The Marginalian
How to Be a Living Poem: Lucille Clifton on the Balance of Intellect and Intuition in Creative Work...
"I didn’t graduate from college, which isn’t necessary to be a poet. It is only necessary to be...
a year ago
"I didn’t graduate from college, which isn’t necessary to be a poet. It is only necessary to be interested in humans and to be in touch with yourself as a human."
Wuthering...
Thou hast devourd thy sonnes - some notes on Seneca's horror plays
My Seneca reading in March:
Medea, tr. Frederick Ahl
The Trojan Women, tr. E. F. Watling
Thyestes,...
a year ago
My Seneca reading in March:
Medea, tr. Frederick Ahl
The Trojan Women, tr. E. F. Watling
Thyestes, tr. Jasper Heywood
Hercules Furens, tr. Heywood
The Madness of Hercules, tr. Dana Gioia
The plays themselves are all from the mid-1st century,
perhaps written when Seneca was in...
The Marginalian
The Science of Tears and the Art of Crying: An Illustrated Manifesto for Reclaiming Our Deepest...
“All the poems of our lives are not yet made. We hear them crying to us,” Muriel Rukeyser writes in...
2 months ago
“All the poems of our lives are not yet made. We hear them crying to us,” Muriel Rukeyser writes in her timeless ode to the power of poetry. “Cry, heart, but never break,” entreats one of my favorite children’s books — which, at their best, are always philosophies for living. It...
Journal and Links by...
✏️ Dissocial Media
I've been writing in my real handwritten journal in recent weeks that I've felt the weight of social...
a year ago
I've been writing in my real handwritten journal in recent weeks that I've felt the weight of social networks. And the manipulation and behavior patterning it's designed to do.
I worked for a softer social network for almost two years and while we weren't as abhorrent as the huge...
Wuthering...
Please read the Roman plays with me (although not all of them) - Plautus, Terence, Seneca
Roman plays, a sampling, readalong #1.
Fresh off the Greek plays, I want to revisit some of the...
over a year ago
Roman plays, a sampling, readalong #1.
Fresh off the Greek plays, I want to revisit some of the surviving Roman plays to remind myself what they are like. Twenty-six comedies and ten tragedies have survived. I read about half of them long ago and plan to reread fewer than...
The American Scholar
Just When You Thought It Wasn’t Safe …
How Wilbert Longfellow turned America into a nation of swimmers
The post Just When You Thought It...
6 months ago
How Wilbert Longfellow turned America into a nation of swimmers
The post Just When You Thought It <em>Wasn’t</em> Safe … appeared first on The American Scholar.
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
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “Three Things Enchanted Him …” by Anna Akhmatova appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
Numbers Game
A novelist’s indictment of how we account for our history
The post Numbers Game appeared first on...
7 months ago
A novelist’s indictment of how we account for our history
The post Numbers Game appeared first on The American Scholar.
Journal and Links by...
✏️ Music is Memory
Stone Temple Pilots’ “Kitchenware & Candybars” comes on, and suddenly I'm 17 again, driving...
4 months ago
Stone Temple Pilots’ “Kitchenware & Candybars” comes on, and suddenly I'm 17 again, driving underneath the amber glow of late-night deserted streets in Kuala Lumpur. I can feel the sharp air conditioning in the car against my skin, keeping the tropical heat and humidity outside...
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
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 American Scholar
“Death Fugue” by Paul Celan
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “Death Fugue” by Paul Celan appeared first on The American...
7 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “Death Fugue” by Paul Celan appeared first on The American Scholar.
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
Traversing the landscape of life on the wings of trust.
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...
11 months ago
"Self-hate is really the same thing as sheer egoism, and in the long run breeds the same cruel isolation and despair."
The American Scholar
The Scales
The post The Scales appeared first on The American Scholar.
6 months ago
The post The Scales appeared first on The American Scholar.
ben-mini
The Inner Game of Tennis
I just finished reading The Inner Game of Tennis by Tim Gallwey. Originally published in 1974, the...
3 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...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Not the Head But the Seat'
My late friend David Myers taught me the useful German and Yiddish word imported
into English,...
a year ago
My late friend David Myers taught me the useful German and Yiddish word imported
into English, sitzfleisch. The
etymology is straightforward: sitzen
(“to sit”) + Fleisch (“flesh”). In
other words, what we sit on -- the buttocks, ass or derriere. Metaphorically, the
OED tells us,...
The Marginalian
Winnicott on the Psychology of Democracy, the Most Dangerous Type of Person, and the Unconscious...
In the late morning of the first day of August in 2023, exactly twenty summers after I arrived in...
3 months ago
In the late morning of the first day of August in 2023, exactly twenty summers after I arrived in Philadelphia as a lone teenager from a country thirteen centuries America’s senior, I experienced that wonderful capacity for self-surprise as tears came streaming down my face in a...
The American Scholar
Guillermo
The post Guillermo appeared first on The American Scholar.
4 months ago
The post Guillermo appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
Processes Vs. Goals (or, Systems vs. Accomplishments)
In this
excellent article on systems vs. goals, James argues that even if you did not pursue any...
over a year ago
In this
excellent article on systems vs. goals, James argues that even if you did not pursue any specific goals, with the right
system, you will still go a long way.
This idea has been floating around my head for over a year, now, and I think it’s slowly coalescing into something...
Ben Borgers
Donating forks to the dining hall
7 months ago
The Marginalian
The Promethean Power of Burnout
"Burnout fully realised is also the decisive, exhausted moment in which we realise we cannot go on...
2 weeks 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."
Escaping Flatland
Can we scale cultures that support learning?
new essay in Asterisk
3 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Word Can Open Like a Tomb to Reveal Its Past'
The poet William
Wenthe opens his essay “The Glamour of Words” with a provocative memory. It was
the...
9 months ago
The poet William
Wenthe opens his essay “The Glamour of Words” with a provocative memory. It was
the anniversary of Charles Dickens’ death and he was in the Poets’ Corner of
Westminster Abbey, where Dickens is interred and his sister is speaking to mark
the occasion. Wenthe looks...
The Marginalian
Little Black Hole: A Tender Cosmic Fable About How to Live with Loss
Right this minute, people are making plans, making promises and poems, while at the center of our...
a year ago
Right this minute, people are making plans, making promises and poems, while at the center of our galaxy a black hole with the mass of four billion suns screams its open-mouth kiss of oblivion. Someday it will swallow every atom that ever touched us and every datum we ever...
The Marginalian
The Managed Heart: Emotional Labor and the Psychological Cost of Ambivalence
What are you unwilling to feel? This is one of the most brutal, most clarifying questions in life,...
2 months ago
What are you unwilling to feel? This is one of the most brutal, most clarifying questions in life, answering which requires great courage and great vulnerability. Out of that unwillingness arises the greatest inner tension of the heart: that between what we wish we felt and what...
Journal and Links by...
✏️ No One Above the Law
"Malaysia." I stood up, and maybe one or two other people did too. It wasn't like the large groups...
3 months ago
"Malaysia." I stood up, and maybe one or two other people did too. It wasn't like the large groups of newly minted American citizens from other countries announced, such as China, India, or the Philippines. But it was a moment I was proud of, and when my country of origin was...
Ben Borgers
The Beginning of College Sucks
over a year ago
Journal and Links by...
🔗 We Need More Than Fewer, Better Things
Given this understanding of benefits and harms, then, the mantra of “fewer, better things” carries...
5 months ago
Given this understanding of benefits and harms, then, the mantra of “fewer, better things” carries an implied equivalence between better and longer. But I’m pretty sure that my nonexistent grandchildren aren’t looking forward to inheriting my inexpensive plastic garbage can,...
Astral Codex Ten
Highlights From The Comments On Lynn And IQ
...
3 days ago
Josh Thompson
Troubleshooting Chinese Character Sets in MySQL
A while back, I picked up a bug where when a customer tried to save certain kinds of data using...
over a year ago
A while back, I picked up a bug where when a customer tried to save certain kinds of data using Chinese characters, we were replacing the Chinese characters like 平仮名 with a series of ?.
This will be a quick dive through how I figured out what the problem was, and then validated...
Journal and Links by...
🔗 Meet the San Francisco techie using AI to wage war against health insurance denials
With the slogan ‘Make your health insurance company cry too,’ Karau’s site makes filing appeals...
4 months ago
With the slogan ‘Make your health insurance company cry too,’ Karau’s site makes filing appeals faster and easier. A recent study found that Affordable Care Act patients appeal only about 0.1% of rejected claims, and she hopes her platform will encourage more people to fight...
Ben Borgers
Class Council: “Brutally Honest”
over a year ago
sbensu
How to avoid breaking APIs
The main trick is to design them with extension in mind so that you won't have to break them later.
a year ago
The main trick is to design them with extension in mind so that you won't have to break them later.
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....
9 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...
Anecdotal Evidence
'I Don’t See Other People As Peculiar'
For my
money, the Canadian short story
writer is Mavis Gallant (1922-2014), not Alice Munro, who is...
a year ago
For my
money, the Canadian short story
writer is Mavis Gallant (1922-2014), not Alice Munro, who is too dull to endure.
(Joseph Epstein said of her work: “Humor never obtrudes.”) Born in Montreal, Gallant
moved to Europe in 1950, hoping to give up journalism and write fiction....
The Marginalian
The Universe and the Soul: Richard Jefferies on Nature as Prayer for Presence
How to grow "absorbed into the being or existence of the universe."
a year ago
How to grow "absorbed into the being or existence of the universe."
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Future Spells Only Disaster'
Several
weeks ago in a post I wrote about Robert Conquest I referred to “the essential
books...
3 weeks ago
Several
weeks ago in a post I wrote about Robert Conquest I referred to “the essential
books published in the twentieth century,” and listed some of the titles deserving
a place in that category. Most, I wrote, “are not found in the traditionally
defined literary categories; that...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Steeplejacks Top Out the Chrysler Building,'
A friend
sent me a link to a 1978 BBC documentary about a working-class hero in England.
I had never...
7 months ago
A friend
sent me a link to a 1978 BBC documentary about a working-class hero in England.
I had never heard of Fred Dibnah, practitioner of a trade I didn’t know was still
extant: steeplejack. In the words of the OED:
“a person who climbs steeples or tall chimneys to repair them.”...
Josh Thompson
Robert Moses - The Most Important Person You've Never Heard Of
this was originally posted a few years ago, republishing as a blog post as I organize an...
7 months ago
this was originally posted a few years ago, republishing as a blog post as I organize an increasingly large number of links and resources here.
