Wuthering...
Disturbances in the Field by Lynne Sharon Schwartz - What I wanted now was the adventure of being...
Disturbances in the Field (1983) by Lynne Sharon Schwartz. Rohan Maitzen recommended the novel to...
a year ago
Disturbances in the Field (1983) by Lynne Sharon Schwartz. Rohan Maitzen recommended the novel to me because of its unusual use of the Pre-Socratic philosophers. This is a domestic novel, a fine example of, borrowing from Trollope, the way we live now (or, to me, the way they...
Escaping Flatland
Writing while walking
We do not belong to those who have ideas only among books, when stimulated by books.
3 months ago
We do not belong to those who have ideas only among books, when stimulated by books.
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
The late, great Paul Auster on Stephen Crane
The post American Modernism’s Lost Boy-King appeared first on The American Scholar.
ben-mini
Building FirstMover
I had one month to find a place to live in Manhattan. I reached out to friends for tips, and nearly...
3 months ago
I had one month to find a place to live in Manhattan. I reached out to friends for tips, and nearly all of them pointed me to StreetEasy, the Zillow-owned NYC real estate search platform. Some of my more Type-A friends gave me extra helpful advice:
Narrow your search to 2-4...
The Marginalian
Awakened Cosmos: Poetry as Spiritual Practice
"Poetry is the cosmos awakened to itself."
9 months ago
"Poetry is the cosmos awakened to itself."
The Marginalian
A Taste of How It Feels to Be Free: Pioneering Psychoanalyst Karen Horney on Our Inner Conflicts,...
"The most comprehensive formulation of therapeutic goals is the striving for wholeheartedness: to be...
a year ago
"The most comprehensive formulation of therapeutic goals is the striving for wholeheartedness: to be without pretense, to be emotionally sincere, to be able to put the whole of oneself into one’s feelings, one’s work, one’s beliefs. It can be approximated only to the extent that...
Josh Thompson
The Power Broker, Chapter 30: Robert Moses and Mayor Vincent R. Impellitteri
Note from Josh: The following is an excerpt of chapter 34 of the Power Broker, called “Moses and the...
a year ago
Note from Josh: The following is an excerpt of chapter 34 of the Power Broker, called “Moses and the Mayors”. The chapter is about Moses’ relationship with all of the mayors of NYC that overlapped with Moses’ “rule” over NYC.
This excerpt covers just one of the mayors’ overlap...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Stimulated to Vigour and Activity'
When John
Ruskin (b. 1819) traveled as a boy, his father packed in his luggage four small
volumes of...
8 months ago
When John
Ruskin (b. 1819) traveled as a boy, his father packed in his luggage four small
volumes of Dr. Johnson’s Rambler and Idler essays. In his peculiar memoir Praeterita (1885), Ruskin tells us “had
it not been for constant reading of the Bible, I might probably have...
The Marginalian
The Great Blind Spot of Science and the Art of Asking the Complex Question the Only Answer to Which...
“Real isn’t how you are made… It’s a thing that happens to you,” says the Skin Horse — a stuffed toy...
a month ago
“Real isn’t how you are made… It’s a thing that happens to you,” says the Skin Horse — a stuffed toy brought to life by a child’s love — in The Velveteen Rabbit. Great children’s books are works of philosophy in disguise; this is a fundamental question: In a reality of matter,...
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
The wonders of the coastal redwood
The post Feels Like Coming Home appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'Give Him the Darkest Inch Your Shelf Allows'
Its 1,498
pages tip the scales at 3.2 pounds: Collected
Poems of Edwin Arlington Robinson,...
8 months ago
Its 1,498
pages tip the scales at 3.2 pounds: Collected
Poems of Edwin Arlington Robinson, originally published in 1929. At Kaboom Books I bought the twelfth printing, from 1959. The dustjacket is a little
frayed around the edges but the book is otherwise sturdy. It collects the...
Anecdotal Evidence
'What Is Called an Amateur'
I recently encountered
a choice example of academic snobbery, the lording of a tenured professor...
a year ago
I recently encountered
a choice example of academic snobbery, the lording of a tenured professor over lecturers,
adjuncts and even “mere assistant professors.” Normally the perpetrator tries
to disguise his snottiness or treat it as a joke but in this case the prima
donna was...
The Marginalian
The Double Flame: Octavio Paz on Love
“Love is a bet, a wild one, placed on freedom. Not my own; the freedom of the Other… A knot made of...
a year ago
“Love is a bet, a wild one, placed on freedom. Not my own; the freedom of the Other… A knot made of two intertwined freedoms.” We love to forget ourselves, but also to remember what we are: mortal creatures lustful of meaning, radiant with life, eternally alone and eternally...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Jell-O Once a Week'
On Thursday I
slipped my brother some Montaigne without him knowing the source. It...
4 months ago
On Thursday I
slipped my brother some Montaigne without him knowing the source. It wasn’t
plagiarism, exactly, and it was paraphrased. It’s a well-known passage from the
essay “That to philosophize is to learn to die,” one that always reminds me of
Spinoza:
“It is
uncertain...
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
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...
The Elysian
I'd like to open a Singapore franchise please?
Franchise Cities as an alternative to Charter Cities.
8 months ago
Franchise Cities as an alternative to Charter Cities.
Wuthering...
But the Moon rescues others as they swim from below - a glance at the essays and dialogues of...
The great ragged Greek philosophy readalong ends with Plutarch,
famous for his extraordinary...
a year ago
The great ragged Greek philosophy readalong ends with Plutarch,
famous for his extraordinary Parallel Lives but also the innovative
author of a large mass of essays and dialogues which picked up the title Moralia
(late 1st C.) along the way.
Plutarch was hardly an original...
Anecdotal Evidence
'And Then Became a Name Like Others Slain'
In a six-word
paragraph in “Preliminary,” his brief introduction to Undertones of War, Edmund...
a month ago
In a six-word
paragraph in “Preliminary,” his brief introduction to Undertones of War, Edmund Blunden articulates the impulse that
would drive his poetry for the next half-century: “I must go over it again.” Psychically,
there was no Armistice. Whether to purge its memory or...
Josh Thompson
The Violence of God and the Hermeneutics of Paul
Sometimes I (Josh) want to share around certain academic works. Sometimes its a PDF that I want...
over a year ago
Sometimes I (Josh) want to share around certain academic works. Sometimes its a PDF that I want someone to download and read, sometimes it’s text from a book I’ve read, and cannot otherwise get a sharable format of. So, I laboriously take photos of pages, use an optical character...
The American Scholar
Up Close
The post Up Close appeared first on The American Scholar.
3 months ago
The post Up Close appeared first on The American Scholar.
This Space
39 Books: 2021
I lived in Brighton for 30 years. One of the many painful aspects of leaving in 2021 was losing the...
6 months ago
I lived in Brighton for 30 years. One of the many painful aspects of leaving in 2021 was losing the many second-hand bookshops, all within walking distance. Many have closed over the years, such as Sandpiper, a remaindered bookshop in Kensington Gardens. It had a backroom in...
Anecdotal Evidence
'I Was Only Coming True'
In the final
year of his life, Clive James published a book-length poem, The River in the Sky...
a year ago
In the final
year of his life, Clive James published a book-length poem, The River in the Sky (2018), a dying man’s
last fling. The title refers to the Japanese phrase for the Milky Way. It’s
mostly autobiography, a book of well-rehearsed memories, largely unstructured, much
of...
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
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
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
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 =...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Prejudice Against Humor?'
“What is the
origin of the prejudice against humor? Why is it so dangerous, if you would
keep the...
10 months ago
“What is the
origin of the prejudice against humor? Why is it so dangerous, if you would
keep the public confidence, to make the public laugh? Is it because humor and
sound sense are essentially antagonistic? Has humanity found by experience that
the man who sees the fun of life...
Astral Codex Ten
Friendly And Hostile Analogies For Taste
...
2 weeks ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'What She or He Ought to Know'
In a
typically mordant essay, “A Great Fog Over the Past,” Peter Hitchens cites “Spanish Waters,” a...
4 months ago
In a
typically mordant essay, “A Great Fog Over the Past,” Peter Hitchens cites “Spanish Waters,” a poem by John Masefield, one of the first poets I claimed as my own
when a boy, years before Eliot and Yeats. The poem’s “decrepit beggar,” as Hitchens
puts it, “knows where the...
The Marginalian
Nothing: The Illustrated Story of How John Cage Revolutionized Music Through Silence
"We make our lives by what we love."
7 months ago
"We make our lives by what we love."
Anecdotal Evidence
'She Exhibits the Unrepentant Bad Taste Which Belongs to Good Taste in Its Good Sense'
“Most poetry
is as poor as most fiction or most biography, or most books. But it is often...
6 months ago
“Most poetry
is as poor as most fiction or most biography, or most books. But it is often so
aggressively, so conceitedly poor and undistinguished that readers cannot be
altogether blamed for not bothering with the new books as they come out, and I
am always hesitant to make them...
Ben Borgers
Apple Credit Card Rewards
over a year ago
Astral Codex Ten
Prison And Crime: Much More Than You Wanted To Know
...
3 weeks ago
The Marginalian
The Transcendent Brain: The Poetic Physicist Alan Lightman on Spirituality for the Science-Spirited
A largehearted invitation to "stand on the precipice between the known and the unknown, without...
a year ago
A largehearted invitation to "stand on the precipice between the known and the unknown, without fear, without anxiety, but instead with awe and wonder at this strange and beautiful cosmos we find ourselves in."
Anecdotal Evidence
'Certificate of Naturalization'
In our
basement was a gray file cabinet we were forbidden to touch. Naturally I opened
it and in one...
3 months ago
In our
basement was a gray file cabinet we were forbidden to touch. Naturally I opened
it and in one of the drawers I found an old leather wallet containing the ID
cards of a stranger with the surname Kurpiewski. Who is this? Why is the name
so similar to ours? I couldn’t ask...
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
"Our task at midlife is to be strong enough to relinquish the ego-urgencies of the first half and open ourselves to a greater wonder."
Anecdotal Evidence
'So Important That It Ought to Absorb Him'
In his brief
portrait of Joseph Conrad, Desmond MacCarthy tells us the novelist “felt
himself...
a month ago
In his brief
portrait of Joseph Conrad, Desmond MacCarthy tells us the novelist “felt
himself impelled to attempt an intenser vividness in description. Try, just
try, so to describe something that the inattentive reader must see it, and the
attentive one can never forget that he...
The Marginalian
Nick Cave on the Two Pillars of a Meaningful Life
"Cultivating a questioning mind, of which conversation is the chief instrument, enriches our...
a year ago
"Cultivating a questioning mind, of which conversation is the chief instrument, enriches our relationship with the world."
