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...
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.
Wuthering...
Books I read in December 2023 - No one’s worse than you, she says
Lots of short fantasy fiction this month, perhaps everything
in the first section except the May...
a year ago
Lots of short fantasy fiction this month, perhaps everything
in the first section except the May Sarton novel and Eugene O’Neill play,
balanced by a complementary pair of Holocaust memoirs.
NOVELS, STORIES & A PLAY
Ocean of Story, Vol. 1 (11th cent.), Somadeva, tr. C. H....
Wuthering...
it’s right about here that there would normally be a gap - Peter Adamson's Classical Philosophy, the...
Peter Adamson is an English philosopher with a long-running podcast, History of Philosophy without...
a year ago
Peter Adamson is an English philosopher with a long-running podcast, History of Philosophy without Any Gaps. What can that mean, without any gaps?
We’ve finished Aristotle, and it’s right about here that
there would normally be a gap. In an
undergraduate philosophy course you...
Journal and Links by...
✏️ Threaded
I penned a Thot(?!), or rather, a post on Threads, the Twitter clone that Meta released some time...
a year ago
I penned a Thot(?!), or rather, a post on Threads, the Twitter clone that Meta released some time ago. I don’t find it particularly useful, as my Twitter usage had declined long ago.
Anyway, the post (and accompanying photo):
“When I contemplate the idea of relocating, it’s 70°...
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...
Astral Codex Ten
Prison And Crime: Much More Than You Wanted To Know
...
a month ago
The American Scholar
“Guests” by Celia Thaxter
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “Guests” by Celia Thaxter appeared first on The American...
a month ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “Guests” by Celia Thaxter appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
RailsConf Presentation: 'Junior' Developers are a Solution to Many of your Problems
Did this talk resonate and you want to implement some of the ideas at your company? I might be able...
over a year ago
Did this talk resonate and you want to implement some of the ideas at your company? I might be able to help. Shoot me an email at joshthompson@hey.com or book some time to talk at https://calendly.com/joshthompson/coffee.
This talk is available on railsconf.org, here:...
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...
Josh Thompson
Habits, Milestones, and Climbing
Since April 9th, I have spent exactly 70 minutes training for climbing. Prior to April 27th, I have...
over a year ago
Since April 9th, I have spent exactly 70 minutes training for climbing. Prior to April 27th, I have climbed exactly seven times in the last five months.
I just spent two days at the New River Gorge and exceeded my expectations, considering my almost half-year hiatus from regular...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Half the Pleasure of Reading New Books'
“[M]ost
American boys are hurried into active life so early, that even the few who have
the...
a year ago
“[M]ost
American boys are hurried into active life so early, that even the few who have
the possibility of developing literary taste have scarcely time to do so. Unless
they read the great English classics in high school and in college, they never
find time to read them.”
In...
Anecdotal Evidence
'He Writes On, Day After Day'
Clipped from
the New York Times, folded and tucked
into Dying: An Introduction (1968) was
the March...
a year ago
Clipped from
the New York Times, folded and tucked
into Dying: An Introduction (1968) was
the March 11, 1976 obituary for L.E. Sissman. The poet had died the previous day,
age forty-eight. On the same page is the obituary for the Italian politician
Attilio Piccioni, dead the same...
Josh Thompson
Pry-ing into a Stack Trace
I was recently working on a feature, committed what I thought was clean code, and started getting...
over a year ago
I was recently working on a feature, committed what I thought was clean code, and started getting errors. I git stashed, and re-ran my tests, and still got errors. Here’s the full stacktrace:
> b ruby -Itest test/models/model_name_redacted_test.rb -n=/errors/
# Running tests...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Vacuum with American Light'
Edward Hopper
is often a favorite painter of literary-minded people because, I suspect, so
many of...
8 months ago
Edward Hopper
is often a favorite painter of literary-minded people because, I suspect, so
many of his works suggest in-media-res excerpts from larger narratives. Looking
as his paintings is like opening a novel to a memorable scene,
without access to backstory or subsequent...
The Marginalian
Nick Cave on the Two Pillars of a Meaningful Life
"Cultivating a questioning mind, of which conversation is the chief instrument, enriches our...
a year ago
"Cultivating a questioning mind, of which conversation is the chief instrument, enriches our relationship with the world."
Journal and Links by...
🔗 Why A.I. Isn’t Going to Make Art
The task that generative A.I. has been most successful at is lowering our expectations, both of the...
4 months ago
The task that generative A.I. has been most successful at is lowering our expectations, both of the things we read and of ourselves when we write anything for others to read. It is a fundamentally dehumanizing technology because it treats us as less than what we are: creators and...
Astral Codex Ten
How To Stop Worrying And Learn To Love Lynn's National IQ Estimates
...
4 days ago
The American Scholar
Esteban Cabeza de Baca
History witnessed, from the picket lines
The post Esteban Cabeza de Baca appeared first on The...
8 months ago
History witnessed, from the picket lines
The post Esteban Cabeza de Baca appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
Between Mathematics and the Miraculous: The Stunning Pendulum Drawings of Swiss Healer and Artist...
Emma Kunz (May 23, 1892–January 16, 1963) was forty-six and the world was aflame with war when she...
7 months ago
Emma Kunz (May 23, 1892–January 16, 1963) was forty-six and the world was aflame with war when she became an artist. She had worked at a knitting factory and as a housekeeper. She had written poetry, publishing a collection titled Life in the interlude between the two World Wars....
The Marginalian
Everything Is Already There: Javier Marías on the Courage to Heed Your Intuitions
"This has nothing to do with premonitions, there is nothing supernatural or mysterious about it,...
a year ago
"This has nothing to do with premonitions, there is nothing supernatural or mysterious about it, what’s mysterious is that we pay no heed to it."
The American Scholar
Katie Heller Saltoun
Tenderness and grit
The post Katie Heller Saltoun appeared first on The American Scholar.
a month ago
Tenderness and grit
The post Katie Heller Saltoun appeared first on The American Scholar.
Wuthering...
The Story of the Stone, volume 2 - all agreed that this was the definitive poem on the subject of...
I have continued on with The Story of the Stone, the
2,500 page 18th century Chinese novel by, or...
2 months ago
I have continued on with The Story of the Stone, the
2,500 page 18th century Chinese novel by, or mostly by, Cao Xueqin. Here I will write about the second volume of
the David Hawkes translation, The Crab-flower Club. Last time, after reading the first fifth of
the novel, I...
Anecdotal Evidence
'My Soul, Beyond Distant Death"
More than
any secular writer I can think of, Vladimir Nabokov hints at the existence of
an...
3 months ago
More than
any secular writer I can think of, Vladimir Nabokov hints at the existence of
an afterlife. He never preaches and makes no theological assertions. His frequent
use of the word “paradise” is often ambiguous, blurring its mundane,
metaphorical meaning – an earthly place...
Anecdotal Evidence
''In Prose, Plain as Pike, Pillory'
Austin
Clarke (1896-1974) was an Irish poet of the generation after Yeats, the slightly...
3 months ago
Austin
Clarke (1896-1974) was an Irish poet of the generation after Yeats, the slightly older
contemporary of Louis MacNeice and Patrick Kavanagh. In 1968 he published A Sermon on Swift and Other Poems, and
the 117-line title poem appeared in The
Massachusetts Review in 1970....
Josh Thompson
Habits Take Preparation
Kristi and I moved to Golden, Colorado. We’ve been in our new apartment for five days. I’m trying to...
over a year ago
Kristi and I moved to Golden, Colorado. We’ve been in our new apartment for five days. I’m trying to quickly settle into a routine that makes sense for both of us.
For example - I work for a company in Boston. While I could keep local working hours (Mountain Time) I prefer to...
Josh Thompson
Array divergence in Ruby
Lets say you have a list of valid items, and you want to run another array against it, and pull out...
over a year ago
Lets say you have a list of valid items, and you want to run another array against it, and pull out the items that don’t match.
You don’t want to iterate through all of the items in one array, calling other_array.include?(item). (That’s computationally expensive)
valid_people =...
Anecdotal Evidence
'How Much Can Be Accomplished'
Cleveland is
traditionally divided between East Side and West Side. I’m a West-Sider, though
I...
5 months ago
Cleveland is
traditionally divided between East Side and West Side. I’m a West-Sider, though
I haven’t lived in the city since 1977. The designation suggests working-class
neighborhoods, many of them Slavic. Ethnicity was important, and not usually in
the sense of bigotry. I was...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Whole Time Reading, Reading, Reading'
“I’m not
doing any work, just reading or pacing up and down. However, I don’t really
mind having the...
3 weeks ago
“I’m not
doing any work, just reading or pacing up and down. However, I don’t really
mind having the time to read. It’s more enjoyable than writing. I feel that if
I could live another forty years and spend the whole time reading, reading,
reading, and learning how to write with...
Ben Borgers
Donating forks to the dining hall
7 months ago
The Elysian
My TEDx talk about the future of fiction
And publishing.
7 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Will Your Birds Be Always Wingless Birds'
A
questionnaire sent to Louis MacNeice in 1934 – that “low dishonest decade” was
big on...
8 months ago
A
questionnaire sent to Louis MacNeice in 1934 – that “low dishonest decade” was
big on questionnaires to writers – asked, “Do you take your stand with any political
or politico-economic party or creed?” The Irishman replied: “No. In weaker
moments I wish I could.” Never a...
Ben Borgers
Automatic Dark Mode Colors Don’t Work
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Friends They May Become To-morrow'
“New books
can have few associations. They may reach us on the best deckle-edged Whatman
paper, in...
a month ago
“New books
can have few associations. They may reach us on the best deckle-edged Whatman
paper, in the newest types of famous presses, with backs of embossed vellum,
with tasteful tasselled strings,--and yet be no more to us than the constrained
and uneasy acquaintances of...
The Marginalian
Make Yourself a Seer: The Teenage Arthur Rimbaud on How to Be a Poet and a Prophet of Possibility
"The day of a single universal language will dawn!... This language will be of the soul, for the...
a year ago
"The day of a single universal language will dawn!... This language will be of the soul, for the soul, encompassing everything, scents, sounds, colors, one thought mounting another."
