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Anecdotal Evidence
'The Postmodern Pigeonhole Is a Shuck' With Tom Disch’s suicide in 2008 we lost not only one of our best poets, a fine writer of short...
a month ago
25
a month ago
With Tom Disch’s suicide in 2008 we lost not only one of our best poets, a fine writer of short stories and of one novel, Camp Concentration, but perhaps the most entertaining of our critics. His only recent rivals have been Turner Cassity and R.S. Gwynn. “Entertainment” and...
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Book You Know You Don’t Understand' Some thirty years ago, at his request, I met with an author in upstate New York who wanted me to...
a year ago
31
a year ago
Some thirty years ago, at his request, I met with an author in upstate New York who wanted me to write a feature story for my newspaper about him and the small-press book he had written. Frank had been lobbying me for weeks by telephone. He was middle-aged but carried himself...
The American Scholar
Hot and Cold The post Hot and Cold appeared first on The American Scholar.
6 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Interior Decoration Doesn't Count" Just last week, and not for the first time, I had a dream set in Kay’s Books in downtown Cleveland,...
9 months ago
34
9 months ago
Just last week, and not for the first time, I had a dream set in Kay’s Books in downtown Cleveland, where I visited often as a kid and worked in 1975. I was in the basement in the general hardback fiction section where I saw the copy of Under the Volcano I bought there forty-nine...
Ben Borgers
I Run My Life on Reminders
over a year ago
Robert Caro
Anatomy of a $9 Burglary “Anatomy of a $9 Burglary” is among Caro’s best early writing. When police arrested a criminal, all...
a year ago
6
a year ago
“Anatomy of a $9 Burglary” is among Caro’s best early writing. When police arrested a criminal, all signs indicated a simple case of burglar
Anecdotal Evidence
'He Has Embalmed So Many Eminent Persons' Over the years I wrote thousands of pieces – hard news stories, features, columns, obituaries,...
9 months ago
28
9 months ago
Over the years I wrote thousands of pieces – hard news stories, features, columns, obituaries, reviews of books, movies and music – for the newspapers where I worked in Ohio, Indiana and New York. They’re clipped and saved in a chaotic file cabinet. Most, I, like the rest of the...
The Marginalian
An Antidote to the Anxiety About Imperfection: Parenting Advice from Mister Rogers "It’s part of being human to fall short of that total acceptance and ultimate understanding — and...
a year ago
Ben Borgers
Why Do I Care About Grades?
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Grounded in the Deep Tradition of English Poesy' When I’m told someone, somewhere has started a new poetry journal, a little piece of me dies. Just...
3 months ago
46
3 months ago
When I’m told someone, somewhere has started a new poetry journal, a little piece of me dies. Just what we’ve been waiting for: more precious self-revelations, strident politics and lineated prose. Nice to know the world can still surprise us. An Australian, Clarence Caddell, has...
The American Scholar
Anchoring Shards of Memory We don’t often associate Charles Ives and Gustav Mahler, but both The post Anchoring Shards of...
4 months ago
25
4 months ago
We don’t often associate Charles Ives and Gustav Mahler, but both The post Anchoring Shards of Memory appeared first on The American Scholar.
Wuthering...
The Assemblywomen by Aristophanes - Octopus tunnyfish dogfish and skate The Assemblywomen by Aristophanes – or The Parliament of Women, or several other titles – was...
over a year ago
37
over a year ago
The Assemblywomen by Aristophanes – or The Parliament of Women, or several other titles – was performed in 392 BCE, thirteen years after The Frogs.  In the interval many things had changed.  Athens had been conquered; democracy was overthrown but restored; one endless war ended...
Escaping Flatland
Don’t sacrifice the wrong thing I began emailing essays into the void on 30 May 2021, 53 days before Rebecka, our youngest daughter...
7 months ago
79
7 months ago
I began emailing essays into the void on 30 May 2021, 53 days before Rebecka, our youngest daughter was born. This writing experiment has followed roughly the same trajectory as the baby. In 2021, Escaping Flatland's prime achievement was putting a few toys in its mouth (a...
sbensu
Twitter's Sith and Jedi In Star Wars, hate gives the Sith power from the dark side of the Force beyond what the Jedi can...