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Magnetism, an Ardor, a Refusal to Be False'
In “The Madonna of the Future,” an 1873 story by Henry James, an American painter in
Florence tells...
a year ago
In “The Madonna of the Future,” an 1873 story by Henry James, an American painter in
Florence tells the narrator, “If you but knew the rapture of observation! I
gather with every glance some hint for light, for color or relief! When I get home, I pour out my treasures into
the...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Death Is Not Far From Me'
It’s in the
nature of most writers to come up with their own rules and obey them when it
serves...
9 months ago
It’s in the
nature of most writers to come up with their own rules and obey them when it
serves their purposes. Even the strictest formalist bends a little in the
service of what works aesthetically. The byproduct of that decision-making
process is “style.” Good work can come out...
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Brief, Dry, Almost Colorless Account '
The Polish
writer Gustaw Herling-Grudziński (1919-2000) --
Gulag survivor, co-founder of Kultura
and...
a year ago
The Polish
writer Gustaw Herling-Grudziński (1919-2000) --
Gulag survivor, co-founder of Kultura
and author of A World Apart: Imprisonment
in a Soviet Labor Camp During World War II (1951) – has sent me back to
Varlam Shalamov and his Kolyma stories. Herling-Grudziński in 1971...
Josh Thompson
How to Wake Up Early
An understanding of sleep, and attempts to wake up early
(Read Part Two, and Part Three)
My...
over a year ago
An understanding of sleep, and attempts to wake up early
(Read Part Two, and Part Three)
My understanding of sleep has evolved. When I was born, I spent most of my time asleep (if I recall correctly…) and gradually spent less and less time sleeping, until I was down to about...
Steven Scrawls
The Firefly Artist
The Firefly Artist
Note: it’s a metaphor. I’m not calling for mass firefly
imprisonment.
Two hours...
a year ago
The Firefly Artist
Note: it’s a metaphor. I’m not calling for mass firefly
imprisonment.
Two hours after dusk, a crowd gathered by the dozens, by the
hundreds, to see the firefly artist’s yearly performance. They spread
out blankets in the clearing, sharing snacks by the light of...
Anecdotal Evidence
'There Is No Nothingness'
Once asked
about politics in a symposium portentously titled “The Writer’s Situation,”...
4 months ago
Once asked
about politics in a symposium portentously titled “The Writer’s Situation,” J.V.
Cunningham replied:
“You can
write on politics or not. I do not. But is politics meant here? Or is it,
rather, ideology? The latter is religious, not political, though religion...
Anecdotal Evidence
'They Are Wary of My Plain-speaking'
A reader alerts
me to a parlor game proposed by The
Guardian in 2017: Which books do I wish my...
10 months ago
A reader alerts
me to a parlor game proposed by The
Guardian in 2017: Which books do I wish my younger self had read? Julian
Barnes suggests volumes devoted to “the true nature of war, empire and race,”
which sounds a bit like retrospective virtue-signaling. William Boyd’s...
Anecdotal Evidence
'I'd Walk in Heaven With My Feet on Earth'
“If love of
beauty were the same as faith, / I’d walk in heaven with my feet on earth.”
The...
12 months ago
“If love of
beauty were the same as faith, / I’d walk in heaven with my feet on earth.”
The late
Terry Teachout once described himself as a “Midwestern aesthete,” an identification I
have happily claimed. I sense that a love of beauty has grown scarce and too
often earns contempt...
Wuthering...
Books I read in February 2024 - if there is truth in poets' prophesies, then in my fame forever will...
Persian literature in March: the epic Shahnameh in
Dick Davis’s mostly prose translation, plus the...
9 months ago
Persian literature in March: the epic Shahnameh in
Dick Davis’s mostly prose translation, plus the classical poets he translated in
Faces of Love: Hafez and the Poets of Shiraz, plus some Rumi and at least
one contemporary Iranian novel, Mahmoud Dowlatabadi’s The Colonel
(2009). ...
This Space
Literature likes to hide
Last December I was fortunate enough to borrow a copy of The Unmediated Vision, Geoffrey Hartman's...
a year ago
Last December I was fortunate enough to borrow a copy of The Unmediated Vision, Geoffrey Hartman's first book, published in 1954. It is difficult to find a copy now but you can download a digital version of the book via the link. The opening chapter is a 50-page study of "Tintern...
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
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...
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
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “Spring” by J. R. Solonche appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” Brought to Life in a Spanish Flashmob of 100 Musicians
A touchingly human reminder of our capacity for ecstasy, transcendence, and collective felicity.
a year ago
A touchingly human reminder of our capacity for ecstasy, transcendence, and collective felicity.
Josh Thompson
Wrapping my head around local politics 001
Warning: Buzzwords ahead about millennials.*
As a millennial, I want to “get involved” in my “local...
over a year ago
Warning: Buzzwords ahead about millennials.*
As a millennial, I want to “get involved” in my “local community”, and don’t know the best way to “mobilize my resources”.
vomit. I hate admitting that. But I still want to figure out
if it is possible for me (little old me) to do...
The American Scholar
Numbers Game
A novelist’s indictment of how we account for our history
The post Numbers Game appeared first on...
6 months ago
A novelist’s indictment of how we account for our history
The post Numbers Game appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
On Learning
As a student at Turing, I’ve recently been thinking about learning how to learn, specifically in the...
over a year ago
As a student at Turing, I’ve recently been thinking about learning how to learn, specifically in the context of software development.
I am a bit hyperactive when it comes to trying to learn new things. Over the years, I’ve done plenty of ineffective learning, and at least a...
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
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...
Josh Thompson
62 lessons learned after one year of full-time travel
Kristi and I
put together a non-comprehensive list of things we’ve learned while traveling full-time...
over a year ago
Kristi and I
put together a non-comprehensive list of things we’ve learned while traveling full-time last year.
Samples:
Kristi
1. Josh and I are such a good team, and we balance each other.
We’ve figured out our strengths and how to contribute to our successes together. It’s...
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Similar Universality of Voice'
I reproach
my younger self for being lazy and not seriously studying languages other than
English. I...
5 months ago
I reproach
my younger self for being lazy and not seriously studying languages other than
English. I dabbled in Latin and German and retain a smattering of vocabulary
and little grammar. If I were to study another language today my first choice
would likely be Italian in order to...
The American Scholar
Look Out!
Why did it take so long to protect
The post Look Out! appeared first on The American Scholar.
3 months ago
Why did it take so long to protect
The post Look Out! appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'Each Sweaty Midnight I’m a Lifer'
Think of
this as an unexpected coda to Monday’s post, “A Recon Patrol Is a Small Unit,”
in which I...
4 months ago
Think of
this as an unexpected coda to Monday’s post, “A Recon Patrol Is a Small Unit,”
in which I asked readers to report anything they knew about the war
correspondent Albert W. Vinson. He was author of a dispatch recounting a 1968 reconnaissance
patrol in Vietnam led by the...
Josh Thompson
The Slight Edge, and why you should read it
I read
The Slight Edge a few months ago.
Since then, it’s been the book I recommend most often to...
over a year ago
I read
The Slight Edge a few months ago.
Since then, it’s been the book I recommend most often to most people. (I don’t make book recommendations willy-nilly, but if something seems relevant to what the person I’m speaking to is experiencing/thinking about, I make a...
The Marginalian
Dead Stars: Poet Laureate Ada Limón’s Stunning Love Poem to Life
"We’ve come this far, survived this much. What would happen if we decided to survive more? To love...
a year ago
"We’ve come this far, survived this much. What would happen if we decided to survive more? To love harder?"
The Marginalian
Octavia Butler’s Advice on Writing
"No matter how tired you get, no matter how you feel like you can’t possibly do this, somehow you...
a year ago
"No matter how tired you get, no matter how you feel like you can’t possibly do this, somehow you do."
The American Scholar
Jason Middlebrook
Tree rings in time
The post Jason Middlebrook appeared first on The American Scholar.
3 months ago
Tree rings in time
The post Jason Middlebrook appeared first on The American Scholar.
Escaping Flatland
Integrity
Intensely Human, No 3
10 months ago
The American Scholar
A Stranger in the Seven Hills
A refugee’s experience in the Eternal City
The post A Stranger in the Seven Hills appeared first on...
3 months ago
A refugee’s experience in the Eternal City
The post A Stranger in the Seven Hills appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
How to Love the World More: George Saunders on the Courage of Uncertainty
"In a world full of people who seem to know everything, passionately, based on little (often...
a year ago
"In a world full of people who seem to know everything, passionately, based on little (often slanted) information, where certainty is often mistaken for power, what a relief it is to be in the company of someone confident enough to stay unsure (that is, perpetually curious)."
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
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “Defeat” by Kahlil Gibran appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'It Is Pure Absence, No Place, Nowhere, Not'
I remember
in high school reading Louis Fischer’s The
Life of Lenin (1964), though all I retain of...
4 months ago
I remember
in high school reading Louis Fischer’s The
Life of Lenin (1964), though all I retain of the book is the account of
Lenin’s autopsy, following his death at age fifty-two from atherosclerosis.
When tapped with tweezers, his cerebral arteries pinged like stone. They...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Unless It From Enjoyment Spring!'
“He is the
supreme poet of childhood. He is at play all his life.”
Had I read
this out of context,...
a month ago
“He is the
supreme poet of childhood. He is at play all his life.”
Had I read
this out of context, I might have assumed the writer described was Walter de la
Mare, whose poetry I ignored for too long because teachers and critics told me
he wrote solely for children. (Something...
The American Scholar
“To David, About His Education” by Howard Nemerov
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “To David, About His Education” by Howard Nemerov appeared...
a month ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “To David, About His Education” by Howard Nemerov appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Elysian
Hint #3
I'm publishing a new print collection in one week.
3 months ago
I'm publishing a new print collection in one week.
Escaping Flatland
Notes on energy and intelligence becoming cheaper
In 2015, I amused myself by training a neural network to generate poems in the style of various...
a year ago
In 2015, I amused myself by training a neural network to generate poems in the style of various poets I knew and submitted the results to a fanzine.
Wuthering...
Ferdowsi's Shahnameh: The Persian Book of Kings - No one has any knowledge of those first days...
My little Persian literature syllabus in March was built on Aboloqasem
Ferdowsi’s gigantic epic...
8 months ago
My little Persian literature syllabus in March was built on Aboloqasem
Ferdowsi’s gigantic epic Shahnameh: The Persian Book of Kings (1010), a
slender 850 pages in Dick Davis’s 2006 prose (mostly) translation. He added another 100 pages to the 2016
edition, whether filling out...
Blog -...