Here’s a big dumping ground for some resources on robert moses I’ve got floating around.
Obviously, this has grown to an unwieldy sizy...
Josh Thompson
Build a Personal Website in Jekyll - A Detailed Guide For First-Timers
You’re a turing student, in the backend program.
You know Ruby, you wanna start blogging, but...
over a year ago
You’re a turing student, in the backend program.
You know Ruby, you wanna start blogging, but everyone who says
go start a blog
Seems to also think you have 10 hours (or 20 hours? or 2 hours? how long does this take) to sit around dealing with setting up a personal website.
Lets...
This Space
Favourite books 2021
If such things matter, and they don't, my book of the year is Peter Holm Jensen’s The Moment. As I...
over a year ago
If such things matter, and they don't, my book of the year is Peter Holm Jensen’s The Moment. As I wrote in April, it’s one in which the writer seeks “a modest, self-effacing place within the intersection of time and eternity” and can be read again and again for this reason, as...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Whole Point of Literature'
I learned of
some twits who see no reason to read Tolstoy because he was such a terrible...
2 months ago
I learned of
some twits who see no reason to read Tolstoy because he was such a terrible human
being, as though this constituted recently declassified information. Such an understanding
of literature and literary history, if followed to its logical conclusion, will
result in a...
The American Scholar
Last Laugh
The post Last Laugh appeared first on The American Scholar.
6 months ago
The post Last Laugh appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'About As Approachable As a Porcupine'
The large bay
window facing the garden in front of our house is better than television....
2 months ago
The large bay
window facing the garden in front of our house is better than television. No
commercials, no dependency on internet whims, no bills to pay. That’s where I
do most of my reading (best lighting in the house). From the couch I watch the
show in the garden. Butterflies,...
Anecdotal Evidence
"The Saint’s Strange Way to Practice Death"
Among the road
kill I’ve tallied on Houston streets, the most common casualty is the...
10 months ago
Among the road
kill I’ve tallied on Houston streets, the most common casualty is the strangely
spelled opossum (from the Powhatan). The least common, incidentally, is the
armadillo, with two KIAs sighted in twenty years, both being pecked at by
crows. Natives here seem uncommonly...
Wuthering...
The Assemblywomen by Aristophanes - Octopus tunnyfish dogfish and skate
The Assemblywomen by Aristophanes – or The Parliament of Women, or several other titles – was...
over a year ago
The Assemblywomen by Aristophanes – or The Parliament of Women, or several other titles – was performed in 392 BCE, thirteen years after The Frogs. In the interval many things had changed. Athens had been conquered; democracy was overthrown but restored; one endless war ended...
The Marginalian
Kate Sessions and the Devotion to Delight: The Forgotten Woman Who Covered California with Trees and...
In May 1941, next to news of the Nazi savagely bombing London, The Los Angeles Times published a...
a year ago
In May 1941, next to news of the Nazi savagely bombing London, The Los Angeles Times published a memorial profile of “California’s Mother of Gardens” — a hopeful antidote to the undoing of the human world, celebrating the woman who covered Southern California with the loveliest...
The American Scholar
Heart of Semi-Darkness
A writer’s delectable quest for rare flavors
The post Heart of Semi-Darkness appeared first on The...
4 months ago
A writer’s delectable quest for rare flavors
The post Heart of Semi-Darkness appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'Personal Affections'
Only
recently have I learned of the entrenched snobbery in certain quarters against anthologies.
It...
3 months ago
Only
recently have I learned of the entrenched snobbery in certain quarters against anthologies.
It seems to be rooted in the conviction that readers ought to read writers in
their original volumes, not someone’s curated selection, or something like
that. In common with most...
Anecdotal Evidence
'It Is Wonderful to Be a Writer'
I met the Israeli novelist
Aharon Appelfeld in 1987 on the same day I met Raul Hilberg and Cynthia...
8 months ago
I met the Israeli novelist
Aharon Appelfeld in 1987 on the same day I met Raul Hilberg and Cynthia Ozick.
I had read Appelfeld’s first novel, Badenheim
1939 (1978; trans. 1980), several years earlier and found it disturbing in
a novel way. The action takes place on the cusp of...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Not At All Reliable for Climbing On'
Decades ago
I interviewed a guy who had climbed all forty-six of the high peaks in New...
9 months ago
Decades ago
I interviewed a guy who had climbed all forty-six of the high peaks in New York’s
Adirondack Mountains in his bare feet. Surprisingly, he completed the shoeless stunt
without serious injury. It was one of those Ripley’s-Believe-It-or-Not
accomplishments that seems...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Past Is Alive and Stirring With Objects'
Published in
the January 1821 issue of London Magazine
are thematically linked essays by two...
a year ago
Published in
the January 1821 issue of London Magazine
are thematically linked essays by two friends, Charles Lamb and William
Hazlitt: “New Year’s Eve” and “On the Past and Future,” respectively. Lamb’s is
better known, and I'm aware of several readers who, like me, read it...
The Elysian
Every company should be owned by its employees
Central States Manufacturing as a model for employee-ownership.
5 months ago
Central States Manufacturing as a model for employee-ownership.
Wuthering...
The elegant, intricate, sour comedies of Terence
The great Roman playwright Terence wrote six plays between 166 and 160 BCE, twenty years after the...
a year ago
The great Roman playwright Terence wrote six plays between 166 and 160 BCE, twenty years after the death of Plautus. The story is that he wrote the first one at age nineteen, while enslaved, thus winning his freedom and entry into a world of aristocratic patrons. Plautus was...
The Marginalian
Favorite Children’s Books of 2023
Tender and poetic reckonings with friendship, fear, love, solitude, black holes, deep time, and the...
a year ago
Tender and poetic reckonings with friendship, fear, love, solitude, black holes, deep time, and the interconnectedness of life.
Josh Thompson
On Cleaner Controllers
A few days ago, I worked on a project that was mostly about serving up basic store data (modeled...
over a year ago
A few days ago, I worked on a project that was mostly about serving up basic store data (modeled after Etsy) to an API.
We had a few dozen end-points, and all responses were in JSON.
Most of the action happened inside of our controllers, and as you might imagine, our routes.rb...
Journal and Links by...
🔗 WebGlossary.info
As per the official description, “the glossary covers the major standards and concepts of the Web,...
5 months ago
As per the official description, “the glossary covers the major standards and concepts of the Web, beginning with HTML, CSS, JavaScript, accessibility, security, performance, code quality and testing, internationalization, localization, frameworks and editors and tooling. It then...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Bright Books! the Perspectives to Our Weak Sights'
April is the
kindest and cruelest month.
Think of the
births: George Herbert (April 3, 1593),...
9 months ago
April is the
kindest and cruelest month.
Think of the
births: George Herbert (April 3, 1593), Shakespeare (April 23, 1564), Henry
Vaughan (April 17, 1621), Daniel Defoe (April 24, 1731), Edward Gibbon (April
27, 1737), William Hazlitt (April 10, 1778), Anthony Trollope (April...
The American Scholar
Kinship and Contradictions
Carrie Lowry Schuettpelz on the complexities of Native American identity
The post Kinship and...
a month ago
Carrie Lowry Schuettpelz on the complexities of Native American identity
The post Kinship and Contradictions appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
Un Tinto
The post Un Tinto appeared first on The American Scholar.
5 months ago
The post Un Tinto appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
Why schedule something that doesn't exist?
The first thing I did when making this post is I set it to be published tomorrow.
Then, I left the...
over a year ago
The first thing I did when making this post is I set it to be published tomorrow.
Then, I left the room for a bit. I didn’t have anything to say. Or, I didn’t think I did.
Yet, all over my computer, and in various list trackers and note-taking apps, I’ve got dozens of ideas to...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Some Could, Some Could Not, Shake Off Misery'
Last week I
wrote a post about the poet Bob Barth, the patrol he led as a 21-year-old...
4 months ago
Last week I
wrote a post about the poet Bob Barth, the patrol he led as a 21-year-old Marine
Corporal in Vietnam, and the war correspondent who wrote a dispatch about him
for a newspaper. Two days later, after learning that the stringer, Albert W.
Vinson, soon took his own life,...
The American Scholar
Celebrating an American Icon
The post Celebrating an American Icon appeared first on The American Scholar.
4 months ago
The post Celebrating an American Icon appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
The Light in the Abyss Between Us
Bless consciousness, for making blue different to me than it is to you. I remember the moment a...
3 days ago
Bless consciousness, for making blue different to me than it is to you. I remember the moment a friend’s son came home from school to recount with something between shock and exhilaration how he realized while talking to a classmate that the notion of a mental image is not merely...
The American Scholar
The Support Ship
The post The Support Ship appeared first on The American Scholar.
5 months ago
The post The Support Ship appeared first on The American Scholar.
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
"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...
The Marginalian
May Sarton on Grieving a Pet
"It is absolutely inward and private, the relation between oneself and an animal."
a year ago
"It is absolutely inward and private, the relation between oneself and an animal."
Ben Borgers
“you have a lack of deadlines”
over a year ago
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
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...
Wuthering...
On Great Writing by Longinus - But greatness appears suddenly; like a thunderbolt it carries all...
I will deposit my notes on On Great Writing, which is either a 3rd century text by Longinus, one of...
over a year ago
I will deposit my notes on On Great Writing, which is either a 3rd century text by Longinus, one of the great scholars and rhetoricians of his time, or was written earlier and is by someone else. Who knows. I will call the author Longinus, and call the work On the Sublime, the...
The Marginalian
Between the Infinite and the Infinitesimal: A Scientist’s Search for the Fulcrum of Faith
"The universe is not a place where evolution happens, it is the evolution happening. It is not a...
11 months ago
"The universe is not a place where evolution happens, it is the evolution happening. It is not a stage on which drama unfolds, it is the unfolding drama itself."
This Space
39 Books: 2018
In spite of what I said yesterday about the decline in the number of novels I read each year, this...
7 months ago
In spite of what I said yesterday about the decline in the number of novels I read each year, this year was packed with a variety: Australian, Korean, Austrian, Egyptian, German, Argentinian and, today's choice, Norwegian; that is, if variety depends on the country of origin. But...
The Marginalian
Beyond Either/Or: Kierkegaard on the Passion for Possibility and the Key to Resetting Relationships
"Were I to wish for anything I would not wish for wealth and power, but for the passion of the...
5 months ago
"Were I to wish for anything I would not wish for wealth and power, but for the passion of the possible, that eye which everywhere, ever young, ever burning, sees possibility."
The Elysian
How would anarchist societies protect themselves?
