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Anecdotal Evidence
'The Scabrous Memory Writhes Here, Underneath' I’ve just learned that some thirty percent of Houston, the nation’s fourth-largest city, is paved,...
a month ago
28
a month ago
I’ve just learned that some thirty percent of Houston, the nation’s fourth-largest city, is paved, covered in concrete and asphalt. That doesn’t count buildings and other structures. It amounts to roughly 384 square miles of ground surface that is “case-hardened, carapaced,” to...
Ben Borgers
Work-Life Separation in College
over a year ago
Astral Codex Ten
Prison And Crime: Much More Than You Wanted To Know ...
a month ago
Wuthering...
it’s right about here that there would normally be a gap - Peter Adamson's Classical Philosophy, the... Peter Adamson is an English philosopher with a long-running podcast, History of Philosophy without...
a year ago
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...
The Marginalian
Maira Kalman on How to Live with Remorse and Make of It a Portal of Creative Vitality Each time we have tried to elevate ourselves above the other animals by claiming singular possession...
11 months ago
28
11 months ago
Each time we have tried to elevate ourselves above the other animals by claiming singular possession of some faculty, we have been humbled otherwise: Language, it turns out, is not ours alone, nor is the use of tools, nor is music. Elephants grieve, octopuses remember and...
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Forlorn Hope' Published in the February 1950 issue of Partisan Review was a “symposium” -- always a feature...
2 months ago
31
2 months ago
Published in the February 1950 issue of Partisan Review was a “symposium” -- always a feature beloved by editors and loquacious respondents – this one titled “Religion and the Intellectuals.” Such things tend to be heavy on posturing and vast generalizations. I might have been...
The Marginalian
The Great Blue Heron, Signs vs. Omens, and Our Search for Meaning One September dawn on the verge of a significant life change, sitting on my poet friend’s dock, I...
4 months ago
42
4 months ago
One September dawn on the verge of a significant life change, sitting on my poet friend’s dock, I watched a great blue heron rise slow and prehistoric through the morning mist, carrying the sky on her back. In the years since, the heron has become the closest thing I have to what...
The American Scholar
“Daybreak in Alabama” by Langston Hughes Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Daybreak in Alabama” by Langston Hughes appeared first on...
6 months ago
59
6 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Daybreak in Alabama” by Langston Hughes appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
Book Notes: 'Why We Get Fat' by Gary Taube I recently read Why We Get Fat, by Gary Taubes. I read it shortly after reading The Case Against...
over a year ago
8
over a year ago
I recently read Why We Get Fat, by Gary Taubes. I read it shortly after reading The Case Against Sugar. My notes and a write-up on The Case Against Sugar As I explained in that post, I find it helpful to do a ‘deep dive’ on some of the books I want to be deeply influenced by. For...
Josh Thompson
`ls` command to show directory contents I like to use the tree command on my local machine when trying to peek into the structure and...
over a year ago
7
over a year ago
I like to use the tree command on my local machine when trying to peek into the structure and contents of a given directory. tree -L 2 will [L]ist recursively everything [2] levels deep from your current directory. The output is nicely formatted like this: > tree -L 2 . ├──...
Josh Thompson
Metaprogramming in Ruby: method_missing I’m working through Metaprogramming in Ruby It’s a great read. There are examples in the books, but...
over a year ago
7
over a year ago
I’m working through Metaprogramming in Ruby It’s a great read. There are examples in the books, but I wanted to take them out and apply them to some easy Exercisms. I feel some disclosure may be useful. In no way, at all, should you ever implement any of the “solutions” I’m...
Ben Borgers
JumboCode plans for Head of Engineering
a year ago
The American Scholar
Our Pets, Our Plates In defense of the furred and the hoofed The post Our Pets, Our Plates appeared first on The American...
7 months ago
69
7 months ago
In defense of the furred and the hoofed The post Our Pets, Our Plates appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
Numbers Game A novelist’s indictment of how we account for our history The post Numbers Game appeared first on...
7 months ago
32
7 months ago
A novelist’s indictment of how we account for our history The post Numbers Game appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
How to Love Yourself and How to Love Another: A Playful and Poignant Vintage Illustrated Fable about... The great problem of consciousness is that all it knows is itself, and only dimly. We can override...
a month ago
21
a month ago
The great problem of consciousness is that all it knows is itself, and only dimly. We can override this elemental self-reference only with constant vigilance, reminding ourselves again and again as we forget over and over how difficult it is — how nigh impossible — to know what...
The Elysian
Week 4: One pitch several places
9 months ago
The American Scholar
Jane Skafte The language of trees The post Jane Skafte appeared first on The American Scholar.
6 months ago
Wuthering...
Jeremy Denk plays Charles Ives and Blind Tom Wiggins - a pleasing conjunction of Wuthering... More Massachusetts semi-literay adventures. Last weekend I was at Tanglewood in Lenox,...
5 months ago
44
5 months ago
More Massachusetts semi-literay adventures. Last weekend I was at Tanglewood in Lenox, Massachusetts, enjoying Jeremy Denk’s performance of insurance executive Charles Ives’s Concord Sonata (c. 1913).  It was a pleasing congruence of Wuthering Expectations themes.  I have nothing...
Journal and Links by...
🔗 How to Monetize a Blog Regardless, if this is the game, we can still be its players. Hats off to you. 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽 Visit...
4 months ago
2
4 months ago
Regardless, if this is the game, we can still be its players. Hats off to you. 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽 Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
Ben Borgers
Things Go Downhill After We Leave
over a year ago
Journal and Links by...
✏️ Grandstanding I love this moment of moments. Jen, Grant, and Ryan doing their own thing. The Grandstand in Death...
a year ago
2
a year ago
I love this moment of moments. Jen, Grant, and Ryan doing their own thing. The Grandstand in Death Valley is an astonishing playa, and worth every single moment. Read on nazhamid.com or Reply via email
Escaping Flatland
6 lessons I learned working at an art gallery On agency, doing value-aligned work, and making your job fun
2 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Death Is Divestment, Death Is Communion' “Whenever in my dreams I see the dead, they always appear silent, bothered, strangely depressed,...
6 months ago
58
6 months ago
“Whenever in my dreams I see the dead, they always appear silent, bothered, strangely depressed, quite unlike their dear, bright selves. I am aware of them, without any astonishment, in surroundings they never visited during their earthly existence, in the house of some friend of...
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
2
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...
Josh Thompson
On Money (again) Recently I posted thoughts about money I’d written from back in 2013.  Money is hard to write about,...
over a year ago
7
over a year ago
Recently I posted thoughts about money I’d written from back in 2013.  Money is hard to write about, because there are many different ways we can approach it. It’s easy to feel judged when someone does something with their money that I don’t do with mine. That all said, there...
The American Scholar
Sheep Jones Swimming below the surface The post Sheep Jones appeared first on The American Scholar.
6 months ago
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? ...
Wuthering...
Thou hast devourd thy sonnes - some notes on Seneca's horror plays My Seneca reading in March: Medea, tr. Frederick Ahl The Trojan Women, tr. E. F. Watling Thyestes,...
a year ago
63
a year ago
My Seneca reading in March: Medea, tr. Frederick Ahl The Trojan Women, tr. E. F. Watling Thyestes, tr. Jasper Heywood Hercules Furens, tr. Heywood The Madness of Hercules, tr. Dana Gioia The plays themselves are all from the mid-1st century, perhaps written when Seneca was in...
Wuthering...
What has happened to me may well be a good thing - the death of Socrates Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, and Phaedo, the extended version of the death of Socrates.  These texts,...
a year ago
48
a year ago
Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, and Phaedo, the extended version of the death of Socrates.  These texts, especially the last three, are a large part of the fame of Socrates, the reason he is an exemplar of the wise man to this day.  He asked annoying questions, he rejected material...
Wuthering...
Books I Read in May 2023 I had a good time. GREEK PHILOSOPHY The Nicomachean Ethics (4th C. BCE), Aristotle - a post,...
a year ago
97
a year ago
I had a good time. GREEK PHILOSOPHY The Nicomachean Ethics (4th C. BCE), Aristotle - a post, however shallow, should appear soon. FICTION Joseph in Egypt (1936), Thomas Mann The Long Valley (1938) & The Grapes of Wrath (1939), John Steinbeck - I last read this probably...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Thus Massive Was the Vessel, Built in Vain' Gee-whiz technology soon grows obsolete and quaint. On this date in 1934, the USS Macon, a U.S. Navy...
6 months ago
30
6 months ago
Gee-whiz technology soon grows obsolete and quaint. On this date in 1934, the USS Macon, a U.S. Navy airship – blimp, dirigible, Zeppelin – successfully tracked the heavy cruiser USS Houston as it carried President Franklin Roosevelt on a secret voyage from Annapolis, Md., to...
Josh Thompson
Recommended Reading I’ve read many books over the years. Thousands. Here’s a few that I find myself...
7 months ago
7
7 months ago
I’ve read many books over the years. Thousands. Here’s a few that I find myself referencing/recommending.Periodically, I refresh this list. It’s changed over the years years. the list you are about to read is heavily reworked, based off this older list:...
The Marginalian
Dead Stars: Poet Laureate Ada Limón’s Stunning Love Poem to Life "We’ve come this far, survived this much. What would happen if we decided to survive more? To love...
a year ago
Ben Borgers
Website redesign, December 2022
over a year ago
Josh Thompson
Hidden Damages of the Introvert vs. Extrovert "debate" Are you an introvert or an extrovert? Chances are good an answer pops to your mind. Of course you’re...
over a year ago
6
over a year ago
Are you an introvert or an extrovert? Chances are good an answer pops to your mind. Of course you’re right! You’ve taken internet tests! You’ve read Buzzfeed articles describing one aptitude or the other, and you feel like they speak to you! Stop. Right now. You’re speaking lies...
Journal and Links by...
🔗 Phosphor Icons Phosphor is a flexible icon family for interfaces, diagrams, presentations — whatever, really. Visit...
4 months ago
2
4 months ago
Phosphor is a flexible icon family for interfaces, diagrams, presentations — whatever, really. Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
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...
