Anecdotal Evidence
'An Author Who Inspires Such Perennial Affection'
“This
impossibly erudite, overbearing, tender, and anguished man lived in a perpetual
state of...
2 weeks ago
“This
impossibly erudite, overbearing, tender, and anguished man lived in a perpetual
state of dissatisfaction with himself which only disciplined labor could allay
but never completely still.”
In their moral
and emotional complexity, certain lives resemble the finest novels –...
Josh Thompson
12 Lessons Learned While Publishing Something Every Day for a Month
A month ago, I decided to publish something every day for at least thirty days.
I read a few others...
over a year ago
A month ago, I decided to publish something every day for at least thirty days.
I read a few others who did something similar, and discussed all the benefits. I’ve found myself struggling with creating something and then making it public. (Public here, on another project, or at...
The Marginalian
The Fairy Tale Tree
Creativity is at bottom the combinatorial work of memory and imagination. All of our impressions,...
11 months ago
Creativity is at bottom the combinatorial work of memory and imagination. All of our impressions, influences, and experiences — every sight we have ever seen, every book read, every landscape walked, every love loved — become seeds for ideas we later combine and recombine,...
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Similar Universality of Voice'
I reproach
my younger self for being lazy and not seriously studying languages other than
English. I...
6 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...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Top Thing of the World'
John Keats’
meditation on a reader’s paradise:
“I had an
idea that a Man might pass a very pleasant...
2 months ago
John Keats’
meditation on a reader’s paradise:
“I had an
idea that a Man might pass a very pleasant life in this manner. Let him on a
certain day read a certain Page of full Poesy or distilled Prose, and let him
wander with it, and muse upon it and reflect from it, and dream...
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,...
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...
This Space
Favourite books 2020
Every time Dennis Cooper posts his favorite (sic) fiction and non-fiction of the year, it alone...
over a year ago
Every time Dennis Cooper posts his favorite (sic) fiction and non-fiction of the year, it alone exceeds the number of books I'm able to read in a year let alone the number from which it was presumably narrowed down. This is why I suggested a couple of years ago such pages choose...
Anecdotal Evidence
'One's Lucidity Is Shaken'
“This is
beyond imagining: one’s lucidity is shaken. Difficult to think clearly.”
As the
horrors...
2 months ago
“This is
beyond imagining: one’s lucidity is shaken. Difficult to think clearly.”
As the
horrors piled up, the twentieth century taught us to accept such expressions as
useful and accurate, not hyperbole, though the events defied belief and
understanding, and often still do. The...
The Marginalian
Everything Is Already There: Javier Marías on the Courage to Heed Your Intuitions
"This has nothing to do with premonitions, there is nothing supernatural or mysterious about it,...
a year ago
"This has nothing to do with premonitions, there is nothing supernatural or mysterious about it, what’s mysterious is that we pay no heed to it."
Blog -...
Book Review - Dancing Naked in the Mind Field
Dancing Naked in the Mind Field, the autobiography of Kary Mullis,
published in 1998, is...
over a year ago
Dancing Naked in the Mind Field, the autobiography of Kary Mullis,
published in 1998, is reminiscent of another Nobel Prize winning
autobiography, Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!. Dr. Mullis and Dr.
Feynman had a great deal in common, including their incomprehensible...
Anecdotal Evidence
'I’d Be the Man Dares Clearly Sing'
I have no
musical talent apart from a sometimes annoying gift for remembering lyrics, and
not always...
8 months ago
I have no
musical talent apart from a sometimes annoying gift for remembering lyrics, and
not always the good stuff. I know all the words to a radio jingle for a car
dealer in Cleveland, circa 1964, among other clutter. A related symptom is the long-lasting
earworm. Much of this...
Josh Thompson
Recommended Reading
I’ve read many books over the years. Thousands. Here’s a few that I find myself...
7 months ago
I’ve read many books over the years. Thousands. Here’s a few that I find myself referencing/recommending.Periodically, I refresh this list. It’s changed over the years years.
the list you are about to read is heavily reworked, based off this older list:...
Josh Thompson
Trader Joe's Parking Lot
Hey Trader Joe’s,
This is a bit of an open letter, inspired by a recent visit to the local Trader...
a year ago
Hey Trader Joe’s,
This is a bit of an open letter, inspired by a recent visit to the local Trader Joe’s. I just moved to this part of Denver, and now for the first time am living within like a 3 minute scoot of a Trader Joe’s.
I know that some people like to complain about...
The Marginalian
How to Triumph Over the Challenges of the Creative Life: Audubon’s Antidote to Despair
We move through the world as surfaces shimmering with the visibilia of our accomplishments, the...
3 months ago
We move through the world as surfaces shimmering with the visibilia of our accomplishments, the undertow of our suffering invisible to passers-by. The selective collective memory we call history contributes to this willful blindness, obscuring the tremendous personal cost behind...
The American Scholar
Teach the Conflicts
It’s natural—and right—to foster
The post Teach the Conflicts appeared first on The American...
3 months ago
It’s natural—and right—to foster
The post Teach the Conflicts appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
Mortal Coils
We aren’t alone in facing the inevitable
The post Mortal Coils appeared first on The American...
4 months ago
We aren’t alone in facing the inevitable
The post Mortal Coils appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
Cordyceps, the Carpenter Ant, and the Boundaries of the Self: The Strange Science of Zombie Fungi
"It is likely that fungi have been manipulating animal minds for much of the time that there have...
9 months ago
"It is likely that fungi have been manipulating animal minds for much of the time that there have been minds to manipulate."
Anecdotal Evidence
'Originality, Learning, Acuteness, Terseness of Style'
Samuel Johnson:
“Coxcombs and blockheads always have been, and always will be, innovators; some
in...
11 months ago
Samuel Johnson:
“Coxcombs and blockheads always have been, and always will be, innovators; some
in dress, some in polity, some in language.”
John Horne Tooke:
“I wonder whether they invented the choice appellations you have just repeated.”
Johnson: “No,
sir! Indignant wise men...
Josh Thompson
Things That Are Surprisingly Good For The Cost (AKA How I want to build my tiny house)
Working title: “My Dream Backyard House/ADU/round-one-of-building-experiment”
I’m trying to build a...
over a year ago
Working title: “My Dream Backyard House/ADU/round-one-of-building-experiment”
I’m trying to build a kinda cool, quirky, sensitive-to-supply-chain-disruption, cheap, functional, emotionally healing home in my back yard. We love to host friends and family, guests, maybe AirBnB...
The American Scholar
The Wonder of It All
In search of awe
The post The Wonder of It All appeared first on The American Scholar.
a month ago
In search of awe
The post The Wonder of It All appeared first on The American Scholar.
Ben Borgers
On “Incrementally Correct Personal Websites”
over a year ago
ben-mini
Root Canals and Bill Gates
In Finding Nemo, there was a scene about a root canal surgery that absolutely terrified me:
This...
6 months ago
In Finding Nemo, there was a scene about a root canal surgery that absolutely terrified me:
This could just be me, but I spent a remarkable amount of my childhood worrying about root canals. Horror stories like these created a universal phobia that dentists suck and that’s...
The Marginalian
The Beach and the Soul: Anne Morrow Lindbergh on the Benedictions of the Sea
"The sea does not reward those who are too anxious, too greedy, or too impatient... Patience,...
6 months ago
"The sea does not reward those who are too anxious, too greedy, or too impatient... Patience, patience, patience, is what the sea teaches. Patience and faith. One should lie empty, open, choiceless as a beach."
The Elysian
Who's qualified to save the world?
Two climate dystopias on unlikeable saviors.
6 months ago
Two climate dystopias on unlikeable saviors.
Escaping Flatland
Everything that turned out well in my life followed the same design process
The context is smarter than you.
5 months ago
The context is smarter than you.
The Marginalian
The Art of Withstanding Abandonment: The Patience of the Penguin and How Evolution Invented Faith
“Let us love this distance which is wholly woven of friendship, for those who do not love each other...
4 months ago
“Let us love this distance which is wholly woven of friendship, for those who do not love each other are not separated,” Simone Weil wrote in her soulful meditation on the paradox of closeness and separation. To be separated from a loved one — in space or in silence, by choice or...
The American Scholar
Woman in a Red Raincoat
The post Woman in a Red Raincoat appeared first on The American Scholar.
5 months ago
The post Woman in a Red Raincoat appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
Letter to Two Climbers (Part 2)
Hello again, it’s me! We met climbing a few days ago.
I wrote you a letter, but didn’t want to leave...
over a year ago
Hello again, it’s me! We met climbing a few days ago.
I wrote you a letter, but didn’t want to leave it on such a pessimistic note.
First, I commend you both for getting out there. You both invested a lot in making that weekend happen. You acquired the correct tools, and spent...
Blog -...
Book Review - The Alchemy of Inner Work
The Alchemy of Inner Work, by Lorie Eve Dechar and Benjamin Fox, is an
exposition of an inner...
over a year ago
The Alchemy of Inner Work, by Lorie Eve Dechar and Benjamin Fox, is an
exposition of an inner healing art that is incredibly valuable to
practitioners. Yet, each of us – regardless of trade, title, or label – is
ultimately our own healing practitioner, and this book is a...
The Marginalian
How to Be a Living Poem: Lucille Clifton on the Balance of Intellect and Intuition in Creative Work...
"I didn’t graduate from college, which isn’t necessary to be a poet. It is only necessary to be...
a year ago
"I didn’t graduate from college, which isn’t necessary to be a poet. It is only necessary to be interested in humans and to be in touch with yourself as a human."
The American Scholar
Up Close
The post Up Close appeared first on The American Scholar.
4 months ago
The post Up Close appeared first on The American Scholar.
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...
11 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...