Letters to an anarchist, part three.
2 months ago
Letters to an anarchist, part three.
The Elysian
I'm not going to have kids to save the economy
Not on my list of reasons to have children.
9 months ago
Not on my list of reasons to have children.
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Whole Poem Becomes Molten with Activity'
I’m in debt
to anthologies for much of my education. When you’re young and hungry and
everything is...
a year ago
I’m in debt
to anthologies for much of my education. When you’re young and hungry and
everything is new, such collections are like well-stocked cafeterias. You push
your tray down the line and sample what looks good. Once seated, if a friend
recommends a dish you avoided, you can...
Josh Thompson
Everything I Do and Think I've Read in a Book (or, exploring the relationship between books and...
Here’s yet another big post on money and income and saving and reading. I tried to write everything...
over a year ago
Here’s yet another big post on money and income and saving and reading. I tried to write everything on my mind in one massive letter, so I could write a really detailed answer once, rather than a less-useful but less-thoughtful email that I can never reuse.
Hey there,
I’m...
This Space
39 Books: 2019
So much for this blog being labelled "the best resource in English on European modernist...
7 months ago
So much for this blog being labelled "the best resource in English on European modernist literature": this year's choice is a collection of lectures delivered in the early 1960s at the University of Zürich, published in English translation in 1970, with this edition being...
The American Scholar
“How Happy Is the Little Stone” by Emily Dickinson
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “How Happy Is the Little Stone” by Emily Dickinson appeared...
8 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “How Happy Is the Little Stone” by Emily Dickinson appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
Henry James on Losing a Mother
"These are hours of exquisite pain; thank Heaven this particular pang comes to us but once."
a year ago
"These are hours of exquisite pain; thank Heaven this particular pang comes to us but once."
Anecdotal Evidence
'All Sorts of Characters in the World'
“His poems
are not much read now.” Sad words, often deserved but occasionally unjust. Of
course,...
a year ago
“His poems
are not much read now.” Sad words, often deserved but occasionally unjust. Of
course, much of poetry is no longer read, not even by those who consider
themselves poets. Who besides eccentrics and cranks reads Pope, Tennyson and
Longfellow? The opening question is posed...
Ben Borgers
Building henrynitzberg.com
over a year ago
The Marginalian
Between Psyche and Cyborg: Carl Jung’s Legacy and the Countercultural Courage to Reclaim the Deeply...
"A reanimated world is one in which spirit and matter are not just equally regarded but recognized...
9 months ago
"A reanimated world is one in which spirit and matter are not just equally regarded but recognized as mutually dependent."
The American Scholar
Jane Skafte
The language of trees
The post Jane Skafte appeared first on The American Scholar.
6 months ago
The language of trees
The post Jane Skafte appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'An Immense Special Talent'
D.G. Myers
and I met in person only once, in March 2012, when David came to Houston to see
his...
3 months ago
D.G. Myers
and I met in person only once, in March 2012, when David came to Houston to see
his oncologist. We had lunch in a Mexican restaurant and talked for hours, then
I drove him to the hospital. He gave me the Library of America’s collection of
Henry James’ writings on...
The Marginalian
“Little Women” Author Louisa May Alcott on the Creative Rewards of Being Single
"Liberty is a better husband than love."
a year ago
"Liberty is a better husband than love."
The American Scholar
The Redoubtable Bull Shark
Reflecting on one of nature’s most dangerous predators
The post The Redoubtable Bull Shark appeared...
8 months ago
Reflecting on one of nature’s most dangerous predators
The post The Redoubtable Bull Shark appeared first on The American Scholar.
Wuthering...
Oedipus at Colonus by Sophocles - indeed his end / Was wonderful if ever mortal’s was
Oedipus at Colonus by Sophocles is one of the plays that got me excited about the entire project of...
over a year ago
Oedipus at Colonus by Sophocles is one of the plays that got me excited about the entire project of reading or re-reading the complete plays. The last surviving tragedy, even if it hardly recognizable as a tragedy, it provides a coherent ending to the tragic tradition. It is...
The American Scholar
Interlude: The Idea of “The West”
A brief look at a grand narrative
The post Interlude: The Idea of “The West” appeared first on The...
9 months ago
A brief look at a grand narrative
The post Interlude: The Idea of “The West” appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
Give it 30 days
Do you have any big audacious goal you want to accomplish?
If you think back to Jan 1, 2016, what...
over a year ago
Do you have any big audacious goal you want to accomplish?
If you think back to Jan 1, 2016, what were your goals?
Lose weight/get in shape
Make more money/start budgeting
Learn a language
Learn a skill
Read more
Stop doing something (smoking, drinking)
Statistically, all of...
Ben Borgers
How Recurring Tasks in War Room Work
over a year ago
Journal and Links by...
🔗 Turning the Tide: Can Kamala Harris Flip Texas Blue?
Let me be clear: Texas will be blue. It’s inevitable. The only question is when? And how do we get...
5 months ago
Let me be clear: Texas will be blue. It’s inevitable. The only question is when? And how do we get there?
Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
Ben Borgers
JumboCode plans for Head of Engineering
a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'What She or He Ought to Know'
In a
typically mordant essay, “A Great Fog Over the Past,” Peter Hitchens cites “Spanish Waters,” a...
5 months ago
In a
typically mordant essay, “A Great Fog Over the Past,” Peter Hitchens cites “Spanish Waters,” a poem by John Masefield, one of the first poets I claimed as my own
when a boy, years before Eliot and Yeats. The poem’s “decrepit beggar,” as Hitchens
puts it, “knows where the...
The American Scholar
Part of the Parade
The post Part of the Parade appeared first on The American Scholar.
2 months ago
The post Part of the Parade appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
Why I Eat Bacon Every Day (And You Should Too)
note: as of late 2017, I’ve rolled over to a mostly vegetarian diet. I still love meat, but don’t...
over a year ago
note: as of late 2017, I’ve rolled over to a mostly vegetarian diet. I still love meat, but don’t feel comfortable eating it, for ethical reasons. I still believe that, on a whole, bacon is good for you, and I still eat veggies and many eggs every day. I just don’t eat bacon or...
Anecdotal Evidence
'There Was No One There Anymore'
Jorge Luis Borges
published his final story collection, Shakespeare’s
Memory, in 1983, three years...
a year ago
Jorge Luis Borges
published his final story collection, Shakespeare’s
Memory, in 1983, three years before his death. The first story in the volume
is “August 25, 1983.” The narrator is Borges or at least one version of Borges.
He enters a hotel and sees his own name signed in the...
Journal and Links by...
🔗 HTML for People
HTML isn’t only for people working in the tech field. It’s for anybody, the way documents are for...
2 months ago
HTML isn’t only for people working in the tech field. It’s for anybody, the way documents are for anybody. HTML is just another type of document. A very special one—the one the web is built on.
— Blake Watson
One of my classes in my Computer Science major in university was to...
The Elysian
Am I an anarchist?
Letters to an anarchist, part seven.
a month ago
Letters to an anarchist, part seven.
Wuthering...
Books I Read in October 2023
The five-day hospital stay breaking the month in half is likely invisible to anyone but me, but that...
a year ago
The five-day hospital stay breaking the month in half is likely invisible to anyone but me, but that is why the fiction list is so mystery-heavy, and for that matter so long. Many of these books, the post-surgery group, are not just short but light, well-suited for the invalid's...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Every Departure Destroys a Class of Sympathies'
As a boy I
was spared most deaths. I've read of people who lose parents, siblings and close
friends...
6 months ago
As a boy I
was spared most deaths. I've read of people who lose parents, siblings and close
friends when young, and wonder how they adapt to unprecedented loss. They have
nothing to compare it to. The death that hit me hardest was President Kennedy’s,
a month after my eleventh...
ribbonfarm
Istanbul: A Tale of Three Cities by Bettany Hughes
I started reading Istanbul: A Tale of Three Cities by Bettany Hughes while I was in Istanbul last...
9 months ago
I started reading Istanbul: A Tale of Three Cities by Bettany Hughes while I was in Istanbul last November and finally finished it last week. It’s a really solid and absorbing book, and far too dense and rich with detail to zip through, which is why I read it a dozen or so pages...
Anecdotal Evidence
'In a More Just World'
Our youngest
son’s bedroom has lately turned into an overstuffed warehouse. Last year, as a
junior...
3 months ago
Our youngest
son’s bedroom has lately turned into an overstuffed warehouse. Last year, as a
junior at Rice, he lived off-campus in an apartment. This year he’s back in a
dormitory so most of his “housewares” – clothing, dishes and utensils, tchotchkes
– have been heaped in his...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Hallmark of What Is Truly Priceless'
“. . . what
literature is really about: our very survival as human beings.”
A bit melodramatic,
no?...
11 months ago
“. . . what
literature is really about: our very survival as human beings.”
A bit melodramatic,
no? Grandiose? Perhaps expressed by a writer worried about sales or a reader boosting
his self-esteem? Could be. But there’s something to it. Maybe it amounts to
more than...
The American Scholar
The Weight of a Stone
Searching for stability in an erratic world led Oliver Sacks and other writers to the realms of...
2 weeks ago
Searching for stability in an erratic world led Oliver Sacks and other writers to the realms of geology
The post The Weight of a Stone appeared first on The American Scholar.
Wuthering...
Books I Read in April 2024 - this irritation passes over into patient completed understanding
Grinding away at Gertrude Stein’s The Making of Americans
(1925), a genuine monster. “As I...
8 months ago
Grinding away at Gertrude Stein’s The Making of Americans
(1925), a genuine monster. “As I was
saying it is often irritating to listen to the repeating they are doing, always
then that one has it as being to love repeating that is the whole history of
each one, such a one has it...
This Space
39 Books: 1985
The first novel I read was Twice Shy by Dick Francis, reportedly the Queen Mother's favourite...
9 months ago
The first novel I read was Twice Shy by Dick Francis, reportedly the Queen Mother's favourite novelist (which tells you all you need to know about the intellectual energies of British Royal Family). It was the hardback edition below and tells the story of an Olympic champion...
Blog -...
Book Review - Iron John
Iron John by Robert Bly is a classic book about men. It has legions of
ardent fans, but I...
over a year ago
Iron John by Robert Bly is a classic book about men. It has legions of
ardent fans, but I reluctantly admit I am not one of the more zealous.
Although the book has high points – the classic story of Iron John as put
down by the Grimm brothers stands out to me, as well as an...
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Kind of Masochism Afoot in Modern Aesthetics'
“Is there a
kind of masochism afoot in modern aesthetics whereby the leaden and the dull
acquire...
