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Anecdotal Evidence
'With All Its Philistinism and Coarseness' My roommate freshman year was the son of a Slovak father and an Austrian mother who had emigrated to...
2 months ago
32
2 months ago
My roommate freshman year was the son of a Slovak father and an Austrian mother who had emigrated to the U.S. after World War II. Mike was trilingual from birth, without an accent unless it was a Cleveland accent that I couldn’t hear because it was mine as well. His tastes often...
Ben Borgers
Portal
over a year ago
The Marginalian
Youth and Age: Kahlil Gibran on the Art of Becoming A roadmap to the fulfilled belonging on the other side of "the great aloneness which knows not what...
a year ago
57
a year ago
A roadmap to the fulfilled belonging on the other side of "the great aloneness which knows not what is far and what is near, nor what is small nor great."
Anecdotal Evidence
'So Important That It Ought to Absorb Him' In his brief portrait of Joseph Conrad, Desmond MacCarthy tells us the novelist “felt himself...
a month ago
25
a month ago
In his brief portrait of Joseph Conrad, Desmond MacCarthy tells us the novelist “felt himself impelled to attempt an intenser vividness in description. Try, just try, so to describe something that the inattentive reader must see it, and the attentive one can never forget that he...
Ben Borgers
Lessons Learned from Hanging Posters
over a year ago
This Space
39 Books: 1997 I found this ghastly 60-page Grove Press hardback edition in a second-hand bookshop, its large...
8 months ago
59
8 months ago
I found this ghastly 60-page Grove Press hardback edition in a second-hand bookshop, its large typeface and generous spacing very similar to Beckett's late works (Barbara Bray, Beckett's translator, also translated this). Such productions are rare now, and perhaps were when it...
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
29
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
Notes on, and quotes from: The Politics of Jesus (Yoder, 1972, 1994) As I’ve done many times before, compiling some notes about some long quotes from some books. In the...
over a year ago
8
over a year ago
As I’ve done many times before, compiling some notes about some long quotes from some books. In the modern world, we’re loath to read long, complicated passeges of text. I hope to get some of you to eventually order your own copy of The Politics of Jesus. On my website you can...
Josh Thompson
How to Ask Questions of Experts To Gain More than Just Answers Recently, I co-led a session at Turing with Regis Boudinot, a Turing grad who works at GitLab. We...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
Recently, I co-led a session at Turing with Regis Boudinot, a Turing grad who works at GitLab. We discussed two things: asking good questions having a good workflow After the session, I promised an overview of what we discussed. Here’s that overview for “Asking good questions”....
Josh Thompson
Piece by Piece The following is inspired by Amy Hoy. I’ve got a secret to share: I’m working on building a product...
over a year ago
6
over a year ago
The following is inspired by Amy Hoy. I’ve got a secret to share: I’m working on building a product (of the digital variety) that will be so damn goodpeople will pay me $100 or more to get it.  I’ve got a lot of bits and pieces of it littered around the internet, my computer,...
Ben Borgers
Bagel Institute
over a year ago
The Marginalian
Sentimentality and Being Mortal: Poet Mark Doty on the Passionate Fragility of Our Attachments How beautiful and unbearable that only one of each exists — each lover, each child, each dog; that...
a year ago
18
a year ago
How beautiful and unbearable that only one of each exists — each lover, each child, each dog; that this particular chance-constellation of atoms has never before existed and will never again recur in the history of the universe. The fact of each such singularity is a wonder...
The 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
48
6 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “À une passante” by Charles Baudelaire appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
“Three Things Enchanted Him …” by Anna Akhmatova Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Three Things Enchanted Him …” by Anna Akhmatova appeared...
2 months ago
39
2 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Three Things Enchanted Him …” by Anna Akhmatova appeared first on The American Scholar.
Journal and Links by...
✏️ Road Hunting Sometimes I look at past images and marvel at what’s there. In this case, the marvel came from the...
over a year ago
1
over a year ago
Sometimes I look at past images and marvel at what’s there. In this case, the marvel came from the fact that we (Jen, Grant, and Ryan) drove this trail after we spent the night from where this was taken. Read on nazhamid.com or Reply via email
Anecdotal Evidence
'I’d Be the Man Dares Clearly Sing' I have no musical talent apart from a sometimes annoying gift for remembering lyrics, and not always...
8 months ago
33
8 months ago
I have no musical talent apart from a sometimes annoying gift for remembering lyrics, and not always the good stuff. I know all the words to a radio jingle for a car dealer in Cleveland, circa 1964, among other clutter. A related symptom is the long-lasting earworm. Much of this...
Wuthering...
Planning next year's readalong opportunities - Greek philosophy and Roman plays If only I had another idea as good as reading all the Greek plays in order.  But I do have ideas. ...
over a year ago
51
over a year ago
If only I had another idea as good as reading all the Greek plays in order.  But I do have ideas. 1. Roman plays.  Up to five Roman playwrights have survived: the comedians Plautus and Terence and the tragedian Seneca, along with two plays under his name that were likely...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Tomorrow I Propose to Regulate My Room' A reader in Columbus, Ohio reports a “Samuel Johnson sighting in Ogden Nash.” In the December...
a month ago
33
a month ago
A reader in Columbus, Ohio reports a “Samuel Johnson sighting in Ogden Nash.” In the December 21, 1968 issue of The New Yorker he found the poem “Is There a Dr. Johnson in the House.” It’s a typical irregularly lined, jokily rhymed production by Nash that begins:  “Do you...
Josh Thompson
Preparing to adopt a habit There are many habits I wish I had. More times than I can count, I have tried to get up early. I...
over a year ago
7
over a year ago
There are many habits I wish I had. More times than I can count, I have tried to get up early. I faithfully set my alarm for some crack-of-dawn time that leaves me with a reasonable amount of sleep, but gives me time to myself before I have to get ready for work. Almost as many...
Astral Codex Ten
Hidden Open Thread 359.5 ...
a month ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Poets in an Age of Prose' Yvor Winters published his final book, Forms of Discovery, in October 1967, three months before his...
a year ago
14
a year ago
Yvor Winters published his final book, Forms of Discovery, in October 1967, three months before his death from cancer at age sixty-seven on January 25, 1968. Read his late correspondence in The Selected Letters of Yvor Winters (ed. R.L. Barth, 2000) for an understanding of the...
The American Scholar
Thoreau’s Pencils How might a newly discovered The post Thoreau’s Pencils appeared first on The American Scholar.
4 months ago
The Marginalian
The Lost Drop: An Illustrated Celebration of the Wonder of the Water Cycle and the Interconnected... I remember when I first learned about the water cycle, about how it makes of our planet a living...
a year ago
41
a year ago
I remember when I first learned about the water cycle, about how it makes of our planet a living world and binds the fate of every molecule to that of every other. I remember feeling in my child-bones the profound interconnectedness of life as I realized I was breathing the...
ribbonfarm
Protocol Entrepreneurship I’m running the Summer of Protocols program for the Ethereum Foundation again this year. Here is the...
10 months ago
4
10 months ago
I’m running the Summer of Protocols program for the Ethereum Foundation again this year. Here is the Call for Applications. I’d appreciate any help getting it in front of the right candidates. The core of it is what we’re calling Protocol Improvement Grants (PIGs): 90k for a team...
The American Scholar
The Brahmin and His Imaginary Friend How a classic paean to the honest virtues of a Maine fisherman obscured several ugly truths The...
a month ago
13
a month ago
How a classic paean to the honest virtues of a Maine fisherman obscured several ugly truths The post The Brahmin and His Imaginary Friend appeared first on The American Scholar.
Wuthering...
Paradoxes and epistemology - early Greek philosophy as conceptual innovation - "Zeno argues... The conceptual innovation of Thales that we identify as the birth of philosophy quickly spun off...
a year ago
37
a year ago
The conceptual innovation of Thales that we identify as the birth of philosophy quickly spun off other conceptual innovations.  A real conceptual innovation does not require a book or even an argument.  You say there are many gods?  But what if there were one? Or none? ...
The American Scholar
Marlana Stoddard Hayes Hope blooms The post Marlana Stoddard Hayes appeared first on The American Scholar.
5 months ago
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
35
2 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “A Prayer for My Daughter” by W. B. Yeats appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
Collateralizing Mortgages and Loans With the Present Value of Rent Flow this is a draft document, it pairs with this Planned Unit Development application draft...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
this is a draft document, it pairs with this Planned Unit Development application draft document Inspiration comes from many places, but most strongly it draws heavily from Order Without Design. I’ve quoted in depth two pages below, but there is many other sections of the book...
The Marginalian
The Managed Heart: Emotional Labor and the Psychological Cost of Ambivalence What are you unwilling to feel? This is one of the most brutal, most clarifying questions in life,...
2 months ago
34
2 months ago
What are you unwilling to feel? This is one of the most brutal, most clarifying questions in life, answering which requires great courage and great vulnerability. Out of that unwillingness arises the greatest inner tension of the heart: that between what we wish we felt and what...
Journal and Links by...
🔗 Mundango Mundago is a game about enjoying the small things in life. Each day you get a brand new board of...
2 months ago
1
2 months ago
Mundago is a game about enjoying the small things in life. Each day you get a brand new board of activities you can pursue. Your board is yours. Your friends' boards will be different. Tap items to check them off as you complete them. — Dave Rupery Thanks for a little bit of joy,...
Wuthering...
Heraclitus and Empedocles - Everything flows - eyes roamed alone My rummage through the early Greek philosophers has been rewarding, but it is a strange exercise. ...
a year ago
53
a year ago
My rummage through the early Greek philosophers has been rewarding, but it is a strange exercise.  “Readers of this book will, I suspect, be frequently perplexed and sometimes annoyed” write Jonathan Barnes in Early Greek Philosophy, a collection with commentary of the most...
The Marginalian
What It’s Like to Be a Falcon: The Peregrine as a Portal to a Way of Seeing and a State of Being "You cannot know what freedom means till you have seen a peregrine loosed into the warm spring sky...
8 months ago
66
8 months ago
"You cannot know what freedom means till you have seen a peregrine loosed into the warm spring sky to roam at will through all the far provinces of light."
The Marginalian
The Proper Object of Love: Iris Murdoch on the Angst of Not Knowing Ourselves and Each Other One of the hardest things to learn in life is that the heart is a clock too fast not to break. We...
5 months ago
61
5 months ago
One of the hardest things to learn in life is that the heart is a clock too fast not to break. We lurch into loving, only to discover again and again that it takes a long time to know people, to understand people — and “understanding is love’s other name.” Even without...
Journal and Links by...
✏️ Midlife Malaise Part II It’s been an interesting year so far. Overall, I can’t overtly complain: I find my work gratifying,...
a year ago
1
a year ago
It’s been an interesting year so far. Overall, I can’t overtly complain: I find my work gratifying, and have been fortunate to take some great trips this year both internationally (Mexico City and Kuala Lumpur), as well as some off-roading and camping locally. But there’s a...