Wuthering...
Books I read in December 2023 - No one’s worse than you, she says Lots of short fantasy fiction this month, perhaps everything in the first section except the May...
a year ago
37
a year ago
Lots of short fantasy fiction this month, perhaps everything in the first section except the May Sarton novel and Eugene O’Neill play, balanced by a complementary pair of Holocaust memoirs. NOVELS, STORIES & A PLAY Ocean of Story, Vol. 1 (11th cent.),  Somadeva, tr. C. H....
Anecdotal Evidence
'An Old Man in the Dark' Philip Larkin shares with us the mundane complaints of the middle class, the lusts and anxieties of...
a year ago
14
a year ago
Philip Larkin shares with us the mundane complaints of the middle class, the lusts and anxieties of people unburdened with wealth and pull. He grows deaf, loses hair, juggles girlfriends, gains weight and drinks too much. As a librarian he works hard. He will never be hip except...
Anecdotal Evidence
'When We Have Excellent Books, They Sell' “People tell us all the time that civilization is finished, that the world is coming to an end. But...
4 months ago
40
4 months ago
“People tell us all the time that civilization is finished, that the world is coming to an end. But then we look at our sales details and we smile.”  John Byron Kuhner posts a rare dispatch of hope from the world of books, the beating heart of what remains of our civilization. In...
Wuthering...
You drool from it. You are happy. - Louis-Ferdinand Céline’s Voyage au bout de la nuit Finally, I have finished Louis-Ferdinand Céline’s Voyage au bout de la nuit (1932), known in English...
4 months ago
50
4 months ago
Finally, I have finished Louis-Ferdinand Céline’s Voyage au bout de la nuit (1932), known in English as Journey to the End of Night.  That “end of night” is death.  The existence of death makes everything hateful and nullifies the value of anything else.  I gotta say that the...
The Marginalian
Notes on Complexity: A Buddhist Scientist on the Murmuration of Being "You are this body, and you are these molecules, and you are these atoms, and you are these quantum...
a year ago
19
a year ago
"You are this body, and you are these molecules, and you are these atoms, and you are these quantum entities, and you are the quantum foam, and you are the energetic field of space-time, and, ultimately, you are the fundamental awareness out of which all these emerge."
Journal and Links by...
🔗 Bop Spotter I installed a box high up on a pole somewhere in the Mission of San Francisco. Inside is a crappy...
3 months ago
2
3 months ago
I installed a box high up on a pole somewhere in the Mission of San Francisco. Inside is a crappy Android phone, set to Shazam constantly, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It's solar powered, and the mic is pointed down at the street below. Visit original link → or View on...
Journal and Links by...
🔗 Making Icons Fresh We discussed metaphysics like… how it felt to tap them, with and without shadow. We endlessly...
4 months ago
2
4 months ago
We discussed metaphysics like… how it felt to tap them, with and without shadow. We endlessly fiddled with shadows, geometric and visual sizes, gradients, colors, border radii, and lighting concepts. Our obsession to get them just right went far beyond reason. An interesting...
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
'On Satan’s Chamberlains Highseated in Berlin' In 2011, in an antiques-cum-junk shop here in Houston, I found a copy of an anthology, The Spirit of...
a year ago
12
a year ago
In 2011, in an antiques-cum-junk shop here in Houston, I found a copy of an anthology, The Spirit of Man, published as a wartime morale booster in 1916, edited by the Poet Laureate, Robert Bridges. It’s the fourth edition, from 1923. I knew the title because of the contribution...
The American Scholar
Aging Out Many of us do not go gentle into that good night The post Aging Out appeared first on The American...
a month ago
13
a month ago
Many of us do not go gentle into that good night The post Aging Out appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
Leonard Cohen on the Antidote to Anger and the Meaning of Resistance One of the commonest and most corrosive human reflexes is to react to helplessness with anger. We do...
6 months ago
54
6 months ago
One of the commonest and most corrosive human reflexes is to react to helplessness with anger. We do it in our personal lives and we do it in our political lives. We are living through a time of uncommon helplessness and uncertainty, touching every aspect of our lives, and in...
Josh Thompson
First five meals from The 4-Hour Chef I don’t know how to cook. Period. My most impressive culinary creations were, until recently,...
over a year ago
6
over a year ago
I don’t know how to cook. Period. My most impressive culinary creations were, until recently, spaghetti and beans-n-rice. I got married about a year ago, and had hoped that I would become inspired to become a world-class chef. After a long time eating Rice-A-Roni, spaghetti,...
Ben Borgers
Heart Reacts
over a year ago
The Marginalian
Do Not Spare Yourself The only thing more dangerous than wanting to save another person — a dangerous desire too often...
a week ago
40
a week ago
The only thing more dangerous than wanting to save another person — a dangerous desire too often mistaken for love — is wanting to save yourself, to spare yourself the disappointment and heartbreak and loss inseparable from being a creature with hopes and longings constantly...
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 Marginalian
The Power of Being a Heretic: The Forgotten Visionary Jane Ellen Harrison on Critical Thinking,... "If we are to be true and worthy heretics, we need not only new heads, but new hearts, and, most of...
a year ago
31
a year ago
"If we are to be true and worthy heretics, we need not only new heads, but new hearts, and, most of all, that new emotional imagination... begotten of enlarged sympathies and a more sensitive habit of feeling."
Anecdotal Evidence
'Passions and Perturbations of the Mind' In his Dictionary (1755), Dr. Johnson illustrates fifteen words with citations from Robert Burton’s...
12 months ago
31
12 months ago
In his Dictionary (1755), Dr. Johnson illustrates fifteen words with citations from Robert Burton’s The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621): addle, colly, costard, doter, to filch, to fleer, giddyheaded, griper, hotspur, to macerate, muckhill, mutter, oligarchy, quacksalver and squalor....
Ben Borgers
Gamelan Music
over a year ago
Ben Borgers
iPad Impatience
over a year ago
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...
Anecdotal Evidence
"The Test of a Reader' “. . . to say a word or two about the improvable reader. The gift of reading, as I have called it,...
7 months ago
59
7 months ago
“. . . to say a word or two about the improvable reader. The gift of reading, as I have called it, is not very common, nor very generally understood. It consists, first of all, in a vast intellectual endowment—a free grace, I find I must call it—by which a man rises to understand...
Anecdotal Evidence
'There’s No Such Thing As a Synonym' My favorite literary non-form may be commonplace books, those magpie collections unified only by the...
2 weeks ago
20
2 weeks ago
My favorite literary non-form may be commonplace books, those magpie collections unified only by the sensibilities of their hunter-gatherers. They are kept by industrious readers and serve as literary Wunderkammern, cabinets of bookish wonders that may reveal a reader’s truest...
Anecdotal Evidence
'There Is No Nothingness' Once asked about politics in a symposium portentously titled “The Writer’s Situation,”...
5 months ago
38
5 months ago
Once asked about politics in a symposium portentously titled “The Writer’s Situation,” J.V. Cunningham replied:  “You can write on politics or not. I do not. But is politics meant here? Or is it, rather, ideology? The latter is religious, not political, though religion...
The Marginalian
Heroism and the Human Search for Meaning: Ernest Becker on the Hidden Root of Our Existential... "To become conscious of what one is doing to earn his feeling of heroism is the main self-analytic...
a year ago
The Marginalian
The Universe and the Soul: Richard Jefferies on Nature as Prayer for Presence How to grow "absorbed into the being or existence of the universe."
a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Daring to His Own Disadvantage' “The words poetic and fatuous ought not to be synonyms; and to encounter a mind which is against...
6 months ago
56
6 months ago
“The words poetic and fatuous ought not to be synonyms; and to encounter a mind which is against mock society, mock poetry, mock justice, mock spirituality—against  any form of enslavement—is a benefit.”  Marianne Moore could be a soft touch when it came to reviewing. She could...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Death Is Not Far From Me' It’s in the nature of most writers to come up with their own rules and obey them when it serves...
10 months ago
30
10 months ago
It’s in the nature of most writers to come up with their own rules and obey them when it serves their purposes. Even the strictest formalist bends a little in the service of what works aesthetically. The byproduct of that decision-making process is “style.” Good work can come out...
Escaping Flatland
How to think in writing Part 1: The thought behind the thought
8 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Hard to Find a Name in Human Speech' After a stop in Hong Kong during his four-thousand-mile journey back to Moscow from Sakhalin Island,...
a year ago
14
a year ago
After a stop in Hong Kong during his four-thousand-mile journey back to Moscow from Sakhalin Island, Chekhov’s ship encountered rough weather and high seas. Before reaching Singapore, two men had died and their bodies were thrown overboard:  “When you see a dead man wrapped in...
Anecdotal Evidence
'All These Jolts of Beauty' Once I interviewed a mycologist who, before his lecture, removed a yellow mushroom from an oak tree...
2 months ago
29
2 months ago
Once I interviewed a mycologist who, before his lecture, removed a yellow mushroom from an oak tree in front of the hall where he was speaking and munched on it while he spoke. A few years later the writer Paul Metcalf, author of Genoa (1965), swore me to secrecy before revealing...
The Elysian
Let's read the Terra Ignota series together Our summer reading is Ada Palmer's feat of utopian worldbuilding.
6 months ago
ben-mini
Buying a House Two days ago, I decided I want to buy my first house. My goal is to purchase it before the summer of...
3 months ago
15
3 months ago
Two days ago, I decided I want to buy my first house. My goal is to purchase it before the summer of 2025. Why are you buying a house? To make money. I see this as an opportunity in a space that many friends and family consider a safe, high-return bet (if done right). When...
Josh Thompson
On Fables: Finishing up Antifragile I’m cleaning up some notes I wanted to jot down over the last few weeks Nassim Taleb, in...
over a year ago
5
over a year ago
I’m cleaning up some notes I wanted to jot down over the last few weeks Nassim Taleb, in Antifragile, says: The great economist Ariel Rubinstein gets the green lumber fallacy - it requires a great deal of intellect and honesty to see things that way. Rubinstein refuses to...
