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Josh Thompson
Climbing in "decking range" In indoor sport climbing, as your climber progresses from the ground to the first three bolts, you...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
In indoor sport climbing, as your climber progresses from the ground to the first three bolts, you need to be ready for any situation. Here’s how to give a kick-ass lead belay when your climber is close enough to the ground they could potentially deck. This is part of a series on...
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
397
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...
The Elysian
A grassroots political party for the middle The Forward Party, citizen's assemblies, and a creating better independence movement in the US.
2 weeks ago
Ben Borgers
5 Weeks Left
over a year ago
Ben Borgers
tmrw
over a year ago
The American Scholar
Autumn 2024 The post Autumn 2024 appeared first on The American Scholar.
4 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Being Vulnerable to History' I read Bernard Malamud’s novel The Fixer when it was published in 1966. Readers often turn...
6 months ago
64
6 months ago
I read Bernard Malamud’s novel The Fixer when it was published in 1966. Readers often turn melodramatic when describing the impact a book has had on them – “life-changing,” that sort of thing. Such claims usually can be chalked up to enthusiasm untempered by critical rigor. The...
The Marginalian
Sheltering the Heroes Among Us: John Berger on Art as Resistance and Redemption of Justice "The powerful fear art, whatever its form... because it makes sense of what life’s brutalities...
a month ago
26
a month ago
"The powerful fear art, whatever its form... because it makes sense of what life’s brutalities cannot, a sense that unites us... becomes a meeting-place of the invisible, the irreducible, the enduring."
Anecdotal Evidence
'Never Has a Man Deserved a Reputation Less' My middle son, a Marine Corps officer at Quantico, asked last week if I would interested in “working...
a year ago
13
a year ago
My middle son, a Marine Corps officer at Quantico, asked last week if I would interested in “working through Wittgenstein” with him. Of course, so we met online on Sunday for ninety minutes and read propositions 1 and 2 of his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. I first read the book...
Anecdotal Evidence
'They Never Settle Down' A reader has happened on an unfamiliar word while reading Dimitri Obolensky’s The Byzantine...
3 weeks ago
21
3 weeks ago
A reader has happened on an unfamiliar word while reading Dimitri Obolensky’s The Byzantine Commonwealth: Eastern Europe, 500-1453 (1971), one he finds “especially amusing”:  “Cosmas [Indicopleustes] tells us of monks who, ignoring their vows, live unchastely, engage in trade and...
The Marginalian
The Moon and the Yew Tree: Patti Smith Reads Sylvia Plath’s Haunting Portrait of Depression "This is the light of the mind, cold and planetary."
a year ago
Ben Borgers
You Might Be Right, But Shut Up
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Hundred Words for the Word Brother' One of the stranger events recounted by Montaigne:  “[I]f I must bring myself into this, a brother...
2 months ago
22
2 months ago
One of the stranger events recounted by Montaigne:  “[I]f I must bring myself into this, a brother of mine, [Arnaud, Lord of] Saint-Martin, twenty-three years old, who had already given pretty good proof of his valor, while playing tennis was struck by a ball a little above the...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Writer As Illusionist' My review of William Maxwell’s The Writer As Illusionist: Uncollected and Unpublished Work (ed. Alec...
7 months ago
25
7 months ago
My review of William Maxwell’s The Writer As Illusionist: Uncollected and Unpublished Work (ed. Alec Wilkinson, Nonpareil Books, 2024) is published in the June issue of The New Criterion.
The American Scholar
Good Intentions The post Good Intentions appeared first on The American Scholar.
3 months ago
Ben Borgers
Gamelan Music
over a year ago
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
4
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...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Seeing Means Going Over the Details' Isaac Waisberg, the internet’s librarian-in-chief, has published two passages by...
a year ago
49
a year ago
Isaac Waisberg, the internet’s librarian-in-chief, has published two passages by Émile-Auguste Chartier (1868-1951), the French proto-blogger better known as Alain. He was a professor of philosophy whose students included Raymond Aron and Simone Weil. Both excerpts are taken from...
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Moralizing Purge of the Past' "I think we are living through a moralizing purge of the past, similar to the one that early...
9 months ago
21
9 months ago
"I think we are living through a moralizing purge of the past, similar to the one that early Christianity inflicted on the same pagan learning. There will be another Dark Ages in our lifetimes; and another Renaissance, too, but not one that we will live to see.”  I’m...
Josh Thompson
Driven by Compression Progress Note from author: This is part of an experimental series, more-or-less based on “white papers” and...
over a year ago
6
over a year ago
Note from author: This is part of an experimental series, more-or-less based on “white papers” and academic literature, as applied to somewhat practical-ish domains. These pages serve as a brief overview of a paper, and I’ll be able to link to this paper down the road when I what...
Ben Borgers
Strong Hobbies
over a year ago
This Space
Notes from overground Seventeen years ago my copy of Richard Ford's The Lay of the Land was delayed in the post and...
a year ago
38
a year ago
Seventeen years ago my copy of Richard Ford's The Lay of the Land was delayed in the post and arrived long after the novel had been reviewed in all the big newspapers so, instead of riding the wave of publication, I was dragged under by its backwash. I had to answer a question...
Astral Codex Ten
H5N1: Much More Than You Wanted To Know Don't give your true love a partridge, turtledoves, or (especially) French hens
4 days ago
Ben Borgers
The Content Machine
over a year ago
Astral Codex Ten
Open Thread 358 ...
a month ago
The American Scholar
Woman in a Red Raincoat The post Woman in a Red Raincoat appeared first on The American Scholar.
5 months ago
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
4
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...
Anecdotal Evidence
'How It Sounds When Read Out Loud' Our eighth-grade English teacher, Miss Clymer, had us open the textbook to a poem written...
a month ago
28
a month ago
Our eighth-grade English teacher, Miss Clymer, had us open the textbook to a poem written seventy-five years earlier and picked students to read aloud each of its four, eight-line stanzas. She suggested we pay attention to who is speaking, as the poem is written as a dialogue...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Soil Must Have Been Prepared' Tom Disch took the title of his first collection of essays and reviews from “The Castle of...
a year ago
9
a year ago
Tom Disch took the title of his first collection of essays and reviews from “The Castle of Indolence” (1748), eighty-one Spenserian stanzas by the Scottish poet James Thomson. The poem is a sort of mock-epical hymn to the Protestant work ethic, a virtue ably represented by...
The Marginalian
Simone Weil on Love and Its Counterfeit How to tell a plaything from a necessity.
a year ago
Ben Borgers
Software Seems Resilient
over a year ago
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
Anecdotal Evidence
'I Was Only Coming True' In the final year of his life, Clive James published a book-length poem, The River in the Sky...
a year ago
63
a year ago
In the final year of his life, Clive James published a book-length poem, The River in the Sky (2018), a dying man’s last fling. The title refers to the Japanese phrase for the Milky Way. It’s mostly autobiography, a book of well-rehearsed memories, largely unstructured, much of...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Scrawls With a Lavish Hand Its Signature' “Where the wind listeth, there the sailboats list, / Water is touched with a light case of hives /...
2 months ago
32
2 months ago
“Where the wind listeth, there the sailboats list, / Water is touched with a light case of hives / Or wandering gooseflesh.” Carl George is the sort of scientist whose company I most enjoy. He is a generalist, what used to be called a naturalist. Now an emeritus professor of...
Anecdotal Evidence
'What Will Become of My Diary?' “During the morning hours of the first of September 1939, war broke out between Germany and Poland...
4 months ago
38
4 months ago
“During the morning hours of the first of September 1939, war broke out between Germany and Poland and indirectly between Germany and Poland’s allies, England and France. This war will indeed bring destruction upon human civilization which merits annihilation and destruction....
Anecdotal Evidence
'Not Merely Mental Stenography' “Allow me a small confession: It has been some time since I have truly enjoyed an essay in a...
4 months ago
45
4 months ago
“Allow me a small confession: It has been some time since I have truly enjoyed an essay in a literary magazine. There are too many essays, and vanishingly few good essayists. There seems to be real confusion about whether style can conceal a fundamental incuriosity, whether...
This Space
A rare sort of writer Today is Gabriel Josipovici's 80th birthday. To mark the occasion, I'll link to various posts I've...
over a year ago
60
over a year ago
Today is Gabriel Josipovici's 80th birthday. To mark the occasion, I'll link to various posts I've written over the years – after a brief interlude. I read him first in July 1988 after borrowing The Lessons of Modernism from the second floor of Portsmouth Central Library because...
This Space
39 Books: 1999 I've always preferred the Serpent's Tail edition of Pessoa's Book of Disquiet over the others...
8 months ago
62
8 months ago
I've always preferred the Serpent's Tail edition of Pessoa's Book of Disquiet over the others published around the same time, such as from Quartet Encounters and Carcanet, the latter with a fussy variant on the title: The Book of Disquietude. But this one is the most pleasurable...
ben-mini
Making My SQL Skills Obsolete Quick Update: I updated my domain to ben-mini.com! All old URLs and the RSS feed under...
2 weeks ago
29
2 weeks ago
Quick Update: I updated my domain to ben-mini.com! All old URLs and the RSS feed under ben-mini.github.io will automatically redirect, so no changes are needed on your end. By far, the most useful LLM app I’ve made is the Kibu Schema God: I try not to make my posts too...
The American Scholar
“Tristan da Cunha” by Roy Campbell Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Tristan da Cunha” by Roy Campbell appeared first on The...
5 months ago
38
5 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Tristan da Cunha” by Roy Campbell appeared first on The American Scholar.
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
45
3 months ago
It’s natural—and right—to foster The post Teach the Conflicts appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'Speak Knowledge Meagerly and Piteously' “Montaigne is heavy going, it has to be said.”  For once the commonsensical Jules Renard is wrong....
