Josh Thompson
Playing Pranks
My wife played a brilliant prank on me today, as she does every year. Here’s a partial...
over a year ago
My wife played a brilliant prank on me today, as she does every year. Here’s a partial list:
Convincing me that I was about to eat a slice of carrot cake; it was a sponge covered with toothpaste. I bit into it.
Convincing me that she had, in anger and frustration, cut off almost...
The American Scholar
Mortal Coils
We aren’t alone in facing the inevitable
The post Mortal Coils appeared first on The American...
3 months ago
We aren’t alone in facing the inevitable
The post Mortal Coils appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
Making Space: An Illustrated Ode to the Art of Welcoming the Unknown
It is the silence between the notes that distinguishes music from noise, the stillness of the soil...
3 months ago
It is the silence between the notes that distinguishes music from noise, the stillness of the soil that germinates the seeds to burst into bloom. It is in the gap of absence that we learn trust, in the gap between knowledge and mystery that we discover wonder. Every act of making...
Blog -...
Book Review - The Alchemy of Inner Work
The Alchemy of Inner Work, by Lorie Eve Dechar and Benjamin Fox, is an
exposition of an inner...
over a year ago
The Alchemy of Inner Work, by Lorie Eve Dechar and Benjamin Fox, is an
exposition of an inner healing art that is incredibly valuable to
practitioners. Yet, each of us – regardless of trade, title, or label – is
ultimately our own healing practitioner, and this book is a...
Josh Thompson
Five Lessons Learned in Buenos Aires
Note: This is an unedited draft of a post from July 5, 2015. Almost exactly one year ago, written...
over a year ago
Note: This is an unedited draft of a post from July 5, 2015. Almost exactly one year ago, written after a week in Buenos Aires. Since writing this post, Kristi and I have continued on to more than a year of non-stop travel, though we’re settling down back in Golden, CO in about...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Some Could, Some Could Not, Shake Off Misery'
Last week I
wrote a post about the poet Bob Barth, the patrol he led as a 21-year-old...
4 months ago
Last week I
wrote a post about the poet Bob Barth, the patrol he led as a 21-year-old Marine
Corporal in Vietnam, and the war correspondent who wrote a dispatch about him
for a newspaper. Two days later, after learning that the stringer, Albert W.
Vinson, soon took his own life,...
This Space
Books of the year 2024
In order of being read.
Giorgio Agamben – What I saw, heard, learned…
One night, along Venice’s...
a week ago
In order of being read.
Giorgio Agamben – What I saw, heard, learned…
One night, along Venice’s Zattere, watching the putrid water lap at the city’s foundations, I saw that we exist solely in the intermittence of our being, and that what we call I is just a shadow...
The Marginalian
Emerson on the Singular Enchantment of Indian Summer (and a Better Term for This Liminal Season...
"There are days... wherein the world reaches its perfection, when the air, the heavenly bodies, and...
a month ago
"There are days... wherein the world reaches its perfection, when the air, the heavenly bodies, and the earth, make a harmony."
The Elysian
Three classic utopian novels—now collectibles
More than 100 years ago, three thinkers imagined what a utopian future might look like in the year...
3 months ago
More than 100 years ago, three thinkers imagined what a utopian future might look like in the year 2000. Now, their novels are available as a collectible set.
The Marginalian
How the Octopus Came to Earth: Stunning 19th-Century French Chromolithographs of Cephalopods
The art-science that captured the wonder of some of "the most brilliant productions of Nature."
a year ago
The art-science that captured the wonder of some of "the most brilliant productions of Nature."
Ben Borgers
JumboCode plans for Head of Engineering
a year ago
The Marginalian
From the Labor Camp to the Pantheon of Literature: How Dostoyevsky Became a Writer
"I have nothing, except for certain, and perhaps very minor, literary abilities."
3 months ago
"I have nothing, except for certain, and perhaps very minor, literary abilities."
Josh Thompson
How to Run Your Rails App in Profiling Mode
Last time, I wrote about setting up DataDog for your Rails application. Even when “just” running the...
over a year ago
Last time, I wrote about setting up DataDog for your Rails application. Even when “just” running the app locally, it is sending data to DataDog.
This is super exciting, because I’m getting close to being able to glean good insights from DataDog’s Application Performance...
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...
a month 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
Feedback pt. 2
Traditional Feedback is Explicit
Feedback is the means by which any system makes changes. From the...
over a year ago
Traditional Feedback is Explicit
Feedback is the means by which any system makes changes. From the gene pool to the swimming pool, feedback works to eliminate the insufficient and improve the sufficient. (See what I did with the “pool” thing?)
Your car gives you feedback if the...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Shaping Tombs in Words'
At KaboomBooks a man about my age was standing in front of the “S” shelves in fiction. I
routinely...
a year ago
At KaboomBooks a man about my age was standing in front of the “S” shelves in fiction. I
routinely stop there hoping to find hardback copies of Isaac Bashevis Singer’s
novels to replace my disintegrating paperbacks. On a nearby step-ladder I
noticed a stack of such Singer titles...
sbensu
Interfaces for logical migrations
This post explains how you can use interfaces to make data model and database migrations easier.
a year ago
This post explains how you can use interfaces to make data model and database migrations easier.
Ben Borgers
My Stress is an Inside Job
over a year ago
This Space
The opposite direction
The arrival of Douglas Robertson’s new translation of Thomas Bernhard’s Die Billigesser in a compact...
over a year ago
The arrival of Douglas Robertson’s new translation of Thomas Bernhard’s Die Billigesser in a compact paperback from Spurl Editions came just as I had given up hope of ever discussing what I believed had long fascinated me about a feature of Bernhard's prose-texts. A fascination...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Where Silence Suddenly Erupts in Speech'
Zbigniew Herbert
visited Western Europe for the first time in 1958-59: France, then England,
Italy,...
a year ago
Zbigniew Herbert
visited Western Europe for the first time in 1958-59: France, then England,
Italy, France again and back to Poland. His budget was tight but Herbert was
no hedonistic tourist. Nor was he a stuffy academic or critic. The essays in Barbarian in the Garden (1962;...
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
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
'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...
2 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,...
The Marginalian
Curiosity as an Instrument of Love: Thoreau and the Little Owl
"If you would learn the secrets of Nature, you must practice more humanity than others."
3 months ago
"If you would learn the secrets of Nature, you must practice more humanity than others."
The American Scholar
Interlude: The Idea of “The West”
A brief look at a grand narrative
The post Interlude: The Idea of “The West” appeared first on The...
8 months ago
A brief look at a grand narrative
The post Interlude: The Idea of “The West” appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'Provided That He Gives Us What We Can Enjoy'
A reader is
enjoying Tristram Shandy and passing
along choice selections from Sterne’s novel. This...
a year ago
A reader is
enjoying Tristram Shandy and passing
along choice selections from Sterne’s novel. This she gleaned from Book V,
Chap. 32, spoken by Tristram’s father:
“—Here is
the glass for pedagogues, preceptors, tutors, governors, gerund-grinders, and
bear-leaders, to view...
The Marginalian
Wonder-Sighting on Planet Earth: The Space Telescope Eye of the Scallop
Inside Earth's most alien vision.
a year ago
Inside Earth's most alien vision.
Josh Thompson
Turing Prep appendix: Troubleshooting Errors
Pretty much any time I hear the same question twice, I will try to add a section here for it, and...
over a year ago
Pretty much any time I hear the same question twice, I will try to add a section here for it, and make it as findable by future students as possible.
Do you have a question not answered here? PLEASE send me a DM in Slack or @ me (I’m josh_t in the Turing slack). I’ll take a...
Josh Thompson
How To Procfile: Run Just a Single Process
Lets say you’ve got something like this in your Procfile:
web: PORT=3000...
over a year ago
Lets say you’ve got something like this in your Procfile:
web: PORT=3000 RAILS_ENV=development bundle exec puma -C ./config/puma_development.rb -e development
devlog: tail -f ./log/development.log
mailcatcher: ruby -rbundler/setup -e...
This Space
"When now?"
Out of curiosity, I read a few novels that over the last year have received the highest praise on...
over a year ago
Out of curiosity, I read a few novels that over the last year have received the highest praise on social media and literary podcasts, and have appeared multiple times in newspaper Books of the Year choices and on prize shortlists, and one that even won a prize. I wanted to see...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Favourable Enough for a Writer'
Jules Renard
writing in his journal on November 22, 1906:
“I am in no
great hurry to see the...
a year ago
Jules Renard
writing in his journal on November 22, 1906:
“I am in no
great hurry to see the society of the future – our own favourable enough for a
writer. By its absurdities, its injustices, its vices, its stupidities, it
nourishes a writer’s observations. The more men...
This Space
39 Books: 1992
Poetry is a notable absence in my book lists. I assumed at this time that because novels excited my...
7 months ago
Poetry is a notable absence in my book lists. I assumed at this time that because novels excited my attention, poetry should do too. Under this assumption I bought and read Wallace Stevens' Collected Poems in this chunky Faber edition, adding an ugly plastic cover.*
Many of...
The American Scholar
Good Vibrations
One eccentric’s desert landmark allows visitors to bathe in sound
The post Good Vibrations appeared...
8 months ago
One eccentric’s desert landmark allows visitors to bathe in sound
The post Good Vibrations appeared first on The American Scholar.
Ben Borgers
Wednesday, January 19, 2022
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Master Etcher of Human Portraits'
In
celebration of Edwin Arlington Robinson’s fiftieth birthday, on December 22,
1919, seventeen...
a year ago
In
celebration of Edwin Arlington Robinson’s fiftieth birthday, on December 22,
1919, seventeen poets and friends were asked to contribute to a symposium published
a day earlier in the New York Times Book
Review. All but Robert Frost contributed. Amy Lowell wrote: “A realist,...
Josh Thompson
Pry-ing into a Stack Trace
I was recently working on a feature, committed what I thought was clean code, and started getting...
over a year ago
I was recently working on a feature, committed what I thought was clean code, and started getting errors. I git stashed, and re-ran my tests, and still got errors. Here’s the full stacktrace:
> b ruby -Itest test/models/model_name_redacted_test.rb -n=/errors/
# Running tests...
Josh Thompson
Paths In Which I Am Interested
this is still in draft status
this page serves as a placeholder for various paths I’m interested...