Book Review - The Island Within
With The Island Within, Nelson has crafted a flawless narrative that has no
beginning and no end,...
over a year ago
With The Island Within, Nelson has crafted a flawless narrative that has no
beginning and no end, and perhaps, to the unmindful, no meaning. To those
who remain anchored emerges buried treasure from every line. I kept being
drawn back in, not as an addiction, but, as I...
The American Scholar
Verde
Learning a foreign language isn’t just about improving cognitive function—it can teach us to sense...
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.
This Space
The criticism of Lessons, the lessons of criticism
I give thanks to Ryan Ruby for his review of Lessons, Ian McEwan’s latest novel. It brings to our...
over a year ago
I give thanks to Ryan Ruby for his review of Lessons, Ian McEwan’s latest novel. It brings to our attention that rare thing, joy of joys, a novel telling the story of a life remarkably similar to the author’s own set against the backdrop of recent history. Ruby shows how the...
The Marginalian
A Glow in the Consciousness: The Continuous Creative Act of Seeing Clearly
"Simply to look on anything... with the love that penetrates to its essence, is to widen the domain...
6 months ago
"Simply to look on anything... with the love that penetrates to its essence, is to widen the domain of being in the vastness of non-being."
Anecdotal Evidence
'We Find Other Things Which We Liked Better'
One night in the spring of 1766, Boswell and Goldsmith visited Dr. Johnson unannounced and
asked if...
9 months ago
One night in the spring of 1766, Boswell and Goldsmith visited Dr. Johnson unannounced and
asked if he wished to join them at the Mitre Tavern on Fleet Street in London.
Johnson was “indisposed” and Goldsmith said, “[W]e will not go to the Mitre to-night,
since we cannot have the...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Monsoons, Boredom, Stench'
R.L. Barth
takes as the epigraph to his new chapbook, Ghost
Story (Scienter Press, Louisville, Ky.,...
9 months ago
R.L. Barth
takes as the epigraph to his new chapbook, Ghost
Story (Scienter Press, Louisville, Ky., 2024), a passage from Dr. Johnson’s Idler essay for September 2, 1758:
“I suppose
every man is shocked when he hears how frequently soldiers are wishing for war.
The wish is not...
The Marginalian
How to Grow Re-enchanted with the World: A Salve for the Sense of Existential Meaninglessness and...
A shimmering reminder that "the magic is of our own conjuring."
a year ago
A shimmering reminder that "the magic is of our own conjuring."
Josh Thompson
2017 In Review & Thoughts on 2018
Note: this “annual review” covers three topics. Click on one to skip to it:
Looking back on...
over a year ago
Note: this “annual review” covers three topics. Click on one to skip to it:
Looking back on 2017
thoughts on going into 2018
book recommendations from the 79 books I read last year
I’ve got mixed feelings on annual reviews. I steadfastly refuse to set New Years’ resolutions, and...
The Marginalian
A Heron’s Antidote to Fear of Death
They didn’t imagine it, the dying dinosaurs, that they would grow wings and become birds, become the...
2 weeks ago
They didn’t imagine it, the dying dinosaurs, that they would grow wings and become birds, become the laboratory in which evolution invented dreams and the cathedral in which it invented faith. “There is grandeur in this view of life,” Darwin consoled himself as his beloved...
Josh Thompson
VCR's debug_logger and `git diff`
I recently added the vcr gem to one of our repositories, and was adding tests for an external...
over a year ago
I recently added the vcr gem to one of our repositories, and was adding tests for an external API.
One of my tests was passing, and I wanted to commit the VCR cassette, along with the test/code that went with it.
I had thought I’d rebuilt the VCR cassette a few minutes before,...
The Marginalian
Favorite Books of 2023
To look back on a year of reading is to be handed a clear mirror of your priorities and passions, of...
a year ago
To look back on a year of reading is to be handed a clear mirror of your priorities and passions, of the questions that live in you and the reckonings that keep you up at night. While the literature of the present comprises only a tiny fraction of my own reading, here are a...
The American Scholar
The Importance of Being Different
A travel writer’s education
The post The Importance of Being Different appeared first on The...
7 months ago
A travel writer’s education
The post The Importance of Being Different appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
From Las Cosas Nuevas by Ennio Moltedo
The post From <em>Las Cosas Nuevas</em> by Ennio Moltedo appeared first on The American Scholar.
8 months ago
The post From <em>Las Cosas Nuevas</em> by Ennio Moltedo appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
The Living Wonder of Leafcutter Ants, in Mesmerizing Stop Motion
Alongside humans, leafcutter ants form some of nature’s vastest, most sophisticated societies — a...
a year ago
Alongside humans, leafcutter ants form some of nature’s vastest, most sophisticated societies — a single mature colony can contain as many ants as there are people on Earth, living with a great deal more social harmony and consonance of purpose than we do. They are also one of...
Anecdotal Evidence
'We Find It Hard to Read Great Books at All'
A young reader
tells me he is unable to read most books written before “about the middle of the
60s....
8 months ago
A young reader
tells me he is unable to read most books written before “about the middle of the
60s. I like Vonnegut. A lot of the stuff before that is like a foreign language
to me.” I’m reminded of an English professor who told me more than half a century ago that
most of her...
Anecdotal Evidence
'It All But Lovely As Silence Is'
Thanks to
S.J. Perelman and his 1952 collection The
Ill-Tempered Clavichord, I get confused with...
6 months ago
Thanks to
S.J. Perelman and his 1952 collection The
Ill-Tempered Clavichord, I get confused with Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier (1722) and with
that bone that runs from the sternum to the shoulder blade. You know, the
clavicle. Each time I need to cite one of the three, in writing...
The Marginalian
Working Out, Working In: Applying the Six Principles of Athletic Training to Writing and Creative...
The highest and hardest task of life may be to become entirely ourselves — to continually purify and...
a year ago
The highest and hardest task of life may be to become entirely ourselves — to continually purify and clarify who and what we are, shedding the shoulds of culture, convention, and expectation to discover the innermost musts: those deepest and truest callings of the authentic self,...
Ben Borgers
The Code That Keeps Me Alive
over a year ago
The Marginalian
Poetic Ecology and the Biology of Wonder
"The real disconnect is not between our human nature and all the other beings; it is between our...
a year ago
"The real disconnect is not between our human nature and all the other beings; it is between our image of our nature and our real nature."
The Marginalian
The Secret Life of Chocolate: Oliver Sacks on the Cultural and Natural History of Cacao
Without chocolate, life would be a mistake — not a paraphrasing of Nietzsche he would have easily...
10 months ago
Without chocolate, life would be a mistake — not a paraphrasing of Nietzsche he would have easily envisioned, for he was a toddler in Germany when a British chocolatier created the first modern version of what we now think of as chocolate: a paste of sugar, chocolate liquor, and...
The Elysian
A grassroots political party for the middle
The Forward Party, citizen's assemblies, and a creating better independence movement in the US.
6 days ago
The Forward Party, citizen's assemblies, and a creating better independence movement in the US.
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
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...
The Perry Bible...
Brushed
The post Brushed appeared first on The Perry Bible Fellowship.
6 months ago
The post Brushed appeared first on The Perry Bible Fellowship.
Anecdotal Evidence
'Only Little People Frightened By the Long Night'
The calendar
and tradition assure us that Halloween is October 31 but the voice of the
people in our...
a year ago
The calendar
and tradition assure us that Halloween is October 31 but the voice of the
people in our neighborhood as expressed through the “group chat” I have never
looked at moved the celebration to October 29. The reasons are unclear. What
this means in practical terms is two...
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
"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."
Ben Borgers
Things Go Downhill After We Leave
over a year ago
The Marginalian
How to Eat the Sun: A Blind Hero of the Resistance on Accessing the Light Within and Touching the...
“There is only one world. Things outside only exist if you go to meet them with everything you carry...
a year ago
“There is only one world. Things outside only exist if you go to meet them with everything you carry in yourself. As to the things inside, you will never see them well unless you allow those outside to enter in.”
Josh Thompson
Tiny Habits take 2
Dr. BJ Fogg runs
Tiny Habits, a one-week course on building new habits.
Since most of what we do is...
over a year ago
Dr. BJ Fogg runs
Tiny Habits, a one-week course on building new habits.
Since most of what we do is governed by habits, it is reasonable to study how to build new ones, or replace bad ones.
I
have done his course before, and had success. I have been reading
Freewith Kristi and...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Weightier Than All the Gear I’ll Carry'
I was a lazy
student of Latin in junior high school and gave it up after two years. What I...
2 months ago
I was a lazy
student of Latin in junior high school and gave it up after two years. What I retained
was a lasting interest in mythology, Roman history and etymology. I probably
learned more English words than Latin – celerity,
pulchritude, jocular, spelunker, procrastination,...
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
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...
Escaping Flatland
On limitations that hide in your blindspot
and how to find them
9 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Not More Respected, Though Less Loved'
In the late
summer and autumn of 1773, Johnson and Boswell visited Scotland, the latter’s...
a year ago
In the late
summer and autumn of 1773, Johnson and Boswell visited Scotland, the latter’s birthplace
and the butt of many jokes by the former. The journey lasted eighty-three days
and both men published books recounting their adventures. Johnson’s A Journey to the Western Islands...
The Marginalian
The Other Significant Others: Living and Loving Outside the Confines of Conventional Friendship and...
"While we weaken friendships by expecting too little of them, we undermine romantic relationships by...
9 months ago
"While we weaken friendships by expecting too little of them, we undermine romantic relationships by expecting too much of them."
Wuthering...
The Frogs by Aristophanes - Brilliant! Brilliant! Wish I knew what you were talking about!
The Frogs by Aristophanes is this week’s play. It was performed in what now look like the waning...
over a year ago
The Frogs by Aristophanes is this week’s play. It was performed in what now look like the waning days of Athens, just before their conquest by Sparta, and in particular the last days of Athenian tragedy, with Euripides and Sophocles both recently dead. In what may be the most...
Anecdotal Evidence
'That Marsh Light Is Still Burning Hard'
I’m
suspicious of the itch for ranking books and making lists. Too often it’s a substitute...
10 months ago
I’m
suspicious of the itch for ranking books and making lists. Too often it’s a substitute for
actually reading them, a ruse for flaunting one’s hipness or sophistication. My
late friend David Myers was fond of assembling such lists, which are likely to
assure higher-than-average...
Anecdotal Evidence
'More Interesting to Me Than the Future'
“The past
has always been more interesting to me than the future, just as I have found
pessimists...
4 months ago
“The past
has always been more interesting to me than the future, just as I have found
pessimists more amusing than optimists and failures more attractive than
successes. I do not say that my preferences are based upon universal principles
or that everyone should share them; in...