The Elysian
Elysian gatherings around the world
Picnic with me in New Zealand, Australia, Japan, and San Francisco.
a month ago
Picnic with me in New Zealand, Australia, Japan, and San Francisco.
Wuthering...
Books I Read in September 2023
Despite all evidence I hope to wrap up the Greek philosophy project within the next couple of...
a year ago
Despite all evidence I hope to wrap up the Greek philosophy project within the next couple of weeks. A medical deadline approaches. That will help.
As usual, I read good books.
PHILOSOPHY & SELF-HELP
Letters from a Stoic (c. 60), Seneca - good timing for some...
The Marginalian
On Wanting to Change: Adam Phillips on Our Capacity for Transformation
"There is no description of a life without an account of the changes that are possible within it."
7 months ago
"There is no description of a life without an account of the changes that are possible within it."
Journal and Links by...
🔗 Travel Is No Cure for the Mind
Who we are inside a venue matters far more than the venue itself. Instead of having the wanderlust...
2 weeks ago
Who we are inside a venue matters far more than the venue itself. Instead of having the wanderlust of travel guide our search for meaning, we have to look within and embrace the only thing that is present now. The only thing that actually exists today.
— Lawrence Yeo
I do love...
The American Scholar
Look Out!
Why did it take so long to protect
The post Look Out! appeared first on The American Scholar.
4 months ago
Why did it take so long to protect
The post Look Out! appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Soil Must Have Been Prepared'
Tom Disch
took the title of his first collection of essays and reviews from “The Castle of...
a year ago
Tom Disch
took the title of his first collection of essays and reviews from “The Castle of Indolence” (1748), eighty-one Spenserian stanzas by the Scottish poet James
Thomson. The poem is a sort of mock-epical hymn to the Protestant work ethic, a virtue ably
represented by...
Anecdotal Evidence
'One I Loved Taught Here, Provoking Strife'
When Yvor
Winters retired from the Stanford English Department in 1966 after almost forty
years, the...
3 months ago
When Yvor
Winters retired from the Stanford English Department in 1966 after almost forty
years, the university published a commemorative volume, Laurel, Archaic, Rude: A Collection of Poems. It gathers twenty-six
poems written by former students, including Edgar Bowers,...
Wuthering...
The Making of Americans as conceptual art - I have already made several diagrams
Sometime I will be able to make a diagram. I have already made several diagrams. I will sometime...
7 months ago
Sometime I will be able to make a diagram. I have already made several diagrams. I will sometime make a complete diagram and that will be a very long book... (580)
I am going to write about The Making of Americans as
conceptual art, art where how it is made is a central part...
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...
Josh Thompson
2023 Annual Review
It’s that time of the year. I often enjoy reading other people’s annual reviews, and I’ve always...
11 months ago
It’s that time of the year. I often enjoy reading other people’s annual reviews, and I’ve always found value in writing my own, even as there is a few years I’ve missed, since I started the habit way back in 2015.
for a long time, I did annual reviews. 2020 was late, and then for...
Josh Thompson
Blessed to be Sick
Yesterday, I wrote about
reducing work hours to less than 40 hours a week.
Yesterday, I was...
over a year ago
Yesterday, I wrote about
reducing work hours to less than 40 hours a week.
Yesterday, I was struggling to be engaged in my work. I was easily distracted, and didn’t feel very efficient during the day. Once I identified the tasks I needed to complete before I could walk away from...
Josh Thompson
Fry Your Pizza
Here’s a problem many of us first-worlders have: cold pizza.
There are two options. Microwave it, or...
over a year ago
Here’s a problem many of us first-worlders have: cold pizza.
There are two options. Microwave it, or throw it in the toaster oven or regular oven. A microwave makes it soggy, and a regular oven takes forever to heat it up.
(If you’re willing to eat it cold, may god have mercy on...
Escaping Flatland
In praise of insular groups
Last spring, as we were exploring the coastline of our island, Johanna, the kids, and I crossed a...
8 months ago
Last spring, as we were exploring the coastline of our island, Johanna, the kids, and I crossed a meadow where two men were artificially inseminating a longhaired cow. We stopped to observe the work. When it was done, one of the men came over to where we stood by the electric...
The Marginalian
Delight Between Science and Magic: Euler’s Disk and the Sound of the Singularity
One afternoon in the late 1980s, sitting in the company cafeteria, aerospace engineer Joseph Bendik...
a month ago
One afternoon in the late 1980s, sitting in the company cafeteria, aerospace engineer Joseph Bendik found himself so bored that he took a coin out of his pocket and began spinning it atop the table. In a testament to the eternal paradox of boredom and wonder as two sides of the...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Every Corner Is Fraught with Memory'
A.J.
Liebling’s valediction – to New York City, The
New Yorker and the grand celebration that was...
a year ago
A.J.
Liebling’s valediction – to New York City, The
New Yorker and the grand celebration that was his life as a writer – was published
two weeks after his death, in the January 11, 1964 issue of the magazine that had printed
more than five-hundred of his pieces since he joined...
This Space
39 Books: 2001
In 1995 I found this hardback edition in the British History section of a Brighton bookshop six...
8 months ago
In 1995 I found this hardback edition in the British History section of a Brighton bookshop six years after the French original was cited by Gabriel Josipovici as one of his books of the year: "a beautifully controlled examination of the effect on [Roubaud] of his wife's death...
The Marginalian
The Remedy for Creative Block and Existential Stuckness
"Faithfulness to the moment and to the present circumstance entails continuous surrender... Only...
a year ago
"Faithfulness to the moment and to the present circumstance entails continuous surrender... Only unconditional surrender leads to real emptiness, and from that place of emptiness I can be prolific and free."
The Marginalian
O Sweet Spontaneous: E.E. Cummings’s Love-Poem to Earth and the Glory of Spring
The ultimate anthem of resistance to the assaults on life.
a year ago
The ultimate anthem of resistance to the assaults on life.
The Marginalian
Kafka on Friendship and the Art of Reconnection
Among the paradoxes of friendship is this: All friendships of depth and durability are based on a...
2 months ago
Among the paradoxes of friendship is this: All friendships of depth and durability are based on a profound knowledge of each other, of the soul beneath the costume of personality — that lovely Celtic notion of anam cara. We bring this knowledge, this mutual understanding, to...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Hard to Find a Name in Human Speech'
After a stop
in Hong Kong during his four-thousand-mile journey back to Moscow from Sakhalin
Island,...
a year ago
After a stop
in Hong Kong during his four-thousand-mile journey back to Moscow from Sakhalin
Island, Chekhov’s ship encountered rough weather and high seas. Before reaching
Singapore, two men had died and their bodies were thrown overboard:
“When you
see a dead man wrapped in...
This Space
39 Books: 1989
Nowadays I would be put off reading a book labelled controversial and exciting gossipy attention on...
8 months ago
Nowadays I would be put off reading a book labelled controversial and exciting gossipy attention on TV and in newspapers, but in 1989 I read Alexander Stuart's The War Zone that did exactly that. It was later made into a controversial film.
The only thing I remember of the...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Colder Here Than Organized Charity'
Hugh Kenner’s
first extant letter to Guy Davenport is dated March 7, 1958. Its manner is at
once...
10 months ago
Hugh Kenner’s
first extant letter to Guy Davenport is dated March 7, 1958. Its manner is at
once business-like and chatty: “I hope subsequent activities haven’t yet
sufficed to obliterate our Boston dinner last fall from your memory.” The men had
first met in 1953 when each...
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...
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."
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...
The American Scholar
“A Prayer for My Daughter” by W. B. Yeats
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “A Prayer for My Daughter” by W. B. Yeats appeared first on...
2 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “A Prayer for My Daughter” by W. B. Yeats appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'He’s a Person of Joy, a Fanatic'
Unlike my
sons, I can’t listen to music while working – that is, writing. When the music
is good,...
a year ago
Unlike my
sons, I can’t listen to music while working – that is, writing. When the music
is good, that’s what I’m doing, listening. Otherwise, I don’t need a soundtrack
for my life. I would find that annoyingly attention-splitting. What I do
instead is periodically take a break...
Ben Borgers
Wednesday, January 19, 2022
over a year ago
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.
The Marginalian
May Sarton on Grieving a Pet
"It is absolutely inward and private, the relation between oneself and an animal."
a year ago
"It is absolutely inward and private, the relation between oneself and an animal."
Anecdotal Evidence
'Not Simply Bad Prose'
“It is not simply
bad prose—a tank is not a badly constructed automobile.”
Gilbert
Highet (1906-78)...
11 months ago
“It is not simply
bad prose—a tank is not a badly constructed automobile.”
Gilbert
Highet (1906-78) was a Scottish-born, Oxford-educated American classicist who
taught at Columbia for thirty-three years and managed to become a bona fide pop-culture
“celebrity.” In 1952 he was...
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...
sbensu
Interfaces for logical migrations
This post explains how you can use interfaces to make data model and database migrations easier.
a year ago
This post explains how you can use interfaces to make data model and database migrations easier.
The Marginalian
Kinship in the Light of Conscience: Peter Kropotkin on the Crucial Difference Between Love,...
“Every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you,” Whitman wrote in what may be the most elemental...
4 months ago
“Every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you,” Whitman wrote in what may be the most elemental definition of solidarity — this tender recognition of our interdependence and fundamental kinship, deeper than sympathy, wider than love. Half a century after Whitman’s atomic...
The Marginalian
But We Had Music: Nick Cave Reads an Animated Poem about Black Holes, Eternity, and How to Bear Our...
How, knowing that even the universe is dying, do we bear our lives? Most readily, through...
9 months ago
How, knowing that even the universe is dying, do we bear our lives? Most readily, through friendship, through connection, through co-creating the world we want to live in for the brief time we have together on this lonely, perfect planet. The seventh annual Universe in Verse — a...
The Marginalian
Turning to Stone: A Geologist’s Love Letter to the Wisdom of Rocks
Among the great salvations of my childhood were the rocks and minerals lining the bookshelves of our...
5 months ago
Among the great salvations of my childhood were the rocks and minerals lining the bookshelves of our next door neighbor — a geologist working for the Bulgarian Ministry of Environment and Water. I spent long hours casting amethyst refractions on the ceiling, carving words into...