11 months ago
4
11 months ago
In Star Wars, hate gives the Sith power from the dark side of the Force beyond what the Jedi can reach. But when they lean into hate, they lose their soul to it. Twitter offers the same bargain as the Force.
Anecdotal Evidence
'Intensely Cultivated and Painstakingly Honest' In the brief foreword to her first prose collection, Predilections (1955), Marianne Moore writes as...
a month ago
28
a month ago
In the brief foreword to her first prose collection, Predilections (1955), Marianne Moore writes as good an apologia for her manner of writing, among others, as I’ve ever encountered: “Silence is more eloquent than speech – a truism; but sometimes something that someone...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Friends They May Become To-morrow' “New books can have few associations. They may reach us on the best deckle-edged Whatman paper, in...
a month ago
17
a month ago
“New books can have few associations. They may reach us on the best deckle-edged Whatman paper, in the newest types of famous presses, with backs of embossed vellum, with tasteful tasselled strings,--and yet be no more to us than the constrained and uneasy acquaintances of...
Blog -...
Book Review - Codependent No More With more than five million copies sold by its twenty-fifth anniversary nearly a decade ago,...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
With more than five million copies sold by its twenty-fifth anniversary nearly a decade ago, Codependent No More is a startling, powerful book that has touched the lives of so very many.
Wuthering...
The books I read in November 2024 - like a hideous spinster who has learned the grim humor of the... Thank goodness I write these down. FICTION The Story of the Stone, Vol. 2: The Crab-flower...
3 weeks ago
26
3 weeks ago
Thank goodness I write these down. FICTION The Story of the Stone, Vol. 2: The Crab-flower Club (c. 1760), Cao Xueqin – written up long ago. Cartucho (1931) & My Mother's Hands (1938), Nellie Campobello – Brutal vignettes of the Mexican revolution by a diehard partisan, a...
Anecdotal Evidence
'We Were Nothing in Ourselves Nothing More' “[H]e gave us some of the best poems of our times. And, after all, one must thank a man for what he...
a year ago
54
a year ago
“[H]e gave us some of the best poems of our times. And, after all, one must thank a man for what he has done and not condemn him for his failures.”  A timely, guilt-inducing reminder. It’s easy to scold a writer for not producing a masterpiece each time he goes to work. Good...
Ben Borgers
An emoji picker epiphany
over a year ago
The American Scholar
Imperfecta Her brother’s disease leads a writer to challenge how we conceive of human abnormality in the...
6 months ago
53
6 months ago
Her brother’s disease leads a writer to challenge how we conceive of human abnormality in the emerging era of gene editing The post Imperfecta appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Elysian
My TEDx talk about the future of fiction And publishing.
6 months ago
This Space
39 Books: 1987 From two books in the first year of reading and twenty-four in the second, I read eighty-six in the...
8 months ago
30
8 months ago
From two books in the first year of reading and twenty-four in the second, I read eighty-six in the third, including a lot more non-fiction. This was due to cycling to libraries in adjacent towns where the selection was wider. One of them had my first non-novel choice: this...
Josh Thompson
A little bit of slope makes up for a lot of y-intercept The following is recounted on  Quora, from a lecture by Stanford professor John Ousterhout (he’s in...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
The following is recounted on  Quora, from a lecture by Stanford professor John Ousterhout (he’s in the Computer Science department): Here’s today’s thought for the weekend.  A little bit of slope makes up for a lot of Y-intercept.   [Laughter] So at a mathematical level this is...
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Life That Is More Real Than Life' My nephew and I were talking about our teenage efforts to be “cool,” wearing irony like...
4 days ago
11
4 days ago
My nephew and I were talking about our teenage efforts to be “cool,” wearing irony like Kevlar, feigning sophistication while avoiding the shock of experience. Some of us outgrow it and become open to life’s surprises. Others carry the stance latently for life, like the...
Josh Thompson
Redefining Success It’s been pretty quiet around here lately. It’s been almost a month since my last entry. I thought...
over a year ago
7
over a year ago
It’s been pretty quiet around here lately. It’s been almost a month since my last entry. I thought about writing something here almost every day, but here is why I didn’t: I want to produce “content” that is helpful and relevant to those who might read it. I felt like nothing I...