The Marginalian
The Science and Poetry of Anthotypes: Emily Dickinson’s Herbarium, Recreated in Hauntingly Beautiful...
On September 20, 1845, the polymathic Scottish mathematician Mary Somerville — the woman for whom...
11 months ago
On September 20, 1845, the polymathic Scottish mathematician Mary Somerville — the woman for whom the word scientist was coined — sent a letter to the polymathic English astronomer John Herschel, who six years earlier had coined the word photography for the radical invention of...
The Marginalian
Heroism and the Human Search for Meaning: Ernest Becker on the Hidden Root of Our Existential...
"To become conscious of what one is doing to earn his feeling of heroism is the main self-analytic...
a year ago
"To become conscious of what one is doing to earn his feeling of heroism is the main self-analytic problem of life."
Anecdotal Evidence
'If You Want Less Trouble, Plow the Sky'
I had a
suburban kid’s notion of life on a farm -- hearty yeomen and Jeffersonian
gentleman-farmers...
a year ago
I had a
suburban kid’s notion of life on a farm -- hearty yeomen and Jeffersonian
gentleman-farmers tilling the soil and bringing in the sheaves. Working for
rural newspapers in the Midwest and upstate New York educated me to the
realities of mortgages, tractor accidents,...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Hallmark of What Is Truly Priceless'
“. . . what
literature is really about: our very survival as human beings.”
A bit melodramatic,
no?...
10 months ago
“. . . what
literature is really about: our very survival as human beings.”
A bit melodramatic,
no? Grandiose? Perhaps expressed by a writer worried about sales or a reader boosting
his self-esteem? Could be. But there’s something to it. Maybe it amounts to
more than...
Astral Codex Ten
Hidden Open Thread 356.5
...
a month ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Range and Liveliness of Poetry'
I heard from
a high-school classmate who remembered the time in A.P. English our senior year
when...
9 months ago
I heard from
a high-school classmate who remembered the time in A.P. English our senior year
when the teacher had us form small groups, select a poem and prepare a
discussion. At my suggestion, our group picked “The Groundhog” (1934) by Richard
Eberhart (1904-2005). Note its...
sbensu
But I want to turn people into dinosaurs
Beware of what you actually want.
5 months ago
Beware of what you actually want.
The Marginalian
Lichens and the Meaning of Life
"We are lichens on a grand scale."
a year ago
"We are lichens on a grand scale."
Josh Thompson
A Runbook for Upgrading Your Parent's Junky Old Laptop to a Chromebook
tl;dr: I’m creating a runbook for a very specific, delicate, and potentially time-consuming and...
over a year ago
tl;dr: I’m creating a runbook for a very specific, delicate, and potentially time-consuming and emotionally-charged operation to replace my 70-year-old newly-widowed mother-in-law's ancient desktop computer with a easy-for-me-to-manage Chromebook
Update: I posted to r/ChromeOS...
Josh Thompson
Training for climbing (progress update)
I am at the end of my second iteration of climbing training, and this is how it went and what I...
over a year ago
I am at the end of my second iteration of climbing training, and this is how it went and what I learned:
I completed the workout twelve times, but I took a twelve-day break between workout eleven and twelve. I first skipped a workout because I had ripped skin open on one of my...
Wuthering...
Daryl Hine's Ovid's Heroines - I, who could a dragon hypnotize
An anti-Valentine’s Day book now, Ovid’s Heroides
(25-16 BCE, somewhere in there), a collection of...
10 months ago
An anti-Valentine’s Day book now, Ovid’s Heroides
(25-16 BCE, somewhere in there), a collection of fictional letters in verse written
by mythical heroines to their no-good boyfriends and husbands. Many end in suicide. Dido castigating Aeneas, Phaedra mourning...
Josh Thompson
On Friction
warning. self-indulgeant diatribe coming. I generally try to avoid these, but it’s my website, and I...
over a year ago
warning. self-indulgeant diatribe coming. I generally try to avoid these, but it’s my website, and I can write what I want.
We’re rapidly approaching the end of the year, and I’ve got a few dozen ideas rolling around my head that I want to solidify my thoughts on.
One of the...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Death Is Divestment, Death Is Communion'
“Whenever in
my dreams I see the dead, they always appear silent, bothered, strangely
depressed,...
5 months ago
“Whenever in
my dreams I see the dead, they always appear silent, bothered, strangely
depressed, quite unlike their dear, bright selves. I am aware of them, without
any astonishment, in surroundings they never visited during their earthly
existence, in the house of some friend of...
sbensu
The birth of a (pseudo) currency
A dozen pseudo-currencies were issued in Argentina in 2002. How did that work? And why are they...
10 months ago
A dozen pseudo-currencies were issued in Argentina in 2002. How did that work? And why are they coming back in 2024?
The Elysian
Will you explain anarchism to me?
Letters to an anarchist, part one.
a month ago
Letters to an anarchist, part one.
The Marginalian
Octavia Butler (and Whitman’s Ghost) on America
“Choose your leaders with wisdom and forethought,” Octavia Butler (June 22, 1947–February 24, 2006)...
2 months ago
“Choose your leaders with wisdom and forethought,” Octavia Butler (June 22, 1947–February 24, 2006) urged in her prophetic Parable of the Talents, written in the 1990s and set in the 2020s. Her words remain a haunting reminder that our rights are founded upon our...
Josh Thompson
Typing for Programmers
If you had to distill my ability to bring value to those around me, it would be “Josh types good”.
I...
over a year ago
If you had to distill my ability to bring value to those around me, it would be “Josh types good”.
I can press these magical little keys on this little metal box here, and make these words come out.
If you’re reading these words, you don’t care how these words actually got on...
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Hundred Words for the Word Brother'
One of the
stranger events recounted by Montaigne:
“[I]f I must
bring myself into this, a brother...
a month ago
One of the
stranger events recounted by Montaigne:
“[I]f I must
bring myself into this, a brother of mine, [Arnaud, Lord of] Saint-Martin,
twenty-three years old, who had already given pretty good proof of his valor, while
playing tennis was struck by a ball a little above the...
The American Scholar
To Catch a Sunset
Reflections on allergies, anxieties, and the limits of familial love
The post To Catch a Sunset...
5 months ago
Reflections on allergies, anxieties, and the limits of familial love
The post To Catch a Sunset appeared first on The American Scholar.
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
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...
Wuthering...
Books Read in May 2024 – Some are certainly knowing what they are meaning, some are certainly not...
A month without writing anything. Plenty of reading, though.
FICTIONS
The Autobiography of an...
6 months ago
A month without writing anything. Plenty of reading, though.
FICTIONS
The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man (1912), James
Weldon Johnson
The Making of Americans (1925), Gertrude Stein – read
over the course of months. The quotation
up above is from p. 783. I will write
about...
The Marginalian
Coleridge on the Paradox of Friendship and Romantic Love
On sympathy, reciprocity, and satisfying the fulness of our nature.
a year ago
On sympathy, reciprocity, and satisfying the fulness of our nature.
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
"Beyond the difficulty of communicating oneself, there is the supreme difficulty of being oneself."
Wuthering...
Thou hast devourd thy sonnes - some notes on Seneca's horror plays
My Seneca reading in March:
Medea, tr. Frederick Ahl
The Trojan Women, tr. E. F. Watling
Thyestes,...
a year ago
My Seneca reading in March:
Medea, tr. Frederick Ahl
The Trojan Women, tr. E. F. Watling
Thyestes, tr. Jasper Heywood
Hercules Furens, tr. Heywood
The Madness of Hercules, tr. Dana Gioia
The plays themselves are all from the mid-1st century,
perhaps written when Seneca was in...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Poets in an Age of Prose'
Yvor Winters
published his final book, Forms of Discovery,
in October 1967, three months before his...
a year ago
Yvor Winters
published his final book, Forms of Discovery,
in October 1967, three months before his death from cancer at age sixty-seven on
January 25, 1968. Read his late correspondence in The Selected Letters of Yvor Winters (ed. R.L. Barth, 2000) for an
understanding of the...
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
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...
The Marginalian
The Challenge of Closeness: Alain de Botton on Love, Vulnerability, and the Paradox of Avoidance
The psychological machinery of our commonest coping mechanism for the terror of hurt, rejection, and...
a year ago
The psychological machinery of our commonest coping mechanism for the terror of hurt, rejection, and abandonment.
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Hurricane's Usefulness Has Outlasted It'
Ambrose
Bierce’s entry for hurricane in The Devil’s Dictionary (1906):
“An
atmospheric...
5 months ago
Ambrose
Bierce’s entry for hurricane in The Devil’s Dictionary (1906):
“An
atmospheric demonstration once very common but now generally abandoned for the
tornado and cyclone. The hurricane is still in popular use in the West Indies
and is preferred by certain old-fashioned...
The American Scholar
“À une passante” by Charles Baudelaire
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “À une passante” by Charles Baudelaire appeared first on The...
5 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “À une passante” by Charles Baudelaire appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
The Power of the Common Soul
Ives, music-making, and hope
The post The Power of the Common Soul appeared first on The American...
3 months ago
Ives, music-making, and hope
The post The Power of the Common Soul appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'He Also Did Not Hope'
Back to the
theme of non-specialization, of writer as generalist: “Next to
Montaigne, the rest of...
3 months ago
Back to the
theme of non-specialization, of writer as generalist: “Next to
Montaigne, the rest of the great intellectual figures of the sixteenth century,
the leaders of the Renaissance, of Humanism, of the Reformation, and of the
modern sciences, the men who created modern...
Josh Thompson
Mentors and Attitude
Having a mentor is equal parts “having a mentor” and “being one who can be mentored”. If I am too...
over a year ago
Having a mentor is equal parts “having a mentor” and “being one who can be mentored”. If I am too thick-headed to evaluate things that someone tells me and figure out how to apply that to my life, both of us are wasting our time.
Having a mentor is life-changing because you have...
ribbonfarm
Arbitrariness Costs
I’ve long held that civilization is the process of turning the incomprehensible into the arbitrary....
7 months ago
I’ve long held that civilization is the process of turning the incomprehensible into the arbitrary. The incomprehensible can be scary but the arbitrary tends to be merely exhausting. Unless the stakes are high, such as in paperwork around taxes or passports and visas. Then the...
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
“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...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Off to Welter and Waste'
The
Russian-Jewish poet Boris Slutsky (1919-86) was thirty-three years old on the
Night of the...
a year ago
The
Russian-Jewish poet Boris Slutsky (1919-86) was thirty-three years old on the
Night of the Murdered Poets, and he wasn’t among them. In the final stanza of his
poem “About the Jews” (trans. G.S. Smith), dating from the 1950s, Slutsky
writes:
“From the
war I came back safe
So...