Escaping Flatland
A summary of what I wrote in 2024
A man sets out to draw the world.
a month ago
A man sets out to draw the world.
Anecdotal Evidence
'Indubitably I Should Miss Them'
Every year,
in the weeks preceding Christmas, I face the question I’ve been asked since I
was a kid,...
a year ago
Every year,
in the weeks preceding Christmas, I face the question I’ve been asked since I
was a kid, and my answer always leaves me feeling sheepish. “What do you want
for Christmas?” “Well, ah . . .” “Yeah, we know: books.” Piteously, I’ll add, “Socks.
I could use some socks,”...
The Marginalian
Starlings and the Magic of Murmurations: A Stunning Watercolor Celebration of One of Earth’s Living...
Biking back to my rented cottage from CERN one autumn evening, having descended into the underworld...
a year ago
Biking back to my rented cottage from CERN one autumn evening, having descended into the underworld of matter for a visit to the world’s largest high-energy particle collider, a sight stopped me up short on the shore of Lake Geneva: In the orange sky over the orange water, a...
Josh Thompson
Cultivate Curiosity, or 'Reasons to be More Childlike'
I’ve had an idea rolling around my head.
I suspect that “being curious” will correlate well with...
over a year ago
I’ve had an idea rolling around my head.
I suspect that “being curious” will correlate well with positive outcomes in my life, on pretty much any time horizon, be it days, weeks, or decades. Curiosity feels like a tolerable antidote to boredom, though boredom in and of itself is...
Steven Scrawls
Word Rot
Word Rot
Unless you are extraordinarily unfortunate, every problem you ever
face will have been...
a year ago
Word Rot
Unless you are extraordinarily unfortunate, every problem you ever
face will have been faced in some form by someone who came before you.
That person may have already shared the story of that challenge, and
that story might have melded with other tales to form collective...
Anecdotal Evidence
"The Pensive Citadel"
My review of
The Pensive Citadel by Victor
Brombert is published in the December issue of The New...
a year ago
My review of
The Pensive Citadel by Victor
Brombert is published in the December issue of The New Criterion.
The Marginalian
A Whole of Parts: Philosopher R.L. Nettleship on Love, Death, and the Paradox of Personality
"Death is self-surrender... Love is the consciousness of survival in the act of self-surrender."
3 weeks ago
"Death is self-surrender... Love is the consciousness of survival in the act of self-surrender."
ribbonfarm
Decision Brownouts
In thinking about decision-making under stress, most people focus on fight-or-flight responses. Both...
8 months ago
In thinking about decision-making under stress, most people focus on fight-or-flight responses. Both fighting and fleeing are obvious courses of action that inherit a clear sense of direction from the characteristics of the threat itself, and are energized by the automatic...
Wuthering...
The Story of the Stone, fairy tale and realism - Not so wonderful, really, is it?
I left the characters of The Story of the Stone as
they were buying drapes and tablecloths for a...
3 months ago
I left the characters of The Story of the Stone as
they were buying drapes and tablecloths for a party. I will rejoin the party planning momentarily.
The Story of the Stone is a massive domestic novel
about an extended family. The main plot
is the teenage love triangle, but...
The American Scholar
Bards Behind Bars
Reading Sartre aloud inside a maximum-security prison
The post Bards Behind Bars appeared first on...
7 months ago
Reading Sartre aloud inside a maximum-security prison
The post Bards Behind Bars appeared first on The American Scholar.
This Space
Atheism of the novel
"Here it comes: the information dumping..."
From section 237, page 185 of Ellis Sharp's latest...
a year ago
"Here it comes: the information dumping..."
From section 237, page 185 of Ellis Sharp's latest novel, the part that is commentary on his attempt to destroy a commercially successful novel emulating "the style that The Guardian liked and promoted":
The narrator is a young...
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
Facts about the Moon: Dorianne Laux’s Stunning Poem about Bearing Our Human Losses When Even the...
“Hearing the rising tide,” Rachel Carson wrote in her poetic meditation on the ocean and the meaning...
9 months ago
“Hearing the rising tide,” Rachel Carson wrote in her poetic meditation on the ocean and the meaning of life, “there are echoes of past and future: of the flow of time, obliterating yet containing all that has gone before… of the stream of life, flowing as inexorably as any ocean...
Josh Thompson
A Retrospective on Seven Months at Turing
Collection of thoughts on Turing
It’s the last week of Turing. I went through the backend software...
over a year ago
Collection of thoughts on Turing
It’s the last week of Turing. I went through the backend software engineering program, and it’s been a journey.
In no particular order, I’m throwing down thoughts in three general categories:
What went well
What didn’t go well
What I might have...
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...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Essence of Good Talk'
A longtime reader
of this blog stopped by the house on Saturday, we talked and the...
a year ago
A longtime reader
of this blog stopped by the house on Saturday, we talked and the afternoon
evaporated. Neither of us brought a script. “Improvisation is the essence of
good talk,” writes Max Beerbohm in “Lytton Strachey” (1943). “Heaven defend us
from the talker who doles out...
Anecdotal Evidence
'There Will Be No One Left Who Knew Their Cost'
For the boys
in the neighborhood, our primary occupation when chores were finished and the
grownups...
9 months ago
For the boys
in the neighborhood, our primary occupation when chores were finished and the
grownups were leaving us alone was “playing Army.” All of us had toy guns or at
least sticks. Given our ages, when dividing into good guys and bad guys, the
latter were always Germans and...
Anecdotal Evidence
'An Ordinary Life Where Things Make Sense'
An old
friend back in upstate New York and I were texting. We worked years ago as
reporters for the...
a year ago
An old
friend back in upstate New York and I were texting. We worked years ago as
reporters for the same newspaper. She was married then to her second husband,
who had multiple sclerosis and died slowly and horribly. When she had to go out of town, I would stay with him...
Journal and Links by...
✏️ Where You Give Your Energy
I had just turned 40. I was feeling increasingly stagnant at VSCO and recognized the need for a...
10 months ago
I had just turned 40. I was feeling increasingly stagnant at VSCO and recognized the need for a change. I began discussions with leadership about my desire for greater involvement. It was straight-up politicking, with my objective being a title change to formally lead the product...
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...
Journal and Links by...
🔗 Rick Rubin on Listening
If it’s music you’re listening to, consider closing your eyes. You may find yourself getting lost in...
6 months ago
If it’s music you’re listening to, consider closing your eyes. You may find yourself getting lost in the experience. When the piece ends, you might be surprised by where you find yourself. You’ve been transported to another place. The place where the music lives.
— Rick...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Diana Steads Him Nothing, He Must Stay'
For earned emotional
intensity, especially coming from a man seldom associated with emotion, you...
a year ago
For earned emotional
intensity, especially coming from a man seldom associated with emotion, you can
hardly outdo A.E. Housman, as recounted by one of his students in Richard
Perceval Graves’ A. E. Housman: The
Scholar-Poet (1979):
“One morning
in May, 1914, when the trees in...
Journal and Links by...
🔗 I’m a commis in a Chinese restaurant kitchen, this is what I do
I’m a 23-year-old Chinese Singaporean woman. After graduating culinary school in 2016, I started as...
4 months ago
I’m a 23-year-old Chinese Singaporean woman. After graduating culinary school in 2016, I started as a commis (also known as 马王, or minion) in a Chinese restaurant kitchen along Orchard road. This is a description of my everyday work, in English, written for friends and family who...
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.”...
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...
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...
Ben Borgers
My Guilt for Useless Things
over a year ago
Ben Borgers
Everyone’s Asking for Tips Now
over a year ago
The American Scholar
Stereotypes and the City
What to make of HBO’s attempts to diversify an iconic show?
The post Stereotypes and the City...
8 months ago
What to make of HBO’s attempts to diversify an iconic show?
The post Stereotypes and the City appeared first on The American Scholar.
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...
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...
Journal and Links by...
🔗 Alpha Optimization
Polartec Alpha was designed to be a batting insulation, encapsulated between two shells. Alpha...
2 months ago
Polartec Alpha was designed to be a batting insulation, encapsulated between two shells. Alpha Direct was designed as an inner lining, to be sewn to an outer shell. The cottage industry was smart to build these as stand alone garments because that allowed it to be used as a...
The Marginalian
Maira Kalman on How to Live with Remorse and Make of It a Portal of Creative Vitality
Each time we have tried to elevate ourselves above the other animals by claiming singular possession...
11 months ago
Each time we have tried to elevate ourselves above the other animals by claiming singular possession of some faculty, we have been humbled otherwise: Language, it turns out, is not ours alone, nor is the use of tools, nor is music. Elephants grieve, octopuses remember and...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Most Intense Enthusiasm for Good Literature'
I was
reading an interview with X.J. Kennedy when this line touched me unexpectedly: “He
was, of all...
9 months ago
I was
reading an interview with X.J. Kennedy when this line touched me unexpectedly: “He
was, of all the people I ever met, the one who had the most intense enthusiasm
for good literature.” Spoken by another, this might amount to glibly rendered
bullshit, the sort of thing junior...
The American Scholar
“The Cucumber ” by Nâzim Hikmet
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “The Cucumber ” by Nâzim Hikmet appeared first on The...
5 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “The Cucumber ” by Nâzim Hikmet appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Songful, Tuneful Land'
"None
can care for literature in itself who do not take a special pleasure in the
sound of names;...
a year ago
"None
can care for literature in itself who do not take a special pleasure in the
sound of names; and there is no part of the world where nomenclature is so rich,
poetical, humorous, and picturesque as the United States of America.”
Robert Louis
Stevenson means place names. He’s...
The Marginalian
Swan Sky: A Bittersweet Vintage Japanese Meditation on Love, Loss, and the Eternal Consolations of...
To me, what makes the majestic migration of birds so moving is that it is a living spell against...
7 months ago
To me, what makes the majestic migration of birds so moving is that it is a living spell against abandonment. No one is leaving and no one is being left in this unison of movement along a vector of common purpose. It is the only instance I know of a transition that is not a...
The Marginalian
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."
Anecdotal Evidence
'He Has Embalmed So Many Eminent Persons'
Over the
years I wrote thousands of pieces – hard news stories, features, columns,
obituaries,...