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
37
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...
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
23
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...
The American Scholar
Rap Rap Rap The post Rap Rap Rap appeared first on The American Scholar.
3 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
57
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...
Josh Thompson
Tour of D3 for Clueless Folk Like Me D3 stands for Data Driven Documents, and it’s the coolest thing ever. Check out a few...
over a year ago
7
over a year ago
D3 stands for Data Driven Documents, and it’s the coolest thing ever. Check out a few examples: Animated, interactive curves(dynamic) OMG Particles II(dynamic) simple map of the us(static) <= very little code Radial Dendrogram(static) circle wave(dynamic) Force-directed...
The Elysian
Week 8: What communities should know about you? (Write a story about them)
8 months ago
The American Scholar
“water sign woman” by Lucille Clifton Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “water sign woman” by Lucille Clifton appeared first on The...
3 months ago
38
3 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “water sign woman” by Lucille Clifton appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
Simplify, simplify, simplify Kristi and I stumbled upon the realization that we’ve become minimalists. And it is exciting. We...
over a year ago
7
over a year ago
Kristi and I stumbled upon the realization that we’ve become minimalists. And it is exciting. We live in a one-bedroom apartment. It is spacious, for a one-bedroom, but compared to anything larger than a one-bedroom apartment, it is small. We managed to pack it full of stuff in...
Ben Borgers
tmrw
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'One Realises How Absolutely Modern the Best of the Old Things Are' My late father-in-law left me The Works of Rudyard Kipling in twenty-three volumes, the American...
11 months ago
21
11 months ago
My late father-in-law left me The Works of Rudyard Kipling in twenty-three volumes, the American edition published by Scribner’s in 1899 when the author was thirty-four years old. As a writer, Kipling was a wonder of nature, as prodigious as Shakespeare and Dickens. To put...
Josh Thompson
POODR Notes: Acquiring Behavior Through Inheritance (Chapter 6) I’m reading through Practical Object Oriented Design in Ruby . These are some notes from chapter 6,...
over a year ago
2
over a year ago
I’m reading through Practical Object Oriented Design in Ruby . These are some notes from chapter 6, Acquiring Behavior Through Inheritance; mostly these are for me, and they don’t intend to stand on their own. Read the book, work through chapter six, and then come back and read...
Escaping Flatland
Talking to part of a friend Finding an authentic connection based on who you are now, not who you were in the past
a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'To Have Part of His Life to Himself' “I am not obliged to do any more.”  Retirement is my choice. For most of my life I assumed I would...
3 weeks ago
19
3 weeks ago
“I am not obliged to do any more.”  Retirement is my choice. For most of my life I assumed I would drop dead at the keyboard in my office, mid-sentence, but next week I retire. I have always enjoyed work, the sense of contributing something to an enterprise, no matter how...
Josh Thompson
`Medusa` mythical creature: part 2 Preparing for Turing Series Index What follows is an eight-part series that will help you pick up...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
Preparing for Turing Series Index What follows is an eight-part series that will help you pick up useful information about a number of topics related to Ruby, specifically geared for students learning the Ruby programming language, as part of the Turing School’s Backend Software...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Winter Came in August Killing Fruit and Seed' A sad and sorely final yet incomplete tagline found after a poem in the Winter 1986 issue of The...
2 months ago
30
2 months ago
A sad and sorely final yet incomplete tagline found after a poem in the Winter 1986 issue of The American Scholar:  “Edward Case’s work has appeared in various journals, including the New Criterion, the Wall Street Journal, and Modern Age. This poem was taken from a collection of...
Ben Borgers
Security Questions
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'To Consider Seriously My Condition' Soon after he is shipwrecked on an island off the coast of Venezuela and has finished...
a year ago
34
a year ago
Soon after he is shipwrecked on an island off the coast of Venezuela and has finished salvaging everything useful from the wreckage, Robinson Crusoe builds a calendar:  “After I had been there about ten or twelve days, it came into my thoughts that I should lose my reckoning of...
Ben Borgers
JumboCode plans for Head of Engineering
a year ago
Josh Thompson
A message for high schoolers tl;dr: Before you start looking at colleges, be able to discuss coherently the following three...
over a year ago
6
over a year ago
tl;dr: Before you start looking at colleges, be able to discuss coherently the following three topics: Credentialism Signaling Opportunity cost If you can wrap your head around that, you’ll be ahead of most of your peers. I’ve got a few links for you farther down in this...
The American Scholar
Échame la Culpa The post Échame la Culpa appeared first on The American Scholar.
2 months ago
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
18
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...
This Space
Favourite books 2021 If such things matter, and they don't, my book of the year is Peter Holm Jensen’s The Moment. As I...
over a year ago
33
over a year ago
If such things matter, and they don't, my book of the year is Peter Holm Jensen’s The Moment. As I wrote in April, it’s one in which the writer seeks “a modest, self-effacing place within the intersection of time and eternity” and can be read again and again for this reason, as...
Astral Codex Ten
Open Thread 364 ...
6 days ago
Wuthering...
How Ivan Bunin and Vasily Grossman spent the war - He was in the countryside then for the last time... Without planning it I recently read three books by Russian writers from three different strands of...
3 months ago
28
3 months ago
Without planning it I recently read three books by Russian writers from three different strands of Russian literature: Andrei Platonov’s Chevengur (1929 /1972, tr. Robert and Elizabeth Chandler) in the Gogolian and Dostoyevskian strand, Ivan Bunin’s Dark Avenues (1943/1946)...
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Moralizing Purge of the Past' "I think we are living through a moralizing purge of the past, similar to the one that early...
9 months ago
24
9 months ago
"I think we are living through a moralizing purge of the past, similar to the one that early Christianity inflicted on the same pagan learning. There will be another Dark Ages in our lifetimes; and another Renaissance, too, but not one that we will live to see.”  I’m...
The American Scholar
American Horror Story Jeremy Dauber on our obsession with fear The post American Horror Story appeared first on The...
2 months ago
28
2 months ago
Jeremy Dauber on our obsession with fear The post American Horror Story appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
Of Wonder, the Courage of Uncertainty, and How to Hear Your Soul: The Best of The Marginalian 2023 Hindsight is our finest instrument for discerning the patterns of our lives. To look back on a year...
a year ago
16
a year ago
Hindsight is our finest instrument for discerning the patterns of our lives. To look back on a year of reading, a year of writing, is to discover a secret map of the mind, revealing the landscape of living — after all, how we spend our thoughts is how we spend our lives. In...
Josh Thompson
`Medusa` mythical creature: part 1 Preparing for Turing Series Index What follows is an eight-part series that will help you pick up...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
Preparing for Turing Series Index What follows is an eight-part series that will help you pick up useful information about a number of topics related to Ruby, specifically geared for students learning the Ruby programming language, as part of the Turing School’s Backend Software...
Wuthering...
Many of Plato's early Socratic dialogues - It was quite lovely. I’ve been enjoying Plato’s dialogues recently.  I’d read some of them before, at university or...
a year ago
41
a year ago
I’ve been enjoying Plato’s dialogues recently.  I’d read some of them before, at university or during my last Greek phase 25 years ago, and this time I hope to read almost all of them. I will make some notes on them in a few posts.  Give them a tag if nothing else, and make some...
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
43
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...
Journal and Links by...
🔗 Intermittent Social media fasting I have been wondering if “intermittent fasting” as a concept can be applied to “information diet.”...
5 months ago
1
5 months ago
I have been wondering if “intermittent fasting” as a concept can be applied to “information diet.” It’s an idea worth exploring, and this coming week is perfect to try it out. I’m traveling for a small photo adventure and will have spotty coverage. That means I can’t reach for...
Anecdotal Evidence
'He Knows to Get a Dollar' The word tummler I learned from A.J. Liebling. It’s the title of a story he collected in his first...
10 months ago
33
10 months ago
The word tummler I learned from A.J. Liebling. It’s the title of a story he collected in his first book, Back Where I Came From (1938). “Tummler” was published in the February 26, 1938 issue of The New Yorker and begins:  “To the boys of the I.&Y., Hymie Katz is a hero. He is a...
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
1
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...
The American Scholar
Bitten The post Bitten appeared first on The American Scholar.
8 months ago
sbensu
On becoming a person (book) It reframes therapy as a relationship instead of a treatment.
a month ago
This Space
A rare sort of writer Today is Gabriel Josipovici's 80th birthday. To mark the occasion, I'll link to various posts I've...
over a year ago
61
over a year ago
Today is Gabriel Josipovici's 80th birthday. To mark the occasion, I'll link to various posts I've written over the years – after a brief interlude. I read him first in July 1988 after borrowing The Lessons of Modernism from the second floor of Portsmouth Central Library because...
The Marginalian
May Sarton on the Art of Living Alone "The people we love are built into us."
a year ago
This Space
39 Books: 2018 In spite of what I said yesterday about the decline in the number of novels I read each year, this...
7 months ago
58
7 months ago
In spite of what I said yesterday about the decline in the number of novels I read each year, this year was packed with a variety: Australian, Korean, Austrian, Egyptian, German, Argentinian and, today's choice, Norwegian; that is, if variety depends on the country of origin. But...
sbensu
But I want to turn people into dinosaurs Beware of what you actually want.
5 months ago
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
25
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...
Wuthering...
Books I read in September 2024 - Boring books had their origin in boring readers My reading took an interesting Russian turn that I will write about, soon, tomorrow, there, I said...
3 months ago
49
3 months ago
My reading took an interesting Russian turn that I will write about, soon, tomorrow, there, I said it out loud so maybe I will really do it. November is Norwegian month at Dolce Bellezza.  I will be joining her by reading at least the first novel, The Other Name (2019), of Jon...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Georgeade as a Summer Drink' While looking for something else I blundered on an Anglo-American writer and cartoonist new to me...
a year ago
16
a year ago
While looking for something else I blundered on an Anglo-American writer and cartoonist new to me whose name and one-time popularity long ago evaporated: Oliver Herford (1860-1935), author, co-author and illustrator of more than sixty books for adults and children. There was a...
Journal and Links by...
🔗 The Myth of “Do What You Love” The most striking point, to me, from Tokumitsu’s book is how easily the myth of ’do what you love’...
4 months ago
1
4 months ago
The most striking point, to me, from Tokumitsu’s book is how easily the myth of ’do what you love’ cracks when you press on it. The underlying message of such a myth, she writes, is that ‘each individual’s specialness will guide him or her to work that he or she enjoys and that...
The Marginalian
The Science of Tears and the Art of Crying: An Illustrated Manifesto for Reclaiming Our Deepest... “All the poems of our lives are not yet made. We hear them crying to us,” Muriel Rukeyser writes in...