6 months ago
this is still in draft status
this page serves as a placeholder for various paths I’m interested in.
I hope to bring attention to “linear parks”, or a park that functions more in size and shape to a street, crossing blocks of distance, but maintaining park vibes throughout.
Path...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Craft Is Perfected Attention'
The
campiness can get a little thick when the poet/publisher/photographer Jonathan
Williams...
a year ago
The
campiness can get a little thick when the poet/publisher/photographer Jonathan
Williams (1929-2008) is in the neighborhood, but he’s always festive, the sort
of fellow you could hire to turn around tedious parties or staff meetings. A
reader says she is enjoying Williams’...
This Space
39 Books: 2018
In spite of what I said yesterday about the decline in the number of novels I read each year, this...
6 months ago
In spite of what I said yesterday about the decline in the number of novels I read each year, this year was packed with a variety: Australian, Korean, Austrian, Egyptian, German, Argentinian and, today's choice, Norwegian; that is, if variety depends on the country of origin. But...
The Marginalian
Hermann Hesse on Discovering the Soul Beneath the Self and the Key to Finding Peace
"Self-hate is really the same thing as sheer egoism, and in the long run breeds the same cruel...
10 months ago
"Self-hate is really the same thing as sheer egoism, and in the long run breeds the same cruel isolation and despair."
Wuthering...
Books I Read in October 2023
The five-day hospital stay breaking the month in half is likely invisible to anyone but me, but that...
a year ago
The five-day hospital stay breaking the month in half is likely invisible to anyone but me, but that is why the fiction list is so mystery-heavy, and for that matter so long. Many of these books, the post-surgery group, are not just short but light, well-suited for the invalid's...
The Marginalian
The Art of Lying Fallow: Psychoanalyst Masud Khan on the Existential Salve for the Age of Cultish...
On inviting the state of being that "allows for that larval inner experience which distinguishes...
a year ago
On inviting the state of being that "allows for that larval inner experience which distinguishes true psychic creativity from obsessional productiveness."
The Elysian
Yes, Taylor Swift is just as genius as Mary Shelley
The video from our live event.
2 months ago
The video from our live event.
Anecdotal Evidence
'Poets Who Are Plain and Gladsome'
Being or
pretending to be a philistine is great fun. It was one of Philip Larkin’s favorite
ruses...
9 months ago
Being or
pretending to be a philistine is great fun. It was one of Philip Larkin’s favorite
ruses (“Books are a load of crap”). It’s certain to rile the pompous and
pretentious, so all you have to do is sit back and enjoy the sputtering. I’ve
happened on a first-rate anthology of...
Josh Thompson
Why schedule something that doesn't exist?
The first thing I did when making this post is I set it to be published tomorrow.
Then, I left the...
over a year ago
The first thing I did when making this post is I set it to be published tomorrow.
Then, I left the room for a bit. I didn’t have anything to say. Or, I didn’t think I did.
Yet, all over my computer, and in various list trackers and note-taking apps, I’ve got dozens of ideas to...
The Marginalian
John Gardner on the Key to Self-Renewal Across Life and the Art of Making Rather Than Finding...
"The potentialities you develop to the full come as the result of an interplay between you and...
7 months ago
"The potentialities you develop to the full come as the result of an interplay between you and life's challenges."
The Elysian
Is America about to fall? Or flourish?
That depends on us.
a month ago
The Marginalian
Simone Weil on Love and Its Counterfeit
How to tell a plaything from a necessity.
a year ago
How to tell a plaything from a necessity.
Josh Thompson
My all-time favorite question to ask people (and why you should ask it too)
I met two people yesterday from Colorado, while in Spain. We climbed together yesterday and today,...
over a year ago
I met two people yesterday from Colorado, while in Spain. We climbed together yesterday and today, and Kristi and I had dinner with them.
Half way through the meal, I asked my all-time favorite question:
If you could go back to twenty five year old you, and tell yourself...
Josh Thompson
POODR Notes: Acquiring Behavior Through Inheritance (Chapter 6)
I’m reading through Practical Object Oriented Design in Ruby .
These are some notes from chapter 6,...
over a year ago
I’m reading through Practical Object Oriented Design in Ruby .
These are some notes from chapter 6, Acquiring Behavior Through Inheritance; mostly these are for me, and they don’t intend to stand on their own. Read the book, work through chapter six, and then come back and read...
Anecdotal Evidence
'One Is Always at Home in One’s Past'
I will quote
the writer who has given me more pleasure – “aesthetic bliss” he called it –
than any...
8 months ago
I will quote
the writer who has given me more pleasure – “aesthetic bliss” he called it –
than any other and whose birthday we observed earlier this week: “One is always at home in one’s past.” That might
serve as a gloss on his autobiography, Speak,
Memory, in which he writes at...
The Marginalian
A Tender Illustrated Celebration of the Many Languages of Love
That one mind can reach out from its lonely cave of bone and touch another, express its joys and...
a year ago
That one mind can reach out from its lonely cave of bone and touch another, express its joys and sorrows to another — this is the great miracle of being alive together. The object of human communication is not the exchange of information but the exchange of understanding. If we...
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...
5 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
'I Hope This Explanation Is Wrong'
One of life’s
unsolved puzzles, especially for readers and writers: How can certain arrangements
of...
4 months ago
One of life’s
unsolved puzzles, especially for readers and writers: How can certain arrangements
of words encountered in childhood or youth, and revisited regularly for a
lifetime, still inspire delight, while others, in effect, evaporate before we
hear them? In the latter...
Wuthering...
The Frogs by Aristophanes - Brilliant! Brilliant! Wish I knew what you were talking about!
The Frogs by Aristophanes is this week’s play. It was performed in what now look like the waning...
over a year ago
The Frogs by Aristophanes is this week’s play. It was performed in what now look like the waning days of Athens, just before their conquest by Sparta, and in particular the last days of Athenian tragedy, with Euripides and Sophocles both recently dead. In what may be the most...
Wuthering...
Books I Read in April 2024 - this irritation passes over into patient completed understanding
Grinding away at Gertrude Stein’s The Making of Americans
(1925), a genuine monster. “As I...
7 months ago
Grinding away at Gertrude Stein’s The Making of Americans
(1925), a genuine monster. “As I was
saying it is often irritating to listen to the repeating they are doing, always
then that one has it as being to love repeating that is the whole history of
each one, such a one has it...
Anecdotal Evidence
'I Stand for the Unacademic'
“I stand for
the un-Academic: the anti-Academic.”
As do most
of the better sort among writers and...
9 months ago
“I stand for
the un-Academic: the anti-Academic.”
As do most
of the better sort among writers and readers. Something vital was lost when the
profs colonized and laid claim to literature. John Gross puts it like this in The Rise and Fall of the Man of Letters
(1969; rev. ed....
The American Scholar
The Patron Subjects
Who were the Wertheimers, the family that sat for a dozen of John Singer Sargent’s paintings?
The...
a month ago
Who were the Wertheimers, the family that sat for a dozen of John Singer Sargent’s paintings?
The post The Patron Subjects appeared first on The American Scholar.
Ben Borgers
Why Do I Care About Grades?
over a year ago
Astral Codex Ten
Book Review: The Rise Of Christianity
...
a month ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Cursed with an Acute Literary Conscience'
Who among
critics would begin a review with so seemingly inartistic a statement?:
“Some
writers...
a year ago
Who among
critics would begin a review with so seemingly inartistic a statement?:
“Some
writers have a dread of platitudes. I have not. What is a platitude but an
expression of the wisdom of the ages, the synopsis of a theory that was long
ago propounded, tested, established,...
ribbonfarm
Intellectual Menopause
I ran across the alarming phrase intellectual menopause a few months ago in John Gall’s...
4 months ago
I ran across the alarming phrase intellectual menopause a few months ago in John Gall’s Systemantics, and it naturally stuck in my brain given I’m pushing 50 and getting predictably angsty about it. The phrase conjures up visions of a phenomenon much more profound and unfunny...
The American Scholar
“Guests” by Celia Thaxter
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “Guests” by Celia Thaxter appeared first on The American...
5 days ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “Guests” by Celia Thaxter appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'Only Little People Frightened By the Long Night'
The calendar
and tradition assure us that Halloween is October 31 but the voice of the
people in our...
a year ago
The calendar
and tradition assure us that Halloween is October 31 but the voice of the
people in our neighborhood as expressed through the “group chat” I have never
looked at moved the celebration to October 29. The reasons are unclear. What
this means in practical terms is two...
The Marginalian
The Wound Is the Gift: David Whyte on the Relationship Between Anxiety and Intimacy
"Intimacy is presence magnified by our vulnerability, magnified by increasing proximity to the fear...
2 weeks ago
"Intimacy is presence magnified by our vulnerability, magnified by increasing proximity to the fear that underlies that vulnerability."
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Landscape in One Word!'
“When, in the course of a day, a man has read a newspaper, written a letter, and not wronged anyone,...
a month ago
“When, in the course of a day, a man has read a newspaper, written a letter, and not wronged anyone, that is more than enough.”
Enough for what? Probably to have established a minimum standard of decency and contentment. Jules Renard (1864-1910) is no stuffy moralist. There’s...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Not the Head But the Seat'
My late friend David Myers taught me the useful German and Yiddish word imported
into English,...
a year ago
My late friend David Myers taught me the useful German and Yiddish word imported
into English, sitzfleisch. The
etymology is straightforward: sitzen
(“to sit”) + Fleisch (“flesh”). In
other words, what we sit on -- the buttocks, ass or derriere. Metaphorically, the
OED tells us,...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Cloudy, Cloudy Is the Stuff of Stones'
The
best-known and still unchallenged refutation of the Irish Anglican Bishop George Berkeley’s...
9 months ago
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...
ribbonfarm
The Dark Forest Anthology of the Internet
My essay The Extended Internet Universe, where I coined the term “cozyweb” (probably in my top 5...
