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Josh Thompson
Job Hunting Recommendations for Early-Career Software Developers I’ve distilled a number of conversations into this post. Some of it is specific to getting a remote...
over a year ago
2
over a year ago
I’ve distilled a number of conversations into this post. Some of it is specific to getting a remote job and working remotely, but all of it is applicable for any kind of software-related role. It’s probably applicable to non-software roles, but this is where most of my exprience...
The Marginalian
The Courage to Be Yourself: Virginia Woolf on How to Hear Your Soul "Beyond the difficulty of communicating oneself, there is the supreme difficulty of being oneself."
a year ago
ben-mini
Commoditize Your Complements To the man who coined the phrase, “nothing in life is free”… have you been on GitHub...
4 months ago
1
4 months ago
To the man who coined the phrase, “nothing in life is free”… have you been on GitHub lately? Open-source is software that anyone can freely view, use, modify, and share because its code is publicly available on sites like Github and Huggingface. My last coding project alone was...
The Marginalian
The Proper Object of Love: Iris Murdoch on the Angst of Not Knowing Ourselves and Each Other One of the hardest things to learn in life is that the heart is a clock too fast not to break. We...
4 months ago
51
4 months ago
One of the hardest things to learn in life is that the heart is a clock too fast not to break. We lurch into loving, only to discover again and again that it takes a long time to know people, to understand people — and “understanding is love’s other name.” Even without...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Very Quietly, an Aside' Reporters and their editors have always fetishized what’s known in the trade as the lede – the...
11 months ago
13
11 months ago
Reporters and their editors have always fetishized what’s known in the trade as the lede – the opening sentence or paragraph of a news story. The idea is to quickly grab the reader’s attention and, with luck, hold on to it. Subtlety is discouraged in journalism. There’s much...
The Marginalian
The Parts We Live With: D.H. Lawrence and the Yearning for Living Unison "We ought to dance with rapture that we should be alive and in the flesh, and part of the living,...
8 months ago
The Marginalian
Center of the Universe: Non-Speaking Autistic Poet Hannah Emerson’s Extraordinary Poem About How to... "Please try to go to hell frequently because you will find the light there."
a year ago
The American Scholar
Caprock Adventures worth the silence The post Caprock appeared first on The American Scholar.
8 months ago
Josh Thompson
Becoming an Early Riser Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.  -The man no child likes to...
over a year ago
2
over a year ago
Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.  -The man no child likes to hear about when being awoken by their parents Getting out of bed is a struggle. I’ve spent the better part of twenty four years setting my alarm as late as possible so I could have...
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Magnetism, an Ardor, a Refusal to Be False' “It’s against his nature to be a critic—he is too grateful.”  That’s from one of Elias Canetti’s...
a month ago
18
a month ago
“It’s against his nature to be a critic—he is too grateful.”  That’s from one of Elias Canetti’s notebooks, collected in Notes from Hampstead (trans. John Hargraves, 1998). While I admire the work of a handful of critics – Dryden, Johnson, Winters, Cunningham, a few others –...
Ben Borgers
Girl Talk: All Day
over a year ago
Escaping Flatland
Seeing people clearly Head of people operations for the entire friend group
a year ago
The Marginalian
Love and Fear: A Stunning 17th-Century Poem About How to Live with the Transcendent Terror of Love "Love bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back."
a year ago
The Marginalian
The Work of Happiness: May Sarton’s Stunning Poem About Being at Home in Yourself "What is happiness but growth in peace."
a year ago
Ben Borgers
My Stress is an Inside Job
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Kind of Things I Love' At the end of her Friday post on Orson Welles and his Chimes at Midnight, Di Nguyen at the Little...
11 months ago
16
11 months ago
At the end of her Friday post on Orson Welles and his Chimes at Midnight, Di Nguyen at the Little White Attic appends a bookish cri de coeur, one I have echoed many times:  “I increasingly feel at odds with modern culture,” she begins. “I’m indifferent to contemporary music,...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Laurels All Are Cut' A thoughtful reader, knowing of my fondness for A.E. Housman’s poems, has sent me the English...
9 months ago
14
9 months ago
A thoughtful reader, knowing of my fondness for A.E. Housman’s poems, has sent me the English composer John Ireland’s 1928 setting for a verse from Last Poems (1922, that literary annus mirabilis). The baritone is Mark Stone; the pianist, Sholto Kynoch. Here is Housman’s poem,...
The Marginalian
How to Grow Up: Nick Cave’s Life-Advice to a 13-Year-Old "Fill yourself with the beautiful stuff of the world... Get amazed. Get astonished. Get awed on a...
a year ago
49
a year ago
"Fill yourself with the beautiful stuff of the world... Get amazed. Get astonished. Get awed on a regular basis, so that getting awed is habitual and becomes a state of being."
Ben Borgers
Monday, January 17, 2022
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Master Etcher of Human Portraits' In celebration of Edwin Arlington Robinson’s fiftieth birthday, on December 22, 1919, seventeen...
a year ago
13
a year ago
In celebration of Edwin Arlington Robinson’s fiftieth birthday, on December 22, 1919, seventeen poets and friends were asked to contribute to a symposium published a day earlier in the New York Times Book Review. All but Robert Frost contributed. Amy Lowell wrote: “A realist,...
The American Scholar
“Defeat” by Kahlil Gibran Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Defeat” by Kahlil Gibran appeared first on The American...
a month ago
23
a month ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Defeat” by Kahlil Gibran appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
Kafka’s Creative Block and the Four Psychological Hindrances That Keep the Talented from Manifesting... The most paradoxical thing about creative work is that it is both a way in and a way out, that it...
2 months ago
30
2 months ago
The most paradoxical thing about creative work is that it is both a way in and a way out, that it plunges you into the depths of your being and at the same time takes you out of yourself. Writing is the best instrument I have for metabolizing my experience and clarifying my own...
The American Scholar
“Spring” by J. R. Solonche Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Spring” by J. R. Solonche appeared first on The American...
7 months ago
24
7 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Spring” by J. R. Solonche appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'Though Lightly Made, Are Hard to Keep' Even the most chillingly honest among us remain liars, at least to ourselves. Self-delusion is...
11 months ago
11
11 months ago
Even the most chillingly honest among us remain liars, at least to ourselves. Self-delusion is endemically human and not always a bad thing. It can serve as a useful motivator. Take the annual farce of New Year’s resolutions, those earnestly mustered plans for...
Josh Thompson
OK, some new books Yesterday, I proclaimed “ No new books”. I spent a lot of time today thinking about that...
over a year ago
2
over a year ago
Yesterday, I proclaimed “ No new books”. I spent a lot of time today thinking about that proclamation. Do I really want to limit myself to just the books that I’ve already picked for myself? Yes. Maybe. There’s a kind of book I don’t want to read any more of. That’s the “get...
Escaping Flatland
The third chair I remembered my loneliness; I felt it with a defencelessness that I had denied myself at the time....
10 months ago
20
10 months ago
I remembered my loneliness; I felt it with a defencelessness that I had denied myself at the time. The feeling that writing was impossible; that I would never find a place in the world that felt like home; that no one except my wife would ever care about me, about the things that...
Anecdotal Evidence
'O Wonderful Nonsense of Lotions of Lucky Tiger' I’m loyal to my barbers because they have always been loyal to me. I don’t have to remind them of...
11 months ago
13
11 months ago
I’m loyal to my barbers because they have always been loyal to me. I don’t have to remind them of what I want. Every fourth Saturday I visit, like a ritual. I sit in the chair, he pins the sheet around my neck – and we talk. No micromanaging. I can forget I’m getting a haircut...
The Elysian
Week 6: Examples of Pitches
8 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'To Build a House for Fools and Mad' An entry dated June 15, 1830 in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Table Talk: “[Jonathan, not Taylor]...
6 months ago
67
6 months ago
An entry dated June 15, 1830 in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Table Talk: “[Jonathan, not Taylor] Swift was anima Rabelaisii habitans in sicco,--the soul of Rabelais dwelling in a dry place. Yet Swift was rare.”   Now there’s a metaphor that sticks in the mind – “dwelling in a dry...
Josh Thompson
November 2016 Goals November 2016 Goals Note to the reader: The words that follow are all about me. Very naval-gaze-ish....
over a year ago
2
over a year ago
November 2016 Goals Note to the reader: The words that follow are all about me. Very naval-gaze-ish. I feel I owe you this warning. My November goals are an extension of my October goals. October was good ( October review) - I made progress on two of three projects, and one of...
The Marginalian
May Sarton on Grieving a Pet "It is absolutely inward and private, the relation between oneself and an animal."
a year ago
This Space
The disaster of writing: My Weil by Lars Iyer "When a plane crashes, a bomb explodes, a city floods or a pandemic begins, Lucy Easthope's phone...
a year ago
12
a year ago
"When a plane crashes, a bomb explodes, a city floods or a pandemic begins, Lucy Easthope's phone starts to ring" says the blurb to her recent book subtitled Stories of Love, Loss and Hope from an Expert in Disaster, and goes on to report rapturous praise from critics and...
Josh Thompson
Krav Maga, or "Crush Balls, Gouge Eyes, and Break Bones" In the last few weeks, I have been physically attacked dozens of times. Usually the attacker was...
over a year ago
2
over a year ago
In the last few weeks, I have been physically attacked dozens of times. Usually the attacker was just trying to choke me, but sometimes he was trying to throw me to the ground. After a few minutes of fighting, I would attack him. Then we’d both shake hands, say “thank you”, and...
Ben Borgers
Public Radio Stories
over a year ago
The American Scholar
Heart of Semi-Darkness A writer’s delectable quest for rare flavors The post Heart of Semi-Darkness appeared first on The...
3 months ago
24
3 months ago
A writer’s delectable quest for rare flavors The post Heart of Semi-Darkness appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
The First Scientist’s Guide to Truth: Alhazen on Critical Thinking Born into a world with no clocks, telescopes, microscopes, or democracy, Ḥasan Ibn al-Haytham...
a year ago
9
a year ago
Born into a world with no clocks, telescopes, microscopes, or democracy, Ḥasan Ibn al-Haytham (c. 965–c. 1040), known in the West as Alhazen, began his life studying religion, but grew quickly disenchanted by its unquestioned dogmas and the way it turned people on each other with...
This Space
39 Books: 2013 I reread books like Aharon Appelfeld's A Table for One and Anne Atik's How It Was as if returning to...
7 months ago
47
7 months ago
I reread books like Aharon Appelfeld's A Table for One and Anne Atik's How It Was as if returning to a particular bench with a view of the sea. On first glance A Table for One promises only banal, coffee-table memories and reflections, and that would be almost right: Real...
Steven Scrawls
The Controversial Aftermath of the 777Linguine Interview The Controversial Aftermath of the 777Linguine Interview Longtime fans of popular EDM “angststep”...
5 months ago
2
5 months ago
The Controversial Aftermath of the 777Linguine Interview Longtime fans of popular EDM “angststep” artist 777Linguine are “shocked” and “betrayed” after his polarizing statements yesterday that his latest album, NOMORETEARS2CRY, was written and recorded in a time of “profound...