The Marginalian
Favorite Books of the Year: Art, Science, Poetry, Psychology, Children’s, and More
Because I read for the same reason I write — to fathom my life and deepen my living — looking back...
2 weeks ago
Because I read for the same reason I write — to fathom my life and deepen my living — looking back on a year of life has always been looking back on a year of reading. This year was different — a time of such profound pain and profound transformation that it fused reading and...
Wuthering...
there is no wisdom in me; and that is true enough - what is knowledge? - Theaetetus and Parmenides
The epistemological crisis of Greek philosophy has surprised
me. The early attempts to...
a year ago
The epistemological crisis of Greek philosophy has surprised
me. The early attempts to systematically
understand, without the help of the revealed truth of religion, difficult
concepts like existence and virtue led, almost immediately, to the question of
whether anyone can...
Josh Thompson
Letter to Two Climbers (Part 1)
Hello!
We met recently. (I gave Justin tape after he cut his toe and didn’t have a bandaid.)
You and...
over a year ago
Hello!
We met recently. (I gave Justin tape after he cut his toe and didn’t have a bandaid.)
You and your partner were climbing a route near me and my partner. One of you (I’ll call Charles, because he had a British accent) was trying
so hard to figure out some moves high above...
Josh Thompson
Dream Big, and Build Optionality
We all can dream big. I have dreams, and you probably do to.
For example: Travel, location...
over a year ago
We all can dream big. I have dreams, and you probably do to.
For example: Travel, location independent living, being wealthy/choosing to do work that interests you, enjoying “simple” things. The list could go on, and on, and on.
But then we go right along doing all the normal...
Wuthering...
Many of Plato's early Socratic dialogues - It was quite lovely.
I’ve been enjoying Plato’s dialogues recently. I’d read some of them before, at university or...
a year ago
I’ve been enjoying Plato’s dialogues recently. I’d read some of them before, at university or during my last Greek phase 25 years ago, and this time I hope to read almost all of them.
I will make some notes on them in a few posts. Give them a tag if nothing else, and make some...
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...
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
Ho Ho Horror
Why not make this Christmas a little darker?
The post Ho Ho Horror appeared first on The American...
a week ago
Why not make this Christmas a little darker?
The post Ho Ho Horror appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
RailsConf Presentation: 'Junior' Developers are a Solution to Many of your Problems
Did this talk resonate and you want to implement some of the ideas at your company? I might be able...
over a year ago
Did this talk resonate and you want to implement some of the ideas at your company? I might be able to help. Shoot me an email at joshthompson@hey.com or book some time to talk at https://calendly.com/joshthompson/coffee.
This talk is available on railsconf.org, here:...
Wuthering...
The Female Quixote by Charlotte Lennox - counting the pages, he was quite terrified at the number,...
Di at The little white attic is chasing Don Quixote through
the 18th century, so she read,...
3 weeks ago
Di at The little white attic is chasing Don Quixote through
the 18th century, so she read, obviously, The Female Quixote (1852) by
Charlotte Lennox. I had not read it, so
I trailed along.
An archetypal novelistic heroine, young Arabella has had her
brain addled by novels:
From...
The Marginalian
Sentimentality and Being Mortal: Poet Mark Doty on the Passionate Fragility of Our Attachments
How beautiful and unbearable that only one of each exists — each lover, each child, each dog; that...
11 months ago
How beautiful and unbearable that only one of each exists — each lover, each child, each dog; that this particular chance-constellation of atoms has never before existed and will never again recur in the history of the universe. The fact of each such singularity is a wonder...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Where Its Masters’ Love Is'
The late
D.G. Myers and I once talked about the tendency to pigeonhole writers according
to some...
6 months ago
The late
D.G. Myers and I once talked about the tendency to pigeonhole writers according
to some aspect of their subject matter. Melville is your
go-to cetology guy and Edith Wharton took care of sleds. Or, as Nabokov said of
Hemingway’s books: “something about bells, balls and...
The Elysian
Week 5: Write one (pitchable) think piece
9 months ago
The Marginalian
In the Dark: A Lyrical Illustrated Invitation to Find the Light Behind the Fear
The mind is a camera obscura constantly trying to render an image of reality on the back wall of...
a year ago
The mind is a camera obscura constantly trying to render an image of reality on the back wall of consciousness through the pinhole of awareness, its aperture narrowed by our selective attention, honed on our hopes and fears. In consequence, the projection we see inside the dark...
The Marginalian
Simone Weil on Love and Its Counterfeit
How to tell a plaything from a necessity.
a year ago
How to tell a plaything from a necessity.
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."
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?"
Josh Thompson
On Feedback
Most of what makes us who we are is based on some sort of feedback obtained earlier in our life.
By...
over a year ago
Most of what makes us who we are is based on some sort of feedback obtained earlier in our life.
By my best estimation, there are two types of feedback:
Explicit feedback
, which comes in a little box labeled “this is feedback”, and is hard to miss.
Implicit feedback
, which is...
Wuthering...
Three weeks in Portugal
I was in Portugal for three weeks in June. Five hours a day for four days I was in this inlingua...
6 months ago
I was in Portugal for three weeks in June. Five hours a day for four days I was in this inlingua classroom in Porto, or one much like it:
The results:
B1 in Portuguese after about two years of fairly relaxed study
– relaxed until those four days – which seems pretty good. ...
Ben Borgers
Wednesday, January 19, 2022
over a year ago
The Marginalian
Necessary Losses: The Life-Shaping Art of Letting Go
"We cannot deeply love anything without becoming vulnerable to loss. And we cannot become separate...
a year ago
"We cannot deeply love anything without becoming vulnerable to loss. And we cannot become separate people, responsible people, connected people, reflective people without some losing and leaving and letting go."
Wuthering...
Books I Read in August 2023
As I suspected my energy for writing in August was diverted
to more important things. Plenty of...
a year ago
As I suspected my energy for writing in August was diverted
to more important things. Plenty of energy
to read, though.
With a respite in September, I should soon be able to write
a bit on the Greek philosophers I have been reading. The Cynics, Epicureans, and Stoics work...
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...
Josh Thompson
Typing in Colemac 2.0
I want to learn to type in Colemak, but I’m afraid to try to invest twenty hours in it. That’s a...
over a year ago
I want to learn to type in Colemak, but I’m afraid to try to invest twenty hours in it. That’s a long commitment, and I’m afraid I would not follow through, and feel like it was a failure, because I didn’t allot enough time, nor reach a desired level of skill.
My hope is that as...
Josh Thompson
A little bit of slope makes up for a lot of y-intercept
The following is recounted on
Quora, from a lecture by Stanford
professor John Ousterhout (he’s in...
over a year ago
The following is recounted on
Quora, from a lecture by Stanford
professor John Ousterhout (he’s in the Computer Science department):
Here’s today’s thought for the weekend. A little bit of slope makes up for a lot of Y-intercept.
[Laughter]
So at a mathematical level this is...
Wuthering...
"Socrates gone mad" - my hero Diogenes the Cynic
He lived in a jar, owned a staff and a cloak and nothing
else, and was a sarcastic pain in the...
a year ago
He lived in a jar, owned a staff and a cloak and nothing
else, and was a sarcastic pain in the ass.
He took the example of Socrates to its limit. Plato is the one who called him “Socrates
gone mad,” but in a sense he is just the logical result of thinking through how
Socrates...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Still to Suruiue in My Immortall Song'
Many of the best
things in life, so long as they persist, are accompanied by a shadow of...
a week ago
Many of the best
things in life, so long as they persist, are accompanied by a shadow of their
disappearance. If fortunate, we learn this lesson early. Their transitoriness
becomes part of their charm, whether a cat, a garden or a brother. We are
grateful and enjoy them...
Ben Borgers
Designing Posters for Humans
over a year ago
The Marginalian
Reason and Emotion: Scottish Philosopher John Macmurray on the Key to Wholeness and the Fundaments...
"The emotional life is not simply a part or an aspect of human life. It is not, as we so often...
a year ago
"The emotional life is not simply a part or an aspect of human life. It is not, as we so often think, subordinate, or subsidiary to the mind. It is the core and essence of human life. The intellect arises out of it, is rooted in it, draws its nourishment and sustenance from it."
Escaping Flatland
Can we scale cultures that support learning?
new essay in Asterisk
3 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'The War Had Won'
“The war had
taken his innocence and replaced it with something else. That something – ‘the
destined...
a year ago
“The war had
taken his innocence and replaced it with something else. That something – ‘the
destined anguish’ - revealed itself gradually and became a presence in his
poetry for the rest of his life.”
Margi
Blunden, speaking in 2014, is remembering her father, the poet and Great...
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...
3 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...
Josh Thompson
Pry Tips and Tricks
the following is cross-posted from development.wombatsecurity.com. I wrote about some handy extra...
over a year ago
the following is cross-posted from development.wombatsecurity.com. I wrote about some handy extra features I’ve found using Pry much of my day.
I joined the Wombat team a few months ago, and have been working on the threatsim product. We had a bit of a bug backlog, and myself 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...
3 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...
The American Scholar
Good Vibrations
One eccentric’s desert landmark allows visitors to bathe in sound
The post Good Vibrations appeared...
8 months ago
One eccentric’s desert landmark allows visitors to bathe in sound
The post Good Vibrations appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'Where I Went and Cannot Come Again'
A brief
return to the Russian word toska
mentioned in Thursday’s post by Gary Saul Morson in...
8 months ago
A brief
return to the Russian word toska
mentioned in Thursday’s post by Gary Saul Morson in reference to Chekhov. Dave
Lull alerted me to Nabokov’s explication of the word in his translation of
Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin. In the
second of the four volumes, Nabokov writes:
“No...
This Space
39 Books: 2013
I reread books like Aharon Appelfeld's A Table for One and Anne Atik's How It Was as if returning to...