3 months ago
38
3 months ago
“Montaigne is heavy going, it has to be said.”  For once the commonsensical Jules Renard is wrong. There’s no context for the remark in his journal (October 1, 1898), so I take his words as given. Montaigne’s prose, at least in translation, seems clear and readily understood. The...
The Marginalian
How to Eat the Sun: A Blind Hero of the Resistance on Accessing the Light Within and Touching the... “There is only one world. Things outside only exist if you go to meet them with everything you carry...
a year ago
9
a year ago
“There is only one world. Things outside only exist if you go to meet them with everything you carry in yourself. As to the things inside, you will never see them well unless you allow those outside to enter in.”
Josh Thompson
How I take notes, AKA 'Add an Index to Your Notebook' A while back, sometime in 2017, I wrote this tweet: a while ago, I read about how to keep...
over a year ago
6
over a year ago
A while back, sometime in 2017, I wrote this tweet: a while ago, I read about how to keep well-organized notes on a range of topics. Here's my current notebook, indexed by category: pic.twitter.com/aVsNnGPEpd — Josh Thompson (@josh_works) May 8, 2017 Since then, I occasionally...
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
18
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...
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
19
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...
Josh Thompson
A message for high schoolers tl;dr: Before you start looking at colleges, be able to discuss coherently the following three...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
tl;dr: Before you start looking at colleges, be able to discuss coherently the following three topics: Credentialism Signaling Opportunity cost If you can wrap your head around that, you’ll be ahead of most of your peers. I’ve got a few links for you farther down in this...
Ben Borgers
Semester 3
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Bright, Cheerful, Salubrious Hell' Max Beerbohm’s first radio broadcast, delivered on December 29, 1935, is titled “London Revisited.”...
a year ago
15
a year ago
Max Beerbohm’s first radio broadcast, delivered on December 29, 1935, is titled “London Revisited.” He celebrates the city of his birth (in 1872) and youth – the Edwardian era – and implicitly critiques the London of the interbellum years:  “London has been cosmopolitanised,...
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
37
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."
Josh Thompson
On Money (again) Recently I posted thoughts about money I’d written from back in 2013.  Money is hard to write about,...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
Recently I posted thoughts about money I’d written from back in 2013.  Money is hard to write about, because there are many different ways we can approach it. It’s easy to feel judged when someone does something with their money that I don’t do with mine. That all said, there...
Astral Codex Ten
Hidden Open Thread 359.5 ...
3 weeks ago
The Marginalian
Jonathan Franzen on How to Write About Nature, with a Side of Rachel Carson and Alice in Wonderland I grew up loving Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. My grandmother read it to me before I could read....
10 months ago
56
10 months ago
I grew up loving Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. My grandmother read it to me before I could read. I read it to myself as soon as I could. I loved the strangeness of it, and the tenderness. As a child mathematician, I loved knowing that a grown mathematician had written it. But...
The American Scholar
Anchoring Shards of Memory We don’t often associate Charles Ives and Gustav Mahler, but both The post Anchoring Shards of...
4 months ago
25
4 months ago
We don’t often associate Charles Ives and Gustav Mahler, but both The post Anchoring Shards of Memory appeared first on The American Scholar.
Ben Borgers
Locked Posts on Ghost
over a year ago
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
The Perry Bible...
The Good Knight The post The Good Knight appeared first on The Perry Bible Fellowship.
7 months ago
Josh Thompson
Anarchy (or, less provocatively, Mutuality and Co-Creation) In 2017, I read The Problem of Political Authority: An Examination of the Right to Coerce and the...
8 months ago
5
8 months ago
In 2017, I read The Problem of Political Authority: An Examination of the Right to Coerce and the Duty to Obey; everything and nothing changed. Lots changed because all of I sudden, I could clearly label a dynamic that had always irked me. I could see that some people would avoid...
Josh Thompson
The Housing Market Is Absolutely Insane: How To Fix It I had a brief exchange with a good friend recently: The housing market is indeed insane. This...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
I had a brief exchange with a good friend recently: The housing market is indeed insane. This problem that we’re both discussing is: Unbelievable ($650,000 for a fixer upper) Oppressive (“unjustly inflicting hardship and constraint, especially on a minority or other subordinate...
Josh Thompson
Customer Success: American Airlines Case Study Continuing the theme of “what the heck do I do for work”, I’m writing about Customer Success as I...
over a year ago
2
over a year ago
Continuing the theme of “what the heck do I do for work”, I’m writing about Customer Success as I see it. My words are my own, I don’t speak for the industry as a whole, or even for Litmus. I’m just trying to sharpen my own thinking. Last time, I argued that customer success is...
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
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
22
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...
The American Scholar
The Writing on the Wall Augustine Sedgewick on his discovery of Henry David Thoreau’s connection to slavery The post The...
2 months ago
33
2 months ago
Augustine Sedgewick on his discovery of Henry David Thoreau’s connection to slavery The post The Writing on the Wall appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Curious Examiner of the Human Mind' On June, 25, 1763, Boswell and Dr. Johnson dined at the Mitre Tavern on Fleet Street. The friends...
6 months ago
53
6 months ago
On June, 25, 1763, Boswell and Dr. Johnson dined at the Mitre Tavern on Fleet Street. The friends had met for the first time just a month earlier at Thomas Davies’ bookshop on Russell Street. Johnson starts the conversation with a dismissal of Thomas Gray (1716-71). In the...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Demographer of the Common Woe' Only in the last twenty years or so have I started accumulating deaths, logging them on a...
a year ago
29
a year ago
Only in the last twenty years or so have I started accumulating deaths, logging them on a internal list and weighing them against my own precious self. I’ve led a improbably healthy life which only encouraged the universal young man’s conviction that I was immune to mortality and...
Escaping Flatland
Seeing people clearly Head of people operations for the entire friend group
a year ago
Blog -...
Book Review - The Island Within With The Island Within, Nelson has crafted a flawless narrative that has no beginning and no end,...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
With The Island Within, Nelson has crafted a flawless narrative that has no beginning and no end, and perhaps, to the unmindful, no meaning. To those who remain anchored emerges buried treasure from every line. I kept being drawn back in, not as an addiction, but, as I...
The Marginalian
Bunny & Tree: A Tender Wordless Parable of Friendship and the Improbable Saviors That Make Life... Traversing the landscape of life on the wings of trust.
a year ago
Ben Borgers
It Does Have to Be Every Day
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Although Too Many Readers Have Forgotten' My education continues. Here is “Artillery” (Hazards, 1930) by the English poet Wilfrid Wilson...
a month ago
19
a month ago
My education continues. Here is “Artillery” (Hazards, 1930) by the English poet Wilfrid Wilson Gibson, previously unknown to me:  “All night I sat beside the bed And watched that senseless moaning head Backwards and forwards toss and toss, When suddenly he sat upright And...
Wuthering...
Jeremy Denk plays Charles Ives and Blind Tom Wiggins - a pleasing conjunction of Wuthering... More Massachusetts semi-literay adventures. Last weekend I was at Tanglewood in Lenox,...
4 months ago
41
4 months ago
More Massachusetts semi-literay adventures. Last weekend I was at Tanglewood in Lenox, Massachusetts, enjoying Jeremy Denk’s performance of insurance executive Charles Ives’s Concord Sonata (c. 1913).  It was a pleasing congruence of Wuthering Expectations themes.  I have nothing...
ribbonfarm
Imagination vs. Creativity I like to make a distinction between imagination and creativity that you may or may not agree with....
5 months ago
4
5 months ago
I like to make a distinction between imagination and creativity that you may or may not agree with. Imagination is the ability to see known possibilities as being reachable from a situation. Creativity is the ability to manufacture new possibilities out of a situation. The two...
Anecdotal Evidence
'One I Loved Taught Here, Provoking Strife' When Yvor Winters retired from the Stanford English Department in 1966 after almost forty years, the...
2 months ago
32
2 months ago
When Yvor Winters retired from the Stanford English Department in 1966 after almost forty years, the university published a commemorative volume, Laurel, Archaic, Rude: A Collection of Poems. It gathers twenty-six poems written by former students, including Edgar Bowers,...
The Marginalian
Albert Camus on Writing and the Importance of Stubbornness in Creative Work "There is no greatness without a little stubbornness... Works of art are not born in flashes of...
a year ago
Josh Thompson
Training for climbing (progress update) I am at the end of my second iteration of climbing training, and this is how it went and what I...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
I am at the end of my second iteration of climbing training, and this is how it went and what I learned: I completed the workout twelve times, but I took a twelve-day break between workout eleven and twelve. I first skipped a workout because I had ripped skin open on one of my...
Ben Borgers
Donating forks to the dining hall
7 months ago
Ben Borgers
Class Council: “Brutally Honest”
over a year ago
Josh Thompson
How to Move Kristi and I are moving to Colorado in July. We’ve taken three broad steps to make this move...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
Kristi and I are moving to Colorado in July. We’ve taken three broad steps to make this move happen: We both are in process with new jobs I just started working remotely for Litmus, which means I can seamlessly transition to Colorado this summer. Kristi spent a few days last week...
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Collection of Scraps and Shards of Knowledge' “During this time we know [John] Donne was collecting his fascinations in a book: a collection of...
5 months ago
42
5 months ago
“During this time we know [John] Donne was collecting his fascinations in a book: a collection of scraps and shards of knowledge known as a commonplace book.” Like Donne (1572-1621), some of us are magpie-minded, collecting objects shiny and drab, often without obvious utility....
Josh Thompson
Use an Alarm to Go to Bed Ironically, this is about going to bed early. See, it’s 10:40p, and I’m getting up tomorrow at 6:00....