This Space
Further in the opposite direction Modernity is supposed to be the moment when religious claims and systems of authority reveal...
a year ago
36
a year ago
Modernity is supposed to be the moment when religious claims and systems of authority reveal themselves to be human-all-too-human fictions that lack divine legitimation. Religion is supposed to wither away. But this itself...can be understood as a religious claim: the very...
The Marginalian
Facts about the Moon: Dorianne Laux’s Stunning Poem about Bearing Our Human Losses When Even the... “Hearing the rising tide,” Rachel Carson wrote in her poetic meditation on the ocean and the meaning...
8 months ago
60
8 months ago
“Hearing the rising tide,” Rachel Carson wrote in her poetic meditation on the ocean and the meaning of life, “there are echoes of past and future: of the flow of time, obliterating yet containing all that has gone before… of the stream of life, flowing as inexorably as any ocean...
Ben Borgers
Thursday, January 13, 2022
over a year ago
Ben Borgers
October 5th, 1582
over a year ago
Ben Borgers
Bagel Institute
over a year ago
The American Scholar
Stereotypes and the City What to make of HBO’s attempts to diversify an iconic show? The post Stereotypes and the City...
8 months ago
18
8 months ago
What to make of HBO’s attempts to diversify an iconic show? The post Stereotypes and the City appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'How It Sounds When Read Out Loud' Our eighth-grade English teacher, Miss Clymer, had us open the textbook to a poem written...
a month ago
20
a month ago
Our eighth-grade English teacher, Miss Clymer, had us open the textbook to a poem written seventy-five years earlier and picked students to read aloud each of its four, eight-line stanzas. She suggested we pay attention to who is speaking, as the poem is written as a dialogue...
The American Scholar
The Creator’s Code Are humans alone in their ability to make art? The post The Creator’s Code appeared first on The...
2 weeks ago
4
2 weeks ago
Are humans alone in their ability to make art? The post The Creator’s Code appeared first on The American Scholar.
This Space
39 Books: 2001 In 1995 I found this hardback edition in the British History section of a Brighton bookshop six...
7 months ago
53
7 months ago
In 1995 I found this hardback edition in the British History section of a Brighton bookshop six years after the French original was cited by Gabriel Josipovici as one of his books of the year: "a beautifully controlled examination of the effect on [Roubaud] of his wife's death...
Blog -...
Welcome to Anchor Point Blog I am starting this blog for one primary reason: my belief that self-discovery does not have to be...
over a year ago
1
over a year ago
I am starting this blog for one primary reason: my belief that self-discovery does not have to be a solo journey. Through this blog men can connect to resources that will help to enhance their personal development. Many of these resources have deeply impacted my growth, and...
Josh Thompson
Be a little better at personal email The next bunch of posts will be me “clearing out the drawers” of notes I have scattered across my...
over a year ago
2
over a year ago
The next bunch of posts will be me “clearing out the drawers” of notes I have scattered across my phone, computer, and brain. There is no unifying theme to what will be written here. Three recommendations to email better TL;DR Email should usually be as short as possible. More of...
Josh Thompson
The How and Why of BlockValue I wrote the following post, and built the application in question, in 2017, in my “end of Turing”...
over a year ago
2
over a year ago
I wrote the following post, and built the application in question, in 2017, in my “end of Turing” project, before I’d ever been hired as a software developer. I really enjoyed the app that I built, and I keep wanting to get around to cleaning it up and making it work again. Maybe...
ribbonfarm
Storytelling — Just Add Dinosaurs In a previous part, I covered the storytelling model of Matthew Dicks, who specializes in live,...
9 months ago
1
9 months ago
In a previous part, I covered the storytelling model of Matthew Dicks, who specializes in live, spoken-word competitive storytelling from real life. He has a theory of stories I found deeply unsatisfying: That the essence of a story is a moment of character change where the...
Ben Borgers
5 Weeks Left
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'He Treated Us Like Adults' I grew up thinking writers – poets, certainly – were not quite real. None lived in my neighborhood....
11 months ago
29
11 months ago
I grew up thinking writers – poets, certainly – were not quite real. None lived in my neighborhood. I never saw writers on television. My parents never talked about them, as they might actors and politicians, who also were unreal. Without thinking too deeply about it, I put...
Ben Borgers
The Beginning of College Sucks
over a year ago
The Elysian
Do we still want the future desired by the past? Why three socialist utopian novels are still relevant 100 years later.
2 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'My Soul, Beyond Distant Death" More than any secular writer I can think of, Vladimir Nabokov hints at the existence of an...
2 months ago
30
2 months ago
More than any secular writer I can think of, Vladimir Nabokov hints at the existence of an afterlife. He never preaches and makes no theological assertions. His frequent use of the word “paradise” is often ambiguous, blurring its mundane, metaphorical meaning – an earthly place...
Wuthering...
How Ivan Bunin and Vasily Grossman spent the war - He was in the countryside then for the last time... Without planning it I recently read three books by Russian writers from three different strands of...
2 months ago
22
2 months ago
Without planning it I recently read three books by Russian writers from three different strands of Russian literature: Andrei Platonov’s Chevengur (1929 /1972, tr. Robert and Elizabeth Chandler) in the Gogolian and Dostoyevskian strand, Ivan Bunin’s Dark Avenues (1943/1946)...
The Elysian
Further reading on employee ownership My notes from the margins of my research.
4 months ago
The Marginalian
Don’t Waste Your Wildness "What is wild cannot be bought or sold, borrowed or copied. It is. Unmistakable, unforgettable,...
2 months ago
35
2 months ago
"What is wild cannot be bought or sold, borrowed or copied. It is. Unmistakable, unforgettable, unshamable, elemental as earth and ice, water, fire and air, a quintessence, pure spirit, resolving into no constituents. Don't waste your wildness: it is precious and necessary. In...
Ben Borgers
Reading with RSS
over a year ago
Wuthering...
Wealth by Aristophanes - gout here, pot bellies there, ... obesity beyond all bounds We saw Sophocles and Euripides end their long careers with masterpieces, but we do not have that...
over a year ago
42
over a year ago
We saw Sophocles and Euripides end their long careers with masterpieces, but we do not have that luck with Aristophanes.  Wealth (388 BCE) is thin, scattershot, perhaps even a bit defeated or exhausted. The conceit is as usual excellent.  Plutus, the god of wealth, is freed...
Josh Thompson
Change The more things change, the more they stay the same. Or something like that. Sometimes change is for...
over a year ago
2
over a year ago
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Or something like that. Sometimes change is for the better, and sometimes its for the worse. I don’t know if there’s always a difference. Recently, Kristi and I have seen lots of change; I’d say its for the better, but it’s not...
Astral Codex Ten
Open Thread 356 ...
a month ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'First of All a Student of Human Nature' “Desmond MacCarthy, like Dr. Johnson, was first of all a student of human nature.”  The...
9 months ago
15
9 months ago
“Desmond MacCarthy, like Dr. Johnson, was first of all a student of human nature.”  The best writers, the ones who compel us to read their work across a lifetime, whose thoughts become our own and who at last become teachers and companions, are those who work in two media: words...
The Marginalian
The Two Souls Within: Hermann Hesse on the Dual Life of the Creative Spirit "Like a precious, fleeting foam over the sea of suffering arise all those works of art, in which a...
11 months ago
12
11 months ago
"Like a precious, fleeting foam over the sea of suffering arise all those works of art, in which a single individual lifts himself for an hour so high above his personal destiny that his happiness shines like a star and appears to all who see it as something eternal and as a...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Daring to His Own Disadvantage' “The words poetic and fatuous ought not to be synonyms; and to encounter a mind which is against...
5 months ago
50
5 months ago
“The words poetic and fatuous ought not to be synonyms; and to encounter a mind which is against mock society, mock poetry, mock justice, mock spirituality—against  any form of enslavement—is a benefit.”  Marianne Moore could be a soft touch when it came to reviewing. She could...
The Marginalian
Audubon on Other Minds and the Secret Knowledge of Animals “In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with...
3 months ago
36
3 months ago
“In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear,” Henry Beston observed of other animals two generations before naturalist Sy Montgomery...
Anecdotal Evidence
'At the Center of Our Mediterranean Civilization' My youngest son, age twenty-one, is spending much of his summer in Paris as part of a university...
5 months ago
57
5 months ago
My youngest son, age twenty-one, is spending much of his summer in Paris as part of a university study program. He’ll be a senior in the fall. I first visited Paris (and Europe) in 1973, age twenty, and stayed in a hotel on the Rue de Maubeuge, 10th arrondissement. Headlines in...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Beauty, Clarity, Consolation, Truth' The blogosphere is infested with hair-trigger book critics whose job it is, at long last, to set you...
a year ago
9
a year ago
The blogosphere is infested with hair-trigger book critics whose job it is, at long last, to set you straight. Their world is strictly binary --  like/dislike, good/bad – and they are fond of superlatives: the best/the worst. Dissent sparks crackdowns and there is no appeals...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Flow, Like Waters After Summer Show’rs' “As two men sit silent, after having exhausted all their topics of conversation; one says, ‘It is...
4 months ago
26
4 months ago
“As two men sit silent, after having exhausted all their topics of conversation; one says, ‘It is very fine weather,’ and the other says, ‘Yes;’—one blows his nose, and the other rubs his eye-brows; (by the way, this is very much in Homer’s manner;) such seems to be the case...
The Elysian
Mondragon as the new City-State This cooperative could be its own country.
3 months ago
This Space
Favourite books 2022 This selection does not include those books I enjoyed, that asinine dilution poured into innumerable...
over a year ago
48
over a year ago
This selection does not include those books I enjoyed, that asinine dilution poured into innumerable books of the year lists, though I enjoyed those not included in this selection. Jon Fosse – Septology Thomas Bernhard – The Rest is Slander "we are concealing a secret, a secret...
Josh Thompson
My all-time favorite question to ask people (and why you should ask it too) I met two people yesterday from Colorado, while in Spain. We climbed together yesterday and today,...
over a year ago
2
over a year ago
I met two people yesterday from Colorado, while in Spain. We climbed together yesterday and today, and Kristi and I had dinner with them. Half way through the meal, I asked my all-time favorite question: If you could go back to twenty five year old you, and tell yourself...
Anecdotal Evidence
'An Ill-Assorted Collection' A friend has broken up with her boyfriend and he is launching protracted salvos of nasty emails in...
2 months ago
24
2 months ago
A friend has broken up with her boyfriend and he is launching protracted salvos of nasty emails in her direction. As prose they are better than average. There have been no threats of violence and little profanity. The ex’s weapon of choice is a detailed critique of every aspect...
This Space
The end of literature, part three On the evening of December 12th, 2019 a numbed grief descended over the land, and has lain there...
over a year ago
29
over a year ago
On the evening of December 12th, 2019 a numbed grief descended over the land, and has lain there ever since. At that time a mild alternative to barbarism was being put to death. Back in 2015 when, against all odds, a lifelong socialist and campaigner against racism and...
The Elysian
No one buys books Everything we learned about the publishing industry from Penguin vs. DOJ.
