Daniel Silliman

24.8.02

Culture before Politics
The Native Tourist makes the eminently needed point that culture does not equal politics. Thus Christians must start engaging the culture. As important as the political realm is, it springs from the broader sphere of culture: education, art, media.

Seize the culture, the politics will follow.

by Daniel Silliman @ 10:07 PM. : Comments 0

What they Said
(an unrelated assortment of quotes I've been thinking about)
Kipling on Disillusion and Youth
We have done with Hope and Honour, we are lost to Love and Truth
We are dropping down the ladder--rung by rung
And the measure of our torment is the measure of our youth
God help us, for we know the worst to young!

Guthrie on Copyrighted Music:
"This song is Copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright # 154085, for a period of 28 years, and anybody caught singin it without our permission, will be mighty good friends of ourn, cause we don't give a dern. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that's all we wanted to do."
[Quoted by Eric Costello]

Hemmingway on Writing Better than Those Before You:
H: There is no use writing nything that has been written before unless you can beat it. What a writer in our time has to do is write what hasn't been written before or eat dead men at they have done. The only way he can tell how he is going is to cmpete with dead men...
Interviewer: But reading all the good writers might discourage you.
H: Then you ought to be discouraged.

by Daniel Silliman @ 9:56 PM. : Comments 0

So I'm in my room, almost completly unpacked, and now my internet connection is working.

Life is good and the real blogging will begin soon.

by Daniel Silliman @ 9:44 PM. : Comments 0

23.8.02

Real Journalists Get Shot At
Suprisingly, war photographers deal with a lot of stress. If this suprises you then read the CJR piece exploring the topic.

But c'mon. All Journalists are a crazy breed, and those of us who look for the crimes, the gunshots, the exciting real world are more so. Real journalists get shot at and, yeah, they have psychological problems. That's sotra the definition of journalist.

by Daniel Silliman @ 11:17 PM. : Comments 0

Listening to the blues, working on a paper redesign, putting together a killer masthead and pulling up a list of story ideas, life is certainly good in the Collegian newsroom.

by Daniel Silliman @ 2:58 AM. : Comments 0

Buy Books from the Legendary Powells
I wouldn't sell out to just anybody. But I'd do it for Powells, the glorious, legendary and incredible book store!

I've made pilgrimages to the store, the greatest bookstore on earth, and I've blogged my love for them. Now if you buy a book from the store through the link on my page you will also support me. I get 10 percent of all purchases made through the link.

Loads better than a measly and miserly tip jar and that terrible begging blogging, I say.

And books are always a good thing so go check it out.

by Daniel Silliman @ 2:31 AM. : Comments 0

20.8.02

Meanwhile...
Everything is slower than I presumed--what’s new about that?

Meanwhile...
I’m now in Salisbury, Maryland and on the cusp of a 12-hour drive back to school. Then things will once again return to normal speed, we pray. At least I’ll have 24/7 T-1 access.

So then all the promised posts and lengthy articles should come as I return to the scintillating and stimulating world of the college paper and general academia.

Meanwhile...
Atlas is sleeping, waiting for the first kiss ... I mean the return of school.

Check out Gideon Strauss’ heavy lifting. In a perfect world I’d be over there with him, feeling the weight of those theology book set the synapses firing.

Meanwhile...
I’m reading Irrational Man, apparently the book that introduced America to Existentialism, and soon I will be an expert or, at least, will blog on the subject.

Meanwhile...
We all ought to learn the art of the insult. If our cordial and academic exchanges must, occasionally come to insults then surely we can learn from the best of the insulters. Consider this list of Shakespeare's insults:

“What fools these mortals be.”
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, act III

“Would thou wert clean enough to spit upon.”
Timothy of Athens, act IV

“I desire we may be better strangers.”
As You Like It, act III

“Were I like thee I’d throw myself away.”
Timothy of Athens, act III

“Thou clay-brained guts, thou knott-pated fool, thou whoreson, obscene, greasy tallow-catch.”
Henry IV, part I, act II.

“Go thou, and fill another room in hell.”
Richard II, act V.

“You are a candle, the better part burnt out.”
Henry IV, Part 2, act I.

“A pox o’ your throat! you bawling, blasphemous, incharitable dog!”
The Tempset, act I.

“A rascal, an eater of broken meats, a base, proud, shallow, beggardly, three-suited, hundred-pound, filthy-worsted-stocking knave ... and art nothing but the composition of a knave, beggar, coward, pander and the son and heir of a mongrel ... one whom I will beat into clamorous whining if thou deniest the least syllable of thy addition.”
King Lear, act II.

by Daniel Silliman @ 9:53 PM. : Comments 0

Protein Wisdom has been acting a little strange and then, just all-of-the-sudden-like, he disappears on an alleged vacation.

Do you think "they" got him?

by Daniel Silliman @ 9:51 PM. : Comments 0

18.8.02

Coming:
The Great Pugsley Masacre,
The Devil in Your Armchair,
A review of Pachino's "Looking for Richard,"
A review of Broadway's "Chicago."

All this and more coming as a drop of my friends, Jeff and Andrew, and spend another day at FEE until I catch the bus out of Irvington New York mid Monday.

by Daniel Silliman @ 5:12 PM. : Comments 0