7 months ago
I reread books like Aharon Appelfeld's A Table for One and Anne Atik's How It Was as if returning to a particular bench with a view of the sea. On first glance A Table for One promises only banal, coffee-table memories and reflections, and that would be almost right:
Real...
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
'Implacable, Bewildered, It Moves Among Us'
Some sixteen
years ago David Ferry thanked me for a post I had written about some of the lines by...
a year ago
Some sixteen
years ago David Ferry thanked me for a post I had written about some of the lines by Dr. Johnson interpolated into his poems. That email is long gone but
I remember being touched by his buoyant sense of gratitude. That a man in his
eighties, much honored as a poet,...
Josh Thompson
October 2016 Goals
In the last year, I’ve fluctuated between writing
every day for 30 days and
not posting once in...
over a year ago
In the last year, I’ve fluctuated between writing
every day for 30 days and
not posting once in two months.
Frankly, neither of those is good for me.
I like writing because it clarifies my own thoughts. Sometimes it seems useful to others. I like to be useful (“utility” can...
Wuthering...
Xenophon's Socrates
I’m still catching up with myself.
I wanted to spend March thinking about Socrates as a...
a year ago
I’m still catching up with myself.
I wanted to spend March thinking about Socrates as a philosopher,
independent from Plato’s use of him, to the extent that it is possible. The Socrates of Aristophanes in The Clouds
is not much help. But luckily we have
Xenophon, a close...
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Matter of Nobody’s Style But Her Own'
“It is not
only the pianos that have vanished (the sound of the pianos along the streets
in spring...
11 months ago
“It is not
only the pianos that have vanished (the sound of the pianos along the streets
in spring evenings when the windows were opened) but the world in which they
sounded, and the young ears they sounded for. I shall never forget how
beautiful they were or what they meant to...
Ben Borgers
My Guilt for Useless Things
over a year ago
The Marginalian
Polyvagal Theory and the Neurobiology of Connection: The Science of Rupture, Repair, and Reciprocity
"The mind narrates what the nervous system knows. Story follows state."
7 months ago
"The mind narrates what the nervous system knows. Story follows state."
Ben Borgers
How ChatGPT spoiled my semester
2 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'We Caught the Christmas Beetle'
I understand
why people might be repelled by a poem titled “When We Were Kids.” A wallow...
a week ago
I understand
why people might be repelled by a poem titled “When We Were Kids.” A wallow in
nostalgia can prove deadly. But the language in Clive James’ twelve stanzas cataloging
an Australian childhood is exotic enough to interest this American reader,
apart from their poetic...
The Marginalian
Don’t Waste Your Wildness
"What is wild cannot be bought or sold, borrowed or copied. It is. Unmistakable, unforgettable,...
2 months ago
"What is wild cannot be bought or sold, borrowed or copied. It is. Unmistakable, unforgettable, unshamable, elemental as earth and ice, water, fire and air, a quintessence, pure spirit, resolving into no constituents. Don't waste your wildness: it is precious and necessary. In...
Josh Thompson
Climbing in Cuba, 2019
A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to go climbing in Cuba.
Mark and Dave, walking back from...
over a year ago
A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to go climbing in Cuba.
Mark and Dave, walking back from climbing outside Viñales
Locals crag, called “The roof of the world”. Stunning routes.
because it was so hot, we spent a lot of time in this cave.
Kristi and I tend to stick...
Josh Thompson
Becoming an Early Riser
Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.
-The man no child likes to...
over a year ago
Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.
-The man no child likes to hear about when being awoken by their parents
Getting out of bed is a struggle. I’ve spent the better part of twenty four years setting my alarm as late as possible so I could have...
Escaping Flatland
Ethos and imagination
Milk Drop Coronet, an ultra-high-speed photograph of the splash of a drop of milk, Harold Edgerton,...
a month ago
Milk Drop Coronet, an ultra-high-speed photograph of the splash of a drop of milk, Harold Edgerton, 1957
Wuthering...
The Assemblywomen by Aristophanes - Octopus tunnyfish dogfish and skate
The Assemblywomen by Aristophanes – or The Parliament of Women, or several other titles – was...
over a year ago
The Assemblywomen by Aristophanes – or The Parliament of Women, or several other titles – was performed in 392 BCE, thirteen years after The Frogs. In the interval many things had changed. Athens had been conquered; democracy was overthrown but restored; one endless war ended...
Josh Thompson
Some Lessons Learned While Preparing for Two Technical Talks
A few weeks ago, I gave two talks about Ruby and Rails:
An 8-minute lightning talk about using...
over a year ago
A few weeks ago, I gave two talks about Ruby and Rails:
An 8-minute lightning talk about using .count vs .size in ActiveRecord query methods
A 30-minute talk at the Boulder Ruby Group arguing that developers should embrace working with non-development business functions, and the...
Escaping Flatland
After AI beat them, professional Go players got better and more creative
For many decades, it seemed professional Go players had reached a hard limit on how well it is...
11 months ago
For many decades, it seemed professional Go players had reached a hard limit on how well it is possible to play. Then AI beat them.
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
'A Twitter of Inconsequent Vitality'
This week I
will interview a professor of chemical engineering who is retiring after
forty-four...
8 months ago
This week I
will interview a professor of chemical engineering who is retiring after
forty-four years on the faculty. He came to the university straight from
earning his Ph.D. He’s neither flashy nor hungry for publicity, and I was
surprised he agreed to speak with me. He has a...
The Marginalian
Enchantment and the Courage of Joy: René Magritte on the Antidote to the Banality of Pessimism
"Life is wasted when we make it more terrifying, precisely because it is so easy to do so."
a year ago
"Life is wasted when we make it more terrifying, precisely because it is so easy to do so."
Anecdotal Evidence
'First Find a Thinking Being. Lots of Luck'
As a
non-mathematician, I’m more interested in the history of mathematics than in math
itself....
7 months ago
As a
non-mathematician, I’m more interested in the history of mathematics than in math
itself. That’s a confession of inadequacy, though I’m not one of those people
who says, “I don’t have a head for math,” when what they really mean is arithmetic.
Because of my job I’ve learned...
The Elysian
Social Development > Self-Development
We need one much more than the other.
2 days ago
We need one much more than the other.
Josh Thompson
Pry-ing into a Stack Trace
I was recently working on a feature, committed what I thought was clean code, and started getting...
over a year ago
I was recently working on a feature, committed what I thought was clean code, and started getting errors. I git stashed, and re-ran my tests, and still got errors. Here’s the full stacktrace:
> b ruby -Itest test/models/model_name_redacted_test.rb -n=/errors/
# Running tests...
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Half-Buried Sense for Poetry'
It’s easy to
mistake geniality for prevarication. So rare a quality seems suspicious or...
2 weeks ago
It’s easy to
mistake geniality for prevarication. So rare a quality seems suspicious or naively
unprofessional, a mask worn to conceal the shark within, especially among
literary types. Of course, critics are born to be severe, nobody’s pal. How
many critics can you name whose...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Provided That He Gives Us What We Can Enjoy'
A reader is
enjoying Tristram Shandy and passing
along choice selections from Sterne’s novel. This...
a year ago
A reader is
enjoying Tristram Shandy and passing
along choice selections from Sterne’s novel. This she gleaned from Book V,
Chap. 32, spoken by Tristram’s father:
“—Here is
the glass for pedagogues, preceptors, tutors, governors, gerund-grinders, and
bear-leaders, to view...
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Forlorn Hope'
Published in
the February 1950 issue of Partisan
Review was a “symposium” -- always a feature...
a month ago
Published in
the February 1950 issue of Partisan
Review was a “symposium” -- always a feature beloved by editors and loquacious
respondents – this one titled “Religion and the Intellectuals.” Such things
tend to be heavy on posturing and vast generalizations. I might have been...
The American Scholar
Rhyme, Not Repetition
All that’s past isn’t necessarily present
The post Rhyme, Not Repetition appeared first on The...
7 months ago
All that’s past isn’t necessarily present
The post Rhyme, Not Repetition appeared first on The American Scholar.
Ben Borgers
Things Go Downhill After We Leave
over a year ago
The American Scholar
“The Poet’s Occasional Alternative” by Grace Paley
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “The Poet’s Occasional Alternative” by Grace Paley appeared...
4 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “The Poet’s Occasional Alternative” by Grace Paley appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'Where Silence Suddenly Erupts in Speech'
Zbigniew Herbert
visited Western Europe for the first time in 1958-59: France, then England,
Italy,...
a year ago
Zbigniew Herbert
visited Western Europe for the first time in 1958-59: France, then England,
Italy, France again and back to Poland. His budget was tight but Herbert was
no hedonistic tourist. Nor was he a stuffy academic or critic. The essays in Barbarian in the Garden (1962;...
Josh Thompson
Book Notes: 'The Case Against Sugar' by Gary Taube
In the last few weeks, I read The Case Against Sugar by Gary Taubes.
I found it to be compelling...
over a year ago
In the last few weeks, I read The Case Against Sugar by Gary Taubes.
I found it to be compelling (more on that in a moment) and I want to be impacted by them. I want the daily decisions that I make to be subtly influenced by this author and these books.
Related but in a different...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Wisdom As a Kind of Courtesy'
“[A]
reverence for the natural world, and a conviction that intelligent sanity is
both more...
a year ago
“[A]
reverence for the natural world, and a conviction that intelligent sanity is
both more difficult than unreflective complacency and more interesting than
madness.”
That’s how
the poet Dick Davis characterized the concerns of Janet Lewis and her husband Yvor
Winters in his...
Josh Thompson
Input metrics vs. Output metrics
It’s tempting to track results, when trying to accomplish something.
If you’re working on any...
over a year ago
It’s tempting to track results, when trying to accomplish something.