2 months ago
33
2 months ago
“All the poems of our lives are not yet made. We hear them crying to us,” Muriel Rukeyser writes in her timeless ode to the power of poetry. “Cry, heart, but never break,” entreats one of my favorite children’s books — which, at their best, are always philosophies for living. It...
Ben Borgers
Preschooler > AI
over a year ago
Ben Borgers
No Dessert Challenge
over a year ago
Journal and Links by...
🔗 Buh-bye, Spotify I finally ditched Spotify at the end of 2024. I never loved it, and I felt extra icky about giving...
2 weeks ago
1
2 weeks ago
I finally ditched Spotify at the end of 2024. I never loved it, and I felt extra icky about giving them my money ever since they had no trouble finding $250 million for the sham supplement salesman and douchebag magnet Joe Rogan, despite their inability to promote or pay the vast...
Ben Borgers
Building an e-ink picture frame that displays an iCloud photo album
a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'The World Has Always Seemed to Me So Various' I dropped out of university after my junior year in 1973 and didn’t return to campus to complete my...
3 months ago
38
3 months ago
I dropped out of university after my junior year in 1973 and didn’t return to campus to complete my B.A. in English until 2003. The lack of a degree never got in the way of working for almost a quarter-century as a newspaper reporter. I suspect a degree in most non-STEM...
Josh Thompson
No New Books I’ve promised myself that I won’t add any more books to my Kindle, either by purchasing them from...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
I’ve promised myself that I won’t add any more books to my Kindle, either by purchasing them from Amazon, or downloading them online, or renting them from a Library. Why? I’ve let reading about doing things stand in the way of doing the things. No amount of educational literature...
Ben Borgers
Winter break project list
a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Similar Universality of Voice' I reproach my younger self for being lazy and not seriously studying languages other than English. I...
6 months ago
41
6 months ago
I reproach my younger self for being lazy and not seriously studying languages other than English. I dabbled in Latin and German and retain a smattering of vocabulary and little grammar. If I were to study another language today my first choice would likely be Italian in order to...
The Elysian
Please come up with wildly speculative futures Inside my writing philosophy.
9 months ago
Wuthering...
Metamorphoses, cantos 7 through 10 - more Heroides, more gore, more of everything - What meen my... Metamorphoses is fluid, quick, and ever-changing.  Let’s look at cantos VII through X, which...
10 months ago
76
10 months ago
Metamorphoses is fluid, quick, and ever-changing.  Let’s look at cantos VII through X, which have their share of famous stories, stories famous, or as famous as they are, because of Metamorphoses.  Venus and Adonis, Baucis and Philemon, Orpheus and Eurydice, Pygmalion.  Icarus –...
Anecdotal Evidence
'For Now I Am As Lilliputian As All the Rest' “My mood is like the weather,” Chekhov writes on April 8, 1889. “I’m not doing any work, just...
9 months ago
59
9 months ago
“My mood is like the weather,” Chekhov writes on April 8, 1889. “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...
This Space
Proust regained I recommend very highly for anyone who has read or not read In Search of Lost Time Brian Nelson's...
a year ago
11
a year ago
I recommend very highly for anyone who has read or not read In Search of Lost Time Brian Nelson's The Swann Way, the first volume in a new translation of the entire novel by diverse hands, in this fine paperback from Oxford World's Classics. His translation of the chapter Swann...
Journal and Links by...
✏️ May in the Mojave Read on nazhamid.com or Reply via email
a year ago
The American Scholar
Martha Foley’s Granddaughters What the esteemed literary editor never knew about the life of her troubled son, David Burnett The...
6 months ago
44
6 months ago
What the esteemed literary editor never knew about the life of her troubled son, David Burnett The post Martha Foley’s Granddaughters appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Profoundly Bitter Lesson' My friend Moshe Vardi is a computer scientist at Rice University, the Karen Ostrum...
a year ago
15
a year ago
My friend Moshe Vardi is a computer scientist at Rice University, the Karen Ostrum George Distinguished Service Professor in Computational Engineering. He has published an essay, “A Moral Rot at Rice University”:  “I was well aware that antisemitism is alive and well in the US,...
Josh Thompson
Setting up Application Performance Monitoring in DataDog in your Rails App When I write guides to things, I write them first and foremost for myself, and I tend to work...
over a year ago
6
over a year ago
When I write guides to things, I write them first and foremost for myself, and I tend to work through things in excruciating detail. You might find this to be a little too in-depth, or you might appreciate the detail. Either way, if you want a step-by-step guide, this should do...
Escaping Flatland
On mentors What is it that motivates someone to take on someone and help them grow? Why do some learners have...
a year ago
12
a year ago
What is it that motivates someone to take on someone and help them grow? Why do some learners have that privilege?
Josh Thompson
Be a little better at personal email The next bunch of posts will be me “clearing out the drawers” of notes I have scattered across my...
over a year ago
6
over a year ago
The next bunch of posts will be me “clearing out the drawers” of notes I have scattered across my phone, computer, and brain. There is no unifying theme to what will be written here. Three recommendations to email better TL;DR Email should usually be as short as possible. More of...
Ben Borgers
Current Self and Going to Libraries
over a year ago
The American Scholar
Camouflage The post Camouflage appeared first on The American Scholar.
7 months ago
Wuthering...
The Story of the Stone, volume 4 - It was an eerie, desolate night. At the two-thirds mark, after 80 chapters of the 120, three big changes hit The Story of the Stone...
4 weeks ago
34
4 weeks ago
At the two-thirds mark, after 80 chapters of the 120, three big changes hit The Story of the Stone (c. 1760 / 1791).  First, David Hawkes, the original translator of the Penguin edition, dies; John Minford finishes the job.  Second, the author of the novel, Cao Xueqin, dies,...
The Marginalian
How to Triumph Over the Challenges of the Creative Life: Audubon’s Antidote to Despair We move through the world as surfaces shimmering with the visibilia of our accomplishments, the...
3 months ago
47
3 months ago
We move through the world as surfaces shimmering with the visibilia of our accomplishments, the undertow of our suffering invisible to passers-by. The selective collective memory we call history contributes to this willful blindness, obscuring the tremendous personal cost behind...
Anecdotal Evidence
'I Wish That He’d Arrived Much Sooner' I offended a reader by referring to Samuel Taylor Coleridge as “a brilliant windbag junkie.” Let’s...
a year ago
9
a year ago
I offended a reader by referring to Samuel Taylor Coleridge as “a brilliant windbag junkie.” Let’s consider each part of the epithet. “Brilliant”? Without question. He wrote three incontestably good poems but Coleridge is an early specimen of the “public intellectual,” bristling...
The American Scholar
In the Endless Arctic Light A journey to the far north of Norway means confronting our changing climate The post In the Endless...
a month ago
16
a month ago
A journey to the far north of Norway means confronting our changing climate The post In the Endless Arctic Light appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
Everything Is Happening All the Time: Legendary Physicist John Archibald Wheeler on Death and the... “To die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier,” Walt Whitman writes in the prime of...
3 months ago
18
3 months ago
“To die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier,” Walt Whitman writes in the prime of life. “What happens when you get to the end of things?” four-year-old Johnny in Ohio asks his mother from the bathtub while Whitman’s borrowed atoms are becoming young grass in a...
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
The Marginalian
An Introvert’s Field Guide to Friendship: Thoreau on the Challenges and Rewards of the Art of... "We only need to be as true to others as we are to ourselves that there may be ground enough for...
a year ago
ribbonfarm
Truth-Seeking Modes Been on a Venn diagram kick lately, since being primed to think in Venns by Harris campaign. This...
5 months ago
4
5 months ago
Been on a Venn diagram kick lately, since being primed to think in Venns by Harris campaign. This one summarizes an idea I’ve long been noodling on: The healthiest way to relate to a truth-seeking impulse is as an infinite game, where the goal is to continue playing, not arrive...
Wuthering...
Books I read in January 2024 - as long, indeed, as this book, which hardly anyone will read by... The best book I read was Ovid’s Metamorphoses, which will also be the best thing I read in...
11 months ago
56
11 months ago
The best book I read was Ovid’s Metamorphoses, which will also be the best thing I read in February.  I gotta catch up on my posts. One big book down, and as a result my list of January books is more sensible. TRAVEL, let’s call it Black Lamb and Grey Falcon (1941), Rebecca...
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Word Can Open Like a Tomb to Reveal Its Past' The poet William Wenthe opens his essay “The Glamour of Words” with a provocative memory. It was the...
9 months ago
37
9 months ago
The poet William Wenthe opens his essay “The Glamour of Words” with a provocative memory. It was the anniversary of Charles Dickens’ death and he was in the Poets’ Corner of Westminster Abbey, where Dickens is interred and his sister is speaking to mark the occasion. Wenthe looks...
Ben Borgers
Listserv
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Honest Before Anything Else' A reader doesn’t understand how tastes in books and writers might evolve across a lifetime, how...
3 weeks ago
23
3 weeks ago
A reader doesn’t understand how tastes in books and writers might evolve across a lifetime, how indifference might replace enthusiasm and love, indifference. He mentions Hart Crane, a poet I’m unlikely ever to reread. I swooned over The Bridge in high school, spurred on by our...
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
5
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...
The Marginalian
Loving the Tree of Life: Annie Dillard on How to Bear Your Mortality "We live and move by splitting the light of the present, as a canoe’s bow parts water."
a year ago
Josh Thompson
Typing for Programmers If you had to distill my ability to bring value to those around me, it would be “Josh types good”. I...
over a year ago
7
over a year ago
If you had to distill my ability to bring value to those around me, it would be “Josh types good”. I can press these magical little keys on this little metal box here, and make these words come out. If you’re reading these words, you don’t care how these words actually got on...
The American Scholar
Bastienne Schmidt The fabric of life The post Bastienne Schmidt appeared first on The American Scholar.
9 months ago
Escaping Flatland
Morning ritual + reading recommendations
11 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Jewish Kind of Feeling of the World' Isaac Bashevis Singer, speaking with an interviewer in 1983: “I really don’t believe that a writer...
a month ago
30
a month ago
Isaac Bashevis Singer, speaking with an interviewer in 1983: “I really don’t believe that a writer can have a programme. Many have; they say, ‘I’m writing about alienation’, or whatever they call it. I don’t have this programme. I have a story to tell and I sit down to tell the...
Journal and Links by...
✏️ The Work Is Never Done I went for a run. I’ve been running consistently for over a year and a half now. It’s a panacea for...
2 months ago
2
2 months ago
I went for a run. I’ve been running consistently for over a year and a half now. It’s a panacea for me. I run outside. I like to feel the cool wind on my skin, my pores open and sweating, the legs rhythmically turning over in pursuit of flow. In the beginning, I kept my head...