Ben Borgers
Why Do We Still Use Snapchat?
over a year ago
Josh Thompson
Aggregate and deduplicate your deprecation warnings in Rails
We know we all stay on the cutting edge of Rails; no one, and I mean no one out there is making a...
over a year ago
We know we all stay on the cutting edge of Rails; no one, and I mean no one out there is making a 4.2 -> 5.2 upgrade because Rails 4.2 is no longer supported.
You, dear reader, have just suddenly found an interest in resolving deprecation warnings, and as one jumps a few Rails...
ribbonfarm
Harberger Tax
It’s always nice to see trails of thought connect up. An idea I first encountered and really liked...
9 months ago
It’s always nice to see trails of thought connect up. An idea I first encountered and really liked in a 2014 Steve Randy Waldman (interfluidity) post has apparently since acquired a name and a more extended provenance. Waldman’s post, Tax price, not value, presents the idea as a...
Astral Codex Ten
Indulge Your Internet Addiction By Reading About Internet Addiction
...
2 weeks ago
This Space
The end of literature, part five
"Stupid" and "a marketing exercise" were the first two descriptions I saw of the New York Times' 100...
4 months ago
"Stupid" and "a marketing exercise" were the first two descriptions I saw of the New York Times' 100 Best Books of the 21st Century polled from hundreds of "literary luminaries" offering ten choices each, and while it is both of those things, "parochial" is the first word that...
The Marginalian
Joy as a Force of Resistance and a Halo of Loss, with a Nick Cave Song and a Lisel Mueller Poem
In this world heavy with robust reasons for despair, joy is a stubborn courage we must not...
3 months ago
In this world heavy with robust reasons for despair, joy is a stubborn courage we must not surrender, a fulcrum of personal power we must not yield to cynicism, blame, or any other costume of helplessness. “Experience of conflict and a load of suffering has taught me that what...
The Elysian
Asia and the future of the nation state
A discussion with Benjamin Perry.
a month ago
A discussion with Benjamin Perry.
Anecdotal Evidence
'He's Not Pulling It Out of Thin Air'
A friend
tells me he is boycotting a favorite bookstore because, as he writes, “someone
posted a...
8 months ago
A friend
tells me he is boycotting a favorite bookstore because, as he writes, “someone
posted a fair-sized sign on the store’s ‘Community Board’ reading, ‘From The
River to the Sea, Palestine Shall Be Free.’” There’s a naïvely childish part of
me that finds the obscenity...
This Space
The end of literature, part four
This tweet has been seen thousands of times since it was posted on the 82nd anniversary of Britain...
over a year ago
This tweet has been seen thousands of times since it was posted on the 82nd anniversary of Britain and France declaring war on Germany. Not that the coincidence means much. At least, no more than what the general population, interest and powerful mean here, or indeed what poetry...
Ben Borgers
Why Do I Care About Grades?
over a year ago
Josh Thompson
Maybe "Now" Is Not the Right Time
Recently I deleted a bunch of old notes I had in
Evernote. Some of the notes were almost immediately...
over a year ago
Recently I deleted a bunch of old notes I had in
Evernote. Some of the notes were almost immediately unneeded, like old receipts and confirmations.
Much of the rest was notes related to goals (“Checklist to move out of MD Apartment”, “Planning trip to Buenos Aires”) or to...
The Marginalian
Oliver Sacks on Despair and the Meaning of Life
"The meaning of life... clearly has to do with love — what and whom and how one can love."
a month ago
"The meaning of life... clearly has to do with love — what and whom and how one can love."
Josh Thompson
Constraints
Constraints are USUALLY seen in a negative light.
Google defines it as:
a limitation or...
over a year ago
Constraints are USUALLY seen in a negative light.
Google defines it as:
a limitation or restriction
Here’s some example constraints that we find in the world around us, which we often view as an annoyance or frustration:
I have to be to work by 9a
I have to get up at 7a
I have...
Wuthering...
The Story of the Stone, volume 2 - all agreed that this was the definitive poem on the subject of...
I have continued on with The Story of the Stone, the
2,500 page 18th century Chinese novel by, or...
a month ago
I have continued on with The Story of the Stone, the
2,500 page 18th century Chinese novel by, or mostly by, Cao Xueqin. Here I will write about the second volume of
the David Hawkes translation, The Crab-flower Club. Last time, after reading the first fifth of
the novel, I...
Josh Thompson
My Thoughts on Eric Weinstein's Thoughts on Pia Kalani's Thoughts
Context for two sentances
It’s August 8, 2020.
The news is full of coronavirus, schools, employment,...
over a year ago
Context for two sentances
It’s August 8, 2020.
The news is full of coronavirus, schools, employment, police brutality, a vaccine, elections, so much politics, China, Tik-Tok, the Twitter-dm-hack-bitcoin-scam-or-was-it-dm-content hack happened.
Tiger King, Cheer, Filthy Rich are...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Brave Respect the Brave'
In
observance of Memorial Day, R.L. Barth sent me a poem by Ambrose Bierce, one I
had never read...
6 months ago
In
observance of Memorial Day, R.L. Barth sent me a poem by Ambrose Bierce, one I
had never read before, “To E.S. Salomon” (Black Beetles in Amber, 1892). Here is the memorably pertinent third stanza:
“The brave
respect the brave. The brave
Respect
the dead; but you -- you...
This Space
"Every day I have to invoke the absent god again"*
I really enjoy this YouTube channel despite my general lack of interest in films. The presenter’s...
over a year ago
I really enjoy this YouTube channel despite my general lack of interest in films. The presenter’s restrained voice-over is ideal for one approaching its concerns; imagine a lullaby sung by Werner Herzog. I envy him the medium for its music, its visuals, even its potential for...
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
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...
The Perry Bible...
The Hare and the Tortoise
The post The Hare and the Tortoise appeared first on The Perry Bible Fellowship.
2 months ago
The post The Hare and the Tortoise appeared first on The Perry Bible Fellowship.
Josh Thompson
On Boldness In Climbing
Climb boldly. I’ve tried to write about this many times, and have thousands of words scattered...
over a year ago
Climb boldly. I’ve tried to write about this many times, and have thousands of words scattered across my computer about this topic. I always felt like I wasn’t communicating it quite right. I wasn’t happy with it.
So I said “screw it, I’ll explain it like I would if I were...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Let the Words Glide Through the Air'
Some years
ago, out of the blue, a reader whose name I have forgotten sent me a copy of No Earthly...
a year ago
Some years
ago, out of the blue, a reader whose name I have forgotten sent me a copy of No Earthly Estate: The Religious Poetry of
Patrick Kavanagh (The Columba Press, Dublin, 2002) by Father Tom Stack. I was grateful because it sent me back to the Irish poet (1904-67) who seems...
The Marginalian
A Republic of the Sensitive: E.M. Forster on the Personal and Political Power of Empaths and the...
"I believe in... an aristocracy of the sensitive, the considerate and the plucky. Its members are to...
a month ago
"I believe in... an aristocracy of the sensitive, the considerate and the plucky. Its members are to be found in all nations and classes, and all through the ages, and there is a secret understanding between them when they meet."
The American Scholar
Last Laugh
The post Last Laugh appeared first on The American Scholar.
5 months ago
The post Last Laugh appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Highest Kind of Verbal Exercise'
John Updike
published “Kenneths” in the July 5, 1958 issue of The New Yorker and collected it in his...
5 months ago
John Updike
published “Kenneths” in the July 5, 1958 issue of The New Yorker and collected it in his second book of poems, Telephone Poles (1963):
“Rexroth and
Patchen and Fearing—their mothers
Perhaps
could distinguish their sons from the others,
But I am
unable. My inner eye...
Ben Borgers
Streaks Are Extremely Powerful
over a year ago
Wuthering...
Some lesser works of Sōseki and Tanizaki - deep in the earth directly beneath Lady Kikyō’s toilet
Dolce Bellezza is running her 17th Japanese Literature Challenge. Amazing, well done, etc.
I read...
11 months ago
Dolce Bellezza is running her 17th Japanese Literature Challenge. Amazing, well done, etc.
I read some short works for it, which I will pile up here: three
short works by Natsume Sōseki, collected in a Tuttle volume that looks like it
is titled Ten Nights of Dream Hearing...
Josh Thompson
First pass with Elixir/Phoenix
I’m digging into Elixir and Phoenix. I’m working through this tutorial to cloning Slack.
The...
over a year ago
I’m digging into Elixir and Phoenix. I’m working through this tutorial to cloning Slack.
The tutorial author says
At the time of writing, I have ~1 week experience with Phoenix. Similar to Rubber Ducky Debugging, I am writing this blog post to force myself to think differently...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Memories Packed in the Rapid-Access File'
Last
Saturday morning, the day my brother would die, the Uber driver who carried me
from hotel to...
3 months ago
Last
Saturday morning, the day my brother would die, the Uber driver who carried me
from hotel to hospice in the morning went by the professional name “Lazarus” –
an omen I choose to leave unexamined and merely enjoy. Ken would have enjoyed
it.
Shortly after his death one of the...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Stood There and Stared at Silence, Silent Too'
St. Augustine
observes of St. Ambrose in Book VI, Chapter 3 of his Confessions:
“When he...
10 months ago
St. Augustine
observes of St. Ambrose in Book VI, Chapter 3 of his Confessions:
“When he was
reading, his eyes ran over the page and his heart perceived the sense, but his
voice and tongue were silent. . . . Very often when we were there, we saw him
silently reading and never...
Anecdotal Evidence
'An Obscuration of the Luminaries of Heaven'
In 1963, our
street in a suburb on the West Side of Cleveland was still unpaved and the...
8 months ago
In 1963, our
street in a suburb on the West Side of Cleveland was still unpaved and the city
periodically coated it with tar. Rain fell on the morning of July 20 but by late
afternoon the skies had cleared and all that remained of the rain were puddles
in the water-proof street....
The Marginalian
bell hooks on Love
"We can never go back... We can go forward. We can find the love our hearts long for, but not until...
a year ago
"We can never go back... We can go forward. We can find the love our hearts long for, but not until we let go grief about the love we lost long ago... All awakening to love is spiritual awakening."
Anecdotal Evidence
'Living Through Radical Change'
Ten years
ago, Joseph Epstein wrote to his friend Frederic Raphael:
“I have
myself long ago put...
8 months ago
Ten years
ago, Joseph Epstein wrote to his friend Frederic Raphael:
“I have
myself long ago put aside any thought about writing an autobiography. . . .
When I became, almost without conscious decision, a bookish and a scribbling
man, the larger sense of adventure went out of my...
