...ol pick-up times), some are self-originating if meaningless (like buying a seltzer every day on the way to pick-up) and some were created for the purpose of adding deliberateness and meaning to life. For the last half a year, we have played a game at dinner called the Wonder Line. If one of the kids can tell me something that generates the experience of wonder — the cocked head, slight nod, raised eyebrow and muttered “hmmm ...” — we call it “clearing the Wonder Line.” If they can clear it five times, they get to decide how we end the night, i.e., have ice cream, or watch a “Pirates of the Caribbean” iteration.
The Emails of Natalie Portman and Jonathan Safran Foer - NYTimes.com
8 years
Am I correct that “A Tale of Love and Darkness” is the first project that was entirely your own conception? (The film is based on Amos Oz’s memoir of the same name, but that was your choice, as were all of the departures your script makes from his book.) There is so much that I love about the film — how simultaneously precise and impressionistic it is, how visually and verbally beautiful — but more than anything, I was moved by how much you seemed to ...
The Emails of Natalie Portman and Jonathan Safran Foer - NYTimes.com
8 years
But after hearing it 11, 12, 15 times, I began to take it seriously, ask more questions about it. And as I did, the Gap began to make more sense. Modern presidential campaigns are built to reward people who are really, really good at talking. So imagine what a campaign feels like if you’re not entirely natural in front of big crowds. Imagine th...
Understanding Hillary: The Clinton America sees isn’t the Clinton colleagues know. Why are they so different?
Understanding Hillary: The Clinton America sees isn’t the Clinton colleagues know. Why are they so different?
8 years
I’ve come to call it “the Gap.” There is the Hillary Clinton I watch on the nightly news and that I read described in the press. She is careful, calculated, cautious. Her speeches can sound like executive summaries from a committee ...
Understanding Hillary: The Clinton America sees isn’t the Clinton colleagues know. Why are they so different?
8 years
This kind of response often has an air of punishing or condemning those who are less radical, and it is exactly the opposite of movement- or alliance-building. Those who don’t simply exit the premises will be that much more cautious about opening their mouths. Except to bitch, the acceptable currency of the realm.
We could be heroes: an election-year letter | Rebecca Solnit | Opinion | The Guardian
8 years
This kind of response often has an air of punishing or condemning those who are less radical, and it is exactly the opposite of movement- or alliance-building. Those who don’t simply exit the premises will be that much more cautious about opening their mouths. Except to bitch, the acceptable currency of the realm.
We could be heroes: an election-year letter | Rebecca Solnit | Opinion | The Guardian
8 years
Instead, I constantly encounter a response that presumes the job at hand is to figure out what’s wrong, even when dealing with an actual victory, or a constructive development. Recently, I mentioned that California’s current attorney general, Kamala Harris, is anti-death penalty and also acting in good ways to defend people against foreclosure. A snarky Berkeley professor’s immediate response began: “Excuse me, she’s anti-death penalty, but let the record show that her office condoned the illegal purchase of lethal injection drugs.”
Advertisement Apparently, we are not allowed to celebrate the fact that the attorney general for 12% of all Americans is pretty cool in a few key ways or figure out where that could take us. My respondent was attempting to crush my ebullience and wither the discussion, and what purpose exactly does that serve? This kind of response often has an air of punishing or condemning those who are less radical, and it is exactly the opposite of movement- or alliance-building. Those who don’t simply exit the premises...
We could be heroes: an election-year letter | Rebecca Solnit | Opinion | The Guardian
Advertisement Apparently, we are not allowed to celebrate the fact that the attorney general for 12% of all Americans is pretty cool in a few key ways or figure out where that could take us. My respondent was attempting to crush my ebullience and wither the discussion, and what purpose exactly does that serve? This kind of response often has an air of punishing or condemning those who are less radical, and it is exactly the opposite of movement- or alliance-building. Those who don’t simply exit the premises...
We could be heroes: an election-year letter | Rebecca Solnit | Opinion | The Guardian
8 years
The poison often emerges around electoral politics. Look, Barack Obama does bad things and I deplore them, though not with a lot of fuss, since they’re hardly a surprise. He sometimes also does not-bad things, and I sometimes mention them in passing, and mentioning them does not negate the reality of the bad things.
We could be heroes: an election-year letter | Rebecca Solnit | Opinion | The Guardian
8 years
...like a Teletubby. If I gave you a pony, you would not only be furious that not everyone has a pony, but you would pick on the pony for not being radical enough until it wept big, sad, hot pony tears. Because what we’re talking about here is not an analysis, a strategy, or a cosmology, but an attitude, and one that is poisoning us. Not just me, but you, us, and our possibilities.
We could be heroes: an election-year letter | Rebecca Solnit | Opinion | The Guardian
8 years
O rancid sector of the far left, please stop your grousing! Compared to you, Eeyore sounds like a Teletubby. If I gave you a pony, you would not only be furious that not everyone has a pony, but you would pick on the pony for not being radical enough until it wept big, sad, hot pony tears. Because what we’r...
We could be heroes: an election-year letter | Rebecca Solnit | Opinion | The Guardian
8 years
22,936