9 months ago
Over the
years I wrote thousands of pieces – hard news stories, features, columns,
obituaries, reviews of books, movies and music – for the newspapers where I
worked in Ohio, Indiana and New York. They’re clipped and saved in a chaotic file
cabinet. Most, I, like the rest of the...
Escaping Flatland
Without looking it up, what do you think?
+ links
3 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'We Caught the Christmas Beetle'
I understand
why people might be repelled by a poem titled “When We Were Kids.” A wallow...
4 weeks ago
I understand
why people might be repelled by a poem titled “When We Were Kids.” A wallow in
nostalgia can prove deadly. But the language in Clive James’ twelve stanzas cataloging
an Australian childhood is exotic enough to interest this American reader,
apart from their poetic...
Josh Thompson
Elixir/Phoenix part deux
I planned on working through this tutorial for building a slack clone, but half-way through the...
over a year ago
I planned on working through this tutorial for building a slack clone, but half-way through the set-up instructions, after I installed Elixir and Phoenix, I took a long detour through the basic set-up guide. Built some custom routes, along with controllers/views/templates,...
Journal and Links by...
✏️ Competency vs. Mastery
Another Zoom call ended. As is common, a few attendees would unmute themselves to speak temporarily....
a month ago
Another Zoom call ended. As is common, a few attendees would unmute themselves to speak temporarily. I noticed when people knew the unmute keyboard shortcut. Despite using the software for years now, it had eluded me (spacebar!). This was partly because I forgot to look it up...
The American Scholar
Tramping With Virginia
A seminal essay about walking the streets of London can present challenges in the classrooms of...
8 months ago
A seminal essay about walking the streets of London can present challenges in the classrooms of today
The post Tramping With Virginia appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
Change your MAC address with a shell script
For a while, I’ve had notes from Change or Spoof a MAC Address in Windows or OS X saved, so if I am...
over a year ago
For a while, I’ve had notes from Change or Spoof a MAC Address in Windows or OS X saved, so if I am using a wifi connection that limits me to thirty minutes or an hour or whatever, I can “spoof” a new MAC address, and when I re-connect to the wifi, the access point thinks I’m on...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Pick Up a Machete and Start Exploring'
A splendid
day for American literature: born on March 1 are Ralph Ellison (1914), Howard
Nemerov...
10 months ago
A splendid
day for American literature: born on March 1 are Ralph Ellison (1914), Howard
Nemerov (1920) and Richard Wilbur (1921). I’m reminded of how important contemporary
American writers were to me when I was young, in the 60s and 70s. Everything
was new and promising, and I...
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.
The Elysian
I'd like to open a Singapore franchise please?
Franchise Cities as an alternative to Charter Cities.
9 months ago
Franchise Cities as an alternative to Charter Cities.
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...
The Marginalian
The Work of Wonder: Phillip Glass on Art, Science, and the Most Important Quality of a Visionary
Epoch after epoch, we humans have tried to raise ourselves above other animals with distinctions...
a year ago
Epoch after epoch, we humans have tried to raise ourselves above other animals with distinctions that have turned out false — consciousness is not ours alone, nor is grief, nor is play. If there is anything singular about us, it is our capacity to be wonder-smitten by the world...
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...
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
So you want to work remotely...
Josh’s “rules” for getting a sweet remote job
A few weeks ago, I met a fantastic guy who is...
over a year ago
Josh’s “rules” for getting a sweet remote job
A few weeks ago, I met a fantastic guy who is contemplating next steps for work. He is great at what he does, and is thinking about what direction to go in his life. He’s young, and thought working remotely sounded pretty cool. I...
Josh Thompson
Benchmarking a page protected by a login with Apache Benchmark
I’ve been slowly working through The Complete Guide to Rails Performance. I’m taking the ideas and...
over a year ago
I’ve been slowly working through The Complete Guide to Rails Performance. I’m taking the ideas and concepts from Nate’s book and working on applying the lessons to the app I work on in my day job.
I had a chance to attend Nate’s workshop in Denver a few days ago, as well; while...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Our Lives Are Permanently Unfinished Projects'
“My
bookshelves, like my writings, are haunted by the ghosts of influences past,
all remembered with...
a year ago
“My
bookshelves, like my writings, are haunted by the ghosts of influences past,
all remembered with great tenderness, much as one recalls an old flame from
college days: Whitney Balliett, Edmund Wilson, William F. Buckley, Jr., A. J.
Liebling, Somerset Maugham, Diana Trilling,...
Josh Thompson
12 Lessons Learned While Publishing Something Every Day for a Month
A month ago, I decided to publish something every day for at least thirty days.
I read a few others...
over a year ago
A month ago, I decided to publish something every day for at least thirty days.
I read a few others who did something similar, and discussed all the benefits. I’ve found myself struggling with creating something and then making it public. (Public here, on another project, or at...
The Elysian
Maybe you need to have more fun
"Fun" as essential to human flourishing.
6 months ago
"Fun" as essential to human flourishing.
The American Scholar
Double Exposure
On our first memories
The post Double Exposure appeared first on The American Scholar.
a month ago
On our first memories
The post Double Exposure appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
About War
"Outsiders who are not themselves immersed in pain should make an effort to empathize with all...
a year ago
"Outsiders who are not themselves immersed in pain should make an effort to empathize with all suffering humans, rather than lazily seeing only part of the terrible reality. It is the job of outsiders to help maintain a space for peace."
The American Scholar
In the Mushroom
True foraging isn’t the domain of the weekend warrior; it’s serious, serious business
The post In...
a month ago
True foraging isn’t the domain of the weekend warrior; it’s serious, serious business
The post In the Mushroom appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
The Warblers and the Wonder of Being: Loren Eiseley on Contacting the Miraculous
"The time has to be right; one has to be, by chance or intention, upon the border of two worlds. And...
11 months ago
"The time has to be right; one has to be, by chance or intention, upon the border of two worlds. And sometimes these two borders may shift or interpenetrate and one sees the miraculous."
Anecdotal Evidence
'O Deliquescence of Our Quartz-like Loves!'
A chemical
engineer describing his recent research to me used a lovely word: deliquescent. The word...
6 months ago
A chemical
engineer describing his recent research to me used a lovely word: deliquescent. The word entered English
in the eighteenth century and its original context was strictly scientific: deliquescence
occurs when a substance absorbs moisture from the air and becomes a...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Craft Is Perfected Attention'
The
campiness can get a little thick when the poet/publisher/photographer Jonathan
Williams...
a year ago
The
campiness can get a little thick when the poet/publisher/photographer Jonathan
Williams (1929-2008) is in the neighborhood, but he’s always festive, the sort
of fellow you could hire to turn around tedious parties or staff meetings. A
reader says she is enjoying Williams’...
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.
The Marginalian
The Ant, the Grasshopper, and the Antidote to the Cult of More: A Lovely Vintage Illustrated Poem...
“Enough is so vast a sweetness, I suppose it never occurs, only pathetic counterfeits,” Emily...
a year ago
“Enough is so vast a sweetness, I suppose it never occurs, only pathetic counterfeits,” Emily Dickinson lamented in a love letter. In his splendid short poem about the secret of happiness, Kurt Vonnegut exposed the taproot of our modern suffering as the gnawing sense that what we...
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.
The Marginalian
How to Befriend Time: The Gospel of Pete Seeger and Nina Simone
"To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven."
a year ago
"To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven."
Josh Thompson
Find out how much money you've made (in your entire life)
This post went by on the Personal Finance subreddit today:
https://www.ssa.gov/myaccount/
After...
over a year ago
This post went by on the Personal Finance subreddit today:
https://www.ssa.gov/myaccount/
After creating an account / logging in, click on Earnings, then add the columns. If you have been working for many years, try copying/pasting the column in excel and using the sum...
The Marginalian
How to Make America Great: A Visionary Manifesto from the Woman Who Ran for President in 1872
In 1872, half a century before American women could vote, Victoria Woodhull (September 23, 1838–June...
2 days ago
In 1872, half a century before American women could vote, Victoria Woodhull (September 23, 1838–June 9, 1927) ran for President, with Frederick Douglass as her running mate. Papers declared her candidacy “a brazen imposture, to be extinguished by laughter rather than by law.”...
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.
Anecdotal Evidence
'Greatness Is Difficult'
“It is
dangerous to admire a great man for his sins: we may too easily adopt his sins
for our own...
a year ago
“It is
dangerous to admire a great man for his sins: we may too easily adopt his sins
for our own out of admiration for his genius; and when the inevitable reaction
occurs, the great man’s reputation is likely to suffer unduly.”
Among writers, Dr. Johnson
is the first fallible...
This Space
Drowning is Fine by Darren Allen
For reasons unclear to me at the time I re-read several novels by Aharon Appelfeld, the author born...
over a year ago
For reasons unclear to me at the time I re-read several novels by Aharon Appelfeld, the author born in 1932 to a German-speaking Jewish family in what was also Paul Celan’s hometown, Czernowitz, then in Romania, now in Ukraine, and who wrote exclusively in Hebrew after he had...
The American Scholar
The March Down Main
The post The March Down Main appeared first on The American Scholar.
2 months ago
The post The March Down Main appeared first on The American Scholar.
Journal and Links by...
✏️ Re-entry
This past Friday on April 16th, I awoke early and decided to go wait in line for my first vaccine...
over a year ago
This past Friday on April 16th, I awoke early and decided to go wait in line for my first vaccine shot at SF Gen (as it’s locally known — you may know it better as Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital). I became eligible when San Francisco opened up vaccines to those 16 and...
The Marginalian
Moonlight and the Magic of the Unnecessary
Every night, for every human being that ever was and ever will be, the Moon rises to remind us how...
10 months ago
Every night, for every human being that ever was and ever will be, the Moon rises to remind us how improbably lucky we are, each of its craters a monument of the odds we prevailed against to exist, a reliquary of the violent collisions that forged our rocky planet lush with life...
Journal and Links by...
✏️ Music in 2024
The last few years have been great for discovering even more artists, and the revivals and reunions...
2 weeks ago
The last few years have been great for discovering even more artists, and the revivals and reunions of some of them have produced music that is fresh, with new takes and, even better, genre-bending and blending. Here are the albums and songs that were a definite hell yes for me...