8 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Whole Poem Becomes Molten with Activity' I’m in debt to anthologies for much of my education. When you’re young and hungry and everything is...
a year ago
9
a year ago
I’m in debt to anthologies for much of my education. When you’re young and hungry and everything is new, such collections are like well-stocked cafeterias. You push your tray down the line and sample what looks good. Once seated, if a friend recommends a dish you avoided, you can...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Garish, Clownish, Bizarre, Stills Blocks Away' Thirty years ago I lived briefly in Latham, N.Y., north of Albany along the Mohawk River. The river...
a year ago
9
a year ago
Thirty years ago I lived briefly in Latham, N.Y., north of Albany along the Mohawk River. The river there is serpentine and the city paved a walking path along its southern shore that smoothed out some of the curves. Every day I walked two miles along the asphalt trail, turned...
The Marginalian
Octavio Paz on Freedom "Without freedom, what we call a person does not exist."
a year ago
The Marginalian
How to Tell Love from Desire: José Ortega y Gasset on the Chronic Confusions of Our Longing "Loving is perennial vivification... a centrifugal act of the soul in constant flux that goes toward...
8 months ago
27
8 months ago
"Loving is perennial vivification... a centrifugal act of the soul in constant flux that goes toward the object and envelops it in warm corroboration, uniting us with it and positively affirming its being."
Wuthering...
My cancer - "It can’t be true! It can’t, but it is." Liver cancer.  That was a surprise.  I knew something was wrong, but I was not expecting that. Since...
a year ago
13
a year ago
Liver cancer.  That was a surprise.  I knew something was wrong, but I was not expecting that. Since the diagnosis last summer, since it was known for a fact that I had something serious, things have moved fast.  It has been like boarding a train.  Once in motion there is no way...
Ben Borgers
RealMoji
over a year ago
The Marginalian
Stunning 200-Year-Old French Illustrations of Exotic, Endangered, and Extinct Birds From peacocks to penguins, a winged menagerie of wonder.
a year ago
The Marginalian
Alone Together: An Illustrated Celebration of the Art of Shared Solitude “One can never be alone enough to write,” Susan Sontag lamented in her diary. “Oh comforting...
a year ago
11
a year ago
“One can never be alone enough to write,” Susan Sontag lamented in her diary. “Oh comforting solitude, how favorable thou art to original thought!” the founding father of neuroscience exulted in considering the ideal environment for creative breakthrough. All creative people,...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Aesthetically They Are Still Delightful' “Early Ellington records are like vintage cars. They are not as he or anyone else would make them...
7 months ago
37
7 months ago
“Early Ellington records are like vintage cars. They are not as he or anyone else would make them nowadays, but historically they are still important and aesthetically they are still delightful.”  Let's not confine Philip Larkin’s conclusion exclusively to Duke Ellington’s early...
Josh Thompson
Sidekiq and Background Jobs for Beginners I’ve recently had to learn more about background jobs (using Sidekiq, specifically) for some bugs I...
over a year ago
1
over a year ago
I’ve recently had to learn more about background jobs (using Sidekiq, specifically) for some bugs I was working on. I learned a lot. Much of it was extremely basic. Anyone who knows much at all about Sidekiq will say “oh, duh, of course that’s true”, but at the time, it wasn’t...
This Space
39 Books: 2010 This series has sailed into the doldrum years. Reading has become less of a headlong existential...
7 months ago
53
7 months ago
This series has sailed into the doldrum years. Reading has become less of a headlong existential adventure than something one does, a pastime, a hobby, something you tell a quiz show presenter how you relax: "I like to read, Brad." By this time I had given up reviewing...
The American Scholar
The March Down Main The post The March Down Main appeared first on The American Scholar.
2 months ago
The Marginalian
How to Own Your Human-Heartedness: Alan Watts on the Confucian Concept of Jen and the Dangers of... "Trust in human nature is acceptance of the good-and-bad of it, and it is hard to trust those who do...
a year ago
Wuthering...
Books I read in September 2024 - Boring books had their origin in boring readers My reading took an interesting Russian turn that I will write about, soon, tomorrow, there, I said...
2 months ago
39
2 months ago
My reading took an interesting Russian turn that I will write about, soon, tomorrow, there, I said it out loud so maybe I will really do it. November is Norwegian month at Dolce Bellezza.  I will be joining her by reading at least the first novel, The Other Name (2019), of Jon...
Astral Codex Ten
Hidden Open Thread 359.5 ...
a week ago
The Marginalian
Jonathan Franzen on How to Write About Nature, with a Side of Rachel Carson and Alice in Wonderland I grew up loving Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. My grandmother read it to me before I could read....
9 months ago
53
9 months ago
I grew up loving Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. My grandmother read it to me before I could read. I read it to myself as soon as I could. I loved the strangeness of it, and the tenderness. As a child mathematician, I loved knowing that a grown mathematician had written it. But...
Ben Borgers
Pluto was 2006??
over a year ago
This Space
A loss of problems Martin Amis' novels were among those I read when I began reading novels – one read what was being...
a year ago
8
a year ago
Martin Amis' novels were among those I read when I began reading novels – one read what was being talked about on television and in newspapers. Money was the first quickly followed by each and every one that preceded it, including the journalism in The Moronic Inferno, which I...
Wuthering...
The Girl from Samos by Menander - I don’t think any one individual is better at birth than any other It’s our last plays, the last surviving Greek play, The Girl from Samos (315 BCE) by Menander.  How...
over a year ago
39
over a year ago
It’s our last plays, the last surviving Greek play, The Girl from Samos (315 BCE) by Menander.  How tastes, or circumstances, had changed in the seventy years since Wealth, our last Aristophanes play.  The political and social satire is gone, the sexual and scatological jokes are...
Josh Thompson
MacOS: Keyboard Shortcut to Toggle Bookmarks Bar in Firefox A few weeks ago, after Firefox Quantum came out, I decided to try making Firefox my daily browser,...
over a year ago
2
over a year ago
A few weeks ago, after Firefox Quantum came out, I decided to try making Firefox my daily browser, instead of Chrome. Turns out, Firefox is great! It was a near-seamless transition, and Firefox has a much lower memory footprint, as well as features Chrome does not have, like...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Censure of Knaves and Fools' “Mr. Michael Johnson was a man of large and robust body, and of a strong and active mind; yet, as in...
2 months ago
19
2 months ago
“Mr. Michael Johnson was a man of large and robust body, and of a strong and active mind; yet, as in the most solid rocks veins of unsound substance are often discovered, there was in him a mixture of that disease, the nature of which eludes the most minute enquiry, though the...
The Marginalian
Magnolias and the Meaning of Life: Science, Poetry, Existentialism On cruelty, kindness, and the song of life.
a year ago
Josh Thompson
Array divergence in Ruby Lets say you have a list of valid items, and you want to run another array against it, and pull out...
over a year ago
2
over a year ago
Lets say you have a list of valid items, and you want to run another array against it, and pull out the items that don’t match. You don’t want to iterate through all of the items in one array, calling other_array.include?(item). (That’s computationally expensive) valid_people =...
Ben Borgers
Batching
over a year ago
The American Scholar
Three Poems The post Three Poems appeared first on The American Scholar.
3 months ago
The American Scholar
Catalina Schliebener Muñoz Playing with dolls The post Catalina Schliebener Muñoz appeared first on The American Scholar.
6 months ago
This Space
39 Books: 2005 Four years later, browsing in Waterstones, I picked a book from a table and read "What will we do to...
7 months ago
59
7 months ago
Four years later, browsing in Waterstones, I picked a book from a table and read "What will we do to disappear?" – the epigram to Enrique Vila-Matas's novel Montano's Malady. It's a line taken from Maurice Blanchot's Infinite Conversation, so I had to buy it. Later that year,...
Ben Borgers
First Name Usernames
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'O Friend Unseen, Unborn, Unknown' Rabbi David Wolpe tells me Monday’s post reminds him of a poem, “To a Poet a Thousand Years Hence,”...
3 weeks ago
16
3 weeks ago
Rabbi David Wolpe tells me Monday’s post reminds him of a poem, “To a Poet a Thousand Years Hence,” by a poet I knew only by name: James Elroy Flecker. “I've always been moved,” David said, “especially by the penultimate stanza”:  “O friend unseen, unborn, unknown,     Student of...
Ben Borgers
The Day Should End at 3am
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Painstakingly Logical and Precise' A thought that never occurred to me but feels self-evidently right:  “In the course of a reading...
4 months ago
42
4 months ago
A thought that never occurred to me but feels self-evidently right:  “In the course of a reading life, one often stumbles on excellent prose writers never before encountered; such discoveries, however, are less likely in poetry. First-rate poetry is a more manageable quantity....
Ben Borgers
War Room — using the native date picker
a year ago
Josh Thompson
Lifestyle Design (AKA Intentional Habit Building) The top New Years resolutions indicate that Americans know they need to make changes. The top three...
over a year ago
2
over a year ago
The top New Years resolutions indicate that Americans know they need to make changes. The top three resolutions always relate to getting in shape, eating better, spending time better, and spending money better. Everyone is aware that change is good, even necessary, but given the...
The Marginalian
How You Relate to Anything Is How You Relate to Everything: Reclaiming the Spirit of the Christmas... Because life is a cosmos of connection, because to be alive is to be in relationship with the world,...
2 days ago
4
2 days ago
Because life is a cosmos of connection, because to be alive is to be in relationship with the world, because (in the immortal words of John Muir) “when we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe,” how we relate to anything is how...
Anecdotal Evidence
'But There Must Have Been More' One of the unexpected gifts of being young and working as a newspaper reporter was the...
a year ago
9
a year ago
One of the unexpected gifts of being young and working as a newspaper reporter was the giddy sensation of being thrown into life and finally mistaken for an adult. Some of the one-time abstractions – murder, suicide, cancer – become real. Once you’ve interviewed the parents of a...
The Marginalian
On Change and Denial "It’s strange to feel change coming. It’s easy to ignore. An underlying restlessness seems to...
6 months ago
60
6 months ago
"It’s strange to feel change coming. It’s easy to ignore. An underlying restlessness seems to accompany it like birds flocking before a storm."
The Marginalian
Kierkegaard on the Value of Despair "To despair over oneself, in despair to want to be rid of oneself, is the formula for all despair."
a year ago
The American Scholar
Battle Hymns Charles Ives and the Civil War The post Battle Hymns appeared first on The American Scholar.
3 months ago
Josh Thompson
Avoid a car accident with a $3 tool TL;DR: Buy a blind spot mirror for your car. They are $2, and can keep you from getting in an...
over a year ago
2
over a year ago
TL;DR: Buy a blind spot mirror for your car. They are $2, and can keep you from getting in an accident. Not a lot of people have them, though they’re awesome. I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about how to make driving safer. Step 1 to making driving safer is “don’t...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Beautiful Lighthearted Perfection' Who is the quintessential American? Who embodies E pluribus unum? Who, at the intergalactic council,...
11 months ago
18
11 months ago
Who is the quintessential American? Who embodies E pluribus unum? Who, at the intergalactic council, might represent our nation (and species, for that matter)? I nominate Louis Armstrong. Other names come to mind: Abraham Lincoln, Jacques Barzun, Ralph Ellison, perhaps...