6 months ago
“Is there a
kind of masochism afoot in modern aesthetics whereby the leaden and the dull
acquire significance simply because the beaten spirit would seem to claim more
seriousness than a more robust struggle with the exigencies of things?”
This
elegantly crafted question, at...
The Marginalian
Louise Erdrich on the Deepest Meaning of Resistance
"Resist loss of the miraculous by lowering your standards for what constitutes a miracle. It is all...
2 months ago
"Resist loss of the miraculous by lowering your standards for what constitutes a miracle. It is all a fucking miracle."
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
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “Daybreak in Alabama” by Langston Hughes appeared first on The American Scholar.
sbensu
Designing for support teams
Support agents spend their entire lives using the same software. Their needs are very different from...
11 months ago
Support agents spend their entire lives using the same software. Their needs are very different from consumer software. Here are some things to keep in mind.
Anecdotal Evidence
'To Be in Some Respect Unique'
“[L]et us
not forget that ‘public’ denotes a collection not of identical units, but of
units...
11 months ago
“[L]et us
not forget that ‘public’ denotes a collection not of identical units, but of
units separable and (under close scrutiny) distinguishable one from another.”
I work with professors of statistics, among others, for whom data are the primal substance of the human world. You...
The Marginalian
Alain de Botton on the Qualities of a Healthy Mind
"A healthy mind knows how to hope; it identifies and then hangs on tenaciously to a few reasons to...
a year ago
"A healthy mind knows how to hope; it identifies and then hangs on tenaciously to a few reasons to keep going."
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Discussian of General Ideas'
A friend who
is not a dedicated reader but has more common sense and worldly knowhow than I’ve
ever...
5 months ago
A friend who
is not a dedicated reader but has more common sense and worldly knowhow than I’ve
ever possessed tells me he plans to reread Animal
House and 1984. Neither have I
read since junior-high school, probably the ideal time for such books, which
are among the most...
Josh Thompson
2023 Annual Review
It’s that time of the year. I often enjoy reading other people’s annual reviews, and I’ve always...
11 months ago
It’s that time of the year. I often enjoy reading other people’s annual reviews, and I’ve always found value in writing my own, even as there is a few years I’ve missed, since I started the habit way back in 2015.
for a long time, I did annual reviews. 2020 was late, and then for...
This Space
39 Books: 1994
Given that my undergraduate degree was in Philosophy, it may seem odd that this the first book of...
8 months ago
Given that my undergraduate degree was in Philosophy, it may seem odd that this the first book of philosophy in the series. Many will say it is not a book of philosophy at all. That would explain why I gorged on Nick Land's The Thirst for Annihilation: Georges Bataille and...
Steven Scrawls
"Progress"
“Progress”
The following tables are my (opinionated, minimally researched)
answers to questions...
a year ago
“Progress”
The following tables are my (opinionated, minimally researched)
answers to questions about a curated version of Wikipedia’s
list of most-visited websites (see Notes for
details). I invite you to follow along, issue your own snap judgments,
and come to your own...
The Marginalian
George Saunders on How to Live an Unregretting Life
"At the end of my life, I know I won’t be wishing I’d held more back, been less effusive, more often...
10 months ago
"At the end of my life, I know I won’t be wishing I’d held more back, been less effusive, more often stood on ceremony, forgiven less, spent more days oblivious to the secret wishes and fears of the people around me."
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Brave Respect the Brave'
In
observance of Memorial Day, R.L. Barth sent me a poem by Ambrose Bierce, one I
had never read...
7 months ago
In
observance of Memorial Day, R.L. Barth sent me a poem by Ambrose Bierce, one I
had never read before, “To E.S. Salomon” (Black Beetles in Amber, 1892). Here is the memorably pertinent third stanza:
“The brave
respect the brave. The brave
Respect
the dead; but you -- you...
Ben Borgers
How I got scammed on Facebook Marketplace
a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'These Pieces of Moral Prose'
“Where did
you get your humility? I thought that was an extinct virtue.”
Creating
anything...
8 months ago
“Where did
you get your humility? I thought that was an extinct virtue.”
Creating
anything worthwhile, whether joke, villanelle or pot of lentil soup, calls
for pride and humility. Pride because one presumes to add to the world’s bounty
and impose it on others; humility because...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Painstakingly Logical and Precise'
A thought
that never occurred to me but feels self-evidently right:
“In the
course of a reading...
5 months ago
A thought
that never occurred to me but feels self-evidently right:
“In the
course of a reading life, one often stumbles on excellent prose writers never
before encountered; such discoveries, however, are less likely in poetry.
First-rate poetry is a more manageable quantity....
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
"There is no greatness without a little stubbornness... Works of art are not born in flashes of inspiration but in a daily fidelity."
The Marginalian
The Dictionary Story: A Love Letter to Language Tucked Into a Delightful Fable about the Difficult...
“Words belong to each other,” Virginia Woolf rasped in the only surviving recording of her voice — a...
2 months ago
“Words belong to each other,” Virginia Woolf rasped in the only surviving recording of her voice — a love letter to language as an instrument of thought and a medium of being. “Words are events, they do things, change things,” Ursula K. Le Guin wrote a generation after her. To...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Death Is Divestment, Death Is Communion'
“Whenever in
my dreams I see the dead, they always appear silent, bothered, strangely
depressed,...
6 months ago
“Whenever in
my dreams I see the dead, they always appear silent, bothered, strangely
depressed, quite unlike their dear, bright selves. I am aware of them, without
any astonishment, in surroundings they never visited during their earthly
existence, in the house of some friend of...
The Marginalian
The Heart of Matter: Pierre Teilhard de Chardin on Bridging the Scientific and the Sacred
"Blessed be you, mighty matter, irresistible march of evolution, reality ever new-born; you who, by...
a year ago
"Blessed be you, mighty matter, irresistible march of evolution, reality ever new-born; you who, by constantly shattering our mental categories, force us to go ever further and further in our pursuit of the truth."
Josh Thompson
A Runbook for Upgrading Your Parent's Junky Old Laptop to a Chromebook
tl;dr: I’m creating a runbook for a very specific, delicate, and potentially time-consuming and...
over a year ago
tl;dr: I’m creating a runbook for a very specific, delicate, and potentially time-consuming and emotionally-charged operation to replace my 70-year-old newly-widowed mother-in-law's ancient desktop computer with a easy-for-me-to-manage Chromebook
Update: I posted to r/ChromeOS...
Wuthering...
The Frogs by Aristophanes - Brilliant! Brilliant! Wish I knew what you were talking about!
The Frogs by Aristophanes is this week’s play. It was performed in what now look like the waning...
over a year ago
The Frogs by Aristophanes is this week’s play. It was performed in what now look like the waning days of Athens, just before their conquest by Sparta, and in particular the last days of Athenian tragedy, with Euripides and Sophocles both recently dead. In what may be the most...
The Marginalian
How to Live a Miraculous Life: Brian Doyle on Love, Humility, and the Quiet Grace of the Possible
Suppose we agree that we are here to love anyway — to love even though the work is almost unbearably...
a month ago
Suppose we agree that we are here to love anyway — to love even though the work is almost unbearably difficult, even though we know that everything alive is dying, that everything beautiful is perishable, that everything we love will eventually be taken from us by one form of...
The Marginalian
The Living Wonder of Leafcutter Ants, in Mesmerizing Stop Motion
Alongside humans, leafcutter ants form some of nature’s vastest, most sophisticated societies — a...
a year ago
Alongside humans, leafcutter ants form some of nature’s vastest, most sophisticated societies — a single mature colony can contain as many ants as there are people on Earth, living with a great deal more social harmony and consonance of purpose than we do. They are also one of...
The American Scholar
Poco a Poco
The post Poco a Poco appeared first on The American Scholar.
2 months ago
The post Poco a Poco appeared first on The American Scholar.
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
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...
Astral Codex Ten
Indulge Your Internet Addiction By Reading About Internet Addiction
...
a month ago
The American Scholar
Good Vibrations
One eccentric’s desert landmark allows visitors to bathe in sound
The post Good Vibrations appeared...
9 months ago
One eccentric’s desert landmark allows visitors to bathe in sound
The post Good Vibrations appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
“What a Strange Path”
Three new prompts
The post “What a Strange Path” appeared first on The American Scholar.
a month ago
Three new prompts
The post “What a Strange Path” appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
How the Octopus Came to Earth: Stunning 19th-Century French Chromolithographs of Cephalopods
The art-science that captured the wonder of some of "the most brilliant productions of Nature."
a year ago
The art-science that captured the wonder of some of "the most brilliant productions of Nature."
Josh Thompson
Success is not support
We did a high-level “Customer Success” overview yesterday. Today, lets contrast customer support and...
over a year ago
We did a high-level “Customer Success” overview yesterday. Today, lets contrast customer support and customer success.
Support vs. Success
First, what’s the difference between “customer support” and “customer success”?
Lincoln Murphey says:
Customer Success is proactively working...
Anecdotal Evidence
'An Old Man in the Dark'
Philip
Larkin shares with us the mundane complaints of the middle class, the lusts and
anxieties of...
a year ago
Philip
Larkin shares with us the mundane complaints of the middle class, the lusts and
anxieties of people unburdened with wealth and pull. He grows deaf, loses hair,
juggles girlfriends, gains weight and drinks too much. As a librarian he works hard.
He will never be hip except...
Josh Thompson
How to fly… like a boss
I am in a quest to
level up my life. Free flights is a big part of this. I’ve not gotten too many...
over a year ago
I am in a quest to
level up my life. Free flights is a big part of this. I’ve not gotten too many of those yet, but the next best thing is free seat upgrades. I’m not talking about first class - that’s beyond me, at the moment. I’m talking about getting stuck in the back of the...
Josh Thompson
Back in the saddle (of writing)
Background
It’s been a hell of a year. I’ve got about 10,000 things I’ve wanted to write about, and...
over a year ago
Background
It’s been a hell of a year. I’ve got about 10,000 things I’ve wanted to write about, and have not gotten around to any of them. Here’s my various top-level reasons for not writing:
what I want to write about feels too complicated to express easily/coherently
I feel...
Anecdotal Evidence
'That Marsh Light Is Still Burning Hard'
I’m
suspicious of the itch for ranking books and making lists. Too often it’s a substitute...
11 months ago
I’m
suspicious of the itch for ranking books and making lists. Too often it’s a substitute for
actually reading them, a ruse for flaunting one’s hipness or sophistication. My
late friend David Myers was fond of assembling such lists, which are likely to
assure higher-than-average...