The American Scholar
Amy Wetsch Life, magnified The post Amy Wetsch appeared first on The American Scholar.
4 days ago
Ben Borgers
5% of things go wrong
a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'I Read the Wild Wallpaper of My Heart' Meade Harwell, Gordon H. Felton, M.J.A. McGittigan, Jess H. Cloud, Byron Vazakas, Ellis Foote, Myron...
a year ago
15
a year ago
Meade Harwell, Gordon H. Felton, M.J.A. McGittigan, Jess H. Cloud, Byron Vazakas, Ellis Foote, Myron H. Broomell, Celeste Turner Wright.  Who are these strangers? What brings them together? They recall a walk in the cemetery, reading on the stones the names of people we have...
The Marginalian
Leaning Toward Light: A Posy of Poems Celebrating the Joys and Consolations of the Garden “Gardening is like poetry in that it is gratuitous, and also that it cannot be done on will alone,”...
a year ago
13
a year ago
“Gardening is like poetry in that it is gratuitous, and also that it cannot be done on will alone,” the poet and passionate gardener May Sarton wrote as she contemplated the parallels between these two creative practices — parallels that have led centuries of beloved writers to...
Ben Borgers
3:00 a.m. Radio
over a year ago
Ben Borgers
A Design Improvement for Our Communal Showers
over a year ago
The Marginalian
Thank You, Everything: An Illustrated Love Letter to the World We forget that none of this had to exist — that we weren’t owed mountains and music by the universe....
4 weeks ago
32
4 weeks ago
We forget that none of this had to exist — that we weren’t owed mountains and music by the universe. And maybe we have to forget — or we would be too stupefied with gratitude for every raindrop and every eyelash to get through the daily tasks punctuating the unbidden wonder of...
This Space
39 Books: 2016 I love it when people announce that "if Shakespeare was alive today, he'd be writing Eastenders", or...
7 months ago
55
7 months ago
I love it when people announce that "if Shakespeare was alive today, he'd be writing Eastenders", or Game of Thrones or crime fiction, according to one and another variation. The innocence of the claim is charming, giving voice to the desperation to give weight to ephemera. But I...
The Marginalian
The Messiah in the Mountain: Darwin on Wonder and the Spirituality of Nature Here we are, matter yearning for meaning, each of us a fragile constellation of chemistry and chance...
7 months ago
67
7 months ago
Here we are, matter yearning for meaning, each of us a fragile constellation of chemistry and chance hurtling through a cold cosmos that has no accord for our wishes, takes no interest in our dreams. “I can’t but believe that all that majesty and all that beauty, those fated and...
Ben Borgers
War Room: Expansion features
a year ago
The Marginalian
Trauma, Growth, and How to Be Twice as Alive: Tove Jansson on the Worm and the Art of Self-Renewal "Nothing is easy when you might come apart in the middle at any moment."
5 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Punners and Rhymers Must Have the Last Word' “I cannot but think that we live in a bad age, / O tempora, O mores! as ’tis in the adage.”  The...
4 months ago
21
4 months ago
“I cannot but think that we live in a bad age, / O tempora, O mores! as ’tis in the adage.”  The Latin tag is proverbial, deriving from Cicero’s Catiline orations: “O times, O manners!” It’s the template for all lamentations. Jonathan Swift is repeating it in the opening lines of...
The American Scholar
Martha Foley’s Granddaughters What the esteemed literary editor never knew about the life of her troubled son, David Burnett The...
5 months ago
44
5 months ago
What the esteemed literary editor never knew about the life of her troubled son, David Burnett The post Martha Foley’s Granddaughters appeared first on The American Scholar.
Ben Borgers
Sunday, January 16, 2022
over a year ago
Ben Borgers
Streaks Are Extremely Powerful
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Honest Before Anything Else' A reader doesn’t understand how tastes in books and writers might evolve across a lifetime, how...
2 weeks ago
21
2 weeks ago
A reader doesn’t understand how tastes in books and writers might evolve across a lifetime, how indifference might replace enthusiasm and love, indifference. He mentions Hart Crane, a poet I’m unlikely ever to reread. I swooned over The Bridge in high school, spurred on by our...