8 months ago
My essay The Extended Internet Universe, where I coined the term “cozyweb” (probably in my top 5 most successful memes) is featured in this cute little collectible book, The Dark Forest Anthology of the Internet put together by Yancey Strickler (whom you may have heard of as the...
Ben Borgers
There’s No Personal Space in College
over a year ago
Escaping Flatland
How to think in writing
Part 1: The thought behind the thought
8 months ago
Part 1: The thought behind the thought
This Space
39 Books: 2023
This is the 39th and final post of this series. As the introduction explains, I began seeking a...
6 months ago
This is the 39th and final post of this series. As the introduction explains, I began seeking a return to the short-form of the early days of blogging. And it started off well, with each entry written in no time, sometimes stirring up the sediment of initial enchantment. As I got...
The Marginalian
Look Up: The Illustrated Story of Astronomer Henrietta Leavitt, Who Laid the Groundwork for...
How a brilliant woman rose against the tide of her time to fathom the mysteries of space.
a year ago
How a brilliant woman rose against the tide of her time to fathom the mysteries of space.
Anecdotal Evidence
'His Generous Humanity to the Miserable'
Our guests for
Thanksgiving dinner will be my oldest son and daughter-in-law, and two women,...
a year ago
Our guests for
Thanksgiving dinner will be my oldest son and daughter-in-law, and two women, acquaintances
of my wife, both recently divorced. The latter would likely otherwise spend the holiday
alone. The only serious expression of gratitude is welcoming others and sharing...
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Curious Examiner of the Human Mind'
On June, 25,
1763, Boswell and Dr. Johnson dined at the Mitre Tavern on Fleet Street. The
friends...
6 months ago
On June, 25,
1763, Boswell and Dr. Johnson dined at the Mitre Tavern on Fleet Street. The
friends had met for the first time just a month earlier at Thomas Davies’
bookshop on Russell Street. Johnson starts the conversation with a dismissal of
Thomas Gray (1716-71). In the...
Anecdotal Evidence
'And Now We Shall Never, Never See Her Again'
Ian Donaldson
begins his 2011 biography of Ben Jonson not with the poet’s birth nor even his
death...
a year ago
Ian Donaldson
begins his 2011 biography of Ben Jonson not with the poet’s birth nor even his
death but with his interment in Westminster Abbey. Though a popular playwright
during his lifetime, Jonson died in poverty and was buried vertically in order to
consume less valuable real...
The American Scholar
A Poet of the Soil
The legacy of a writer who struggled with his celebrity
The post A Poet of the Soil appeared first...
2 months ago
The legacy of a writer who struggled with his celebrity
The post A Poet of the Soil appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'All These Jolts of Beauty'
Once I
interviewed a mycologist who, before his lecture, removed a yellow mushroom
from an oak tree...
a month 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...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Everything is Singing, Blooming and Sparkling'
In a May 4, 1889 letter to his friend and editor
Alexi Suvorin, Chekhov complains of taking no...
7 months ago
In a May 4, 1889 letter to his friend and editor
Alexi Suvorin, Chekhov complains of taking no interest in “reviews,
conversations about literature, gossip, successes, failures, high royalties,”
and adds:
“[I]n short, I’ve become a damn fool. My soul
seems to be stagnating. I...
Anecdotal Evidence
'An Open-ended Project'
Two writers
separated by language, experience and two and a half centuries make...
10 months ago
Two writers
separated by language, experience and two and a half centuries make complementary
observations about memory. Here is Dr. Johnson in The Idler essay he published on this date, February 17, in 1759:
“The two
offices of memory are collection and distribution; by one...
The American Scholar
In the Endless Arctic Light
A journey to the far north of Norway means confronting our changing climate
The post In the Endless...
2 weeks ago
A journey to the far north of Norway means confronting our changing climate
The post In the Endless Arctic Light appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
Befriending a Blackbird
Friendship is a lifeline twined of truth and tenderness. That we extend it to each other is...
6 months ago
Friendship is a lifeline twined of truth and tenderness. That we extend it to each other is benediction enough. To extend it across the barrier of biology and sentience, to another creature endowed with a wholly other consciousness, partakes of the miraculous. Born in England in...
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...
10 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...
The Marginalian
Albert Camus on How to Live Whole in a Broken World
Born into a World War to live through another, Albert Camus (November 7, 1913–January 4, 1960) died...
6 months ago
Born into a World War to live through another, Albert Camus (November 7, 1913–January 4, 1960) died in a car crash with an unused train ticket to the same destination in his pocket. Just three years earlier, he had become the second-youngest laureate of the Nobel Prize, awarded...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Time Is Tight'
My brother is
dying as he lived – stubbornly. He has been in hospice for two weeks and is...
4 months ago
My brother is
dying as he lived – stubbornly. He has been in hospice for two weeks and is failing
incrementally. On Monday we were swapping memories and he stopped talking on
Tuesday, the same day he stopped eating. He lies on his back on the hospice
bed, mouth open, eyes staring...
Anecdotal Evidence
'How to Live With Ourselves As We Are'
“What’s
essential is not Montaigne’s wisdom, but his wise recognition of his
foolishness; not his...
3 months ago
“What’s
essential is not Montaigne’s wisdom, but his wise recognition of his
foolishness; not his virtue, but his good cognizance of his vices; not his ‘honesty,’
but his honesty, his complete
leveling with the reader.”
I tried a
little experiment, a variation on bibliomancy. I...
Anecdotal Evidence
'For Whom They Were Framed in Words'
Louis
MacNeice is startlingly prescient in “To Posterity,” originally published in Visitations...
a year ago
Louis
MacNeice is startlingly prescient in “To Posterity,” originally published in Visitations (1957):
“When books
have all seized up like the books in graveyards
And reading
and even speaking have been replaced
By other,
less difficult, media, we wonder if you
Will find...
The American Scholar
Agent 37
The post Agent 37 appeared first on The American Scholar.
6 months ago
The post Agent 37 appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
“One Letter” by Liu Xiaobo
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “One Letter” by Liu Xiaobo appeared first on The American...
6 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “One Letter” by Liu Xiaobo appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'An Ill-Assorted Collection'
A friend has
broken up with her boyfriend and he is launching protracted salvos of nasty
emails in...
2 months ago
A friend has
broken up with her boyfriend and he is launching protracted salvos of nasty
emails in her direction. As prose they are better than average. There have been
no threats of violence and little profanity. The ex’s weapon of choice is a
detailed critique of every aspect...
Josh Thompson
Use an Alarm to Go to Bed
Ironically, this is about going to bed early. See, it’s 10:40p, and I’m getting up tomorrow at 6:00....
over a year ago
Ironically, this is about going to bed early. See, it’s 10:40p, and I’m getting up tomorrow at 6:00. So I’m looking at about 7 hours of sleep. This is perfect. But, that is only if I’m asleep in the next twenty minutes.
I know how long it takes to get ready to leave in the...
Astral Codex Ten
The Early Christian Strategy
...
a month ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'He Also Did Not Hope'
Back to the
theme of non-specialization, of writer as generalist: “Next to
Montaigne, the rest of...
3 months ago
Back to the
theme of non-specialization, of writer as generalist: “Next to
Montaigne, the rest of the great intellectual figures of the sixteenth century,
the leaders of the Renaissance, of Humanism, of the Reformation, and of the
modern sciences, the men who created modern...
Wuthering...
Jeremy Denk plays Charles Ives and Blind Tom Wiggins - a pleasing conjunction of Wuthering...
More Massachusetts semi-literay adventures.
Last weekend I was at Tanglewood in Lenox,...
4 months ago
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...
The Marginalian
How Emotions Are Made
"Emotions are not reactions to the world; they are your constructions of the world."
10 months ago
"Emotions are not reactions to the world; they are your constructions of the world."
The American Scholar
“Tristan da Cunha” by Roy Campbell
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “Tristan da Cunha” by Roy Campbell appeared first on The...
4 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “Tristan da Cunha” by Roy Campbell appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Magnetism, an Ardor, a Refusal to Be False'
“It’s
against his nature to be a critic—he is too grateful.”
That’s from one
of Elias Canetti’s...
a month ago
“It’s
against his nature to be a critic—he is too grateful.”
That’s from one
of Elias Canetti’s notebooks, collected in Notes
from Hampstead (trans. John Hargraves, 1998). While I admire the work of a
handful of critics – Dryden, Johnson, Winters, Cunningham, a few others –...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Art and Practice of Reading Aloud to Others'
A longtime reader in Philadelphia, a retired attorney, tells
me that since the start of the COVID-19...
11 months ago
A longtime reader in Philadelphia, a retired attorney, tells
me that since the start of the COVID-19 lockdown he has been reading books
aloud to his wife, most recently The Wife
of Martin Guerre by Janet Lewis. His list of more than a dozen titles includes
Moby-Dick (“our overall...
The American Scholar
Bards Behind Bars
Reading Sartre aloud inside a maximum-security prison
The post Bards Behind Bars appeared first on...
6 months ago
Reading Sartre aloud inside a maximum-security prison
The post Bards Behind Bars appeared first on The American Scholar.
Ben Borgers
Tufts Meal Plans Are a Scam
over a year ago
The American Scholar
Esteban Cabeza de Baca
History witnessed, from the picket lines
The post Esteban Cabeza de Baca appeared first on The...
7 months ago
History witnessed, from the picket lines
The post Esteban Cabeza de Baca appeared first on The American Scholar.
This Space
39 Books: 1990
The first book I read in the 39 years of this series was a genre thriller, and I've read only two...
7 months ago
The first book I read in the 39 years of this series was a genre thriller, and I've read only two more since. The second one came along this year. In 1989, I got a temporary job in the archives of the Royal Navy Submarine Museum where I met Carl Erlewyn-Lajeunesse, an...
The Marginalian
An Almanac of Birds: Divinations for Uncertain Days
I have found that the surest way of seeing the wondrous in something ordinary, something previously...
4 months ago
I have found that the surest way of seeing the wondrous in something ordinary, something previously underappreciated, is coming to love someone who loves it. As we enter each other’s worlds in love — whatever its shape or species — we double our way of seeing, broaden our way of...
Blog -...