The American Scholar
To Catch a Sunset
Reflections on allergies, anxieties, and the limits of familial love
The post To Catch a Sunset...
7 months ago
Reflections on allergies, anxieties, and the limits of familial love
The post To Catch a Sunset appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
The Beach and the Soul: Anne Morrow Lindbergh on the Benedictions of the Sea
"The sea does not reward those who are too anxious, too greedy, or too impatient... Patience,...
7 months ago
"The sea does not reward those who are too anxious, too greedy, or too impatient... Patience, patience, patience, is what the sea teaches. Patience and faith. One should lie empty, open, choiceless as a beach."
The 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
We don’t often associate Charles Ives and Gustav Mahler, but both
The post Anchoring Shards of Memory appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
June trip to the New River Gorge
The New River Gorge had beautiful weather this weekend. The forecast for the weekend was, until...
over a year ago
The New River Gorge had beautiful weather this weekend. The forecast for the weekend was, until Friday, near-certain thunderstorms.
Typical of the New, the weather proved unpredictable, and we had glorious sun the entire trip.
I was eager to get out to the New, since my last...
Journal and Links by...
🔗 Tusks
No timeline. Just your posts. There are many great Mastodon apps. Tusks isn’t meant to replace but...
5 months ago
No timeline. Just your posts. There are many great Mastodon apps. Tusks isn’t meant to replace but to augment. It makes posting on Mastodon feel like publishing to your blog.
Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Mouldering Boots of Other Days'
The triolet,
like its cousins the rondeau, rondel, and rondelet, is an intricate French
verse form,...
10 months ago
The triolet,
like its cousins the rondeau, rondel, and rondelet, is an intricate French
verse form, usually eight lines long and written in iambic tetrameter. The
first line is repeated as the fourth and seventh lines. Among English-language
poets, Robert Bridges and Thomas Hardy...
Astral Codex Ten
Prison And Crime: Much More Than You Wanted To Know
...
a month ago
The Marginalian
Let the Last Thing Be Song
"When I die, I want to be sung across the threshold."
6 months ago
"When I die, I want to be sung across the threshold."
Anecdotal Evidence
'An Expression of Blatant Despotism'
Two female
acquaintances have recently endured divorce, and their lives are measurably
improved. The...
a year ago
Two female
acquaintances have recently endured divorce, and their lives are measurably
improved. The woman I know better, whose wedding and reception we attended, was
married to a thuggish prison guard of a husband. You wouldn’t know it, looking
at him. Handsome, well-dressed and...
Journal and Links by...
🔗 Bad Apple Artworks
Everything you see here is made by myself by hand.
Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
10 months ago
Everything you see here is made by myself by hand.
Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
Josh Thompson
Cancel Your Cable. Seriously.
No one likes to waste money, right?
There are two things that are even worse to...
over a year ago
No one likes to waste money, right?
There are two things that are even worse to waste.
Time
Energy
Money can be earned, and if more is needed, you can spend less or earn more. Energy is what you need to bring ideas to fruition. Unlimited time with no energy gets you nowhere, as...
Escaping Flatland
Relationships are coevolutionary loops
Looking for Alice, part 3
a year ago
Looking for Alice, part 3
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Man of My Kidney'
I met my
nephrologist for the first time when we shared an elevator to his office on the
fourth...
8 months ago
I met my
nephrologist for the first time when we shared an elevator to his office on the
fourth floor of the hospital. Between patients he was eating a banana, his breakfast, and carried a stack of folders in his other hand. On the front of his
white lab coat was his name, the...
Journal and Links by...
🔗 The cost of fueling my body
I’ve become a bit obsessed with how much it costs to fuel my body during the working hours.
— Dave...
5 months ago
I’ve become a bit obsessed with how much it costs to fuel my body during the working hours.
— Dave Rupert
Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
Astral Codex Ten
Can You Hate Everyone In Rome?
...
2 weeks ago
sbensu
Risk-takers decide faster
Unsurprising connection between risk and speed.
2 months ago
Unsurprising connection between risk and speed.
The Elysian
Am I a Democrat or a Republican?
The case for going label-less.
a month ago
The case for going label-less.
The Elysian
Writing Prompt: What movement does the world need right now?
And how do we build it?
a month ago
The Marginalian
The Art of the Sacred Pause and Despair as a Catalyst of Regeneration
Just as there are transitional times in the life of the world — dark periods of disorientation...
3 weeks ago
Just as there are transitional times in the life of the world — dark periods of disorientation between two world systems, periods in which humanity loses the ability to comprehend itself and collapses into chaos in order to rebuild itself around a new organizing principle — there...
The Marginalian
Time and the Soul: Philosopher Jacob Needleman on Our Search for Meaning
"The real significance of our problem with time... is a crisis of meaning... The root of our modern...
11 months ago
"The real significance of our problem with time... is a crisis of meaning... The root of our modern problem with time is neither technological, sociological, economic nor psychological. It is metaphysical. It is a question of the meaning of human life itself."
Anecdotal Evidence
'They Never Settle Down'
A reader has
happened on an unfamiliar word while reading Dimitri Obolensky’s The Byzantine...
a month ago
A reader has
happened on an unfamiliar word while reading Dimitri Obolensky’s The Byzantine Commonwealth: Eastern Europe,
500-1453 (1971), one he finds “especially amusing”:
“Cosmas [Indicopleustes]
tells us of monks who, ignoring their vows, live unchastely, engage in trade
and...
sbensu
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
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.
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
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...
Wuthering...
Ovid's Metamorhpses, Canto 6 - the sexual assaults - Because the lewdness of the Gods was so blazed...
Back to Ovid.
First, I have just begun Paul Barolsky’s Ovid and the
Metamorphoses of Modern Art...
11 months ago
Back to Ovid.
First, I have just begun Paul Barolsky’s Ovid and the
Metamorphoses of Modern Art from Boticelli to Picasso (2014), a work of art
history about Ovid written in the spirit of Ovid. The book is of the highest interest, and is a
long way from the catalogue of...
Robert Caro
Six Books, Six New York Times Book Review Covers
Since the 1974 publication of The Power Broker, every book by Robert Caro has appeared on the cover...
a year ago
Since the 1974 publication of The Power Broker, every book by Robert Caro has appeared on the cover of The New York Times Book Review.
Anecdotal Evidence
'Bluster (New Style) Invokes the Public Good'
I write
about money more often than ever before at my day job. I’m not naïve and understand
that...
a year ago
I write
about money more often than ever before at my day job. I’m not naïve and understand
that research can be costly and professors don’t work for the love of it, but money
has become the barometer of worth. Small grants can be ignored regardless of
the intrinsic worth of the...
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
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!
Josh Thompson
Workflow for developers (AKA My current tools)
I’m a huge fan of “a good workflow”. Makes you think better.
This is still under construction, but...
over a year ago
I’m a huge fan of “a good workflow”. Makes you think better.
This is still under construction, but I’m fleshing out all the tools, tidbits, and other things that serve me well every day as I build my skills as a developer. It will always be a work in progress, but will hopefully...
Anecdotal Evidence
'When We Have Excellent Books, They Sell'
“People tell
us all the time that civilization is finished, that the world is coming to an
end. But...
4 months ago
“People tell
us all the time that civilization is finished, that the world is coming to an
end. But then we look at our sales details and we smile.”
John Byron
Kuhner posts a rare dispatch of hope from the world of books, the beating heart
of what remains of our civilization. In...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Like a Wagon-Load of Monkeys'
“It is not
an accident that Gulliver has become
a child’s book; only a child could be so...
a year ago
“It is not
an accident that Gulliver has become
a child’s book; only a child could be so destructive, so irresponsible and so
cruel.”
And only a
parent could acknowledge the potential for raw nastiness in the heart of a child.
V.S. Pritchett had two children and few illusions...
ribbonfarm
Bangalore Meetup Report
Did a ribbonfarm meetup in Bangalore last night, the first ever in India. Thanks to Abhishek Agarwal...
7 months ago
Did a ribbonfarm meetup in Bangalore last night, the first ever in India. Thanks to Abhishek Agarwal for organizing. I think this is the first meetup I’ve done since the last Refactor Camp in 2019. It was kinda last minute, which is why I only posted on Substack rather than here...
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Noble Unconsciousness Is in Him'
A reader
asks if I have any heroes. “I’m guessing Samuel Johnson is one,” she writes,
and that’s...
5 months ago
A reader
asks if I have any heroes. “I’m guessing Samuel Johnson is one,” she writes,
and that’s correct. “I think people are too cynical to have heroes today,” she
continues. “They’re embarrassed to say someone is a hero. Nobody’s good enough.
Everybody wants to look for failure...
The American Scholar
My Cousin Manya
One survivor’s story
The post My Cousin Manya appeared first on The American Scholar.
2 months ago
One survivor’s story
The post My Cousin Manya appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
"Cheap and Commercial'
“He invented
cheap and commercial editions of the classics.”
Such an influential accomplishment,...
10 months ago
“He invented
cheap and commercial editions of the classics.”
Such an influential accomplishment, and I had never heard of the man. Indirectly,
generations after his time, Henry G. Bohn (1796-1884) served as one of my
tutors. His celebrator above is Theodore Dalrymple writing in...
Anecdotal Evidence
'To Feel With Melancholy Wonder'
I was
introduced to the poet, critic and editor Stanley Burnshaw (1906-2005) in the mid-Seventies
by...
6 months ago
I was
introduced to the poet, critic and editor Stanley Burnshaw (1906-2005) in the mid-Seventies
by Edward Dahlberg, a difficult man who furthered my education. Collected in Epitaphs for Our Time: The Letters of Edward
Dahlberg (George Braziller, 1967) are five letters to...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Still to Suruiue in My Immortall Song'
Many of the best
things in life, so long as they persist, are accompanied by a shadow of...
3 weeks ago
Many of the best
things in life, so long as they persist, are accompanied by a shadow of their
disappearance. If fortunate, we learn this lesson early. Their transitoriness
becomes part of their charm, whether a cat, a garden or a brother. We are
grateful and enjoy them...
Josh Thompson
October 2016 Goals
In the last year, I’ve fluctuated between writing
every day for 30 days and
not posting once in...
over a year ago
In the last year, I’ve fluctuated between writing
every day for 30 days and
not posting once in two months.
Frankly, neither of those is good for me.
I like writing because it clarifies my own thoughts. Sometimes it seems useful to others. I like to be useful (“utility” can...
The American Scholar
Indiana Absurd
Tiffany Tsao on translating a beguiling Indonesian short-story collection
The post Indiana Absurd...