The Marginalian
O Sweet Spontaneous: E.E. Cummings’s Love-Poem to Earth and the Glory of Spring The ultimate anthem of resistance to the assaults on life.
a year ago
Astral Codex Ten
How Did You Do On The AI Art Turing Test? ...
2 months ago
Journal and Links by...
✏️ Parallel Gratitude She needed attention. Every half hour to an hour just before we'd fall asleep, she'd whine. She'd...
a month ago
2
a month ago
She needed attention. Every half hour to an hour just before we'd fall asleep, she'd whine. She'd cry out, and I'd dutifully carry her to the bathroom to do her necessary business, then clean up after. We theorized it was a stomach bug. This went on for three nights, finding me...
Ben Borgers
Pictures as Memories
over a year ago
Ben Borgers
Un-figure-out-able Software
over a year ago
Escaping Flatland
Writing while walking We do not belong to those who have ideas only among books, when stimulated by books.
4 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Like a Golden Retriever' Part of the pleasure of listening to the late jazz musician Dave McKenna playing piano was hearing...
a year ago
11
a year ago
Part of the pleasure of listening to the late jazz musician Dave McKenna playing piano was hearing the musical quotes he wove into his improvisations. The practice, deplored by some critics, was not unique to McKenna, of course. To cite only jazz musicians I have seen in person,...
Steven Scrawls
"Progress" “Progress” The following tables are my (opinionated, minimally researched) answers to questions...
a year ago
7
a year ago
“Progress” The following tables are my (opinionated, minimally researched) answers to questions about a curated version of Wikipedia’s list of most-visited websites (see Notes for details). I invite you to follow along, issue your own snap judgments, and come to your own...
The Marginalian
The Bird in the Heart: Terry Tempest Williams on the Paradox of Transformation and How to Live with... "We can change, evolve, and transform our own conditioning. We can choose to move like water rather...
11 months ago
The American Scholar
Riding With Mr. Washington How my great-grandfather invented himself at the end of Reconstruction The post Riding With Mr....
7 months ago
20
7 months ago
How my great-grandfather invented himself at the end of Reconstruction The post Riding With Mr. Washington appeared first on The American Scholar.
Ben Borgers
Winter break project list [2024]
4 weeks ago
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
'The Sum of All the Losses' Abraham Lincoln was six feet, four inches tall, making him the tallest of U.S. presidents (LBJ was...
2 months ago
32
2 months ago
Abraham Lincoln was six feet, four inches tall, making him the tallest of U.S. presidents (LBJ was half an inch shorter). The crown of his trademark top hat – a stovepipe, it was called -- measured twelve inches in height. Allowing for the silk hat settling on his head, the...
The American Scholar
The Power of the Common Soul Ives, music-making, and hope The post The Power of the Common Soul appeared first on The American...
4 months ago
Escaping Flatland
Thinking about perceptiveness links
5 months ago
The Marginalian
The Poetic Science of the Ghost Pipe: Emily Dickinson and the Secret of Earth’s Most Supernatural... "That it will never come again is what makes life so sweet."
a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'He Actually Read the Dictionary' In one of the news weeklies long ago I read that Dr. Oliver Sacks enjoyed reading the Oxford English...
a year ago
18
a year ago
In one of the news weeklies long ago I read that Dr. Oliver Sacks enjoyed reading the Oxford English Dictionary. Was this mere bravado, another instance of Sacks polishing his image as a lovable, learned eccentric? Or, like his friend W.H. Auden, was he gleaning the dictionary...
The American Scholar
Betsy, Mary, and Trish The post Betsy, Mary, and Trish appeared first on The American Scholar.
8 months ago
The Marginalian
How to Befriend Time: The Gospel of Pete Seeger and Nina Simone "To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven."
a year ago
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...
Journal and Links by...
✏️ Threaded I penned a Thot(?!), or rather, a post on Threads, the Twitter clone that Meta released some time...
a year ago
2
a year ago
I penned a Thot(?!), or rather, a post on Threads, the Twitter clone that Meta released some time ago. I don’t find it particularly useful, as my Twitter usage had declined long ago. Anyway, the post (and accompanying photo): “When I contemplate the idea of relocating, it’s 70°...
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...
Journal and Links by...
🔗 Being Hired to Care One of the biggest mistakes that I see people make as they start to dip their toes into advising is...
5 months ago
2
5 months ago
One of the biggest mistakes that I see people make as they start to dip their toes into advising is try to anchor their work to specific deliverables. Doing this is bad for a number of reasons, but the primary one is that when you’re being brought on as an advisor, you’re not...
Ben Borgers
Why Do We Still Use Snapchat?
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'To Make Something Beautiful' “There have been many things I’ve tried to write about and could not. Things too serious, too...
a month ago
22
a month ago
“There have been many things I’ve tried to write about and could not. Things too serious, too painful, and that’s not the purpose of writing a poem. The point of poetry is to make something beautiful—something in itself. I’m not trying to pour my sorrows down on the page.”  Janet...
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...
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
14
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...
Anecdotal Evidence
'To Be in Some Respect Unique' “[L]et us not forget that ‘public’ denotes a collection not of identical units, but of units...
11 months ago
25
11 months ago
“[L]et us not forget that ‘public’ denotes a collection not of identical units, but of units separable and (under close scrutiny) distinguishable one from another.”  I work with professors of statistics, among others, for whom data are the primal substance of the human world. You...
Josh Thompson
The Violence of God and the Hermeneutics of Paul Sometimes I (Josh) want to share around certain academic works. Sometimes its a PDF that I want...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
Sometimes I (Josh) want to share around certain academic works. Sometimes its a PDF that I want someone to download and read, sometimes it’s text from a book I’ve read, and cannot otherwise get a sharable format of. So, I laboriously take photos of pages, use an optical character...
Astral Codex Ten
Hidden Open Thread 358.5 ...
a month ago
The Marginalian
Winnicott on the Psychology of Democracy, the Most Dangerous Type of Person, and the Unconscious... In the late morning of the first day of August in 2023, exactly twenty summers after I arrived in...
3 months ago
38
3 months ago
In the late morning of the first day of August in 2023, exactly twenty summers after I arrived in Philadelphia as a lone teenager from a country thirteen centuries America’s senior, I experienced that wonderful capacity for self-surprise as tears came streaming down my face in a...
Ben Borgers
Driving School Corruption
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Whole Time Reading, Reading, Reading' “I’m not doing any work, just reading or pacing up and down. However, I don’t really mind having the...
3 weeks ago
27
3 weeks ago
“I’m not doing any work, just reading or pacing up and down. However, I don’t really mind having the time to read. It’s more enjoyable than writing. I feel that if I could live another forty years and spend the whole time reading, reading, reading, and learning how to write with...
Josh Thompson
Continuous Glucose Monitors: Why & What This is a story and explanation about why I sometimes wear a glucose monitor. It’s visible on the...
8 months ago
6
8 months ago
This is a story and explanation about why I sometimes wear a glucose monitor. It’s visible on the rear of my upper arm, usually sparks a question or two, I’ve usually stumbled through a response, now I can simply pass this page along to anyone who asks. Since maybe 2018, every...
Journal and Links by...
✏️ Where You Give Your Energy I had just turned 40. I was feeling increasingly stagnant at VSCO and recognized the need for a...
10 months ago
2
10 months ago
I had just turned 40. I was feeling increasingly stagnant at VSCO and recognized the need for a change. I began discussions with leadership about my desire for greater involvement. It was straight-up politicking, with my objective being a title change to formally lead the product...
Anecdotal Evidence
'An Ordinary Life Where Things Make Sense' An old friend back in upstate New York and I were texting. We worked years ago as reporters for the...
a year ago
11
a year ago
An old friend back in upstate New York and I were texting. We worked years ago as reporters for the same newspaper. She was married then to her second husband, who had multiple sclerosis and died slowly and horribly. When she had to  go out of town, I would stay with him...
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
'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 Elysian
The future according to artists The Parisianer 2050's project to imagine the future in art.
9 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Bright Books! the Perspectives to Our Weak Sights' April is the kindest and cruelest month.  Think of the births: George Herbert (April 3, 1593),...
9 months ago
68
9 months ago
April is the kindest and cruelest month.  Think of the births: George Herbert (April 3, 1593), Shakespeare (April 23, 1564), Henry Vaughan (April 17, 1621), Daniel Defoe (April 24, 1731), Edward Gibbon (April 27, 1737), William Hazlitt (April 10, 1778), Anthony Trollope (April...
Journal and Links by...
🔗 I’m a commis in a Chinese restaurant kitchen, this is what I do I’m a 23-year-old Chinese Singaporean woman. After graduating culinary school in 2016, I started as...
4 months ago
2
4 months ago
I’m a 23-year-old Chinese Singaporean woman. After graduating culinary school in 2016, I started as a commis (also known as 马王, or minion) in a Chinese restaurant kitchen along Orchard road. This is a description of my everyday work, in English, written for friends and family who...
Anecdotal Evidence
'But There Must Have Been More' One of the unexpected gifts of being young and working as a newspaper reporter was the...
a year ago
11
a year ago
One of the unexpected gifts of being young and working as a newspaper reporter was the giddy sensation of being thrown into life and finally mistaken for an adult. Some of the one-time abstractions – murder, suicide, cancer – become real. Once you’ve interviewed the parents of a...
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.
Josh Thompson
Train Hard When’s the last time you participated in a sporting event? (Football, Ultimate Frisbee, rock...
over a year ago
5
over a year ago
When’s the last time you participated in a sporting event? (Football, Ultimate Frisbee, rock climbing, running biking, wrestling, whatever) When’s the last time you trained for that activity? Finally: When is the last time you trained for that activity with someone else?...
Josh Thompson
Parenting: A Place for Sources And Stories As some of us are or might be, I “am a parent”, or I “have a child”, or something like that. This is...
7 months ago
6
7 months ago
As some of us are or might be, I “am a parent”, or I “have a child”, or something like that. This is complex for me to write and engage with, because something that is certainly true for all of us is that we “have a parent” or we “have been a child”. To talk about any of it is to...