Journal and Links by...
🔗 Costco in Cancún So here I am, in Cancun, on an all-inclusive vacation with my family through Costco Travel, and it...
5 months ago
1
5 months ago
So here I am, in Cancun, on an all-inclusive vacation with my family through Costco Travel, and it feels like the world of the wholesale warehouse has somehow been extended down the East Coast to the Yucatán peninsula, all the way to the poor woman in a white polo with the...
sbensu
The secondary market in gift cards This post by patio11 covers a few things that I learned working with gift cards over the years.
over a year ago
Steven Scrawls
The Controversial Aftermath of the 777Linguine Interview The Controversial Aftermath of the 777Linguine Interview Longtime fans of popular EDM “angststep”...
6 months ago
7
6 months ago
The Controversial Aftermath of the 777Linguine Interview Longtime fans of popular EDM “angststep” artist 777Linguine are “shocked” and “betrayed” after his polarizing statements yesterday that his latest album, NOMORETEARS2CRY, was written and recorded in a time of “profound...
Journal and Links by...
🔗 Rivian's chief software officer says in-car buttons are 'an anomaly' Ideally, you would want to interact with your car through voice. The problem today is that most...
2 months ago
2
2 months ago
Ideally, you would want to interact with your car through voice. The problem today is that most voice assistants are just broken. Sorry Wassym, I'll take a tactile mechanical button in my car anyday. Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
Josh Thompson
Dream Big, and Build Optionality We all can dream big. I have dreams, and you probably do to. For example: Travel, location...
over a year ago
7
over a year ago
We all can dream big. I have dreams, and you probably do to. For example: Travel, location independent living, being wealthy/choosing to do work that interests you, enjoying “simple” things. The list could go on, and on, and on. But then we go right along doing all the normal...
Journal and Links by...
✏️ Bookmark to Bear Recently, I discovered that the creator of Pinboard posted transphobic views from that account on...
4 months ago
1
4 months ago
Recently, I discovered that the creator of Pinboard posted transphobic views from that account on (RIP) Twitter. This is disappointing, and a little digging revealed that it wasn't his first time espousing such views. I don't have time nor tolerance for this. I swiftly exported...
Anecdotal Evidence
'We Also Read for Ecstasy' A reader one-third of my age asks, “Why are books so important to you? What do they matter?” Her...
9 months ago
59
9 months ago
A reader one-third of my age asks, “Why are books so important to you? What do they matter?” Her questions aren’t cynical. She sounds like a reader driven by the sort of bookish hunger I recognize. Her tastes are eclectic, not confined strictly to the American or...
The Marginalian
The Paradox of Free Will The neuroscience, physics, and philosophy of freedom in a universe of fixed laws.
a year ago
sbensu
High Variance Management How should you manage a team that is trying to achieve results out of the ordinary?
over a year ago
The Marginalian
The Broadest Portal to Joy "Despite every single lie to the contrary, despite every single action born of that lie — we are in...
a year ago
60
a year ago
"Despite every single lie to the contrary, despite every single action born of that lie — we are in the midst of rhizomatic care that extends in every direction, spatially, temporally, spiritually."
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
4
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...
Josh Thompson
2015: The year I didn't think much? I generally think that if I write what I am thinking about, I can think about it a lot better....
over a year ago
7
over a year ago
I generally think that if I write what I am thinking about, I can think about it a lot better. Writing has a clarifying effect (or is it affect?) on thought.  If that’s the case, I just didn’t think much in 2015: I wrote about 45 things in 2013 and 2014. I wrote 8 in 2015. I’m...
Anecdotal Evidence
'I Am Breathing--Still' R.L. Barth is preparing a chapbook of poems titled Ghost Story for a publisher. One of its sections,...
a year ago
18
a year ago
R.L. Barth is preparing a chapbook of poems titled Ghost Story for a publisher. One of its sections, “Snowfall in Vietnam: Poems/Maxims,” consists of ten one-line, five-syllable poems and accompanying titles, some of which are longer than the poems. Their extreme...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Doing Valuable Work in Literary Criticism' “Part of the drama of reading Boswell’s Life for the first time is that one can never (however much...
5 months ago
52
5 months ago
“Part of the drama of reading Boswell’s Life for the first time is that one can never (however much classical or Christian erudition one brings to the task) predict confidently how Johnson is going to respond to this or that specific question; yet of course by the end one...
The Marginalian
Comet & Star: A Cosmic Fable about the Rhythms and Consolations of Friendship People pass through our lives and change us, tilting our orbit with their own. Sometimes, if the...
3 months ago
44
3 months ago
People pass through our lives and change us, tilting our orbit with their own. Sometimes, if the common gravitational center is strong enough, they return, they stay. Sometimes they travel on. But they change us all the same. The great consolation of the cosmic order is the...
The Marginalian
How the Octopus Came to Earth: Stunning 19th-Century French Chromolithographs of Cephalopods The art-science that captured the wonder of some of "the most brilliant productions of Nature."
a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'That Is My Ambition Here' Does anyone still read “Invictus”? Is it part of any school’s curriculum? It was as late as 1965,...
a year ago
11
a year ago
Does anyone still read “Invictus”? Is it part of any school’s curriculum? It was as late as 1965, when Miss Wagy had us memorize it in eighth-grade English. The poem is irresistible for recitation, whether privately in times of self-doubt or at the Kiwanis luncheon: “I am...
Journal and Links by...
✏️ The Long Start I am awakened by the sound of people shuffling by our camp. When I look out the side past the flap...
a year ago
2
a year ago
I am awakened by the sound of people shuffling by our camp. When I look out the side past the flap of our rooftop tent, I can see what appears to be runners or hikers. I get out and wave at them. It's mid-May of 2022, and it's a glorious morning. Then it dawns on me; it's a trail...
The American Scholar
The Source The post The Source appeared first on The American Scholar.
4 months ago
Josh Thompson
Illdefined Success is Unattainable We all probably have a few projects floating around our head, but they seem daunting. If it doesn’t...
over a year ago
5
over a year ago
We all probably have a few projects floating around our head, but they seem daunting. If it doesn’t seem daunting, it’s not much of a project, and you should either ramp it up until it’s daunting, or discard it. So - we have a daunting project. Now what? If you’re like me, you’ll...
Wuthering...
The Female Quixote by Charlotte Lennox - counting the pages, he was quite terrified at the number,... Di at The little white attic is chasing Don Quixote through the 18th century, so she read,...
a month ago
23
a month ago
Di at The little white attic is chasing Don Quixote through the 18th century, so she read, obviously, The Female Quixote (1852) by Charlotte Lennox.  I had not read it, so I trailed along. An archetypal novelistic heroine, young Arabella has had her brain addled by novels: From...
Wuthering...
The Bacchae by Euripides - O gods, I see the greatest grief there is. Reading Euripides chronologically, it would be fair to think that however ingenious and inventive...
over a year ago
47
over a year ago
Reading Euripides chronologically, it would be fair to think that however ingenious and inventive Euripides was, he did not write a play quite at the level of Agamemnon or Oedipus the King, at least until his brief exile in Macedon, where he wrote The Bacchae just before his...
Ben Borgers
Winter break project list [2024]
4 weeks ago
Josh Thompson
RailsConf CFP Outline I’m pitching some ideas for RailsConf. I only heard about it a few days ago (oops) so this is a bit...
over a year ago
6
over a year ago
I’m pitching some ideas for RailsConf. I only heard about it a few days ago (oops) so this is a bit rushed: Idea 1: “Junior” Developers are the Solution to Many of Your Problems Abstract: Our industry telegraphs: “We don’t want (or know how to handle) ‘Jr. Devs’.” Jr. Devs, or as...
Josh Thompson
Wrapping my head around local politics 001 Warning: Buzzwords ahead about millennials.* As a millennial, I want to “get involved” in my “local...
over a year ago
7
over a year ago
Warning: Buzzwords ahead about millennials.* As a millennial, I want to “get involved” in my “local community”, and don’t know the best way to “mobilize my resources”. vomit. I hate admitting that. But I still want to figure out if it is possible for me (little old me) to do...
Anecdotal Evidence
'But Johnson Fought Back' Epigraphs to books are often superfluous. They can come off as cute or pretentious. They add...
4 months ago
45
4 months ago
Epigraphs to books are often superfluous. They can come off as cute or pretentious. They add little or nothing to the manner in which we read the book and often amount to our author showing off, touting his own vast reading or giving himself an unearned endorsement. The most...
The Marginalian
Making Space: An Illustrated Ode to the Art of Welcoming the Unknown It is the silence between the notes that distinguishes music from noise, the stillness of the soil...
4 months ago
20
4 months ago
It is the silence between the notes that distinguishes music from noise, the stillness of the soil that germinates the seeds to burst into bloom. It is in the gap of absence that we learn trust, in the gap between knowledge and mystery that we discover wonder. Every act of making...
This Space
39 Books: 1996 It's a commonplace that in reading novels one can escape the ravages of time. In 1994, I borrowed my...
8 months ago
39
8 months ago
It's a commonplace that in reading novels one can escape the ravages of time. In 1994, I borrowed my student housemate's innocent-looking hardback edition of Nicholson Baker's The Fermata in which Arno Strine writes about how he can actually stop time. The title refers to the...
Anecdotal Evidence
'I Am Thinking This May Be My Last Summer' I never encountered the name Keith Douglas in school. We knew some of the English poets of the first...
7 months ago
28
7 months ago
I never encountered the name Keith Douglas in school. We knew some of the English poets of the first war – Wilfred Owen, Rupert Brooke, Siegfried Sassoon – but the second seemed a blank. On my own, I learned of the Americans – Karl Shapiro, Anthony Hecht, Howard Nemerov. Only...
Josh Thompson
Corollas and U-Hauls These last few posts have a theme. We moved. I’m writing about it a lot because I thought about it a...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
These last few posts have a theme. We moved. I’m writing about it a lot because I thought about it a lot, and a lot of work went into it. When moving across the country, you have a few options. You could higher a moving company, who comes and boxes up your house, packs a truck,...
Josh Thompson
Content but Restless There is tension between being content with what you have, and striving for more. We have all heard...
over a year ago
6
over a year ago
There is tension between being content with what you have, and striving for more. We have all heard the “serenity prayer”: God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, The courage to change the things I can, And wisdom to know the difference. This prayer is...
Anecdotal Evidence
'I Hope This Explanation Is Wrong' One of life’s unsolved puzzles, especially for readers and writers: How can certain arrangements of...
5 months ago
42
5 months ago
One of life’s unsolved puzzles, especially for readers and writers: How can certain arrangements of words encountered in childhood or youth, and revisited regularly for a lifetime, still inspire delight, while others, in effect, evaporate before we hear them? In the latter...