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 month ago
27
a month ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Full Moon Rhyme” by Judith Wright appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
The Birth of the Byline: How a Bronze Age Woman Became the World’s First Named Author and Used the... Days after I arrived in America as a lone teenager, the same age Mary Shelley was when she wrote...
6 months ago
46
6 months ago
Days after I arrived in America as a lone teenager, the same age Mary Shelley was when she wrote Frankenstein, not yet knowing I too was to become a writer, I found myself wandering the vast cool halls of the Penn Museum. There among the thousands of ancient artifacts was one to...
Anecdotal Evidence
'An Old Man in the Dark' Philip Larkin shares with us the mundane complaints of the middle class, the lusts and anxieties of...
a year ago
14
a year ago
Philip Larkin shares with us the mundane complaints of the middle class, the lusts and anxieties of people unburdened with wealth and pull. He grows deaf, loses hair, juggles girlfriends, gains weight and drinks too much. As a librarian he works hard. He will never be hip except...
Wuthering...
Disturbances in the Field by Lynne Sharon Schwartz - What I wanted now was the adventure of being... Disturbances in the Field (1983) by Lynne Sharon Schwartz.  Rohan Maitzen recommended the novel to...
a year ago
42
a year ago
Disturbances in the Field (1983) by Lynne Sharon Schwartz.  Rohan Maitzen recommended the novel to me because of its unusual use of the Pre-Socratic philosophers.  This is a domestic novel, a fine example of, borrowing from Trollope, the way we live now (or, to me, the way they...
The Marginalian
The Remedy for Creative Block and Existential Stuckness "Faithfulness to the moment and to the present circumstance entails continuous surrender... Only...
a year ago
81
a year ago
"Faithfulness to the moment and to the present circumstance entails continuous surrender... Only unconditional surrender leads to real emptiness, and from that place of emptiness I can be prolific and free."
Anecdotal Evidence
'As Sensitive As Anyone Else' “In common with James Jones, Gina Berriault knows that ill-educated or inarticulate people are as...
8 months ago
33
8 months ago
“In common with James Jones, Gina Berriault knows that ill-educated or inarticulate people are as sensitive as anyone else. She renders their speech with a fine and subtle ear for the shy or strident inaccuracies, for the bewilderment of missed points and for the dim, sad rhythms...
Josh Thompson
Elixir/Phoenix part deux I planned on working through this tutorial for building a slack clone, but half-way through the...
over a year ago
7
over a year ago
I planned on working through this tutorial for building a slack clone, but half-way through the set-up instructions, after I installed Elixir and Phoenix, I took a long detour through the basic set-up guide. Built some custom routes, along with controllers/views/templates,...
Josh Thompson
2015: The year I didn't think much? I generally think that if I write what I am thinking about, I can think about it a lot better....
over a year ago
6
over a year ago
I generally think that if I write what I am thinking about, I can think about it a lot better. Writing has a clarifying effect (or is it affect?) on thought.  If that’s the case, I just didn’t think much in 2015: I wrote about 45 things in 2013 and 2014. I wrote 8 in 2015. I’m...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Bring on the Vitamines' When I returned to college in 2002, thirty years after dropping out a year before graduating, I took...
3 weeks ago
17
3 weeks 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...
Josh Thompson
"A delicate mix of chess... and bear wrestling" Over the last few weeks I’ve found myself needing to break down “why” of sport climbing (I’ll refer...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
Over the last few weeks I’ve found myself needing to break down “why” of sport climbing (I’ll refer to sport as “lead” climbing from here on out. Sorry, trad climbers). If someone is enjoying top roping, (or bouldering) why should they take on the work of learning to lead climb,...
ribbonfarm
Imagination vs. Creativity I like to make a distinction between imagination and creativity that you may or may not agree with....
5 months ago
7
5 months ago
I like to make a distinction between imagination and creativity that you may or may not agree with. Imagination is the ability to see known possibilities as being reachable from a situation. Creativity is the ability to manufacture new possibilities out of a situation. The two...
This Space
Kevin Hart and the outside There are two reasons why listening to Kevin Hart's interview on the Hermitix podcast, and reading...
a year ago
62
a year ago
There are two reasons why listening to Kevin Hart's interview on the Hermitix podcast, and reading his new collection and The Dark Gaze for the second time, has helped me to recognise what I have forgotten, missed, misconstrued or misunderstood in Maurice Blanchot's writing or,...