The Marginalian
Kate Sessions and the Devotion to Delight: The Forgotten Woman Who Covered California with Trees and... In May 1941, next to news of the Nazi savagely bombing London, The Los Angeles Times published a...
a year ago
47
a year ago
In May 1941, next to news of the Nazi savagely bombing London, The Los Angeles Times published a memorial profile of “California’s Mother of Gardens” — a hopeful antidote to the undoing of the human world, celebrating the woman who covered Southern California with the loveliest...
The Elysian
Your ideas for improving capitalism A collection of responses to my writing prompt.
2 months ago
Josh Thompson
On Fables: Finishing up Antifragile I’m cleaning up some notes I wanted to jot down over the last few weeks Nassim Taleb, in...
over a year ago
2
over a year ago
I’m cleaning up some notes I wanted to jot down over the last few weeks Nassim Taleb, in Antifragile, says: The great economist Ariel Rubinstein gets the green lumber fallacy - it requires a great deal of intellect and honesty to see things that way. Rubinstein refuses to...
Anecdotal Evidence
'An Immense Special Talent' D.G. Myers and I met in person only once, in March 2012, when David came to Houston to see his...
2 months ago
30
2 months ago
D.G. Myers and I met in person only once, in March 2012, when David came to Houston to see his oncologist. We had lunch in a Mexican restaurant and talked for hours, then I drove him to the hospital. He gave me the Library of America’s collection of Henry James’ writings on...
This Space
Favourite books 2020 Every time Dennis Cooper posts his favorite (sic) fiction and non-fiction of the year, it alone...
over a year ago
34
over a year ago
Every time Dennis Cooper posts his favorite (sic) fiction and non-fiction of the year, it alone exceeds the number of books I'm able to read in a year let alone the number from which it was presumably narrowed down. This is why I suggested a couple of years ago such pages choose...
Ben Borgers
Overwhelmed
over a year ago
The American Scholar
Bubble Girl The kidnapping that once riveted the nation The post Bubble Girl appeared first on The American...
7 months ago
16
7 months ago
The kidnapping that once riveted the nation The post Bubble Girl appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
Leonard Cohen on the Antidote to Anger and the Meaning of Resistance One of the commonest and most corrosive human reflexes is to react to helplessness with anger. We do...
5 months ago
47
5 months ago
One of the commonest and most corrosive human reflexes is to react to helplessness with anger. We do it in our personal lives and we do it in our political lives. We are living through a time of uncommon helplessness and uncertainty, touching every aspect of our lives, and in...
The American Scholar
Indiana Absurd Tiffany Tsao on translating a beguiling Indonesian short-story collection The post Indiana Absurd...
7 months ago
31
7 months ago
Tiffany Tsao on translating a beguiling Indonesian short-story collection The post Indiana Absurd appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
Setting up for 'SQL Queries for Mere Mortals' This tweet is from… a while ago. Turns out I didn’t dig into this book, because the pace at Turing...
over a year ago
1
over a year ago
This tweet is from… a while ago. Turns out I didn’t dig into this book, because the pace at Turing didn’t allow for a few weeks of thinking just about SQL. yes, I'm digging into sql to better my AR skills, and ultimately whatever I need to use next. pic.twitter.com/UhjyGKv1FQ —...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Every Departure Destroys a Class of Sympathies' As a boy I was spared most deaths. I've read of people who lose parents, siblings and close friends...
5 months ago
47
5 months ago
As a boy I was spared most deaths. I've read of people who lose parents, siblings and close friends when young, and wonder how they adapt to unprecedented loss. They have nothing to compare it to. The death that hit me hardest was President Kennedy’s, a month after my eleventh...
Ben Borgers
5 Pages a Day
over a year ago
The Marginalian
Winnicott on the Qualities of a Healthy Mind and a Healthy Relationship "A sign of health in the mind is the ability of one individual to enter imaginatively and yet...
4 months ago
41
4 months ago
"A sign of health in the mind is the ability of one individual to enter imaginatively and yet accurately into the thoughts and feelings and hopes and fears of another person; also to allow the other person to do the same to us."
The Marginalian
The Afterlives of the Soul: Sister Nivedita on Love and Death "To the soul, time does not exist. Only her own great purpose exists, shining clear and steady...
a year ago
The Marginalian
Some Thoughts about the Ocean and the Universe How to bear the gravity of being.
a year ago
The Elysian
Hint #3 I'm publishing a new print collection in one week.
3 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'He Writes On, Day After Day' Clipped from the New York Times, folded and tucked into Dying: An Introduction (1968) was the March...
11 months ago
13
11 months ago
Clipped from the New York Times, folded and tucked into Dying: An Introduction (1968) was the March 11, 1976 obituary for L.E. Sissman. The poet had died the previous day, age forty-eight. On the same page is the obituary for the Italian politician Attilio Piccioni, dead the same...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Past Is Alive and Stirring With Objects' Published in the January 1821 issue of London Magazine are thematically linked essays by two...
11 months ago
10
11 months ago
Published in the January 1821 issue of London Magazine are thematically linked essays by two friends, Charles Lamb and William Hazlitt: “New Year’s Eve” and “On the Past and Future,” respectively. Lamb’s is better known, and I'm aware of several readers who, like me, read it...
Anecdotal Evidence
'He Knows to Get a Dollar' The word tummler I learned from A.J. Liebling. It’s the title of a story he collected in his first...
10 months ago
28
10 months ago
The word tummler I learned from A.J. Liebling. It’s the title of a story he collected in his first book, Back Where I Came From (1938). “Tummler” was published in the February 26, 1938 issue of The New Yorker and begins:  “To the boys of the I.&Y., Hymie Katz is a hero. He is a...
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Chronic Independence of Mind' “A chronic independence of mind is unpardonable in any age; in our own it has certainly been safer...
a month ago
11
a month ago
“A chronic independence of mind is unpardonable in any age; in our own it has certainly been safer to praise independence than to exemplify it.”  Bracing words from one of literature’s inveterate outsiders, English poet and critic C.H. Sisson (1914-2003). He’s writing about...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Nothingness Is Our Need' One of R.L. Barth’s sisters-in-law found a tote bag containing poems and drafts in a cupboard, most...
6 months ago
51
6 months ago
One of R.L. Barth’s sisters-in-law found a tote bag containing poems and drafts in a cupboard, most dating back to his time at Stanford in the late nineteen-seventies. He found epigrams (his trademark form as a poet) and some Martial translations. The bag also held “one fugitive...
Anecdotal Evidence
'About As Approachable As a Porcupine' The large bay window facing the garden in front of our house is better than television....
a month ago
25
a month ago
The large bay window facing the garden in front of our house is better than television. No commercials, no dependency on internet whims, no bills to pay. That’s where I do most of my reading (best lighting in the house). From the couch I watch the show in the garden. Butterflies,...
The American Scholar
Overconsumed Adam Minter on what happens to all the stuff we downsize, declutter, and discard The post...
3 weeks ago
15
3 weeks ago
Adam Minter on what happens to all the stuff we downsize, declutter, and discard The post Overconsumed appeared first on The American Scholar.
Ben Borgers
Heart Reacts
over a year ago
The Marginalian
The Middle Passage: A Jungian Field Guide to Finding Meaning and Transformation in Midlife "Our task at midlife is to be strong enough to relinquish the ego-urgencies of the first half and...
9 months ago
Josh Thompson
Practicing with Polylines This is a first pass at trying to do something interesting (repeatedly) with the same base...
3 months ago
2
3 months ago
This is a first pass at trying to do something interesting (repeatedly) with the same base primative, in this case, a “polyline”. Read the rest of this post, understand what we’re going for, then go to part 2: get your own polyline from strava. It’s not trivial to get, but its...
Anecdotal Evidence
'No Secret Element of Gusto Warms Up the Sermon' Gusto is one of my favorite virtues, especially among writers. Italo Svevo has it. John Steinbeck...
a month ago
14
a month ago
Gusto is one of my favorite virtues, especially among writers. Italo Svevo has it. John Steinbeck does not. A.J. Liebling has it. Woodward and Bernstein have never heard of it. Gusto is taking pleasure in the job at hand. About writers it suggests energy and enjoyment in playing...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Scrawls With a Lavish Hand Its Signature' “Where the wind listeth, there the sailboats list, / Water is touched with a light case of hives /...
2 months ago
26
2 months ago
“Where the wind listeth, there the sailboats list, / Water is touched with a light case of hives / Or wandering gooseflesh.” Carl George is the sort of scientist whose company I most enjoy. He is a generalist, what used to be called a naturalist. Now an emeritus professor of...
Josh Thompson
Two Critical Books and Two Critical Articles (For 'Software People') I speak with many persons who are considering becoming software developers (usually by way of a...
over a year ago
2
over a year ago
I speak with many persons who are considering becoming software developers (usually by way of a program like the Flatiron School or the Turing School). I’m a graduate of the Turing School, and have written a lot about the program, like: My reflections on Turing an 8-part guide to...
Astral Codex Ten
Indulge Your Internet Addiction By Reading About Internet Addiction ...
2 weeks ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'There Is Brio Enough Here' A word I’ve always liked is brio. It sounds like the name of a commercial product, floor wax or an...
a year ago
13
a year ago
A word I’ve always liked is brio. It sounds like the name of a commercial product, floor wax or an energy drink. We have an Italian restaurant in Houston called Brio. My Italian dictionary translates it as “zest” and the OED gives “liveliness, vivacity, ‘go.’” It suggests...
The Marginalian
John Gardner on the Key to Self-Renewal Across Life and the Art of Making Rather Than Finding... "The potentialities you develop to the full come as the result of an interplay between you and...
7 months ago
The Elysian
The Cooperatist Manifesto that inspired Mondragon Father José María Arizmendiarrieta didn’t just imagine a better economic system, he built it.
2 months ago
Josh Thompson
Metaprogramming in Ruby: method_missing I’m working through Metaprogramming in Ruby It’s a great read. There are examples in the books, but...
over a year ago
2
over a year ago
I’m working through Metaprogramming in Ruby It’s a great read. There are examples in the books, but I wanted to take them out and apply them to some easy Exercisms. I feel some disclosure may be useful. In no way, at all, should you ever implement any of the “solutions” I’m...
Josh Thompson
Migrating my Jekyll site to Netlify Troubleshooting Netilify deploy Ugggh I moved intermediateruby.com to Netlify a few months ago in...
over a year ago
2
over a year ago
Troubleshooting Netilify deploy Ugggh I moved intermediateruby.com to Netlify a few months ago in like 10 minutes, so my primary site, josh.works, should take maybe 20, right? I’m a few hours deep. Here’s what I get when Netlify tries to build: I should have done the following...
This Space
39 Books: 1996 It's a commonplace that in reading novels one can escape the ravages of time. In 1994, I borrowed my...
7 months ago
36
7 months ago
It's a commonplace that in reading novels one can escape the ravages of time. In 1994, I borrowed my student housemate's innocent-looking hardback edition of Nicholson Baker's The Fermata in which Arno Strine writes about how he can actually stop time. The title refers to the...
The Marginalian
Milan Kundera on the Power of Coincidences and the Musicality of How Chance Composes Our Lives "Human lives... are composed like music. Guided by his sense of beauty, an individual transforms a...
a year ago
8
a year ago
"Human lives... are composed like music. Guided by his sense of beauty, an individual transforms a fortuitous occurrence... into a motif, which then assumes a permanent place in the composition of the individual's life."
