Writing Worth Reading
Writing Worth Reading
Scenes from the diplomatic life, worthy of Lawrence Durrell. Embassies, like ships, have their barnacles: The local bores, gatecrashers, frauds and eccentrics "who attach themselves to the Corps and intend to stay firmly attached"
For one thing, no more parking spaces. "In peak periods, virtually all cars will be on the roads driving people around. In off-peak periods, cars will still be on the roads, they’ll just pull over to the side of the road and stop"
Essay. On growing up in an unhappy family in a blighted American town. "Fresno is amorphous, a conical blob that looks like a piece of bubble gum squashed against a sidewalk". Downtown died in the 1970s. Gangs took over the streets
In which the author manages a brothel in the nation's capital for a few weeks until fired for alcoholism. The money isn't much good. But the work is varied, the people interesting and the fund of filthy stories incomparable
Enjoyable blogpost on how people interact with museum exhibits. Suggests we often look at paintings for just three seconds, and very rarely for more than 45. Fine art encourages us to walk in orderly fashion, but not so modern art
Interview. Not burglar, but locksmith. "Usually the victims are children or seniors. Grandpa is busy examining the contents of his safe deposit box at closing time when a bank employee performs the vault-closing procedure"
The workplace is beset by "managerialists". You know the type. They speak in jargon and don't understand what their staff do. Their internal communications are propaganda, "consultation" amounts to advance notice. And they bleed us
An alternative approach to parenting: "Courage and a moral compass are fascism’s bane. Dare to live a moral life, I tell my kids, the beautiful hoodlums, and sometimes what’s right wins out over what is merely prescribed"
In America, eccentrics are not born, but made. Usually by ingesting large quantities of illegal drugs. "When I landed in the People’s Republic of Berkeley in 1970 it felt as though I had followed Alice down the rabbit hole"
Great story from FDR election campaign. And, with a little help from Mark Twain, a lesson in how to persuade people to pay you for things when, by rights, it should be you paying them
Security expert Schneier replies to Sam Harris's call for targeted profiling of Muslims at airports. "Invasive TSA screening is nothing more than security theatre. It doesn’t make us safer, and it’s not worth the cost"
Former lap dancer speaks out against the industry she left. "Lap dancing is just an effect of a society that does not truly value women and, as hard as it may be to accept, a society in which women do not value themselves"