Book Review - The Island Within
With The Island Within, Nelson has crafted a flawless narrative that has no
beginning and no end,...
over a year ago
With The Island Within, Nelson has crafted a flawless narrative that has no
beginning and no end, and perhaps, to the unmindful, no meaning. To those
who remain anchored emerges buried treasure from every line. I kept being
drawn back in, not as an addiction, but, as I...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Confined to Famous Defunct Chefs'
Never underestimate
the satisfactions of contrariness. It starts as an impulse in adolescence,...
a year ago
Never underestimate
the satisfactions of contrariness. It starts as an impulse in adolescence, of
course, when the will to disagree and provoke comes naturally. It’s enormously entertaining
to the provokers, irritatingly tiresome to the rest of us. We outgrow it or at
least it...
Ben Borgers
On “Incrementally Correct Personal Websites”
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'That Marsh Light Is Still Burning Hard'
I’m
suspicious of the itch for ranking books and making lists. Too often it’s a substitute...
10 months ago
I’m
suspicious of the itch for ranking books and making lists. Too often it’s a substitute for
actually reading them, a ruse for flaunting one’s hipness or sophistication. My
late friend David Myers was fond of assembling such lists, which are likely to
assure higher-than-average...
sbensu
The birth of a (pseudo) currency
A dozen pseudo-currencies were issued in Argentina in 2002. How did that work? And why are they...
10 months ago
A dozen pseudo-currencies were issued in Argentina in 2002. How did that work? And why are they coming back in 2024?
Anecdotal Evidence
Kenneth C. Kurp 1955-2024
My brother died Saturday afternoon in the hospice in Cleveland, Ohio where he spent the last two...
3 months ago
My brother died Saturday afternoon in the hospice in Cleveland, Ohio where he spent the last two weeks of his life. He was age sixty-nine. I was with him as was his son, Abraham Kurp. I watched as his eyes closed and he stopped breathing. There was another sense, too, of a sudden...
Josh Thompson
Injury Impedes Improvement
Kristi and I have been in Colorado for three months, I’ve been climbing regularly for two, I am back...
over a year ago
Kristi and I have been in Colorado for three months, I’ve been climbing regularly for two, I am back in shape and it feels good.
I am tempted to throw myself into climbing again. To climb every day, or maybe every other day, and finish every session with training. But here’s the...
Josh Thompson
Five Days to Inbox Zero: How to Get Control of your Email
Email is a constant in our lives, yet it can be so overwhelming that it becomes almost 100%...
over a year ago
Email is a constant in our lives, yet it can be so overwhelming that it becomes almost 100% ineffective.
I discussed with a friend the other day why they should switch from Yahoo to Gmail, and how to reduce the useless emails they receive. Below is how I suggested they move from...
Wuthering...
Xenophon's Socrates
I’m still catching up with myself.
I wanted to spend March thinking about Socrates as a...
a year ago
I’m still catching up with myself.
I wanted to spend March thinking about Socrates as a philosopher,
independent from Plato’s use of him, to the extent that it is possible. The Socrates of Aristophanes in The Clouds
is not much help. But luckily we have
Xenophon, a close...
The Marginalian
Between Encyclopedia and Fairy Tale: The Wondrous Birds and Reptiles of 18th-Century Artist Dorothea...
Imagine a world of constant wars and deadly plagues, a world without eyeglasses, bicycles, or...
3 months ago
Imagine a world of constant wars and deadly plagues, a world without eyeglasses, bicycles, or sanitation. Imagine being a gifted child in that world, knowing you are born into a body that will never be granted the basic rights of citizenship in any country, into a mind that will...
The Elysian
Every company should be owned by its employees
Central States Manufacturing as a model for employee-ownership.
5 months ago
Central States Manufacturing as a model for employee-ownership.
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,”...
3 weeks 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 Poet’s Occasional Alternative” by Grace Paley
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “The Poet’s Occasional Alternative” by Grace Paley appeared...
3 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “The Poet’s Occasional Alternative” by Grace Paley appeared first on The American Scholar.
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
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...
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...
11 months 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....
The American Scholar
“Three Things Enchanted Him …” by Anna Akhmatova
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “Three Things Enchanted Him …” by Anna Akhmatova appeared...
2 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “Three Things Enchanted Him …” by Anna Akhmatova appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'Learning Is Not Defunct in the Republic'
“As you
probably don’t read National Review,
I enclose proof that learning is not defunct in the...
3 months ago
“As you
probably don’t read National Review,
I enclose proof that learning is not defunct in the Republic. Buckley had
printed a note . . . praising Waugh’s delightful whimsy in coining a nonsense
phrase like tohu bohu. Catholics tend
not to have read a word of Holy Writ.”
I...
The Marginalian
An Introvert’s Field Guide to Friendship: Thoreau on the Challenges and Rewards of the Art of...
"We only need to be as true to others as we are to ourselves that there may be ground enough for...
a year ago
"We only need to be as true to others as we are to ourselves that there may be ground enough for friendship."
Wuthering...
Books I Read in July 2023
How embarrassing that I did not write a thing this month,
but I promise I had a good excuse. ...
a year ago
How embarrassing that I did not write a thing this month,
but I promise I had a good excuse. Posts
on Cynicism, Epicureanism, and Stoicism will appear this month, I swear, or at
least hope. My eventual excuse this month will
be, I am afraid, even better.
Still, I...
Escaping Flatland
Talking to part of a friend
Finding an authentic connection based on who you are now, not who you were in the past
a year ago
Finding an authentic connection based on who you are now, not who you were in the past
Josh Thompson
Primitive Obsession & Exceptional Values
I’ve been working through Avdi Grimes’ Mastering the Object Oriented Mindset course.
One of the...
over a year ago
I’ve been working through Avdi Grimes’ Mastering the Object Oriented Mindset course.
One of the topics was using “whole values”, instead of being “primative obsessed”. The example Avdi gave was clear as day.
He used a course with a duration attribute to show the...
Anecdotal Evidence
'I Like to Think of Pasteur in Elysium'
In 1985, the
year Mikhail Gorbachev was elected General Secretary by the Politburo, the scholar
and...
7 months ago
In 1985, the
year Mikhail Gorbachev was elected General Secretary by the Politburo, the scholar
and translator Clarence Brown published The
Portable Twentieth-Century Russian Reader, a selection ranging from Tolstoy
and Chekhov to Voinovich and Sokolov. In the introduction he...
The Marginalian
Albert Camus on Writing and the Importance of Stubbornness in Creative Work
"There is no greatness without a little stubbornness... Works of art are not born in flashes of...
a year ago
"There is no greatness without a little stubbornness... Works of art are not born in flashes of inspiration but in a daily fidelity."
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Title Is Apt and Not a Whit Pretentious'
I hadn’t
opened my copy of Raymond Sokolov’s Wayward
Reporter: The Life of A.J. Liebling (Harper and...
a week ago
I hadn’t
opened my copy of Raymond Sokolov’s Wayward
Reporter: The Life of A.J. Liebling (Harper and Row, 1980) in a long time.
It’s a rather skimpy biography, though the only one we have, so I hope someone,
someday writes a life worthy of Liebling’s gifts. When I was a...
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
There is tension between being content with what you have, and striving for more.
We have all heard the “serenity prayer”:
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.
This prayer is...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Most Intense Enthusiasm for Good Literature'
I was
reading an interview with X.J. Kennedy when this line touched me unexpectedly: “He
was, of all...
8 months ago
I was
reading an interview with X.J. Kennedy when this line touched me unexpectedly: “He
was, of all the people I ever met, the one who had the most intense enthusiasm
for good literature.” Spoken by another, this might amount to glibly rendered
bullshit, the sort of thing junior...
The American Scholar
Cats and Dogs
The post Cats and Dogs appeared first on The American Scholar.
a week ago
The post Cats and Dogs appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
The Sunflower and the Soul: Wendell Berry on the Collaborative Nature of the Universe and the Cure...
"We are not the authors of ourselves. That we are not is a religious perception, but it is also a...
5 months ago
"We are not the authors of ourselves. That we are not is a religious perception, but it is also a biological and a social one. Each of us has had many authors, and each of us is engaged, for better or worse, in that same authorship. We could say that the human race is a great...
Josh Thompson
20 Things 20-Year-Olds Don't Get
Jason Nazar recently wrote an article titled
20 Things 20-Year-Olds Don’t Get.
Please read it, but...
over a year ago
Jason Nazar recently wrote an article titled
20 Things 20-Year-Olds Don’t Get.
Please read it, but with a big grain of salt.
Nazar opens with the statement “I made a lot of mistakes along the way, and I see this generation making their own.”
This seems to be an aspirational...
The Marginalian
Thich Nhat Hanh on True Love and the Five Rivers of Self-Knowledge
“For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks… the work...
10 months ago
“For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks… the work for which all other work is but preparation,” Rilke wrote to his young correspondent. The great difficulty of loving arises from the great difficulty of bridging the abyss between...
The American Scholar
Braña Curuchu
The post Braña Curuchu appeared first on The American Scholar.
2 weeks ago
The post Braña Curuchu appeared first on The American Scholar.
Wuthering...
But the Moon rescues others as they swim from below - a glance at the essays and dialogues of...
The great ragged Greek philosophy readalong ends with Plutarch,
famous for his extraordinary...
a year ago
The great ragged Greek philosophy readalong ends with Plutarch,
famous for his extraordinary Parallel Lives but also the innovative
author of a large mass of essays and dialogues which picked up the title Moralia
(late 1st C.) along the way.
Plutarch was hardly an original...
This Space
The last novel
"(We are, it seems to remind us, always saying goodbye to our children.)"
John Self's aside in his...
over a year ago
"(We are, it seems to remind us, always saying goodbye to our children.)"
John Self's aside in his review of JM Coetzee's The Death of Jesus captures the pervasive anxiety experienced while reading this novel better than even the most detailed plot summary, which is anyway likely...
sbensu
The Perfectionists (book)
A great book that covers the ideas and people behind modern industry.
4 months ago
A great book that covers the ideas and people behind modern industry.
Anecdotal Evidence
'Very Quietly, an Aside'
Reporters
and their editors have always fetishized what’s known in the trade as the lede – the...