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
Ironically, this is about going to bed early. See, it’s 10:40p, and I’m getting up tomorrow at 6:00. So I’m looking at about 7 hours of sleep. This is perfect. But, that is only if I’m asleep in the next twenty minutes. I know how long it takes to get ready to leave in the...
Ben Borgers
iPad Impatience
over a year ago
sbensu
Hiring from Big Tech Some brief notes about the subject
9 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'More Than Documentary' “Literariness, as I understand it, does not necessarily entail any particular set of...
4 months ago
30
4 months ago
“Literariness, as I understand it, does not necessarily entail any particular set of formal qualities. What makes a work literary is the ability to be understood and appreciated outside the context of its origin. That is why a literary work, however valuable as a document of its...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Everyone He Knew Something About' A reader who enjoys the novels of Sinclair Lewis tells me she is put off by the length and dullness...
2 months ago
20
2 months ago
A reader who enjoys the novels of Sinclair Lewis tells me she is put off by the length and dullness of Mark Schorer’s 1961 biography of the Nobel laureate. I haven’t read Lewis since high school and have never read Schorer’s 867-page behemoth but I sympathize. I remember reading...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Be Able to Call It a Poem' A few poets are born into each generation. A measure of the rareness of their gift is...
6 days ago
10
6 days ago
A few poets are born into each generation. A measure of the rareness of their gift is the proliferation of wannabes who make poetic gestures, relish the title “poet” and write undistinguished prose. I was given an issue of American Poetry Review, a magazine I haven’t looked at in...
Ben Borgers
How I Sent Texts for Assassins
over a year ago
The American Scholar
“Three Things Enchanted Him …” by Anna Akhmatova Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Three Things Enchanted Him …” by Anna Akhmatova appeared...
2 months ago
34
2 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Three Things Enchanted Him …” by Anna Akhmatova appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Elysian
Mondragon as the new City-State This cooperative could be its own country.
4 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Off to Welter and Waste' The Russian-Jewish poet Boris Slutsky (1919-86) was thirty-three years old on the Night of the...
a year ago
12
a year ago
The Russian-Jewish poet Boris Slutsky (1919-86) was thirty-three years old on the Night of the Murdered Poets, and he wasn’t among them. In the final stanza of his poem “About the Jews” (trans. G.S. Smith), dating from the 1950s, Slutsky writes:  “From the war I came back safe So...
Wuthering...
Thanks and praise to celebrate the happiness of this great event – the end of the Greek play... I am quoting the end of Alcestis by Euripides, his early whatever it is, not a tragedy, not a satyr...
over a year ago
52
over a year ago
I am quoting the end of Alcestis by Euripides, his early whatever it is, not a tragedy, not a satyr play, not a comedy.  Admetos has won back his wife and the play is at its end, so he declares “a feast of thanks and praise” (tr. Arrowsmith), which is what I want to do.  If we...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Age of Terror' If “terror” meant anything to me as a kid it was probably an episode of The Twilight Zone. Some were...
a year ago
9
a year ago
If “terror” meant anything to me as a kid it was probably an episode of The Twilight Zone. Some were ridiculous, others remain watchable after more than sixty years. At least one, “Night Call,” left me so frightened I didn’t want to return to my darkened bedroom. I grew up safe...
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Reticent Humor' “For nearly twenty years after the publication of The Children of the Night in 1896, poetry...
a year ago
12
a year ago
“For nearly twenty years after the publication of The Children of the Night in 1896, poetry comprised the only notable American literature.”  A provocative statement that sends one scrambling for counter-examples, which aren’t difficult to find. Between 1896 and 1916 appeared...
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
41
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...
The Marginalian
The Warblers and the Wonder of Being: Loren Eiseley on Contacting the Miraculous "The time has to be right; one has to be, by chance or intention, upon the border of two worlds. And...
11 months ago
18
11 months ago
"The time has to be right; one has to be, by chance or intention, upon the border of two worlds. And sometimes these two borders may shift or interpenetrate and one sees the miraculous."
Anecdotal Evidence
'I Have Finally Written on Politics" The April 1970 issue of the now-defunct New American Review included one of those self-important...
a year ago
10
a year ago
The April 1970 issue of the now-defunct New American Review included one of those self-important symposia beloved by editors, this one titled “The Writer’s Situation.” A surprising participant was J.V. Cunningham, who seldom played the conventional literary game. A poet, critic,...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Lead the Thoughts Into Domestic Privacies' A friend tells me a newspaper is looking for a fulltime obituary writer and she thinks it would be...
a year ago
13
a year ago
A friend tells me a newspaper is looking for a fulltime obituary writer and she thinks it would be an ideal job for me. I’m not in the market but she’s right. Good obituaries are small-scale biographies and always a privilege to write. The first thing I wrote as a newspaper...
The Marginalian
Terror, Tenderness, and the Paradoxes of Human Nature: How a Marmoset Saved Leonard and Virginia... The most discomposing thing about people capable of monstrous acts is that they too enjoy art, they...
a year ago
9
a year ago
The most discomposing thing about people capable of monstrous acts is that they too enjoy art, they too read to their children, they too can be moved to tears by music. The dissident poet Joseph Brodsky captured this as he contemplated the greatest antidote to evil, observing...
The American Scholar
Last Laugh The post Last Laugh appeared first on The American Scholar.
5 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Dull Night in a Buffalo Hotel' When writing journalism, H.L. Mencken occasionally practiced what I think of as an informal form of...
8 months ago
36
8 months ago
When writing journalism, H.L. Mencken occasionally practiced what I think of as an informal form of Impressionism. He would organize isolated bits of description, usually snapshots of people, without explicit narration or formal structure. The effect, sometimes satirical, was...
ribbonfarm
Arbitrariness Costs I’ve long held that civilization is the process of turning the incomprehensible into the arbitrary....
7 months ago
4
7 months ago
I’ve long held that civilization is the process of turning the incomprehensible into the arbitrary. The incomprehensible can be scary but the arbitrary tends to be merely exhausting. Unless the stakes are high, such as in paperwork around taxes or passports and visas. Then the...
The Marginalian
May Sarton on Generosity “Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you,” Annie Dillard wrote in her...
a year ago
12
a year ago
“Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you,” Annie Dillard wrote in her beautiful essay on generosity. “You open your safe and find ashes.” I feel this truth deeply, daily — for nearly two decades of offering these writings freely, I have lived by the...
Ben Borgers
We’re All Powered by Electric Meat
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'We Toated Him' R.L. Barth, a Marine Corps veteran of the Vietnam War, has written a new poem, “Exercise”:  “The...
a year ago
11
a year ago
R.L. Barth, a Marine Corps veteran of the Vietnam War, has written a new poem, “Exercise”:  “The chopper landed; in full combat gear We loaded single file to practice rappelling Into a jungle lacking an LZ. The exercise aborted when a cherry, Some private with a couple weeks...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Midst the Pomp and Toil of War' I learned that General George S. Patton, Jr. wrote poetry from my father, a man who never read...
7 months ago
60
7 months ago
I learned that General George S. Patton, Jr. wrote poetry from my father, a man who never read poetry. I was a senior in high school. Days before we went to see the Oscar-winning film Patton, he delivered a lecture on the general’s military prowess, anti-Semitism and desire to...
Ben Borgers
Bubble Tea Snobbery
over a year ago
The American Scholar
The Rescuer In search of the Underground Railroad’s legendary conductor The post The Rescuer appeared first on...
7 months ago
34
7 months ago
In search of the Underground Railroad’s legendary conductor The post The Rescuer appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Kind of Representative Figure of His Era' We gave our sons Hebrew names: Joshua, Michael, David. They roughly translate as “God is...
a year ago
9
a year ago
We gave our sons Hebrew names: Joshua, Michael, David. They roughly translate as “God is deliverance,” “gift of God” and “beloved,” respectively. We are not Jewish and not linguists but we like plain names rooted in tradition, names with an identifiable history traceable, in this...
Josh Thompson
Redefining Success It’s been pretty quiet around here lately. It’s been almost a month since my last entry. I thought...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
It’s been pretty quiet around here lately. It’s been almost a month since my last entry. I thought about writing something here almost every day, but here is why I didn’t: I want to produce “content” that is helpful and relevant to those who might read it. I felt like nothing I...
The Elysian
Humanity from the perspective of robots Talking points for our literary salon next week.
8 months ago
The Marginalian
Facts about the Moon: Dorianne Laux’s Stunning Poem about Bearing Our Human Losses When Even the... “Hearing the rising tide,” Rachel Carson wrote in her poetic meditation on the ocean and the meaning...
8 months ago
63
8 months ago
“Hearing the rising tide,” Rachel Carson wrote in her poetic meditation on the ocean and the meaning of life, “there are echoes of past and future: of the flow of time, obliterating yet containing all that has gone before… of the stream of life, flowing as inexorably as any ocean...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Curiosity to Inquire Into All Things' “Concupiscence of experience, boundless curiosity to set our foot everywhere, to enter...
a month ago
28
a month ago
“Concupiscence of experience, boundless curiosity to set our foot everywhere, to enter every possible situation. Montaigne.”  I could have signed my name to that when I was twenty. I wanted to visit every country in the world, even the most dangerous. I made plans to move to...
Anecdotal Evidence
'To Be Made Out of Emotions, Colors, Life Itself' “[Robert Conquest] and his two closest friends, Kingsley Amis and Philip Larkin, proved their...
5 months ago
44
5 months ago
“[Robert Conquest] and his two closest friends, Kingsley Amis and Philip Larkin, proved their vocation by playing the games with language and perception that poets play, three Musketeers at a time when not much else was disturbing the quiet little cemetery of English...
