my fucking bed and you never asked why! And what about that Halloween when I blacked out again? Something happened to me both those nights! What do you know about it? Tell me!
Dad: I’m sorry, Brian, l… I can’t help you.
Shades of Mystic River.
Neil: Then we played the 5 dollar game.
Ante up?
Neil: You're the only one I ever told.
Wendy: I know.
Neil: I never told Eric or my Mom. And I know some people might think it's fucked up, or whatever? But what happened that summer... is a huge part of me. No one ever made me feel that way, before or since. Like I was special.
Wendy: Neil, you were eight years old.
Neil: Yeah, but he really loved me. I mean, there were other kids sometimes, but...I was his prize. I was his one true love.
The fool?
Neil: I am so sick of this stinkin' little buttcrack of a town!
The bigger buttcracks are in the city.
Man: I know what you’re thinking. That wasn’t safe. But we’re in Kansas, thank God, not some big city full of diseases. Plus, you’re only a kid.
Safe sex!
Wendy: We’re not in Kansas anymore, Neil. You have got to be so careful.
Neil: I know.
Wendy: Don’t “l know” me, Neil McCormick. This is New York City. You do the wrong thing with the wrong person and you die.
Or you wish you were dead.
Dad: Brian, don’t be like this. I drove all this way. I just wanted to see how you’re doing.
Brian: Well, let me tell you what I want to know. Something happened to me when I was little. Do you know what I’m talking about? What happened to me that night I woke up bleeding in the cellar? Where were you that night?
Dad: You’re drunk.
Brian: Quit avoiding the subject! I was bleeding, I kept passing out! I wet my fucking bed and you never asked why! And what about that Halloween when I blacked out again? Something happened to me both those nights! What do you know about it? Tell me!
Dad: I’m sorry, Brian, l… I can’t help you.
Shades of Mystic River.
Neil: Then we played the 5 dollar game.
Ante up?
-
iambiguous
- Posts: 7464
- Joined: Mon Nov 22, 2010 10:23 pm
Re: Quote of the day
Slavoj Žižek
Like love, ideology is blind, even if people caught up in it are not.
Yo, Maia!
Does everything that exists have to be grounded in sufficient reasons? Or are there things that somehow happen out of nowhere?
Over and again: there's what you believe about things like this "in your head" and what you can actually demonstrate "out in the world" to others.
Money is precisely an object whose status depends on how we 'think' about it: if people no longer treat this piece of metal as money, if they no longer 'believe' in it as money, it no longer is money.
Said the millionaire?
Are, however, the terrorist fundamentalists, be they Christian or Muslim, really fundamentalists in the authentic sense of the term? Do they really believe? What they lack is a feature that is easy to discern in all authentic fundamentalists, from Tibetan Buddhists to the Amish in the US: the absence of resentment and envy, deep indifference towards the non-believer's way of life.
You know, if that's actually true.
...witness the surprise of the average American: 'How is it possible that these people display and practise such a disregard for their own lives?' Is not the obverse of this surprise the rather sad fact that we, in First World countries, find it more and more difficult even to imagine a public or universal Cause for which we would be ready to sacrifice our life?
You know, if that's actually true.
...even if we do not take things seriously, even if we keep an ironical distance, we are still doing them.
Ironism!
Like love, ideology is blind, even if people caught up in it are not.
Yo, Maia!
Does everything that exists have to be grounded in sufficient reasons? Or are there things that somehow happen out of nowhere?
Over and again: there's what you believe about things like this "in your head" and what you can actually demonstrate "out in the world" to others.
Money is precisely an object whose status depends on how we 'think' about it: if people no longer treat this piece of metal as money, if they no longer 'believe' in it as money, it no longer is money.
Said the millionaire?
Are, however, the terrorist fundamentalists, be they Christian or Muslim, really fundamentalists in the authentic sense of the term? Do they really believe? What they lack is a feature that is easy to discern in all authentic fundamentalists, from Tibetan Buddhists to the Amish in the US: the absence of resentment and envy, deep indifference towards the non-believer's way of life.
You know, if that's actually true.
...witness the surprise of the average American: 'How is it possible that these people display and practise such a disregard for their own lives?' Is not the obverse of this surprise the rather sad fact that we, in First World countries, find it more and more difficult even to imagine a public or universal Cause for which we would be ready to sacrifice our life?
You know, if that's actually true.
...even if we do not take things seriously, even if we keep an ironical distance, we are still doing them.
Ironism!
-
iambiguous
- Posts: 7464
- Joined: Mon Nov 22, 2010 10:23 pm
Re: Quote of the day
Being John Malkovich
Craig Schwartz: You don't know how lucky you are being a monkey. Because consciousness is a terrible curse. I think. I feel. I suffer. And all I ask in return is the opportunity to do my work. And they won't allow it...because I raise issues.