Josh Thompson
Switching to Jekyll
Why I switched to Jekyll
A few days ago, I was really feeling the urge to write a short little blog...
over a year ago
Why I switched to Jekyll
A few days ago, I was really feeling the urge to write a short little blog post. So, I put it in a gist on Github.
I’m an advocate of writing publicly, and making it a habit, so why was I putting it in a gist, instead of here, on my website, where I...
Anecdotal Evidence
'You Have to Read the Words'
“Tolstoy was
so much better than any other writer who ever lived that you couldn’t even
remotely...
2 months ago
“Tolstoy was
so much better than any other writer who ever lived that you couldn’t even
remotely compare anyone to him.”
I first read
War and Peace in the eighth grade in
a paperback abridgement. I remember reading it in science class, half-heartedly
hiding the book behind the...
The Marginalian
Beautiful Bacteria: Mesmerizing Photomicroscopy of Earth’s Oldest Life-forms
For as long as humans have been alive, we have mistaken the limits of our sense-perception for the...
a month ago
For as long as humans have been alive, we have mistaken the limits of our sense-perception for the full extent of reality — thinking our galaxy the only one, because that was as far as we could see; thinking life impossible below 300 fathoms, because that was as far as we could...
Anecdotal Evidence
'They Never Settle Down'
A reader has
happened on an unfamiliar word while reading Dimitri Obolensky’s The Byzantine...
a week ago
A reader has
happened on an unfamiliar word while reading Dimitri Obolensky’s The Byzantine Commonwealth: Eastern Europe,
500-1453 (1971), one he finds “especially amusing”:
“Cosmas [Indicopleustes]
tells us of monks who, ignoring their vows, live unchastely, engage in trade
and...
sbensu
Lieutenants are the limiting reagent
Why don't software companies ship more products? Why do they move more slowly as they grow? What do...
a year ago
Why don't software companies ship more products? Why do they move more slowly as they grow? What do we mean when we say "this company lacks focus"?
Anecdotal Evidence
'Dark But Festive'
I grew up in
the Age of Magazines. My parents, who were not book readers, subscribed at
various...
7 months ago
I grew up in
the Age of Magazines. My parents, who were not book readers, subscribed at
various times to Newsweek, U.S. News and World Report, Time, Life, Look, Saturday Evening Post and National Geographic, not to mention those periodicals subscribed to by my
mother (McCall’s,...
Josh Thompson
Simplify, simplify, simplify
Kristi and I stumbled upon the realization that we’ve become minimalists. And it is exciting.
We...
over a year ago
Kristi and I stumbled upon the realization that we’ve become minimalists. And it is exciting.
We live in a one-bedroom apartment. It is spacious, for a one-bedroom, but compared to anything larger than a one-bedroom apartment, it is small. We managed to pack it full of stuff in...
The Elysian
Yes, Taylor Swift is just as genius as Mary Shelley
The video from our live event.
2 months ago
The video from our live event.
Wuthering...
Middle period Plato - He’s garbage, he cares about nothing but the truth.
Assembling yesterday’s post I saw that I was only missing one dialogue from Plato’s early period, so...
a year ago
Assembling yesterday’s post I saw that I was only missing one dialogue from Plato’s early period, so I knocked off Greater Hippiaslast night. The early dialogues are generally short; the three in the “death of Socrates” group are only fifty pages total, for example.
Hippias is...
Anecdotal Evidence
'He Actually Read the Dictionary'
In one of
the news weeklies long ago I read that Dr. Oliver Sacks enjoyed reading the Oxford English...
a year ago
In one of
the news weeklies long ago I read that Dr. Oliver Sacks enjoyed reading the Oxford English Dictionary. Was this mere
bravado, another instance of Sacks polishing his image as a lovable, learned
eccentric? Or, like his friend W.H. Auden, was he gleaning the dictionary...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Writer As Illusionist'
My review of
William Maxwell’s The Writer As
Illusionist: Uncollected and Unpublished Work (ed. Alec...
7 months ago
My review of
William Maxwell’s The Writer As
Illusionist: Uncollected and Unpublished Work (ed. Alec Wilkinson, Nonpareil
Books, 2024) is published in the June issue of The New Criterion.
The Elysian
Week 5: Write one (pitchable) think piece
8 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Georgeade as a Summer Drink'
While
looking for something else I blundered on an Anglo-American writer and cartoonist
new to me...
a year ago
While
looking for something else I blundered on an Anglo-American writer and cartoonist
new to me whose name and one-time popularity long ago evaporated: Oliver Herford (1860-1935), author, co-author and illustrator of more than sixty books
for adults and children. There was a...
The Marginalian
Albert Camus on How to Live Whole in a Broken World
Born into a World War to live through another, Albert Camus (November 7, 1913–January 4, 1960) died...
6 months ago
Born into a World War to live through another, Albert Camus (November 7, 1913–January 4, 1960) died in a car crash with an unused train ticket to the same destination in his pocket. Just three years earlier, he had become the second-youngest laureate of the Nobel Prize, awarded...
Escaping Flatland
Look for people who likes the illegible you of today, not your past achievements
Though we talk about “the individual vs the collective,” as if that dichotomy is an eternal truth...
a year ago
Though we talk about “the individual vs the collective,” as if that dichotomy is an eternal truth about the world, there exist groups that encourage divergence and healthy individuation.
sbensu
Collapse: The Fall of the Soviet Union
Notes from reading the book by Zubok
10 months ago
Notes from reading the book by Zubok
The Elysian
“Friends” as the ideal community
The one where communes aren't the answer.
6 months ago
The one where communes aren't the answer.
Steven Scrawls
I want to love fiction
I want to love fiction
I want to love fiction.
I want to love both reading and writing fiction. I...
8 months ago
I want to love fiction
I want to love fiction.
I want to love both reading and writing fiction. I want to obsess
over the craft of fiction, to pore over characterization and structure,
to create stories that radiate color and humanity and hope.
I want fiction to be a tool for...
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
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”...
Wuthering...
Ovid's Metamorphoses, Cantos II and III - or just III, it turns out - And Cole and Swift, and little...
A month ago I wrote about the first Canto of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Now I will move through the...
11 months ago
A month ago I wrote about the first Canto of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Now I will move through the Cantos two or
three at a time, just leafing through the books, really, with luck getting at
what Ovid is doing. Cantos II and III
today.
Ovid established his cosmology and created...
Josh Thompson
How to Move
Kristi and I are moving to Colorado in July. We’ve taken three broad steps to make this move...
over a year ago
Kristi and I are moving to Colorado in July. We’ve taken three broad steps to make this move happen:
We both are in process with new jobs
I just started working remotely for Litmus, which means I can seamlessly transition to Colorado this summer. Kristi spent a few days last week...
The Elysian
Is America about to fall? Or flourish?
That depends on us.
a month ago
This Space
“Can there be a pure narrative?”
The question opening Maurice Blanchot’s essay The Experience of Proust* has always drawn me back,...
over a year ago
The question opening Maurice Blanchot’s essay The Experience of Proust* has always drawn me back, not to secure a yes or a no, but to keep the question of pure narrative open in its initial uncertainty, perhaps, rather, in its impossibility, as it appears to make reading and...
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Poet's Hope'
Erica Light
is the daughter of my late friend Helen Pinkerton (1927-2017), the poet and
Melville...
7 months ago
Erica Light
is the daughter of my late friend Helen Pinkerton (1927-2017), the poet and
Melville scholar. We exchange emails several times each year, usually devoted
to what we are reading. This week she reported reading some of the writers and books I’ve
mentioned recently at...
The American Scholar
Camouflage
The post Camouflage appeared first on The American Scholar.
6 months ago
The post Camouflage appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
Playing Pranks
My wife played a brilliant prank on me today, as she does every year. Here’s a partial...
over a year ago
My wife played a brilliant prank on me today, as she does every year. Here’s a partial list:
Convincing me that I was about to eat a slice of carrot cake; it was a sponge covered with toothpaste. I bit into it.
Convincing me that she had, in anger and frustration, cut off almost...
Josh Thompson
Taking the Plunge with Colemak
This entire post is written in
Colemak.
I am aiming to write at least 100 words, and this is...
over a year ago
This entire post is written in
Colemak.
I am aiming to write at least 100 words, and this is certainly harder than copying someone else’s words.
I have completed a few hours of dedicated practice, and it is quite possible that I am jumping the gun, and will quickly revert to...
Josh Thompson
Fry Your Pizza
Here’s a problem many of us first-worlders have: cold pizza.
There are two options. Microwave it, or...
over a year ago
Here’s a problem many of us first-worlders have: cold pizza.
There are two options. Microwave it, or throw it in the toaster oven or regular oven. A microwave makes it soggy, and a regular oven takes forever to heat it up.
(If you’re willing to eat it cold, may god have mercy on...
The Marginalian
The Managed Heart: Emotional Labor and the Psychological Cost of Ambivalence
What are you unwilling to feel? This is one of the most brutal, most clarifying questions in life,...
a month ago
What are you unwilling to feel? This is one of the most brutal, most clarifying questions in life, answering which requires great courage and great vulnerability. Out of that unwillingness arises the greatest inner tension of the heart: that between what we wish we felt and what...
Wuthering...
What books am I reading this summer in the Greek philosophy readalong? Some details.
Now that we are almost done with Plato, the bulkiest figure
in my little Greek philosophy readalong,...
a year ago
Now that we are almost done with Plato, the bulkiest figure
in my little Greek philosophy readalong, I thought it would be a good idea to
revisit, clarify, and puzzle over the texts that will take us to the end of the
project, now that I have given the matter a little more...
The Marginalian
The Bird in the Heart: Terry Tempest Williams on the Paradox of Transformation and How to Live with...
"We can change, evolve, and transform our own conditioning. We can choose to move like water rather...
11 months ago
"We can change, evolve, and transform our own conditioning. We can choose to move like water rather than be molded like clay."
Anecdotal Evidence
'Till Love and Fame to Nothingness Do Sink'
Dr. Johnson
thought the first aim of biography was utilitarian: “I esteem biography, as
giving us...
a month ago
Dr. Johnson
thought the first aim of biography was utilitarian: “I esteem biography, as
giving us what comes near to ourselves, what we can turn to use.” The reader reads
the life of another, reflects on it and applies the lessons he deduces to
himself. In the early pages of his...
Anecdotal Evidence
'And the Third Is To Be Kind.'
A Palpable Elysium: Portraits of Genius and
Solitude
(David R. Godine, 2002) is a collection of the...
a year ago
A Palpable Elysium: Portraits of Genius and
Solitude
(David R. Godine, 2002) is a collection of the late publisher/poet’s
photographs of artists well-known and obscure. Williams was no snob when it
came to talent and genius. He photographs Stevie Smith, Guy Davenport...