The American Scholar
Reborn in the City of Light At a time when Paris was an incubator of modernism, a group of bold American women arrived to make...
4 months ago
24
4 months ago
At a time when Paris was an incubator of modernism, a group of bold American women arrived to make art out of their lives The post Reborn in the City of Light appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
We Are the Music, We Are the Spark: Pioneering Biologist Ernest Everett Just on What Makes Life... "Life is exquisitely a time-thing, like music."
a year ago
Ben Borgers
Driving School Corruption
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'That Grand Marxist Stalin Did Ten In' In one of the essential books published in the twentieth century, The Great Terror (1968; rev. 1990,...
4 weeks ago
21
4 weeks ago
In one of the essential books published in the twentieth century, The Great Terror (1968; rev. 1990, 2008), Robert Conquest (1917-2015) writes matter-of-factly: “We are told in recent Soviet articles that on 12 December 1937 alone, Stalin and Molotov sanctioned 3,167 death...
The American Scholar
“I Will Greet the Sun Again” by Forugh Farrokhzad Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “I Will Greet the Sun Again” by Forugh Farrokhzad appeared...
4 months ago
45
4 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “I Will Greet the Sun Again” by Forugh Farrokhzad appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'One's Lucidity Is Shaken' “This is beyond imagining: one’s lucidity is shaken. Difficult to think clearly.”  As the horrors...
3 months ago
32
3 months ago
“This is beyond imagining: one’s lucidity is shaken. Difficult to think clearly.”  As the horrors piled up, the twentieth century taught us to accept such expressions as useful and accurate, not hyperbole, though the events defied belief and understanding, and often still do. The...
Anecdotal Evidence
'O Friend Unseen, Unborn, Unknown' Rabbi David Wolpe tells me Monday’s post reminds him of a poem, “To a Poet a Thousand Years Hence,”...
a month ago
22
a month ago
Rabbi David Wolpe tells me Monday’s post reminds him of a poem, “To a Poet a Thousand Years Hence,” by a poet I knew only by name: James Elroy Flecker. “I've always been moved,” David said, “especially by the penultimate stanza”:  “O friend unseen, unborn, unknown,     Student of...
Anecdotal Evidence
'With All Its Philistinism and Coarseness' My roommate freshman year was the son of a Slovak father and an Austrian mother who had emigrated to...
2 months ago
30
2 months ago
My roommate freshman year was the son of a Slovak father and an Austrian mother who had emigrated to the U.S. after World War II. Mike was trilingual from birth, without an accent unless it was a Cleveland accent that I couldn’t hear because it was mine as well. His tastes often...
Josh Thompson
Two Things That Are Helping Me (Finally) Learn Spanish Kristi and I are in Costa Rica for the month of January. We spent two months in Buenos Aires this...
over a year ago
6
over a year ago
Kristi and I are in Costa Rica for the month of January. We spent two months in Buenos Aires this summer. That means in the space of six months, I’ll have spent three months in a Spanish-speaking country, yet I’ve not made significant progress on my spanish. That’s not to say...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Moment Before the Germans Will Arrive' A Jewish friend writes: “The distraction of the war and its repercussions around the world is making...
a year ago
24
a year ago
A Jewish friend writes: “The distraction of the war and its repercussions around the world is making concentration on other things difficult.  . . . I wish I could tune the news out. But the stakes for the future of Israel and of Jewish life generally are too great for me to be...
The Marginalian
Delight Between Science and Magic: Euler’s Disk and the Sound of the Singularity One afternoon in the late 1980s, sitting in the company cafeteria, aerospace engineer Joseph Bendik...
a month ago
27
a month ago
One afternoon in the late 1980s, sitting in the company cafeteria, aerospace engineer Joseph Bendik found himself so bored that he took a coin out of his pocket and began spinning it atop the table. In a testament to the eternal paradox of boredom and wonder as two sides of the...
Steven Scrawls
I want to love fiction I want to love fiction I want to love fiction. I want to love both reading and writing fiction. I...
9 months ago
7
9 months ago
I want to love fiction I want to love fiction. I want to love both reading and writing fiction. I want to obsess over the craft of fiction, to pore over characterization and structure, to create stories that radiate color and humanity and hope. I want fiction to be a tool for...