The Marginalian
The Middle Passage: A Jungian Field Guide to Finding Meaning and Transformation in Midlife
"Our task at midlife is to be strong enough to relinquish the ego-urgencies of the first half and...
10 months ago
"Our task at midlife is to be strong enough to relinquish the ego-urgencies of the first half and open ourselves to a greater wonder."
Anecdotal Evidence
'Living Through Radical Change'
Ten years
ago, Joseph Epstein wrote to his friend Frederic Raphael:
“I have
myself long ago put...
9 months ago
Ten years
ago, Joseph Epstein wrote to his friend Frederic Raphael:
“I have
myself long ago put aside any thought about writing an autobiography. . . .
When I became, almost without conscious decision, a bookish and a scribbling
man, the larger sense of adventure went out of my...
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...
Anecdotal Evidence
'O Friend Unseen, Unborn, Unknown'
Rabbi David Wolpe tells me Monday’s post reminds him of a poem, “To a Poet a Thousand Years Hence,”...
a month ago
Rabbi David Wolpe tells me Monday’s post reminds him of a poem, “To a Poet a Thousand Years Hence,” by a poet I knew only by name: James Elroy Flecker. “I've always been
moved,” David said, “especially by the penultimate stanza”:
“O friend
unseen, unborn, unknown,
Student of...
Josh Thompson
Mentors and Attitude
Having a mentor is equal parts “having a mentor” and “being one who can be mentored”. If I am too...
over a year ago
Having a mentor is equal parts “having a mentor” and “being one who can be mentored”. If I am too thick-headed to evaluate things that someone tells me and figure out how to apply that to my life, both of us are wasting our time.
Having a mentor is life-changing because you have...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Beautiful Lighthearted Perfection'
Who is the
quintessential American? Who embodies E
pluribus unum? Who, at the intergalactic council,...
a year ago
Who is the
quintessential American? Who embodies E
pluribus unum? Who, at the intergalactic council, might represent our
nation (and species, for that matter)? I nominate Louis Armstrong. Other names
come to mind: Abraham Lincoln, Jacques Barzun, Ralph Ellison, perhaps...
The Marginalian
How to Bless Each Other: Poet and Philosopher John O’Donohue on the Light Within Us and Between Us
"The structures of our experience are the windows into the divine. When we are true to the call of...
a year ago
"The structures of our experience are the windows into the divine. When we are true to the call of experience, we are true to God."
ribbonfarm
Covid and Noun-Memory Effects
Ever since I got a bout of Covid a couple of years ago (late 2022), I’ve noticed memory problems of...
7 months ago
Ever since I got a bout of Covid a couple of years ago (late 2022), I’ve noticed memory problems of a very specific sort: Difficulty remembering names. Especially people names, but also other sorts of proper nouns. This is especially marked when it comes to remembering names of...
The American Scholar
Battle Hymns
Charles Ives and the Civil War
The post Battle Hymns appeared first on The American Scholar.
4 months ago
Charles Ives and the Civil War
The post Battle Hymns appeared first on The American Scholar.
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...
Wuthering...
Books I Read in August 2023
As I suspected my energy for writing in August was diverted
to more important things. Plenty of...
a year ago
As I suspected my energy for writing in August was diverted
to more important things. Plenty of energy
to read, though.
With a respite in September, I should soon be able to write
a bit on the Greek philosophers I have been reading. The Cynics, Epicureans, and Stoics work...
The Elysian
The "letters to an anarchist" post-mortem
Peter and I discuss our letter writing series.
a month ago
Peter and I discuss our letter writing series.
Journal and Links by...
✏️ Borrego Boogie
Almost a year ago, Jen and I headed south to Bishop, then a run through Death Valley, an obnoxiously...
a year ago
Almost a year ago, Jen and I headed south to Bishop, then a run through Death Valley, an obnoxiously windy night in Alabama Hills, and then reset in San Diego before a good run and a few nights in Anza-Borrego desert.
It's remarkable that a place this wild and surprisingly...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Intensely Cultivated and Painstakingly Honest'
In the brief foreword to her first prose collection, Predilections
(1955), Marianne Moore writes as...
2 months ago
In the brief foreword to her first prose collection, Predilections
(1955), Marianne Moore writes as good an apologia for her manner of writing, among others, as I’ve ever encountered:
“Silence is
more eloquent than speech – a truism; but sometimes something that someone...
The American Scholar
Ho Ho Horror
Why not make this Christmas a little darker?
The post Ho Ho Horror appeared first on The American...
3 weeks ago
Why not make this Christmas a little darker?
The post Ho Ho Horror appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'Memories Packed in the Rapid-Access File'
Last
Saturday morning, the day my brother would die, the Uber driver who carried me
from hotel to...
4 months ago
Last
Saturday morning, the day my brother would die, the Uber driver who carried me
from hotel to hospice in the morning went by the professional name “Lazarus” –
an omen I choose to leave unexamined and merely enjoy. Ken would have enjoyed
it.
Shortly after his death one of the...
Ben Borgers
Designing Posters for Humans
over a year ago
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...
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...
Journal and Links by...
✏️ Follow vs. Block
In the beginning, you followed someone to see their content in your feed.
Now, you block someone to...
a year ago
In the beginning, you followed someone to see their content in your feed.
Now, you block someone to remove them from your feed.
That’s the price of an endless algorithmic feed designed to keep you in-app or on-platform, entertained, and eventually (if not already) monetized.
A...
Anecdotal Evidence
''He Knew It Was All Wrong for the Season'
Once I
listened to a guy who had decided to stop drinking while sitting alone in a
diner eating his...
3 weeks ago
Once I
listened to a guy who had decided to stop drinking while sitting alone in a
diner eating his Christmas dinner, separated from his wife and children. He
recalled the moment with good humor. What had depressed him was eating canned
corn. He had grown up associating good food...
Wuthering...
Xenophon's Socrates
I’m still catching up with myself.
I wanted to spend March thinking about Socrates as a...
a year ago
I’m still catching up with myself.
I wanted to spend March thinking about Socrates as a philosopher,
independent from Plato’s use of him, to the extent that it is possible. The Socrates of Aristophanes in The Clouds
is not much help. But luckily we have
Xenophon, a close...
Anecdotal Evidence
'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...
Anecdotal Evidence
'At the Five and Ten Cent Store'
Irving
Berlin was Jewish and gave us the soundtrack for our American holidays,...
a month ago
Irving
Berlin was Jewish and gave us the soundtrack for our American holidays, including
Thanksgiving Day: “My needs are small, I buy ’em all / At the five and ten cent
store. / Oh, I've got plenty to be thankful for.” Bing Crosby, a serious Roman
Catholic, introduced “I’ve Got...
Ben Borgers
Are My Technical Posts Worth It?
over a year ago
The Marginalian
How the Sea Came to Be: An Illustrated Singsong Celebration of the Evolution of Life
“Who has known the ocean? Neither you nor I, with our earth-bound senses,” Rachel Carson wrote in...
a year ago
“Who has known the ocean? Neither you nor I, with our earth-bound senses,” Rachel Carson wrote in the pioneering 1937 essay that invited the human imagination into the science and splendor of the marine world for the first time — a world then more mysterious than the Moon, a...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The World's an End'
In recent
years John Dryden has become one of my reliable poets. He impresses me as a
sane adult,...
5 months ago
In recent
years John Dryden has become one of my reliable poets. He impresses me as a
sane adult, with equal emphasis on both of those words. No dabbling in drugs
and madness. I brought a volume of his poems with me to Cleveland where I’m
visiting my brother in hospice. No...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Amid Tremendous History, New Pity'
Oscar Williams (1900-4) was a middling poet with a gift for compiling excellent anthologies,
thirty...
10 months ago
Oscar Williams (1900-4) was a middling poet with a gift for compiling excellent anthologies,
thirty of which he published during his lifetime. Early on, several of them
were my primers, an inviting way to learning the poetic tradition in English on
the cheap. One of them, the...
Journal and Links by...
🔗 Being Hired to Care
One of the biggest mistakes that I see people make as they start to dip their toes into advising is...
5 months ago
One of the biggest mistakes that I see people make as they start to dip their toes into advising is try to anchor their work to specific deliverables. Doing this is bad for a number of reasons, but the primary one is that when you’re being brought on as an advisor, you’re not...
Josh Thompson
A Small Goal is Better than a Grand Plan
We all have grand plans. Who’s future projection of themselves goes something like this: “One day,...
over a year ago
We all have grand plans. Who’s future projection of themselves goes something like this: “One day, when I’m rich (goal one), location independent (goal two), and married to a fabulous woman (goal three), I will travel the world (goal four) while exploring my hobby of ___ (goal...
The Perry Bible...
Pop
The post Pop appeared first on The Perry Bible Fellowship.
9 months ago
The post Pop appeared first on The Perry Bible Fellowship.
The American Scholar
Sienna Martz
Sculpting the detritus of fast fashion
The post Sienna Martz appeared first on The American Scholar.
3 months ago
Sculpting the detritus of fast fashion
The post Sienna Martz appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
Resources for People with Jobs
RESOURCES FOR PEOPLE WITH JOBS
You spend most of your waking hours at work. So, spend a few of those...
over a year ago
RESOURCES FOR PEOPLE WITH JOBS
You spend most of your waking hours at work. So, spend a few of those waking hours when you’re
not at work thinking about how to improve the hours that you
are working. Often, improving your work means you can improve your work conditions and...
The Marginalian
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.
Wuthering...
Plato's Republic - justice, fantasy and censorship - We'll ask Homer not to be angry
I had ambitions to write about Plato’s Republic with
some thoroughness, but I guess I will just...
a year ago
I had ambitions to write about Plato’s Republic with
some thoroughness, but I guess I will just pursue one point. Good enough.
I have been separating Socrates from Plato, an imaginative
exercise based on circular criteria. The
more Socratic of the Socratic dialogues are...
