“Rinata con la Camicia” (+)
Vanity Fair Italy, 15 May 2013
photographer: Kelly Klein
Anne Marie Reilly
“Rinata con la Camicia” (+)
Vanity Fair Italy, 15 May 2013
photographer: Kelly Klein
Anne Marie Reilly
I had an auto-repair man once who, on these intelligence tests, could not possibly have scored more than 80 by my estimate. I always took it for granted that I was far more intelligent than he was. Yet, when anything went wrong with my car, I hastened to him with it, watched him anxiously as he explored its vitals, and listened to his pronouncements as though they were divine oracles— and he always fixed my car. Well, then, suppose my auto-repair man devised questions for an intelligence test. Or suppose a carpenter did, or a farmer, or, indeed, almost anyone but an academician. By every one of those tests, I’d prove myself a moron, and I’d be a moron, too. In a world where I could not use my academic training and my verbal talents but had to do something intricate or hard, working with my hands, I would do poorly. My intelligence, then, is not absolute but is a function of the society I live in and of the fact that a small subsection of that society has managed to foist itself on the rest as an arbiter of such matters.
Consider my auto-repair man, again. He had a habit of telling me jokes whenever he saw me. One time, he raised his head from under the automobile hood to say, “Doc, a deaf-and-mute guy went into a hardware store to ask for some nails. He put two fingers together on the counter and made hammering motions with the other hand. The clerk brought him a hammer. He shook his head and pointed to the two fingers he was hammering. The clerk brought him nails. He picked out the sizes he wanted, and left. Well, doc, the next guy who came in was a blind man. He wanted scissors. How do you suppose he asked for them?”
Indulgently, I lifted my right hand and made scissoring motions with my first two fingers. Whereupon my auto-repair man laughed raucously and said, “Why, you dumb jerk, he used his voice and asked for them.”
Then he said smugly, “I’ve been trying that on all my customers today.”
“Did you catch many?” I asked.
“Quite a few,” he said, “but I knew for sure I’d catch you.”
“Why is that?” I asked.
“Because you’re so goddamned educated, doc, I knew you couldn’t be very smart.”
— Isaac Asimov
reblogged via aarjhen
But the 8-hour workday is too profitable for big business, not because of the amount of work people get done in eight hours (the average office worker gets less than three hours of actual work done in 8 hours) but because it makes for such a purchase-happy public. Keeping free time scarce means people pay a lot more for convenience, gratification, and any other relief they can buy. It keeps them watching television, and its commercials. It keeps them unambitious outside of work.
We’ve been led into a culture that has been engineered to leave us tired, hungry for indulgence, willing to pay a lot for convenience and entertainment, and most importantly, vaguely dissatisfied with our lives so that we continue wanting things we don’t have. We buy so much because it always seems like something is still missing.
Your Lifestyle Has Already Been Designed by David Cain // Raptitude
“I asked him to be in Boogie Nights. I asked him to be in There Will Be Blood. I’ve wanted to work with him for the longest time. But the thing about Joaquin is that he’s incredibly unpredictable. There’s so much energy around him, he’s like dynamite … he’s thrilling, sometimes a bit maddening.”
- Paul Thomas Anderson on Joaquin Phoenix
The Master (2012)
need to see
reblogged via killerpussy
Big butt. Bigger heart.
The Office, “Branch Wars” (S4 E10)
Chris, what are you looking for in a partner?