The Elysian
What is the goal of anarchism?
Letters to an anarchist, part five.
a month ago
Letters to an anarchist, part five.
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
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...
The American Scholar
Snow!
The post Snow! appeared first on The American Scholar.
8 months ago
The post Snow! appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Noble Unconsciousness Is in Him'
A reader
asks if I have any heroes. “I’m guessing Samuel Johnson is one,” she writes,
and that’s...
5 months ago
A reader
asks if I have any heroes. “I’m guessing Samuel Johnson is one,” she writes,
and that’s correct. “I think people are too cynical to have heroes today,” she
continues. “They’re embarrassed to say someone is a hero. Nobody’s good enough.
Everybody wants to look for failure...
Josh Thompson
What I've learned from cooking in 36 kitchens in the last year
Since we’ve been on the road full-time for the last year, Kristi and I have prepared meals for...
over a year ago
Since we’ve been on the road full-time for the last year, Kristi and I have prepared meals for (usually) ourselves and (sometimes) others in 36 (!!!) kitchens.
Sometimes we’ve used a kitchen for just one night, sometimes it’s every night for two months.
Needless to say, we’ve...
Josh Thompson
Practicing with Polylines
This is a first pass at trying to do something interesting (repeatedly) with the same base...
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...
The American Scholar
“The Peace of Wild Things” by Wendell Berry
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “The Peace of Wild Things” by Wendell Berry appeared first on...
6 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “The Peace of Wild Things” by Wendell Berry appeared first on The American Scholar.
This Space
39 Books: 1994
Given that my undergraduate degree was in Philosophy, it may seem odd that this the first book of...
7 months ago
Given that my undergraduate degree was in Philosophy, it may seem odd that this the first book of philosophy in the series. Many will say it is not a book of philosophy at all. That would explain why I gorged on Nick Land's The Thirst for Annihilation: Georges Bataille and...
Astral Codex Ten
Book Review: From Bauhaus To Our House
...
2 weeks ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'And Hears of Life's Intent'
“. . . I’ve had it. No more pronouncements on lousy
verse. No more hidden competition. No
more...
a year ago
“. . . I’ve had it. No more pronouncements on lousy
verse. No more hidden competition. No
more struggling not to be square.
Etc.”
Louise Bogan
is writing to her friend Ruth Limmer on October 1, 1969, announcing her
retirement as poetry reviewer from The
New Yorker after...
The Marginalian
Look Up: The Illustrated Story of Astronomer Henrietta Leavitt, Who Laid the Groundwork for...
How a brilliant woman rose against the tide of her time to fathom the mysteries of space.
a year ago
How a brilliant woman rose against the tide of her time to fathom the mysteries of space.
The American Scholar
Cancer
The post Cancer appeared first on The American Scholar.
3 months ago
The post Cancer appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'Buy Something Before You Get Socked in the Eye'
The indispensable
Brad Bigelow of The Neglected Books Page has introduced me to a poet I had
never...
a year ago
The indispensable
Brad Bigelow of The Neglected Books Page has introduced me to a poet I had
never known before, Margaret Fishback (1900-85). Like L.E. Sissman she worked
in advertising and published in The New
Yorker. Unlike Sissman, she wrote light verse almost exclusively and...
The American Scholar
Hot and Cold
The post Hot and Cold appeared first on The American Scholar.
5 months ago
The post Hot and Cold appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
Depression
I’m starting to write more regularly these days. For a long time, I’ve hardly written anything, or...
over a year ago
I’m starting to write more regularly these days. For a long time, I’ve hardly written anything, or only written when external circumstances required me to write something. For example, when I give a talk, I always create a page to “support” the talk, that I can link to in slides,...
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
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...
The Marginalian
What We Look for When We Are Looking: John Steinbeck on Wonder and the Relational Nature of the...
Searching for "that principle which keys us deeply into the pattern of all life."
a year ago
Searching for "that principle which keys us deeply into the pattern of all life."
Anecdotal Evidence
'The World's an End'
In recent
years John Dryden has become one of my reliable poets. He impresses me as a
sane adult,...
4 months ago
In recent
years John Dryden has become one of my reliable poets. He impresses me as a
sane adult, with equal emphasis on both of those words. No dabbling in drugs
and madness. I brought a volume of his poems with me to Cleveland where I’m
visiting my brother in hospice. No...
Josh Thompson
How To Procfile: Run Just a Single Process
Lets say you’ve got something like this in your Procfile:
web: PORT=3000...
over a year ago
Lets say you’ve got something like this in your Procfile:
web: PORT=3000 RAILS_ENV=development bundle exec puma -C ./config/puma_development.rb -e development
devlog: tail -f ./log/development.log
mailcatcher: ruby -rbundler/setup -e...
The Marginalian
A Stone Is a Story: An Illustrated Love Letter to Deep Time and Earth’s Memory
We are denizens of an enormous pebble drifting through the cosmic ocean of pure spacetime — a planet...
a year ago
We are denizens of an enormous pebble drifting through the cosmic ocean of pure spacetime — a planet made a world largely by its rockiness. Rock gave us mountains and beaches, bridges and kitchen countertops, gave us the first Promethean fire that sparked civilization. A rock is...
Josh Thompson
Circles of Influence
I was listening to a podcast today, where they said if you have problems knowing what to write...
over a year ago
I was listening to a podcast today, where they said if you have problems knowing what to write about, or you’ve hit a block, write about something that angers you.
This is easy. I could write about any number of things that we’ve all read in a newspaper, and get good and angry...
Wuthering...
The best books of 2023, in a sense - "Aren't you tired of reading?"
Last January seems even more distant than usual at this time
of year. It will likely not...
11 months ago
Last January seems even more distant than usual at this time
of year. It will likely not surprise
anyone that 2023 now comes with a strong feeling of Before and After. So I will indulge in the “facetious and silly”
exercise of identifying the best books I read in 2023. Sorting...
The Elysian
Can we create a wise & enlightened citizenry?
We'll need to address cognitive biases if we want to reach Plato's ideal.
8 months ago
We'll need to address cognitive biases if we want to reach Plato's ideal.
The American Scholar
“The Bird of Night” by Randall Jarrell
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “The Bird of Night” by Randall Jarrell appeared first on The...
3 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “The Bird of Night” by Randall Jarrell appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
Write It Now
The original post
note from October 5, 2021: This was typed up/published in about 20 minutes, took...
over a year ago
The original post
note from October 5, 2021: This was typed up/published in about 20 minutes, took 2x as long as I wish it had. I could make it 10x better with another hour of work, but I only have 20 minutes.
I’m a fan of “conceptual frameworks”
This concept has been important...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Our Instinctual Taste for Periodicity and Return'
I got a kick
out of Damian at A Sunday of Liberty reveling in a rhyme that seems...
a year ago
I got a kick
out of Damian at A Sunday of Liberty reveling in a rhyme that seems genetically
implanted in American kids, regardless of age or geography:
“Greasy,
grimy gopher guts!
Little dirty
birdie feet!”
As in any
folk tradition, variants abound. This is the version I grew...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Artist Knows He Is Ready'
A young
reader complains that he’s “good with words” but doesn’t know what to write
about. It sounds...
7 months ago
A young
reader complains that he’s “good with words” but doesn’t know what to write
about. It sounds as though he seizes up when he sits down at the keyboard. To
call his condition “writer’s block” would be premature. He’s too inexperienced
for that to be happening already. The...
The Elysian
Writing Prompt: How do we create the next Renaissance?
Something I’ve been thinking a lot about is: How can we fund the next Renaissance? How can we create...
7 months ago
Something I’ve been thinking a lot about is: How can we fund the next Renaissance? How can we create a world where artists are better funded and…
Wuthering...
Ovid's Metamorphoses, Canto I, "Of shapes transformde to bodies straunge"
Some notes on Canto I of Ovid’s Metamorphosis (8 CE). Just some of the things I am looking for...
a year ago
Some notes on Canto I of Ovid’s Metamorphosis (8 CE). Just some of the things I am looking for or
enjoying while reading Ovid’s epic of “forms changed / into new bodies.” (tr. Charles Martin, 2004, p. 15). Or, per Arthur Golding (1567, p. 3 of the
Paul Dry paperback) “Of...
Josh Thompson
My Good Friends (Who Don't Know Me)
Rumor has it you become like those you spend time with. Or “birds of a feather flock together”, or...
over a year ago
Rumor has it you become like those you spend time with. Or “birds of a feather flock together”, or “you are what you eat”. Maybe that last one was Hannibal Lector,
having an old friend for dinner.
Anyway, the person that
you are is influenced by the people you spend time with....
The American Scholar
Kat Wiese
Taking flight
The post Kat Wiese appeared first on The American Scholar.
a month ago
Taking flight
The post Kat Wiese appeared first on The American Scholar.
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
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...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Doing Valuable Work in Literary Criticism'
“Part of the
drama of reading Boswell’s Life for
the first time is that one can never (however much...
4 months ago
“Part of the
drama of reading Boswell’s Life for
the first time is that one can never (however much classical or Christian
erudition one brings to the task) predict confidently how Johnson is going to
respond to this or that specific question; yet of course by the end one...
The Marginalian
The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows: Uncommonly Lovely Invented Words for What We Feel but Cannot Name
"Despite what dictionaries would have us believe, this world is still mostly undefined."
8 months ago
"Despite what dictionaries would have us believe, this world is still mostly undefined."
Josh Thompson
Twenties vs. Thirties (from a feeling-behind-the-curve 27 year old.)
Some months ago I found a very encouraging article, comparing one’s twenties to one’s thirties. I’ve...
over a year ago
Some months ago I found a very encouraging article, comparing one’s twenties to one’s thirties. I’ve scoured everywhere that I stick notes and interesting reads, and cannot, for the life of me, find the article.
The internet is littered with tons of
fluff pieces talking about sex...
Escaping Flatland
Don’t sacrifice the wrong thing
I began emailing essays into the void on 30 May 2021, 53 days before Rebecka, our youngest daughter...
6 months ago
I began emailing essays into the void on 30 May 2021, 53 days before Rebecka, our youngest daughter was born. This writing experiment has followed roughly the same trajectory as the baby. In 2021, Escaping Flatland's prime achievement was putting a few toys in its mouth (a...
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
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...
Josh Thompson
Customer Success: American Airlines Case Study
Continuing the theme of “what the heck do I do for work”,
I’m writing about Customer Success as I...
over a year ago
Continuing the theme of “what the heck do I do for work”,
I’m writing about Customer Success as I see it. My words are my own, I don’t speak for the industry as a whole, or even for Litmus. I’m just trying to sharpen my own thinking.