Josh Thompson
Save hundreds by being willing to spend $20 When you pack for a trip, you pack “just in case” items, right? Things that in a certain situation...
over a year ago
2
over a year ago
When you pack for a trip, you pack “just in case” items, right? Things that in a certain situation would be priceless. Think “umbrella” or “underpants”. But then you think of all the possible situations you might encounter, and you’ll find your “just in case” items quickly...
The American Scholar
Chris Combs Surveillance state The post Chris Combs appeared first on The American Scholar.
6 months ago
sbensu
The person behind the idea When reading, it is worth understanding the kind of person authors are.
2 weeks ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Fond of Books and Fond of Reading' A friend has loaned me his copy of Maurice Baring’s Have You Anything to Declare? (1936), subtitled...
8 months ago
23
8 months ago
A friend has loaned me his copy of Maurice Baring’s Have You Anything to Declare? (1936), subtitled A Note Book with Commentaries. This is the 1950 edition published by William Heinemann and comes with an indecipherable pencil inscription on the front end paper that may be...
Wuthering...
Many of Plato's early Socratic dialogues - It was quite lovely. I’ve been enjoying Plato’s dialogues recently.  I’d read some of them before, at university or...
a year ago
37
a year ago
I’ve been enjoying Plato’s dialogues recently.  I’d read some of them before, at university or during my last Greek phase 25 years ago, and this time I hope to read almost all of them. I will make some notes on them in a few posts.  Give them a tag if nothing else, and make some...
Josh Thompson
Bollards: Why & What author’s note: it’s always fun to see your own stuff on the Hacker News front page! This very post...
7 months ago
1
7 months ago
author’s note: it’s always fun to see your own stuff on the Hacker News front page! This very post sparked >450 comments worth of conversation! I didn’t even know this got posted until days later! What are bollards The what and the why in a single image: The what and why in a...
Josh Thompson
Refactoring practice: Get rid of `attr_accessors` in `ogre.rb` in 2 minutes Preparing for Turing Series Index What follows is an eight-part series that will help you pick up...
over a year ago
2
over a year ago
Preparing for Turing Series Index What follows is an eight-part series that will help you pick up useful information about a number of topics related to Ruby, specifically geared for students learning the Ruby programming language, as part of the Turing School’s Backend Software...
Josh Thompson
Turing Prep Chapter 3: Moar Mythical Creatures Preparing for Turing Series Index What follows is an eight-part series that will help you pick up...
over a year ago
2
over a year ago
Preparing for Turing Series Index What follows is an eight-part series that will help you pick up useful information about a number of topics related to Ruby, specifically geared for students learning the Ruby programming language, as part of the Turing School’s Backend Software...
Anecdotal Evidence
'A University Education, Uncorrupted' A human being is “born an heir to an inheritance to which he can succeed only in a process...
a week ago
15
a week ago
A human being is “born an heir to an inheritance to which he can succeed only in a process of learning.” Aristotle didn't get it quite right when he thought we could be defined by our capacity for speech and even, on occasion, rational discourse. No, it’s learning that makes us...
Ben Borgers
AI is an impediment to learning web development
5 months ago
The Marginalian
Your Voice Is a Garden: Margaret Watts Hughes’s Wondrous Victorian Visualizations of Sound “I hear bravuras of birds… I hear the sound I love, the sound of the human voice,” Walt Whitman...
4 months ago
34
4 months ago
“I hear bravuras of birds… I hear the sound I love, the sound of the human voice,” Walt Whitman exulted in his ode to the “puzzle of puzzles” we call Being. How puzzling indeed, and how miraculous, that of the cold silence of spacetime voice emerged, in all its warm loveliness —...
Ben Borgers
School But Online
over a year ago
The American Scholar
Feels Like Coming Home The wonders of the coastal redwood The post Feels Like Coming Home appeared first on The American...
3 months ago
21
3 months ago
The wonders of the coastal redwood The post Feels Like Coming Home appeared first on The American Scholar.
Ben Borgers
Gerald R. Gill Papers
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Some Godforsaken Province' After the Nazis invaded Poland in 1939, the poet Aleksander Wat fled to Lwów, already occupied by...
7 months ago
61
7 months ago
After the Nazis invaded Poland in 1939, the poet Aleksander Wat fled to Lwów, already occupied by the Soviets. He was arrested by the NKVD the following year and held in a military prison in that city, then moved to Kiev, the Lubyanka in Moscow, and Saratov, more than...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Let One Book Lead Him to Another' I have not run the analytics but I believe the Joseph Epstein essay with the longest shelf life and...
6 months ago
50
6 months ago
I have not run the analytics but I believe the Joseph Epstein essay with the longest shelf life and largest number of citations is “Joseph Epstein’s Lifetime Reading Plan,” published in The American Scholar in 1983 and collected four years later in Once More Around the Block. A...
The Marginalian
The Remedy for Creative Block and Existential Stuckness "Faithfulness to the moment and to the present circumstance entails continuous surrender... Only...
a year ago
78
a year ago
"Faithfulness to the moment and to the present circumstance entails continuous surrender... Only unconditional surrender leads to real emptiness, and from that place of emptiness I can be prolific and free."
Josh Thompson
2018 Reading Review & Recommendations I read many books in 2018. I’m listing them out here, along with recommendations. Here’s the...
over a year ago
2
over a year ago
I read many books in 2018. I’m listing them out here, along with recommendations. Here’s the recommendation “key”: 👍 = I recommend this book. (This metric is intentionally fuzzy.) 😔 = This book influenced my mental model of the world/reality/myself 🏢 = Book topic is...
Ben Borgers
Streaks Are Extremely Powerful
over a year ago
Josh Thompson
How I take notes, AKA 'Add an Index to Your Notebook' A while back, sometime in 2017, I wrote this tweet: a while ago, I read about how to keep...
over a year ago
2
over a year ago
A while back, sometime in 2017, I wrote this tweet: a while ago, I read about how to keep well-organized notes on a range of topics. Here's my current notebook, indexed by category: pic.twitter.com/aVsNnGPEpd — Josh Thompson (@josh_works) May 8, 2017 Since then, I occasionally...
Anecdotal Evidence
'More Than Documentary' “Literariness, as I understand it, does not necessarily entail any particular set of...
3 months ago
28
3 months ago
“Literariness, as I understand it, does not necessarily entail any particular set of formal qualities. What makes a work literary is the ability to be understood and appreciated outside the context of its origin. That is why a literary work, however valuable as a document of its...
The Marginalian
Youth and Age: Kahlil Gibran on the Art of Becoming A roadmap to the fulfilled belonging on the other side of "the great aloneness which knows not what...
a year ago
52
a year ago
A roadmap to the fulfilled belonging on the other side of "the great aloneness which knows not what is far and what is near, nor what is small nor great."
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Glory Seemingly Reserved For Poems' “He was born in the jumbled catacombs of the stair-stepped port of Odessa, late in 1894. Irreparably...
5 months ago
41
5 months ago
“He was born in the jumbled catacombs of the stair-stepped port of Odessa, late in 1894. Irreparably Semitic, Isaac was the son of a rag merchant from Kiev and a Moldavian Jewess. Catastrophe has been the normal climate of his life.”  Though born within five years of each other,...
Wuthering...
Seneca and Marcus Aurelius and their Stoic self-help books - I shall not be afraid when my last hour... The curious thing about Stoicism is its long-lasting survival in the self-help genre, curious at...
a year ago
47
a year ago
The curious thing about Stoicism is its long-lasting survival in the self-help genre, curious at least until I read Seneca’s Letters from a Stoic (1st C.) several years ago and discovered that it was a self-help book, one of the founding self-help books.  The Meditations of...
The American Scholar
Part of the Parade The post Part of the Parade appeared first on The American Scholar.
a month ago
ben-mini
IMG_0416 Between 2009 and 2012, Apple iPhones and iPod Touches included a feature called “Send to YouTube”...
a month ago
1
a month ago
Between 2009 and 2012, Apple iPhones and iPod Touches included a feature called “Send to YouTube” that allowed users to upload videos directly to YouTube from the Photos app. The feature worked… really well. In fact, YouTube reported a 1700% increase in total video uploads...
The Marginalian
Loving the Tree of Life: Annie Dillard on How to Bear Your Mortality "We live and move by splitting the light of the present, as a canoe’s bow parts water."
a year ago
Blog -...
Book Review - Codependent No More With more than five million copies sold by its twenty-fifth anniversary nearly a decade ago,...
over a year ago
1
over a year ago
With more than five million copies sold by its twenty-fifth anniversary nearly a decade ago, Codependent No More is a startling, powerful book that has touched the lives of so very many.
The American Scholar
Kinship and Contradictions Carrie Lowry Schuettpelz on the complexities of Native American identity The post Kinship and...
a week ago
11
a week ago
Carrie Lowry Schuettpelz on the complexities of Native American identity The post Kinship and Contradictions appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'Not At All Abashed Before the Fact' “We do not go to cowards for tender dealing; there is nothing so cruel as panic; the man who has...
a year ago
10
a year ago
“We do not go to cowards for tender dealing; there is nothing so cruel as panic; the man who has least fear for his own carcass, has most time to consider others.”  What a remarkable sentence, one I would never have the guts to write. It’s not the sentiment but the form that’s so...
Escaping Flatland
On mentors What is it that motivates someone to take on someone and help them grow? Why do some learners have...
a year ago
8
a year ago
What is it that motivates someone to take on someone and help them grow? Why do some learners have that privilege?
Ben Borgers
Friday, January 14, 2022
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Such a Touchy, Testy, Pleasant Fellow' One of the curses of a good memory is the inability to forget stupid, hurtful things we said in the...
7 months ago
65
7 months ago
One of the curses of a good memory is the inability to forget stupid, hurtful things we said in the past, and sometimes last week. Years ago I wrecked a friendship with a glib remark, a wisecrack that I didn’t even believe but had convinced myself was funny (it was, in fact, but...
The Marginalian
A Victorian Visionary’s Prescient Case for Animal Rights and Vegetarianism "Once upon a time your fore-fathers made no scruple about not only killing, but also eating their...
a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'He Worked His Weaponed Wit' A reader is displeased: “Oh my aren’t you witty?” He/she was offended by something I had written a...
a year ago
25
a year ago
A reader is displeased: “Oh my aren’t you witty?” He/she was offended by something I had written a long time ago about Robert Bly. Granted, criticizing Bly is like shooting fish in the bathtub with a bazooka. I was a little ashamed of myself but that passed. My consolation is...
Josh Thompson
The Complete Guide to Rails Performance: basic setup You know the feeling. You are excited to start a guide or a tutorial. You buy it, crack it open, and...
over a year ago
2
over a year ago
You know the feeling. You are excited to start a guide or a tutorial. You buy it, crack it open, and start working through the environment setup. Then… something goes wrong. Next thing you know, you’ve spent two three too many hours debugging random crap, and you’re not even done...