Of course, I raise issues here, don't I?
Craig Schwartz (in John Malkovich): There is truth, and there are lies, and art always tells the truth. Even when it's lying.
Or, as someone once suggested, art reflects the least untrue lie.
Lotte Schwartz: I think it's kinda sexy that John Malkovich has a portal, y'know, sort of like, it's like, like he has a vagina. It's sort of vaginal, y'know, like he has a, he has a penis AND a vagina. I mean, it's sort of like...Malkovich's...feminine side. I like that.
Woke!!!
Lotte Schwartz: Don't stand in the way of my actualization as a man.
Woke!!!
Guy in Restaurant: 'Scuse me.
John Malkovich: Mm-hmm?
Guy in Restaurant: Are you John Malkovich?
John Malkovich: Yes, I am.
Guy in Restaurant: Wow! You're really, uh, great in that movie...
John Malkovich: Oh?
Guy in Restaurant: ...where you play that retard.
John Malkovich: Oh, thank you very much. Thank you.
Guy in Restaurant: I have a cousin... who's a retard.
John Malkovich: Oh, thank you.
Guy in Restaurant: Yeah. So, um... as you might imagine, it... means a lot to me to see... retards... portrayed, uh, on the silver screen so compassionately.
John Malkovich: Well, thank you very much, I appreciate it.
So, who plays the retards here?
Craig Schwartz: There's a tiny door in my office, Maxine. It's a portal and it takes you inside John Malkovich. You see the world through John Malkovich's eyes... and then after about 15 minutes, you're spit out... into a ditch on the side of the New Jersey Turnpike.
Maxine: Sounds great! Who the fuck is John Malkovich?
Craig Schwartz: Oh, he's an actor. He's one of the great American actors of the 20th century.
Maxine: Oh yeah? What's he been in?
Craig Schwartz: Lots of things. That jewel thief movie, for example. He's very well respected. Anyway, the point is... this is a very odd thing. It's supernatural, for lack of a better word. I mean, it raises all sorts of philosophical-type questions, you know... about the nature of self, about the existence of a soul. You know, am I me? Is Malkovich Malkovich? I had a piece of wood in my hand Maxine. I don't have it any more. Where is it? Did it disappear? How could that be? Is it still in Malkovich's head? I don't know! Do you see what a metaphysical can of worms this portal is? I don't see how I could go on living my life the way I've lived it before.
Next up: my portal here. You know the one.
Craig Schwartz: You don't know how lucky you are being a monkey. Because consciousness is a terrible curse. I think. I feel. I suffer. And all I ask in return is the opportunity to do my work. And they won't allow it...because I raise issues.
Of course, I raise issues here, don't I?
Craig Schwartz (in John Malkovich): There is truth, and there are lies, and art always tells the truth. Even when it's lying.
Or, as someone once suggested, art reflects the least untrue lie.
Lotte Schwartz: I think it's kinda sexy that John Malkovich has a portal, y'know, sort of like, it's like, like he has a vagina. It's sort of vaginal, y'know, like he has a, he has a penis AND a vagina. I mean, it's sort of like...Malkovich's...feminine side. I like that.
Woke!!!
Lotte Schwartz: Don't stand in the way of my actualization as a man.
Woke!!!
Guy in Restaurant: 'Scuse me.
John Malkovich: Mm-hmm?
Guy in Restaurant: Are you John Malkovich?
John Malkovich: Yes, I am.
Guy in Restaurant: Wow! You're really, uh, great in that movie...
John Malkovich: Oh?
Guy in Restaurant: ...where you play that retard.
John Malkovich: Oh, thank you very much. Thank you.
Guy in Restaurant: I have a cousin... who's a retard.
John Malkovich: Oh, thank you.
Guy in Restaurant: Yeah. So, um... as you might imagine, it... means a lot to me to see... retards... portrayed, uh, on the silver screen so compassionately.
John Malkovich: Well, thank you very much, I appreciate it.
So, who plays the retards here?
Craig Schwartz: There's a tiny door in my office, Maxine. It's a portal and it takes you inside John Malkovich. You see the world through John Malkovich's eyes... and then after about 15 minutes, you're spit out... into a ditch on the side of the New Jersey Turnpike.
Maxine: Sounds great! Who the fuck is John Malkovich?
Craig Schwartz: Oh, he's an actor. He's one of the great American actors of the 20th century.
Maxine: Oh yeah? What's he been in?