The Marginalian
The Ant, the Grasshopper, and the Antidote to the Cult of More: A Lovely Vintage Illustrated Poem... “Enough is so vast a sweetness, I suppose it never occurs, only pathetic counterfeits,” Emily...
a year ago
11
a year ago
“Enough is so vast a sweetness, I suppose it never occurs, only pathetic counterfeits,” Emily Dickinson lamented in a love letter. In his splendid short poem about the secret of happiness, Kurt Vonnegut exposed the taproot of our modern suffering as the gnawing sense that what we...
Astral Codex Ten
The Innocent And The Beautiful Have No Enemy But Time ...
3 weeks ago
Josh Thompson
Why Your Belayer is Keeping You from Climbing Hard(er) Since climbing regularly again (!!!), I’ve observed lots of belaying in the gym. I can’t walk up to...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
Since climbing regularly again (!!!), I’ve observed lots of belaying in the gym. I can’t walk up to a stranger and say “Excuse me, sir, I noticed that your poor belaying is totally crippling your climber’s ability to try hard, and actively eliminating any hope you had of...
The Elysian
I’d rather have an investor than a publishing contract In pursuit of a better book deal (and record deal and podcast deal...)
7 months ago
Blog -...
Welcome to Anchor Point Blog I am starting this blog for one primary reason: my belief that self-discovery does not have to be...
over a year ago
5
over a year ago
I am starting this blog for one primary reason: my belief that self-discovery does not have to be a solo journey. Through this blog men can connect to resources that will help to enhance their personal development. Many of these resources have deeply impacted my growth, and...
Josh Thompson
How To Take Back Your Attention On The Internet with uBlock note: this page has 17Mb of gifs and images. I don’t really want to take the time to manually trim...
over a year ago
6
over a year ago
note: this page has 17Mb of gifs and images. I don’t really want to take the time to manually trim the gifs from >3Mb/each to <1Mb each, so I didn’t. If you’re on mobile, or trying to conserve data, you might want to come back to this one later. I value my attention and focus. I...
Josh Thompson
Make Hard Things Easier by Removing Friction Friction resists movement. Lots of things count as (negative) friction. Anything that consumes...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
Friction resists movement. Lots of things count as (negative) friction. Anything that consumes resources (time, energy, money, physical goods.) Anything that causes negative feelings (shame, doubt, guilt, fear.) Anything that could have a downside (losing money, respect, your...
The American Scholar
Bards Behind Bars Reading Sartre aloud inside a maximum-security prison The post Bards Behind Bars appeared first on...
5 months ago
40
5 months ago
Reading Sartre aloud inside a maximum-security prison The post Bards Behind Bars appeared first on The American Scholar.
Ben Borgers
Half a Slice of Apple Pie
over a year ago
The Marginalian
William James on Love "If it comes, it comes; if it does not come, no process of reasoning can force it. Yet it transforms...
9 months ago
29
9 months ago
"If it comes, it comes; if it does not come, no process of reasoning can force it. Yet it transforms the value of the creature loved."
Anecdotal Evidence
'That Grand Marxist Stalin Did Ten In' In one of the essential books published in the twentieth century, The Great Terror (1968; rev. 1990,...
3 weeks ago
17
3 weeks ago
In one of the essential books published in the twentieth century, The Great Terror (1968; rev. 1990, 2008), Robert Conquest (1917-2015) writes matter-of-factly: “We are told in recent Soviet articles that on 12 December 1937 alone, Stalin and Molotov sanctioned 3,167 death...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Certificate of Naturalization' In our basement was a gray file cabinet we were forbidden to touch. Naturally I opened it and in one...
4 months ago
34
4 months ago
In our basement was a gray file cabinet we were forbidden to touch. Naturally I opened it and in one of the drawers I found an old leather wallet containing the ID cards of a stranger with the surname Kurpiewski. Who is this? Why is the name so similar to ours? I couldn’t ask...
Josh Thompson
`Medusa` mythical creature: part 2 Preparing for Turing Series Index What follows is an eight-part series that will help you pick up...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
Preparing for Turing Series Index What follows is an eight-part series that will help you pick up useful information about a number of topics related to Ruby, specifically geared for students learning the Ruby programming language, as part of the Turing School’s Backend Software...
Ben Borgers
Thumbs up for Six Flags
over a year ago
Josh Thompson
Be Gentle to You There are many types of people in the world, all with different approaches to “getting stuff done”....
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
There are many types of people in the world, all with different approaches to “getting stuff done”. My approach to doing stuff is different from my wife’s approach. (Who’da thunk?) These two years of marriage have revealed much. One of these “revelations” was this: my sense of...
Josh Thompson
Act a Fool, or: Motion vs. Action If you’ve started reading this article, but have only two minutes, don’t read what I’m writing. Go...
over a year ago
5
over a year ago
If you’ve started reading this article, but have only two minutes, don’t read what I’m writing. Go read this article by James clear. It’s called “ The Mistake Smart People Make: Being In Motion vs. Taking Action”. I’ve linked it a third time here. Go read it. James starts with...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Make Memory Speak so Volubly' A reader shares with me her first reading of two books she knows I value highly. First,...
a year ago
15
a year ago
A reader shares with me her first reading of two books she knows I value highly. First, Kipling’s Kim: “I was twelve. I was very interested in ‘spiritual’ things. It was the Beatles and the Maharishi, you know. I got it from the library and it was love at first sight. I...
Blog -...
Book Review - Open Open by Andre Agassi is a narrative tour de force. I literally could not put it down. I usually...
over a year ago
6
over a year ago
Open by Andre Agassi is a narrative tour de force. I literally could not put it down. I usually have four to six books on the go at any time, but all of them were put on pause for the day and a half it took me to devour this book.
The American Scholar
“The Peace of Wild Things” by Wendell Berry Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “The Peace of Wild Things” by Wendell Berry appeared first on...
6 months ago
66
6 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “The Peace of Wild Things” by Wendell Berry appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'An Example of Abundant Good Nature' The Rev. Sydney Smith writing to his friend Harriet Martineau on December 11, 1842:  “I...
2 months ago
18
2 months ago
The Rev. Sydney Smith writing to his friend Harriet Martineau on December 11, 1842:  “I am seventy-two years of age, at which period there comes over one a shameful love of ease and repose, common to dogs, horses, clergymen and even to Edinburgh Reviewers. Then an idea...
The American Scholar
For Want of Touch The astonishing breadth of our passions The post For Want of Touch appeared first on The American...
4 months ago
39
4 months ago
The astonishing breadth of our passions The post For Want of Touch appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'Adieu! for Once Again the Fierce Dispute' Among John Keats’ closest friends was the modestly gifted poet John Hamilton Reynolds...
a year ago
15
a year ago
Among John Keats’ closest friends was the modestly gifted poet John Hamilton Reynolds (1794-1852). It was to Reynolds that Keats wrote in a February 3, 1818 letter:  “We hate poetry that has a palpable design upon us—and if we do not agree, seems to put its hand in its breeches...
Josh Thompson
Train Hard When’s the last time you participated in a sporting event? (Football, Ultimate Frisbee, rock...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
When’s the last time you participated in a sporting event? (Football, Ultimate Frisbee, rock climbing, running biking, wrestling, whatever) When’s the last time you trained for that activity? Finally: When is the last time you trained for that activity with someone else?...
Ben Borgers
Why Do We Still Use Snapchat?
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Last of All Last Words Spoken Is, Good-bye' Memory is often an obligation, an expression of gratitude and fondness. It can be faulty, of course,...
a year ago
11
a year ago
Memory is often an obligation, an expression of gratitude and fondness. It can be faulty, of course, especially with age, and it pays to double-check the important things if you intend to share the memories with others. I’ve just learned that a guy I haven’t seen in half a...
Ben Borgers
Am I a Gym Bro Now?
over a year ago
The American Scholar
Catalina Schliebener Muñoz Playing with dolls The post Catalina Schliebener Muñoz appeared first on The American Scholar.
7 months ago
sbensu
When coordination pays off Stories about Stripe Link where we have to do a lot of upfront coordination but it was worth it.
3 months ago
The Marginalian
Love and the Sacred "I did not know what love was until I encountered one that kept opening and opening and opening."
a year ago
The Marginalian
Joy as a Force of Resistance and a Halo of Loss, with a Nick Cave Song and a Lisel Mueller Poem In this world heavy with robust reasons for despair, joy is a stubborn courage we must not...
4 months ago
31
4 months ago
In this world heavy with robust reasons for despair, joy is a stubborn courage we must not surrender, a fulcrum of personal power we must not yield to cynicism, blame, or any other costume of helplessness. “Experience of conflict and a load of suffering has taught me that what...
sbensu
The person behind the idea When reading, it is worth understanding the kind of person authors are.
a month ago
Anecdotal Evidence
''He Knew It Was All Wrong for the Season' Once I listened to a guy who had decided to stop drinking while sitting alone in a diner eating his...
a week ago
16
a week ago
Once I listened to a guy who had decided to stop drinking while sitting alone in a diner eating his Christmas dinner, separated from his wife and children. He recalled the moment with good humor. What had depressed him was eating canned corn. He had grown up associating good food...
The American Scholar
Insisting on the Positive A popular historian’s philosophical musings The post Insisting on the Positive appeared first on The...
4 months ago
27
4 months ago
A popular historian’s philosophical musings The post Insisting on the Positive appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
So you want to work remotely... Josh’s “rules” for getting a sweet remote job A few weeks ago, I met a fantastic guy who is...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
Josh’s “rules” for getting a sweet remote job A few weeks ago, I met a fantastic guy who is contemplating next steps for work. He is great at what he does, and is thinking about what direction to go in his life. He’s young, and thought working remotely sounded pretty cool. I...
ben-mini
The Inner Game of Tennis I just finished reading The Inner Game of Tennis by Tim Gallwey. Originally published in 1974, the...