Ben Borgers
RealMoji
over a year ago
Ben Borgers
I Misjudged My Chinese Professor
over a year ago
Ben Borgers
Blocks recap
over a year ago
ribbonfarm
Sons of the Soil, Migrants, and Civil War, We read an interesting paper today (ht Sachin Benny with an assist from ChatGPT) in the Yak...
8 months ago
4
8 months ago
We read an interesting paper today (ht Sachin Benny with an assist from ChatGPT) in the Yak Collective weekly governance study group (Fridays at 9 AM Pacific). Sons of the Soil, Migrants, and Civil War, by James D. Fearon and David D. Laitin (World Development, V 39, No. 2,...
Josh Thompson
Mentors and Attitude Having a mentor is equal parts “having a mentor” and “being one who can be mentored”. If I am too...
over a year ago
8
over a year ago
Having a mentor is equal parts “having a mentor” and “being one who can be mentored”. If I am too thick-headed to evaluate things that someone tells me and figure out how to apply that to my life, both of us are wasting our time. Having a mentor is life-changing because you have...
The Marginalian
Thunder, Bells, and Silence: The Eclipse that Went Extinct What was it like for Martha, the endling of her species, to die alone at the Cincinnati Zoo that...
7 months ago
70
7 months ago
What was it like for Martha, the endling of her species, to die alone at the Cincinnati Zoo that late-summer day in 1914, all the other passenger pigeons gone from the face of the Earth, having once filled its skies with an immensity of beating wings, so many that John James...
The American Scholar
A Rebel to Remember Gregory P. Downs on the late Anthony E. Kaye’s groundbreaking history of Nat Turner The post A Rebel...
4 months ago
42
4 months ago
Gregory P. Downs on the late Anthony E. Kaye’s groundbreaking history of Nat Turner The post A Rebel to Remember appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'It Is a Rite of Finitude' Most of Richard Wilbur’s poetry I read retrospectively, in books, long after it was written and...
8 months ago
63
8 months ago
Most of Richard Wilbur’s poetry I read retrospectively, in books, long after it was written and first published in magazines. One exception I remember is “All That Is,” which appeared in the May 13, 1985 issue of The New Yorker. I had mostly stopped reading the magazine by...
Josh Thompson
Mythical Creatures: Refactoring wizard.rb Preparing for Turing Series Index What follows is an eight-part series that will help you pick up...
over a year ago
5
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
'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
25
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...
Blog -...
Book Review - Open Open by Andre Agassi is a narrative tour de force. I literally could not put it down. I usually...
over a year ago
7
over a year ago
Open by Andre Agassi is a narrative tour de force. I literally could not put it down. I usually have four to six books on the go at any time, but all of them were put on pause for the day and a half it took me to devour this book.
Steven Scrawls
Maybe your desires are delusional Maybe your desires are delusional The vast majority of my desires are not the reasonable desires...
9 months ago
4
9 months ago
Maybe your desires are delusional The vast majority of my desires are not the reasonable desires that I had once believed them to be. They’re actually completely delusional desires dressed up in shoddy “reasonable desire” costumes, and I’ve just been pretending not to notice. How...
This Space
A review from abroad In April 2016, a review by Alexander Carnera of my book This Space of Writing appeared in the...
over a year ago
40
over a year ago
In April 2016, a review by Alexander Carnera of my book This Space of Writing appeared in the Norwegian edition of Le Monde diplomatique as a supplement to the delightfully named Norwegian newspaper Klassekampen. Even though I can't read Danish, it was not only a highlight of the...
The American Scholar
Bathing Badasses Vicki Valosik gets submerged in the history of synchronized swimming The post Bathing Badasses...
6 months ago
45
6 months ago
Vicki Valosik gets submerged in the history of synchronized swimming The post Bathing Badasses appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'They Will Leave Behind Trenches' “You wouldn’t give up utopia it was too nourishing seductive / For mommy’s boys the heirs of fortune...
2 months ago
42
2 months ago
“You wouldn’t give up utopia it was too nourishing seductive / For mommy’s boys the heirs of fortune heirs / To the bloody myths of the twentieth city.”  Today is the centenary of Polish poet and essayist Zbigniew Herbert. The Anglophone world has been fortunate. Herbert’s poems...
The American Scholar
Bony Ramirez Beautiful parasites The post Bony Ramirez appeared first on The American Scholar.
3 months ago
Steven Scrawls
Doomr Most of my creations can be contained within an RSS feed; Doomr cannot. You'll want to check the...
11 months ago
4
11 months ago
Most of my creations can be contained within an RSS feed; Doomr cannot. You'll want to check the website for this one.
Anecdotal Evidence
'Art Is Wild As a Cat' Nige tells me he attended a reading at Cambridge given by Stevie Smith not long before her death in...
4 days ago
3
4 days ago
Nige tells me he attended a reading at Cambridge given by Stevie Smith not long before her death in 1971. “I remember [her],” he writes, “more for her extraordinary presence and her eccentric, but very effective way of reading her work. . . . [A]t the time I was a young...
Anecdotal Evidence
'He's Not Pulling It Out of Thin Air' A friend tells me he is boycotting a favorite bookstore because, as he writes, “someone posted a...
9 months ago
27
9 months ago
A friend tells me he is boycotting a favorite bookstore because, as he writes, “someone posted a fair-sized sign on the store’s ‘Community Board’ reading, ‘From The River to the Sea, Palestine Shall Be Free.’” There’s a naïvely childish part of me that finds the obscenity...
Marco.org
Ten years of Overcast: A new foundation Today, on the tenth anniversary of Overcast 1.0, I’m happy to launch a complete rewrite and redesign...
6 months ago
46
6 months ago
Today, on the tenth anniversary of Overcast 1.0, I’m happy to launch a complete rewrite and redesign of most of the iOS app, built to carry Overcast into the next decade — and hopefully beyond. Like podcasts better than blog posts? Listen to ATP #596 for more! What’s new Much...
Anecdotal Evidence
'My Soul, Beyond Distant Death" More than any secular writer I can think of, Vladimir Nabokov hints at the existence of an...
3 months ago
39
3 months ago
More than any secular writer I can think of, Vladimir Nabokov hints at the existence of an afterlife. He never preaches and makes no theological assertions. His frequent use of the word “paradise” is often ambiguous, blurring its mundane, metaphorical meaning – an earthly place...
The Marginalian
Coleridge on the Paradox of Friendship and Romantic Love On sympathy, reciprocity, and satisfying the fulness of our nature.
a year ago
Astral Codex Ten
Open Thread 360 ...
a month ago
The Marginalian
A Stone Is a Story: An Illustrated Love Letter to Deep Time and Earth’s Memory We are denizens of an enormous pebble drifting through the cosmic ocean of pure spacetime — a planet...
a year ago
41
a year ago
We are denizens of an enormous pebble drifting through the cosmic ocean of pure spacetime — a planet made a world largely by its rockiness. Rock gave us mountains and beaches, bridges and kitchen countertops, gave us the first Promethean fire that sparked civilization. A rock is...
ben-mini
Building FirstMover I had one month to find a place to live in Manhattan. I reached out to friends for tips, and nearly...
4 months ago
7
4 months ago
I had one month to find a place to live in Manhattan. I reached out to friends for tips, and nearly all of them pointed me to StreetEasy, the Zillow-owned NYC real estate search platform. Some of my more Type-A friends gave me extra helpful advice: Narrow your search to 2-4...
The American Scholar
Tramping With Virginia A seminal essay about walking the streets of London can present challenges in the classrooms of...
8 months ago
60
8 months ago
A seminal essay about walking the streets of London can present challenges in the classrooms of today The post Tramping With Virginia appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
Three Poems The post Three Poems appeared first on The American Scholar.
4 months ago
Josh Thompson
Redefining Success It’s been pretty quiet around here lately. It’s been almost a month since my last entry. I thought...
over a year ago
7
over a year ago
It’s been pretty quiet around here lately. It’s been almost a month since my last entry. I thought about writing something here almost every day, but here is why I didn’t: I want to produce “content” that is helpful and relevant to those who might read it. I felt like nothing I...
The American Scholar
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.
Ben Borgers
60 kHz
over a year ago
Journal and Links by...
🔗 Apple Maps on the web launches in beta Today, Apple Maps on the web is available in public beta, allowing users around the world to access...
5 months ago
2
5 months ago
Today, Apple Maps on the web is available in public beta, allowing users around the world to access Maps directly from their browser. Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
Ben Borgers
Doubly Parasocial Relationships
over a year ago
The American Scholar
Kinship and Contradictions Carrie Lowry Schuettpelz on the complexities of Native American identity The post Kinship and...
a month ago
29
a month ago
Carrie Lowry Schuettpelz on the complexities of Native American identity The post Kinship and Contradictions appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'Steeplejacks Top Out the Chrysler Building,' A friend sent me a link to a 1978 BBC documentary about a working-class hero in England. I had never...
7 months ago
44
7 months ago
A friend sent me a link to a 1978 BBC documentary about a working-class hero in England. I had never heard of Fred Dibnah, practitioner of a trade I didn’t know was still extant: steeplejack. In the words of the OED: “a person who climbs steeples or tall chimneys to repair them.”...
This Space
No safe landing A review of A Winter in Zürau and Partita by Gabriel Josipovici   Gabriel Josipovici has said that...
3 months ago
50
3 months ago
A review of A Winter in Zürau and Partita by Gabriel Josipovici   Gabriel Josipovici has said that as a critic he is conservative but as a novelist he is radical. The second claim may not be controversial but the first will come as a surprise to those who remember what he said...
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...
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
The American Scholar
The Diagnostician of Despair Why Rousseau believed that Enlightenment values would lead us to ruin The post The Diagnostician of...
a month ago
29
a month ago
Why Rousseau believed that Enlightenment values would lead us to ruin The post The Diagnostician of Despair appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'Richly, Sometimes Dreamily, Melodic' A friend has given me an unexpected gift: a first American edition of Poems for Children (Henry Holt...
