Archives for September 2012
Coney Island, 1952
Margaret Bourke-White, “Beach Accident” (Coney Island 1952)
Défendre Jacob, the book trailer
Book trailer for the upcoming release of Defending Jacob in France (Défendre Jacob, available October 11 from Éditions Michel Lafon).
Route 66, 1969
Ernst Haas, “Route 66, Albuquerque, New Mexico” (1969)
Emerson: Finish each day and be done with it
Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day, you shall begin it serenely with too high a spirit to be encumbered by your old nonsense.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Homer votes
Demolition of Boston’s West End
Chambers and Barton Streets, July 19, 1959 (via).
Zadie Smith’s Ten Rules for Writers
- When still a child, make sure you read a lot of books. Spend more time doing this than anything else.
- When an adult, try to read your own work as a stranger would read it, or even better, as an enemy would.
- Don’t romanticise your “vocation.” You can either write good sentences or you can’t. There is no “writer’s lifestyle.” All that matters is what you leave on the page.
- Avoid your weaknesses. But do this without telling yourself that the things you can’t do aren’t worth doing. Don’t mask self-doubt with contempt.
- Leave a decent space of time between writing something and editing it.
- Avoid cliques, gangs, groups. The presence of a crowd won’t make your writing any better than it is.
- Work on a computer that is disconnected from the internet.
- Protect the time and space in which you write. Keep everybody away from it, even the people who are most important to you.
- Don’t confuse honours with achievement.
- Tell the truth through whichever veil comes to hand — but tell it. Resign yourself to the lifelong sadness that comes from never being satisfied.
Zadie Smith (via)