2 months ago
7
2 months ago
I just finished reading The Inner Game of Tennis by Tim Gallwey. Originally published in 1974, the book explores how the thoughts of an athlete affect their game. It’s lauded as being at the forefront of what we now call “sports psychology”. Although my competitive sports days...
Ben Borgers
HEY’s Fun Names
over a year ago
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
38
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...
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
4
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...
Ben Borgers
Kid Money
over a year ago
Wuthering...
Middle period Plato - He’s garbage, he cares about nothing but the truth. Assembling yesterday’s post I saw that I was only missing one dialogue from Plato’s early period, so...
a year ago
68
a year ago
Assembling yesterday’s post I saw that I was only missing one dialogue from Plato’s early period, so I knocked off Greater Hippiaslast night.  The early dialogues are generally short; the three in the “death of Socrates” group are only fifty pages total, for example. Hippias is...
Wuthering...
The Frogs by Aristophanes - Brilliant! Brilliant! Wish I knew what you were talking about! The Frogs by Aristophanes is this week’s play.  It was performed in what now look like the waning...
over a year ago
36
over a year ago
The Frogs by Aristophanes is this week’s play.  It was performed in what now look like the waning days of Athens, just before their conquest by Sparta, and in particular the last days of Athenian tragedy, with Euripides and Sophocles both recently dead.  In what may be the most...
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
41
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...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Right Things in the Right Order' “But surely the stories of Chekhov or the paintings of de Chirico move us not only because they are...
a year ago
14
a year ago
“But surely the stories of Chekhov or the paintings of de Chirico move us not only because they are so well done, but because in each case the artist has arranged exactly the right things in the right order. The choice of subject matter has been at least half of the achievement....
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Master Etcher of Human Portraits' In celebration of Edwin Arlington Robinson’s fiftieth birthday, on December 22, 1919, seventeen...
a year ago
15
a year ago
In celebration of Edwin Arlington Robinson’s fiftieth birthday, on December 22, 1919, seventeen poets and friends were asked to contribute to a symposium published a day earlier in the New York Times Book Review. All but Robert Frost contributed. Amy Lowell wrote: “A realist,...
Escaping Flatland
Living 80 years, you can have 8 lives Highlights from the cutting room floor, pt. 2
a month ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Look for Truth, for Knowledge, for Wisdom' “The library is, and always has been, the heart of a college. . . . For professors--professors of...
a year ago
10
a year ago
“The library is, and always has been, the heart of a college. . . . For professors--professors of the humanities, at any rate--as much as students, are the creatures of the library. Just as the laboratory is the domain of the sciences, so the library is the domain of the...
The Marginalian
Thunder, Bells, and Silence: The Eclipse that Went Extinct What was it like for Martha, the endling of her species, to die alone at the Cincinnati Zoo that...
7 months ago
65
7 months ago
What was it like for Martha, the endling of her species, to die alone at the Cincinnati Zoo that late-summer day in 1914, all the other passenger pigeons gone from the face of the Earth, having once filled its skies with an immensity of beating wings, so many that John James...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Most Perverse Gesture' “Books are friends, oracles, household gods, characters in the ongoing drama of our...
a year ago
11
a year ago
“Books are friends, oracles, household gods, characters in the ongoing drama of our minds.” Understandably, Lance Marrow gets a little sentimental about books and their needless destruction. We resist soft-headed fetishism but for some of us, discarding or destroying books, even...
Ben Borgers
Batching
over a year ago
ribbonfarm
Protocol Entrepreneurship I’m running the Summer of Protocols program for the Ethereum Foundation again this year. Here is the...
9 months ago
4
9 months ago
I’m running the Summer of Protocols program for the Ethereum Foundation again this year. Here is the Call for Applications. I’d appreciate any help getting it in front of the right candidates. The core of it is what we’re calling Protocol Improvement Grants (PIGs): 90k for a team...
Ben Borgers
Customer Rewards Programs
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...
8 months ago
60
8 months ago
A young reader complains that he’s “good with words” but doesn’t know what to write about. It sounds as though he seizes up when he sits down at the keyboard. To call his condition “writer’s block” would be premature. He’s too inexperienced for that to be happening already. The...
The American Scholar
A Ray of Sunshine The post A Ray of Sunshine appeared first on The American Scholar.
4 months ago
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
41
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 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
57
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."
Ben Borgers
Professorship Bias
over a year ago
The Elysian
Hint #1 I'm publishing a new print collection in three weeks.
4 months ago
Ben Borgers
The Code That Keeps Me Alive
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'An Impetuous Eagerness to Subvert' Dr. Johnson describes the poet and physician Mark Akenside: “He certainly retained an unnecessary...
6 months ago
58
6 months ago
Dr. Johnson describes the poet and physician Mark Akenside: “He certainly retained an unnecessary and outrageous zeal for what he called and thought liberty; a zeal which sometimes disguises from the world, and not rarely from the mind which it possesses, an envious desire of...
Escaping Flatland
Without looking it up, what do you think? + links
2 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Crisply, Pithily, and, Very Often, Cruelly' Tom Disch on Turner Cassity: “A poet so consistently epigrammatic can be dismissed, by those...
6 months ago
26
6 months ago
Tom Disch on Turner Cassity: “A poet so consistently epigrammatic can be dismissed, by those incapable themselves of wit, as unserious, as though to be serious one must always be in a fog. Cassity never writes a poem without knowing exactly what he means to say—crisply, pithily,...
Josh Thompson
Don't Focus on the Present If you accept the premise that training  cycles are the method by which you will improve your...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
If you accept the premise that training  cycles are the method by which you will improve your climbing, you  should be able to focus less on the day-by-day fluctuation in your performance. At least, I should be able to, since I accept that premise. Yet I still struggle to not be...
Josh Thompson
A Runbook for Upgrading Your Parent's Junky Old Laptop to a Chromebook tl;dr: I’m creating a runbook for a very specific, delicate, and potentially time-consuming and...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
tl;dr: I’m creating a runbook for a very specific, delicate, and potentially time-consuming and emotionally-charged operation to replace my 70-year-old newly-widowed mother-in-law's ancient desktop computer with a easy-for-me-to-manage Chromebook Update: I posted to r/ChromeOS...
The American Scholar
The Diagnostician of Despair Why Rousseau believed that Enlightenment values would lead us to ruin The post The Diagnostician of...
2 weeks ago
21
2 weeks ago
Why Rousseau believed that Enlightenment values would lead us to ruin The post The Diagnostician of Despair appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
How to Miss Loved Ones Better: The Psychology of Waiting and Withstanding Absence On "the capacity to bear frustration without turning against one’s needy self, or against the person...
4 months ago
Josh Thompson
Notes from 'Why We Sleep' I first read Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams about two years ago. It...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
I first read Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams about two years ago. It immediately led me to prioritize sleep over almost everything else. Most of us don’t get enough sleep, and are worse for it. Usually when the topic of sleep comes up, I say Hey, there’s...
Josh Thompson
Job Hunting Recommendations for Early-Career Software Developers I’ve distilled a number of conversations into this post. Some of it is specific to getting a remote...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
I’ve distilled a number of conversations into this post. Some of it is specific to getting a remote job and working remotely, but all of it is applicable for any kind of software-related role. It’s probably applicable to non-software roles, but this is where most of my exprience...
The Marginalian
Winnicott on the Qualities of a Healthy Mind and a Healthy Relationship "A sign of health in the mind is the ability of one individual to enter imaginatively and yet...
4 months ago
43
4 months ago
"A sign of health in the mind is the ability of one individual to enter imaginatively and yet accurately into the thoughts and feelings and hopes and fears of another person; also to allow the other person to do the same to us."
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
6
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
'Though Lightly Made, Are Hard to Keep' Even the most chillingly honest among us remain liars, at least to ourselves. Self-delusion is...
a year ago
13
a year ago
Even the most chillingly honest among us remain liars, at least to ourselves. Self-delusion is endemically human and not always a bad thing. It can serve as a useful motivator. Take the annual farce of New Year’s resolutions, those earnestly mustered plans for...
The American Scholar
The March Down Main The post The March Down Main appeared first on The American Scholar.
2 months ago
Josh Thompson
Lay a foundation Yesterday I mentioned that low friction goals are an advantage over “high friction” goals. This is...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
Yesterday I mentioned that low friction goals are an advantage over “high friction” goals. This is just another way of saying “easy things are easier to do than harder things”. Revelatory, I know. Similarly, I wrote a long time ago that: We tell ourselves we can’t accomplish...
Wuthering...
Books finished in March 2023 For some reason I have been putting a monthly account of completed books on Twitter, where it is a...
a year ago
39
a year ago
For some reason I have been putting a monthly account of completed books on Twitter, where it is a common practice, although mostly with photographs of book stacks.  I am not sure why I have not put the lists here as well.  I guess I am not sure any of this is interesting. Soon,...
The Marginalian
Prisons We Choose to Live Inside: Doris Lessing on the Antidote to Self-Righteousness and Our Best... This is the history of the world: revolutionaries turning into tyrants, leaders who claim to stand...
a month ago
23
a month ago
This is the history of the world: revolutionaries turning into tyrants, leaders who claim to stand with the masses turning the individuals within them on each other, stirring certainties and self-righteousness to distract from the uncomfortable unknowns, from the great open...
The Marginalian
The Promethean Power of Burnout "Burnout fully realised is also the decisive, exhausted moment in which we realise we cannot go on...
5 days ago
14
5 days ago
"Burnout fully realised is also the decisive, exhausted moment in which we realise we cannot go on in the same way. Not being able to go on, is always in the end, a creative act, the threshold moment of our transformation."
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
54
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...
The Marginalian
Are You Living a Fairy Tale, a Novel, or a Poem? When reality fissures along the fault line of our expectations and the unwelcome happens — a death,...