The Marginalian
Hermann Hesse on What Books Give Us and the Heart of Wisdom
Books show us what it is like to be another and at the same time return us to ourselves. We read to...
a year ago
Books show us what it is like to be another and at the same time return us to ourselves. We read to learn how to live — how to love and how to suffer, how to grieve and how to be glad. We read to clarify ourselves and to anneal our values. We read for the assurance that others...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Being Vulnerable to History'
I read Bernard Malamud’s
novel The Fixer when it was published
in 1966. Readers often turn...
7 months ago
I read Bernard Malamud’s
novel The Fixer when it was published
in 1966. Readers often turn melodramatic when describing the impact a book has
had on them – “life-changing,” that sort of thing. Such claims usually can be
chalked up to enthusiasm untempered by critical rigor. The...
The Elysian
Writing Prompt: How do we create the next Renaissance?
Something I’ve been thinking a lot about is: How can we fund the next Renaissance? How can we create...
8 months ago
Something I’ve been thinking a lot about is: How can we fund the next Renaissance? How can we create a world where artists are better funded and…
Josh Thompson
Persistence
Persistence. It’s worth far more than any finite sum of money. Actually, it’s worth more than an...
over a year ago
Persistence. It’s worth far more than any finite sum of money. Actually, it’s worth more than an unlimited amount of money, because an unlimited amount of money would complicate my life (and probably yours) far more than we can possibly imagine.
Persistence. I keep trying to...
Josh Thompson
Waking Up Early 2.0
A few months ago, I wrote about
waking up early.
I tracked my progress for almost a month, and most...
over a year ago
A few months ago, I wrote about
waking up early.
I tracked my progress for almost a month, and most of the days I woke up between 4:45 and 6:00. My “must be up by” time is 7:30a, so waking up more than an hour and a half early counts as a huge win.
From mid-may until June 7, I...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Companionable Room'
I had a
minor problem with the university library’s catalog. When I requested two books
stored...
a year ago
I had a
minor problem with the university library’s catalog. When I requested two books
stored off-site in the Library Service Center I got this message: “No items can
fulfill the submitted request.” That made no sense and I couldn’t figure out a
way around the roadblock, so I...
The American Scholar
“Stick the Landing” by David Gewanter
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “Stick the Landing” by David Gewanter appeared first on The...
5 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “Stick the Landing” by David Gewanter appeared first on The American Scholar.
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.
Wuthering...
Books I read in March 2024 - Literature was a game of pillaging, and this book showed it.
A nice little run at Persian literature this month. And I am reading in Portuguese again,...
9 months ago
A nice little run at Persian literature this month. And I am reading in Portuguese again, slowly,
slowly.
PERSIAN LITERATURE, MOSTLY CLASSICAL
Shahnameh: The Persian Book of Kings (1110), Abolqasem Ferdowsi – See here for notes on this
big epic in Dick Davis’s translation.
The...
The Marginalian
Milan Kundera on the Power of Coincidences and the Musicality of How Chance Composes Our Lives
"Human lives... are composed like music. Guided by his sense of beauty, an individual transforms a...
a year ago
"Human lives... are composed like music. Guided by his sense of beauty, an individual transforms a fortuitous occurrence... into a motif, which then assumes a permanent place in the composition of the individual's life."
The Marginalian
Of Stars, Seagulls, and Love: Loren Eiseley on the First and Final Truth of Life
Somewhere along the way of life, we learn that love means very different things to different people,...
5 months ago
Somewhere along the way of life, we learn that love means very different things to different people, and yet all personal love is but a fractal of a larger universal love. Some call it God. I call it wonder. Dante called it “the Love that moves the Sun and the other stars.”...
Journal and Links by...
🔗 Piccalilli
Front-end education for the real world.
Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
4 months ago
Front-end education for the real world.
Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
Anecdotal Evidence
'There’s No Such Thing As a Synonym'
My favorite
literary non-form may be commonplace books, those magpie collections unified
only by the...
2 weeks ago
My favorite
literary non-form may be commonplace books, those magpie collections unified
only by the sensibilities of their hunter-gatherers. They are kept by industrious
readers and serve as literary Wunderkammern,
cabinets of bookish wonders that may reveal a reader’s truest...
The Marginalian
John Gardner on the Key to Self-Renewal Across Life and the Art of Making Rather Than Finding...
"The potentialities you develop to the full come as the result of an interplay between you and...
8 months ago
"The potentialities you develop to the full come as the result of an interplay between you and life's challenges."
Journal and Links by...
✏️ A Second Shot
It sunk in. Both the needle and the fact that life had indeed changed. I turned to my left and...
over a year ago
It sunk in. Both the needle and the fact that life had indeed changed. I turned to my left and looked at her. She, the same Black woman who had administered the first, and this time I tucked her name away into my memory, having forgotten it in the excitement and overwhelming...
Journal and Links by...
✏️ A Working Trust
It’s the basis of relationships. The particular spectrum of any engagement relies on it, and it’s...
3 months ago
It’s the basis of relationships. The particular spectrum of any engagement relies on it, and it’s also the hardest thing at times to discern. Time can allay the fear, or reveal its presence.
Piper Haywood:
The more time passes, the more I think that establishing relationships, or...
Josh Thompson
Rails Migration: When you can't add a uniqueness constraint because you already have duplicates
I get to occasionally contribute to the Wombat Security dev blog. I wrote the following for...
over a year ago
I get to occasionally contribute to the Wombat Security dev blog. I wrote the following for development.wombatsecurity.com.
This post has been updated to reflect some lessons learned while running this migration in production. Don’t leave a column without an index at any point in...
The Marginalian
Leonard Cohen on the Antidote to Anger and the Meaning of Resistance
One of the commonest and most corrosive human reflexes is to react to helplessness with anger. We do...
6 months ago
One of the commonest and most corrosive human reflexes is to react to helplessness with anger. We do it in our personal lives and we do it in our political lives. We are living through a time of uncommon helplessness and uncertainty, touching every aspect of our lives, and in...
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...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Human Impulse, the Human Aspiration'
The upstairs
neighbor, a diffident graduate student in English, knocked on the door to tell me W.H....
a year ago
The upstairs
neighbor, a diffident graduate student in English, knocked on the door to tell me W.H. Auden had died. He was close to
tears and couldn’t stop shaking his head in disbelief. This was half a century ago, late September
1973. We talked books almost daily and a few...
The American Scholar
Adventures With Jean
Striking up a friendship with an older writer meant accepting the risk of getting hurt
The post...
4 months ago
Striking up a friendship with an older writer meant accepting the risk of getting hurt
The post Adventures With Jean 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.
The American Scholar
The Snow Maiden
Our final episode of 2018 is a send-off to the solstice
The post The Snow Maiden appeared first on...
2 weeks ago
Our final episode of 2018 is a send-off to the solstice
The post The Snow Maiden appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
Working Out, Working In: Applying the Six Principles of Athletic Training to Writing and Creative...
The highest and hardest task of life may be to become entirely ourselves — to continually purify and...
a year ago
The highest and hardest task of life may be to become entirely ourselves — to continually purify and clarify who and what we are, shedding the shoulds of culture, convention, and expectation to discover the innermost musts: those deepest and truest callings of the authentic self,...
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
'To Make Something Beautiful'
“There have
been many things I’ve tried to write about and could not. Things too serious,
too...
a month ago
“There have
been many things I’ve tried to write about and could not. Things too serious,
too painful, and that’s not the purpose of writing a poem. The point of poetry
is to make something beautiful—something in itself. I’m not trying to pour my
sorrows down on the page.”
Janet...
The Marginalian
2,000 Years of Kindness
From Marcus Aurelius to Einstein, poets and philosophers on the deepest wellspring of our humanity.
a year ago
From Marcus Aurelius to Einstein, poets and philosophers on the deepest wellspring of our humanity.
Ben Borgers
AI is an impediment to learning web development
6 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Let the Words Glide Through the Air'
Some years
ago, out of the blue, a reader whose name I have forgotten sent me a copy of No Earthly...
a year ago
Some years
ago, out of the blue, a reader whose name I have forgotten sent me a copy of No Earthly Estate: The Religious Poetry of
Patrick Kavanagh (The Columba Press, Dublin, 2002) by Father Tom Stack. I was grateful because it sent me back to the Irish poet (1904-67) who seems...
Josh Thompson
Streets in Asheville
Quick-and-dirty street analysis in Asheville, NC
A few months ago, I visited Asheville, NC. It’s a...
over a year ago
Quick-and-dirty street analysis in Asheville, NC
A few months ago, I visited Asheville, NC. It’s a nice town, and has a great pedestrian life, as far as I can tell.
As a thought experiment, I decided to see how well I could make the case for reducing the road width of a few...
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...
The American Scholar
The Next New Thing
In architecture, the gulf between the traditional and the modern seems wider than ever before
The...
6 months ago
In architecture, the gulf between the traditional and the modern seems wider than ever before
The post The Next New Thing appeared first on The American Scholar.
Blog -...
Book Review - The Way of The Superior Man
There are very few books that have impacted my life with the intensity that
The Way of the...
over a year ago
There are very few books that have impacted my life with the intensity that
The Way of the Superior Man has. Even though it was first published more
than twenty years ago, its message could not be more fitting for
heterosexual men trying to navigate the intricacies of being...
Josh Thompson
Exploring source code via Griddler and Griddler-Mailgun
Proofpoint had a two-day “hack day” recently. My coworker John and I teamed up on a cool little...
over a year ago
Proofpoint had a two-day “hack day” recently. My coworker John and I teamed up on a cool little feature. I’ll give some context in a moment, but this post isn’t about the hack day, or email - it’s about exploring source code.
Here’s the context:
In my day-to-day, I work on a...
The Marginalian
An Illustrated Field Guide to the Science and Wonder of the Clouds
Clouds drift ephemeral across the dome of this world, carrying eternity — condensing molecules that...
6 months ago
Clouds drift ephemeral across the dome of this world, carrying eternity — condensing molecules that animated the first breath of life, coursing with electric charges that will power the last thought. To me, a cloud will always be a spell against indifference — a little bloom of...
Blog -...
Book Review - Getting the Love You Want: A Guide for Couples, 2019 Edition
I don’t anticipate giving many perfect ratings, but this book is a rare gem
– a captivating...
over a year ago
I don’t anticipate giving many perfect ratings, but this book is a rare gem
– a captivating page-turner packed full of aha moments. The authors have
woven together decades of personal research and experience in the field of
intimate relationships to create a classic...