10 months ago
39
10 months ago
A friend has given me an unexpected gift: a first American edition of Poems for Children (Henry Holt and Co., 1930), with a printed note before the title page:  “Three hundred copies of ‘Poems for Children’ have been specially printed and bound, and have been signed by the...
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.
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
7
over a year ago
There is tension between being content with what you have, and striving for more. We have all heard the “serenity prayer”: God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, The courage to change the things I can, And wisdom to know the difference. This prayer is...
The American Scholar
“How Happy Is the Little Stone” by Emily Dickinson Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “How Happy Is the Little Stone” by Emily Dickinson appeared...
8 months ago
66
8 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “How Happy Is the Little Stone” by Emily Dickinson appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
There’s a Ghost in the Garden: A Subtle and Soulful Illustrated Fable about Memory and Mystery One of the things no one tells us as we grow up is that we will be living in a world rife with...
a month ago
18
a month ago
One of the things no one tells us as we grow up is that we will be living in a world rife with ghosts — all of our disappointed hopes and our outgrown dreams, all the abandoned novels and unproven theorems, all the people we used to love, all the people we used to be. A ghost is...
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”....
The American Scholar
A Forgotten Turner Classic Who was George Eyser, the one-legged German-American gymnast who astounded at the Olympic Games? The...
7 months ago
25
7 months ago
Who was George Eyser, the one-legged German-American gymnast who astounded at the Olympic Games? The post A Forgotten Turner Classic appeared first on The American Scholar.
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
2
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...
Ben Borgers
The TikTok Peer Group
over a year ago
Wuthering...
Books finished in April 2023 I continue the practice of posting a list as a substitute for real writing. Coming soon: a long...
a year ago
63
a year ago
I continue the practice of posting a list as a substitute for real writing. Coming soon: a long overdue loot at Seneca's plays, a glance at Gide's Counterfeiters, and some messing around with Plato's Republic. If I did not write in April, I at least read: GREEK PHILOSOPHY The...
This Space
39 Books: 2016 I love it when people announce that "if Shakespeare was alive today, he'd be writing Eastenders", or...
7 months ago
55
7 months ago
I love it when people announce that "if Shakespeare was alive today, he'd be writing Eastenders", or Game of Thrones or crime fiction, according to one and another variation. The innocence of the claim is charming, giving voice to the desperation to give weight to ephemera. But I...
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...
Josh Thompson
How to Wake Up Early An understanding of sleep, and attempts to wake up early (Read Part Two, and Part Three) My...
over a year ago
7
over a year ago
An understanding of sleep, and attempts to wake up early (Read Part Two, and Part Three) My understanding of sleep has evolved. When I was born, I spent most of my time asleep (if I recall correctly…) and gradually spent less and less time sleeping, until I was down to about...
The Elysian
Writing Prompt: Fix Capitalism By September 30th.
4 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'An Expression of Blatant Despotism' Two female acquaintances have recently endured divorce, and their lives are measurably improved. The...
a year ago
20
a year ago
Two female acquaintances have recently endured divorce, and their lives are measurably improved. The woman I know better, whose wedding and reception we attended, was married to a thuggish prison guard of a husband. You wouldn’t know it, looking at him. Handsome, well-dressed and...
The Marginalian
Between Psyche and Cyborg: Carl Jung’s Legacy and the Countercultural Courage to Reclaim the Deeply... "A reanimated world is one in which spirit and matter are not just equally regarded but recognized...
9 months ago
The American Scholar
On Book August Wilson’s play just hit the big screen, but even greater rewards await on the page The post On...
a month ago
25
a month ago
August Wilson’s play just hit the big screen, but even greater rewards await on the page The post On Book appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'Friends They May Become To-morrow' “New books can have few associations. They may reach us on the best deckle-edged Whatman paper, in...
a month ago
18
a month ago
“New books can have few associations. They may reach us on the best deckle-edged Whatman paper, in the newest types of famous presses, with backs of embossed vellum, with tasteful tasselled strings,--and yet be no more to us than the constrained and uneasy acquaintances of...
Wuthering...
Ovid's Amores and Marlowe's Ovid - Love slack’d my muse Since it is Valentine’s Day, I’ll riffle through Ovid’s Amores (16 BCE), as translated by Peter...
11 months ago
61
11 months ago
Since it is Valentine’s Day, I’ll riffle through Ovid’s Amores (16 BCE), as translated by Peter Green in The Erotic Poems (1982) and Christopher Marlowe as Ovid’s Elegies (1599).  A statement of purpose: I, Ovid, poet of my wantonness, Born at Peligny, to write more address. So...
The Marginalian
We Go to the Park: A Soulful Illustrated Meditation on Our Search for Meaning "Sometimes it feels as if all of life is made up of longing."
5 months ago
The Marginalian
The Universe in Verse Book "We need science to help us meet reality on its own terms, and we need poetry to help us broaden and...
8 months ago
26
8 months ago
"We need science to help us meet reality on its own terms, and we need poetry to help us broaden and deepen the terms on which we meet ourselves and each other. At the crossing point of the two we may find a way of clarifying our experience and of sanctifying it."
Anecdotal Evidence
'Never Has a Man Deserved a Reputation Less' My middle son, a Marine Corps officer at Quantico, asked last week if I would interested in “working...
a year ago
15
a year ago
My middle son, a Marine Corps officer at Quantico, asked last week if I would interested in “working through Wittgenstein” with him. Of course, so we met online on Sunday for ninety minutes and read propositions 1 and 2 of his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. I first read the book...
The Marginalian
The Human Scale: Oliver Sacks on How to Save Humanity from Itself "...or there will be genocide, atomic bombs, and we'll all perish and take the planet with us."
a year ago
Ben Borgers
Date Picker Details
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Books, Books, Books' The name I remembered but not what he had written, which is hardly unusual when the writer...
a year ago
11
a year ago
The name I remembered but not what he had written, which is hardly unusual when the writer in question was first encountered in childhood and his readability hasn’t survived into adulthood. Very young children pay attention to the work, not its author. In this case, “Wynken,...
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
Josh Thompson
Input metrics vs. Output metrics It’s tempting to track results, when trying to accomplish something. If you’re working on any...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
It’s tempting to track results, when trying to accomplish something. If you’re working on any project of sufficient size, the results will come slowly, fitfully, and sometimes not at all. So, don’t track results, track your efforts. (Yes, how very American of me. I don’t believe...
Journal and Links by...
🔗 Hicks.design's Best 15 Albums A huge part of what makes a 'top album' choice is that they're usually entwined with a time and a...
6 months ago
2
6 months ago
A huge part of what makes a 'top album' choice is that they're usually entwined with a time and a place in our lives, a personal context that makes them so very special to us. OK Computer will forever be 'the album when I met Leigh, the love of my life'. — Jon Hicks Visit...
The Marginalian
Octavia Butler (and Whitman’s Ghost) on America “Choose your leaders with wisdom and forethought,” Octavia Butler (June 22, 1947–February 24, 2006)...
3 months ago
17
3 months ago
“Choose your leaders with wisdom and forethought,” Octavia Butler (June 22, 1947–February 24, 2006) urged in her prophetic Parable of the Talents, written in the 1990s and set in the 2020s. Her words remain a haunting reminder that our rights are founded upon our...
Anecdotal Evidence
'In Constant Repair' “In the streets I saw two men meet after a long separation, it was plain. They came forward with a...
3 months ago
19
3 months ago
“In the streets I saw two men meet after a long separation, it was plain. They came forward with a little run and LEAPED at each other’s hands. You never saw such bright eyes as they both had. It put one in a good humour to see it.” Yet again I’ve heard the small-minded slur that...
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,...
Josh Thompson
Workflow for developers (AKA My current tools) I’m a huge fan of “a good workflow”. Makes you think better. This is still under construction, but...
over a year ago
5
over a year ago
I’m a huge fan of “a good workflow”. Makes you think better. This is still under construction, but I’m fleshing out all the tools, tidbits, and other things that serve me well every day as I build my skills as a developer. It will always be a work in progress, but will hopefully...
Ben Borgers
I Love Email
over a year ago
Journal and Links by...
🔗 Travel Is No Cure for the Mind Who we are inside a venue matters far more than the venue itself. Instead of having the wanderlust...
2 weeks ago
2
2 weeks ago
Who we are inside a venue matters far more than the venue itself. Instead of having the wanderlust of travel guide our search for meaning, we have to look within and embrace the only thing that is present now. The only thing that actually exists today. — Lawrence Yeo I do love...
The Marginalian
There Was a Shadow: A Lyrical Illustrated Celebration of the Changing Light, in the World and in the... “Were it not for shadows, there would be no beauty,” Junichiro Tanizaki wrote in the 1933 Japanese...
6 months ago
44
6 months ago
“Were it not for shadows, there would be no beauty,” Junichiro Tanizaki wrote in the 1933 Japanese classic In Praise of Shadows. As a physical phenomenon, shadows are one of the most beguiling phenomena of nature, emissaries of the entwined history of light and consciousness; as...
Josh Thompson
I Once Worked Hard When I began working at my first job out of college, I knew I didn’t want to spend my whole career...
over a year ago
7
over a year ago
When I began working at my first job out of college, I knew I didn’t want to spend my whole career there. I was a college graduate (that means something, right?) working at a climbing gym, part time, teaching seven-year-olds how to climb at about $10 an hour. I had no idea what I...
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...
Josh Thompson
November 2016 Goals November 2016 Goals Note to the reader: The words that follow are all about me. Very naval-gaze-ish....
over a year ago
6
over a year ago
November 2016 Goals Note to the reader: The words that follow are all about me. Very naval-gaze-ish. I feel I owe you this warning. My November goals are an extension of my October goals. October was good ( October review) - I made progress on two of three projects, and one of...
Journal and Links by...
🔗 Future Web It’s idealistic and very millennial of me to reminiscence the early days of Web innocence, unbound...
a week ago
2
a week ago
It’s idealistic and very millennial of me to reminiscence the early days of Web innocence, unbound creativity it hosted and wonderful lack of monetisation of virtually every aspect of being online. We can’t turn back time. But, individually and collectively, we can strive for...
