Zitat des Tages von Russell Smith:
Personally, I see little distinction between an artistic mentality and criminality. You couldn't possibly create a compelling story without some wickedness or some fascination with the disgusting. Being good is a hindrance to a writer.
There is actually no such thing as an Artist type. 'Artist' is just an economic designation, a box you tick on a form. We are all people, and we are all creative.
I went to Queen's - a fine university with the proudly stupidest frosh week in the country. This was, when I was there, supposed to be somehow evidence of a higher social class.
The locale does not determine the dress code; the host does.
It's great that I can look up a fact instantly on my cellphone, but I miss the days in my room with a dog-eared, text-heavy paperback, immersed in the statistics of crime and punishment and lunacy, completely alone with the narrative of human depravity.
If you define eccentricity as creativity, then yes, creativity is eccentricity.
A suit is just a suit: a practical garment, not a ceremonial robe; it can be worn out to dinner with friends or for a visit to an art gallery. Its beauty and craftsmanship are utterly wasted if you think of it as something magical and symbolic.
Only a tiny portion of music history involves a singer and a lyric. Songs in music are generally thought to be a minor form.
Songs are great. I love songs. I sing them in the shower sometimes. They can be poignant or cheery or angry, and they can have catchy and satisfying melodies. There's nothing wrong with songs.
Yes, the hunky barista looks even more terrifically masculine with three days' growth on his chin. Guys under 50 mostly do. But when your beard is partly or largely grey, that stubble can just look a little unwashed. Sadly, when you're over 50, different rules apply.
Most men are petrified of standing out in any way or being thought superficial.
An Indian tribe is sovereign to the extent that the U.S. permits it to be sovereign.
Ah, the intractable Canadian problem: Winter and finery are basically incompatible.
Periods of nostalgia are impossible to predict or explain.
If people didn't read books on the subway, underground journeys would be dreary.
There is something insouciant and boyish about the sockless ankle in summer.
What I don't understand is why men have decided that they like wearing hats indoors. It makes no sense to me.
Sadly, I don't really believe in the idea of timeless fashion. It's an oxymoron. If 'classic fashion' really never changed, we'd all still be wearing togas.
The novel is just fine: It's novelists who aren't doing so well.
Calls for the simplification of abstract or allusive art have always come from governments suspicious of artists themselves. This is why totalitarian regimes have always legislated some form of realism.
What makes a publisher decide to market a book to a particular audience is not the subject matter but the style.
Possibly the strangest book ever made, the 'Codex Seraphinianus' is an encyclopedia of an imaginary world, with illegible calligraphy - it is written in an alphabet no one can understand - and surreal drawings of odd beasts and machines.
Canadian writers don't live in gated mansions; you can just talk to them when you see them lining up at the Second Cup.
We are still vulnerable to gender-targeted marketing no matter how carefully we edit our children's bookshelves.
Even in early adulthood, men can't be told what to wear; they can only be subtly moved by example, encouragement, and a generally sophisticated atmosphere.
I was given a thick paperback copy of the 'Guinness Book of Records' when I was 11 years old, and I read it gluttonously, cover to cover, paying special lip-smacking attention to all the incredibly gruesome chapters about the violence of human history.
Frosh-week songs are meant to be offensive because offensive is rebellious.
From its beginning, fan fiction has been written mostly by women. Originally, this was because of a dearth of interesting female characters in conventional sci-fi.
