The Connections: Yin-Yang Edition

Jon Pareles on Jarvis Cocker:

Between songs Mr. Cocker chatted about how shifting exchange rates made it hard to keep songs realistic, and of his disdain for experiencing a concert through a cellphone screen. He explained what he had been reading lately in philosophy: that it was possible to hold two opposing ideas at the same time, opening up gray areas between virtue and evil. —NYT

EP in Triple Canopy:

I always show my students these two quotes—a warning against referential mania, or perhaps just notes toward an aesthetic:

“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald

“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.”
—H. P. Lovecraft

The birds in your garden

Pulp fiction: Jarvis Cocker talks to artist and author Harland Miller, about HM's paintings inspired by old paperbacks.

Jarvis Cocker: So. You've got Penguin books, Pelican and Puffin, and then these lesser-known series, like Falcon and this Ptarmigan book, which I bought second-hand ages ago now, on How to Master the Game of Bridge - something I thought I'd learn to do when Pulp was on tour, so I could play it on the bus, while away the time between towns, gigs. I never did, and I guess I never will now, so you can have it if you want.

Harland Miller: Really? Thanks, that's great. You know, all the time I've spent trawling second-hand bookshops, I've never seen one of these Ptarmigans before.

JC: They're obviously fairly rare, quite like ptarmigans themselves, who hang out in Scottish mountains, according to Bill Oddie. But why would you choose ptarmigans? Do you know why they chose a penguin for Penguin books?

(Via Weekend Stubble)

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Charles McGrath looks at Philip K. Dick's entry into the Library of America. (In the print edition yesterday, the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? was mysteriously shortened to Do Androids Dream? throughout.)

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Related?

Do electric toothbrushes really work better than regular ones?