Craig Schwartz: Lots of things. That jewel thief movie, for example. He's very well respected. Anyway, the point is... this is a very odd thing. It's supernatural, for lack of a better word. I mean, it raises all sorts of philosophical-type questions, you know... about the nature of self, about the existence of a soul. You know, am I me? Is Malkovich Malkovich? I had a piece of wood in my hand Maxine. I don't have it any more. Where is it? Did it disappear? How could that be? Is it still in Malkovich's head? I don't know! Do you see what a metaphysical can of worms this portal is? I don't see how I could go on living my life the way I've lived it before.
Next up: my portal here. You know the one.
-
iambiguous
- Posts: 7464
- Joined: Mon Nov 22, 2010 10:23 pm
Re: Quote of the day
Shattered Glass
Mrs. Duke: [Listing Stephen's journalism experience and background to her students] Contributing writer for Harper's magazine. Contributing writer for George Magazine. Contributing writer for Rolling Stone. And, of course, associate editor of The New Republic magazine in Washington D.C. Sorry if I'm beaming but, you know, I was his journalistic muse.
Stephen Glass: [to the students of her class] It's true.
Mrs. Duke: Just 7 years ago, he was sitting...
Stephen Glass: ...right there. I'm sorry. Right there. And I was doing the exact same thing you guys are doing. Grinding out pieces and then... having horrid nightmares of Mrs. Duke and her infamous red pen.
Mrs. Duke: And see what happens when greatness is demanded of you? Now he's at The New Republic.
Stephen Glass: And now I'm at The New Republic.
And then he wasn't.
Stephen Glass: [Pitching his next article] Every station on the radio is talking about it. Mike Tyson biting Evander Holyfield. And these are supposed to be news stations. So on Tuesday, I started calling a few of them, and I finally got through to one, a Bible-talk station in Kentucky. And I managed to convince the screener that I was a behavioral psychologist who specializes in human-on-human biting. I told the guy that I'd done all this extensive research on people who chomp flesh under extreme stress.
Caitlin Avey: What did they say?
Stephen Glass: They put me on the air. I took calls for 45 minutes.
Now that's entertainment!
Stephen Glass: [Speaking to Mrs. Duke's students] I'd like to pause for a moment. You can't really go into the world of journalism without first understanding how a piece gets edited at a place like TNR. This is the system that Michael Kelly brought with him from The New Yorker, a three day torture test. If your article is good, the process will only make it better. If your article is shaky, you're in for a long week. A story comes in, and it goes to a senior editor. He or she edits it on computer then calls in the writer, who makes revisions. Then the piece goes to a second editor, and the writer revises it again. Then it goes through a fact-check where every fact in the piece, every date, every title, every place or assertion is checked and verified. Then the piece goes to a copy editor where it is scrutinized once again. Then it goes to lawyers, who apply their own burdens of proof. Marty looks at it, too. He's very concerned with any kind of comment the magazine is making. Then production takes it and lays it out in columns inches and type. Then it goes back on paper, then back to the writer, back to the copy editor, back to editor number one and editor number two, back to the fact-checker, back to the writer, and back to production again. Throughout, those lawyers are reading and rereading, looking for red flags, anything that feels uncorroborated. Once they're satisfied, the pages are reprinted, and it all happens again. Every editor, the fact-checkers, they all go through it one last time. Now, most of you will start out as interns somewhere. And interns do a lot of fact-checking. So pay close attention. There is a hole in the fact-checking system. A big one. The facts in most pieces can be checked against some type of source material. If an article is on, say, Ethanol subsidies, you can check for discrepancies against the congressional record, trade publications... LexisNexis, footage from C-SPAN. But on other pieces, the only source material available are the notes provided by the reporter himself.
And, of course, the equivalent of that here.
Stephen Glass: [Pitching his next article to his editor with his colleagues listening] Is anyone interested in hackers? Uh, because I met this kid named Ian Restil. Biggest computer geek of all time. He hacked his way into the database of a company called Jukt Micronics and posted naked pictures of women and the salary of every Jukt employee on Jukt's website with a note saying, "the Big, Bad, Bionic Boy has been here, baby!" The guys at Jukt decided that it would be cheaper to hire him as a security consultant than it would be to try to stop him. So they met with him last week at the hotel where the National Hackers' Conference was taking place. It was the chairman from Jukt, Restil, Restil's mother, and Restil's agent.
Caitlin Avey: No.
Stephen Glass: Yes. Hackers have agents, too. All right... I was at the table with these guys. Restil's just laying out all of his demands,
Ian Restil: [In "flashback"] I want a Miata.
Stephen Glass: "I want a trip to Disney World."
Ian Restil: I want X-Men comic book number one.
Stephen Glass: "I want a lifetime subscription to Playboy."
Ian Restil: And throw in Penthouse.
Stephen Glass: And they're complying with every single word.
Jukt Executive: Excuse me, sir, pardon me for interrupting. We can arrange more money for you, and you can buy the comic book yourself. And when you're of a more appropriate age, you can buy the car and, uh, pornographic magazines on your own.