Wuthering...
Books I read, and desks I saw, in July - hoping he might tell me, / tell me what the waves don't...
Right, July, July, so long ago. I was on the road a little bit, making
literary pilgrimages. ...
5 months ago
Right, July, July, so long ago. I was on the road a little bit, making
literary pilgrimages. Pittsfield,
Massachusetts, for example, to Herman Melville’s Arrowhead:
On this spot, not at this exact desk but in front of this
exact window, Herman Melville wrote Moby-Dick,...
The Marginalian
The Porcupine Dilemma: Schopenhauer’s Parable about Negotiating the Optimal Distance in Love
This is the supreme challenge of intimacy — how to reconcile the aching yearning for closeness with...
a year ago
This is the supreme challenge of intimacy — how to reconcile the aching yearning for closeness with the painful pressures of actually being close, how to forge a bond tight enough to feel the warmth of connection but spacious enough to feel free. Kahlil Gibran knew this when he...
The Marginalian
Grace Paley on the Countercultural Courage of Imagining Other Lives
“Love is the extremely difficult realisation that something other than oneself is real,” Iris...
5 months ago
“Love is the extremely difficult realisation that something other than oneself is real,” Iris Murdoch wrote in her superb investigation of the parallels between art and morality. There could be no such realization without imagination, which is our only instrument for fathoming...
Journal and Links by...
🔗 Maripedia
The print library Maripedia offers you an overview of Marimekko’s art of printmaking from the 1950s...
6 months ago
The print library Maripedia offers you an overview of Marimekko’s art of printmaking from the 1950s to the 2020s. Here you can identify and explore our vibrant prints, discover their designers, and enjoy the stories behind the patterns.
Visit original link → or View on...
Ben Borgers
Website redesign, December 2022
over a year ago
The Marginalian
Octavia Butler’s Advice on Writing
"No matter how tired you get, no matter how you feel like you can’t possibly do this, somehow you...
a year ago
"No matter how tired you get, no matter how you feel like you can’t possibly do this, somehow you do."
Anecdotal Evidence
'He's Not Pulling It Out of Thin Air'
A friend
tells me he is boycotting a favorite bookstore because, as he writes, “someone
posted a...
9 months ago
A friend
tells me he is boycotting a favorite bookstore because, as he writes, “someone
posted a fair-sized sign on the store’s ‘Community Board’ reading, ‘From The
River to the Sea, Palestine Shall Be Free.’” There’s a naïvely childish part of
me that finds the obscenity...
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Life That Is More Real Than Life'
My nephew and I were
talking about our teenage efforts to be “cool,” wearing irony like...
a week ago
My nephew and I were
talking about our teenage efforts to be “cool,” wearing irony like Kevlar,
feigning sophistication while avoiding the shock of experience. Some of us
outgrow it and become open to life’s surprises. Others carry the stance latently
for life, like the...
Astral Codex Ten
Why Worry About Incorrigible Claude?
...
3 weeks ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Art and Practice of Reading Aloud to Others'
A longtime reader in Philadelphia, a retired attorney, tells
me that since the start of the COVID-19...
a year ago
A longtime reader in Philadelphia, a retired attorney, tells
me that since the start of the COVID-19 lockdown he has been reading books
aloud to his wife, most recently The Wife
of Martin Guerre by Janet Lewis. His list of more than a dozen titles includes
Moby-Dick (“our overall...
Anecdotal Evidence
'An Interior Convulsion'
Too late the
other night a friend texted me links to several stand-up routines by the late
Jackie...
a year ago
Too late the
other night a friend texted me links to several stand-up routines by the late
Jackie Mason. I clicked on one and the inevitable followed: I went looking for
more and soon descended into a privately curated comedy show with guest stars Don
Rickles, Jonathan Winters...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Those Move Easiest Who Have Learn’d to Dance'
Alexander
Pope’s 1716 imitation of Martial’s epigram X.23:
“At length,
my Friend (while Time, with...
8 months ago
Alexander
Pope’s 1716 imitation of Martial’s epigram X.23:
“At length,
my Friend (while Time, with still career,
Wafts on his
gentle wing his eightieth year),
Sees his
past days safe out of Fortune’s power,
Nor dreads
approaching Fate’s uncertain hour;
Reviews his
life, and in...
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...
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...
Josh Thompson
About working remotely at Litmus with Pajamas.io
A while back, I wrote a long interview for
Pajamas.io, a publication around remote work. I’ve pasted...
over a year ago
A while back, I wrote a long interview for
Pajamas.io, a publication around remote work. I’ve pasted the entire article here below.
When Josh Thompson wanted to move out to rural Colorado with his family to be closer to the mountains he loves to climb, he knew finding a company...
Josh Thompson
Benefits of helplessness
The last few days were rough, strangely enough. I live in beautiful Golden, Colorado with my best...
over a year ago
The last few days were rough, strangely enough. I live in beautiful Golden, Colorado with my best friend (who I happen to be married to), and I’ve got a pretty cool job to boot. That’s the “big three”, right? (Relationships, work, location.)
Yep. Except from Thursday through...
The Marginalian
Doris: A Watercolor Serenade to the Courage of Authenticity and the Art of Connection
“There is no insurmountable solitude,” Pablo Neruda asserted in his stirring Nobel Prize acceptance...
a year ago
“There is no insurmountable solitude,” Pablo Neruda asserted in his stirring Nobel Prize acceptance speech. “All paths lead to the same goal: to convey to others what we are. And we must pass through solitude and difficulty, isolation and silence in order to reach forth to the...
The Marginalian
The Work of Art: Inside the Creative Process of Beloved Artists, Poets, Musicians, and Other Makes...
“The true artist,” Beethoven wrote in his touching letter of advice to a young girl aspiring to be...
8 months ago
“The true artist,” Beethoven wrote in his touching letter of advice to a young girl aspiring to be an artist, “is sad not to have reached that point to which his better genius only appears as a distant, guiding sun.” The choreographer Martha Graham called this particular shade of...
Josh Thompson
Metaprogramming in Ruby: method_missing
I’m working through Metaprogramming in Ruby
It’s a great read. There are examples in the books, but...
over a year ago
I’m working through Metaprogramming in Ruby
It’s a great read. There are examples in the books, but I wanted to take them out and apply them to some easy Exercisms.
I feel some disclosure may be useful. In no way, at all, should you ever implement any of the “solutions” I’m...
Wuthering...
"Socrates gone mad" - my hero Diogenes the Cynic
He lived in a jar, owned a staff and a cloak and nothing
else, and was a sarcastic pain in the...
a year ago
He lived in a jar, owned a staff and a cloak and nothing
else, and was a sarcastic pain in the ass.
He took the example of Socrates to its limit. Plato is the one who called him “Socrates
gone mad,” but in a sense he is just the logical result of thinking through how
Socrates...
Anecdotal Evidence
'And Hears of Life's Intent'
“. . . I’ve had it. No more pronouncements on lousy
verse. No more hidden competition. No
more...
a year ago
“. . . I’ve had it. No more pronouncements on lousy
verse. No more hidden competition. No
more struggling not to be square.
Etc.”
Louise Bogan
is writing to her friend Ruth Limmer on October 1, 1969, announcing her
retirement as poetry reviewer from The
New Yorker after...
Josh Thompson
Who inspires you, and is still alive?
There are lots of dead people that we look up to. But people that are alive, and not world-wide...
over a year ago
There are lots of dead people that we look up to. But people that are alive, and not world-wide famous are a bit more knowable. Some of them will even reply to tweets you send them!
So, here are a few people that I follow and have received TONS of amazing wisdom from. (I...
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...
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Forlorn Hope'
Published in
the February 1950 issue of Partisan
Review was a “symposium” -- always a feature...
2 months ago
Published in
the February 1950 issue of Partisan
Review was a “symposium” -- always a feature beloved by editors and loquacious
respondents – this one titled “Religion and the Intellectuals.” Such things
tend to be heavy on posturing and vast generalizations. I might have been...
The Marginalian
A Parliament of Owls and a Murder of Crows: How Groups of Birds Got Their Names, with Wondrous...
Language is an instrument of great precision and poignancy — our best tool for telling each other...
a year ago
Language is an instrument of great precision and poignancy — our best tool for telling each other what the world is and what we are, for conveying the blueness of blue and the wonder of being alive. But it is also a thing of great pliancy and creativity — a living reminder that...
Anecdotal Evidence
'But, Take It From This Famous Pote [sic]'
Isaac
Waisberg of IWP Books has published his latest anthology of Horace translations,
this time a...
11 months ago
Isaac
Waisberg of IWP Books has published his latest anthology of Horace translations,
this time a generous 417 versions of Ode I.5, the “Ode to Pyrrha,” dating from 1621 to 2007. The one I’m familiar with is John Milton’s, described
by the poet as “rendered almost word for word...
Wuthering...
The appeal of Septology as religious fiction - the urge, inexplicably, to pray - because it helps!...
Septology is a stream-of-consciousness novel
throughout, a mix of sentence fragments, unconventional...
2 months ago
Septology is a stream-of-consciousness novel
throughout, a mix of sentence fragments, unconventional punctuation, and temporal
shifts, meaning the painter Asle is sometimes thinking about the present and
sometimes about the past.
These are all old moves, old techniques. I was a...
Steven Scrawls
Quicksilver and Clay
Quicksilver and Clay
Like everyone else, I walk around the world in a body made of
quicksilver and...
a year ago
Quicksilver and Clay
Like everyone else, I walk around the world in a body made of
quicksilver and clay. The pieces of my body—my sense of humor, my
beliefs, my opinions and artistic sensibilities and worldviews,
everything—combine to present a cohesive self to be...
Josh Thompson
Anki and Memorization with Spaced Repetition Software
This is not meant to be read in isolation. Memorization is almost useless without doing work ahead...
over a year ago
This is not meant to be read in isolation. Memorization is almost useless without doing work ahead of time to grasp the material. For the full context, start with Learning how to Learn
I’ve not been able to find any comprehensive guides to using Anki to learn programming, so this...
