kidchamp dot net

02.04.11

i've been hard at work on the last THUNDERTOME of 2010 (it's december in my head), but it's been a rough one; i finished mary karr's lit more than a month ago, and (spoiler) i didn't have all that much to say about it at the time. if you initiate a gladiatorial book review series on your blog, internets, know that inertia hits like a novelty sock full of buffalo nickels when you fall behind on your battles. i've also been wooing an icelandic tattoo studio (it's march in my head), closing a spring issue at the office (it's april in my head), and, like, learning the finer points of beekeeping ("the point of beekeeping is keeping the bees in the box"). know that i am coming for you, mary karr, and that i'm calling you out for uncute peek-a-boo name-dropping.* in the interim, non-karr passages i've enjoyed:

Creating a life that reflects your values and satisfies your soul is a rare achievement. In a culture that relentlessly promotes avarice and excess as the good life, a person happy doing his own work is usually considered an eccentric, if not a subversive. Ambition is only understood if it’s to rise to the top of some imaginary ladder of success. Someone who takes an undemanding job because it affords him the time to pursue other interests and activities is considered a flake. A person who abandons a career in order to stay home and raise children is considered not to be living up to his potential—as if a job title and salary are the sole measure of human worth. You’ll be told in a hundred ways, some subtle and some not, to keep climbing, and never be satisfied with where you are, who you are, and what you’re doing. There are a million ways to sell yourself out, and I guarantee you’ll hear about them.

(bill watterson, via sarah brown)


Call it “squinting”—you will have your own term. You’ve chosen a favorite musician, probably in your teen years, and the relationship grows through awkward phases—nautical dress, orchestral arrangements, dodgy collections of poems. Along the way, you find yourself squinting to keep seeing what made you fall in love; you will need to pretend that the accordion and the Balkan song cycles are something else. (Fans of Bob Dylan have unusually deep creases.)

(sasha frere-jones, "gut check")


With the success of last summer's Shakespeare in the Park productions of The Merchant of Venice and The Winter's Tale, the 2011 Shakespeare in the Park summer season will once again present two Shakespeare plays in repertory, giving audiences eight straight weeks of free Shakespeare at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park.

Daniel Sullivan, who recently directed Twelfth Night and The Merchant of Venice in the Park, will direct All's Well That Ends Well and David Esbjornson, who directed Much Ado About Nothing in the Park, will direct Measure for Measure.

"Last year's Shakespeare rep was a thrilling success; the current run of The Merchant of Venice on Broadway is a wonderful reminder of what made last summer so magical," says Public Theater Artistic Director Oskar Eustis. "This year, two of Shakespeare's richest and most rewarding plays make up our season. We are delighted that once again an American Shakespeare company will light up New York's summer."

(the public, via my inbox)

who has two thumbs and gets to see two productions of measure for measure in less than a year? that's jealousy you're feeling. oh, but it is.

imaginary reading group discussion questions

01 how do you keep the bees in the box?

02 for whom do you squint?

03 measure for measure: how many times would you be willing to see it?

04 on viewing, how's the oscar movie death race going? we finally saw the king's speech this past weekend; mostly great acting, questionable history.

05 if you were going to make vegetarian chili for a super bowl gathering and chili festival ("cookoff is so adversarial"), what would you simmer?

06 you'd let me know if i got too commercial, right?

*"Three weeks after the lamest stab in suicide's history, I sit typing in the sunlit hall of that asylum so famous one Ivy-League poet later suggests I include my time there on a resume."