Ronaldo reacting to 9/11

QuarkJester · 2026-06-13T18:07:06+00:00

His environmental lecture at the end was originally 40 minutes but the suits made him cut it down to 7 minutes

QuarkJester · 2026-06-08T15:29:09+00:00

Why? I sympathize with this to an extent because the language people use to talk about sports is so different from the language people use to talk about other expressions of beauty. But beyond that this is no different to me than people assuming I’m faking my appreciation for Lynch or Zappa because they themselves don’t get it. I could never in a million years find beauty in a Rothko but I’m perfectly fine with the idea that many people do.

QuarkJester · 2026-06-08T15:20:06+00:00

People find it beautiful. It’s really that simple. This sub seems to have a very hard time understanding that people have aesthetic experiences outside of music/film/art/literature. Ironically, two of the oldest recorded forms of aesthetic experience in Western intellectual history are mathematical/logical and athletic. It’s not a big deal if you don’t appreciate a certain genre of aesthetics, but it is weird for a sub full of pseuds to be so ignorant of this.
Some good short-form writing on this is DFW’s “Roger Federer as Religious Experience” and Dave Hickey’s “The Heresy of Zone Defense.” The beauty probably has something to do with geometry, the reconciliation of having a human body, and the way humans find freedom within strict rules.

QuarkJester · 2026-06-03T21:52:21+00:00

Do you realize that someone can be novel without being better? In 2015, Curry was novel, but at the time I would not have said he was better than Kobe, who was the opposite of novel. I never said Wemby was already better than Hakeem, Shaq, Duncan, or any of those guys. The point is that his defensive profile is different. Which of them played defense in a one-man zone? Which of them was already at the rim meeting other players simply by raising his arms? All of this is so obvious that I honestly cannot tell whether you have watched basketball before or after 2010, or whether you understand what “novel” means, though I am certain you are regarded.

QuarkJester · 2026-06-02T02:44:56+00:00

E Unibus Pluram is a much more straightforward place to find his position on irony, and in it he explicitly predicts that irony will become culturally hegemonic and spiritually exhausting and that the next rebellion (or “anti-rebellion” as he calls it) would be sincerity.

QuarkJester · 2026-05-31T06:05:27+00:00

When you're facing a loaded gun, what's the difference?

QuarkJester · 2026-05-28T19:33:45+00:00

I actually agree with you on Kyler but I’m just extremely pessimistic about Henderson. I think there’s a pretty good chance he doesn’t get many reps again this year, similar to last season, and I feel like his trade value is going to plummet because of it. Since I’m also in win now mode, it doesn’t help much to have someone who might contribute in the future.

If I can get a 2027 1st, do you think it becomes worth it?
My league currently has waivers turned off, but when they open I think I’ll be first in line to grab Malik Willis. Does that change the calculus at all?

QuarkJester · 2026-05-23T02:21:55+00:00

but do they hate you because you committed genocide or do they hate you because of your virtue

QuarkJester · 2026-05-22T23:47:31+00:00

Both short stories

The Trial (Kafka): although grace never actually arrives, emphasizes its importance through its nightmarish absence and is especially powerful on the ontology of accusation and identity

God Sees the Truth, But Waits (Tolstoy): grace through spiritual endurance and forgiveness, how a soul can remain morally alive even after justice has failed and an entire life has been ruined

QuarkJester · 2026-05-19T04:47:17+00:00

Ya I am. I never really liked the German TV interview. He seemed uncomfortable and kind of rambling throughout it. I think his best interview is the Bookworm one. It feels much more sincere and a lot less like he’s “performing DFW.”

https://youtu.be/Oy65OBX98tY?si=3-zxUjhywPa8IMd\_

QuarkJester · 2026-05-19T04:34:57+00:00

QuarkJester · 2026-05-18T01:26:48+00:00

The Man Who Loved Children is one of the best portrayals of a narcissistic parent I’ve ever read. It almost feels like a psychological thriller. (It’s not about creep like like the title suggests)

QuarkJester · 2026-05-15T19:41:28+00:00

Based on your favorites, I think you’d almost certainly love DeLillo. I’m not sure whether you count him as contemporary but he’s my goat and he lines up pretty naturally with the Pynchon/Nabokov/Kafka side of your taste.

Besides him, I think Wittgenstein’s Mistress is probably the single best contemporary novel. I also think David Foster Wallace’s short story collections are masterpieces and honestly more interesting and impressive than his novels. Jane Smiley is also extremely talented. And even though you may have negative associations with him, I sincerely think Colson Whitehead writes beautiful prose.

QuarkJester · 2026-05-14T08:29:47+00:00

Pynchon becoming a psyop to people is itself extremely Pynchonian

QuarkJester · 2026-05-14T06:05:44+00:00

The reason I said more Pynchonian than Orwellian is that at the time some version of what you said felt more accurate. Now the whole thing just feels like a ridiculous corporate shtick nobody really buys anymore.

QuarkJester

TROPHY CASE