8 months ago
Tiffany Tsao on translating a beguiling Indonesian short-story collection
The post Indiana Absurd appeared first on The American Scholar.
Journal and Links by...
✏️ 2023 in the Rearview
End-of-year recaps and reviews haven't been something I do. Generally, my mindset is about embracing...
10 months ago
End-of-year recaps and reviews haven't been something I do. Generally, my mindset is about embracing the present, with a gentle forward momentum towards what comes next. Years ago, I heard an Imam once speak about not having regrets. I took that to heart at the time and have...
Journal and Links by...
🔗 Chonk
A heavy display sans that likes to take up space.
— Jason Santa Maria
Visit original link → or View...
10 months ago
A heavy display sans that likes to take up space.
— Jason Santa Maria
Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Man of the World Among Ascetics'
T.S. Eliot died sixty
years today. It’s a date marked on my internal calendar. My junior-high...
2 weeks ago
T.S. Eliot died sixty
years today. It’s a date marked on my internal calendar. My junior-high school
had a bookstore housed in a closet of a room off the cafeteria. I must have
read about Eliot’s death in the newspaper and a few days later bought a paperback
copy of his Selected...
Ben Borgers
Giving Out Chick-fil-A on a Schedule App
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Dense, Democratic, Vulgar'
When high
summer arrives -- in Texas, long before this
Thursday’s equinox – I think of Saratoga...
7 months ago
When high
summer arrives -- in Texas, long before this
Thursday’s equinox – I think of Saratoga Springs, N.Y., where we bought our
first house and lived for seven years. The Saratoga Race Course was less than a
mile away. So were Yaddo and Broadway, the main drag downtown. We...
Anecdotal Evidence
'We Also Read for Ecstasy'
A reader one-third
of my age asks, “Why are books so important to you? What do they matter?” Her...
9 months ago
A reader one-third
of my age asks, “Why are books so important to you? What do they matter?” Her questions
aren’t cynical. She sounds like a reader driven by the sort of bookish hunger I
recognize. Her tastes are eclectic, not confined strictly to the American or...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Butterflies Have Nothing to Do With Butter'
Call me an
aesthete but I’ve always favored the definition of butterfly given by Dr. Johnson in his...
5 months ago
Call me an
aesthete but I’ve always favored the definition of butterfly given by Dr. Johnson in his Dictionary: “A beautiful insect, so named because it first appears
at the beginning of the season for butter.” Their seemingly gratuitous beauty, coupled
with not stinging like...
Anecdotal Evidence
'I Leave Him, Full of Envy'
Without resorting to clues, who do you think Eugenio Montale is talking about:
“He is a
strong,...
a year ago
Without resorting to clues, who do you think Eugenio Montale is talking about:
“He is a
strong, cordial, human man, whom one seems to have always known.”
One hint: it’s
a poet. Among major poets, the pickings are slim. Strong? Scratch Cavafy.
Cordial? There goes Frost. “Human...
Anecdotal Evidence
'At the Center of Our Mediterranean Civilization'
My youngest
son, age twenty-one, is spending much of his summer in Paris as part of a
university...
6 months ago
My youngest
son, age twenty-one, is spending much of his summer in Paris as part of a
university study program. He’ll be a senior in the fall. I first visited Paris (and
Europe) in 1973, age twenty, and stayed in a hotel on the Rue de Maubeuge, 10th
arrondissement. Headlines in...
The American Scholar
Three Poems
The post Three Poems appeared first on The American Scholar.
4 months ago
The post Three Poems appeared first on The American Scholar.
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
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.
Ben Borgers
The Magic of the Common Room
over a year ago
The Marginalian
How to Love the World More: George Saunders on the Courage of Uncertainty
"In a world full of people who seem to know everything, passionately, based on little (often...
a year ago
"In a world full of people who seem to know everything, passionately, based on little (often slanted) information, where certainty is often mistaken for power, what a relief it is to be in the company of someone confident enough to stay unsure (that is, perpetually curious)."
Wuthering...
Menander's Dyskolos - each man would hold a moderate share and be content
This week it’s Menander’s Dyskolos, or The Grouch, or The Misanthrope (316 BCE), which may or may...
over a year ago
This week it’s Menander’s Dyskolos, or The Grouch, or The Misanthrope (316 BCE), which may or may not have inspired the title of Molière’s great play, and nothing more than the title since the play was, like all of Menander’s plays, long lost. A fairly complete Dyskolos was the...
The Elysian
What my cooperative media ecosystem could look like
My vision for a federated nation of independent writer states.
a week ago
My vision for a federated nation of independent writer states.
ribbonfarm
Imagination vs. Creativity
I like to make a distinction between imagination and creativity that you may or may not agree with....
6 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...
The Marginalian
Love and Fear: A Stunning 17th-Century Poem About How to Live with the Transcendent Terror of Love
"Love bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back."
a year ago
"Love bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back."
Steven Scrawls
I want to love fiction
I want to love fiction
I want to love fiction.
I want to love both reading and writing fiction. I...
9 months ago
I want to love fiction
I want to love fiction.
I want to love both reading and writing fiction. I want to obsess
over the craft of fiction, to pore over characterization and structure,
to create stories that radiate color and humanity and hope.
I want fiction to be a tool for...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Love of Reading Is Caught, Not Taught'
I’ve used “home
library” to describe the accumulation of books in our house but it’s starting
to...
3 months ago
I’ve used “home
library” to describe the accumulation of books in our house but it’s starting
to sound a little pretentious. For now I’ll keep it at “books.” Nadya Williams
titles her essay “Home Libraries Will Save Civilization,” which, I understand, is
more reader-enticing than...
This Space
A review from abroad
In April 2016, a review by Alexander Carnera of my book This Space of Writing appeared in the...
over a year ago
In April 2016, a review by Alexander Carnera of my book This Space of Writing appeared in the Norwegian edition of Le Monde diplomatique as a supplement to the delightfully named Norwegian newspaper Klassekampen. Even though I can't read Danish, it was not only a highlight of the...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Arid Interrogation'
As boys, in
our imaginations we tested ourselves. Would we prove courageous in combat? Our
fathers...
5 months ago
As boys, in
our imaginations we tested ourselves. Would we prove courageous in combat? Our
fathers had, so we believed, during World War II. Could we withstand torture?
These virtues, touched with Hollywood melodrama, seemed like essential aspects of
maturity. We wanted to be...
Anecdotal Evidence
'For the Ordinary Educated Man'
I’ve read
most of Robert Conquest’s books – history, poetry, fiction – and here is the
sole passage...
6 months ago
I’ve read
most of Robert Conquest’s books – history, poetry, fiction – and here is the
sole passage I have almost committed to memory:
“Literature
exists for the ordinary educated man, and any literature that actively requires
enormous training can be at best of only peripheral...
Anecdotal Evidence
Arthur Krystal
My review of
two books by Arthur Krystal -- A Word or
Two Before I Go: Essays Then and Now and Some...
6 months ago
My review of
two books by Arthur Krystal -- A Word or
Two Before I Go: Essays Then and Now and Some Unfinished Chaos: The Lives of F. Scott Fitzgerald – is
published in Ron Slate’s On the Seawall.
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...
a year 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...
The Marginalian
The Challenge of Closeness: Alain de Botton on Love, Vulnerability, and the Paradox of Avoidance
The psychological machinery of our commonest coping mechanism for the terror of hurt, rejection, and...
a year ago
The psychological machinery of our commonest coping mechanism for the terror of hurt, rejection, and abandonment.
Josh Thompson
Krav Maga, or "Crush Balls, Gouge Eyes, and Break Bones"
In the last few weeks, I have been physically attacked dozens of times. Usually the attacker was...
over a year ago
In the last few weeks, I have been physically attacked dozens of times. Usually the attacker was just trying to choke me, but sometimes he was trying to throw me to the ground. After a few minutes of fighting, I would attack him. Then we’d both shake hands, say “thank you”, and...
The Marginalian
Lichens and the Meaning of Life
"We are lichens on a grand scale."
a year ago
"We are lichens on a grand scale."
Journal and Links by...
🔗 Making Icons Fresh
We discussed metaphysics like… how it felt to tap them, with and without shadow. We endlessly...
4 months ago
We discussed metaphysics like… how it felt to tap them, with and without shadow. We endlessly fiddled with shadows, geometric and visual sizes, gradients, colors, border radii, and lighting concepts. Our obsession to get them just right went far beyond reason.
An interesting...
The Elysian
We're writing a better future into existence
A media collective imagining the future of nation-states, capitalism, and humanity.
a week ago
A media collective imagining the future of nation-states, capitalism, and humanity.
Josh Thompson
2019 Annual Review
It’s that time of the year. I always really enjoy reading other people’s annual reviews, and I find...
over a year ago
It’s that time of the year. I always really enjoy reading other people’s annual reviews, and I find value in writing my own.
Previous reviews: 2018, 2017,
2016, 2015
My review breaks down into a few broad categories:
Travel
Relationships & Community
Leadville Trail...
Josh Thompson
How to never accidentally click Twitter's "Moments" again (and to block anything else on the...
Do you use Twitter’s “Moments” tool, or do you just find it really annoying?
Most people find it...
over a year ago
Do you use Twitter’s “Moments” tool, or do you just find it really annoying?
Most people find it annoying. Here’s how to get rid of Twitter’s “Moments” forever:
0. Be won over to using an ad blocker on the internet.
They don’t block just ads, but malicious scripts and...
The American Scholar
“water sign woman” by Lucille Clifton
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “water sign woman” by Lucille Clifton appeared first on The...
3 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “water sign woman” by Lucille Clifton appeared first on The American Scholar.
Journal and Links by...
🔗 Is Substack so Bad?
All those readers that Substack shows you as a positive thing on your dashboard are worth very...
2 weeks ago
All those readers that Substack shows you as a positive thing on your dashboard are worth very little. Upon leaving Substack authors have found that users acquired via the Substack recommendation engine have higher churn than organic growth and are less likely to open your...
Josh Thompson
20 Things 20-Year-Olds Don't Get
Jason Nazar recently wrote an article titled
20 Things 20-Year-Olds Don’t Get.
Please read it, but...
over a year ago
Jason Nazar recently wrote an article titled
20 Things 20-Year-Olds Don’t Get.
Please read it, but with a big grain of salt.
Nazar opens with the statement “I made a lot of mistakes along the way, and I see this generation making their own.”
This seems to be an aspirational...