11 months ago
Reporters
and their editors have always fetishized what’s known in the trade as the lede – the opening sentence or paragraph
of a news story. The idea is to quickly grab the reader’s attention and, with
luck, hold on to it. Subtlety is discouraged in journalism. There’s much...
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
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...
Josh Thompson
Change your MAC address with a shell script
For a while, I’ve had notes from Change or Spoof a MAC Address in Windows or OS X saved, so if I am...
over a year ago
For a while, I’ve had notes from Change or Spoof a MAC Address in Windows or OS X saved, so if I am using a wifi connection that limits me to thirty minutes or an hour or whatever, I can “spoof” a new MAC address, and when I re-connect to the wifi, the access point thinks I’m on...
Anecdotal Evidence
'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
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
'He Worked His Weaponed Wit'
A reader is
displeased: “Oh my aren’t you witty?” He/she was offended by something I had written a...
a year ago
A reader is
displeased: “Oh my aren’t you witty?” He/she was offended by something I had written a long time ago about Robert Bly. Granted, criticizing Bly is like
shooting fish in the bathtub with a bazooka. I was a little ashamed of myself
but that passed. My consolation is...
Josh Thompson
Benchmarking a page protected by a login with Apache Benchmark
I’ve been slowly working through The Complete Guide to Rails Performance. I’m taking the ideas and...
over a year ago
I’ve been slowly working through The Complete Guide to Rails Performance. I’m taking the ideas and concepts from Nate’s book and working on applying the lessons to the app I work on in my day job.
I had a chance to attend Nate’s workshop in Denver a few days ago, as well; while...
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
"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."
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,...
6 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...
The Elysian
Are Democrats too liberal? Or too conservative?
We're asking the wrong questions.
2 weeks ago
We're asking the wrong questions.
Josh Thompson
Switching to Jekyll
Why I switched to Jekyll
A few days ago, I was really feeling the urge to write a short little blog...
over a year ago
Why I switched to Jekyll
A few days ago, I was really feeling the urge to write a short little blog post. So, I put it in a gist on Github.
I’m an advocate of writing publicly, and making it a habit, so why was I putting it in a gist, instead of here, on my website, where I...
The American Scholar
Tunneling to Freedom
In The Great Escape (1963), the true story of a harrowing breakout from a German POW camp
The post...
6 months ago
In The Great Escape (1963), the true story of a harrowing breakout from a German POW camp
The post Tunneling to Freedom appeared first on The American Scholar.
This Space
39 Books: 1994
Given that my undergraduate degree was in Philosophy, it may seem odd that this the first book of...
7 months ago
Given that my undergraduate degree was in Philosophy, it may seem odd that this the first book of philosophy in the series. Many will say it is not a book of philosophy at all. That would explain why I gorged on Nick Land's The Thirst for Annihilation: Georges Bataille and...
The Marginalian
Let the Last Thing Be Song
"When I die, I want to be sung across the threshold."
5 months ago
"When I die, I want to be sung across the threshold."
The American Scholar
Chris Combs
Surveillance state
The post Chris Combs appeared first on The American Scholar.
6 months ago
Surveillance state
The post Chris Combs appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
Turing Prep Chapter 1: Make Mod 1 Easier Than It Otherwise Would Be
Preparing for Turing Series Index
What follows is an eight-part series that will help you pick up...
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
'Bring on the Vitamines'
When I returned
to college in 2002, thirty years after dropping out a year before graduating, I
took...
3 days ago
When I returned
to college in 2002, thirty years after dropping out a year before graduating, I
took a class in something called “psychological anthropology.” The teacher was
personable and the class was a sort of catch basin of random learning. We could
write about any stray...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Soil Must Have Been Prepared'
Tom Disch
took the title of his first collection of essays and reviews from “The Castle of...
a year ago
Tom Disch
took the title of his first collection of essays and reviews from “The Castle of Indolence” (1748), eighty-one Spenserian stanzas by the Scottish poet James
Thomson. The poem is a sort of mock-epical hymn to the Protestant work ethic, a virtue ably
represented by...
The Perry Bible...
Invasion
The post Invasion appeared first on The Perry Bible Fellowship.
a month ago
The post Invasion appeared first on The Perry Bible Fellowship.
sbensu
But I want to turn people into dinosaurs
Beware of what you actually want.
5 months ago
Beware of what you actually want.
The Marginalian
The Wild Iris: Louise Glück on the Door at the End of Your Suffering
"Whatever returns from oblivion returns to find a voice."
7 months ago
"Whatever returns from oblivion returns to find a voice."
The American Scholar
From Las Cosas Nuevas by Ennio Moltedo
The post From <em>Las Cosas Nuevas</em> by Ennio Moltedo appeared first on The American Scholar.
8 months ago
The post From <em>Las Cosas Nuevas</em> by Ennio Moltedo appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'Just to Sweeten the Cup'
“It is to be
remembered,” Ford Madox Ford writes in The
March of Literature (1939), “that a passage...
a week ago
“It is to be
remembered,” Ford Madox Ford writes in The
March of Literature (1939), “that a passage of good prose is a work of art
absolute in itself and with no more dependence on its contents than is a fugue
of Bach, a minuet of Mozart, or the writing for piano of...
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
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 Marginalian
The Majesty and Mystery of Night Migration, in a Stunning Poem Turned to Music
“Night, when words fade and things come alive,” Little Prince author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry wrote...
a year ago
“Night, when words fade and things come alive,” Little Prince author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry wrote in his love letter to the hours of darkness, composed while flying alone over the Sahara Desert. No aliveness animates the nocturne with more grandeur than the migration of birds....
The American Scholar
Up Close
The post Up Close appeared first on The American Scholar.
3 months ago
The post Up Close appeared first on The American Scholar.
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...
6 months ago
What was it like for Martha, the endling of her species, to die alone at the Cincinnati Zoo that late-summer day in 1914, all the other passenger pigeons gone from the face of the Earth, having once filled its skies with an immensity of beating wings, so many that John James...
Anecdotal Evidence
'As a Whole It Is a Gallimaufry'
“[O]ne is
tempted—though it might be dangerous—to maintain that the best books in the
world were...
9 months ago
“[O]ne is
tempted—though it might be dangerous—to maintain that the best books in the
world were written chiefly for pleasure and with an after-hope to please.”
Things get
sticky when you start plumbing a writer’s intentions. Let’s just say that a dwindling
species of serious...
Anecdotal Evidence
'More Than Documentary'
“Literariness,
as I understand it, does not necessarily entail any particular set of...
3 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
Exploring source code via Griddler and Griddler-Mailgun
Proofpoint had a two-day “hack day” recently. My coworker John and I teamed up on a cool little...
over a year ago
Proofpoint had a two-day “hack day” recently. My coworker John and I teamed up on a cool little feature. I’ll give some context in a moment, but this post isn’t about the hack day, or email - it’s about exploring source code.
Here’s the context:
In my day-to-day, I work on a...
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...
3 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...
Josh Thompson
Waking Up Early, Part 3
I’ve written about my attempts to
wake up early before.
Most recently, I
promised to take a sleep...
over a year ago
I’ve written about my attempts to
wake up early before.
Most recently, I
promised to take a sleep log, to track trends. Fortunately, I did not intend to try to wake up early, because I didn’t.
Here’s what I learned in the last three weeks:
Benadryl messes with your ability to...
Wuthering...
Oedipus at Colonus by Sophocles - indeed his end / Was wonderful if ever mortal’s was
Oedipus at Colonus by Sophocles is one of the plays that got me excited about the entire project of...
over a year ago
Oedipus at Colonus by Sophocles is one of the plays that got me excited about the entire project of reading or re-reading the complete plays. The last surviving tragedy, even if it hardly recognizable as a tragedy, it provides a coherent ending to the tragic tradition. It is...
Anecdotal Evidence
'He Knows to Get a Dollar'
The word tummler I learned from A.J. Liebling. It’s
the title of a story he collected in his first...
10 months ago
The word tummler I learned from A.J. Liebling. It’s
the title of a story he collected in his first book, Back Where I Came From (1938). “Tummler” was published in the
February 26, 1938 issue of The New Yorker
and begins:
“To the boys
of the I.&Y., Hymie Katz is a hero. He is a...
The American Scholar
Consummated in Exile
A new recording of Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances conveys the breadth of the 20th-century...
6 months ago
A new recording of Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances conveys the breadth of the 20th-century composer’s life’s journey
The post Consummated in Exile appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
A Giant of a Man
The legacy of Willie Mays and the Birmingham ballpark where he first made his mark
The post A Giant...
2 months ago
The legacy of Willie Mays and the Birmingham ballpark where he first made his mark
The post A Giant of a Man appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
On Leaving Evangelicalism And Opposing It
Content warning & summary
This paper talks about ethics, ethical behavior, violence, abuse,...
a year ago
Content warning & summary
This paper talks about ethics, ethical behavior, violence, abuse, complicency, domination and oppression. It’s a condimnation of evangelicalism, but not, necessarily, any particular evangelical. There are those within evangelicalism who are ethical,...
Ben Borgers
Designing Posters for Humans
over a year ago
The American Scholar
“The Gaffe” by C. K. Williams
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “The Gaffe” by C. K. Williams appeared first on The American...
2 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “The Gaffe” by C. K. Williams appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Mind Quite Vacant Is a Mind Distress’d'
I’ll be
going halftime at the university, effective July 1, in preparation for retiring
later this...
6 months ago
I’ll be
going halftime at the university, effective July 1, in preparation for retiring
later this year. I knew a guy in high school who already yearned for retirement
despite never having had a job, whereas I’d been working since I was twelve. He
wanted to play golf and go...
Ben Borgers
Optimizing Kiwi for scale
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Highest Kind of Verbal Exercise'
John Updike
published “Kenneths” in the July 5, 1958 issue of The New Yorker and collected it in his...
5 months ago
John Updike
published “Kenneths” in the July 5, 1958 issue of The New Yorker and collected it in his second book of poems, Telephone Poles (1963):
“Rexroth and
Patchen and Fearing—their mothers
Perhaps
could distinguish their sons from the others,
But I am
unable. My inner eye...