Ian Restil: [nods at his agent] Cool.
Stephen Glass: After that, after they have the meeting, he goes back into the conference, where all these hackers have gathered. And they're treating him like he's a rock star. Then, Restil jumps up on a table, and he's like...
Ian Restil: I want a Miata!
Stephen Glass: [demonstrating] He starts gyrating his hips like this. "I want a Miata! I want my Playboys. I want a trip to Disney World."
Ian Restil: [simultaneously with Glass] Show me the money!
Stephen Glass: [simultaneously with Restil] "Show me the money! Show me the money!"
[sits down]
Stephen Glass: Turns out there are now twenty-one states considering versions of a law called the "Uniform Computer Security Act," which would criminalize immunity deals between hackers and the companies they've torched. Meanwhile, Restil's agent claims a client list of over three hundred... one of whom was once paid a million dollars and a monster truck.
Made the whole thing up!
Title Card: That June, The New Republic printed an apology to its readers, admitting that 27 of the 41 pieces that Stephen Glass had written for the magazine had been either partially or entirely invented.
I missed that.
Title Card: Michael Kelly went on to become editor of The Atlantic Monthly. In April of 2003, he was killed while covering Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Bushwhacked, let's say.
Mrs. Duke: [Listing Stephen's journalism experience and background to her students] Contributing writer for Harper's magazine. Contributing writer for George Magazine. Contributing writer for Rolling Stone. And, of course, associate editor of The New Republic magazine in Washington D.C. Sorry if I'm beaming but, you know, I was his journalistic muse.
Stephen Glass: [to the students of her class] It's true.
Mrs. Duke: Just 7 years ago, he was sitting...
Stephen Glass: ...right there. I'm sorry. Right there. And I was doing the exact same thing you guys are doing. Grinding out pieces and then... having horrid nightmares of Mrs. Duke and her infamous red pen.
Mrs. Duke: And see what happens when greatness is demanded of you? Now he's at The New Republic.
Stephen Glass: And now I'm at The New Republic.
And then he wasn't.
Stephen Glass: [Pitching his next article] Every station on the radio is talking about it. Mike Tyson biting Evander Holyfield. And these are supposed to be news stations. So on Tuesday, I started calling a few of them, and I finally got through to one, a Bible-talk station in Kentucky. And I managed to convince the screener that I was a behavioral psychologist who specializes in human-on-human biting. I told the guy that I'd done all this extensive research on people who chomp flesh under extreme stress.
Caitlin Avey: What did they say?
Stephen Glass: They put me on the air. I took calls for 45 minutes.
Now that's entertainment!
Stephen Glass: [Speaking to Mrs. Duke's students] I'd like to pause for a moment. You can't really go into the world of journalism without first understanding how a piece gets edited at a place like TNR. This is the system that Michael Kelly brought with him from The New Yorker, a three day torture test. If your article is good, the process will only make it better. If your article is shaky, you're in for a long week. A story comes in, and it goes to a senior editor. He or she edits it on computer then calls in the writer, who makes revisions. Then the piece goes to a second editor, and the writer revises it again. Then it goes through a fact-check where every fact in the piece, every date, every title, every place or assertion is checked and verified. Then the piece goes to a copy editor where it is scrutinized once again. Then it goes to lawyers, who apply their own burdens of proof. Marty looks at it, too. He's very concerned with any kind of comment the magazine is making. Then production takes it and lays it out in columns inches and type. Then it goes back on paper, then back to the writer, back to the copy editor, back to editor number one and editor number two, back to the fact-checker, back to the writer, and back to production again. Throughout, those lawyers are reading and rereading, looking for red flags, anything that feels uncorroborated. Once they're satisfied, the pages are reprinted, and it all happens again. Every editor, the fact-checkers, they all go through it one last time. Now, most of you will start out as interns somewhere. And interns do a lot of fact-checking. So pay close attention. There is a hole in the fact-checking system. A big one. The facts in most pieces can be checked against some type of source material. If an article is on, say, Ethanol subsidies, you can check for discrepancies against the congressional record, trade publications... LexisNexis, footage from C-SPAN. But on other pieces, the only source material available are the notes provided by the reporter himself.
And, of course, the equivalent of that here.
Stephen Glass: [Pitching his next article to his editor with his colleagues listening] Is anyone interested in hackers? Uh, because I met this kid named Ian Restil. Biggest computer geek of all time. He hacked his way into the database of a company called Jukt Micronics and posted naked pictures of women and the salary of every Jukt employee on Jukt's website with a note saying, "the Big, Bad, Bionic Boy has been here, baby!" The guys at Jukt decided that it would be cheaper to hire him as a security consultant than it would be to try to stop him. So they met with him last week at the hotel where the National Hackers' Conference was taking place. It was the chairman from Jukt, Restil, Restil's mother, and Restil's agent.