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
7
over a year ago
I use Slack at work. And used it in Turing. And am in a few programming-related Slack groups. (Ahoy, #DenverDevs). My last job, I used Slack. The job before that, I got the whole company on Slack. I’ve used it for years. Slack delivers value to me, and induces little anxiety, and...
This Space
39 Books: 2023 This is the 39th and final post of this series. As the introduction explains, I began seeking a...
7 months ago
78
7 months ago
This is the 39th and final post of this series. As the introduction explains, I began seeking a return to the short-form of the early days of blogging. And it started off well, with each entry written in no time, sometimes stirring up the sediment of initial enchantment. As I got...
Anecdotal Evidence
'We Find It Hard to Read Great Books at All' A young reader tells me he is unable to read most books written before “about the middle of the 60s....
9 months ago
25
9 months ago
A young reader tells me he is unable to read most books written before “about the middle of the 60s. I like Vonnegut. A lot of the stuff before that is like a foreign language to me.” I’m reminded of an English professor who told me more than half a century ago that most of her...
Anecdotal Evidence
'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
18
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...
This Space
The enigma for criticism To this day, I can learn only from bad films. The good ones I watch in the same spirit in which I...
a year ago
39
a year ago
To this day, I can learn only from bad films. The good ones I watch in the same spirit in which I watched when I was a kid. The great ones, even when I see them many times, are just an enigma.  Werner Herzog describes a few "bad films" in his autobiography, all from his...
The American Scholar
To Catch a Sunset Reflections on allergies, anxieties, and the limits of familial love The post To Catch a Sunset...
7 months ago
21
7 months ago
Reflections on allergies, anxieties, and the limits of familial love The post To Catch a Sunset appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
Changing the Lens Exploding the Canon, Episode 5 (Finale) The post Changing the Lens appeared first on The American...
8 months ago
64
8 months ago
Exploding the Canon, Episode 5 (Finale) The post Changing the Lens appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
Albert Camus on How to Live Whole in a Broken World Born into a World War to live through another, Albert Camus (November 7, 1913–January 4, 1960) died...
7 months ago
45
7 months ago
Born into a World War to live through another, Albert Camus (November 7, 1913–January 4, 1960) died in a car crash with an unused train ticket to the same destination in his pocket. Just three years earlier, he had become the second-youngest laureate of the Nobel Prize, awarded...
Robert Caro
Misery Acres: An Investigative Series Perhaps Caro’s most influential work during his years at Newsday was the investigative series,...
a year ago
4
a year ago
Perhaps Caro’s most influential work during his years at Newsday was the investigative series, “Misery Acres,” a withering expose of fraud.
The American Scholar
Betsy, Mary, and Trish The post Betsy, Mary, and Trish appeared first on The American Scholar.
8 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Demographer of the Common Woe' Only in the last twenty years or so have I started accumulating deaths, logging them on a...
a year ago
32
a year ago
Only in the last twenty years or so have I started accumulating deaths, logging them on a internal list and weighing them against my own precious self. I’ve led a improbably healthy life which only encouraged the universal young man’s conviction that I was immune to mortality and...
sbensu
Incentives as selection effects When you apply a new incentive, you select for a new population that prefers the incentive.
7 months ago
The Marginalian
Simone Weil on Love and Its Counterfeit How to tell a plaything from a necessity.
a year ago
The Marginalian
Awakened Cosmos: Poetry as Spiritual Practice "Poetry is the cosmos awakened to itself."
10 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Well Educated and Glad of the Fact' “[A] literary man or woman is someone who is not only steeped in literature but has made this...
2 months ago
28
2 months ago
“[A] literary man or woman is someone who is not only steeped in literature but has made this immersion into literature part of his or her own life, so that the experience of books has been integral with the experience of life and therefore strongly influences his or her general...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Time Is Tight' My brother is dying as he lived – stubbornly. He has been in hospice for two weeks and is...
4 months ago
30
4 months ago
My brother is dying as he lived – stubbornly. He has been in hospice for two weeks and is failing incrementally. On Monday we were swapping memories and he stopped talking on Tuesday, the same day he stopped eating. He lies on his back on the hospice bed, mouth open, eyes staring...
Wuthering...
The endlessly adaptable plays of Plautus - I’ll make it into a comedy with some tragedy mixed in The plays of Plautus are the foundation of Western comedy.  That they are based on the plays of...
a year ago
58
a year ago
The plays of Plautus are the foundation of Western comedy.  That they are based on the plays of Menander and the other Greek New Comedy writers was irrelevant, since all of those texts were soon lost.  Plautus (and his successor Terence) carried the stage traditions, the...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Amateurism (in the Original Sense of the Term)' Autodidact as a noun and adjective arrived in English in 1534 via French, from a Latinized form of...
a year ago
17
a year ago
Autodidact as a noun and adjective arrived in English in 1534 via French, from a Latinized form of the Greek for “self-taught.” The range of the word’s uses in our university-smitten age is vast. Some academics apply it to anyone without an advanced degree who presumes to have...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Each Man Can Be Judged By His Favorite Books' This I find in The Lone Heretic: A Biography of Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo (1963) by Margaret Thomas...
7 months ago
59
7 months ago
This I find in The Lone Heretic: A Biography of Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo (1963) by Margaret Thomas Rudd, who quotes her subject: “Each man can be judged by his favorite books.” She adds of the great Spanish thinker and novelist:  “Throughout his long life Unamuno returned to...
The Marginalian
Spell Against Indifference I was a latecomer to poetry — an art form I did not understand and, as we tend to do with what we do...
a year ago
15
a year ago
I was a latecomer to poetry — an art form I did not understand and, as we tend to do with what we do not understand, discounted. But under its slow seduction, I came to see how it shines a sidewise gleam on the invisible and unnameable regions of being where the truest truths...
The Marginalian
The Stunning Mystical Paintings of the 16th-Century Portuguese Artist Francisco de Holanda Blake before Blake, Hilma before Hilma.
a year ago
The Marginalian
Polyvagal Theory and the Neurobiology of Connection: The Science of Rupture, Repair, and Reciprocity "The mind narrates what the nervous system knows. Story follows state."
7 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'You Have to Read the Words' “Tolstoy was so much better than any other writer who ever lived that you couldn’t even remotely...
3 months ago
36
3 months ago
“Tolstoy was so much better than any other writer who ever lived that you couldn’t even remotely compare anyone to him.”  I first read War and Peace in the eighth grade in a paperback abridgement. I remember reading it in science class, half-heartedly hiding the book behind the...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Leave Him Something to Imagine' “I am now beginning to get fairly into my work; and by the help of a vegetable diet, with a few of...
a year ago
19
a year ago
“I am now beginning to get fairly into my work; and by the help of a vegetable diet, with a few of the cold seeds, I make no doubt but I shall be able to go on with my uncle Toby’s story, and my own, in a tolerable strait line.”  By the time a persevering reader has reached Book...
This Space
39 Books: 2022 "Hölderlin...asked only that we accept silence as the one meaningful syllable in the...
7 months ago
72
7 months ago
"Hölderlin...asked only that we accept silence as the one meaningful syllable in the universe." This line from Paul Stubbs' remarkable essay collection The Return to Silence is not an epigram to Marjorie Perloff's Infrathin: An Experiment in Micropoetics, but it might have...
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
Josh Thompson
Growing in your first software development job I started my first software developer role a year ago. (November 2017) This is tremendously...
over a year ago
7
over a year ago
I started my first software developer role a year ago. (November 2017) This is tremendously exciting, of course, but introduces its own set of challenges, like: I finished Turing and I’ve got a job! Oh snap. I just finished a grueling program, and my reward is I’m fit to sit at...
The American Scholar
The March Down Main The post The March Down Main appeared first on The American Scholar.
2 months ago
Josh Thompson
Circles of Influence I was listening to a podcast today, where they said if you have problems knowing what to write...
over a year ago
5
over a year ago
I was listening to a podcast today, where they said if you have problems knowing what to write about, or you’ve hit a block, write about something that angers you. This is easy. I could write about any number of things that we’ve all read in a newspaper, and get good and angry...
Anecdotal Evidence
'That Grand Marxist Stalin Did Ten In' In one of the essential books published in the twentieth century, The Great Terror (1968; rev. 1990,...
a month ago
24
a month ago
In one of the essential books published in the twentieth century, The Great Terror (1968; rev. 1990, 2008), Robert Conquest (1917-2015) writes matter-of-factly: “We are told in recent Soviet articles that on 12 December 1937 alone, Stalin and Molotov sanctioned 3,167 death...
Escaping Flatland
Swimming in July Just the pure physical joy of thrashing your arms around in water. To fill the kid’s buckets and...
5 months ago
62
5 months ago
Just the pure physical joy of thrashing your arms around in water. To fill the kid’s buckets and throw it at the sun—the way the water falls apart into drops, and then into mist, the way a rainbow appears for a second and is gone.
Anecdotal Evidence
'Each Sweaty Midnight I’m a Lifer' Think of this as an unexpected coda to Monday’s post, “A Recon Patrol Is a Small Unit,” in which I...
5 months ago
43
5 months ago
Think of this as an unexpected coda to Monday’s post, “A Recon Patrol Is a Small Unit,” in which I asked readers to report anything they knew about the war correspondent Albert W. Vinson. He was author of a dispatch recounting a 1968 reconnaissance patrol in Vietnam led by the...
The Elysian
My TEDx talk about the future of fiction And publishing.
7 months ago
The Marginalian
The Importance of Trusting Yourself: Nick Cave on the Relationship Between Creativity and Faith "There is more going on than we can see or understand, and we need to find a way to lean into the...
a year ago
The Marginalian
The Science of Tears and the Art of Crying: An Illustrated Manifesto for Reclaiming Our Deepest... “All the poems of our lives are not yet made. We hear them crying to us,” Muriel Rukeyser writes in...
2 months ago
22
2 months ago
“All the poems of our lives are not yet made. We hear them crying to us,” Muriel Rukeyser writes in her timeless ode to the power of poetry. “Cry, heart, but never break,” entreats one of my favorite children’s books — which, at their best, are always philosophies for living. It...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Poets Who Are Plain and Gladsome' Being or pretending to be a philistine is great fun. It was one of Philip Larkin’s favorite ruses...
10 months ago
36
10 months ago
Being or pretending to be a philistine is great fun. It was one of Philip Larkin’s favorite ruses (“Books are a load of crap”). It’s certain to rile the pompous and pretentious, so all you have to do is sit back and enjoy the sputtering. I’ve happened on a first-rate anthology of...
The American Scholar
Under a Spell Everlasting Thomas Mann’s Magic Mountain, published a century ago, tells of a world unable to free itself from...
a month ago
20
a month ago
Thomas Mann’s Magic Mountain, published a century ago, tells of a world unable to free itself from the cataclysm of war The post Under a Spell Everlasting 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
12
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...