The Marginalian
Blue Is the Color of Desire: The Science, Poetry, and Wonder of the Bowerbird
For all the enchantment the color blue has cast upon humanity, no animal has fallen under its spell...
a year ago
For all the enchantment the color blue has cast upon humanity, no animal has fallen under its spell more hopelessly than the bowerbird, whose very survival hinges on blue. In a small clearing on the forest floor, the male weaves twigs and branches into an elaborate bower, which...
This Space
"Every day I have to invoke the absent god again"*
I really enjoy this YouTube channel despite my general lack of interest in films. The presenter’s...
over a year ago
I really enjoy this YouTube channel despite my general lack of interest in films. The presenter’s restrained voice-over is ideal for one approaching its concerns; imagine a lullaby sung by Werner Herzog. I envy him the medium for its music, its visuals, even its potential for...
The Marginalian
Yes: William Stafford’s Poetic Calibration of Perspective
"No guarantees in this life."
11 months ago
"No guarantees in this life."
Anecdotal Evidence
'There Is No Nothingness'
Once asked
about politics in a symposium portentously titled “The Writer’s Situation,”...
4 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
Batter My Heart: Love, the Divine Within, and How Not to Break Our Your Own Heart
There are many things we mistake for love — infatuation, admiration, need — but there is no error of...
4 months ago
There are many things we mistake for love — infatuation, admiration, need — but there is no error of the heart graver than making another our higher power. This may seem inevitable — because to love is always to see the divine in each other, because all love is a yearning for the...
The Marginalian
Moonlight and the Magic of the Unnecessary
Every night, for every human being that ever was and ever will be, the Moon rises to remind us how...
9 months ago
Every night, for every human being that ever was and ever will be, the Moon rises to remind us how improbably lucky we are, each of its craters a monument of the odds we prevailed against to exist, a reliquary of the violent collisions that forged our rocky planet lush with life...
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),...
8 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...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Barricades Against Boredom'
I’ve reminded
my sons with tedious regularity that the world is densely populated with boring
people...
a year ago
I’ve reminded
my sons with tedious regularity that the world is densely populated with boring
people and boring situations. Think of advertising, PowerPoint, golf, Marxists,
super-hero movies, activists of any stripe, videogames and the novels of Joseph
McElroy. That each of...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Energy in Things Shone Through Their Shapes'
Some
fugitive thinkers among us long for order in a manner almost nostalgic:
“I envied
those past...
a month ago
Some
fugitive thinkers among us long for order in a manner almost nostalgic:
“I envied
those past ages of the world
When, as I
thought, the energy in things
Shone
through their shapes, when sun and moon no less
Than tree or
stone or star or human face
Were seen
but as fantastic...
Josh Thompson
$150 Custom-Made Standing Desk
My desk/our kitchen table
Standing desks are
all the
rage. (I’m still waiting for
walking desks...
over a year ago
My desk/our kitchen table
Standing desks are
all the
rage. (I’m still waiting for
walking desks to catch up.)
Kristi and I outfitted our space with reclaimed furniture from Craigslist (also known as “cheap”), so we wanted to keep it going with a desk. My setup at our kitchen...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Poets in an Age of Prose'
Yvor Winters
published his final book, Forms of Discovery,
in October 1967, three months before his...
a year ago
Yvor Winters
published his final book, Forms of Discovery,
in October 1967, three months before his death from cancer at age sixty-seven on
January 25, 1968. Read his late correspondence in The Selected Letters of Yvor Winters (ed. R.L. Barth, 2000) for an
understanding of the...
The American Scholar
Look Out!
Why did it take so long to protect
The post Look Out! appeared first on The American Scholar.
3 months ago
Why did it take so long to protect
The post Look Out! appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Elysian
“Friends” as the ideal community
The one where communes aren't the answer.
6 months ago
The one where communes aren't the answer.
Ben Borgers
The Beginning of College Sucks
over a year ago
The Marginalian
From Cells to Souls: The Poetic Science of How the Brain Became
The making of our densely networked crucible of thought and tenderness.
a year ago
The making of our densely networked crucible of thought and tenderness.
The Marginalian
Grace Against Gravity and the Physics of Vulnerability: How Birds Fly and Why They Flock in a V...
“What we see from the air is so simple and beautiful,” Georgia O’Keeffe wrote after her first...
a month ago
“What we see from the air is so simple and beautiful,” Georgia O’Keeffe wrote after her first airplane flight, “I cannot help feeling that it would do something wonderful for the human race — rid it of much smallness and pettiness if more people flew.” I am writing this aboard an...
Idle Words
The Lunacy of Artemis
In August 2020, the New York Times asked me to write an op-ed for a special feature on...
7 months ago
In August 2020, the New York Times asked me to write an op-ed for a special feature on authoritarianism and democracy. They declined to publish my submission, which I am sharing here instead.
A little over 51 years ago, a rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral carrying three...
Josh Thompson
Parking in Golden
Parking in Golden is broken.
This deeply broken parking situation causes vehicle and pedestrian...
over a year ago
Parking in Golden is broken.
This deeply broken parking situation causes vehicle and pedestrian traffic in Golden to break, in the same way that if a machine on a manufacturing line breaks, adjacent components need to stop, or it will also malfunction.
The topic of parking (at...
Josh Thompson
Krav Maga, or "Crush Balls, Gouge Eyes, and Break Bones"
In the last few weeks, I have been physically attacked dozens of times. Usually the attacker was...
over a year ago
In the last few weeks, I have been physically attacked dozens of times. Usually the attacker was just trying to choke me, but sometimes he was trying to throw me to the ground. After a few minutes of fighting, I would attack him. Then we’d both shake hands, say “thank you”, and...
The Marginalian
What We Look for When We Are Looking: John Steinbeck on Wonder and the Relational Nature of the...
Searching for "that principle which keys us deeply into the pattern of all life."
a year ago
Searching for "that principle which keys us deeply into the pattern of all life."
Wuthering...
Roald Amundsen’s My Life as an Explorer - an adventure is merely a bit of bad planning
One last book for Norwegian November, Roald Amundsen’s My
Life as an Explorer (1927), a memoir...
2 weeks ago
One last book for Norwegian November, Roald Amundsen’s My
Life as an Explorer (1927), a memoir covering the polar explorer’s entire
career. It’s a good book, full of adventure.
To the explorer, however, adventure is merely an unwelcome
interruption of his serious labours. ...
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Loss Not to Be Repaired'
“We dined at
our inn, and had with us a Mr. Jackson, one of Johnson’s schoolfellows, whom he
treated...
a year ago
“We dined at
our inn, and had with us a Mr. Jackson, one of Johnson’s schoolfellows, whom he
treated with much kindness, though he seemed to be a low man, dull and
untaught. He had a coarse grey coat, black waistcoat, greasy leather breeches,
and a yellow uncurled wig; and his...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Passing Tribute of a Sigh'
“The
cemetery lives an intense, passion-filled life.”
Anyone who
has walked a cemetery and paid...
a year ago
“The
cemetery lives an intense, passion-filled life.”
Anyone who
has walked a cemetery and paid respectful attention -- and I mean as a tourist,
when the visit is not obligatory – will understand. Once I tramped the
beautifully landscaped Vale Cemetery (1857) in downtown...
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...
5 months ago
Not As Giants Love
Short story, ~2000 words
A week ago, when I asked you if you still loved me, I thought the
most painful thing you could’ve said was no. I don’t know if you
remember, but when you said “Of course I still love you” and asked if
I still loved you, I started to...
The Marginalian
Coleridge on the Paradox of Friendship and Romantic Love
On sympathy, reciprocity, and satisfying the fulness of our nature.
a year ago
On sympathy, reciprocity, and satisfying the fulness of our nature.
The Perry Bible...
Clicked
The post Clicked appeared first on The Perry Bible Fellowship.
a month ago
The post Clicked appeared first on The Perry Bible Fellowship.
Anecdotal Evidence
'He Belonged Essentially to the Order of Wags'
A gift I
prize is seeing the humor in writers not taxonomically labeled “Humorists.” If
you tell me...
9 months ago
A gift I
prize is seeing the humor in writers not taxonomically labeled “Humorists.” If
you tell me a piece by S.J. Pearlman has made you laugh my response is, “Enjoy
yourself.” I don’t find Pearlman as funny as I did when I was a kid, though I’m
happy for you. But if you tell me...
Wuthering...
The Story of the Stone, volume 4 - It was an eerie, desolate night.
At the two-thirds mark, after 80 chapters of the 120, three
big changes hit The Story of the Stone...
16 hours ago
At the two-thirds mark, after 80 chapters of the 120, three
big changes hit The Story of the Stone (c. 1760 / 1791). First, David Hawkes, the original translator
of the Penguin edition, dies; John Minford finishes the job. Second, the author of the novel, Cao Xueqin,
dies,...
The Marginalian
Louise Erdrich on the Deepest Meaning of Resistance
"Resist loss of the miraculous by lowering your standards for what constitutes a miracle. It is all...
a month ago
"Resist loss of the miraculous by lowering your standards for what constitutes a miracle. It is all a fucking miracle."
The American Scholar
Kat Wiese
Taking flight
The post Kat Wiese appeared first on The American Scholar.
a month ago
Taking flight
The post Kat Wiese appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'Leave Him Something to Imagine'
“I am now
beginning to get fairly into my work; and by the help of a vegetable diet, with
a few of...
a year ago
“I am now
beginning to get fairly into my work; and by the help of a vegetable diet, with
a few of the cold seeds, I make no doubt but I shall be able to go on with my
uncle Toby’s story, and my own, in a tolerable strait line.”
By the time
a persevering reader has reached Book...
Wuthering...
Metamorphoses, cantos 7 through 10 - more Heroides, more gore, more of everything - What meen my...
Metamorphoses is fluid, quick, and ever-changing. Let’s look at cantos VII through X, which...