Anecdotal Evidence
'An Echo of a Song a Stranger Sang'
I’m reminded
of my age only when someone holds a door open for me (That’s my job!) or performs some...
3 months ago
I’m reminded
of my age only when someone holds a door open for me (That’s my job!) or performs some other courtesy. I was returning to
my car from the university library, carrying a canvas tote bag of books, walking with the aid of my cane, as usual, when a
young man asked if he...
Escaping Flatland
Thinking about perceptiveness
links
5 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Gleams Like a Warm Homestead Light'
Here is
epigram 1.33 by Marcus Valerius Martialis (c. 38-102 A.D.), better known in
English as...
3 months ago
Here is
epigram 1.33 by Marcus Valerius Martialis (c. 38-102 A.D.), better known in
English as Martial:
“In private
she mourns not the late-lamented;
If someone’s
by, her tears leap forth on call.
Sorrow, my
dear, is not so easily rented.
They are
true tears that without witness...
Steven Scrawls
Not As Giants Love
Not As Giants Love
Short story, ~2000 words
A week ago, when I asked you if you still loved me, I...
6 months ago
Not As Giants Love
Short story, ~2000 words
A week ago, when I asked you if you still loved me, I thought the
most painful thing you could’ve said was no. I don’t know if you
remember, but when you said “Of course I still love you” and asked if
I still loved you, I started to...
Josh Thompson
62 lessons learned after one year of full-time travel
Kristi and I
put together a non-comprehensive list of things we’ve learned while traveling full-time...
over a year ago
Kristi and I
put together a non-comprehensive list of things we’ve learned while traveling full-time last year.
Samples:
Kristi
1. Josh and I are such a good team, and we balance each other.
We’ve figured out our strengths and how to contribute to our successes together. It’s...
Anecdotal Evidence
'On a Certain Street There Is a Certain Door'
Borges
titled a sonnet in The Gold of the Tigers,
his 1972 collection, "J.M.":
“On a
certain street...
7 months ago
Borges
titled a sonnet in The Gold of the Tigers,
his 1972 collection, "J.M.":
“On a
certain street there is a certain door
shut with
its bell and its exact address
and with a
flavor of lost Paradise,
which in the
early evening I can never
open to
enter. The day’s work at its...
Josh Thompson
2018 In Review & Thoughts on 2019
I find a lot of value in other people’s reviews of their years. It’s the time of year to be...
over a year ago
I find a lot of value in other people’s reviews of their years. It’s the time of year to be contemplative and reflective on the last 12 months, so here we are.
Note to reader: I’m posting this in May, 2019. I wrote it in late December, 2018, didn’t get around to finishing it up...
Josh Thompson
Tiny Habits take 2
Dr. BJ Fogg runs
Tiny Habits, a one-week course on building new habits.
Since most of what we do is...
over a year ago
Dr. BJ Fogg runs
Tiny Habits, a one-week course on building new habits.
Since most of what we do is governed by habits, it is reasonable to study how to build new ones, or replace bad ones.
I
have done his course before, and had success. I have been reading
Freewith Kristi and...
Journal and Links by...
🔗 Towards Standardizing Place
The difference between locations and places is an important nuance. Humans build out, demarcate, and...
5 months ago
The difference between locations and places is an important nuance. Humans build out, demarcate, and describe discrete venues and areas in space. The questions we ask only deal in coordinates because they have to; we’d rather ask questions about roads, paths, houses, stores,...
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...
8 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...
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
A popular historian’s philosophical musings
The post Insisting on the Positive appeared first on The American Scholar.
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
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...
Anecdotal Evidence
'He Signs His Name in Sparks'
By trade my
father was an ironworker for the City of Cleveland’s Municipal Light, always
called...
6 months ago
By trade my
father was an ironworker for the City of Cleveland’s Municipal Light, always
called “Muny Light." At home he was a welder, specializing in wrought-iron
railings. His aesthetic sense could be summarized in a single word: big. Or heavy. Everything he built was...
This Space
39 Books: 1987
From two books in the first year of reading and twenty-four in the second, I read eighty-six in the...
8 months ago
From two books in the first year of reading and twenty-four in the second, I read eighty-six in the third, including a lot more non-fiction. This was due to cycling to libraries in adjacent towns where the selection was wider. One of them had my first non-novel choice: this...
Journal and Links by...
✏️ The Phone As Disruptive
My phone doesn't follow me everywhere. It occupies the last place I left it. This happens when I...
4 months ago
My phone doesn't follow me everywhere. It occupies the last place I left it. This happens when I leave to go for a run, sometimes when I run errands, and often hours go by without it. This is occurring more and more.
It feels light. I feel light. The literal weight of the phone...
Anecdotal Evidence
'One Thing Always to Be Guarded Against'
“Poetry,
geography, moral essays, the divers [sic] subjects of philosophy, travels, natural
history,...
7 months ago
“Poetry,
geography, moral essays, the divers [sic] subjects of philosophy, travels, natural
history, books on sciences; and, in short, the whole range of book-knowledge is
before you; but there is one thing always to be guarded against; and that is,
not to admire and applaud...
This Space
39 Books: 2010
This series has sailed into the doldrum years. Reading has become less of a headlong existential...
8 months ago
This series has sailed into the doldrum years. Reading has become less of a headlong existential adventure than something one does, a pastime, a hobby, something you tell a quiz show presenter how you relax: "I like to read, Brad."
By this time I had given up reviewing...
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
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 American Scholar
Chris Combs
Surveillance state
The post Chris Combs appeared first on The American Scholar.
7 months ago
Surveillance state
The post Chris Combs appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'He Belonged Essentially to the Order of Wags'
A gift I
prize is seeing the humor in writers not taxonomically labeled “Humorists.” If
you tell me...
10 months ago
A gift I
prize is seeing the humor in writers not taxonomically labeled “Humorists.” If
you tell me a piece by S.J. Pearlman has made you laugh my response is, “Enjoy
yourself.” I don’t find Pearlman as funny as I did when I was a kid, though I’m
happy for you. But if you tell me...
Blog -...
Book Review - Zen in the Art of Archery
Zen in the Art of Archery is described by John Stevens in his book Zen Bow,
Zen Arrow as likely...
over a year ago
Zen in the Art of Archery is described by John Stevens in his book Zen Bow,
Zen Arrow as likely being the most popular book about Japanese culture and
martial arts ever. This is a bold statement I cannot contest, having read
only three other books about Zen: the...
This Space
39 Books: 2021
I lived in Brighton for 30 years. One of the many painful aspects of leaving in 2021 was losing the...
7 months ago
I lived in Brighton for 30 years. One of the many painful aspects of leaving in 2021 was losing the many second-hand bookshops, all within walking distance. Many have closed over the years, such as Sandpiper, a remaindered bookshop in Kensington Gardens. It had a backroom in...
The American Scholar
“Snake” by D. H. Lawrence
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “Snake” by D. H. Lawrence appeared first on The American...
4 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “Snake” by D. H. Lawrence appeared first on The American Scholar.
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
How shifting ideas about women’s bodies have affected their lives
The post Ideology as Anatomy appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
"A delicate mix of chess... and bear wrestling"
Over the last few weeks I’ve found myself needing to break down “why” of sport climbing (I’ll refer...
over a year ago
Over the last few weeks I’ve found myself needing to break down “why” of sport climbing (I’ll refer to sport as “lead” climbing from here on out. Sorry, trad climbers).
If someone is enjoying top roping, (or bouldering) why should they take on the work of learning to lead climb,...
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
Following Robert Frost into the depths
The post A Terrifying Delight appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
Playing Pranks
My wife played a brilliant prank on me today, as she does every year. Here’s a partial...
over a year ago
My wife played a brilliant prank on me today, as she does every year. Here’s a partial list:
Convincing me that I was about to eat a slice of carrot cake; it was a sponge covered with toothpaste. I bit into it.
Convincing me that she had, in anger and frustration, cut off almost...
Josh Thompson
Input metrics vs. Output metrics
It’s tempting to track results, when trying to accomplish something.
If you’re working on any...
over a year ago
It’s tempting to track results, when trying to accomplish something.
If you’re working on any project of sufficient size, the results will come
slowly, fitfully, and sometimes not at all.
So, don’t track results, track your efforts. (Yes, how very American of me.
I don’t believe...
The Marginalian
Honing Life on the Edges of the Possible: Geologist Turned Psychoanalyst Ruth Allen on Boundaries...
"At almost every conceivable level of our imagining, it is impossible to create a change without a...
4 months ago
"At almost every conceivable level of our imagining, it is impossible to create a change without a discontinuity, without a moment of not knowing who we are, or what we are going to become. Rupture precedes revolution."
Anecdotal Evidence
'Punners and Rhymers Must Have the Last Word'
“I cannot
but think that we live in a bad age, / O
tempora, O mores! as ’tis in the adage.”
The...
4 months ago
“I cannot
but think that we live in a bad age, / O
tempora, O mores! as ’tis in the adage.”
The Latin
tag is proverbial, deriving from Cicero’s Catiline orations: “O times, O manners!”
It’s the template for all lamentations. Jonathan Swift is repeating it in the
opening lines of...
Josh Thompson
Five Lessons Learned in Buenos Aires
Note: This is an unedited draft of a post from July 5, 2015. Almost exactly one year ago, written...
over a year ago
Note: This is an unedited draft of a post from July 5, 2015. Almost exactly one year ago, written after a week in Buenos Aires. Since writing this post, Kristi and I have continued on to more than a year of non-stop travel, though we’re settling down back in Golden, CO in about...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Stimulated to Vigour and Activity'
When John
Ruskin (b. 1819) traveled as a boy, his father packed in his luggage four small
volumes of...
9 months ago
When John
Ruskin (b. 1819) traveled as a boy, his father packed in his luggage four small
volumes of Dr. Johnson’s Rambler and Idler essays. In his peculiar memoir Praeterita (1885), Ruskin tells us “had
it not been for constant reading of the Bible, I might probably have...
This Space
39 Books: 2017
The list of books piles up, thirty-three now, and I'm reading fewer and fewer novels. Not through...
7 months ago
The list of books piles up, thirty-three now, and I'm reading fewer and fewer novels. Not through choice, but so little of what's new appeals. Instead, this year I read and reread books like Peter Handke's To Duration and Once Again for Thucydides, both of which escape helpful...
The Marginalian
Something in You Hungers for Clarity: Ta-Nehisi Coates on Writing
“Words have more power than any one can guess; it is by words that the world’s great fight, now in...
a month ago
“Words have more power than any one can guess; it is by words that the world’s great fight, now in these civilized times, is carried on,” Mary Shelley wrote in the middle of the Napoleonic Wars that laid the template for the colonialist power structure of the modern world, in an...