Ben Borgers
Publishing my Fall 2022 class notes
a year ago
The Marginalian
The Art of Withstanding Abandonment: The Patience of the Penguin and How Evolution Invented Faith “Let us love this distance which is wholly woven of friendship, for those who do not love each other...
4 months ago
25
4 months ago
“Let us love this distance which is wholly woven of friendship, for those who do not love each other are not separated,” Simone Weil wrote in her soulful meditation on the paradox of closeness and separation. To be separated from a loved one — in space or in silence, by choice or...
Anecdotal Evidence
'To Carry on With the Business of the Day' Beware of “nature poetry.” It tends to be not about nature but the poet and his self-regarding...
4 months ago
40
4 months ago
Beware of “nature poetry.” It tends to be not about nature but the poet and his self-regarding epiphanies. Perhaps our finest nature poet is Yvor Winters. A basic understanding of biology is useful in discouraging pantheism and other forms of fashionable nature mysticism.  We...
The Marginalian
Favorite Books of the Year: Art, Science, Poetry, Psychology, Children’s, and More Because I read for the same reason I write — to fathom my life and deepen my living — looking back...
5 days ago
8
5 days ago
Because I read for the same reason I write — to fathom my life and deepen my living — looking back on a year of life has always been looking back on a year of reading. This year was different — a time of such profound pain and profound transformation that it fused reading and...
Ben Borgers
Google Won the Kids
over a year ago
Wuthering...
"Socrates gone mad" - my hero Diogenes the Cynic He lived in a jar, owned a staff and a cloak and nothing else, and was a sarcastic pain in the...
a year ago
9
a year ago
He lived in a jar, owned a staff and a cloak and nothing else, and was a sarcastic pain in the ass.  He took the example of Socrates to its limit.  Plato is the one who called him “Socrates gone mad,” but in a sense he is just the logical result of thinking through how Socrates...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Most Perverse Gesture' “Books are friends, oracles, household gods, characters in the ongoing drama of our...
a year ago
9
a year ago
“Books are friends, oracles, household gods, characters in the ongoing drama of our minds.” Understandably, Lance Marrow gets a little sentimental about books and their needless destruction. We resist soft-headed fetishism but for some of us, discarding or destroying books, even...
The American Scholar
Changing the Lens Exploding the Canon, Episode 5 (Finale) The post Changing the Lens appeared first on The American...
7 months ago
56
7 months ago
Exploding the Canon, Episode 5 (Finale) The post Changing the Lens appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
The Power of an Audacious Goal I generally try to hedge the risks I face. I’m no daredevil, nor do I love danger, but I do love...
over a year ago
2
over a year ago
I generally try to hedge the risks I face. I’m no daredevil, nor do I love danger, but I do love pursuing opportunities that take me beyond my comfort zone. The funny thing about going beyond your comfort zone is that once you’ve done it once or twice, you redefine your comfort...
This Space
39 Books: 2017 The list of books piles up, thirty-three now, and I'm reading fewer and fewer novels. Not through...
7 months ago
36
7 months ago
The list of books piles up, thirty-three now, and I'm reading fewer and fewer novels. Not through choice, but so little of what's new appeals. Instead, this year I read and reread books like Peter Handke's To Duration and Once Again for Thucydides, both of which escape helpful...
Anecdotal Evidence
'We Take Measure of the Loss' The youngest poet included by Yvor Winters and Kenneth Fields in Quest for Reality: An Anthology of...
10 months ago
17
10 months ago
The youngest poet included by Yvor Winters and Kenneth Fields in Quest for Reality: An Anthology of Short Poems in English (1969) was M. Scott Momaday, a former Winters graduate student at Stanford who was then thirty-five years old. Winters, who died in 1968, also considered...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Most Intense Enthusiasm for Good Literature' I was reading an interview with X.J. Kennedy when this line touched me unexpectedly: “He was, of all...
8 months ago
57
8 months ago
I was reading an interview with X.J. Kennedy when this line touched me unexpectedly: “He was, of all the people I ever met, the one who had the most intense enthusiasm for good literature.” Spoken by another, this might amount to glibly rendered bullshit, the sort of thing junior...
Josh Thompson
Dream Big, and Build Optionality We all can dream big. I have dreams, and you probably do to. For example: Travel, location...
over a year ago
1
over a year ago
We all can dream big. I have dreams, and you probably do to. For example: Travel, location independent living, being wealthy/choosing to do work that interests you, enjoying “simple” things. The list could go on, and on, and on. But then we go right along doing all the normal...
Anecdotal Evidence
'I Leave Him, Full of Envy' Without resorting to clues, who do you think Eugenio Montale is talking about:  “He is a strong,...
a year ago
10
a year ago
Without resorting to clues, who do you think Eugenio Montale is talking about:  “He is a strong, cordial, human man, whom one seems to have always known.”   One hint: it’s a poet. Among major poets, the pickings are slim. Strong? Scratch Cavafy. Cordial? There goes Frost. “Human...
Josh Thompson
Type. Publish. Done. Yesterday I read How the Hell do I Prioritize Work, Blog & Find Balance. The author of the letter is...
over a year ago
2
over a year ago
Yesterday I read How the Hell do I Prioritize Work, Blog & Find Balance. The author of the letter is a busy, accomplished guy and still manages to write regularly.  He said, in short: I sit down, and I write. I’ve done it a lot, so I’m not bad at it. I don’t often proof read my...
Ben Borgers
Bronze, Silver, Gold
over a year ago
The American Scholar
Consummated in Exile A new recording of Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances conveys the breadth of the 20th-century...
6 months ago
39
6 months ago
A new recording of Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances conveys the breadth of the 20th-century composer’s life’s journey The post Consummated in Exile appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Dead Wall or a Thick Mist' Reading occasionally reveals a pleasing convergence of thought between one writer, separated by...
a year ago
11
a year ago
Reading occasionally reveals a pleasing convergence of thought between one writer, separated by centuries and continents, and another. The happy reader is their ambassador and beneficiary. I was again reading Nabokov’s brief, death-haunted novel from 1972, Transparent Things. Its...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Let Us See Them There in the Shadows' A childhood acquaintance has died. We were never close. In fact, I didn’t know he was still alive...
6 months ago
39
6 months ago
A childhood acquaintance has died. We were never close. In fact, I didn’t know he was still alive until a friend told me he was dead. What I remember is his face, his general demeanor, roughly the sort of behavior I could expect of him. I last saw him more than half a century...
The Elysian
I'd like to open a Singapore franchise please? Franchise Cities as an alternative to Charter Cities.
9 months ago
ribbonfarm
Istanbul: A Tale of Three Cities by Bettany Hughes I started reading Istanbul: A Tale of Three Cities by Bettany Hughes while I was in Istanbul last...
8 months ago
2
8 months ago
I started reading Istanbul: A Tale of Three Cities by Bettany Hughes while I was in Istanbul last November and finally finished it last week. It’s a really solid and absorbing book, and far too dense and rich with detail to zip through, which is why I read it a dozen or so pages...
Josh Thompson
No New Books I’ve promised myself that I won’t add any more books to my Kindle, either by purchasing them from...
over a year ago
2
over a year ago
I’ve promised myself that I won’t add any more books to my Kindle, either by purchasing them from Amazon, or downloading them online, or renting them from a Library. Why? I’ve let reading about doing things stand in the way of doing the things. No amount of educational literature...
The American Scholar
The Baritone as Democrat How Lawrence Tibbett prophesied the Metropolitan Opera crisis of today The post The Baritone as...
a month ago
15
a month ago
How Lawrence Tibbett prophesied the Metropolitan Opera crisis of today The post The Baritone as Democrat appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
Downstream of Fukushima The Japanese seafood industry has rebounded, but is anyone worried about irradiated water? The post...
6 months ago
59
6 months ago
The Japanese seafood industry has rebounded, but is anyone worried about irradiated water? The post Downstream of Fukushima appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
Talent is Overrated Talent is Overrated In Talent is Overrated, the author argues that world-class performers are not...
over a year ago
1
over a year ago
Talent is Overrated In Talent is Overrated, the author argues that world-class performers are not genetically gifted. The difference between world-class performers and the rest of us? Lots of deliberate practice. (Read the article.) I have no interest in becoming Mozart, or Tiger...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The World Has Always Seemed to Me So Various' I dropped out of university after my junior year in 1973 and didn’t return to campus to complete my...
3 months ago
30
3 months ago
I dropped out of university after my junior year in 1973 and didn’t return to campus to complete my B.A. in English until 2003. The lack of a degree never got in the way of working for almost a quarter-century as a newspaper reporter. I suspect a degree in most non-STEM...
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Joker; One Who Breaks a Jest' When I encountered the word witcracker in Much Ado About Nothing, I marked it for further use and...
a year ago
9
a year ago
When I encountered the word witcracker in Much Ado About Nothing, I marked it for further use and found myself silently singing it to the tune of “Matchmaker,Matchmaker” from Fiddler on the Roof: “Witcracker, witcracker, / Make me a wit . . .” In Shakespeare’s Act V, Scene 4,...
Ben Borgers
My Guilt for Useless Things
over a year ago
Wuthering...
Lucian's satires - Frankly he's a blamed nuisance The great 2nd century satirist Lucian was a great shock to me at one point, twenty-five years ago...
a year ago
8
a year ago
The great 2nd century satirist Lucian was a great shock to me at one point, twenty-five years ago when I got serious about classical literature.  I had never heard of him, partly because of the odd historical artifact where what he writes is called “Menippean satire” even though...
Wuthering...
Readalongs I wish someone else would organize - Cuban literature, August Wilson plays, and many more The glory days of book blogs were full of “challenges.”  I hosted several: Scottish literature,...
over a year ago
29
over a year ago
The glory days of book blogs were full of “challenges.”  I hosted several: Scottish literature, Italian, Austrian, Scandinavian, Portuguese, always limited to the 19th century and earlier to keep the scope manageable.  The idea was that I read a lot, while others were invited to...
The American Scholar
“How Happy Is the Little Stone” by Emily Dickinson Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “How Happy Is the Little Stone” by Emily Dickinson appeared...
7 months ago
58
7 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “How Happy Is the Little Stone” by Emily Dickinson appeared first on The American Scholar.
Ben Borgers
Did MCAS Matter?
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Nothing Makes a Man More Reverent' I have never thought of reading as a “hobby.” I put the word in quotes because I sense a patronizing...
3 weeks ago
9
3 weeks ago
I have never thought of reading as a “hobby.” I put the word in quotes because I sense a patronizing tinge to the word. A hobby is a lesser pastime than a job, something frivolous, a “leisure activity” that most people in the past couldn’t afford because they had to earn a...
The American Scholar
Rap Rap Rap The post Rap Rap Rap appeared first on The American Scholar.
2 months ago
Astral Codex Ten
Hidden Open Thread 356.5 ...
a month ago
The Marginalian
The Paradox of Free Will The neuroscience, physics, and philosophy of freedom in a universe of fixed laws.
a year ago
Ben Borgers
Not Developer Enough
over a year ago
Josh Thompson
Friends Don't Let Friends Shortrope The first in a series about how to be a better belayer. Short rope [shawrt-rohp] verb The act of...
over a year ago
2
over a year ago
The first in a series about how to be a better belayer. Short rope [shawrt-rohp] verb The act of not giving sufficient rope to your climber. Getting short roped is bad. It’s not necessarily dangerous, nor does it cause you to take a whip (it can, of course) but the real reason...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Moved—Stopp’d--Shall I Go On?—No' The professor asked me to write a paper on Tristram Shandy, the novel she had introduced to us in...