Caitlin Avey: No.
Stephen Glass: Yes. Hackers have agents, too. All right... I was at the table with these guys. Restil's just laying out all of his demands,
Ian Restil: [In "flashback"] I want a Miata.
Stephen Glass: "I want a trip to Disney World."
Ian Restil: I want X-Men comic book number one.
Stephen Glass: "I want a lifetime subscription to Playboy."
Ian Restil: And throw in Penthouse.
Stephen Glass: And they're complying with every single word.
Jukt Executive: Excuse me, sir, pardon me for interrupting. We can arrange more money for you, and you can buy the comic book yourself. And when you're of a more appropriate age, you can buy the car and, uh, pornographic magazines on your own.
Ian Restil: [nods at his agent] Cool.
Stephen Glass: After that, after they have the meeting, he goes back into the conference, where all these hackers have gathered. And they're treating him like he's a rock star. Then, Restil jumps up on a table, and he's like...
Ian Restil: I want a Miata!
Stephen Glass: [demonstrating] He starts gyrating his hips like this. "I want a Miata! I want my Playboys. I want a trip to Disney World."
Ian Restil: [simultaneously with Glass] Show me the money!
Stephen Glass: [simultaneously with Restil] "Show me the money! Show me the money!"
[sits down]
Stephen Glass: Turns out there are now twenty-one states considering versions of a law called the "Uniform Computer Security Act," which would criminalize immunity deals between hackers and the companies they've torched. Meanwhile, Restil's agent claims a client list of over three hundred... one of whom was once paid a million dollars and a monster truck.
Made the whole thing up!
Title Card: That June, The New Republic printed an apology to its readers, admitting that 27 of the 41 pieces that Stephen Glass had written for the magazine had been either partially or entirely invented.
I missed that.
Title Card: Michael Kelly went on to become editor of The Atlantic Monthly. In April of 2003, he was killed while covering Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Bushwhacked, let's say.
-
iambiguous
- Posts: 7464
- Joined: Mon Nov 22, 2010 10:23 pm
Re: Quote of the day
Hard Candy
Jeff Kohlver: [Jeff shakes his head weakly as he awakes from a drug induced stupor] Why, uhh, why do I get, tied up first if, if this is how we're gonna play?
Hayley Stark: Jeff, play time is over...Now it's time to wake up.
His woke, her woke.
Hayley Stark: Torture? Is this torture to you? Because wow, I guess you've never read anything about Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch, because this...this is nothing.
Literally as it turned out.
Hayley Stark: This is what they make those federal laws for, Jeff. This is officially sick.
The stash!
Hayley Stark: Seriously. It turns out that castration is like the easiest surgical procedure around, and thousands of farm boys across the country geld their own livestock. So I figured, if they can do it, then I can pull it off, if you know what I mean.
Jeff Kohlver: I'm not fucking livestock.
Hayley Stark: You keep telling yourself that, stud.
Not your ordinary "kid" obviously.
Hayley Stark: I guess they, uh, weren't brass.
Ever the smartass.
Hayley: I shouldn’t have teased you. I shouldn’t have made you think there was a way out of this.
And then that final option?
Jeff Kohlver: [Jeff shakes his head weakly as he awakes from a drug induced stupor] Why, uhh, why do I get, tied up first if, if this is how we're gonna play?
Hayley Stark: Jeff, play time is over...Now it's time to wake up.
His woke, her woke.
Hayley Stark: Torture? Is this torture to you? Because wow, I guess you've never read anything about Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch, because this...this is nothing.
Literally as it turned out.
Hayley Stark: This is what they make those federal laws for, Jeff. This is officially sick.
The stash!
Hayley Stark: Seriously. It turns out that castration is like the easiest surgical procedure around, and thousands of farm boys across the country geld their own livestock. So I figured, if they can do it, then I can pull it off, if you know what I mean.
Jeff Kohlver: I'm not fucking livestock.
Hayley Stark: You keep telling yourself that, stud.
Not your ordinary "kid" obviously.
Hayley Stark: I guess they, uh, weren't brass.
Ever the smartass.
Hayley: I shouldn’t have teased you. I shouldn’t have made you think there was a way out of this.
And then that final option?
-
iambiguous
- Posts: 7464
- Joined: Mon Nov 22, 2010 10:23 pm
Re: Quote of the day
Time
“Never waste a minute thinking about people you don't like.” Dwight D. Eisenhower
Let alone the hours and hours some waste here.
