Loose Linksy:
Hand-springs
20 June 2013
¶ That old book smell: “grassy notes with a tang of acids and a hint of vanilla.” (Smithsonian; via The Rumpus)
¶ Department of Gee Whiz: Carbon fibers developed in Finland may double the lift capacity of elevators. Currently, cables comprise three-quarters of the weight of the highest elevators (500 m). Just don’t ask us to board one. (The Economist; via The Morning News.)
¶ From Scout’s open-question session at Gizmodo: “I have since learned to always notify the police in advance while scouting suburban neighborhoods.”
¶ Wisdom of the ages: From Mimi Sheraton’s 1962 Seducer’s Cookbook, rediscovered @ Brain Pickings:
He has his ego, and nothing deflates it more than the thought that a woman’s sole interest in him is sexual. This may not sound plausible, but it’s one of the best-kept male secrets. Just let a man think any woman he’s at all interested in would have gone to bed with any other presentable male who chanced by, and he is enraged and starts competing. He will immediately begin to turn hand-springs on her lawn (intellectually and even physically), trying to convince her he’s really a pretty special guy — out of bed as well as in. This is where his talents as a seducer will stand him in good deal.
We think that most men would have grave doubts about the sensory apparatus of any woman whose sole interest in them was sexual.
¶ Food for thought: Rachel Kushner, interviewed by The Millions:
If I have to compare, well, the art world is obviously more self-referential, in that you can’t really participate in the conversation of contemporary art unless you’re inside the discourse. Literature is not self-referential in the same way at all. Which makes it more open, less exclusive, but is deriving from the fact that it’s a more conservative and rigid form. They’re almost completely different. The art world has a lively and dynamic social component to it, whereas the publishing world is, er, not that dynamic of a place, and it doesn’t have to be, it’s not motored the same way. There are no biennials, and there isn’t an obscene pile of money at stake. And finally, maybe writers are less open to the culture than artists for some reason. Artists truck in culture. I don’t feel that’s necessarily the case with writers. Some are following the culture, of course, and their work is in response. But there are also these quiet psychological insights that writers pursue, which are different. [Emphasis supplied.]