37. READ. LOOK. THINK.

I felt overwhelmed and overstimulated by the internet this week. Looking at all this stuff I saved on my Instapaper, I see why. Really interesting, really good. But imagine all the less-good stuff I had to read to get to this. What is the point? Not of READ.LOOK.THINK, which takes 20 minutes a week max, but of ploughing through all this at all. Should I bother to put all these inputs into my mind? It’s also complicated that all the things I’m working on are going quite well. Should I just unplug and focus on them? Undecided. Anyway, here’s the good stuff.

READ: “For all the wishy-washy, noncommittal, unsure stuff they write about, there’s a distinct sense of absolutism to their work. They are forcing the world to be small and narrow so they can be its chief interpreters.” The shrinking boundaries of being a (certain kind of) twentysomething. | How to build your own romantic narrative. | What does it feel like to hate everyone? | The script of (silent movie) The Artist at IMSDB. | “What were you like when you graduated from college? Tell me everything, I feel pretty lost.” Sady Doyle replies. | “A female author cannot write a female character who’s perceived of as “unlikeable” because then readers will transfer this distaste onto the female author, and that cannot do, because above all, the female author needs to be consumed and marketed and LIKED.” Frances Farmer Is My Sister. | “Outlets like Rookie give us a chance to relive our teen years, not because we loved them, but because we hated them. We want to attend Rookie’s school dance because it will be better this time.” | The jeune fille as she really is. | “Yeah, I was horny, but I was innocent ‘cause I was a real-late bloomer and not particularly attractive. In fact, homely. See, nobody told me that girls got horny. It was tragic ‘cause I had all these feelings inside me… I was so horny in school it felt like my body was filled with electricity. I felt like I had neon bones or something.” Patti Smith interviewed by Penthouse, 1976 | “You can usually tell when a book or film or music by a woman is going to be worthwhile: Insecure women loathe it extensively.” A pretty penetrating insight in an otherwise-confusing take on How Should a Person Be? | ” I walk away from my computer or from a reading or a post reading conversation feeling really gross. Like there’s been some petty, small-minded limitation placed on life in service to insecurity.” |”If you are heartbroken the best thing to do is write poems and email them to the person who broke your heart because maybe he will break up with his new girlfriend and move across the country with you, which is what actually happened with these.” Leigh Stein | He & He & He. | Two different takes on the act of cleaning.

LOOK: Beautiful shirts by Sherie Muijs. | McSweeney’s column contest. | Sponge cake nirvana. | Archive of Patti Smith reading poetry.

THINK: Why people don’t like photos of themselves. | Some scientific research proves what I’ve thought, intuitively though perhaps fatuously, for a while: if all schizophrenics had my mum to look after them, they’d feel better. I’m certain I’ve read before that patients with mental illness respond best when someone cleans their flat and does their laundry. Where? | Refrigerator mother theory. | Teen girls are not depressed, they’re angry and powerless. | ‘Casting and race: The tricky business of writing casting notices,’ on Slate. | “Britain’s 2012 Olympics were of the anti-fascist variety. Which is fitting, isn’t it, since this tiny island nation was the lynchpin in fascism’s twentieth century demise.” | Jonah Lehrer resigns from New Yorker after accusation he fabricated Bob Dylan quotes in ‘Imagine.’ What does it say about me that I feel sorry for Jonah Lehrer? And that I feel sad sometimes during the Olympics when a defending champion fails. (I felt sad for Phelps more than I felt excited for Lochte.)

LINKNESS: My wrap up of the week’s top strategy + creativity + marketing reads on Nextness.