5 months ago
53
5 months ago
When reality fissures along the fault line of our expectations and the unwelcome happens — a death, an abandonment, a promise broken, a kindness withheld — we tend to cope in one of two ways: We question our own sanity, assuming the outside world coherent and our response a form...
sbensu
Everybody is the main character People are motivated and engaged with the work only if they feel in charge of their own destiny....
a year ago
4
a year ago
People are motivated and engaged with the work only if they feel in charge of their own destiny. Make it clear to them that they are!
The Perry Bible...
The Hare and the Tortoise The post The Hare and the Tortoise appeared first on The Perry Bible Fellowship.
2 months ago
The Marginalian
Coleridge on the Paradox of Friendship and Romantic Love On sympathy, reciprocity, and satisfying the fulness of our nature.
a year ago
Josh Thompson
The Present You It seems most of the decisions in life are made in favor of the present you, or the future you. I...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
It seems most of the decisions in life are made in favor of the present you, or the future you. I wish the future me could sit beside the present me, and discuss how I was going about my day. Instead, it’s a rather one-sided conversation. There are obvious choices, like food,...
Wuthering...
Sōseki's Kokoro and two Tanizaki genre exercises - I resolved that I must live my life as if I were... It is the 16th year of Dolce Bellezza’s remarkable Japanese Literature Challenge – in the old days...
a year ago
31
a year ago
It is the 16th year of Dolce Bellezza’s remarkable Japanese Literature Challenge – in the old days for some reason we “challenged” people to read – which reminded me, as it often has, that I have never read anything by Natsumi Sōseki, the earliest of the greatest 20th century...
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
The Marginalian
We Are Free to Change the World: Hannah Arendt, the Power of Defiant Goodwill, and the Art of... "It is when the experience of powerlessness is at its most acute, when history seems at its most...
9 months ago
21
9 months ago
"It is when the experience of powerlessness is at its most acute, when history seems at its most bleak, that the determination to think like a human being, creatively, courageously, and complicatedly, matters the most."
Wuthering...
How Ivan Bunin and Vasily Grossman spent the war - He was in the countryside then for the last time... Without planning it I recently read three books by Russian writers from three different strands of...
3 months ago
28
3 months ago
Without planning it I recently read three books by Russian writers from three different strands of Russian literature: Andrei Platonov’s Chevengur (1929 /1972, tr. Robert and Elizabeth Chandler) in the Gogolian and Dostoyevskian strand, Ivan Bunin’s Dark Avenues (1943/1946)...
The American Scholar
“Guests” by Celia Thaxter  Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Guests” by Celia Thaxter  appeared first on The American...
2 weeks ago
21
2 weeks ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Guests” by Celia Thaxter  appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
“Planetarium” by Adrienne Rich Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Planetarium” by Adrienne Rich appeared first on The American...
8 months ago
60
8 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Planetarium” by Adrienne Rich appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
Piece by Piece The following is inspired by Amy Hoy. I’ve got a secret to share: I’m working on building a product...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
The following is inspired by Amy Hoy. I’ve got a secret to share: I’m working on building a product (of the digital variety) that will be so damn goodpeople will pay me $100 or more to get it.  I’ve got a lot of bits and pieces of it littered around the internet, my computer,...
Steven Scrawls
You Are Not Incompressible You Are Not Incompressible can be summarised as: walking, walking, walking, bit of fighting...
6 months ago
4
6 months ago
You Are Not Incompressible can be summarised as: walking, walking, walking, bit of fighting with orcs, walking, walking, walking, anguish, walking, walking, walking, bit more fighting with orcs, walking, walking, walking. —Goodreads review of “The Lord of the Rings” Im returning...
Anecdotal Evidence
‘A Pocket Universe’ We lost power again around noon Saturday. No idea when it will be restored. Here is “The Next Book,”...
7 months ago
62
7 months ago
We lost power again around noon Saturday. No idea when it will be restored. Here is “The Next Book,” a 1969 poem by James Hayford (Star in the Shed Window: Collected Poems 1933-1988, New England Press, 1989): “May the next book you read Be what you need— “A pocket...
Anecdotal Evidence
'That Lofty Vehicle, High Dudgeon' A friend is studying Greek while reading Emily Wilson’s new translation of the Iliad alongside...
a year ago
15
a year ago
A friend is studying Greek while reading Emily Wilson’s new translation of the Iliad alongside George Chapman’s version of Homer from the seventeenth century. Like me, she’s a reader not a scholar, and like generations of students and common readers I first encountered Chapman...
The American Scholar
“Daybreak in Alabama” by Langston Hughes Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Daybreak in Alabama” by Langston Hughes appeared first on...
6 months ago
54
6 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Daybreak in Alabama” by Langston Hughes appeared first on The American Scholar.
Ben Borgers
Reading with RSS
over a year ago
Wuthering...
Metamorphoses, cantos 7 through 10 - more Heroides, more gore, more of everything - What meen my... Metamorphoses is fluid, quick, and ever-changing.  Let’s look at cantos VII through X, which...
10 months ago
70
10 months ago
Metamorphoses is fluid, quick, and ever-changing.  Let’s look at cantos VII through X, which have their share of famous stories, stories famous, or as famous as they are, because of Metamorphoses.  Venus and Adonis, Baucis and Philemon, Orpheus and Eurydice, Pygmalion.  Icarus –...
The Marginalian
Make Yourself a Seer: The Teenage Arthur Rimbaud on How to Be a Poet and a Prophet of Possibility "The day of a single universal language will dawn!... This language will be of the soul, for the...
a year ago
7
a year ago
"The day of a single universal language will dawn!... This language will be of the soul, for the soul, encompassing everything, scents, sounds, colors, one thought mounting another."
Ben Borgers
Have Your Cake and Eat It Too
over a year ago
Escaping Flatland
Relationships are coevolutionary loops Looking for Alice, part 3
a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'That Judgment Day of Man’s Illusions' In 1956, The American Scholar asked forty-three writers, critics and scholars to name the book...
7 months ago
66
7 months ago
In 1956, The American Scholar asked forty-three writers, critics and scholars to name the book published in the preceding twenty-five years they believed to have been “the most undeservedly neglected.” For this reader, sorry to say, most of them remain neglected. I don’t even...
Anecdotal Evidence
'It's on the Russian Level' “I’m not a great reader of fiction. I read through all of Jane Austen with pleasure. I read through...
5 months ago
31
5 months ago
“I’m not a great reader of fiction. I read through all of Jane Austen with pleasure. I read through George Eliot at school, but I was too young to appreciate her then. But about a year ago I read Middlemarch. Most marvellous book. Best thing in nineteenth-century English fiction,...
Anecdotal Evidence
'That Other Thermopylae, the Alamo' A reader asks for impressions of Texas, a place she, a lifelong Northerner, has never visited....
7 months ago
50
7 months ago
A reader asks for impressions of Texas, a place she, a lifelong Northerner, has never visited. Twenty years ago last month I saw Texas for the first time, and the first surprise, seen from the air, was abundant greenery. I was expecting desert and tumbleweeds. Houston is...
The American Scholar
American Horror Story Jeremy Dauber on our obsession with fear The post American Horror Story appeared first on The...
2 months ago
24
2 months ago
Jeremy Dauber on our obsession with fear The post American Horror Story appeared first on The American Scholar.
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
21
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...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Range and Liveliness of Poetry' I heard from a high-school classmate who remembered the time in A.P. English our senior year when...
10 months ago
19
10 months ago
I heard from a high-school classmate who remembered the time in A.P. English our senior year when the teacher had us form small groups, select a poem and prepare a discussion. At my suggestion, our group picked “The Groundhog” (1934) by Richard Eberhart (1904-2005). Note its...
Josh Thompson
Monthly Review: October This is my first monthly review. I’ll spend some time fleshing out the why and the how, and then get...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
This is my first monthly review. I’ll spend some time fleshing out the why and the how, and then get right to it. If you don’t want to read a lot of introspective Josh, stop reading. I use the word “I” dozens of times. Consider yourself warned. For a long time I have feared life...
The Marginalian
Heroism and the Human Search for Meaning: Ernest Becker on the Hidden Root of Our Existential... "To become conscious of what one is doing to earn his feeling of heroism is the main self-analytic...
a year ago
Astral Codex Ten
Take The 2025 ACX Survey ...
2 weeks ago
The American Scholar
Acting Out One tortuous journey from stage to screen The post Acting Out appeared first on The American...
7 months ago
37
7 months ago
One tortuous journey from stage to screen The post Acting Out appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
Imperfecta Her brother’s disease leads a writer to challenge how we conceive of human abnormality in the...
6 months ago
51
6 months ago
Her brother’s disease leads a writer to challenge how we conceive of human abnormality in the emerging era of gene editing The post Imperfecta appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
Born to Be Wild One founding family’s centuries-long journey The post Born to Be Wild appeared first on The American...
7 months ago
33
7 months ago
One founding family’s centuries-long journey The post Born to Be Wild appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'I Wish He Would Explain His Explanation' On this date, April 10, in 1816, Coleridge and Lord Byron met for the only time, at the latter’s...
9 months ago
31
9 months ago
On this date, April 10, in 1816, Coleridge and Lord Byron met for the only time, at the latter’s house in Piccadilly. Earlier, Coleridge had a friend deliver to Byron a copy of his latest and last play, Zapolya, and a letter explaining that for the previous fifteen years he had...
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
4
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...
Wuthering...
The sophists and their rehabilitation - they clearly cause the ruin and corruption of their... I have been pursuing the sophists, the great antagonists of Socrates and Plato.  Minimized for...
a year ago
34
a year ago
I have been pursuing the sophists, the great antagonists of Socrates and Plato.  Minimized for centuries in the history of philosophy as, following Plato (but not Socrates), hucksters, they, or some of them, are now taken seriously as an intermediate step between the cosmological...
