Wednesday, December 27, 2017

Unseen Order: Why You Should Read Books You Hate

INK BOTTLEWhy don’t we try staying home?
Why don’t we try not to roam?
What if we threw a party or two,
And asked only you and me?
I long to sit by the fireside,
My girl, with me sitting by’er side,
Wouldn’t that be nice?
We’ve tried ev’ry thing else twice,
So why don’t we try staying home?
~Cole Porter, lyric for “Why Don’t We Try Staying Home?” (cut from Fifty Million Frenchmen)

Why You Should Read Books You Hate - The New York Times




About 24.4 inches by 33.6 inches, it’s tempera on wood panel, and the provenance line says “he perhaps bought it from Messrs Colnaghi, London.” Interestingly, the painting was “formerly attributed to Mainardi, Sebastiano” but reattributed by E. Fahy in 1998.
As the museum says online, “Domenico Ghirlandaio was the master of one of the biggest, busiest and most successful workshops in Florence at the end of the 15th century”–he taught Michelangelo, among others. There is a bit more about the painter and this work here.

What type  of milk is best for coffee

Via Newsweek:  God and E.T.: Vatican Astronomer Would Baptize Aliens If They Ask.”


Two women charged as 3000 swamp Christmas Day party in Little Bay, Sydney



NEWS YOU CAN USE? 7 Mistakes Women Make with Men

Philosophers, savants, sages, and intellectuals have always been attracted to power. But what are the delusional propensities that led so many to embrace dictators? Dictators We Attract  

Desire for booze lubricated the course of history: agriculture, civilization, revolution. What is it about getting drunk that we love so much? Lubricated Life 


Although it’s impossible to say for sure, Trofim Lysenko probably killed more human beings than any individual scientist in history. Other dubious scientific achievements have cut thousands upon thousands of lives short: dynamite, poison gas, atomic bombs. But Lysenko, a Soviet biologist, condemned perhaps millions of people to starvation through bogus agricultural research—and did so without hesitation. Only guns and gunpowder, the collective product of many researchers over several centuries, can match such carnage.


Why Hoover’s FBI Investigated ‘It’s A Wonderful Life’ For Communist Influences…


"An unnamed FBI agent who watched the film as part of a larger FBI program aimed at detecting and neutralizing Commie influences in Hollywood ... uncovered that 'those responsible for making It's a Wonderful Life had employed two common tricks used by Communists to inject propaganda into the film.'" … [Read More]


Melville House helpfully offers a guide to which of the far-too-many lists are worth paying attention to – among them, The Best List That’s Interactive and Lets You Play With Filters to Figure Out What to Read Next, Best List That’s Chosen by Actual Readers and Not Critics, Best List That We’re Partial to Because There’s a Melville House Book On It, and Best List that Features a Book About Sharks.






Author Of ‘Cat Person’ Lands $1 Million+ Book Deal



Kristen Roupenian, whose New Yorker short story about a 21st-century-style bad date has become a viral sensation this month, has been signed by Scout Press for two books, a short story collection under the title You Know You Want This and an as-yet-untitled novel.