9 months ago
Metamorphoses is fluid, quick, and ever-changing. Let’s look at cantos VII through X, which have
their share of famous stories, stories famous, or as famous as they are,
because of Metamorphoses. Venus
and Adonis, Baucis and Philemon, Orpheus and Eurydice, Pygmalion. Icarus –...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Life Which Is Spent in a Kind of Limbo'
A reader has
taken my suggestion that she read the fiction of the English writer Francis
Wyndham...
a year ago
A reader has
taken my suggestion that she read the fiction of the English writer Francis
Wyndham (1924-2017), and reports she’s enjoying herself. “I see a little Henry
James in his stories,” she writes, “but he’s really not like anybody else.” Exactly
right.
Wyndham’s
writing...
Josh Thompson
December Review, January Goals
This is a follow-up from last month’s goals
1. Deepen Knowledge of Back-end Development
I finished...
over a year ago
This is a follow-up from last month’s goals
1. Deepen Knowledge of Back-end Development
I finished OverTheWire’s Bandit series, except the last lesson, which didn’t make sense. (It does now! Turns out login shells and “regular” shells are different. I’ll take another spin at it...
Escaping Flatland
A summary of what I wrote in 2023
In 2023, I published 37 essays. I’ve spent the better part of the morning going through it all to...
a year ago
In 2023, I published 37 essays. I’ve spent the better part of the morning going through it all to see what the themes were—it is quite surprising to notice what emerges when you allow yourself to follow your curiosity and intuition for a full year. I wrote a summary of the...
sbensu
Enterprise sales meets product development
What I’ve learned from selling enterprises while developing a new product. This is less of a guide...
10 months ago
What I’ve learned from selling enterprises while developing a new product. This is less of a guide and more of a cautionary tale.
Anecdotal Evidence
'There Will Be No One Left Who Knew Their Cost'
For the boys
in the neighborhood, our primary occupation when chores were finished and the
grownups...
8 months ago
For the boys
in the neighborhood, our primary occupation when chores were finished and the
grownups were leaving us alone was “playing Army.” All of us had toy guns or at
least sticks. Given our ages, when dividing into good guys and bad guys, the
latter were always Germans and...
The Marginalian
The Lost Drop: An Illustrated Celebration of the Wonder of the Water Cycle and the Interconnected...
I remember when I first learned about the water cycle, about how it makes of our planet a living...
a year ago
I remember when I first learned about the water cycle, about how it makes of our planet a living world and binds the fate of every molecule to that of every other. I remember feeling in my child-bones the profound interconnectedness of life as I realized I was breathing the...
Josh Thompson
Typing for Programmers
If you had to distill my ability to bring value to those around me, it would be “Josh types good”.
I...
over a year ago
If you had to distill my ability to bring value to those around me, it would be “Josh types good”.
I can press these magical little keys on this little metal box here, and make these words come out.
If you’re reading these words, you don’t care how these words actually got on...
Anecdotal Evidence
''In Prose, Plain as Pike, Pillory'
Austin
Clarke (1896-1974) was an Irish poet of the generation after Yeats, the slightly...
2 months ago
Austin
Clarke (1896-1974) was an Irish poet of the generation after Yeats, the slightly older
contemporary of Louis MacNeice and Patrick Kavanagh. In 1968 he published A Sermon on Swift and Other Poems, and
the 117-line title poem appeared in The
Massachusetts Review in 1970....
Ben Borgers
Thursday, January 13, 2022
over a year ago
The Marginalian
How to Live a Miraculous Life: Brian Doyle on Love, Humility, and the Quiet Grace of the Possible
Suppose we agree that we are here to love anyway — to love even though the work is almost unbearably...
3 weeks ago
Suppose we agree that we are here to love anyway — to love even though the work is almost unbearably difficult, even though we know that everything alive is dying, that everything beautiful is perishable, that everything we love will eventually be taken from us by one form of...
Anecdotal Evidence
'He Was Spared That Annoyance'
As expected,
Beryl made landfall near Matagorda early Monday as a Category 1 hurricane.
Sustained...
5 months ago
As expected,
Beryl made landfall near Matagorda early Monday as a Category 1 hurricane.
Sustained winds hit 80 m.p.h. By 7 a.m. we could hear a hum like a dentist’s
drill when the wind gusted. Trees fell and we watched water fill the street,
top the curb and slosh on the lawn....
The American Scholar
“Full Moon Rhyme” by Judith Wright
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “Full Moon Rhyme” by Judith Wright appeared first on The...
a week ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “Full Moon Rhyme” by Judith Wright appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
Just When You Thought It Wasn’t Safe …
How Wilbert Longfellow turned America into a nation of swimmers
The post Just When You Thought It...
6 months ago
How Wilbert Longfellow turned America into a nation of swimmers
The post Just When You Thought It <em>Wasn’t</em> Safe … appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
Sheep Jones
Swimming below the surface
The post Sheep Jones appeared first on The American Scholar.
5 months ago
Swimming below the surface
The post Sheep Jones appeared first on The American Scholar.
Wuthering...
Plato's Symposium - philosophy as realist fiction - pick up something to tickle your nose with, and...
Philosophy makes me nervous, so I will begin my squib about Plato’s Symposium (c. 385-370 BCE) with...
over a year ago
Philosophy makes me nervous, so I will begin my squib about Plato’s Symposium (c. 385-370 BCE) with an anxiety-deflating observation: Symposium is fiction, a long story. It is fiction in that at least some of it is invented, but mostly in that it uses the techniques of fiction:...
Josh Thompson
MacOS: Keyboard Shortcut to Toggle Bookmarks Bar in Firefox
A few weeks ago, after Firefox Quantum came out, I decided to try making Firefox my daily browser,...
over a year ago
A few weeks ago, after Firefox Quantum came out, I decided to try making Firefox my daily browser, instead of Chrome.
Turns out, Firefox is great! It was a near-seamless transition, and Firefox has a much lower memory footprint, as well as features Chrome does not have, like...
Anecdotal Evidence
'In a More Just World'
Our youngest
son’s bedroom has lately turned into an overstuffed warehouse. Last year, as a
junior...
2 months ago
Our youngest
son’s bedroom has lately turned into an overstuffed warehouse. Last year, as a
junior at Rice, he lived off-campus in an apartment. This year he’s back in a
dormitory so most of his “housewares” – clothing, dishes and utensils, tchotchkes
– have been heaped in his...
Astral Codex Ten
Hidden Open Thread 355.5
...
a month ago
The American Scholar
Betsy, Mary, and Trish
The post Betsy, Mary, and Trish appeared first on The American Scholar.
7 months ago
The post Betsy, Mary, and Trish appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
Streets in Asheville
Quick-and-dirty street analysis in Asheville, NC
A few months ago, I visited Asheville, NC. It’s a...
over a year ago
Quick-and-dirty street analysis in Asheville, NC
A few months ago, I visited Asheville, NC. It’s a nice town, and has a great pedestrian life, as far as I can tell.
As a thought experiment, I decided to see how well I could make the case for reducing the road width of a few...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Well-known Types of Miracle'
It’s grim
out there and getting grimmer. Two poems encountered on the same day provided a
touch of...
7 months ago
It’s grim
out there and getting grimmer. Two poems encountered on the same day provided a
touch of buoyancy. The first was originally written in Russian by Vladimir
Nabokov on May 6, 1923:
“No, life is
no quivering quandary!
Here under
the moon things are bright and dewy.
We are...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Probity Was Perhaps the Highest Good'
As a
newspaper reporter I covered only one capital murder trial. This was in rural
Indiana in 1983....
8 months ago
As a
newspaper reporter I covered only one capital murder trial. This was in rural
Indiana in 1983. At the age of eighteen, William Spranger had fatally shot a
town marshal, William Miner, in the back with the officer’s service revolver. The
jury found Spranger guilty and Judge...
The American Scholar
“The Imaginary Iceberg” by Elizabeth Bishop
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “The Imaginary Iceberg” by Elizabeth Bishop appeared first on...
8 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “The Imaginary Iceberg” by Elizabeth Bishop appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Lack of Self-deception'
“There is a
difference between a villain and one who simply commits a crime. The villain is
an...
a year ago
“There is a
difference between a villain and one who simply commits a crime. The villain is
an extremely conscious person and commits a crime consciously, for its own
sake.”
A fine
distinction, one often lost on us. Auden is describing Shakespeare’s Richard
III and refers us to...
Wuthering...
Notes on Aristotle's Poetics - What are the conditions on which the tragic effect depends?
Aristotle did not invent literary criticism with Poetics(late 4th c. BCE, maybe) – we just read The...
over a year ago
Aristotle did not invent literary criticism with Poetics(late 4th c. BCE, maybe) – we just read The Frogs – but for centuries it was the base of Western literary criticism, not a source of insight but rather a set of rules. The Unities, the Tragic Flaw, catharsis, the ranking of...
The American Scholar
Heart of Semi-Darkness
A writer’s delectable quest for rare flavors
The post Heart of Semi-Darkness appeared first on The...
3 months ago
A writer’s delectable quest for rare flavors
The post Heart of Semi-Darkness appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
Lifestyle Design (AKA Intentional Habit Building)
The top New Years resolutions indicate that Americans know they need to make changes. The top three...
over a year ago
The top New Years resolutions indicate that Americans know they need to make changes. The top three resolutions always relate to getting in shape, eating better, spending time better, and spending money better.
Everyone is aware that change is good, even necessary, but given the...
Wuthering...
Books Read in June 2024 - "Why can't we steal the calm vegetable clairvoyance of these great rooted...
Three weeks in Portugal meant less and different reading.
FICTION
Wolf Solent (1929), John Cowper...
5 months ago
Three weeks in Portugal meant less and different reading.
FICTION
Wolf Solent (1929), John Cowper Powys – among the
most eccentric novels I have ever read, up there with his contemporaries D. H.
Lawrence and Ronald Firbank! I feel I
should write about it; I feel I should read...
Wuthering...
What books am I reading this summer in the Greek philosophy readalong? Some details.
Now that we are almost done with Plato, the bulkiest figure
in my little Greek philosophy readalong,...
a year ago
Now that we are almost done with Plato, the bulkiest figure
in my little Greek philosophy readalong, I thought it would be a good idea to
revisit, clarify, and puzzle over the texts that will take us to the end of the
project, now that I have given the matter a little more...
sbensu
Pricing APIs
Lessons from AWS S3 and others on how to price APIs.