If you’re working on any project of sufficient size, the results will come
slowly, fitfully, and sometimes not at all.
So, don’t track results, track your efforts. (Yes, how very American of me.
I don’t believe...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Each Man Can Be Judged By His Favorite Books'
This I find
in The Lone Heretic: A Biography of Miguel
de Unamuno y Jugo (1963) by Margaret Thomas...
6 months ago
This I find
in The Lone Heretic: A Biography of Miguel
de Unamuno y Jugo (1963) by Margaret Thomas Rudd, who quotes her subject: “Each
man can be judged by his favorite books.” She adds of the great Spanish thinker
and novelist:
“Throughout
his long life Unamuno returned to...
The American Scholar
Facing the Facts
An antiquated take on antiquity
The post Facing the Facts appeared first on The American Scholar.
7 months ago
An antiquated take on antiquity
The post Facing the Facts appeared first on The American Scholar.
This Space
39 Books: 2019
So much for this blog being labelled "the best resource in English on European modernist...
7 months ago
So much for this blog being labelled "the best resource in English on European modernist literature": this year's choice is a collection of lectures delivered in the early 1960s at the University of Zürich, published in English translation in 1970, with this edition being...
The Marginalian
Beyond Either/Or: Kierkegaard on the Passion for Possibility and the Key to Resetting Relationships
"Were I to wish for anything I would not wish for wealth and power, but for the passion of the...
5 months ago
"Were I to wish for anything I would not wish for wealth and power, but for the passion of the possible, that eye which everywhere, ever young, ever burning, sees possibility."
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...
7 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...
The Marginalian
18 Life-Learnings from 18 Years of The Marginalian
Somewhere along the way, you realize that no one will teach you how to live your own life — not your...
2 months ago
Somewhere along the way, you realize that no one will teach you how to live your own life — not your parents or your idols, not the philosophers or the poets, not your liberal arts education or your twelve-step program, not church or therapy or Tolstoy. No matter how valuable any...
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...
Josh Thompson
2016 - Biggest Lesson, Most Dangerous Books
I don’t do New Years resolutions, but I like to think back on the last year.
I’ll touch on two...
over a year ago
I don’t do New Years resolutions, but I like to think back on the last year.
I’ll touch on two things:
The most important thing I’ve learned this year: Tactical Silence
Most dangerous books of 2016
Tactical Silence
I suspect that a year from now, I’m going to look back and say...
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 Perry Bible...
The Good Knight
The post The Good Knight appeared first on The Perry Bible Fellowship.
7 months ago
The post The Good Knight appeared first on The Perry Bible Fellowship.
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
'Fond of Books and Fond of Reading'
A friend has
loaned me his copy of Maurice Baring’s Have You Anything to Declare? (1936),
subtitled...
9 months ago
A friend has
loaned me his copy of Maurice Baring’s Have You Anything to Declare? (1936),
subtitled A Note Book with Commentaries. This
is the 1950 edition published by William Heinemann and comes with an indecipherable
pencil inscription on the front end paper that may be...
Anecdotal Evidence
'He Learned to Love Books'
“Though most
of the teachers followed Erasmus in seeking to make learning palatable,
Montaigne...
4 months ago
“Though most
of the teachers followed Erasmus in seeking to make learning palatable,
Montaigne considers himself fortunate to have avoided getting 'nothing out of
school but a hatred of books, as do nearly all our noblemen,’” writes Donald
Frame in his 1965 biography of the...
Josh Thompson
Three Android Apps I Use Every Day (and maybe you'll use them too)
I’m not here to talk about Twitter and Instagram, which… I use too much. Lets talk about things that...
over a year ago
I’m not here to talk about Twitter and Instagram, which… I use too much. Lets talk about things that make my life better, and might do the same for you.
(If you’re an iPhone user, just Google for the iOS version of the following tools. They’re all out there)
Rewire App:...
Wuthering...
The books I read in November 2024 - like a hideous spinster who has learned the grim humor of the...
Thank goodness I write these down.
FICTION
The Story of the Stone, Vol. 2: The Crab-flower...
2 weeks ago
Thank goodness I write these down.
FICTION
The Story of the Stone, Vol. 2: The Crab-flower Club
(c. 1760), Cao Xueqin – written up long ago.
Cartucho (1931) &
My Mother's Hands (1938), Nellie Campobello – Brutal
vignettes of the Mexican revolution by a diehard partisan, a...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Dictionary of Dead Words'
How to
account for the enduring appeal of clichés? Why do we snub the riches of our language?...
a year ago
How to
account for the enduring appeal of clichés? Why do we snub the riches of our language? I’ve
always supposed it was laziness or the absence of imagination. Why work hard at
writing or speaking when a ready-made word, phrase or thought shows up automatically
like pain with a...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Love of Reading Is Caught, Not Taught'
I’ve used “home
library” to describe the accumulation of books in our house but it’s starting
to...
2 months ago
I’ve used “home
library” to describe the accumulation of books in our house but it’s starting
to sound a little pretentious. For now I’ll keep it at “books.” Nadya Williams
titles her essay “Home Libraries Will Save Civilization,” which, I understand, is
more reader-enticing than...
The Marginalian
The Science of Tears and the Art of Crying: An Illustrated Manifesto for Reclaiming Our Deepest...
“All the poems of our lives are not yet made. We hear them crying to us,” Muriel Rukeyser writes in...
2 months ago
“All the poems of our lives are not yet made. We hear them crying to us,” Muriel Rukeyser writes in her timeless ode to the power of poetry. “Cry, heart, but never break,” entreats one of my favorite children’s books — which, at their best, are always philosophies for living. It...
Escaping Flatland
A measuring device that tells me what is interesting
+ links
3 months ago
Ben Borgers
The Redemption Arc Is Coming
over a year ago
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...
Escaping Flatland
A summary of what I wrote in 2023
In 2023, I published 37 essays. I’ve spent the better part of the morning going through it all to...
a year ago
In 2023, I published 37 essays. I’ve spent the better part of the morning going through it all to see what the themes were—it is quite surprising to notice what emerges when you allow yourself to follow your curiosity and intuition for a full year. I wrote a summary of 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...
Anecdotal Evidence
'For Whom They Were Framed in Words'
Louis
MacNeice is startlingly prescient in “To Posterity,” originally published in Visitations...
a year ago
Louis
MacNeice is startlingly prescient in “To Posterity,” originally published in Visitations (1957):
“When books
have all seized up like the books in graveyards
And reading
and even speaking have been replaced
By other,
less difficult, media, we wonder if you
Will find...
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
A Whole of Parts: Philosopher R.L. Nettleship on Love, Death, and the Paradox of Personality
"Death is self-surrender... Love is the consciousness of survival in the act of self-surrender."
a week ago
"Death is self-surrender... Love is the consciousness of survival in the act of self-surrender."
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.
Josh Thompson
Collateralizing Mortgages and Loans With the Present Value of Rent Flow
this is a draft document, it pairs with this Planned Unit Development application draft...
over a year ago
this is a draft document, it pairs with this Planned Unit Development application draft document
Inspiration comes from many places, but most strongly it draws heavily from Order Without Design. I’ve quoted in depth two pages below, but there is many other sections of the book...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Old Collections Persist Somewhere'
Speaking of
anthologies, I again picked up Books and
Libraries (2021), published as part of the...
a year ago
Speaking of
anthologies, I again picked up Books and
Libraries (2021), published as part of the Everyman's Library Pocket Poets
Series. I’ve browsed in several of these attractively compact volumes and they are
a very mixed bag, as any thematic anthology must be. You can sense...
Anecdotal Evidence
'You Must Start Rewriting in Your Head'
“Rhythm is
never effortless. To achieve it, you must start rewriting in your head and then
continue...
10 months ago
“Rhythm is
never effortless. To achieve it, you must start rewriting in your head and then
continue rewriting on the page. The hallmark of a seductive style is to extend
natural speech rhythm over the distance of a complex sentence.”
When I
applied for my first job on a...
The American Scholar
Downstream of Fukushima
The Japanese seafood industry has rebounded, but is anyone worried about irradiated water?
The post...
7 months ago
The Japanese seafood industry has rebounded, but is anyone worried about irradiated water?
The post Downstream of Fukushima appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
The Unphotographable: Richard Adams on the Singular Magic of Autumn
There is a lovely liminality to autumn — this threshold time between the centripetal exuberance of...
2 months ago
There is a lovely liminality to autumn — this threshold time between the centripetal exuberance of summer and the season for tending to the inner garden, as Rilke wrote of winter. Autumn is a living metaphor for the necessary losses that shape our human lives: What falls away...
The Marginalian
Swan Sky: A Bittersweet Vintage Japanese Meditation on Love, Loss, and the Eternal Consolations of...
To me, what makes the majestic migration of birds so moving is that it is a living spell against...
6 months ago
To me, what makes the majestic migration of birds so moving is that it is a living spell against abandonment. No one is leaving and no one is being left in this unison of movement along a vector of common purpose. It is the only instance I know of a transition that is not a...
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."
Ben Borgers
“you have a lack of deadlines”
over a year ago
Ben Borgers
You Might Be Right, But Shut Up
over a year ago
Josh Thompson
Tongue Ties: What, So What, What To Do
“tongue tied” (my first time hearing the word, my newborn’s experience)
‘tongue tie’ was something...
7 months ago
“tongue tied” (my first time hearing the word, my newborn’s experience)
‘tongue tie’ was something I’d heard discussed (the little bit of fiber under a tongue) as the child we now know as Eden was incubating inside of Kristi’s womb. I didn’t think much of it then.
Cut forward to...
