The ‘Blogfodder’ folder in my bookmarks is a bit of a catch-all location for any interesting links I find and might want to explore later in more detail. That was the intention, anyway — over the years it’s completely outgrown my ability to keep up with it, resulting in a whole mess of links left unfollowed and unblogged.

But they say you shouldn’t keep anything for more than seven years without finding a use for it. My first Blogfodder links have passed that deadline, so now’s the time to wrangle out some usefulness before they rot away completely. Best to begin at the beginning and see what caught my attention way back in 2003…

Advice for First-Time Pynchon Readers / I’ve yet to read any Pynchon, but this will come in handy when I get around to it some day.

Jason Kottke’s rules for the NYC subway / Having since experienced the New York subway first-hand, I can say these are everyone’s rules.

Death in the snow / “A body is found in the frozen North Dakota woods. The cops say the dead Japanese woman was looking for the $1m she saw buried in the film Fargo. But the story didn’t end there.”

Nothing but pictures of trains / Because I like trains.

Alan Sokal’s articles on the Social Text affair / Also known as Sokal’s hoax, an experiment to see if an academic journal would “publish an article liberally salted with nonsense if it (a) sounded good and (b) flattered the editors’ ideological preconceptions.” You can probably guess what happened.

The ORIGINAL Illustrated Catalog Of ACME Products / “From its humble beginnings providing corks and flypaper to bug collectors to its heyday in the American Southwest supplying a certain coyote, from Ultimatum Dispatchers to Batman outfits, ACME has set the standard for excellence.” And how.

The Non-Expert: Not Fade Away / “Why do most songs on records end with fade-outs?” The answer is surprising.

An interview with Chip Kidd / Top book cover designer and author of The Cheese Monkeys, for those who don’t know.

That’s 2003 out of the way. More Blogfodder links to come…

Wed 26 Jan 2011 at 12:12   ·