This Space
The last novel "(We are, it seems to remind us, always saying goodbye to our children.)" John Self's aside in his...
over a year ago
42
over a year ago
"(We are, it seems to remind us, always saying goodbye to our children.)" John Self's aside in his review of JM Coetzee's The Death of Jesus captures the pervasive anxiety experienced while reading this novel better than even the most detailed plot summary, which is anyway likely...
Steven Scrawls
Quicksilver and Clay Quicksilver and Clay Like everyone else, I walk around the world in a body made of quicksilver and...
12 months ago
4
12 months ago
Quicksilver and Clay Like everyone else, I walk around the world in a body made of quicksilver and clay. The pieces of my body—my sense of humor, my beliefs, my opinions and artistic sensibilities and worldviews, everything—combine to present a cohesive self to be...
Blog -...
Book Review - King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine This book is a timeless classic that had a significant impact on deepening my understanding of the...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
This book is a timeless classic that had a significant impact on deepening my understanding of the masculine. Published in 1990, King, Warrior, Magician, Lover introduces readers to the concept of mature masculine archetypes and their immature shadows. The authors, Robert...
The Marginalian
The Bird in the Heart: Terry Tempest Williams on the Paradox of Transformation and How to Live with... "We can change, evolve, and transform our own conditioning. We can choose to move like water rather...
11 months ago
The American Scholar
Corona Chasers You never forget your first solar eclipse The post Corona Chasers appeared first on The American...
7 months ago
25
7 months ago
You never forget your first solar eclipse The post Corona Chasers appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'Who Needs Your Stories?' Have you ever read something – it might be a poem or a history book, almost anything – and...
2 months ago
32
2 months ago
Have you ever read something – it might be a poem or a history book, almost anything – and encountered a phrase or sentence so self-contained and dense with meaning, in words so perfectly arranged, that you stop reading, ponder and write it down? You may not even continue with...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Until He Un-Alived' “But at bottom poetry, like all art, is inextricably bound up with giving pleasure, and if a poet...
4 months ago
37
4 months ago
“But at bottom poetry, like all art, is inextricably bound up with giving pleasure, and if a poet loses his pleasure-seeking audience he has lost the only audience worth having, for which the dutiful mob that signs on every September is no substitute.”  Philip Larkin’s...
Anecdotal Evidence
'An Important Part of Anyone’s Reading' A variation on the question Matthew Walther reports getting in his essay “The One Hundred Pages...
4 weeks ago
23
4 weeks ago
A variation on the question Matthew Walther reports getting in his essay “The One Hundred Pages Strategy” – “How do you do it?” – is the one I get when a workman or friend visits my home office where most of my books are shelved: “You read all these?” I can reply with one of...
The Marginalian
About War "Outsiders who are not themselves immersed in pain should make an effort to empathize with all...
a year ago
9
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 Elysian
Is America about to fall? Or flourish? That depends on us.
2 months ago
The Marginalian
Hermann Hesse on Discovering the Soul Beneath the Self and the Key to Finding Peace "Self-hate is really the same thing as sheer egoism, and in the long run breeds the same cruel...
10 months ago
sbensu
The Perfectionists (book) A great book that covers the ideas and people behind modern industry.
5 months ago
Ben Borgers
Sunday, January 16, 2022
over a year ago
Wuthering...
it’s right about here that there would normally be a gap - Peter Adamson's Classical Philosophy, the... Peter Adamson is an English philosopher with a long-running podcast, History of Philosophy without...
a year ago
54
a year ago
Peter Adamson is an English philosopher with a long-running podcast, History of Philosophy without Any Gaps.  What can that mean, without any gaps? We’ve finished Aristotle, and it’s right about here that there would normally be a gap.  In an undergraduate philosophy course you...
Anecdotal Evidence
'As Sensitive As Anyone Else' “In common with James Jones, Gina Berriault knows that ill-educated or inarticulate people are as...
8 months ago
31
8 months ago
“In common with James Jones, Gina Berriault knows that ill-educated or inarticulate people are as sensitive as anyone else. She renders their speech with a fine and subtle ear for the shy or strident inaccuracies, for the bewilderment of missed points and for the dim, sad rhythms...
Anecdotal Evidence
'He Doesn't Want to Read' In a comment on last Friday’s post, my friend John Dieffenbach asks about bibliophile:  “Is that a...
a year ago
12
a year ago
In a comment on last Friday’s post, my friend John Dieffenbach asks about bibliophile:  “Is that a ‘lover of books’ because they are books? A lover of reading books? A lover of reading certain books? What makes one bibliophile more of a bibliophile than another? Size of the...
Josh Thompson
Write Less Say More I recently read a short piece about using software to improve your own writing. To paraphrase one...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
I recently read a short piece about using software to improve your own writing. To paraphrase one of the suggestions: “do away with weasel words, the passive voice, adverbs, cliches.”  I’m adding “complex sentences” to the list. Out of curiosity, I looked through things that...
The American Scholar
Aging Out Many of us do not go gentle into that good night The post Aging Out appeared first on The American...
a month ago
11
a month ago
Many of us do not go gentle into that good night The post Aging Out appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
Of Wonder, the Courage of Uncertainty, and How to Hear Your Soul: The Best of The Marginalian 2023 Hindsight is our finest instrument for discerning the patterns of our lives. To look back on a year...
a year ago
15
a year ago
Hindsight is our finest instrument for discerning the patterns of our lives. To look back on a year of reading, a year of writing, is to discover a secret map of the mind, revealing the landscape of living — after all, how we spend our thoughts is how we spend our lives. In...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Understand Our Fellow Creatures a Little Better' Edwin Arlington Robinson, not the sunniest of poets, writes to his friend Harry de Forest Smith on...
3 months ago
39
3 months ago
Edwin Arlington Robinson, not the sunniest of poets, writes to his friend Harry de Forest Smith on May 13, 1896:  “If printed lines are good for anything, they are bound to be picked up some time; and then, if some poor devil of a man or woman feels any better or any stronger...
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Jewish Kind of Feeling of the World' Isaac Bashevis Singer, speaking with an interviewer in 1983: “I really don’t believe that a writer...
a month ago
20
a month ago
Isaac Bashevis Singer, speaking with an interviewer in 1983: “I really don’t believe that a writer can have a programme. Many have; they say, ‘I’m writing about alienation’, or whatever they call it. I don’t have this programme. I have a story to tell and I sit down to tell the...
Anecdotal Evidence
'You Have to Read the Words' “Tolstoy was so much better than any other writer who ever lived that you couldn’t even remotely...
3 months ago
35
3 months ago
“Tolstoy was so much better than any other writer who ever lived that you couldn’t even remotely compare anyone to him.”  I first read War and Peace in the eighth grade in a paperback abridgement. I remember reading it in science class, half-heartedly hiding the book behind the...
The American Scholar
Reborn in the City of Light At a time when Paris was an incubator of modernism, a group of bold American women arrived to make...
4 months ago
24
4 months ago
At a time when Paris was an incubator of modernism, a group of bold American women arrived to make art out of their lives The post Reborn in the City of Light appeared first on The American Scholar.
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
13
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...
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
18
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...
Escaping Flatland
On limitations that hide in your blindspot and how to find them
9 months ago
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
18
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...
The Marginalian
The Middle Passage: A Jungian Field Guide to Finding Meaning and Transformation in Midlife "Our task at midlife is to be strong enough to relinquish the ego-urgencies of the first half and...
10 months ago
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
10
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,...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Indubitably I Should Miss Them' Every year, in the weeks preceding Christmas, I face the question I’ve been asked since I was a kid,...
a year ago
13
a year ago
Every year, in the weeks preceding Christmas, I face the question I’ve been asked since I was a kid, and my answer always leaves me feeling sheepish. “What do you want for Christmas?” “Well, ah . . .” “Yeah, we know: books.” Piteously, I’ll add, “Socks. I could use some socks,”...
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
4
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...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Amid Tremendous History, New Pity' Oscar Williams (1900-4) was a middling poet with a gift for compiling excellent anthologies, thirty...
9 months ago
22
9 months ago
Oscar Williams (1900-4) was a middling poet with a gift for compiling excellent anthologies, thirty of which he published during his lifetime. Early on, several of them were my primers, an inviting way to learning the poetic tradition in English on the cheap. One of them, the...
Josh Thompson
Benefits of helplessness The last few days were rough, strangely enough. I live in beautiful Golden, Colorado with my best...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
The last few days were rough, strangely enough. I live in beautiful Golden, Colorado with my best friend (who I happen to be married to), and I’ve got a pretty cool job to boot. That’s the “big three”, right? (Relationships, work, location.) Yep. Except from Thursday through...
Steven Scrawls
Doomr Most of my creations can be contained within an RSS feed; Doomr cannot. You'll want to check the...
10 months ago
4
10 months ago
Most of my creations can be contained within an RSS feed; Doomr cannot. You'll want to check the website for this one.
The American Scholar
Bastienne Schmidt The fabric of life The post Bastienne Schmidt appeared first on The American Scholar.
8 months ago
The American Scholar
Bitten The post Bitten appeared first on The American Scholar.
8 months ago
The American Scholar
Femmes Fantastiques Mickalene Thomas and the art of remixing The post Femmes Fantastiques appeared first on The American...
7 months ago
23
7 months ago
Mickalene Thomas and the art of remixing The post Femmes Fantastiques appeared first on The American Scholar.
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
Anecdotal Evidence
'Comfort, Solace, Inspiration' “A few books, however,” writes Michael Dirda, “become lifelong companions, works we regularly turn...
a year ago
16
a year ago
“A few books, however,” writes Michael Dirda, “become lifelong companions, works we regularly turn to for comfort, solace, inspiration.” The reviewer identifies a slightly different category, “the books we find ourselves crazy about and hope to revisit someday,” as distinguished,...