Anecdotal Evidence
'That Is My Ambition Here'
Does anyone
still read “Invictus”? Is it part of any school’s curriculum? It was as late as 1965,...
a year ago
Does anyone
still read “Invictus”? Is it part of any school’s curriculum? It was as late as 1965, when Miss Wagy had
us memorize it in eighth-grade English. The poem is irresistible for recitation,
whether privately in times of self-doubt or at the Kiwanis luncheon: “I am...
The Marginalian
Some Blessings to Begin with
It is good, I feel, to begin a new year, or a new day, with a little reservoir of gladness. Here are...
3 days ago
It is good, I feel, to begin a new year, or a new day, with a little reservoir of gladness. Here are some gladnesses I have gathered, and two new bird divinations I have made, as a conscious way of consecrating our days with the blessed fact that we weren’t promised any of this —...
Josh Thompson
Finding an Edge
These last two weeks have been the hardest, or the most frustrating, of my time at Turing so...
over a year ago
These last two weeks have been the hardest, or the most frustrating, of my time at Turing so far.
I’ve been put a little off-balance by this difficulty, and I think I’m close to uncovering some useful tidbit or idea that will serve me well, and might serve someone else...
The American Scholar
Survival Situation
The debate over evolution and its discoverer
The post Survival Situation appeared first on The...
7 months ago
The debate over evolution and its discoverer
The post Survival Situation appeared first on The American Scholar.
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.
Anecdotal Evidence
'To Make Something Beautiful'
“There have
been many things I’ve tried to write about and could not. Things too serious,
too...
a month ago
“There have
been many things I’ve tried to write about and could not. Things too serious,
too painful, and that’s not the purpose of writing a poem. The point of poetry
is to make something beautiful—something in itself. I’m not trying to pour my
sorrows down on the page.”
Janet...
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,...
Wuthering...
Notes on Aristotle's Poetics - What are the conditions on which the tragic effect depends?
Aristotle did not invent literary criticism with Poetics(late 4th c. BCE, maybe) – we just read The...
over a year ago
Aristotle did not invent literary criticism with Poetics(late 4th c. BCE, maybe) – we just read The Frogs – but for centuries it was the base of Western literary criticism, not a source of insight but rather a set of rules. The Unities, the Tragic Flaw, catharsis, the ranking of...
The American Scholar
The Sound of the Picturesque
Charles Ives and the Visual
The post The Sound of the Picturesque appeared first on The American...
3 months ago
Charles Ives and the Visual
The post The Sound of the Picturesque appeared first on The American Scholar.
Astral Codex Ten
Against The Generalized Anti-Caution Argument
...
a month ago
The American Scholar
“How Do I Love Thee” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “How Do I Love Thee” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning appeared...
4 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “How Do I Love Thee” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'That Judgment Day of Man’s Illusions'
In 1956, The American Scholar asked forty-three
writers, critics and scholars to name the book...
7 months ago
In 1956, The American Scholar asked forty-three
writers, critics and scholars to name the book published in the preceding
twenty-five years they believed to have been “the most undeservedly neglected.”
For this reader, sorry to say, most of them remain neglected. I don’t even...
Ben Borgers
I Keep Rewriting My Personal Website
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Landscape in One Word!'
“When, in the course of a day, a man has read a newspaper, written a letter, and not wronged anyone,...
a month ago
“When, in the course of a day, a man has read a newspaper, written a letter, and not wronged anyone, that is more than enough.”
Enough for what? Probably to have established a minimum standard of decency and contentment. Jules Renard (1864-1910) is no stuffy moralist. There’s...
The Perry Bible...
Clicked
The post Clicked appeared first on The Perry Bible Fellowship.
a month ago
The post Clicked appeared first on The Perry Bible Fellowship.
Josh Thompson
2023 Annual Review
It’s that time of the year. I often enjoy reading other people’s annual reviews, and I’ve always...
11 months ago
It’s that time of the year. I often enjoy reading other people’s annual reviews, and I’ve always found value in writing my own, even as there is a few years I’ve missed, since I started the habit way back in 2015.
for a long time, I did annual reviews. 2020 was late, and then for...
Josh Thompson
November 2016 Goals
November 2016 Goals
Note to the reader: The words that follow are all about me. Very naval-gaze-ish....
over a year ago
November 2016 Goals
Note to the reader: The words that follow are all about me. Very naval-gaze-ish. I feel I owe you this warning.
My November goals are an extension of my
October goals.
October was good (
October review) - I made progress on two of three projects, and one of...
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 Marginalian
Something About the Sky: Rachel Carson’s Lost Serenade to the Science of the Clouds, Found and...
A version of this essay appeared in The New York Times Book Review. A cloud is a spell against...
9 months ago
A version of this essay appeared in The New York Times Book Review. A cloud is a spell against indifference, an emblem of the water cycle that makes this planet a living world capable of trees and tenderness, a great cosmic gasp at the improbability that such a world exists, that...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Every Departure Destroys a Class of Sympathies'
As a boy I
was spared most deaths. I've read of people who lose parents, siblings and close
friends...
5 months ago
As a boy I
was spared most deaths. I've read of people who lose parents, siblings and close
friends when young, and wonder how they adapt to unprecedented loss. They have
nothing to compare it to. The death that hit me hardest was President Kennedy’s,
a month after my eleventh...
The American Scholar
Marlana Stoddard Hayes
Hope blooms
The post Marlana Stoddard Hayes appeared first on The American Scholar.
5 months ago
Hope blooms
The post Marlana Stoddard Hayes appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
A Toothsome Tale
Bill Schutt chomps through millennia to share the story of our pearly whites
The post A Toothsome...
3 months ago
Bill Schutt chomps through millennia to share the story of our pearly whites
The post A Toothsome Tale appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
A Five-Hour Experiment
Josh Kaufman wrote an excellent book called
The First 20 Hours.
In it, he carefully plots out a...
over a year ago
Josh Kaufman wrote an excellent book called
The First 20 Hours.
In it, he carefully plots out a handful of experiments to acquire a reasonable amount of skill in a new thing in twenty hours.
He studied yoga, windsurfing, programming,
Colemak typing,
a form of Chinese chess...
The Marginalian
War, Peace, and Possible Futures: George Saunders on Storytelling the World’s Fate and the Antidote...
"War is large-scale murder, us at our worst, the stupidest guy doing the cruelest thing to the...
11 months ago
"War is large-scale murder, us at our worst, the stupidest guy doing the cruelest thing to the weakest being."
The Elysian
Could AI make us wise?
An alternative to the internet making us stupid.
8 months ago
An alternative to the internet making us stupid.
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Kind of Things I Love'
At the end
of her Friday post on Orson Welles and his Chimes
at Midnight, Di Nguyen at the Little...
12 months ago
At the end
of her Friday post on Orson Welles and his Chimes
at Midnight, Di Nguyen at the Little White Attic appends a bookish cri de coeur, one I have echoed many
times:
“I
increasingly feel at odds with modern culture,” she begins. “I’m indifferent to
contemporary music,...
Josh Thompson
How to take payments via Stripe on a Static Site
I’ve had rolling around my head an idea of selling small how-to guides and resources. Things that I...
over a year ago
I’ve had rolling around my head an idea of selling small how-to guides and resources. Things that I wish existed, but have never been able to find.
For example, I’ve read a bunch of books that talk about good Object-Oriented design, or refactoring code, or writing better tests....
Josh Thompson
Resources for People with Jobs
RESOURCES FOR PEOPLE WITH JOBS
You spend most of your waking hours at work. So, spend a few of those...
over a year ago
RESOURCES FOR PEOPLE WITH JOBS
You spend most of your waking hours at work. So, spend a few of those waking hours when you’re
not at work thinking about how to improve the hours that you
are working. Often, improving your work means you can improve your work conditions and...
The Marginalian
The Broadest Portal to Joy
"Despite every single lie to the contrary, despite every single action born of that lie — we are in...
a year ago
"Despite every single lie to the contrary, despite every single action born of that lie — we are in the midst of rhizomatic care that extends in every direction, spatially, temporally, spiritually."
The Elysian
This Chinese philosopher reformed politics in one generation
Mòzǐ replaced his corrupt government with a humanist one.
a week ago
Mòzǐ replaced his corrupt government with a humanist one.
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
The Millionaire Next Door
I’m struggling to know what to write about
The Millionaire Next Door.
It’s got many wonderful...
over a year ago
I’m struggling to know what to write about
The Millionaire Next Door.
It’s got many wonderful traits, and I strongly recommend that you read it (I wouldn’t mention it otherwise) but it’s got some flaws. I’m afraid if I focus on the flaws, I’ll turn people off from it that might...
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...
2 months 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...
The American Scholar
Bubble Girl
The kidnapping that once riveted the nation
The post Bubble Girl appeared first on The American...
7 months ago
The kidnapping that once riveted the nation
The post Bubble Girl appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
Octavio Paz on Freedom
"Without freedom, what we call a person does not exist."
a year ago
"Without freedom, what we call a person does not exist."
Anecdotal Evidence
'I’m Tickled to Death When They Call Me Comic'
Like
porkchops, fame is highly perishable. Writers once read by millions – think of James
Michener...
9 months ago
Like
porkchops, fame is highly perishable. Writers once read by millions – think of James
Michener and, at a far more accomplished level, James Gould Cozzens – have evaporated
from literary memory. Newspaper writing and journalism in general are especially
biodegradable. Who...
Josh Thompson
Find out how much money you've made (in your entire life)
This post went by on the Personal Finance subreddit today:
https://www.ssa.gov/myaccount/
After...
over a year ago
This post went by on the Personal Finance subreddit today:
https://www.ssa.gov/myaccount/
After creating an account / logging in, click on Earnings, then add the columns. If you have been working for many years, try copying/pasting the column in excel and using the sum...
ribbonfarm
Covid and Noun-Memory Effects
Ever since I got a bout of Covid a couple of years ago (late 2022), I’ve noticed memory problems of...