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...
This Space
Literature likes to hide Last December I was fortunate enough to borrow a copy of The Unmediated Vision, Geoffrey Hartman's...
a year ago
78
a year ago
Last December I was fortunate enough to borrow a copy of The Unmediated Vision, Geoffrey Hartman's first book, published in 1954. It is difficult to find a copy now but you can download a digital version of the book via the link. The opening chapter is a 50-page study of "Tintern...
Escaping Flatland
A measuring device that tells me what is interesting + links
3 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'An Old Man or Young Man Mad About Literature' Sometimes an eccentric judgment – one that reflects the critic’s discernment, not merely his wish to...
8 months ago
34
8 months ago
Sometimes an eccentric judgment – one that reflects the critic’s discernment, not merely his wish to provoke and attract attention – proves useful to the common reader. Take a sentence from Ford Madox Ford's final book, The March of Literature (1939): “The modern English language...
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
31
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...
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...
The American Scholar
“One Letter” by Liu Xiaobo Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “One Letter” by Liu Xiaobo appeared first on The American...
7 months ago
68
7 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “One Letter” by Liu Xiaobo appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
Échame la Culpa The post Échame la Culpa appeared first on The American Scholar.
2 months ago
Journal and Links by...
🔗 The great escape from Reichsdummvogel. People change, we’ve changed, and no matter where we choose to interact online, who we are today is...
2 months ago
2
2 months ago
People change, we’ve changed, and no matter where we choose to interact online, who we are today is coming with us. I don’t mean to suggest that in a negative way, but I have yet to come across anyone who is 5-10 years older who hasn’t changed. And many of those folks feel...
Anecdotal Evidence
'An Example of Abundant Good Nature' The Rev. Sydney Smith writing to his friend Harriet Martineau on December 11, 1842:  “I...
2 months ago
20
2 months ago
The Rev. Sydney Smith writing to his friend Harriet Martineau on December 11, 1842:  “I am seventy-two years of age, at which period there comes over one a shameful love of ease and repose, common to dogs, horses, clergymen and even to Edinburgh Reviewers. Then an idea...
sbensu
We need visual programming. No, not like that. Why do we keep building visual programming environments? Why do we never use them? What should we do...
6 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'He Is Some Twentie Sev’rall Men at Least' Whitman “contained multitudes,” of course, while George Herbert says of a man: “He is some...
8 months ago
37
8 months ago
Whitman “contained multitudes,” of course, while George Herbert says of a man: “He is some twentie sev’rall men at least / Each sev’rall houre.” What sounds self-dramatizing in the American simply acknowledges our inconstancy, our fickle nature, in Herbert’s poem “Giddinesse.” In...
Josh Thompson
Letter to Two Climbers (Part 2) Hello again, it’s me! We met climbing a few days ago. I wrote you a letter, but didn’t want to leave...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
Hello again, it’s me! We met climbing a few days ago. I wrote you a letter, but didn’t want to leave it on such a pessimistic note. First, I commend you both for getting out there. You both invested a lot in making that weekend happen. You acquired the correct tools, and spent...
This Space
“Can there be a pure narrative?” The question opening Maurice Blanchot’s essay The Experience of Proust* has always drawn me back,...
over a year ago
36
over a year ago
The question opening Maurice Blanchot’s essay The Experience of Proust* has always drawn me back, not to secure a yes or a no, but to keep the question of pure narrative open in its initial uncertainty, perhaps, rather, in its impossibility, as it appears to make reading and...
Anecdotal Evidence
'I Love the Universe Because It’s Made of Stories' The third issue of New Verse Review has just been published, and I take it all back: poetry is...
12 hours ago
3
12 hours ago
The third issue of New Verse Review has just been published, and I take it all back: poetry is not dead. The journal is crowded with work by good poets familiar – Jane Greer, Jared Carter, Ernest Hilbert, Amit Majmudar, Alfred Nicol – and previously unknown, like Daniel Patrick...
The Marginalian
A Heron’s Antidote to Fear of Death They didn’t imagine it, the dying dinosaurs, that they would grow wings and become birds, become the...
a month ago
20
a month ago
They didn’t imagine it, the dying dinosaurs, that they would grow wings and become birds, become the laboratory in which evolution invented dreams and the cathedral in which it invented faith. “There is grandeur in this view of life,” Darwin consoled himself as his beloved...
The American Scholar
“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.
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Whispering Parasite' In Act III, Scene 2 of Henry IV, Part 1, Prince Hal hopes to convince his father that he has mended...
11 months ago
27
11 months ago
In Act III, Scene 2 of Henry IV, Part 1, Prince Hal hopes to convince his father that he has mended his ways, is a worthy successor and will in the future avoid the riff raff (“rude society,” the king calls them; i.e., Falstaff). Hal says:  “So please your majesty, I would I...
Josh Thompson
How Can You Buy Happiness? You can’t, but that won’t stop you and me from trying, at least a little. We (Humans, americans, at...
over a year ago
6
over a year ago
You can’t, but that won’t stop you and me from trying, at least a little. We (Humans, americans, at least “other people like me”) like to buy things. But we should do more than just buy things. Experiences can have a much bigger impact on people’s happiness than things, and a...
Josh Thompson
Habits Take Preparation Kristi and I moved to Golden, Colorado. We’ve been in our new apartment for five days. I’m trying to...
over a year ago
6
over a year ago
Kristi and I moved to Golden, Colorado. We’ve been in our new apartment for five days. I’m trying to quickly settle into a routine that makes sense for both of us. For example - I work for a company in Boston. While I could keep local working hours (Mountain Time) I prefer to...
The American Scholar
“I Have Had My Vision” Three prompts The post “I Have Had My Vision” appeared first on The American Scholar.
a month ago
Ben Borgers
Teaching Enthusiasm
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Lead the Thoughts Into Domestic Privacies' A friend tells me a newspaper is looking for a fulltime obituary writer and she thinks it would be...
a year ago
15
a year ago
A friend tells me a newspaper is looking for a fulltime obituary writer and she thinks it would be an ideal job for me. I’m not in the market but she’s right. Good obituaries are small-scale biographies and always a privilege to write. The first thing I wrote as a newspaper...
The Marginalian
Honing Life on the Edges of the Possible: Geologist Turned Psychoanalyst Ruth Allen on Boundaries... "At almost every conceivable level of our imagining, it is impossible to create a change without a...
4 months ago
46
4 months ago
"At almost every conceivable level of our imagining, it is impossible to create a change without a discontinuity, without a moment of not knowing who we are, or what we are going to become. Rupture precedes revolution."
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Old Collections Persist Somewhere' Speaking of anthologies, I again picked up Books and Libraries (2021), published as part of the...
a year ago
21
a year ago
Speaking of anthologies, I again picked up Books and Libraries (2021), published as part of the Everyman's Library Pocket Poets Series. I’ve browsed in several of these attractively compact volumes and they are a very mixed bag, as any thematic anthology must be. You can sense...
Anecdotal Evidence
'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
25
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...
The Marginalian
2,000 Years of Kindness From Marcus Aurelius to Einstein, poets and philosophers on the deepest wellspring of our humanity.
a year ago
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...
Anecdotal Evidence
'I Was Only Coming True' In the final year of his life, Clive James published a book-length poem, The River in the Sky...
a year ago
68
a year ago
In the final year of his life, Clive James published a book-length poem, The River in the Sky (2018), a dying man’s last fling. The title refers to the Japanese phrase for the Milky Way. It’s mostly autobiography, a book of well-rehearsed memories, largely unstructured, much of...
Wuthering...
The elegant, intricate, sour comedies of Terence The great Roman playwright Terence wrote six plays between 166 and 160 BCE, twenty years after the...
a year ago
52
a year ago
The great Roman playwright Terence wrote six plays between 166 and 160 BCE, twenty years after the death of Plautus.  The story is that he wrote the first one at age nineteen, while enslaved, thus winning his freedom and entry into a world of aristocratic patrons.  Plautus was...
The Marginalian
Favorite Books of 2023 To look back on a year of reading is to be handed a clear mirror of your priorities and passions, of...
a year ago
20
a year ago
To look back on a year of reading is to be handed a clear mirror of your priorities and passions, of the questions that live in you and the reckonings that keep you up at night. While the literature of the present comprises only a tiny fraction of my own reading, here are a...
Journal and Links by...
🔗 Eva Decker Eva Decker is a designer engineer who likes playing piano and writing CSS. Currently living in NYC...
5 months ago
2
5 months ago
Eva Decker is a designer engineer who likes playing piano and writing CSS. Currently living in NYC with Samwise. — Eva Decker Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
Journal and Links by...
✏️ Follow vs. Block In the beginning, you followed someone to see their content in your feed. Now, you block someone to...
a year ago
2
a year ago
In the beginning, you followed someone to see their content in your feed. Now, you block someone to remove them from your feed. That’s the price of an endless algorithmic feed designed to keep you in-app or on-platform, entertained, and eventually (if not already) monetized. A...
This Space
Favourite books 2020 Every time Dennis Cooper posts his favorite (sic) fiction and non-fiction of the year, it alone...
over a year ago
36
over a year ago
Every time Dennis Cooper posts his favorite (sic) fiction and non-fiction of the year, it alone exceeds the number of books I'm able to read in a year let alone the number from which it was presumably narrowed down. This is why I suggested a couple of years ago such pages choose...
Wuthering...
Daryl Hine's Ovid's Heroines - I, who could a dragon hypnotize An anti-Valentine’s Day book now, Ovid’s Heroides (25-16 BCE, somewhere in there), a collection of...
11 months ago
27
11 months ago
An anti-Valentine’s Day book now, Ovid’s Heroides (25-16 BCE, somewhere in there), a collection of fictional letters in verse written by mythical heroines to their no-good boyfriends and husbands.  Many end in suicide.  Dido castigating Aeneas, Phaedra mourning...
Steven Scrawls
Not As Giants Love Not As Giants Love Short story, ~2000 words A week ago, when I asked you if you still loved me, I...
