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Tuesday, December 14, 2004 |
Idle hands
Idle hands: "David Pescovitz:
Mark Slouka wrote an amazing essay for the November issue of Harper's Magazine called 'Quitting The Paint Factory: On the Virtues of Idleness.' It's about the beauty of doing nothing, and the fight against those who would deny us one of life's greatest pleasures:
Idleness is not just a psychological necessity, req¬uisite to the construction of a complete human being; it constitutes as well a kind of political space, a space as necessary to the workings of an actual democracy as, say, a free press. How does it do this? By allowing us time to figure out who we are, and what we believe; by allowing us time to consider what is unjust, and what we might do about it. By giving the inner life (in whose precincts we are most ourselves) its due. Which is precisely what makes idle¬ness dangerous. All manner of things can grow out of that fallow soil. Not for nothing did our mothers grow suspicious when we had 'too much time on our hands.' They knew we might be up to something. And not for nothing did we whisper to each other, when we were up to something, 'Quick, look busy.'
Mother knew instinctively what the keepers of the castles have always known: that trouble – the kind that might threaten the symmetry of a well-ordered garden – needs time to take root. Take away the time, therefore, and you choke off the problem before it begins. Obedience reigns, the plow stays in the furrow; things proceed as they must. Which raises an uncomfortable question: Could the Church of Work – which today has Americans aspir¬ing to sleep deprivation the way they once aspired to a personal knowledge of God – be, at base, an anti-democratic force? Well, yes. James Russell Lowell, that nineteenth-century workhorse, summed it all up quite neatly: 'There is no better ballast for keeping the mind steady on its keel, and sav¬ing it from all risk of crankiness, than business.'
Link (Thanks, Terre!)"
(Via Boing Boing.)
3:35:45 PM Permalink
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Beatles Xmas albums from the 60s downloads
Beatles Xmas albums from the 60s downloads: "Cory Doctorow:
At long last, the Beatles' rare Xmas albums as downloads. Moblog Kid sez, 'If you were fortunate enough to have been a member of the official Beatles fan club between 1963 and 1969, then you likely have heard one or more of these records. The Beatles recorded them and sent them out to their adoring fans every year, finally collecting them all on one album for the 1970 edition. Now rare and quite pricey to obtain, these seldom heard recordings offer a rare glimpse of the fabs at their funniest.'
Link
(Thanks, Moblog Kid!)"
(Via Boing Boing.)
3:35:04 PM Permalink
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It's in the Water
The Times writes about the geology of beer making. It's logical, as they say, that geologists would be interested in beer: nothing cools you off after a hard day digging than a cold beer. The piece talks about how different styles of beer -- pilsners, dark beers, IPAs -- grew out of where they were brewed. Different mineral qualities in the water gave different properties to the beer, which helped (or hindered) the process of turning the starches in malted grains (mostly barley) into sugars for yeasts to feast upon. So barleys were malted differently, and different levels of hops were added, giving beers from different regions different characteristics. Today, when homebrewing or microbrewing, people add different minerals to their water to help capture the same flavor profiles. It's a pretty interesting article, and brewing is a very interesting -- and pleasurable! -- thing to do.
12:26:54 PM Permalink
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© Copyright 2005 Steve Michel.
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