6 months ago
Ever since I got a bout of Covid a couple of years ago (late 2022), I’ve noticed memory problems of a very specific sort: Difficulty remembering names. Especially people names, but also other sorts of proper nouns. This is especially marked when it comes to remembering names of...
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
'To Soften, Not to Wound My Heart'
It may seem
unfair to reduce a poet to a single poem but consider the thousands who never
wrote even...
a year ago
It may seem
unfair to reduce a poet to a single poem but consider the thousands who never
wrote even one memorable line. Take Thomas Gray. His reputation, if any,
amounts to “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” (1751). Generations of school
children once recited the poem and...
Wuthering...
The Bacchae by Euripides - O gods, I see the greatest grief there is.
Reading Euripides chronologically, it would be fair to think that however ingenious and inventive...
over a year ago
Reading Euripides chronologically, it would be fair to think that however ingenious and inventive Euripides was, he did not write a play quite at the level of Agamemnon or Oedipus the King, at least until his brief exile in Macedon, where he wrote The Bacchae just before his...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Dense, Democratic, Vulgar'
When high
summer arrives -- in Texas, long before this
Thursday’s equinox – I think of Saratoga...
6 months ago
When high
summer arrives -- in Texas, long before this
Thursday’s equinox – I think of Saratoga Springs, N.Y., where we bought our
first house and lived for seven years. The Saratoga Race Course was less than a
mile away. So were Yaddo and Broadway, the main drag downtown. We...
Ben Borgers
Reflection on Shutting Down Blocks
over a year ago
The American Scholar
Magic Men
The post Magic Men appeared first on The American Scholar.
3 weeks ago
The post Magic Men appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'For My Small Ailments'
Empathy, in
some quarters, is becoming quite fashionable. Clearly, my doctor has been...
10 months ago
Empathy, in
some quarters, is becoming quite fashionable. Clearly, my doctor has been benefiting
from professional development. When he enters the examination room we shake
hands, he moves a chair to face me and sits almost knee-to-knee. This is to
eliminate any suggestion of...
This Space
Wall by Jen Craig
“This novel gives the reader one of the best depictions of thinking in fiction that I have read in a...
a year ago
“This novel gives the reader one of the best depictions of thinking in fiction that I have read in a long time” – Talking Big
"... combines exactitude and vagueness, immediacy and distance, to approximate how scatty, worm-like human thought might be represented on the page" – The...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Beautiful Lighthearted Perfection'
Who is the
quintessential American? Who embodies E
pluribus unum? Who, at the intergalactic council,...
12 months ago
Who is the
quintessential American? Who embodies E
pluribus unum? Who, at the intergalactic council, might represent our
nation (and species, for that matter)? I nominate Louis Armstrong. Other names
come to mind: Abraham Lincoln, Jacques Barzun, Ralph Ellison, perhaps...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Daft in a Socially Useful and Quite Pleasant Way'
A young man
and his friend wish to open a bookstore and I'm reluctant to say anything to
discourage...
7 months ago
A young man
and his friend wish to open a bookstore and I'm reluctant to say anything to
discourage them. Nor do I want to encourage costly foolishness. He’s twenty-one,
my age when I indulged in a similar fantasy half a century ago. With a poet and
his wife – hardly the most...
Escaping Flatland
In praise of insular groups
Last spring, as we were exploring the coastline of our island, Johanna, the kids, and I crossed a...
8 months ago
Last spring, as we were exploring the coastline of our island, Johanna, the kids, and I crossed a meadow where two men were artificially inseminating a longhaired cow. We stopped to observe the work. When it was done, one of the men came over to where we stood by the electric...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Probity Was Perhaps the Highest Good'
As a
newspaper reporter I covered only one capital murder trial. This was in rural
Indiana in 1983....
8 months ago
As a
newspaper reporter I covered only one capital murder trial. This was in rural
Indiana in 1983. At the age of eighteen, William Spranger had fatally shot a
town marshal, William Miner, in the back with the officer’s service revolver. The
jury found Spranger guilty and Judge...
This Space
"A mighty, contagious absence"
The number of obituaries, tributes, backhanded compliments and overt smears in the corporate news...
10 months ago
The number of obituaries, tributes, backhanded compliments and overt smears in the corporate news media following the death of John Pilger reveal the state of journalism in our time. [1] Can you name one living Anglophone journalist whose loss would prompt such widespread notice?...
Anecdotal Evidence
'How Quickly It Would Slip By'
“[S]ome of
the memories I can now summon up have a greater intensity than the events...
4 months ago
“[S]ome of
the memories I can now summon up have a greater intensity than the events themselves
seemed to possess at the time, or rather – since memory has a filter of its
own, sometimes surprising in what it suppresses or retains, but always significant
– some of them stand out...
The American Scholar
Betsy, Mary, and Trish
The post Betsy, Mary, and Trish appeared first on The American Scholar.
7 months ago
The post Betsy, Mary, and Trish appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
Content but Restless
There is tension between being content with what you have, and striving for more.
We have all heard...
over a year ago
There is tension between being content with what you have, and striving for more.
We have all heard the “serenity prayer”:
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.
This prayer is...
The Marginalian
How to Say Goodbye: An Illustrated Field Guide to Accompanying a Loved One at the End of Life
"If you don't know what to say, start by saying that... That opens things up."
a year ago
"If you don't know what to say, start by saying that... That opens things up."
The Elysian
My TEDx talk about the future of fiction
And publishing.
6 months ago
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.
Josh Thompson
Gratitude 3x/day
Earlier this year, I read
The Miracle Morning, which promises (paraphrasing here):
If you do these...
over a year ago
Earlier this year, I read
The Miracle Morning, which promises (paraphrasing here):
If you do these seven things every morning you’ll be the most amazing person you’ve ever met.
OK, it’s not exactly that bold, but it’s not far off. It wasn’t a terrible book, it had lots of good...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Mouldering Boots of Other Days'
The triolet,
like its cousins the rondeau, rondel, and rondelet, is an intricate French
verse form,...
9 months ago
The triolet,
like its cousins the rondeau, rondel, and rondelet, is an intricate French
verse form, usually eight lines long and written in iambic tetrameter. The
first line is repeated as the fourth and seventh lines. Among English-language
poets, Robert Bridges and Thomas Hardy...
The Elysian
I'm not going to have kids to save the economy
Not on my list of reasons to have children.
8 months ago
Not on my list of reasons to have children.
The Marginalian
How You Relate to Anything Is How You Relate to Everything: Reclaiming the Spirit of the Christmas...
Because life is a cosmos of connection, because to be alive is to be in relationship with the world,...
a week ago
Because life is a cosmos of connection, because to be alive is to be in relationship with the world, because (in the immortal words of John Muir) “when we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe,” how we relate to anything is how...
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Poet's Hope'
Erica Light
is the daughter of my late friend Helen Pinkerton (1927-2017), the poet and
Melville...
8 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...
This Space
39 Books: 1985
The first novel I read was Twice Shy by Dick Francis, reportedly the Queen Mother's favourite...
8 months ago
The first novel I read was Twice Shy by Dick Francis, reportedly the Queen Mother's favourite novelist (which tells you all you need to know about the intellectual energies of British Royal Family). It was the hardback edition below and tells the story of an Olympic champion...
Josh Thompson
Anki and Memorization with Spaced Repetition Software
This is not meant to be read in isolation. Memorization is almost useless without doing work ahead...
over a year ago
This is not meant to be read in isolation. Memorization is almost useless without doing work ahead of time to grasp the material. For the full context, start with Learning how to Learn
I’ve not been able to find any comprehensive guides to using Anki to learn programming, so this...
The American Scholar
Tramping With Virginia
A seminal essay about walking the streets of London can present challenges in the classrooms of...
7 months ago
A seminal essay about walking the streets of London can present challenges in the classrooms of today
The post Tramping With Virginia appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
How to Apologize: Reflections on Forgiveness, Self-Forgiveness, and the Paradox of Doing the Right...
"It's permitted to receive solace for whatever you did or didn't do, pitiful, beautiful human."
a year ago
"It's permitted to receive solace for whatever you did or didn't do, pitiful, beautiful human."
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...
ben-mini
IMG_0416
Between 2009 and 2012, Apple iPhones and iPod Touches included a feature called “Send to YouTube”...
2 months ago
Between 2009 and 2012, Apple iPhones and iPod Touches included a feature called “Send to YouTube” that allowed users to upload videos directly to YouTube from the Photos app.
The feature worked… really well. In fact, YouTube reported a 1700% increase in total video uploads...
Josh Thompson
Processes Vs. Goals (or, Systems vs. Accomplishments)
In this
excellent article on systems vs. goals, James argues that even if you did not pursue any...
over a year ago
In this
excellent article on systems vs. goals, James argues that even if you did not pursue any specific goals, with the right
system, you will still go a long way.
This idea has been floating around my head for over a year, now, and I think it’s slowly coalescing into something...
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 American Scholar
“Stick the Landing” by David Gewanter
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “Stick the Landing” by David Gewanter appeared first on The...
4 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “Stick the Landing” by David Gewanter appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
The Night, the Light, and the Soul: Albert Pinkham Ryder’s Enchanting Moonscapes
“That best fact, the Moon,” Margaret Fuller called it. “No one ever gets tired of the moon,” Walt...
a year ago
“That best fact, the Moon,” Margaret Fuller called it. “No one ever gets tired of the moon,” Walt Whitman wrote down the Atlantic coast from her, exulting: Goddess that she is by dower of her eternal beauty, [the moon] commends herself to the matter-of-fact people by her...
Anecdotal Evidence
'They’ve No Clue of My Reality'
“We are all
well and in good spirits, have enough to eat. I have not yet eaten the cake you
sent me....