4 weeks ago
14
4 weeks ago
The professor asked me to write a paper on Tristram Shandy, the novel she had introduced to us in her eighteenth-century English fiction class. It was her favorite novel. Its bawdy humor matched her own. For me it was love at first sight – for the novel, I mean. I was already a...
The Elysian
How would anarchist societies protect themselves? Letters to an anarchist, part three.
a month ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Sacrifice and Doom' Scholars of Russian literature tell us the edition of Anton Chekhov’s letters published between 1944...
2 months ago
21
2 months ago
Scholars of Russian literature tell us the edition of Anton Chekhov’s letters published between 1944 and 1951 was heavily censored by Soviet editors, filled with ellipses that signify an excised word, phrase or sentence. Nothing surprising here. Censorship is an obligatory tool...
The Marginalian
The New Science of Plant Intelligence and the Mystery of What Makes a Mind "Every thought that has ever passed through your brain was made possible by plants."
7 months ago
Josh Thompson
December 2016 Goals December 19th seems a bit late to write about December’s goals, huh? Nonetheless, I’ve had some, and...
over a year ago
1
over a year ago
December 19th seems a bit late to write about December’s goals, huh? Nonetheless, I’ve had some, and I will still have them through the end of the month. I did post a review of November a few days ago. This should really be rolled into that. A “monthly review/going forward”...
Ben Borgers
War Room
over a year ago
Wuthering...
Let's read Ovid's Metamorphoses! And perhaps more. Who would like to read Ovid’s Metamorphoses (8 CE) with me?  We have had some discussion of this...
a year ago
11
a year ago
Who would like to read Ovid’s Metamorphoses (8 CE) with me?  We have had some discussion of this good idea, and I feel I am up to it now.  Up to writing about it. Metamorphoses is a compendium of Greek myths that feature transformation, which turns out to be hundreds of pages...
The Marginalian
What Birds Dream About: The Evolution of REM and How We Practice the Possible in Our Sleep "It may be that in REM, this gloaming between waking consciousness and the unconscious, we practice...
5 months ago
58
5 months ago
"It may be that in REM, this gloaming between waking consciousness and the unconscious, we practice the possible into the real... It may be that we evolved to dream ourselves into reality — a laboratory of consciousness that began in the bird brain."
Anecdotal Evidence
'On Satan’s Chamberlains Highseated in Berlin' In 2011, in an antiques-cum-junk shop here in Houston, I found a copy of an anthology, The Spirit of...
a year ago
9
a year ago
In 2011, in an antiques-cum-junk shop here in Houston, I found a copy of an anthology, The Spirit of Man, published as a wartime morale booster in 1916, edited by the Poet Laureate, Robert Bridges. It’s the fourth edition, from 1923. I knew the title because of the contribution...
The Marginalian
Lichens and the Meaning of Life "We are lichens on a grand scale."
a year ago
The Perry Bible...
The Good Knight The post The Good Knight appeared first on The Perry Bible Fellowship.
6 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Butterflies Have Nothing to Do With Butter' Call me an aesthete but I’ve always favored the definition of butterfly given by Dr. Johnson in his...
4 months ago
39
4 months ago
Call me an aesthete but I’ve always favored the definition of butterfly given by Dr. Johnson in his Dictionary: “A beautiful insect, so named because it first appears at the beginning of the season for butter.” Their seemingly gratuitous beauty, coupled with not stinging like...
Josh Thompson
Things You Can't Do from Behind a Computer, pt. 1 Meet people. Over the last nine or ten months, I can clearly remember a handful of conversations I...
over a year ago
2
over a year ago
Meet people. Over the last nine or ten months, I can clearly remember a handful of conversations I had. I initiated each conversation with someone that I wanted to learn from. Most I had some prior relationship with (I.E. I had met them, or I knew someone who knew them). This was...
Josh Thompson
Cultivate Curiosity, or 'Reasons to be More Childlike' I’ve had an idea rolling around my head. I suspect that “being curious” will correlate well with...
over a year ago
2
over a year ago
I’ve had an idea rolling around my head. I suspect that “being curious” will correlate well with positive outcomes in my life, on pretty much any time horizon, be it days, weeks, or decades. Curiosity feels like a tolerable antidote to boredom, though boredom in and of itself is...
The American Scholar
Our Pets, Our Plates In defense of the furred and the hoofed The post Our Pets, Our Plates appeared first on The American...
6 months ago
60
6 months ago
In defense of the furred and the hoofed The post Our Pets, Our Plates appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
18 Life-Learnings from 18 Years of The Marginalian Somewhere along the way, you realize that no one will teach you how to live your own life — not your...
2 months ago
24
2 months ago
Somewhere along the way, you realize that no one will teach you how to live your own life — not your parents or your idols, not the philosophers or the poets, not your liberal arts education or your twelve-step program, not church or therapy or Tolstoy. No matter how valuable any...
Ben Borgers
New in Superadmin: styling, images, rich text
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'They’ve No Clue of My Reality' “We are all well and in good spirits, have enough to eat. I have not yet eaten the cake you sent me....
10 months ago
15
10 months ago
“We are all well and in good spirits, have enough to eat. I have not yet eaten the cake you sent me. I do not have to do guard duty as I am an officer, think of sergeant Peck, sounds pretty big don’t it, eh?”  That’s Marcus Peck, a soldier from Sand Lake, N.Y., who answered...
The Elysian
Idea Labs! An open thread for collaborative worldbuilding Let's brainstorm the future together.
9 months ago
Steven Scrawls
Supposedly-Deceased Intellectuals Found Living at Resort ‘Small Village’ of Supposedly-Deceased Intellectuals Found Alive, Thriving at Caribbean...
4 months ago
2
4 months ago
‘Small Village’ of Supposedly-Deceased Intellectuals Found Alive, Thriving at Caribbean Resort Gabriel Martinez, a 35-year-old confectioner living in the Cayman Islands, thought he was posting a simple promotional photo when he snapped a picture of his ‘cocoa-banana-surprise’ and...
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Troublesome Error, a Pernicious Foppery'' Let’s be grateful to our troubled age for making it necessary to revive such formerly dormant words...
7 months ago
54
7 months ago
Let’s be grateful to our troubled age for making it necessary to revive such formerly dormant words as cant and foppery, so as to avoid the more precise but less polite bullshit. For foppery, the OED offers among its definitions “foolishness, imbecility, stupidity, folly.” It’s...
Josh Thompson
MySQL concatenation and casting I recently set up my environment for working through SQL for Mere Mortals. I’ll record some...
over a year ago
2
over a year ago
I recently set up my environment for working through SQL for Mere Mortals. I’ll record some interested tidbits here as I go. Chapter 5: Concatenation without the || operator I use MySQL at work, and MySQL doesn’t support the || operator for string concatenation. So, in the book,...
Wuthering...
it’s right about here that there would normally be a gap - Peter Adamson's Classical Philosophy, the... Peter Adamson is an English philosopher with a long-running podcast, History of Philosophy without...
a year ago
48
a year ago
Peter Adamson is an English philosopher with a long-running podcast, History of Philosophy without Any Gaps.  What can that mean, without any gaps? We’ve finished Aristotle, and it’s right about here that there would normally be a gap.  In an undergraduate philosophy course you...
Wuthering...
Books finished in April 2023 I continue the practice of posting a list as a substitute for real writing. Coming soon: a long...
a year ago
56
a year ago
I continue the practice of posting a list as a substitute for real writing. Coming soon: a long overdue loot at Seneca's plays, a glance at Gide's Counterfeiters, and some messing around with Plato's Republic. If I did not write in April, I at least read: GREEK PHILOSOPHY The...
Blog -...
Book Review - The Surrender Experiment With the book The Surrender Experiment, author Michael (Mickey) Singer, gives us a gift. In this...
over a year ago
2
over a year ago
With the book The Surrender Experiment, author Michael (Mickey) Singer, gives us a gift. In this eloquently penned biography of his “journey into life’s perfection”, he demonstrates the beauty that life can provide for us when we are not solely guided by our logical,...
The Marginalian
The Porcupine Dilemma: Schopenhauer’s Parable about Negotiating the Optimal Distance in Love This is the supreme challenge of intimacy — how to reconcile the aching yearning for closeness with...
a year ago
24
a year ago
This is the supreme challenge of intimacy — how to reconcile the aching yearning for closeness with the painful pressures of actually being close, how to forge a bond tight enough to feel the warmth of connection but spacious enough to feel free. Kahlil Gibran knew this when he...
The Marginalian
How to Love Yourself and How to Love Another: A Playful and Poignant Vintage Illustrated Fable about... The great problem of consciousness is that all it knows is itself, and only dimly. We can override...
3 weeks ago
11
3 weeks ago
The great problem of consciousness is that all it knows is itself, and only dimly. We can override this elemental self-reference only with constant vigilance, reminding ourselves again and again as we forget over and over how difficult it is — how nigh impossible — to know what...
Anecdotal Evidence
'In Itself and Forever Shipwreck' I’ve just finished rereading William Maxwell’s final novel, So Long, See You Tomorrow, published in...
a year ago
11
a year ago
I’ve just finished rereading William Maxwell’s final novel, So Long, See You Tomorrow, published in two issues of The New Yorker in 1979 and as a book the following year. I read it in the magazine and I’ve since read the book – Maxwell’s finest, written when he was seventy years...
The American Scholar
American Modernism’s Lost Boy-King The late, great Paul Auster on Stephen Crane The post American Modernism’s Lost Boy-King appeared...
7 months ago
30
7 months ago
The late, great Paul Auster on Stephen Crane The post American Modernism’s Lost Boy-King appeared first on The American Scholar.
Ben Borgers
Productivity YouTubers
over a year ago
The Marginalian
John Quincy Adams on Impostor Syndrome and the True Measure of Success “You will never get any more out of life than you expect,” Bruce Lee wrote to himself. All...
6 months ago
54
6 months ago
“You will never get any more out of life than you expect,” Bruce Lee wrote to himself. All expectation is a story of the possible. Every person lives inside a story of who they are, what they are worth, and what is possible for their life, and suffers in proportion to how...
Anecdotal Evidence
'What Will Become of My Diary?' “During the morning hours of the first of September 1939, war broke out between Germany and Poland...
3 months ago
34
3 months ago
“During the morning hours of the first of September 1939, war broke out between Germany and Poland and indirectly between Germany and Poland’s allies, England and France. This war will indeed bring destruction upon human civilization which merits annihilation and destruction....
Wuthering...
Jon Fosse's Septology - art "can only say something while keeping silent about what it actually... Jon Fosse’s Septology (2019-21) is a long stream-of-consciousness novel about a Norwegian painter...
a month ago
22
a month ago
Jon Fosse’s Septology (2019-21) is a long stream-of-consciousness novel about a Norwegian painter trying to understand one of his paintings.  Each of the novel’s seven sections begins with Asle looking at the painting: AND I SEE MYSELF STANDING and looking at the picture...
ribbonfarm
Intellectual Menopause I ran across the alarming phrase intellectual menopause a few months ago in John Gall’s...