The Marginalian
Trauma, Growth, and How to Be Twice as Alive: Tove Jansson on the Worm and the Art of Self-Renewal
"Nothing is easy when you might come apart in the middle at any moment."
5 months ago
"Nothing is easy when you might come apart in the middle at any moment."
sbensu
APIs as ladders
APIs are hard to learn. If you think about the learning curve of your API, you can design one that...
over a year ago
APIs are hard to learn. If you think about the learning curve of your API, you can design one that works for beginners, novices, and experts.
Josh Thompson
Be a little better at personal email
The next bunch of posts will be me “clearing out the drawers” of notes I have scattered across my...
over a year ago
The next bunch of posts will be me “clearing out the drawers” of notes I have scattered across my phone, computer, and brain. There is no unifying theme to what will be written here.
Three recommendations to email better
TL;DR Email should usually be as short as possible. More of...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Role Is a Role Worth Perfecting'
“The tragic
Portuguese Jew of Amsterdam wrote that there is nothing the free man thinks of
less than...
12 months ago
“The tragic
Portuguese Jew of Amsterdam wrote that there is nothing the free man thinks of
less than he does of death. But that sort of free man is no more than a dead
man; he is free only from life’s wellspring, lacking in love, a slave to his
freedom. The thought that I must...
The American Scholar
“The Horses” by Edwin Muir
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “The Horses” by Edwin Muir appeared first on The American...
2 weeks ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “The Horses” by Edwin Muir appeared first on The American Scholar.
Journal and Links by...
🔗 Album Whale
While we appreciate Apple Music and Spotify suggesting new music for us, we miss the good ol’ days...
2 months ago
While we appreciate Apple Music and Spotify suggesting new music for us, we miss the good ol’ days when recommendations came from friends. In those days of yore, we had to think about which albums we’d recommend, and what those albums say about us. Each album came with a personal...
Josh Thompson
Whole Messages in Slack
I use Slack at work. And used it in Turing. And am in a few programming-related Slack groups. (Ahoy,...
over a year ago
I use Slack at work. And used it in Turing. And am in a few programming-related Slack groups. (Ahoy, #DenverDevs). My last job, I used Slack. The job before that, I got the whole company on Slack. I’ve used it for years.
Slack delivers value to me, and induces little anxiety, and...
This Space
Literature likes to hide
Last December I was fortunate enough to borrow a copy of The Unmediated Vision, Geoffrey Hartman's...
a year ago
Last December I was fortunate enough to borrow a copy of The Unmediated Vision, Geoffrey Hartman's first book, published in 1954. It is difficult to find a copy now but you can download a digital version of the book via the link. The opening chapter is a 50-page study of "Tintern...
Anecdotal Evidence
'By Studying Little Things'
“He advised
me to keep a journal of my life, fair and undisguised.”
So did my high-school
English...
6 months ago
“He advised
me to keep a journal of my life, fair and undisguised.”
So did my high-school
English teacher two centuries later. Boswell took Dr. Johnson’s advice and
later mined the resulting journal when assembling his Life of Johnson (1791). Much of Boswell’s London Journal...
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Master of Light But Stinging Irony'
I bought
Vikram Seth’s novel-in-verse The Golden
Gate when it was published in 1986. Around that...
6 months ago
I bought
Vikram Seth’s novel-in-verse The Golden
Gate when it was published in 1986. Around that time I was giving up the
practice of writing in books, which had always left me a little uncomfortable. Instead,
I switched to keeping notebooks. In The
Golden Gate I see that I...
Josh Thompson
Issues related to the city of Golden
While I was biking around recently, I saw notes about an upcoming neighborhood meeting about some...
over a year ago
While I was biking around recently, I saw notes about an upcoming neighborhood meeting about some rezoning, a big lot in downtown Golden.
I went to the meeting (Thursday, July 22) and learned a lot.
Here’s the lot in question:
I have ridden my bike past this property hundreds of...
The Elysian
Are Democrats too liberal? Or too conservative?
We're asking the wrong questions.
a month ago
We're asking the wrong questions.
Anecdotal Evidence
'He Learned to Love Books'
“Though most
of the teachers followed Erasmus in seeking to make learning palatable,
Montaigne...
4 months ago
“Though most
of the teachers followed Erasmus in seeking to make learning palatable,
Montaigne considers himself fortunate to have avoided getting 'nothing out of
school but a hatred of books, as do nearly all our noblemen,’” writes Donald
Frame in his 1965 biography of the...
Josh Thompson
Denver Botanic Gardens - What, How, Why
I recently got access to a delightful amenity, based on where I live. I’ve been sharing it with...
7 months ago
I recently got access to a delightful amenity, based on where I live. I’ve been sharing it with others as quickly as possible, because they too have access to it.
From here on out, when I reference “botanic gardens” or “the gardens”, I’m referencing the Denver Botanic Gardens,...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Almost Sure to Please Others'
I prefer the
prose to the verse of two great poets: John Keats and Marianne Moore. That’s
heresy, I...
11 months ago
I prefer the
prose to the verse of two great poets: John Keats and Marianne Moore. That’s
heresy, I know, and I’m not trying to be provocative. I can judge only by my frequency
of rereading and the resultant pleasure. Keats’ letters are endlessly amusing,...
Marco.org
Ten years of Overcast: A new foundation
Today, on the tenth anniversary of Overcast 1.0, I’m happy to launch a complete rewrite and redesign...
6 months ago
Today, on the tenth anniversary of Overcast 1.0, I’m happy to launch a complete rewrite and redesign of most of the iOS app, built to carry Overcast into the next decade — and hopefully beyond.
Like podcasts better than blog posts? Listen to ATP #596 for more!
What’s new
Much...
The American Scholar
The Given Child
To what lengths would a mother go to ensure her family’s survival in a remote Himalayan village?
The...
7 months ago
To what lengths would a mother go to ensure her family’s survival in a remote Himalayan village?
The post The Given Child appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
Winter on Two Pairs of Socks
We’re
minimalists, mostly. We try to not have a bunch of stuff. This naturally extends to the...
over a year ago
We’re
minimalists, mostly. We try to not have a bunch of stuff. This naturally extends to the wardrobe.
I’ll cover more about what we wear another time, but for now, I want to give you an idea. With the right socks, you can go an entire winter with just two pairs of socks. You...
The American Scholar
Island Royalty
A new biography of a Caribbean revolutionary
The post Island Royalty appeared first on The American...
a month ago
A new biography of a Caribbean revolutionary
The post Island Royalty appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
The Courage to Be Yourself: Virginia Woolf on How to Hear Your Soul
"Beyond the difficulty of communicating oneself, there is the supreme difficulty of being oneself."
a year ago
"Beyond the difficulty of communicating oneself, there is the supreme difficulty of being oneself."
The Marginalian
The First Scientist’s Guide to Truth: Alhazen on Critical Thinking
Born into a world with no clocks, telescopes, microscopes, or democracy, Ḥasan Ibn al-Haytham...
a year ago
Born into a world with no clocks, telescopes, microscopes, or democracy, Ḥasan Ibn al-Haytham (c. 965–c. 1040), known in the West as Alhazen, began his life studying religion, but grew quickly disenchanted by its unquestioned dogmas and the way it turned people on each other with...
Josh Thompson
The Power Broker, Chapter 30: Robert Moses and Mayor Vincent R. Impellitteri
Note from Josh: The following is an excerpt of chapter 34 of the Power Broker, called “Moses and the...
a year ago
Note from Josh: The following is an excerpt of chapter 34 of the Power Broker, called “Moses and the Mayors”. The chapter is about Moses’ relationship with all of the mayors of NYC that overlapped with Moses’ “rule” over NYC.
This excerpt covers just one of the mayors’ overlap...
Anecdotal Evidence
'And Then Became a Name Like Others Slain'
In a six-word
paragraph in “Preliminary,” his brief introduction to Undertones of War, Edmund...
2 months ago
In a six-word
paragraph in “Preliminary,” his brief introduction to Undertones of War, Edmund Blunden articulates the impulse that
would drive his poetry for the next half-century: “I must go over it again.” Psychically,
there was no Armistice. Whether to purge its memory or...
Josh Thompson
Illdefined Success is Unattainable
We all probably have a few projects floating around our head, but they seem daunting.
If it doesn’t...
over a year ago
We all probably have a few projects floating around our head, but they seem daunting.
If it doesn’t seem daunting, it’s not much of a project, and you should either ramp it up until it’s daunting, or discard it.
So - we have a daunting project. Now what? If you’re like me, you’ll...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Soothe the Soul and Nurture the Imagination'
“Among the
lessons we’ve learned during these past few difficult years of pandemic,
climate crisis...
a year ago
“Among the
lessons we’ve learned during these past few difficult years of pandemic,
climate crisis and political discord is that beauty and nature matter more than
ever, and that if our homes are to be sanctuaries from an often harsh outside
world, then we should fill them with...
Josh Thompson
How To Procfile: Run Just a Single Process
Lets say you’ve got something like this in your Procfile:
web: PORT=3000...
over a year ago
Lets say you’ve got something like this in your Procfile:
web: PORT=3000 RAILS_ENV=development bundle exec puma -C ./config/puma_development.rb -e development
devlog: tail -f ./log/development.log
mailcatcher: ruby -rbundler/setup -e...
ribbonfarm
History is More Like Science Fiction Than Fantasy
I’ve been slow-reading Bettany Hughes’ Istanbul: A Tale of Three Cities for months now, ever since I...
9 months ago
I’ve been slow-reading Bettany Hughes’ Istanbul: A Tale of Three Cities for months now, ever since I visited the city (on Kindle, so I didn’t realize when I started that it’s 600 pages plus another 250 odd notes). It’s dense and absorbing and I’ll probably do a reflections post...
Josh Thompson
Things You Can't Do from Behind a Computer, pt. 1
Meet people.
Over the last nine or ten months, I can clearly remember a handful of conversations I...
over a year ago
Meet people.
Over the last nine or ten months, I can clearly remember a handful of conversations I had. I initiated each conversation with someone that I wanted to learn from. Most I had some prior relationship with (I.E. I had met them, or I knew someone who knew them). This was...
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
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...
Escaping Flatland
Things I learned working with artists
As I said in “Lessons I learned working at an art gallery,” I had several observations that I...
a month ago
As I said in “Lessons I learned working at an art gallery,” I had several observations that I couldn’t fit into that post—so lets continue today.
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