Somerset Maugham - The Perfect Traveler, by Pico Iyer
“We’re not used to thinking of Maugham as a hippie, but it’s worth recalling that he was roughing it around India for three months when he was 63, seeking out swamis and yogis; he told his friend Christopher Isherwood, a few years later, that his great wish, when he turned 70, was to return to the subcontinent and study Shankara. He had no time for the likes of Henry James, with his country-house themes, and from early on was sounding much more like a vagabond Thoreau (“What is the use of hurrying to pile up money when one can live on so little?”). Read his great apologia, “The Summing Up,” and you find him as metaphysically alive and excited as that German who just spun out his creed to you over dinner in a candlelit restaurant in Ladakh last night. Indeed, Maugham read philosophy every morning when he woke up, the way others might do yoga.”
Full article here with thanks to @the99percent, @dailydoseofjess
Got to get back to New York sometime. Via freedomworksfilms
“I get to linger on the very private moments. That moment when you’re getting out of your car…or unlocking the bathroom door. That moment right between being your private self and your public self.” - Matt Weiner, Mad Men creator, on one of those beautiful little moments of life that Mad Men picks up for us.
“During the transition, the administration created an online “Citizens’ Briefing Book” for people to submit ideas to the president. “The best-rated ones will rise to the top, and after the Inauguration, we’ll print them out and gather them into a binder like the ones the President receives every day from experts and advisors,” Valerie Jarrett, Mr. Obama’s friend and adviser, wrote to supporters.
They received 44,000 proposals and 1.4 million votes for those proposals. The results were quietly published, but they were embarrassing — not so much to the administration as to us, the ones we’ve been waiting for.”
Anand Giridharadas - Democracy 2.0 awaits an upgrade (via @annayork)
‘write your own message’ lcd wrapping paper, cards etc. hell yeah! http://www.yellowowlworkshop.com/lcd.html