11 months ago
“We are all
well and in good spirits, have enough to eat. I have not yet eaten the cake you
sent me. I do not have to do guard duty as I am an officer, think of sergeant
Peck, sounds pretty big don’t it, eh?”
That’s
Marcus Peck, a soldier from Sand Lake, N.Y., who answered...
Anecdotal Evidence
'To Feel With Melancholy Wonder'
I was
introduced to the poet, critic and editor Stanley Burnshaw (1906-2005) in the mid-Seventies
by...
6 months ago
I was
introduced to the poet, critic and editor Stanley Burnshaw (1906-2005) in the mid-Seventies
by Edward Dahlberg, a difficult man who furthered my education. Collected in Epitaphs for Our Time: The Letters of Edward
Dahlberg (George Braziller, 1967) are five letters to...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Pick Up a Machete and Start Exploring'
A splendid
day for American literature: born on March 1 are Ralph Ellison (1914), Howard
Nemerov...
10 months ago
A splendid
day for American literature: born on March 1 are Ralph Ellison (1914), Howard
Nemerov (1920) and Richard Wilbur (1921). I’m reminded of how important contemporary
American writers were to me when I was young, in the 60s and 70s. Everything
was new and promising, and I...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Thoughts Wait Here for Future Readers'
In Another Beauty (trans. Clare Cavanagh,
2000), the late Adam Zagajewski revisits his alma mater,...
a year ago
In Another Beauty (trans. Clare Cavanagh,
2000), the late Adam Zagajewski revisits his alma mater, the Jagiellonka
Library in Kraków, and calls it a “botanical garden of ideas,” a metaphor
worthy of the librarian Borges. I briefly visited the Jagiellonka, as it’s
known, in 2012...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Amateurism (in the Original Sense of the Term)'
Autodidact as a noun and adjective arrived in English in
1534 via French, from a Latinized form of...
11 months ago
Autodidact as a noun and adjective arrived in English in
1534 via French, from a Latinized form of the Greek for “self-taught.” The
range of the word’s uses in our university-smitten age is vast. Some academics apply
it to anyone without an advanced degree who presumes to have...
Josh Thompson
An Open Letter about Golden
2022-06-15 Update
I wrote this document the first time in a very small number of minutes, three...
over a year ago
2022-06-15 Update
I wrote this document the first time in a very small number of minutes, three weeks ago, on my way out the door on a particularly busy day. I follow “write it now”. I’ve gotten to discuss this letter with a few different people, because I mentioned it in email....
Anecdotal Evidence
'On Satan’s Chamberlains Highseated in Berlin'
In 2011, in
an antiques-cum-junk shop here in Houston, I found a copy of an anthology, The Spirit of...
a year ago
In 2011, in
an antiques-cum-junk shop here in Houston, I found a copy of an anthology, The Spirit of Man, published as a
wartime morale booster in 1916, edited by the Poet Laureate, Robert
Bridges. It’s the fourth edition, from 1923. I knew the title because of the
contribution...
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...
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."
Anecdotal Evidence
'If the Nation Is to Be Saved From This Menace'
“To the
thinking man there are few things more disturbing than the realization that we
are becoming...
10 months ago
“To the
thinking man there are few things more disturbing than the realization that we
are becoming a nation of minor poets.”
P.G.
Wodehouse is being kind. He wrote “The Alarming Spread of Poetry” in 1916 when
the blight was fresh and perhaps still reversible. His Exhibit A is...
Josh Thompson
Cheap fix to night-time teeth grinding
A few years ago, I found out I grind me teeth at night.
Kristi says it sounds like I’m chewing...
over a year ago
A few years ago, I found out I grind me teeth at night.
Kristi says it sounds like I’m chewing marbles.
Others who grind their teeth give themselves headaches, or wake themselves up at night.
You can’t really stop yourself from grinding your teeth, since you’re asleep.
You
can...
The Marginalian
An Introvert’s Field Guide to Friendship: Thoreau on the Challenges and Rewards of the Art of...
"We only need to be as true to others as we are to ourselves that there may be ground enough for...
a year ago
"We only need to be as true to others as we are to ourselves that there may be ground enough for friendship."
Wuthering...
Books I Read in May 2023
I had a good time.
GREEK PHILOSOPHY
The Nicomachean Ethics (4th C. BCE), Aristotle - a post,...
a year ago
I had a good time.
GREEK PHILOSOPHY
The Nicomachean Ethics (4th C. BCE), Aristotle - a post, however shallow, should appear soon.
FICTION
Joseph in Egypt (1936), Thomas Mann
The Long Valley (1938)
&
The Grapes of Wrath (1939), John Steinbeck - I last read this probably...
The American Scholar
“A Prayer for My Daughter” by W. B. Yeats
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “A Prayer for My Daughter” by W. B. Yeats appeared first on...
a month ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “A Prayer for My Daughter” by W. B. Yeats appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
“The Pulley” by George Herbert
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “The Pulley” by George Herbert appeared first on The American...
3 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “The Pulley” by George Herbert appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
The Consolations of Chronodiversity: Geologist Turned Psychologist Ruth Allen on the 12 Kinds of...
“I prefer the time of insects to the time of stars,” Nobel laureate Wisława Szymborska wrote in her...
3 months ago
“I prefer the time of insects to the time of stars,” Nobel laureate Wisława Szymborska wrote in her lovely poem “Possibilities.” Our preferences, of course, hardly matter to time — we live here suspended between the time of insects and the time of stars, our transient lives...
The American Scholar
“What a Strange Path”
Three new prompts
The post “What a Strange Path” appeared first on The American Scholar.
2 weeks ago
Three new prompts
The post “What a Strange Path” appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Lasting Vivification of a Word'
I’ve read
Walter de la Mare’s essay “A Book of Words” (Pleasures and Speculations, 1940) for the...
9 months ago
I’ve read
Walter de la Mare’s essay “A Book of Words” (Pleasures and Speculations, 1940) for the second time in a week,
and have decided one might easily write a book about it. The prose is dense
with interesting and useful ideas:
“The
prevalent weakness, too, of many minds–the...
Josh Thompson
Cultivate Curiosity, or 'Reasons to be More Childlike'
I’ve had an idea rolling around my head.
I suspect that “being curious” will correlate well with...
over a year ago
I’ve had an idea rolling around my head.
I suspect that “being curious” will correlate well with positive outcomes in my life, on pretty much any time horizon, be it days, weeks, or decades. Curiosity feels like a tolerable antidote to boredom, though boredom in and of itself is...
The Marginalian
Between Encyclopedia and Fairy Tale: The Wondrous Birds and Reptiles of 18th-Century Artist Dorothea...
Imagine a world of constant wars and deadly plagues, a world without eyeglasses, bicycles, or...
3 months ago
Imagine a world of constant wars and deadly plagues, a world without eyeglasses, bicycles, or sanitation. Imagine being a gifted child in that world, knowing you are born into a body that will never be granted the basic rights of citizenship in any country, into a mind that will...
The American Scholar
Braña Curuchu
The post Braña Curuchu appeared first on The American Scholar.
4 weeks ago
The post Braña Curuchu appeared first on The American Scholar.
Wuthering...
Paradoxes and epistemology - early Greek philosophy as conceptual innovation - "Zeno argues...
The conceptual innovation of Thales that we identify as the birth of philosophy quickly spun off...
a year ago
The conceptual innovation of Thales that we identify as the birth of philosophy quickly spun off other conceptual innovations. A real conceptual innovation does not require a book or even an argument. You say there are many gods? But what if there were one? Or none? ...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Meaning of Sidereal Time'
Years ago I
was at a birthday party where one of the other guests was a stand-up comic and
part-time...
a year ago
Years ago I
was at a birthday party where one of the other guests was a stand-up comic and
part-time journalist who lived in Woodstock, N.Y. He was smart, quick, funny
and surprisingly well-read (he knew who Edward Dahlberg was). Neither of
us was much of a party-goer so we spent...
The American Scholar
“The Last Words of My English Grandmother”
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “The Last Words of My English Grandmother” appeared first on...
5 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “The Last Words of My English Grandmother” appeared first on The American Scholar.
Wuthering...
The Story of the Stone, fairy tale and realism - Not so wonderful, really, is it?
I left the characters of The Story of the Stone as
they were buying drapes and tablecloths for a...
2 months ago
I left the characters of The Story of the Stone as
they were buying drapes and tablecloths for a party. I will rejoin the party planning momentarily.
The Story of the Stone is a massive domestic novel
about an extended family. The main plot
is the teenage love triangle, but...
The Marginalian
Anne Morrow Lindbergh on Embracing Change in Relationships and the Key Pattern for Nourishing Love
"All living relationships are in process of change, of expansion, and must perpetually be building...
10 months ago
"All living relationships are in process of change, of expansion, and must perpetually be building themselves new forms."
Josh Thompson
An announcement, and a teaser (for you rock climbers)
Here’s a clip from a video I shot today.
Can you guess what’s coming?
(This is all going to happen...
over a year ago
Here’s a clip from a video I shot today.
Can you guess what’s coming?
(This is all going to happen on
The Climber’s Guide)
(Warning to mobile users: big gif)
In case you didn’t guess, or you guessed wrong…
I’m shooting tons of video for a course. It’s going to be awesome. It’s...
Josh Thompson
Can You Recover From Months (YEARS!) of Not Climbing?
A few weeks ago, I headed into the gym thinking that I felt a little off-kilter. I’d not climbed in...
over a year ago
A few weeks ago, I headed into the gym thinking that I felt a little off-kilter. I’d not climbed in a week, I though, and maybe I was getting weaker or something. Turns out that wasn’t the problem - I had actually been climbing too much, and was feeling it.
This is an odd...
Anecdotal Evidence
'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...
The Elysian
Substack could create the future of books
Here’s how that could look.