4 months ago
1
4 months ago
I ran across the alarming phrase intellectual menopause a few months ago in John Gall’s Systemantics, and it naturally stuck in my brain given I’m pushing 50 and getting predictably angsty about it. The phrase conjures up visions of a phenomenon much more profound and unfunny...
Josh Thompson
An Open Letter about Golden 2022-06-15 Update I wrote this document the first time in a very small number of minutes, three...
over a year ago
2
over a year ago
2022-06-15 Update I wrote this document the first time in a very small number of minutes, three weeks ago, on my way out the door on a particularly busy day. I follow “write it now”. I’ve gotten to discuss this letter with a few different people, because I mentioned it in email....
ben-mini
Root Canals and Bill Gates In Finding Nemo, there was a scene about a root canal surgery that absolutely terrified me: This...
6 months ago
1
6 months ago
In Finding Nemo, there was a scene about a root canal surgery that absolutely terrified me: This could just be me, but I spent a remarkable amount of my childhood worrying about root canals. Horror stories like these created a universal phobia that dentists suck and that’s...
Blog -...
Book Review - King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine This book is a timeless classic that had a significant impact on deepening my understanding of the...
over a year ago
2
over a year ago
This book is a timeless classic that had a significant impact on deepening my understanding of the masculine. Published in 1990, King, Warrior, Magician, Lover introduces readers to the concept of mature masculine archetypes and their immature shadows. The authors, Robert...
Ben Borgers
Automatic Dark Mode Colors Don’t Work
over a year ago
The American Scholar
Cats and Dogs The post Cats and Dogs appeared first on The American Scholar.
a week ago
This Space
39 Books: 2009 The further I get into this series, the fewer books there are on my yearly lists that I haven't...
7 months ago
58
7 months ago
The further I get into this series, the fewer books there are on my yearly lists that I haven't already written about and among those few that I feel able to write about. For 2009 there is one outstanding exception: another book about a writer exiled in Paris. Already in this...
Anecdotal Evidence
Arthur Krystal My review of two books by Arthur Krystal -- A Word or Two Before I Go: Essays Then and Now and Some...
5 months ago
38
5 months ago
My review of two books by Arthur Krystal -- A Word or Two Before I Go: Essays Then and Now and Some Unfinished Chaos: The Lives of F. Scott Fitzgerald – is published in Ron Slate’s On the Seawall.
Josh Thompson
Ruby Tutorial 001 I’m playing with Michael Hartl’s Learn Enough Ruby book. I’ll throw basic things I learn along the...
over a year ago
1
over a year ago
I’m playing with Michael Hartl’s Learn Enough Ruby book. I’ll throw basic things I learn along the way on here. A good starting point is using your command line. I use iTerm2 for my terminal instead of the default Terminal installation. To get up and running in your terminal,...
The Marginalian
How We Become Ourselves: Erik Erikson’s 8 Stages of Human Development It never ceases to stagger that some stroke of chance in the early history of the universe set into...
2 months ago
38
2 months ago
It never ceases to stagger that some stroke of chance in the early history of the universe set into motion the Rube Goldberg machine of events that turned atoms born in the first stars into you — into this temporary clump of borrowed stardust that, for the brief interlude between...
Ben Borgers
Software Seems Resilient
over a year ago
The Marginalian
Trust, Betrayal, and the Nexus of Mathematics and Morality: The Prisoner’s Dilemma Animated Illuminating the pitfalls of the mind in felt and gingerbread.
a year ago
The Marginalian
What It’s Like to Be a Falcon: The Peregrine as a Portal to a Way of Seeing and a State of Being "You cannot know what freedom means till you have seen a peregrine loosed into the warm spring sky...
7 months ago
61
7 months ago
"You cannot know what freedom means till you have seen a peregrine loosed into the warm spring sky to roam at will through all the far provinces of light."
Wuthering...
Books I read, and desks I saw, in July - hoping he might tell me, / tell me what the waves don't... Right, July, July, so long ago.  I was on the road a little bit, making literary pilgrimages. ...
4 months ago
42
4 months ago
Right, July, July, so long ago.  I was on the road a little bit, making literary pilgrimages.  Pittsfield, Massachusetts, for example, to Herman Melville’s Arrowhead: On this spot, not at this exact desk but in front of this exact window, Herman Melville wrote Moby-Dick,...
Josh Thompson
Lay a foundation Yesterday I mentioned that low friction goals are an advantage over “high friction” goals. This is...
over a year ago
2
over a year ago
Yesterday I mentioned that low friction goals are an advantage over “high friction” goals. This is just another way of saying “easy things are easier to do than harder things”. Revelatory, I know. Similarly, I wrote a long time ago that: We tell ourselves we can’t accomplish...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Neither Angels Nor Devils' A favorite story about Dr. Johnson reminded me of something the late critic John Simon had written...
10 months ago
30
10 months ago
A favorite story about Dr. Johnson reminded me of something the late critic John Simon had written on his blog five years ago. In a post titled “Curse Words,” abbreviated by Simon throughout as “CW,” he reviews profanity as used in various settings and languages, including Croat,...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Art and Practice of Reading Aloud to Others' A longtime reader in Philadelphia, a retired attorney, tells me that since the start of the COVID-19...
11 months ago
32
11 months ago
A longtime reader in Philadelphia, a retired attorney, tells me that since the start of the COVID-19 lockdown he has been reading books aloud to his wife, most recently The Wife of Martin Guerre by Janet Lewis. His list of more than a dozen titles includes Moby-Dick (“our overall...
The American Scholar
Verde Learning a foreign language isn’t just about improving cognitive function—it can teach us to sense...
2 weeks ago
5
2 weeks ago
Learning a foreign language isn’t just about improving cognitive function—it can teach us to sense the world anew The post Verde appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
Winnicott on the Psychology of Democracy, the Most Dangerous Type of Person, and the Unconscious... In the late morning of the first day of August in 2023, exactly twenty summers after I arrived in...
3 months ago
28
3 months ago
In the late morning of the first day of August in 2023, exactly twenty summers after I arrived in Philadelphia as a lone teenager from a country thirteen centuries America’s senior, I experienced that wonderful capacity for self-surprise as tears came streaming down my face in a...
Ben Borgers
Muted
over a year ago
Ben Borgers
Habit Toddler
over a year ago
Ben Borgers
Do You Subvocalize?
over a year ago
The Marginalian
Everything Is Happening All the Time: Legendary Physicist John Archibald Wheeler on Death and the... “To die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier,” Walt Whitman writes in the prime of...
2 months ago
13
2 months ago
“To die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier,” Walt Whitman writes in the prime of life. “What happens when you get to the end of things?” four-year-old Johnny in Ohio asks his mother from the bathtub while Whitman’s borrowed atoms are becoming young grass in a...
Ben Borgers
Locked Posts on Ghost
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'That Judgment Day of Man’s Illusions' In 1956, The American Scholar asked forty-three writers, critics and scholars to name the book...
7 months ago
62
7 months ago
In 1956, The American Scholar asked forty-three writers, critics and scholars to name the book published in the preceding twenty-five years they believed to have been “the most undeservedly neglected.” For this reader, sorry to say, most of them remain neglected. I don’t even...
Anecdotal Evidence
'That Lofty Vehicle, High Dudgeon' A friend is studying Greek while reading Emily Wilson’s new translation of the Iliad alongside...
a year ago
13
a year ago
A friend is studying Greek while reading Emily Wilson’s new translation of the Iliad alongside George Chapman’s version of Homer from the seventeenth century. Like me, she’s a reader not a scholar, and like generations of students and common readers I first encountered Chapman...
sbensu
There Is No Antimemetics Division Notes on the book.
2 months ago
This Space
Atheism of the novel "Here it comes: the information dumping..." From section 237, page 185 of Ellis Sharp's latest...
a year ago
35
a year ago
"Here it comes: the information dumping..." From section 237, page 185 of Ellis Sharp's latest novel, the part that is commentary on his attempt to destroy a commercially successful novel emulating "the style that The Guardian liked and promoted": The narrator is a young...
Escaping Flatland
Living 80 years, you can have 8 lives Highlights from the cutting room floor, pt. 2
a month ago
Ben Borgers
The Web is a Superpower
over a year ago
The Marginalian
Maira Kalman on How to Live with Remorse and Make of It a Portal of Creative Vitality Each time we have tried to elevate ourselves above the other animals by claiming singular possession...
10 months ago
21
10 months ago
Each time we have tried to elevate ourselves above the other animals by claiming singular possession of some faculty, we have been humbled otherwise: Language, it turns out, is not ours alone, nor is the use of tools, nor is music. Elephants grieve, octopuses remember and...
This Space
Blood Knowledge by Kirsty Gunn "A novel is a kind of lazy way of writing a short story, a short story a lazy way of writing a poem"...
3 weeks ago
17
3 weeks ago
"A novel is a kind of lazy way of writing a short story, a short story a lazy way of writing a poem" said Muriel Spark, adding by explanation: "The longer they become, the more they seem to lose value". We might wonder then if the most value is to be found in the shortest novels,...
The American Scholar
Marlana Stoddard Hayes Hope blooms The post Marlana Stoddard Hayes appeared first on The American Scholar.
4 months ago
The Marginalian
Nikolai Vavilov and the Living Library of Resilience: The Story of the World’s First Seed Bank and... The most moving story of self-sacrifice in the history of science.
a year ago
Escaping Flatland
Almost everyone I’ve met would be well-served thinking more about what to focus on Including me
11 months ago
The American Scholar
The Writer in the Family The fiction of E. L. Doctorow gave a young man hope of connecting his father and his literary...
2 weeks ago
5
2 weeks ago
The fiction of E. L. Doctorow gave a young man hope of connecting his father and his literary hero The post The Writer in the Family appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
Can You Recover From Months (YEARS!) of Not Climbing? A few weeks ago, I headed into the gym thinking that I felt a little off-kilter. I’d not climbed in...
over a year ago
1
over a year ago
A few weeks ago, I headed into the gym thinking that I felt a little off-kilter. I’d not climbed in a week, I though, and maybe I was getting weaker or something. Turns out that wasn’t the problem - I had actually been climbing too much, and was feeling it. This is an odd...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Well Educated and Glad of the Fact' “[A] literary man or woman is someone who is not only steeped in literature but has made this...
a month ago
20
a month ago
“[A] literary man or woman is someone who is not only steeped in literature but has made this immersion into literature part of his or her own life, so that the experience of books has been integral with the experience of life and therefore strongly influences his or her general...
Anecdotal Evidence
'For Now I Am As Lilliputian As All the Rest' “My mood is like the weather,” Chekhov writes on April 8, 1889. “I’m not doing any work, just...
8 months ago
51
8 months ago
“My mood is like the weather,” Chekhov writes on April 8, 1889. “I’m not doing any work, just reading or pacing up and down. However, I don’t really mind having the time to read. It’s more enjoyable than writing. I feel that if I could live another forty years and spend the whole...
Ben Borgers
Waking up Early
over a year ago