10 months ago
Lessons from AWS S3 and others on how to price APIs.
Anecdotal Evidence
'Curiosity to Inquire Into All Things'
“Concupiscence
of experience, boundless curiosity to set our foot everywhere, to enter...
a month ago
“Concupiscence
of experience, boundless curiosity to set our foot everywhere, to enter every
possible situation. Montaigne.”
I could have
signed my name to that when I was twenty. I wanted to visit every country in
the world, even the most dangerous. I made plans to move to...
This Space
This kingdom by the sea
Published in 1912, it’s about the fall of the repressed writer Gustav
von Aschenbach, when his...
a year ago
Published in 1912, it’s about the fall of the repressed writer Gustav
von Aschenbach, when his supposedly objective appreciation of a young
boy’s beauty becomes sexual obsession.
This is how BBC Radio 4's In Our Time sets up a discussion of Thomas Mann's Death in Venice...
The American Scholar
Last Laugh
The post Last Laugh appeared first on The American Scholar.
5 months ago
The post Last Laugh appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'I Read You As I Listen to Rare Music'
Rare is the
writer who captures our imagination when we’re young and still assembling our
personal...
4 months ago
Rare is the
writer who captures our imagination when we’re young and still assembling our
personal canons, and remains rereadable for the rest of our lives. For me that
would include Swift, Defoe and a third English novelist, a rather exotic import
from Poland: Joseph Conrad. I...
The American Scholar
Tramping With Virginia
A seminal essay about walking the streets of London can present challenges in the classrooms of...
7 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.
ribbonfarm
Bangalore Meetup Report
Did a ribbonfarm meetup in Bangalore last night, the first ever in India. Thanks to Abhishek Agarwal...
6 months ago
Did a ribbonfarm meetup in Bangalore last night, the first ever in India. Thanks to Abhishek Agarwal for organizing. I think this is the first meetup I’ve done since the last Refactor Camp in 2019. It was kinda last minute, which is why I only posted on Substack rather than here...
The Marginalian
The New Science of Plant Intelligence and the Mystery of What Makes a Mind
"Every thought that has ever passed through your brain was made possible by plants."
7 months ago
"Every thought that has ever passed through your brain was made possible by plants."
The American Scholar
Verde
Learning a foreign language isn’t just about improving cognitive function—it can teach us to sense...
2 weeks ago
Learning a foreign language isn’t just about improving cognitive function—it can teach us to sense the world anew
The post Verde appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
A Retrospective on Seven Months at Turing
Collection of thoughts on Turing
It’s the last week of Turing. I went through the backend software...
over a year ago
Collection of thoughts on Turing
It’s the last week of Turing. I went through the backend software engineering program, and it’s been a journey.
In no particular order, I’m throwing down thoughts in three general categories:
What went well
What didn’t go well
What I might have...
Anecdotal Evidence
‘Of Course’
“Auden says, Wordsworth says, Valery says, Shakespeare says. Always the present tense. Of...
7 months ago
“Auden says, Wordsworth says, Valery says, Shakespeare says. Always the present tense. Of course.”
—Geoffrey Grigson, The Private Art: A Poetry Notebook (Allison and Busby, 1982).
Anecdotal Evidence
'It All But Lovely As Silence Is'
Thanks to
S.J. Perelman and his 1952 collection The
Ill-Tempered Clavichord, I get confused with...
6 months ago
Thanks to
S.J. Perelman and his 1952 collection The
Ill-Tempered Clavichord, I get confused with Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier (1722) and with
that bone that runs from the sternum to the shoulder blade. You know, the
clavicle. Each time I need to cite one of the three, in writing...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Neither Angels Nor Devils'
A favorite
story about Dr. Johnson reminded me of something the late critic John Simon had
written...
10 months ago
A favorite
story about Dr. Johnson reminded me of something the late critic John Simon had
written on his blog five years ago. In a post titled “Curse Words,” abbreviated
by Simon throughout as “CW,” he reviews profanity as used in various settings
and languages, including Croat,...
The American Scholar
A Ray of Sunshine
The post A Ray of Sunshine appeared first on The American Scholar.
3 months ago
The post A Ray of Sunshine appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'Such a Touchy, Testy, Pleasant Fellow'
One of the
curses of a good memory is the inability to forget stupid, hurtful things we
said in the...
7 months ago
One of the
curses of a good memory is the inability to forget stupid, hurtful things we
said in the past, and sometimes last week. Years ago I wrecked a friendship
with a glib remark, a wisecrack that I didn’t even believe but had convinced
myself was funny (it was, in fact, but...
Ben Borgers
Half a Slice of Apple Pie
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Every Corner Is Fraught with Memory'
A.J.
Liebling’s valediction – to New York City, The
New Yorker and the grand celebration that was...
11 months ago
A.J.
Liebling’s valediction – to New York City, The
New Yorker and the grand celebration that was his life as a writer – was published
two weeks after his death, in the January 11, 1964 issue of the magazine that had printed
more than five-hundred of his pieces since he joined...
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
"We’ve come this far, survived this much. What would happen if we decided to survive more? To love harder?"
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
“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 American Scholar
“Daybreak in Alabama” by Langston Hughes
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “Daybreak in Alabama” by Langston Hughes appeared first on...
5 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “Daybreak in Alabama” by Langston Hughes appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'An Air of Baffled Absence'
R.L. Barth
has sent a new epigram, “Baffled,” not overtly related to the Vietnam War:
“I see...
4 months ago
R.L. Barth
has sent a new epigram, “Baffled,” not overtly related to the Vietnam War:
“I see these
hands on the deck railing, but
Whose are
they? Have they any meaning? What?”
Some readers
will understand. The familiar can become strange with age. That’s not always a...
Josh Thompson
About working remotely at Litmus with Pajamas.io
A while back, I wrote a long interview for
Pajamas.io, a publication around remote work. I’ve pasted...
over a year ago
A while back, I wrote a long interview for
Pajamas.io, a publication around remote work. I’ve pasted the entire article here below.
When Josh Thompson wanted to move out to rural Colorado with his family to be closer to the mountains he loves to climb, he knew finding a company...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Who Needs Your Stories?'
Have you
ever read something – it might be a poem or a history
book, almost anything – and...
2 months ago
Have you
ever read something – it might be a poem or a history
book, almost anything – and encountered a phrase or sentence so self-contained
and dense with meaning, in words so perfectly arranged, that you stop reading,
ponder and write it down? You may not even continue with...
The American Scholar
All in Your Head
The post All in Your Head appeared first on The American Scholar.
a month ago
The post All in Your Head appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
On Boldness In Climbing
Climb boldly. I’ve tried to write about this many times, and have thousands of words scattered...
over a year ago
Climb boldly. I’ve tried to write about this many times, and have thousands of words scattered across my computer about this topic. I always felt like I wasn’t communicating it quite right. I wasn’t happy with it.
So I said “screw it, I’ll explain it like I would if I were...
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...
4 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...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Related But Detached'
I’ve seen Hamlet on the stage only once, in 1971.
The prince was played by Dame Judith Anderson,...
10 months ago
I’ve seen Hamlet on the stage only once, in 1971.
The prince was played by Dame Judith Anderson, unconvincing in her early seventies.
Wrong sex, wrong age, wrong play – a stillborn theatrical stunt. My reaction was perhaps the
worst that staged Shakespeare can inspire – boredom...
The Elysian
The future according to artists
The Parisianer 2050's project to imagine the future in art.
8 months ago
The Parisianer 2050's project to imagine the future in art.
The Marginalian
John Quincy Adams on Impostor Syndrome and the True Measure of Success
“You will never get any more out of life than you expect,” Bruce Lee wrote to himself. All...
6 months ago
“You will never get any more out of life than you expect,” Bruce Lee wrote to himself. All expectation is a story of the possible. Every person lives inside a story of who they are, what they are worth, and what is possible for their life, and suffers in proportion to how...
The American Scholar
Riding With Mr. Washington
How my great-grandfather invented himself at the end of Reconstruction
The post Riding With Mr....
6 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.
The Marginalian
You and the Universe: N.J. Berrill’s Poetic 1958 Masterpiece of Cosmic Perspective
"The universe is as we find it and as we discover it within ourselves."
3 months ago
"The universe is as we find it and as we discover it within ourselves."
Wuthering...
The appeal of Septology as religious fiction - the urge, inexplicably, to pray - because it helps!...
Septology is a stream-of-consciousness novel
throughout, a mix of sentence fragments, unconventional...
a month ago
Septology is a stream-of-consciousness novel
throughout, a mix of sentence fragments, unconventional punctuation, and temporal
shifts, meaning the painter Asle is sometimes thinking about the present and
sometimes about the past.
These are all old moves, old techniques. I was a...
Wuthering...
"Socrates gone mad" - my hero Diogenes the Cynic
He lived in a jar, owned a staff and a cloak and nothing
else, and was a sarcastic pain in the...
a year ago
He lived in a jar, owned a staff and a cloak and nothing
else, and was a sarcastic pain in the ass.
He took the example of Socrates to its limit. Plato is the one who called him “Socrates
gone mad,” but in a sense he is just the logical result of thinking through how
Socrates...
Ben Borgers
Customer Rewards Programs
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Make Memory Speak so Volubly'
A reader
shares with me her first reading of two books she knows I value highly. First,...
a year ago
A reader
shares with me her first reading of two books she knows I value highly. First, Kipling’s
Kim: “I was
twelve. I was very interested in ‘spiritual’ things. It was the Beatles and the
Maharishi, you know. I got it from the library and it was love at first sight.
I...
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
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...
Wuthering...
The Nicomachean Ethics - moderate Aristotle - clarity within the limits of the subject matter
I will borrow the quotation from Aristotle’s Nicomachean
Ethics I found on p. 186 of Gary Paul...
a year ago
I will borrow the quotation from Aristotle’s Nicomachean
Ethics I found on p. 186 of Gary Paul Morson’s extraordinary new study of
the ethics if Russian literature:
Our discussion will be adequate if it achieves clarity
within the limits of the subject matter.
For precision...
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