&tc.

Italian pianist Maurizio Pollini performs Chopin’s “Tristesse”

Omne animal post coitum triste.

All animals are sad after sex.
— Latin proverb
Talent isn’t enough, she had told us. Writing is work. Anyone can do this, anyone can learn to do this. It’s not rocket science, it’s habits of mind and habits of work. I started with people much more talented than me, she said, and they’re dead or in jail or not writing. The difference between myself and them is that I’m writing.
— Alexander Chee from Anne Dillard and the Writing Life
i hope i dont see more articles like this. the best thing about houston is that EVERYONE HATES IT. it keeps out douchebag hipster assholes, the kind of people that flock to Seattle, Austin, and New York. houston has none of those because everyone thinks it’s a shithole. please please, let them think it. it is so nice and free and wonderful because of it. so much art and music and food all left to enjoy in a city that completely lacks pretention. it is a wonderful place (i’m talking inside the loop, not that that sprawling katy bullshit) with awesome people and amazing times.
— Comment on Five Things Houston Does Better than Seattle from Slog
Food Rules: Your Dietary Dos and Don’ts, NYT

Food Rules: Your Dietary Dos and Don’ts, NYT

I have not spoken to anyone since Monday. The radio is playing ‘Downtown’ by Petula Clerk. I’ve been reading some Shaw — Man and Superman. I’m wearing jeans, my cable knit sweater and my Keds. I’ve made coffee and am waiting for it to cool. Let it be recorded that at this moment I am happy.
— Entry from Roger Ebert’s journal when he was attending university in Cape Town. (via bitdepth)
The preparation of chicken-fried steak is a violent, messy and dangerous affair. Do not be afraid of small chunks of meat flying from your tenderizer and adhering to your walls. Do not be afraid of being covered head to toe in a paste-like mixture of flour, batter and grease. And do not be afraid of hot oil splattering and some screechy sizzling as you flip the steaks in the skillet. Be patient: in the midst of this bloody battle, this culinary chaos, you will ultimately find both the beauty and order that is a plate of chicken-fried steak covered in cream gravy.
— Homesick Texan
Hazlitt, that most self-conscious of writers, remarked that he did not see why an author is bound to talk, any more than he is bound to dance, or ride, or fence better than other people. Reading, study, silence, thought are a bad introduction to loquacity.
— Why Good Writers Can Be Bad Conversationalists, NYT
They say, always they say, “A social sciences degree? What do you do with that?” And the one and only answer you need, fellow graduates—that is, if you don’t hit them—the only answer you need is to smile, look them in the eye, and say, I connect. I connect!
— Bradford Gray Telford, University of Houston’s Commencement, 2008
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