Josh Thompson
On Leaving Evangelicalism And Opposing It Content warning & summary This paper talks about ethics, ethical behavior, violence, abuse,...
a year ago
6
a year ago
Content warning & summary This paper talks about ethics, ethical behavior, violence, abuse, complicency, domination and oppression. It’s a condimnation of evangelicalism, but not, necessarily, any particular evangelical. There are those within evangelicalism who are ethical,...
The American Scholar
The Fair Fields Only rarely did the outside world intrude on an idyllic Connecticut childhood, but in the tumultuous...
a month ago
11
a month ago
Only rarely did the outside world intrude on an idyllic Connecticut childhood, but in the tumultuous 1960s, that intrusion included an encounter with evil The post The Fair Fields appeared first on The American Scholar.
Journal and Links by...
✏️ Music is Memory Stone Temple Pilots’ “Kitchenware & Candybars” comes on, and suddenly I'm 17 again, driving...
4 months ago
2
4 months ago
Stone Temple Pilots’ “Kitchenware & Candybars” comes on, and suddenly I'm 17 again, driving underneath the amber glow of late-night deserted streets in Kuala Lumpur. I can feel the sharp air conditioning in the car against my skin, keeping the tropical heat and humidity outside...
Josh Thompson
LeetCode: Words From Characters, and Benchmarking Solutions I recently worked through a LeetCode problem. The first run was pretty brutal. It took (what felt...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
I recently worked through a LeetCode problem. The first run was pretty brutal. It took (what felt like) forever, and I was not content with my solution. Even better, it passed the test cases given while building the solution, but failed on submission. So, once I fixed it so it...
Anecdotal Evidence
'We Take Measure of the Loss' The youngest poet included by Yvor Winters and Kenneth Fields in Quest for Reality: An Anthology of...
11 months ago
20
11 months ago
The youngest poet included by Yvor Winters and Kenneth Fields in Quest for Reality: An Anthology of Short Poems in English (1969) was M. Scott Momaday, a former Winters graduate student at Stanford who was then thirty-five years old. Winters, who died in 1968, also considered...
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
59
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...
Ben Borgers
The real reason for my multiple majors
a year ago
The American Scholar
“Tristan da Cunha” by Roy Campbell Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Tristan da Cunha” by Roy Campbell appeared first on The...
5 months ago
40
5 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Tristan da Cunha” by Roy Campbell appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
Hot and Cold The post Hot and Cold appeared first on The American Scholar.
6 months ago
Ben Borgers
Did MCAS Matter?
over a year ago
Escaping Flatland
Look for people who likes the illegible you of today, not your past achievements Though we talk about “the individual vs the collective,” as if that dichotomy is an eternal truth...
a year ago
14
a year ago
Though we talk about “the individual vs the collective,” as if that dichotomy is an eternal truth about the world, there exist groups that encourage divergence and healthy individuation.
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
65
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
How Emotions Are Made "Emotions are not reactions to the world; they are your constructions of the world."
11 months ago
Ben Borgers
Gimme Back My Headphones
over a year ago
Journal and Links by...
🔗 Phosphor Icons Phosphor is a flexible icon family for interfaces, diagrams, presentations — whatever, really. Visit...
4 months ago
1
4 months ago
Phosphor is a flexible icon family for interfaces, diagrams, presentations — whatever, really. Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
The Marginalian
How to Own Your Human-Heartedness: Alan Watts on the Confucian Concept of Jen and the Dangers of... "Trust in human nature is acceptance of the good-and-bad of it, and it is hard to trust those who do...
a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Maintaining a Stable and Orderly Civilization' On the same day I removed all the books from one of the bookcases, dusted the shelves...
7 months ago
53
7 months ago
On the same day I removed all the books from one of the bookcases, dusted the shelves and reorganized the volumes, one of our cats leaped into an open cupboard in the kitchen. One of the four pegs supporting the middle shelf was missing and Trane’s weight tipped it enough so a...
Josh Thompson
On Boldness In Climbing Climb boldly. I’ve tried to write about this many times, and have thousands of words scattered...
over a year ago
5
over a year ago
Climb boldly. I’ve tried to write about this many times, and have thousands of words scattered across my computer about this topic. I always felt like I wasn’t communicating it quite right. I wasn’t happy with it. So I said “screw it, I’ll explain it like I would if I were...
The Marginalian
The Donkey and the Meaning of Eternity: Nobel-Winning Spanish Poet Juan Ramón Jiménez’s Love Letter... "Come with me. I'll teach you the flowers and the stars."
a year ago
The Marginalian
What Makes Life Alive: Vassily Grossman on Consciousness, Freedom, and Kindness “Every thing that lives is holy, life delights in life,” William Blake wrote in an era when science...
5 months ago
44
5 months ago
“Every thing that lives is holy, life delights in life,” William Blake wrote in an era when science first began raising questions with spiritual undertones: What is life? Where does it begin and end? What makes it alive? But in the epochs since, having discovered muons and...
Wuthering...
Plato's Symposium - philosophy as realist fiction - pick up something to tickle your nose with, and... Philosophy makes me nervous, so I will begin my squib about Plato’s Symposium (c. 385-370 BCE) with...
over a year ago
36
over a year ago
Philosophy makes me nervous, so I will begin my squib about Plato’s Symposium (c. 385-370 BCE) with an anxiety-deflating observation:  Symposium is fiction, a long story.  It is fiction in that at least some of it is invented, but mostly in that it uses the techniques of fiction:...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Brave Respect the Brave' In observance of Memorial Day, R.L. Barth sent me a poem by Ambrose Bierce, one I had never read...
7 months ago
62
7 months ago
In observance of Memorial Day, R.L. Barth sent me a poem by Ambrose Bierce, one I had never read before, “To E.S. Salomon” (Black Beetles in Amber, 1892). Here is the memorably pertinent third stanza:  “The brave respect the brave. The brave Respect the dead; but you -- you...
Escaping Flatland
Notes on energy and intelligence becoming cheaper In 2015, I amused myself by training a neural network to generate poems in the style of various...
a year ago
13
a year ago
In 2015, I amused myself by training a neural network to generate poems in the style of various poets I knew and submitted the results to a fanzine.
Journal and Links by...
🔗 Dead Simple Sites The most minimal sites on the web, curated in one place. Visit original link → or View on...
10 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'I Leave Him, Full of Envy' Without resorting to clues, who do you think Eugenio Montale is talking about:  “He is a strong,...
a year ago
15
a year ago
Without resorting to clues, who do you think Eugenio Montale is talking about:  “He is a strong, cordial, human man, whom one seems to have always known.”   One hint: it’s a poet. Among major poets, the pickings are slim. Strong? Scratch Cavafy. Cordial? There goes Frost. “Human...
Ben Borgers
Fancy Quotation Marks
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'One Is Always at Home in One’s Past' I will quote the writer who has given me more pleasure – “aesthetic bliss” he called it – than any...
8 months ago
35
8 months ago
I will quote the writer who has given me more pleasure – “aesthetic bliss” he called it – than any other and whose birthday we observed earlier this week: “One is always at home in one’s past.” That might serve as a gloss on his autobiography, Speak, Memory, in which he writes at...
sbensu
Math intuitions on variance This is a supplement to High Variance Management, where I build some intuition on the different...
over a year ago
10
over a year ago
This is a supplement to High Variance Management, where I build some intuition on the different probability distributions involved.
Astral Codex Ten
Open Thread 363 ...
a week ago
The American Scholar
In Reprise: Next, Line Please A new poetry prompt for players new and old The post In Reprise: Next, Line Please appeared first on...
2 months ago
31
2 months ago
A new poetry prompt for players new and old The post In Reprise: Next, Line Please appeared first on The American Scholar.
Journal and Links by...
✏️ Stairway to the Sun We had come across Teotihuacán in research around the less city-type things to see in Mexico City,...
over a year ago
1
over a year ago
We had come across Teotihuacán in research around the less city-type things to see in Mexico City, and a recommendation from a friend also backed it up. We undertook our first AirBnB Experience with Hugo & Gabriel, a well-reviewed brother duo who grew up not too far from the...
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
23
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.
This Space
Kevin Hart and the outside There are two reasons why listening to Kevin Hart's interview on the Hermitix podcast, and reading...
a year ago
65
a year ago
There are two reasons why listening to Kevin Hart's interview on the Hermitix podcast, and reading his new collection and The Dark Gaze for the second time, has helped me to recognise what I have forgotten, missed, misconstrued or misunderstood in Maurice Blanchot's writing or,...
Wuthering...
The Assemblywomen by Aristophanes - Octopus tunnyfish dogfish and skate The Assemblywomen by Aristophanes – or The Parliament of Women, or several other titles – was...
over a year ago
38
over a year ago
The Assemblywomen by Aristophanes – or The Parliament of Women, or several other titles – was performed in 392 BCE, thirteen years after The Frogs.  In the interval many things had changed.  Athens had been conquered; democracy was overthrown but restored; one endless war ended...
Anecdotal Evidence
'. . . Or That He Did Not' Some of us enjoy footnotes and other annotations. Thoughtful, non-Kinbotean notes accompanying older...
7 months ago
53
7 months ago
Some of us enjoy footnotes and other annotations. Thoughtful, non-Kinbotean notes accompanying older texts can identify historical figures and help us decipher obsolete words. As Joyce advised in the Wake: “Wipe your glosses with what you know.” My preference with Shakespeare...
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
39
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
"The Pensive Citadel" My review of The Pensive Citadel by Victor Brombert is published in the December issue of The New...
a year ago
16
a year ago
My review of The Pensive Citadel by Victor Brombert is published in the December issue of The New Criterion.
The Marginalian
Something in You Hungers for Clarity: Ta-Nehisi Coates on Writing “Words have more power than any one can guess; it is by words that the world’s great fight, now in...
a month ago
35
a month ago
“Words have more power than any one can guess; it is by words that the world’s great fight, now in these civilized times, is carried on,” Mary Shelley wrote in the middle of the Napoleonic Wars that laid the template for the colonialist power structure of the modern world, in an...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Right Things in the Right Order' “But surely the stories of Chekhov or the paintings of de Chirico move us not only because they are...
a year ago
14
a year ago
“But surely the stories of Chekhov or the paintings of de Chirico move us not only because they are so well done, but because in each case the artist has arranged exactly the right things in the right order. The choice of subject matter has been at least half of the achievement....
The American Scholar
Ups and Downs The post Ups and Downs appeared first on The American Scholar.
a month ago
The Marginalian
Jealousy and Its Antidote: Pioneering Psychiatrist Leslie Farber on the Tangled Psychology of Our... "Every jealous person knows jealousy to be a brutally degrading experience and resists with all his...
a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'The First to Climb a Mountain Because It Is There' On this date in 1336, just for the hell of it, Francesco Petrarca (we know him as Petrarch), his...