“Time is an equal opportunity employer. Each human being has exactly the same number of hours and minutes every day. Rich people can't buy more hours. Scientists can't invent new minutes. And you can't save time to spend it on another day. Even so, time is amazingly fair and forgiving. No matter how much time you've wasted in the past, you still have an entire tomorrow.” Denis Waitley
Of course your sense of time might be very, very different.
Would you like me to explain that?
“The future starts today, not tomorrow.” Pope John Paul II
Then going all the way back to the Borgias?
“We are living in a culture entirely hypnotized by the illusion of time, in which the so-called present moment is felt as nothing but an infintesimal hairline between an all-powerfully causative past and an absorbingly important future. We have no present. Our consciousness is almost completely preoccupied with memory and expectation. We do not realize that there never was, is, nor will be any other experience than present experience. We are therefore out of touch with reality. We confuse the world as talked about, described, and measured with the world which actually is. We are sick with a fascination for the useful tools of names and numbers, of symbols, signs, conceptions and ideas.” Alan Wilson Watts
And, of course, my own rendition here.
“Enjoy life. There's plenty of time to be dead.” Hans Christian Andersen
Well, if that's an option, anyway.
“Clocks slay time...time is dead as long as it is being clicked off by little wheels; only when the clock stops does time come to life.” William Faulkner
Uh...figuratively?
“Never waste a minute thinking about people you don't like.” Dwight D. Eisenhower
Let alone the hours and hours some waste here.
“Time is an equal opportunity employer. Each human being has exactly the same number of hours and minutes every day. Rich people can't buy more hours. Scientists can't invent new minutes. And you can't save time to spend it on another day. Even so, time is amazingly fair and forgiving. No matter how much time you've wasted in the past, you still have an entire tomorrow.” Denis Waitley
Of course your sense of time might be very, very different.
Would you like me to explain that?
“The future starts today, not tomorrow.” Pope John Paul II
Then going all the way back to the Borgias?
“We are living in a culture entirely hypnotized by the illusion of time, in which the so-called present moment is felt as nothing but an infintesimal hairline between an all-powerfully causative past and an absorbingly important future. We have no present. Our consciousness is almost completely preoccupied with memory and expectation. We do not realize that there never was, is, nor will be any other experience than present experience. We are therefore out of touch with reality. We confuse the world as talked about, described, and measured with the world which actually is. We are sick with a fascination for the useful tools of names and numbers, of symbols, signs, conceptions and ideas.” Alan Wilson Watts
And, of course, my own rendition here.
“Enjoy life. There's plenty of time to be dead.” Hans Christian Andersen
Well, if that's an option, anyway.
“Clocks slay time...time is dead as long as it is being clicked off by little wheels; only when the clock stops does time come to life.” William Faulkner
Uh...figuratively?
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iambiguous
- Posts: 7464
- Joined: Mon Nov 22, 2010 10:23 pm
Re: Quote of the day
I Shot Andy Warhol
Valerie: Give me fifteen cents, and I’ll give you a dirty word.
Maurice Girodias: What’s the word?
Valerie: Men.
Of course, she's only paraphrasing vegetariantaxidermy.
Edie Sedgwick: What’s it about?
Valerie: It’s about how sleazy and disgusting men are. In the end the mother kills her son. It’s a comedy.
A Chelsea girl.
Paul Morrisey: The Factory is a lot like the old MGM star system.
T.V. Reporter: You serious?
Paul Morrisey: Oh, yes. We believe in stars. Actually, they’re very similar to the Walt Disney kids. Except, of course, that they’re modern chidren, so they take drugs and have sex.
If only for 15 minutes.
Candy Darling: I want to find the ad for Valerie’s play. I’m playing the ingenue. Oh, here it is. “SCUM, Society For Cutting Up Men is looking for garbage mouth dykes, butch or fem, with some acting ability. Experience not necessary. To appear in garbage mouth dykey anti-male play. A comedy called Up Your Ass.”
Woke is born?
Warhol: Candy, we were wondering, how often do you get your period?
Candy Darling: Everyday, Andy. I’m such a woman.
Uh, whatever that still means these days?
Paul Morrisey: You call this a groovy light show. I’d rather sit and watch the clothes dryer at the Laundromat. Oh, look. It changed color. Where’s a love child? They’ll get a kick outta this. Only a hippie would find this even remotely interesting, but I’ll tell ya. You spend one day with the hippies, and you realize how truly refreshing and unpretentious, hard core, New York degenerates are.
Let's just say you had to be there.
Maurice Girodias: I’m interested in you. After all, I specialize in the subversive.
Of course, what's left to subvert, right?
Bridgid [after the gang at the Factory has read Valerie’s play Up Your Ass]: It’s too degusting. Even for us.
Up her's then?
Ondine: What the fuck is a gay bar? Can you tell me? What is that? As a homosexual, I will not go! I will not go to one! Why should I be segregated?