6 months ago
6
6 months ago
Not As Giants Love Short story, ~2000 words A week ago, when I asked you if you still loved me, I thought the most painful thing you could’ve said was no. I don’t know if you remember, but when you said “Of course I still love you” and asked if I still loved you, I started to...
Anecdotal Evidence
'More Than Documentary' “Literariness, as I understand it, does not necessarily entail any particular set of...
4 months ago
32
4 months ago
“Literariness, as I understand it, does not necessarily entail any particular set of formal qualities. What makes a work literary is the ability to be understood and appreciated outside the context of its origin. That is why a literary work, however valuable as a document of its...
Josh Thompson
Quitting the shallow for the deep Deep work over shallow TL;DR: I’m off social media, but want to keep a functioning Twitter URL. So,...
over a year ago
6
over a year ago
Deep work over shallow TL;DR: I’m off social media, but want to keep a functioning Twitter URL. So, it redirects here. This year’s “best book I’ve read” label might go to Cal Newport’s Deep Work. Here’s the gist: One of the most valuable skills in our economy is becoming...
The American Scholar
Double Exposure On our first memories The post Double Exposure appeared first on The American Scholar.
a month ago
The American Scholar
Paolo Arao Acts of devotion The post Paolo Arao appeared first on The American Scholar.
5 months ago
The Marginalian
Anne Morrow Lindbergh on Embracing Change in Relationships and the Key Pattern for Nourishing Love "All living relationships are in process of change, of expansion, and must perpetually be building...
11 months ago
Josh Thompson
Everything I Do and Think I've Read in a Book (or, exploring the relationship between books and... Here’s yet another big post on money and income and saving and reading. I tried to write everything...
over a year ago
5
over a year ago
Here’s yet another big post on money and income and saving and reading. I tried to write everything on my mind in one massive letter, so I could write a really detailed answer once, rather than a less-useful but less-thoughtful email that I can never reuse. Hey there, I’m...
The Marginalian
How We Render Reality: Attention as an Instrument of Love "Since our consciousness plays some part in what comes into being, the play of attention can both...
a year ago
57
a year ago
"Since our consciousness plays some part in what comes into being, the play of attention can both create and destroy, but it never leaves its object unchanged."
Blog -...
Book Review - Dancing Naked in the Mind Field Dancing Naked in the Mind Field, the autobiography of Kary Mullis, published in 1998, is...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
Dancing Naked in the Mind Field, the autobiography of Kary Mullis, published in 1998, is reminiscent of another Nobel Prize winning autobiography, Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!. Dr. Mullis and Dr. Feynman had a great deal in common, including their incomprehensible...
Anecdotal Evidence
'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
32
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...
The American Scholar
Good Vibrations One eccentric’s desert landmark allows visitors to bathe in sound The post Good Vibrations appeared...
9 months ago
30
9 months ago
One eccentric’s desert landmark allows visitors to bathe in sound The post Good Vibrations appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Essence of Good Talk' A longtime reader of this blog stopped by the house on Saturday, we talked and the...
a year ago
9
a year ago
A longtime reader of this blog stopped by the house on Saturday, we talked and the afternoon evaporated. Neither of us brought a script. “Improvisation is the essence of good talk,” writes Max Beerbohm in “Lytton Strachey” (1943). “Heaven defend us from the talker who doles out...
Ben Borgers
Website Like a Library
over a year ago
The Marginalian
The Parts We Live With: D.H. Lawrence and the Yearning for Living Unison "We ought to dance with rapture that we should be alive and in the flesh, and part of the living,...
9 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Brief, Dry, Almost Colorless Account ' The Polish writer Gustaw Herling-Grudziński (1919-2000) -- Gulag survivor, co-founder of Kultura and...
a year ago
33
a year ago
The Polish writer Gustaw Herling-Grudziński (1919-2000) -- Gulag survivor, co-founder of Kultura and author of A World Apart: Imprisonment in a Soviet Labor Camp During World War II (1951) – has sent me back to Varlam Shalamov and his Kolyma stories. Herling-Grudziński in 1971...
Wuthering...
Middle period Plato - He’s garbage, he cares about nothing but the truth. Assembling yesterday’s post I saw that I was only missing one dialogue from Plato’s early period, so...
a year ago
70
a year ago
Assembling yesterday’s post I saw that I was only missing one dialogue from Plato’s early period, so I knocked off Greater Hippiaslast night.  The early dialogues are generally short; the three in the “death of Socrates” group are only fifty pages total, for example. Hippias is...
The Marginalian
How to Eat the Sun: A Blind Hero of the Resistance on Accessing the Light Within and Touching the... “There is only one world. Things outside only exist if you go to meet them with everything you carry...
a year ago
10
a year ago
“There is only one world. Things outside only exist if you go to meet them with everything you carry in yourself. As to the things inside, you will never see them well unless you allow those outside to enter in.”
The Marginalian
Alain de Botton on the Qualities of a Healthy Mind "A healthy mind knows how to hope; it identifies and then hangs on tenaciously to a few reasons to...
a year ago
Wuthering...
Books I Read in October 2023 The five-day hospital stay breaking the month in half is likely invisible to anyone but me, but that...
a year ago
72
a year ago
The five-day hospital stay breaking the month in half is likely invisible to anyone but me, but that is why the fiction list is so mystery-heavy, and for that matter so long.  Many of these books, the post-surgery group, are not just short but light, well-suited for the invalid's...
The American Scholar
Teach the Conflicts It’s natural—and right—to foster The post Teach the Conflicts appeared first on The American...
4 months ago
50
4 months ago
It’s natural—and right—to foster The post Teach the Conflicts appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'Where Its Masters’ Love Is' The late D.G. Myers and I once talked about the tendency to pigeonhole writers according to some...
6 months ago
48
6 months ago
The late D.G. Myers and I once talked about the tendency to pigeonhole writers according to some aspect of their subject matter. Melville is your go-to cetology guy and Edith Wharton took care of sleds. Or, as Nabokov said of Hemingway’s books: “something about bells, balls and...
The American Scholar
Ups and Downs The post Ups and Downs appeared first on The American Scholar.
a month ago
Ben Borgers
Sunk Cost Chinese
over a year ago
The Marginalian
Sheltering the Heroes Among Us: John Berger on Art as Resistance and Redemption of Justice "The powerful fear art, whatever its form... because it makes sense of what life’s brutalities...
2 months ago
30
2 months ago
"The powerful fear art, whatever its form... because it makes sense of what life’s brutalities cannot, a sense that unites us... becomes a meeting-place of the invisible, the irreducible, the enduring."
The American Scholar
Femmes Fantastiques Mickalene Thomas and the art of remixing The post Femmes Fantastiques appeared first on The American...
7 months ago
26
7 months ago
Mickalene Thomas and the art of remixing The post Femmes Fantastiques appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Elysian
I’m building a cooperative media ecosystem Owned by writers interested in a better future.
2 weeks ago
Ben Borgers
Thursday, January 13, 2022
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Where I Went and Cannot Come Again' A brief return to the Russian word toska mentioned in Thursday’s post by Gary Saul Morson in...
9 months ago
44
9 months ago
A brief return to the Russian word toska mentioned in Thursday’s post by Gary Saul Morson in reference to Chekhov. Dave Lull alerted me to Nabokov’s explication of the word in his translation of Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin. In the second of the four volumes, Nabokov writes:  “No...
sbensu
But I want to turn people into dinosaurs Beware of what you actually want.
5 months ago
The Marginalian
Blue Glass Not long after writing about the bowerbird’s enchantment in blue, I walked out of my house and...
a year ago
38
a year ago
Not long after writing about the bowerbird’s enchantment in blue, I walked out of my house and gasped at the sight of what looked like two extraordinary jewels sparkling on a bed of yellow leaves, right there on the sidewalk — chunks of cobalt glass, much larger than what a...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Weightier Than All the Gear I’ll Carry' I was a lazy student of Latin in junior high school and gave it up after two years. What I...
3 months ago
21
3 months ago
I was a lazy student of Latin in junior high school and gave it up after two years. What I retained was a lasting interest in mythology, Roman history and etymology. I probably learned more English words than Latin – celerity, pulchritude, jocular, spelunker, procrastination,...
Journal and Links by...
🔗 Make Better Documents Stop formatting everything to death. — Anil Dash Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
10 months ago
Josh Thompson
Quick Dive into React As usual, this is a work in progress. At a high level, I’m familiarizing myself with Phoenix/Elixir,...
over a year ago
7
over a year ago
As usual, this is a work in progress. At a high level, I’m familiarizing myself with Phoenix/Elixir, and need to sharpen my React knowledge along the way. After working through part 1 of a slack clone in Elixir/Phoenix tutorial, I ran into some errors getting the React app up and...
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Dead Wall or a Thick Mist' Reading occasionally reveals a pleasing convergence of thought between one writer, separated by...
a year ago
17
a year ago
Reading occasionally reveals a pleasing convergence of thought between one writer, separated by centuries and continents, and another. The happy reader is their ambassador and beneficiary. I was again reading Nabokov’s brief, death-haunted novel from 1972, Transparent Things. Its...
Journal and Links by...
🔗 Type of Feeling Type Foundry Type of Feeling is a type foundry specializing in creating bespoke typefaces for brands. We offer a...
4 months ago
2
4 months ago
Type of Feeling is a type foundry specializing in creating bespoke typefaces for brands. We offer a select retail collection and custom typography services that are inspired by a range of feelings. Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
Anecdotal Evidence
'Soothe the Soul and Nurture the Imagination' “Among the lessons we’ve learned during these past few difficult years of pandemic, climate crisis...
a year ago
21
a year ago
“Among the lessons we’ve learned during these past few difficult years of pandemic, climate crisis and political discord is that beauty and nature matter more than ever, and that if our homes are to be sanctuaries from an often harsh outside world, then we should fill them with...
The Marginalian
A Shelter in Time: John Berger on the Power of Music "Songs are like rivers: each follows its own course, yet all flow to the sea, from which everything...
a year ago
Ben Borgers
Girl Talk: All Day
over a year ago
Journal and Links by...