Robert Caro
Alone on the Desert Her Dream Fades A lack of basic infrastructure forced a 74‒year-old widow to carry a water bucket a mile-and-a-half...
a year ago
4
a year ago
A lack of basic infrastructure forced a 74‒year-old widow to carry a water bucket a mile-and-a-half back to her tiny shack.
This Space
"And no real fate" – reading in the interval A sportswriter on the radio said that the lack of football in covid lockdown has disrupted the...
over a year ago
39
over a year ago
A sportswriter on the radio said that the lack of football in covid lockdown has disrupted the rhythm of the lives of those who follow the sport. The word stuck in my mind. Does rhythm differ from routine? When a routine is broken, there is an interval of confusion and anxiety,...
Escaping Flatland
On having more interesting ideas “To write well, all you have to do is cultivate your mind and then write what you see.” When I talk...
7 months ago
73
7 months ago
“To write well, all you have to do is cultivate your mind and then write what you see.” When I talk to people who have worked with their ideas seriously for 10+ years, it feels like I can throw any topic on them and they’ll have an interesting idea, or if not an idea so at least...
ben-mini
Modality Switching Online I hate it when my dad leaves me a voicemail. Whenever I open my phone and see the pending voicemail,...
7 months ago
4
7 months ago
I hate it when my dad leaves me a voicemail. Whenever I open my phone and see the pending voicemail, I roll my eyes. He tends to meander. My dad’s messages can range from 40 seconds to 2 minutes. He typically wants to inform me of something, like an upcoming family event or an...
The Marginalian
Starlings and the Magic of Murmurations: A Stunning Watercolor Celebration of One of Earth’s Living... Biking back to my rented cottage from CERN one autumn evening, having descended into the underworld...
a year ago
12
a year ago
Biking back to my rented cottage from CERN one autumn evening, having descended into the underworld of matter for a visit to the world’s largest high-energy particle collider, a sight stopped me up short on the shore of Lake Geneva: In the orange sky over the orange water, a...
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
8
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...
Anecdotal Evidence
'I Am Breathing--Still' R.L. Barth is preparing a chapbook of poems titled Ghost Story for a publisher. One of its sections,...
11 months ago
17
11 months ago
R.L. Barth is preparing a chapbook of poems titled Ghost Story for a publisher. One of its sections, “Snowfall in Vietnam: Poems/Maxims,” consists of ten one-line, five-syllable poems and accompanying titles, some of which are longer than the poems. Their extreme...
The Elysian
Are Democrats too liberal? Or too conservative? We're asking the wrong questions.
a month ago
Ben Borgers
Basecamp Talks to You
over a year ago
ben-mini
The Most Mind-Blowing Tech Moments of My Life This is a fun one. Below is a brief list of the most mind-blowing tech moments in my 27 years of...
6 months ago
6
6 months ago
This is a fun one. Below is a brief list of the most mind-blowing tech moments in my 27 years of life. There’s nothing too heady here- just an exercise in what might have made me get so into tech. 1. WarioWare: Twisted (2006) At my community center, waiting for my friend’s karate...
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
43
5 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “The Last Words of My English Grandmother” appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
Let Us Compare Mythologies Exploding the Canon, Episode 4 The post Let Us Compare Mythologies appeared first on The American...
8 months ago
30
8 months ago
Exploding the Canon, Episode 4 The post Let Us Compare Mythologies appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
A Terrifying Delight Following Robert Frost into the depths The post A Terrifying Delight appeared first on The American...
6 months ago
48
6 months ago
Following Robert Frost into the depths The post A Terrifying Delight appeared first on The American Scholar.
Ben Borgers
JumboCode plans for Head of Engineering
a year ago
The Marginalian
The Ecstasy of Eternity: Richard Jefferies on Time and Self-Transcendence This is the great paradox: that human life, lived between the time of starlings and the time of...
10 months ago
20
10 months ago
This is the great paradox: that human life, lived between the time of starlings and the time of stars, is made meaningful entirely inside the self, but the self is a mirage of the mind, a figment of cohesion that makes the chaos and transience bearable. A few times a lifetime, if...
Josh Thompson
On Minimalism I reluctantly call myself a minimalist. I’d prefer to call myself an “enoughalist”. This reluctance...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
I reluctantly call myself a minimalist. I’d prefer to call myself an “enoughalist”. This reluctance is because I think the label brings in a bunch of connotations that I don’t like. Our apartment never looked like this. Source: home-designing.com What is Minimalism? a removal or...
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
4
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...
The American Scholar
Ideology as Anatomy How shifting ideas about women’s bodies have affected their lives The post Ideology as Anatomy...
a month ago
9
a month ago
How shifting ideas about women’s bodies have affected their lives The post Ideology as Anatomy appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'To Be at Home in Other Places' At his day job my current barber is a counselor working with street people who have alcohol and/or...
a month ago
12
a month ago
At his day job my current barber is a counselor working with street people who have alcohol and/or drug problems. Like most in that field, he values his clients and dislikes the bosses, who live by the dictates of bureaucracy. Barbers are like bartenders. The good ones usually...
This Space
Blood Knowledge by Kirsty Gunn "A novel is a kind of lazy way of writing a short story, a short story a lazy way of writing a poem"...
a month ago
25
a month ago
"A novel is a kind of lazy way of writing a short story, a short story a lazy way of writing a poem" said Muriel Spark, adding by explanation: "The longer they become, the more they seem to lose value". We might wonder then if the most value is to be found in the shortest novels,...
The Marginalian
The Cosmogony of You We live in a state of perpetual dissociation from the almost unbearable wonder of being alive....
a month ago
20
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
'O Deliquescence of Our Quartz-like Loves!' A chemical engineer describing his recent research to me used a lovely word: deliquescent. The word...
5 months ago
47
5 months ago
A chemical engineer describing his recent research to me used a lovely word: deliquescent. The word entered English in the eighteenth century and its original context was strictly scientific: deliquescence occurs when a substance absorbs moisture from the air and becomes a...
Anecdotal Evidence
Kenneth C. Kurp 1955-2024 My brother died Saturday afternoon in the hospice in Cleveland, Ohio where he spent the last two...
4 months ago
42
4 months ago
My brother died Saturday afternoon in the hospice in Cleveland, Ohio where he spent the last two weeks of his life. He was age sixty-nine. I was with him as was his son, Abraham Kurp. I watched as his eyes closed and he stopped breathing. There was another sense, too, of a sudden...
Josh Thompson
Injury Impedes Improvement Kristi and I have been in Colorado for three months, I’ve been climbing regularly for two, I am back...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
Kristi and I have been in Colorado for three months, I’ve been climbing regularly for two, I am back in shape and it feels good. I am tempted to throw myself into climbing again. To climb every day, or maybe every other day, and finish every session with training. But here’s the...
Ben Borgers
Date Picker Details
over a year ago
The Elysian
My TEDx talk about the future of fiction And publishing.
6 months ago
sbensu
Twitter's Sith and Jedi In Star Wars, hate gives the Sith power from the dark side of the Force beyond what the Jedi can...
11 months ago
4
11 months ago
In Star Wars, hate gives the Sith power from the dark side of the Force beyond what the Jedi can reach. But when they lean into hate, they lose their soul to it. Twitter offers the same bargain as the Force.
Escaping Flatland
On shortcuts and longcuts There’s this design heuristic that if people cut across the grass, you should pave the shortcut they...
8 months ago
52
8 months ago
There’s this design heuristic that if people cut across the grass, you should pave the shortcut they make. This gives the path a lovely human fit. But sometimes you want to do the opposite. You want to design ways to get people to take a longer path, a longcut, so they can see or...
The Marginalian
How You Relate to Anything Is How You Relate to Everything: Reclaiming the Spirit of the Christmas... Because life is a cosmos of connection, because to be alive is to be in relationship with the world,...
2 weeks ago
23
2 weeks 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 Twitter of Inconsequent Vitality' This week I will interview a professor of chemical engineering who is retiring after forty-four...
8 months ago
58
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
Loving the Tree of Life: Annie Dillard on How to Bear Your Mortality "We live and move by splitting the light of the present, as a canoe’s bow parts water."
a year ago
Josh Thompson
December 2016 Goals December 19th seems a bit late to write about December’s goals, huh? Nonetheless, I’ve had some, and...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
December 19th seems a bit late to write about December’s goals, huh? Nonetheless, I’ve had some, and I will still have them through the end of the month. I did post a review of November a few days ago. This should really be rolled into that. A “monthly review/going forward”...
Josh Thompson
Let Me Fix [some of] Your Parking Problems Hi there! I’m Josh, and I’m your local neighborhood advocate for overlooked spaces. Today, we’ll be...
a year ago
4
a year ago
Hi there! I’m Josh, and I’m your local neighborhood advocate for overlooked spaces. Today, we’ll be focusing on parking lots. Your parking lot has a job to do, and every day, every night, rain or shine, hot or cold, clear, rainy, or snowy, your parking lot does the best it can at...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Cloudy, Cloudy Is the Stuff of Stones' The best-known and still unchallenged refutation of the Irish Anglican Bishop George Berkeley’s...
9 months ago
24
9 months ago
The best-known and still unchallenged refutation of the Irish Anglican Bishop George Berkeley’s theory of subjective idealism – he called it “immaterialism” -- is recounted by James Boswell on August 6, 1763:  “After we came out of the church, we stood talking for some time...
The American Scholar
Braña Curuchu The post Braña Curuchu appeared first on The American Scholar.
a month ago
Ben Borgers
A Design Improvement for Our Communal Showers
over a year ago
The Elysian
The unbearable necessity of being online On loving and loathing the internet as an artist and why we need to be here anyway.
9 months ago