Good point?
Epilogue: Valerie Solanas was sentenced to three years in Matteawan State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. After her release she was often homeless. She died of pneumonia in a welfare hotel in San Francisco in 1989. The SCUM Manifesto has been published many times all over the world. It is now a feminist classic.
Let's make it one here too.
Valerie: Give me fifteen cents, and I’ll give you a dirty word.
Maurice Girodias: What’s the word?
Valerie: Men.
Of course, she's only paraphrasing vegetariantaxidermy.
Edie Sedgwick: What’s it about?
Valerie: It’s about how sleazy and disgusting men are. In the end the mother kills her son. It’s a comedy.
A Chelsea girl.
Paul Morrisey: The Factory is a lot like the old MGM star system.
T.V. Reporter: You serious?
Paul Morrisey: Oh, yes. We believe in stars. Actually, they’re very similar to the Walt Disney kids. Except, of course, that they’re modern chidren, so they take drugs and have sex.
If only for 15 minutes.
Candy Darling: I want to find the ad for Valerie’s play. I’m playing the ingenue. Oh, here it is. “SCUM, Society For Cutting Up Men is looking for garbage mouth dykes, butch or fem, with some acting ability. Experience not necessary. To appear in garbage mouth dykey anti-male play. A comedy called Up Your Ass.”
Woke is born?
Warhol: Candy, we were wondering, how often do you get your period?
Candy Darling: Everyday, Andy. I’m such a woman.
Uh, whatever that still means these days?
Paul Morrisey: You call this a groovy light show. I’d rather sit and watch the clothes dryer at the Laundromat. Oh, look. It changed color. Where’s a love child? They’ll get a kick outta this. Only a hippie would find this even remotely interesting, but I’ll tell ya. You spend one day with the hippies, and you realize how truly refreshing and unpretentious, hard core, New York degenerates are.
Let's just say you had to be there.
Maurice Girodias: I’m interested in you. After all, I specialize in the subversive.
Of course, what's left to subvert, right?
Bridgid [after the gang at the Factory has read Valerie’s play Up Your Ass]: It’s too degusting. Even for us.
Up her's then?
Ondine: What the fuck is a gay bar? Can you tell me? What is that? As a homosexual, I will not go! I will not go to one! Why should I be segregated?
Good point?
Epilogue: Valerie Solanas was sentenced to three years in Matteawan State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. After her release she was often homeless. She died of pneumonia in a welfare hotel in San Francisco in 1989. The SCUM Manifesto has been published many times all over the world. It is now a feminist classic.
Let's make it one here too.
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iambiguous
- Posts: 7464
- Joined: Mon Nov 22, 2010 10:23 pm
Re: Quote of the day
God
“God does not give us more than we can handle," I am told but I wonder if God doesn't overestimate me just a little. Or perhaps, and this is likely, I underestimate God.” Julia Cameron
Okay, but is her God the right God?
“Those with less curiosity or ambition just mumble that God works in mysterious ways. I intend to catch Him in the act.” Damien Echols
I wonder how that turned out...
“I need a God who is bigger and more nimble and mysterious than what I could understand and contrive. Otherwise it can feel like I am worshipping nothing more than my own ability to understand the divine.” Nadia Bolz-Weber
Immortality and salvation are still good enough for me.
“To be a god can ultimately become boring and degrading. There'd be reason enough for the invention of free will! A god might wish to escape into sleep and be alive only in the unconscious projections of his dream-creatures.” Frank Herbert
More to the point, however, all you have to do is to believe it.
“The more you go with the flow of life and surrender the outcome to God, and the less you seek constant clarity, the more you will find that fabulous things start to show up in your life.” Mandy Hale
How's that working out for you?
“My feeling is, quite simply, that if there is a God, He has done such a bad job that he isn't worth discussing.” Isaac Asimov
You know, if it is ever that simple.
“God does not give us more than we can handle," I am told but I wonder if God doesn't overestimate me just a little. Or perhaps, and this is likely, I underestimate God.” Julia Cameron
Okay, but is her God the right God?
“Those with less curiosity or ambition just mumble that God works in mysterious ways. I intend to catch Him in the act.” Damien Echols
I wonder how that turned out...
“I need a God who is bigger and more nimble and mysterious than what I could understand and contrive. Otherwise it can feel like I am worshipping nothing more than my own ability to understand the divine.” Nadia Bolz-Weber
Immortality and salvation are still good enough for me.
“To be a god can ultimately become boring and degrading. There'd be reason enough for the invention of free will! A god might wish to escape into sleep and be alive only in the unconscious projections of his dream-creatures.” Frank Herbert
More to the point, however, all you have to do is to believe it.
