10 observations, revelations, and bits of wisdom for this blustery Sunday morning

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I am working on a handful of substantial blog posts this weekend, so I am cheating a bit by offering here some of my favorite observations, revelations, bits of wisdom and other literary / journalistic ephemera that I came across or rediscovered in the past year or so. This collection feels perfectly suited for this blustery Sunday morning.

“The flakier your mission, the fiercer you have to be on the business side.”

— Ira Glass, as told to Marshall Stella, The Glow at the End of the Dial; Ira Glass Is, Um (Pause, Delete) … Listening: The Perfectly Edited World of His ‘American Life.’, The New York Times Magazine, April 11, 1999

“You have to make peace with the person who you wanted to be and the person you are. I do think that it’s more about getting to a certain age in life and for the rest of your life you kind of deal with it. I was a full on workaholic and I really thought my work could save me and then at some point you come to the end of the precipice and you’re like, ‘Oh, nothing is going to save me.’”

WTF Mike White to Marc Maron, February 22, 2013.

“All that you really require is to be honest to yourself and sometimes that’s dark, but, fuck, that’s the way it is.”

Josh Homme to Marc Maron, October 10, 2013.

“You were Marlon Brando; I was Steve McQueen. You were K.Y. Jelly; I was Vaseline.”

— Leonard Cohen, ‘Is This What You Wanted’, 1974

“You treat employees incredibly well and they will be loyal and [Videoport employees] are incredibly loyal to the point of near patriotism.”

— Samuel James, Interview: Samuel James, Part I [Videoport and Portland], The Bangor Daily News. September 26, 2012.

“My dad [Woody Guthrie] once noted that if a farmer robs a bank, within minutes there’s hundreds of people looking for that guy. You have got the Chief of Police, the deputies, marshals, the state police the FBI—hundreds of people looking for that one guy. But if a bank robs a farmer, it’s a little different. He said robbery is a chapter in etiquette.”

— Arlo Guthrie, A Prairie Home Companion, June 30, 2012

“It is sad state of affairs when a billionaire vigilante is no longer considered to be sufficiently fascist.”

— Dr. Jason Read on Rush Limbaugh & The Dark Knight Rises [via Facebook]

“Every time [Amelia Bedelia] gets fired in these books, I cheer. And when she gets rehired, I want to vote Republican. STOP BAILING OUT THESE PEOPLE.”

— Drew Magary, If You Give A Mouse A Cookie, You’re Fucked: 10 Tips For Avoiding Terrible Children’s Books, Deadspin. March 2, 2012

“Try to hug someone before trying to punch them.”

— Nick Offerman, Interview, Nerdist. March, 2013.

“Luckily, I found a gay friend who basically saved me from wanting to kill myself half the time. Apparently, everyone in high school knew he was gay; they just didn’t bother to tell me, or I just didn’t bother to notice until he just decided to make a pass at me one night. I just flatly told him that I wasn’t gay, but I’d still be his friend. After that, I started to realize that people were looking at me even more peculiarly. Then I started to get harassed by some people, especially in gym class. They felt threatened because they were naked and I was supposedly gay so they’d either better cover up their penises or punch me, or both. But then after that, I started to be proud of the fact that I was gay, even though I wasn’t. I really enjoyed the conflict. It was pretty exciting because I almost found my identity. I was a special geek, you know. It wasn’t quite the punk rocker I was looking for, but at least it was better than the average geek.”

— Kurt Cobain to Michael Azerrad (1993), from the Come as You Are: Story of Nirvana tapes, as featured in AJ Schnack’s Kurt Cobain: About a Son, 2006.

PHOTO CREDIT: Talia Emsalem

Alex Steed

About Alex Steed

Alex Steed has written about and engaged in politics since he was an insufferable teenager. He has run for the Statehouse and produced a successful web series. He now runs a content firm called Knack Factory with two guys who are a lot more talented than himself.