8 months ago
58
8 months ago
On this date in 1336, just for the hell of it, Francesco Petrarca (we know him as Petrarch), his brother Gherardo and two servants climbed to the 6,263-foot summit of Mount Ventoux in Provence. Morris Bishop, Vladimir Nabokov’s closest friend at Cornell, writes in Petrarch and...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Monsoons, Boredom, Stench' R.L. Barth takes as the epigraph to his new chapbook, Ghost Story (Scienter Press, Louisville, Ky.,...
10 months ago
28
10 months ago
R.L. Barth takes as the epigraph to his new chapbook, Ghost Story (Scienter Press, Louisville, Ky., 2024), a passage from Dr. Johnson’s Idler essay for September 2, 1758:  “I suppose every man is shocked when he hears how frequently soldiers are wishing for war. The wish is not...
Journal and Links by...
🔗 The cost of fueling my body I’ve become a bit obsessed with how much it costs to fuel my body during the working hours. — Dave...
5 months ago
1
5 months ago
I’ve become a bit obsessed with how much it costs to fuel my body during the working hours. — Dave Rupert Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
Anecdotal Evidence
'We Toated Him' R.L. Barth, a Marine Corps veteran of the Vietnam War, has written a new poem, “Exercise”:  “The...
a year ago
15
a year ago
R.L. Barth, a Marine Corps veteran of the Vietnam War, has written a new poem, “Exercise”:  “The chopper landed; in full combat gear We loaded single file to practice rappelling Into a jungle lacking an LZ. The exercise aborted when a cherry, Some private with a couple weeks...
Steven Scrawls
Stone Hands Reaching Stone Hands Reaching I’m told the statue is right in front of me, so I reach out and find myself...
7 months ago
7
7 months ago
Stone Hands Reaching I’m told the statue is right in front of me, so I reach out and find myself touching a stone forearm. It’s cold, of course, and it’s coarser than skin, but tracing along the arms is enough to bring back memories of being comforted, of being held, when I was a...
This Space
This kingdom by the sea Published in 1912, it’s about the fall of the repressed writer Gustav von Aschenbach, when his...
a year ago
40
a year ago
Published in 1912, it’s about the fall of the repressed writer Gustav von Aschenbach, when his supposedly objective appreciation of a young boy’s beauty becomes sexual obsession. This is how BBC Radio 4's In Our Time sets up a discussion of Thomas Mann's Death in Venice...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Cool Malignity of Othello' “As Shakespeare went on, however, he became interested in why people like evil, not for their own...
a year ago
13
a year ago
“As Shakespeare went on, however, he became interested in why people like evil, not for their own advantage but for its own sake.”  In his lecture on Othello, W.H. Auden understands, as a growing number of our contemporaries do not, that evil is autonomous and self-justifying....
Anecdotal Evidence
'I Find a Demanding Medium Liberating' One can argue that the essential purpose of art, despite what the humorless say, is to give...
a week ago
9
a week ago
One can argue that the essential purpose of art, despite what the humorless say, is to give pleasure to its consumers. If so, I rather uncharacteristically denied myself a lot of it by not discovering the poems of Turner Cassity until the final year of his life. He is a poet...
Anecdotal Evidence
'I Used to Stand in Front of the Windows' In my dream I was staring through the window of a bookstore, worried that sunlight would bleach the...
a year ago
25
a year ago
In my dream I was staring through the window of a bookstore, worried that sunlight would bleach the color from the cover of a book. At the center of a display that seemed to be made of cotton gauze was not just any book but a first edition of Ulysses. In the rare books collection...
Josh Thompson
How to never accidentally click Twitter's "Moments" again (and to block anything else on the... Do you use Twitter’s “Moments” tool, or do you just find it really annoying? Most people find it...
over a year ago
5
over a year ago
Do you use Twitter’s “Moments” tool, or do you just find it really annoying? Most people find it annoying. Here’s how to get rid of Twitter’s “Moments” forever: 0. Be won over to using an ad blocker on the internet. They don’t block just ads, but malicious scripts and...
Wuthering...
everything in a being is always repeating - reading Gertrude Stein's The Making of Americans Since I actually read the thing for some reason I will write some notes on Gertrude Stein’s enormous...
7 months ago
70
7 months ago
Since I actually read the thing for some reason I will write some notes on Gertrude Stein’s enormous The Making of Americans: Being a History of a Family’s Progress (1925).  It is a monster.  Why did I read it?  No, that is not the right questions.  There are good reasons to read...
Astral Codex Ten
Open Thread 357 ...
a month ago
The Marginalian
Wonder-Sighting on Planet Earth: The Space Telescope Eye of the Scallop Inside Earth's most alien vision.
a year ago
Journal and Links by...
✏️ Hoja Santa On our first visit to Mexico City, and because we're often weary of lines, we opted out on the...
over a year ago
1
over a year ago
On our first visit to Mexico City, and because we're often weary of lines, we opted out on the well-known Panaderia Rosetta. We even skipped eating the infamous Mexican pastry concha! But on this trip, after having a delicious chocolate one from Delirio, and seeing the location...
Robert Caro
Anatomy of a $9 Burglary “Anatomy of a $9 Burglary” is among Caro’s best early writing. When police arrested a criminal, all...
a year ago
6
a year ago
“Anatomy of a $9 Burglary” is among Caro’s best early writing. When police arrested a criminal, all signs indicated a simple case of burglar
Journal and Links by...
🔗 Inclusive Design Principles These Inclusive Design Principles are about putting people first. It's about designing for the needs...
4 months ago
2
4 months ago
These Inclusive Design Principles are about putting people first. It's about designing for the needs of people with permanent, temporary, situational, or changing disabilities — all of us really. Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
Wuthering...
The Nicomachean Ethics - moderate Aristotle - clarity within the limits of the subject matter I will borrow the quotation from Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics I found on p. 186 of Gary Paul...
a year ago
47
a year ago
I will borrow the quotation from Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics I found on p. 186 of Gary Paul Morson’s extraordinary new study of the ethics if Russian literature: Our discussion will be adequate if it achieves clarity within the limits of the subject matter.  For precision...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Taking Your Time, Angel of Death' I like plain speaking when it comes to death. Not needlessly harsh but direct and above all...
2 months ago
30
2 months ago
I like plain speaking when it comes to death. Not needlessly harsh but direct and above all unvarnished, no flowers, closer to a coroner’s report than a greeting card. A well-meaning reader has sent belated condolences for my brother’s death in August without once using any of...
The Marginalian
Jonathan Franzen on How to Write About Nature, with a Side of Rachel Carson and Alice in Wonderland I grew up loving Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. My grandmother read it to me before I could read....
10 months ago
60
10 months ago
I grew up loving Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. My grandmother read it to me before I could read. I read it to myself as soon as I could. I loved the strangeness of it, and the tenderness. As a child mathematician, I loved knowing that a grown mathematician had written it. But...
Astral Codex Ten
Subscrive Drive '25 + Free Unlocked Posts ...
5 days ago
Journal and Links by...
✏️ Technologically Content My iPhone 14 Pro is paid off. I've been on the iPhone Upgrade Program since it debuted but decided...
3 months ago
1
3 months ago
My iPhone 14 Pro is paid off. I've been on the iPhone Upgrade Program since it debuted but decided to skip last year's 15. This year's 16, while initially tempting in theory, has actively persuaded me to skip it again, likely until I need a new phone. I design mobile apps. It's...
Ben Borgers
Heart Reacts
over a year ago
Journal and Links by...
🔗 Smart Quotes for Smart People Good typography uses smart quotes, not dumb quotes. — Jason Santa Maria Visit original link → or...
4 months ago
1
4 months ago
Good typography uses smart quotes, not dumb quotes. — Jason Santa Maria Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
Wuthering...
The Best Books of 2024 For the last year and a half I read short books, mostly, which was psychologically satisfying and...
a year ago
45
a year ago
For the last year and a half I read short books, mostly, which was psychologically satisfying and anyway necessary to fit the available energy and concentration.  Now, though, back on my feet, I hope, I am ready to read long books again. Long, and I mean it, like Rebecca West’s...
Josh Thompson
Don't Focus on the Present If you accept the premise that training  cycles are the method by which you will improve your...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
If you accept the premise that training  cycles are the method by which you will improve your climbing, you  should be able to focus less on the day-by-day fluctuation in your performance. At least, I should be able to, since I accept that premise. Yet I still struggle to not be...
The Marginalian
The Other Significant Others: Living and Loving Outside the Confines of Conventional Friendship and... "While we weaken friendships by expecting too little of them, we undermine romantic relationships by...
10 months ago
Wuthering...
Diogenes Laertius and the fun of the fragment We have the complete Plato, from multiple manuscript sources.  We have lost every published book...
over a year ago
41
over a year ago
We have the complete Plato, from multiple manuscript sources.  We have lost every published book (widely copied scroll) of Aristotle’s, but a large mass of what are perhaps transcribed lecture notes survived, barely, in a single manuscript, so that is our Aristotle.  I don’t know...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Laurels All Are Cut' A thoughtful reader, knowing of my fondness for A.E. Housman’s poems, has sent me the English...
10 months ago
18
10 months ago
A thoughtful reader, knowing of my fondness for A.E. Housman’s poems, has sent me the English composer John Ireland’s 1928 setting for a verse from Last Poems (1922, that literary annus mirabilis). The baritone is Mark Stone; the pianist, Sholto Kynoch. Here is Housman’s poem,...
Wuthering...
Ovid's Metamorphoses, Canto I, "Of shapes transformde to bodies straunge" Some notes on Canto I of Ovid’s Metamorphosis (8 CE).  Just some of the things I am looking for...
a year ago
16
a year ago
Some notes on Canto I of Ovid’s Metamorphosis (8 CE).  Just some of the things I am looking for or enjoying while reading Ovid’s epic of “forms changed / into new bodies.”  (tr. Charles Martin, 2004, p. 15).  Or, per Arthur Golding (1567, p. 3 of the Paul Dry paperback) “Of...
The American Scholar
Moondance Experience the marvel that is The post Moondance appeared first on The American Scholar.
4 months ago
sbensu
Industrial macros Most industry codebases use macros, aka code-generation to solve practical problems like talking to...
6 months ago
7
6 months ago
Most industry codebases use macros, aka code-generation to solve practical problems like talking to the database.
Anecdotal Evidence
'Not At All Abashed Before the Fact' “We do not go to cowards for tender dealing; there is nothing so cruel as panic; the man who has...
a year ago
14
a year ago
“We do not go to cowards for tender dealing; there is nothing so cruel as panic; the man who has least fear for his own carcass, has most time to consider others.”  What a remarkable sentence, one I would never have the guts to write. It’s not the sentiment but the form that’s so...