🔗 Hundred Rabbits Hundred Rabbits is a small artist collective. Together, we explore the planned failability of modern...
3 months ago
2
3 months ago
Hundred Rabbits is a small artist collective. Together, we explore the planned failability of modern technology at the bounds of the hyper-connected world. We research and test low-tech solutions and document our findings with the hope of building a more resilient future. This is...
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
The Redoubtable Bull Shark Reflecting on one of nature’s most dangerous predators The post The Redoubtable Bull Shark appeared...
8 months ago
32
8 months ago
Reflecting on one of nature’s most dangerous predators The post The Redoubtable Bull Shark appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
Gratitude 3x/day Earlier this year, I read The Miracle Morning, which promises (paraphrasing here): If you do these...
over a year ago
7
over a year ago
Earlier this year, I read The Miracle Morning, which promises (paraphrasing here): If you do these seven things every morning you’ll be the most amazing person you’ve ever met. OK, it’s not exactly that bold, but it’s not far off. It wasn’t a terrible book, it had lots of good...
Journal and Links by...
🔗 The anatomy of Andy Spade's style You don’t have to spend a lot to look good; good taste isn’t bound by price. Spade is a testiment to...
a month ago
2
a month ago
You don’t have to spend a lot to look good; good taste isn’t bound by price. Spade is a testiment to this, while he’s a successful businessman. He sticks to his affordable, all-American classics. I'm somewhat entering my uniform years. I've come around to clothes that feel...
Ben Borgers
Overwhelmed
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'And in the Darkness Comes the Light' Chard Powers Smith (1894-1977) was a latecomer to the protracted Era of American Writers with Three...
a year ago
14
a year ago
Chard Powers Smith (1894-1977) was a latecomer to the protracted Era of American Writers with Three Names, coming decades after John Greenleaf Whittier, James Russell Lowell and William Dean Howells. Smith is probably more thoroughly forgotten than the others, though in 1939 he...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Right Things in the Right Order' “But surely the stories of Chekhov or the paintings of de Chirico move us not only because they are...
a year ago
14
a year ago
“But surely the stories of Chekhov or the paintings of de Chirico move us not only because they are so well done, but because in each case the artist has arranged exactly the right things in the right order. The choice of subject matter has been at least half of the achievement....
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Harbinger of a Song Greater Still' “I went to him very late each night, and he read many of the poems to me or discussed them with me...
a year ago
13
a year ago
“I went to him very late each night, and he read many of the poems to me or discussed them with me till the early hours of the morning. The tears often ran down his face as he read, without the slightest apparent consciousness of them on his part. The pathos and grandeur of these...
Anecdotal Evidence
'That Other Thermopylae, the Alamo' A reader asks for impressions of Texas, a place she, a lifelong Northerner, has never visited....
7 months ago
52
7 months ago
A reader asks for impressions of Texas, a place she, a lifelong Northerner, has never visited. Twenty years ago last month I saw Texas for the first time, and the first surprise, seen from the air, was abundant greenery. I was expecting desert and tumbleweeds. Houston is...
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
'Flow, Like Waters After Summer Show’rs' “As two men sit silent, after having exhausted all their topics of conversation; one says, ‘It is...
5 months ago
31
5 months ago
“As two men sit silent, after having exhausted all their topics of conversation; one says, ‘It is very fine weather,’ and the other says, ‘Yes;’—one blows his nose, and the other rubs his eye-brows; (by the way, this is very much in Homer’s manner;) such seems to be the case...
The Marginalian
Little Black Hole: A Tender Cosmic Fable About How to Live with Loss Right this minute, people are making plans, making promises and poems, while at the center of our...
a year ago
16
a year ago
Right this minute, people are making plans, making promises and poems, while at the center of our galaxy a black hole with the mass of four billion suns screams its open-mouth kiss of oblivion. Someday it will swallow every atom that ever touched us and every datum we ever...
The Marginalian
Wherever You Are, Stop What You’re Doing Nothing magnifies life — in the proper sense of the word, rooted in the Latin for “to make greater,...
2 weeks ago
34
2 weeks ago
Nothing magnifies life — in the proper sense of the word, rooted in the Latin for “to make greater, to glorify” — more than the act of noticing its details, and nothing sanctifies it more: Kneeling to look at a lichen is a devotional act. We bless our own lives by recognizing and...
Ben Borgers
October 5th, 1582
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Kind of Representative Figure of His Era' We gave our sons Hebrew names: Joshua, Michael, David. They roughly translate as “God is...
a year ago
9
a year ago
We gave our sons Hebrew names: Joshua, Michael, David. They roughly translate as “God is deliverance,” “gift of God” and “beloved,” respectively. We are not Jewish and not linguists but we like plain names rooted in tradition, names with an identifiable history traceable, in this...
Josh Thompson
Friends Don't Let Friends Shortrope The first in a series about how to be a better belayer. Short rope [shawrt-rohp] verb The act of...
over a year ago
6
over a year ago
The first in a series about how to be a better belayer. Short rope [shawrt-rohp] verb The act of not giving sufficient rope to your climber. Getting short roped is bad. It’s not necessarily dangerous, nor does it cause you to take a whip (it can, of course) but the real reason...
Anecdotal Evidence
'That Excellent Judge, Posterity' A reader can sometimes judge the true worth of a writer by the quality of his detractors....
9 months ago
21
9 months ago
A reader can sometimes judge the true worth of a writer by the quality of his detractors. Take Dwight Macdonald on James Gould Cozzens. And then consider Arnold Bennett (1867-1931). Today he’s judged a respectable but minor English novelist, something of a documentarian, if he’s...
sbensu
Twitter's Sith and Jedi In Star Wars, hate gives the Sith power from the dark side of the Force beyond what the Jedi can...
11 months ago
4
11 months ago
In Star Wars, hate gives the Sith power from the dark side of the Force beyond what the Jedi can reach. But when they lean into hate, they lose their soul to it. Twitter offers the same bargain as the Force.
Wuthering...
My cancer - "It can’t be true! It can’t, but it is." Liver cancer.  That was a surprise.  I knew something was wrong, but I was not expecting that. Since...
a year ago
15
a year ago
Liver cancer.  That was a surprise.  I knew something was wrong, but I was not expecting that. Since the diagnosis last summer, since it was known for a fact that I had something serious, things have moved fast.  It has been like boarding a train.  Once in motion there is no way...
The American Scholar
Fiction, Fakery, and Factory Farming Spanish novelist Munir Hachemi talks about Living Things The post Fiction, Fakery, and Factory...
2 months ago
28
2 months ago
Spanish novelist Munir Hachemi talks about Living Things The post Fiction, Fakery, and Factory Farming appeared first on The American Scholar.
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...
Journal and Links by...
✏️ What's Next vs. What's Now Trevor Noah is a funny, funny person. He's sharp. And during November-December 2023, he was doing a...
5 months ago
2
5 months ago
Trevor Noah is a funny, funny person. He's sharp. And during November-December 2023, he was doing a two-week stint in San Francisco on his most recent tour, Off the Record[1]. Jen and I attended his very first show of the run on November 30. The set is hilarious and the best live...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Cloudy, Cloudy Is the Stuff of Stones' The best-known and still unchallenged refutation of the Irish Anglican Bishop George Berkeley’s...
10 months ago
27
10 months ago
The best-known and still unchallenged refutation of the Irish Anglican Bishop George Berkeley’s theory of subjective idealism – he called it “immaterialism” -- is recounted by James Boswell on August 6, 1763:  “After we came out of the church, we stood talking for some time...
Anecdotal Evidence
'We Find Other Things Which We Liked Better' One night in the spring of 1766, Boswell and Goldsmith visited Dr. Johnson unannounced and asked if...
10 months ago
20
10 months ago
One night in the spring of 1766, Boswell and Goldsmith visited Dr. Johnson unannounced and asked if he wished to join them at the Mitre Tavern on Fleet Street in London. Johnson was “indisposed” and Goldsmith said, “[W]e will not go to the Mitre to-night, since we cannot have the...
Anecdotal Evidence
'To Be Made Out of Emotions, Colors, Life Itself' “[Robert Conquest] and his two closest friends, Kingsley Amis and Philip Larkin, proved their...
5 months ago
47
5 months ago
“[Robert Conquest] and his two closest friends, Kingsley Amis and Philip Larkin, proved their vocation by playing the games with language and perception that poets play, three Musketeers at a time when not much else was disturbing the quiet little cemetery of English...
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...
Journal and Links by...
🔗 Piccalilli Front-end education for the real world. Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
4 months ago
Ben Borgers
Cheating on Field Notes
over a year ago
The Elysian
Is America about to fall? Or flourish? That depends on us.
2 months ago
Astral Codex Ten
Open Thread 357 ...
a month ago
The Marginalian
Enchantment and the Courage of Joy: René Magritte on the Antidote to the Banality of Pessimism "Life is wasted when we make it more terrifying, precisely because it is so easy to do so."
a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'I Wish He Would Explain His Explanation' On this date, April 10, in 1816, Coleridge and Lord Byron met for the only time, at the latter’s...
9 months ago
33
9 months ago
On this date, April 10, in 1816, Coleridge and Lord Byron met for the only time, at the latter’s house in Piccadilly. Earlier, Coleridge had a friend deliver to Byron a copy of his latest and last play, Zapolya, and a letter explaining that for the previous fifteen years he had...
The Marginalian
On Change and Denial "It’s strange to feel change coming. It’s easy to ignore. An underlying restlessness seems to...
7 months ago
69
7 months ago
"It’s strange to feel change coming. It’s easy to ignore. An underlying restlessness seems to accompany it like birds flocking before a storm."
Anecdotal Evidence
'Art Must Be Giving Pleasure' On May 14, 1947, after giving seven months of lectures on the sonnets and all but two of...
a year ago
14
a year ago
On May 14, 1947, after giving seven months of lectures on the sonnets and all but two of Shakespeare’s plays at the New School of Social Research in New York City, W.H. Auden delivered a concluding lecture. He roots Shakespeare’s vision in the notion of original sin and what he...