Last time, I argued that customer success is...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Their Thoughts, Their Longings, Hopes, Their Fate'
A new
record: stopped three times at train crossings in a single day without leaving
the city,...
10 months ago
A new
record: stopped three times at train crossings in a single day without leaving
the city, driving only to the university library and back, twenty-two miles. Because
of its sprawling, unplanned nature, Houston is a dense web of train tracks, as
John Bainbridge, a staff writer...
The American Scholar
Thoreau’s Pencils
How might a newly discovered
The post Thoreau’s Pencils appeared first on The American Scholar.
3 months ago
How might a newly discovered
The post Thoreau’s Pencils appeared first on The American Scholar.
Escaping Flatland
Without looking it up, what do you think?
+ links
2 months ago
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
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 American Scholar
Fiction, Fakery, and Factory Farming
Spanish novelist Munir Hachemi talks about Living Things
The post Fiction, Fakery, and Factory...
a month ago
Spanish novelist Munir Hachemi talks about Living Things
The post Fiction, Fakery, and Factory Farming appeared first on The American Scholar.
This Space
The Lascaux Notebooks by Jean-Luc Champerret
Lascaux, a placename standing for the abyssal revelation of the cave paintings discovered there...
over a year ago
Lascaux, a placename standing for the abyssal revelation of the cave paintings discovered there after millennia in darkness, and Notebooks, suggesting a private endeavour, preparation, a work to come. While neither is secret as such, neither was meant for the light. Two intrigues...
The American Scholar
Bony Ramirez
Beautiful parasites
The post Bony Ramirez appeared first on The American Scholar.
2 months ago
Beautiful parasites
The post Bony Ramirez appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
Three Levels of Competence
Raise your hand if you’d like to be better at climbing.
Yeah. Me too.
I’ve spent an unusual amount...
over a year ago
Raise your hand if you’d like to be better at climbing.
Yeah. Me too.
I’ve spent an unusual amount of time working with beginners, to help them improve at climbing. I’ve also worked a lot with (what I would consider to be) intermediate climbers, so
can get better. I’ve certainly...
sbensu
Pricing APIs
Lessons from AWS S3 and others on how to price APIs.
10 months ago
Lessons from AWS S3 and others on how to price APIs.
Josh Thompson
First five meals from The 4-Hour Chef
I don’t know how to cook. Period. My most impressive culinary creations were, until recently,...
over a year ago
I don’t know how to cook. Period. My most impressive culinary creations were, until recently, spaghetti and beans-n-rice.
I got married about a year ago, and had hoped that I would become inspired to become a world-class chef. After a long time eating Rice-A-Roni, spaghetti,...
The American Scholar
Born to Be Wild
One founding family’s centuries-long journey
The post Born to Be Wild appeared first on The American...
6 months ago
One founding family’s centuries-long journey
The post Born to Be Wild appeared first on The American Scholar.
This Space
Books of the year 2024
In order of being read.
Giorgio Agamben – What I saw, heard, learned…
One night, along Venice’s...
a week ago
In order of being read.
Giorgio Agamben – What I saw, heard, learned…
One night, along Venice’s Zattere, watching the putrid water lap at the city’s foundations, I saw that we exist solely in the intermittence of our being, and that what we call I is just a shadow...
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Chap Who Doesn't Care Much About Anything'
Below the
masthead of the August 19, 2024 issue of The
Daily Chronicle is a brief, boxed...
4 months ago
Below the
masthead of the August 19, 2024 issue of The
Daily Chronicle is a brief, boxed announcement:
“Today is
National Orangutan Day. The apes are the largest tree-dwelling animals on
Earth. They spend 90 percent of their time in trees, even sleeping in leafy
nests. No wonder...
The Marginalian
About War
"Outsiders who are not themselves immersed in pain should make an effort to empathize with all...
a year ago
"Outsiders who are not themselves immersed in pain should make an effort to empathize with all suffering humans, rather than lazily seeing only part of the terrible reality. It is the job of outsiders to help maintain a space for peace."
Anecdotal Evidence
'I Read the Wild Wallpaper of My Heart'
Meade
Harwell, Gordon H. Felton, M.J.A. McGittigan, Jess H. Cloud, Byron Vazakas,
Ellis Foote, Myron...
a year ago
Meade
Harwell, Gordon H. Felton, M.J.A. McGittigan, Jess H. Cloud, Byron Vazakas,
Ellis Foote, Myron H. Broomell, Celeste Turner Wright.
Who are
these strangers? What brings them together? They recall a walk in the cemetery,
reading on the stones the names of people we have...
Anecdotal Evidence
'To Amuse and Gratify Her Own Self'
In her first
collection, A Good Time Was Had By All
(1937), Stevie Smith includes a couplet already...
a year ago
In her first
collection, A Good Time Was Had By All
(1937), Stevie Smith includes a couplet already suggesting themes that would go on preoccupying her:
“All things
pass
Love and
mankind is grass”.
In scripture,
grass is the default metaphor for the transience of life. In the...
This Space
39 Books: 2018
In spite of what I said yesterday about the decline in the number of novels I read each year, this...
6 months ago
In spite of what I said yesterday about the decline in the number of novels I read each year, this year was packed with a variety: Australian, Korean, Austrian, Egyptian, German, Argentinian and, today's choice, Norwegian; that is, if variety depends on the country of origin. But...
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
“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
'Colder Here Than Organized Charity'
Hugh Kenner’s
first extant letter to Guy Davenport is dated March 7, 1958. Its manner is at
once...
9 months ago
Hugh Kenner’s
first extant letter to Guy Davenport is dated March 7, 1958. Its manner is at
once business-like and chatty: “I hope subsequent activities haven’t yet
sufficed to obliterate our Boston dinner last fall from your memory.” The men had
first met in 1953 when each...
The Marginalian
May Sarton on Grieving a Pet
"It is absolutely inward and private, the relation between oneself and an animal."
a year ago
"It is absolutely inward and private, the relation between oneself and an animal."
Anecdotal Evidence
'We Were Nothing in Ourselves Nothing More'
“[H]e gave
us some of the best poems of our times. And, after all, one must thank a man
for what he...
a year ago
“[H]e gave
us some of the best poems of our times. And, after all, one must thank a man
for what he has done and not condemn him for his failures.”
A timely,
guilt-inducing reminder. It’s easy to scold a writer for not producing a masterpiece
each time he goes to work. Good...
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
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...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Just to Sweeten the Cup'
“It is to be
remembered,” Ford Madox Ford writes in The
March of Literature (1939), “that a passage...
a week ago
“It is to be
remembered,” Ford Madox Ford writes in The
March of Literature (1939), “that a passage of good prose is a work of art
absolute in itself and with no more dependence on its contents than is a fugue
of Bach, a minuet of Mozart, or the writing for piano of...
This Space
The last novel
"(We are, it seems to remind us, always saying goodbye to our children.)"
John Self's aside in his...
over a year ago
"(We are, it seems to remind us, always saying goodbye to our children.)"
John Self's aside in his review of JM Coetzee's The Death of Jesus captures the pervasive anxiety experienced while reading this novel better than even the most detailed plot summary, which is anyway likely...
Robert Caro
Six Books, Six New York Times Book Review Covers
Since the 1974 publication of The Power Broker, every book by Robert Caro has appeared on the cover...
a year ago
Since the 1974 publication of The Power Broker, every book by Robert Caro has appeared on the cover of The New York Times Book Review.
Anecdotal Evidence
'Winter Came in August Killing Fruit and Seed'
A sad and
sorely final yet incomplete tagline found after a poem in the Winter 1986 issue of The...
a month ago
A sad and
sorely final yet incomplete tagline found after a poem in the Winter 1986 issue of The American Scholar:
“Edward Case’s
work has appeared in various journals, including the New Criterion, the Wall
Street Journal, and Modern Age.
This poem was taken from a collection of...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Poets Who Are Plain and Gladsome'
Being or
pretending to be a philistine is great fun. It was one of Philip Larkin’s favorite
ruses...
9 months ago
Being or
pretending to be a philistine is great fun. It was one of Philip Larkin’s favorite
ruses (“Books are a load of crap”). It’s certain to rile the pompous and
pretentious, so all you have to do is sit back and enjoy the sputtering. I’ve
happened on a first-rate anthology of...
The Marginalian
Yellow Butterfly: A Moving Wordless Story About War, Hope, and Keeping the Light Alive
In his little-known correspondence with Freud about war and human nature, Einstein observed that...
a year ago
In his little-known correspondence with Freud about war and human nature, Einstein observed that every great moral and spiritual leader in the history of our civilization has shared “the great goal of the internal and external liberation of man* from the evils of war” as Freud...
The Marginalian
The Power of Being a Heretic: The Forgotten Visionary Jane Ellen Harrison on Critical Thinking,...
"If we are to be true and worthy heretics, we need not only new heads, but new hearts, and, most of...
a year ago
"If we are to be true and worthy heretics, we need not only new heads, but new hearts, and, most of all, that new emotional imagination... begotten of enlarged sympathies and a more sensitive habit of feeling."
Ben Borgers
Thursday, January 13, 2022
over a year ago
Escaping Flatland
A greeting
They think it was a monk at the Monastery of St Alban in Trier, present-day Germany. On Christmas...
12 months ago
They think it was a monk at the Monastery of St Alban in Trier, present-day Germany. On Christmas day, sometime in the 1570s, he was out walking when he came upon a rose that had, in the blistering cold, put forth a flower. It was a hellebore, a winter rose. Moved by the...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Personal Affections'
Only
recently have I learned of the entrenched snobbery in certain quarters against anthologies.
It...
2 months ago
Only
recently have I learned of the entrenched snobbery in certain quarters against anthologies.
It seems to be rooted in the conviction that readers ought to read writers in
their original volumes, not someone’s curated selection, or something like
that. In common with most...
Josh Thompson
Career advice for Millenials. (ugh. I hate this title)
Hah! You thought
I had career advice?
Not quite.
Christian Bonilla writes one of the best blogs...
over a year ago
Hah! You thought
I had career advice?
Not quite.
Christian Bonilla writes one of the best blogs I’ve ever read at
Smart Like How. Please click over there, and read a few of his posts.
He talks about being
data savy even if you’re not a data scientist. He covers
how to suceed...
The Marginalian
Emerson on the Singular Enchantment of Indian Summer (and a Better Term for This Liminal Season...
"There are days... wherein the world reaches its perfection, when the air, the heavenly bodies, and...
a month ago
"There are days... wherein the world reaches its perfection, when the air, the heavenly bodies, and the earth, make a harmony."
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
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...
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
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...
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