The Marginalian
200 Years of Solitude: Great Writers, Artists, and Scientists in Praise of the Creative and... There is a silence at the center of each person — an untrammeled space where the inner voice grows...
6 months ago
48
6 months ago
There is a silence at the center of each person — an untrammeled space where the inner voice grows free to speak. That space expands in solitude. To create anything — a poem, a painting, a theorem — is to find the voice in the silence that has something to say to the world. In...
Ben Borgers
An Eye for Design
over a year ago
Josh Thompson
Upgrade your job So, apparently I send a lot of email about people trying to get cool jobs. Here’s yet another email...
over a year ago
7
over a year ago
So, apparently I send a lot of email about people trying to get cool jobs. Here’s yet another email I sent to a friend, recorded here.  Hi [redacted], First I want to highlight is that flexible/remote jobs are just like normal jobs, but more people want them, so the companies...
The Elysian
Week 7: Boost your essays all over the internet
9 months ago
Ben Borgers
Habit Toddler
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Exhausted By Their Long Dying' Isaac Bashevis Singer’s Shadows on the Hudson is a novel of endless conversation, much of it...
a year ago
20
a year ago
Isaac Bashevis Singer’s Shadows on the Hudson is a novel of endless conversation, much of it passionate and grief-stricken, spoken by well-educated, middle-class Jewish characters in New York City shortly after World War II. Chief among the title’s Shadows are the victims of the...
The Marginalian
Necessary Losses: The Life-Shaping Art of Letting Go "We cannot deeply love anything without becoming vulnerable to loss. And we cannot become separate...
a year ago
39
a year ago
"We cannot deeply love anything without becoming vulnerable to loss. And we cannot become separate people, responsible people, connected people, reflective people without some losing and leaving and letting go."
Josh Thompson
Practicing with Polylines Part 2 - Get Your Data (as a polyline) From Strava Last time, I did a minimum first pass on rendering a polyline on a map. It wasn’t just any polyline,...
4 months ago
9
4 months ago
Last time, I did a minimum first pass on rendering a polyline on a map. It wasn’t just any polyline, though, it was a path of a walk I went on. (Technically, just a fragment of a path). this is a heavy draft, I’ve had issues getting this all working well in the past, still have...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Top Thing of the World' John Keats’ meditation on a reader’s paradise:  “I had an idea that a Man might pass a very pleasant...
3 months ago
25
3 months ago
John Keats’ meditation on a reader’s paradise:  “I had an idea that a Man might pass a very pleasant life in this manner. Let him on a certain day read a certain Page of full Poesy or distilled Prose, and let him wander with it, and muse upon it and reflect from it, and dream...
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
22
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.
The Marginalian
The Birth of the Byline: How a Bronze Age Woman Became the World’s First Named Author and Used the... Days after I arrived in America as a lone teenager, the same age Mary Shelley was when she wrote...
7 months ago
47
7 months ago
Days after I arrived in America as a lone teenager, the same age Mary Shelley was when she wrote Frankenstein, not yet knowing I too was to become a writer, I found myself wandering the vast cool halls of the Penn Museum. There among the thousands of ancient artifacts was one to...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Those Move Easiest Who Have Learned to Dance' Hugh Kenner glosses a well-known couplet in Alexander Pope’s “Essay on Criticism” (1711) by...
a year ago
13
a year ago
Hugh Kenner glosses a well-known couplet in Alexander Pope’s “Essay on Criticism” (1711) by reference to Newton’s second law of motion (published in 1687 in his Principia Mathematica, one year before Pope’s birth) and “numerous points of disequilibrium”:  “True ease in writing...
Journal and Links by...
🔗 disorganized notes on a low information diet Stop thinking of Knowing The News as some sort of important part of a living person’s routine. The...
2 months ago
2
2 months ago
Stop thinking of Knowing The News as some sort of important part of a living person’s routine. The news is not designed to help you! — Kevin Fanning Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
The American Scholar
Birthday Boy The post Birthday Boy appeared first on The American Scholar.
a week ago
The American Scholar
Island Royalty A new biography of a Caribbean revolutionary The post Island Royalty appeared first on The American...
a month ago
11
a month ago
A new biography of a Caribbean revolutionary The post Island Royalty appeared first on The American Scholar.
Escaping Flatland
Life update + open thread and a few fragments of essays
a year ago
The American Scholar
The Next New Thing In architecture, the gulf between the traditional and the modern seems wider than ever before The...
7 months ago
29
7 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.
Josh Thompson
Tiny Habits take 2 Dr. BJ Fogg runs Tiny Habits, a one-week course on building new habits. Since most of what we do is...
over a year ago
8
over a year ago
Dr. BJ Fogg runs Tiny Habits, a one-week course on building new habits. Since most of what we do is governed by habits, it is reasonable to study how to build new ones, or replace bad ones. I have done his course before, and had success. I have been reading Freewith Kristi and...
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Discussian of General Ideas' A friend who is not a dedicated reader but has more common sense and worldly knowhow than I’ve ever...
5 months ago
24
5 months ago
A friend who is not a dedicated reader but has more common sense and worldly knowhow than I’ve ever possessed tells me he plans to reread Animal House and 1984. Neither have I read since junior-high school, probably the ideal time for such books, which are among the most...
Ben Borgers
Overwhelmed
over a year ago
Astral Codex Ten
Open Thread 358 ...
a month ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Interior Decoration Doesn't Count" Just last week, and not for the first time, I had a dream set in Kay’s Books in downtown Cleveland,...
9 months ago
34
9 months ago
Just last week, and not for the first time, I had a dream set in Kay’s Books in downtown Cleveland, where I visited often as a kid and worked in 1975. I was in the basement in the general hardback fiction section where I saw the copy of Under the Volcano I bought there forty-nine...
Anecdotal Evidence
'His Empty Heart is Full at Length' Two-hundred-fifty years ago, in the late summer and fall of 1773, Dr. Johnson and Boswell made their...
a year ago
16
a year ago
Two-hundred-fifty years ago, in the late summer and fall of 1773, Dr. Johnson and Boswell made their grand tour of Scotland, including the Hebrides, and both would publish accounts of their adventures. Johnson’s A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland appeared in...
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Joker; One Who Breaks a Jest' When I encountered the word witcracker in Much Ado About Nothing, I marked it for further use and...
a year ago
12
a year ago
When I encountered the word witcracker in Much Ado About Nothing, I marked it for further use and found myself silently singing it to the tune of “Matchmaker,Matchmaker” from Fiddler on the Roof: “Witcracker, witcracker, / Make me a wit . . .” In Shakespeare’s Act V, Scene 4,...
Journal and Links by...
🔗 What Listening Does — An Untaught Life Skill Simply put, listening is hard; it’s work. Our minds, much like our bodies are rarely still or at...
4 months ago
2
4 months ago
Simply put, listening is hard; it’s work. Our minds, much like our bodies are rarely still or at ease — a condition that leads to listening poorly, which is one step away from equally poor thinking and decision making. — Scott Boms Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Moment Before the Germans Will Arrive' A Jewish friend writes: “The distraction of the war and its repercussions around the world is making...
a year ago
24
a year ago
A Jewish friend writes: “The distraction of the war and its repercussions around the world is making concentration on other things difficult.  . . . I wish I could tune the news out. But the stakes for the future of Israel and of Jewish life generally are too great for me to be...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Result of Education Carried on By Curiosity' “His curiosity was so pure it seemed almost childlike.”  Vladimir Nabokov is describing his friend...
9 months ago
16
9 months ago
“His curiosity was so pure it seemed almost childlike.”  Vladimir Nabokov is describing his friend in exile, Iosif Hessen (1866-1943), and makes him sound like an extraordinary fellow. He continues in the obituary he wrote for his friend:   “He was living proof of the fact that a...
The American Scholar
Three Poems The post Three Poems appeared first on The American Scholar.
4 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Loss Not to Be Repaired' “We dined at our inn, and had with us a Mr. Jackson, one of Johnson’s schoolfellows, whom he treated...
a year ago
9
a year ago
“We dined at our inn, and had with us a Mr. Jackson, one of Johnson’s schoolfellows, whom he treated with much kindness, though he seemed to be a low man, dull and untaught. He had a coarse grey coat, black waistcoat, greasy leather breeches, and a yellow uncurled wig; and his...
The Marginalian
Consciousness, Artificial Intelligence, and Our Search for Meaning: Oliver Sacks on ChatGPT, 30... "We are not incoherent, a bundle of sensations, but a self, rising from experience, continually...
a year ago
50
a year ago
"We are not incoherent, a bundle of sensations, but a self, rising from experience, continually growing and revised... Through experience, education, art, and life, we teach our brains to become unique. We learn to be individuals. This is a neurological learning as well as a...
Ben Borgers
On “Incrementally Correct Personal Websites”
over a year ago
The American Scholar
Up Close The post Up Close appeared first on The American Scholar.
4 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Profound Secret Both to Himself and the World' English majors will recall the evisceration of John Keats in an 1818 review of Endymion in...
a year ago
15
a year ago
English majors will recall the evisceration of John Keats in an 1818 review of Endymion in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine. John Gibson Lockhart, using the pen name “Z,” mocked Keats’ “Cockney” poetry, his medical training and even his friendship with Leigh Hunt. He dismissed the...
The Marginalian
Don’t Waste Your Wildness "What is wild cannot be bought or sold, borrowed or copied. It is. Unmistakable, unforgettable,...
3 months ago
44
3 months ago
"What is wild cannot be bought or sold, borrowed or copied. It is. Unmistakable, unforgettable, unshamable, elemental as earth and ice, water, fire and air, a quintessence, pure spirit, resolving into no constituents. Don't waste your wildness: it is precious and necessary. In...
Journal and Links by...
🔗 Bad Apple Artworks Everything you see here is made by myself by hand. Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
10 months ago
This Space
39 Books: 2011 How does one respond to Nietzsche's revelation at Sils Maria? I read Pierre Klossowski's Nietzsche...
8 months ago
60
8 months ago
How does one respond to Nietzsche's revelation at Sils Maria? I read Pierre Klossowski's Nietzsche and the Vicious Circle because the thought of the Eternal Recurrence of the Same occurred to me as a literary concept, perhaps the ultimate experience of the literary, but needed...
Ben Borgers
Publishing Class Notes
over a year ago
The Marginalian
Into the Blue Beyond: William Beebe’s Dazzling Account of Becoming the First Human Being to See the... "It was stranger than any imagination could have conceived... an indefinable translucent blue quite...
a year ago
The American Scholar
“Peter Quince at the Clavier” by Wallace Stevens Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Peter Quince at the Clavier” by Wallace Stevens appeared...
6 months ago
45
6 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Peter Quince at the Clavier” by Wallace Stevens appeared first on The American Scholar.