8 months ago
Here’s how that could look.
Steven Scrawls
"Progress"
“Progress”
The following tables are my (opinionated, minimally researched)
answers to questions...
a year ago
“Progress”
The following tables are my (opinionated, minimally researched)
answers to questions about a curated version of Wikipedia’s
list of most-visited websites (see Notes for
details). I invite you to follow along, issue your own snap judgments,
and come to your own...
Josh Thompson
Denver Botanic Gardens - What, How, Why
I recently got access to a delightful amenity, based on where I live. I’ve been sharing it with...
7 months ago
I recently got access to a delightful amenity, based on where I live. I’ve been sharing it with others as quickly as possible, because they too have access to it.
From here on out, when I reference “botanic gardens” or “the gardens”, I’m referencing the Denver Botanic Gardens,...
Anecdotal Evidence
'An Accepter and Recorder of Things as They Are'
It has been
a good week for the satisfaction of knowing that a book I recommended has been
read and...
a year ago
It has been
a good week for the satisfaction of knowing that a book I recommended has been
read and enjoyed. A reader in New York City tells me the title character of
V.S. Pritchett’s 1951 novel Mr. Beluncle
reminds her of her late father, a man she describes as “feckless.” And...
Anecdotal Evidence
'To Build a House for Fools and Mad'
An entry dated
June 15, 1830 in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Table
Talk: “[Jonathan, not Taylor]...
7 months ago
An entry dated
June 15, 1830 in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Table
Talk: “[Jonathan, not Taylor] Swift
was anima Rabelaisii habitans in sicco,--the
soul of Rabelais dwelling in a dry place. Yet Swift was rare.”
Now there’s a
metaphor that sticks in the mind – “dwelling in a dry...
Josh Thompson
Your "Community" Should Not Be Local
When Kristi and I were planning our move from Maryland to Colorado, the biggest challenge we...
over a year ago
When Kristi and I were planning our move from Maryland to Colorado, the biggest challenge we anticipated was no longer being a short drive away from my sister,
Jen, and Kristi’s brother,
Richard. There are a few reasons, however, that we decided the benefits of moving...
The American Scholar
“how i got ovah” by Carolyn Rodgers
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “how i got ovah” by Carolyn Rodgers appeared first on The...
a month ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “how i got ovah” by Carolyn Rodgers appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Dead Wall or a Thick Mist'
Reading occasionally reveals a pleasing convergence of thought between one writer, separated by...
a year ago
Reading occasionally reveals a pleasing convergence of thought between one writer, separated by centuries
and continents, and another. The happy reader is their ambassador and beneficiary.
I was again reading Nabokov’s brief, death-haunted novel from 1972, Transparent Things. Its...
Ben Borgers
Automatic Dark Mode Colors Don’t Work
over a year ago
The Marginalian
The Shape of Wonder: N.J. Berrill on the Universe, the Deepest Meaning of Beauty, and the Highest...
"We, each of us, you and I, exhibit more of the true nature of the universe than any dead Saturn or...
3 months ago
"We, each of us, you and I, exhibit more of the true nature of the universe than any dead Saturn or Jupiter."
The Marginalian
A Tender Illustrated Celebration of the Many Languages of Love
That one mind can reach out from its lonely cave of bone and touch another, express its joys and...
a year ago
That one mind can reach out from its lonely cave of bone and touch another, express its joys and sorrows to another — this is the great miracle of being alive together. The object of human communication is not the exchange of information but the exchange of understanding. If we...
The Marginalian
The Cosmogony of You
We live in a state of perpetual dissociation from the almost unbearable wonder of being alive....
a month ago
We live in a state of perpetual dissociation from the almost unbearable wonder of being alive. Wonder is always an edge state, its edge so sharp it threatens to rupture the mundane and sever us from what we mistake for reality — the TV, the townhouse, the trauma narrative. If we...
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,...
The Marginalian
Poetry as Prayer: The Great Russian Poet Marina Tsvetaeva on Reclaiming the Divine
"In our age, to have the courage for direct speech to God (for prayer) we must either not know what...
5 months ago
"In our age, to have the courage for direct speech to God (for prayer) we must either not know what poems are, or forget."
Josh Thompson
Elixir/Phoenix part deux
I planned on working through this tutorial for building a slack clone, but half-way through the...
over a year ago
I planned on working through this tutorial for building a slack clone, but half-way through the set-up instructions, after I installed Elixir and Phoenix, I took a long detour through the basic set-up guide. Built some custom routes, along with controllers/views/templates,...
The Marginalian
How People Change: Psychoanalyst Allen Wheelis on the Essence of Freedom and the Two Elements of...
"We create ourselves. The sequence is suffering, insight, will, action, change."
a year ago
"We create ourselves. The sequence is suffering, insight, will, action, change."
The American Scholar
Rap Rap Rap
The post Rap Rap Rap appeared first on The American Scholar.
2 months ago
The post Rap Rap Rap appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'First of All a Student of Human Nature'
“Desmond
MacCarthy, like Dr. Johnson, was first of all a student of human nature.”
The...
9 months ago
“Desmond
MacCarthy, like Dr. Johnson, was first of all a student of human nature.”
The best
writers, the ones who compel us to read their work across a lifetime, whose
thoughts become our own and who at last become teachers and companions, are
those who work in two media: words...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Appetizing, Clear and Understandable'
This I found
in an interview with the late novelist Richard G. Stern: “I prefer windows to
mirrors....
a year ago
This I found
in an interview with the late novelist Richard G. Stern: “I prefer windows to
mirrors. Not just for diversion, or something to study. I like new
vocabularies, rhythms, ways of thinking, associations of every sort.”
Stern (1928-2013)
was seventy-one at the time and...
Robert Caro
Misery Acres: An Investigative Series
Perhaps Caro’s most influential work during his years at Newsday was the investigative series,...
a year ago
Perhaps Caro’s most influential work during his years at Newsday was the investigative series, “Misery Acres,” a withering expose of fraud.
Astral Codex Ten
Book Review: From Bauhaus To Our House
...
a month ago
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
'The Future Spells Only Disaster'
Several
weeks ago in a post I wrote about Robert Conquest I referred to “the essential
books...
5 days ago
Several
weeks ago in a post I wrote about Robert Conquest I referred to “the essential
books published in the twentieth century,” and listed some of the titles deserving
a place in that category. Most, I wrote, “are not found in the traditionally
defined literary categories; that...
Anecdotal Evidence
'And Now We Shall Never, Never See Her Again'
Ian Donaldson
begins his 2011 biography of Ben Jonson not with the poet’s birth nor even his
death...
a year ago
Ian Donaldson
begins his 2011 biography of Ben Jonson not with the poet’s birth nor even his
death but with his interment in Westminster Abbey. Though a popular playwright
during his lifetime, Jonson died in poverty and was buried vertically in order to
consume less valuable real...
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...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Remarkable Literary Judgment'
She was
twelve or thirteen, a girl in a hooded sweatshirt seated beside a woman I
assume was her...
4 months ago
She was
twelve or thirteen, a girl in a hooded sweatshirt seated beside a woman I
assume was her mother. She sat on the aisle two rows ahead of me. The cabin of
the plane glowed with screens while she was reading Andrew R. MacAndrew’s 1961 translation
of Dead Souls, the Signet...
Anecdotal Evidence
'In a More Just World'
Our youngest
son’s bedroom has lately turned into an overstuffed warehouse. Last year, as a
junior...
3 months ago
Our youngest
son’s bedroom has lately turned into an overstuffed warehouse. Last year, as a
junior at Rice, he lived off-campus in an apartment. This year he’s back in a
dormitory so most of his “housewares” – clothing, dishes and utensils, tchotchkes
– have been heaped in his...
The Marginalian
The Art of Allowing Change: Neurobiologist Susan R. Barry’s Moving Correspondence with Oliver Sacks...
There is a thought experiment known as Mary’s Room, brilliant and haunting, about the abyss between...
11 months ago
There is a thought experiment known as Mary’s Room, brilliant and haunting, about the abyss between felt experience and our mental models of it, about the nature of knowledge, the mystery of consciousness, and the irreducibility of aliveness: Living in a black-and-white chamber,...
Josh Thompson
Save hundreds by being willing to spend $20
When you pack for a trip, you pack “just in case” items, right? Things that in a certain situation...
over a year ago
When you pack for a trip, you pack “just in case” items, right? Things that in a certain situation would be priceless. Think “umbrella” or “underpants”.
But then you think of all the possible situations you might encounter, and you’ll find your “just in case” items quickly...
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...
5 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 American Scholar
Nights at the Opera
Long before he wrote his masterly novels, Stendhal was transformed by the power of music
The post...
4 months ago
Long before he wrote his masterly novels, Stendhal was transformed by the power of music
The post Nights at the Opera appeared first on The American Scholar.
sbensu
Designing for support teams
Support agents spend their entire lives using the same software. Their needs are very different from...
11 months ago
Support agents spend their entire lives using the same software. Their needs are very different from consumer software. Here are some things to keep in mind.
Escaping Flatland
Living 80 years, you can have 8 lives
Highlights from the cutting room floor, pt. 2
a month ago
Highlights from the cutting room floor, pt. 2
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...
The Marginalian
The Wild Iris: Louise Glück on the Door at the End of Your Suffering
"Whatever returns from oblivion returns to find a voice."
8 months ago
"Whatever returns from oblivion returns to find a voice."
The American Scholar
This Woman’s Work
Susannah Gibson opens the parlor doors on 18th-century feminism
The post This Woman’s Work appeared...
3 months ago
Susannah Gibson opens the parlor doors on 18th-century feminism
The post This Woman’s Work appeared first on The American Scholar.
Ben Borgers
Are My Technical Posts Worth It?
over a year ago
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...
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