The American Scholar
A Poet of the Soil
The legacy of a writer who struggled with his celebrity
The post A Poet of the Soil appeared first...
3 months ago
The legacy of a writer who struggled with his celebrity
The post A Poet of the Soil appeared first on The American Scholar.
Wuthering...
On the greatness of The Story of the Stone - it is in a vigorous, somewhat staccato style
Some notes on The Story of the Stone, Volume 1: The
Golden Days (c. 1760 or maybe 1792) by Cao...
3 months ago
Some notes on The Story of the Stone, Volume 1: The
Golden Days (c. 1760 or maybe 1792) by Cao Xueqin, the first of the five
volumes of the Penguin edition of the greatest Chinese novel.
I don’t like writing about a book before I have finished it,
but in a sense I did finish a...
Josh Thompson
2017 In Review & Thoughts on 2018
Note: this “annual review” covers three topics. Click on one to skip to it:
Looking back on...
over a year ago
Note: this “annual review” covers three topics. Click on one to skip to it:
Looking back on 2017
thoughts on going into 2018
book recommendations from the 79 books I read last year
I’ve got mixed feelings on annual reviews. I steadfastly refuse to set New Years’ resolutions, and...
Josh Thompson
Let Me Fix [some of] Your Parking Problems
Hi there! I’m Josh, and I’m your local neighborhood advocate for overlooked spaces.
Today, we’ll be...
a year ago
Hi there! I’m Josh, and I’m your local neighborhood advocate for overlooked spaces.
Today, we’ll be focusing on parking lots.
Your parking lot has a job to do, and every day, every night, rain or shine, hot or cold, clear, rainy, or snowy, your parking lot does the best it can at...
The Marginalian
Befriending a Blackbird
Friendship is a lifeline twined of truth and tenderness. That we extend it to each other is...
7 months ago
Friendship is a lifeline twined of truth and tenderness. That we extend it to each other is benediction enough. To extend it across the barrier of biology and sentience, to another creature endowed with a wholly other consciousness, partakes of the miraculous. Born in England in...
The Marginalian
We Are Free to Change the World: Hannah Arendt, the Power of Defiant Goodwill, and the Art of...
"It is when the experience of powerlessness is at its most acute, when history seems at its most...
10 months ago
"It is when the experience of powerlessness is at its most acute, when history seems at its most bleak, that the determination to think like a human being, creatively, courageously, and complicatedly, matters the most."
Journal and Links by...
🔗 Knowledge workers
Perhaps it’s even better to acknowledge that there never were any knowledge workers. There have only...
6 months ago
Perhaps it’s even better to acknowledge that there never were any knowledge workers. There have only ever been workers.
— Mandy Brown
Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
Anecdotal Evidence
'An Old Man or Young Man Mad About Literature'
Sometimes an
eccentric judgment – one that reflects the critic’s discernment, not merely his
wish to...
8 months ago
Sometimes an
eccentric judgment – one that reflects the critic’s discernment, not merely his
wish to provoke and attract attention – proves useful to the common reader. Take
a sentence from Ford Madox Ford's final book, The March of Literature (1939): “The modern
English language...
The American Scholar
Acting Out
One tortuous journey from stage to screen
The post Acting Out appeared first on The American...
7 months ago
One tortuous journey from stage to screen
The post Acting Out appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
I Once Worked Hard
When I began working at my first job out of college, I knew I didn’t want to spend my whole career...
over a year ago
When I began working at my first job out of college, I knew I didn’t want to spend my whole career there. I was a college graduate (that means something, right?) working at a climbing gym, part time, teaching seven-year-olds how to climb at about $10 an hour.
I had no idea what I...
Journal and Links by...
🔗 Bop Spotter
I installed a box high up on a pole somewhere in the Mission of San Francisco. Inside is a crappy...
3 months ago
I installed a box high up on a pole somewhere in the Mission of San Francisco. Inside is a crappy Android phone, set to Shazam constantly, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It's solar powered, and the mic is pointed down at the street below.
Visit original link → or View on...
Josh Thompson
Fred Roger's Method For Writing Scripts
Someone said:
People think this is silly, but read about Fred rogers’ method for writing a script...
over a year ago
Someone said:
People think this is silly, but read about Fred rogers’ method for writing a script for his show. The rules aren’t fully applicable to presentations, but the attention to detail and to the Interpretation of the audience is. Don’t use any words carelessly.
I...
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Goddam Stone Wall You Butt Your Head Into'
Aging feels like playing the role of a generic Old
Guy on the stage. It’s a performance, not a...
2 weeks ago
Aging feels like playing the role of a generic Old
Guy on the stage. It’s a performance, not a chronological state. I can slough
it off any time I wish. Such is the power of delusion. I retire today. On
Thursday I went to the police department on campus to get my retiree’s ID...
Josh Thompson
The Millionaire Next Door
I’m struggling to know what to write about
The Millionaire Next Door.
It’s got many wonderful...
over a year ago
I’m struggling to know what to write about
The Millionaire Next Door.
It’s got many wonderful traits, and I strongly recommend that you read it (I wouldn’t mention it otherwise) but it’s got some flaws. I’m afraid if I focus on the flaws, I’ll turn people off from it that might...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Learning Is Not Defunct in the Republic'
“As you
probably don’t read National Review,
I enclose proof that learning is not defunct in the...
4 months ago
“As you
probably don’t read National Review,
I enclose proof that learning is not defunct in the Republic. Buckley had
printed a note . . . praising Waugh’s delightful whimsy in coining a nonsense
phrase like tohu bohu. Catholics tend
not to have read a word of Holy Writ.”
I...
Anecdotal Evidence
'A University Education, Uncorrupted'
A human being
is “born an heir to an inheritance to which he can succeed only in a process...
a month ago
A human being
is “born an heir to an inheritance to which he can succeed only in a process of
learning.” Aristotle didn't get it quite right when he thought we could be defined by our capacity
for speech and even, on occasion, rational discourse. No, it’s learning that
makes us...
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...
Wuthering...
Books I read in February 2024 - if there is truth in poets' prophesies, then in my fame forever will...
Persian literature in March: the epic Shahnameh in
Dick Davis’s mostly prose translation, plus the...
10 months ago
Persian literature in March: the epic Shahnameh in
Dick Davis’s mostly prose translation, plus the classical poets he translated in
Faces of Love: Hafez and the Poets of Shiraz, plus some Rumi and at least
one contemporary Iranian novel, Mahmoud Dowlatabadi’s The Colonel
(2009). ...
Ben Borgers
Tuesday, January 18, 2022
over a year ago
Josh Thompson
November 2016 Goals
November 2016 Goals
Note to the reader: The words that follow are all about me. Very naval-gaze-ish....
over a year ago
November 2016 Goals
Note to the reader: The words that follow are all about me. Very naval-gaze-ish. I feel I owe you this warning.
My November goals are an extension of my
October goals.
October was good (
October review) - I made progress on two of three projects, and one of...
Josh Thompson
How to be an awesome belayer
For the next few posts I am going to geek out on sport climbing. If you’re not a climber (or a sport...
over a year ago
For the next few posts I am going to geek out on sport climbing. If you’re not a climber (or a sport climber), these are not for you. All of this information is in the context of sport climbing on trustworthy protection - not trad climbing!
How to belay when your climber is in...
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."
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.
ben-mini
Building FirstMover
I had one month to find a place to live in Manhattan. I reached out to friends for tips, and nearly...
4 months ago
I had one month to find a place to live in Manhattan. I reached out to friends for tips, and nearly all of them pointed me to StreetEasy, the Zillow-owned NYC real estate search platform. Some of my more Type-A friends gave me extra helpful advice:
Narrow your search to 2-4...
Anecdotal Evidence
'At Least When Practised By a Master'
I know
several industrious readers who read nothing but novels, not even short stories
and certainly...
a year ago
I know
several industrious readers who read nothing but novels, not even short stories
and certainly not biographies, poetry or other forms of nonfiction. Some are
devoted to genre fiction – mysteries, science fiction – and at least one sticks
to the “classics” -- Austen and...
The American Scholar
“À une passante” by Charles Baudelaire
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “À une passante” by Charles Baudelaire appeared first on The...
6 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “À une passante” by Charles Baudelaire appeared first on The American Scholar.
Journal and Links by...
🔗 No one’s ready for this
An explosion from the side of an old brick building. A crashed bicycle in a city intersection. A...
4 months ago
An explosion from the side of an old brick building. A crashed bicycle in a city intersection. A cockroach in a box of takeout. It took less than 10 seconds to create each of these images with the Reimagine tool in the Pixel 9’s Magic Editor. They are crisp. They are in full...
The Marginalian
Wonder Beyond Why: The Majesty and Mystery of the Birds-of-Paradise
“To go all the way from a clone of archaebacteria, in just 3.7 billion years, to the B-Minor Mass...
a year ago
“To go all the way from a clone of archaebacteria, in just 3.7 billion years, to the B-Minor Mass and the Late Quartets, deserves a better technical term for the record than randomness,” the poetic scientist Lewis Thomas wrote in his forgotten masterpiece of perspective. This is...
Josh Thompson
First pass with Elixir/Phoenix
I’m digging into Elixir and Phoenix. I’m working through this tutorial to cloning Slack.
The...
over a year ago
I’m digging into Elixir and Phoenix. I’m working through this tutorial to cloning Slack.
The tutorial author says
At the time of writing, I have ~1 week experience with Phoenix. Similar to Rubber Ducky Debugging, I am writing this blog post to force myself to think differently...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Sacrifice and Doom'
Scholars of
Russian literature tell us the edition of Anton Chekhov’s letters published
between 1944...
3 months ago
Scholars of
Russian literature tell us the edition of Anton Chekhov’s letters published
between 1944 and 1951 was heavily censored by Soviet editors, filled with
ellipses that signify an excised word, phrase or sentence. Nothing surprising
here. Censorship is an obligatory tool...
The Marginalian
D.H. Lawrence on the Hypocrisies of Social Change and What It Actually Takes to Shift the Status Quo
"We have created a great, almost overwhelming incubus of falsity and ugliness on top of us, so that...
a year ago
"We have created a great, almost overwhelming incubus of falsity and ugliness on top of us, so that we are almost crushed to death. Now let us move it."
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