“The more you go with the flow of life and surrender the outcome to God, and the less you seek constant clarity, the more you will find that fabulous things start to show up in your life.” Mandy Hale
How's that working out for you?
“My feeling is, quite simply, that if there is a God, He has done such a bad job that he isn't worth discussing.” Isaac Asimov
You know, if it is ever that simple.
-
iambiguous
- Posts: 7464
- Joined: Mon Nov 22, 2010 10:23 pm
Re: Quote of the day
High Art
Lucy’s mother: What did you do to yourself? C’mon, tell me! What kind of problem?
Lucy: I don’t know. It’s not really a problem. It’s more of an issue.
Lucy’s mother: You just said a problem. Now it’s an issue. Is it a problem or an issue?
Lucy: Both. I have a love issue, and a drug problem. Or maybe I have a love problem, and a drug issue. I don’t know.
Trust me: You won't either.
Lucy: Where do you think I’ve been all week?
Greta: With the teenager.
Gay or straight there, right?
Syd: The composition is so skillful that it seems really spontaneous, almost like a snapshot.
Lucy: I think it was a snapshot.
Syd: Well, it’s like cultural studies or semiotics. Philosophy, you know? Foucault, Derrida, Kristava, whatever.
Whatever by a mile?
Syd [looking at one of Lucy’s photographs]: Really, it ties into Barthes’ whole conception of photographic ecstasy. The way he explores temorality and memory and meaning. I sounds really dry in the text, but when I’m looking at your pictures, I really feel like I understand it.
You might understand it differently.
Lucy: I haven’t been deconstructed in a long time.
Syd: Yeah, I bet you hate that.
Lucy: I don’t hate it at all.
In other words, maybe she does, maybe she doesn't.
Harry: I have to say, Lucy, I love your older work. I find the realism incredibly honest.
Dominique: Lucy, I think your work has a certain allure right now—a cultural currency that we’d like to explore with you.
Lucy: A cultural currency?
Dominique: A certain cachet.
Harry: If I can interrupt, Lucy, I think Dominique is saying that the public can appreciate the rigor of your work now—the intimacy and desolation of your subjects.
Talking about What High Art Is in other words.
Syd: Where’s Lucy?
Arnie: Um, she died this morning.
Syd: That is a really fucked up thing to say to me. You don’t know shit about me and Lucy, and I don’t know what Greta has been telling you, but she is fucking gone.
Arnie: Just stop it, okay?
Syd: No! You don’t understand!
Arnie: It doesn’t fuckin ’ matter! [Long pause…then he gets out of the car]
[then it slowly dawns on Syd that Lucy really is dead]
A really powerful scene, let's say.
Lucy’s mother: What did you do to yourself? C’mon, tell me! What kind of problem?
Lucy: I don’t know. It’s not really a problem. It’s more of an issue.
Lucy’s mother: You just said a problem. Now it’s an issue. Is it a problem or an issue?
Lucy: Both. I have a love issue, and a drug problem. Or maybe I have a love problem, and a drug issue. I don’t know.
Trust me: You won't either.
Lucy: Where do you think I’ve been all week?
Greta: With the teenager.
Gay or straight there, right?
Syd: The composition is so skillful that it seems really spontaneous, almost like a snapshot.
Lucy: I think it was a snapshot.
Syd: Well, it’s like cultural studies or semiotics. Philosophy, you know? Foucault, Derrida, Kristava, whatever.
Whatever by a mile?
Syd [looking at one of Lucy’s photographs]: Really, it ties into Barthes’ whole conception of photographic ecstasy. The way he explores temorality and memory and meaning. I sounds really dry in the text, but when I’m looking at your pictures, I really feel like I understand it.
You might understand it differently.
Lucy: I haven’t been deconstructed in a long time.
Syd: Yeah, I bet you hate that.
Lucy: I don’t hate it at all.
In other words, maybe she does, maybe she doesn't.
Harry: I have to say, Lucy, I love your older work. I find the realism incredibly honest.
Dominique: Lucy, I think your work has a certain allure right now—a cultural currency that we’d like to explore with you.
Lucy: A cultural currency?
Dominique: A certain cachet.
Harry: If I can interrupt, Lucy, I think Dominique is saying that the public can appreciate the rigor of your work now—the intimacy and desolation of your subjects.
Talking about What High Art Is in other words.
Syd: Where’s Lucy?
Arnie: Um, she died this morning.
Syd: That is a really fucked up thing to say to me. You don’t know shit about me and Lucy, and I don’t know what Greta has been telling you, but she is fucking gone.
Arnie: Just stop it, okay?
Syd: No! You don’t understand!
Arnie: It doesn’t fuckin ’ matter! [Long pause…then he gets out of the car]
[then it slowly dawns on Syd that Lucy really is dead]
A really powerful scene, let's say.