Ben Borgers
Personal Software
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Similar Universality of Voice' I reproach my younger self for being lazy and not seriously studying languages other than English. I...
6 months ago
40
6 months ago
I reproach my younger self for being lazy and not seriously studying languages other than English. I dabbled in Latin and German and retain a smattering of vocabulary and little grammar. If I were to study another language today my first choice would likely be Italian in order to...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Go to the Bookcase' I heard an echo in something I wrote the other day, a dependent clause, inconsequential in itself....
2 months ago
20
2 months ago
I heard an echo in something I wrote the other day, a dependent clause, inconsequential in itself. It nagged me, like a commercial jingle from fifty years ago playing in my head. The harder I dredged to recover the source, the deeper it sank. I let go and an hour later it bubbled...
This Space
Favourite books 2020 Every time Dennis Cooper posts his favorite (sic) fiction and non-fiction of the year, it alone...
over a year ago
36
over a year ago
Every time Dennis Cooper posts his favorite (sic) fiction and non-fiction of the year, it alone exceeds the number of books I'm able to read in a year let alone the number from which it was presumably narrowed down. This is why I suggested a couple of years ago such pages choose...
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Poet's Hope' Erica Light is the daughter of my late friend Helen Pinkerton (1927-2017), the poet and Melville...
8 months ago
33
8 months ago
Erica Light is the daughter of my late friend Helen Pinkerton (1927-2017), the poet and Melville scholar. We exchange emails several times each year, usually devoted to what we are reading. This week she reported reading some of the writers and books I’ve mentioned recently at...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Remarkable Literary Judgment' She was twelve or thirteen, a girl in a hooded sweatshirt seated beside a woman I assume was her...
5 months ago
27
5 months ago
She was twelve or thirteen, a girl in a hooded sweatshirt seated beside a woman I assume was her mother. She sat on the aisle two rows ahead of me. The cabin of the plane glowed with screens while she was reading Andrew R. MacAndrew’s 1961 translation of Dead Souls, the Signet...
The American Scholar
Survival Situation The debate over evolution and its discoverer The post Survival Situation appeared first on The...
7 months ago
27
7 months ago
The debate over evolution and its discoverer The post Survival Situation appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
Driven by Compression Progress Note from author: This is part of an experimental series, more-or-less based on “white papers” and...
over a year ago
7
over a year ago
Note from author: This is part of an experimental series, more-or-less based on “white papers” and academic literature, as applied to somewhat practical-ish domains. These pages serve as a brief overview of a paper, and I’ll be able to link to this paper down the road when I what...
Josh Thompson
Benefits of helplessness The last few days were rough, strangely enough. I live in beautiful Golden, Colorado with my best...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
The last few days were rough, strangely enough. I live in beautiful Golden, Colorado with my best friend (who I happen to be married to), and I’ve got a pretty cool job to boot. That’s the “big three”, right? (Relationships, work, location.) Yep. Except from Thursday through...
This Space
The end of literature, part three On the evening of December 12th, 2019 a numbed grief descended over the land, and has lain there...
over a year ago
32
over a year ago
On the evening of December 12th, 2019 a numbed grief descended over the land, and has lain there ever since. At that time a mild alternative to barbarism was being put to death. Back in 2015 when, against all odds, a lifelong socialist and campaigner against racism and...
Astral Codex Ten
Hidden Open Thread 355.5 ...
a month ago
The American Scholar
Indiana Absurd Tiffany Tsao on translating a beguiling Indonesian short-story collection The post Indiana Absurd...
7 months ago
35
7 months ago
Tiffany Tsao on translating a beguiling Indonesian short-story collection The post Indiana Absurd appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'As Permanently a Monument As Anything' Once it was a commonplace: a letter in the mailbox, handwritten or typed, in an envelope most likely...
6 months ago
42
6 months ago
Once it was a commonplace: a letter in the mailbox, handwritten or typed, in an envelope most likely moistened with the sender’s tongue and sealed. A person-to-person letter, not junk mail, credit-card come-ons, campaign postcards, jury summonses and the rest of the...
Josh Thompson
The Violence of God and the Hermeneutics of Paul Sometimes I (Josh) want to share around certain academic works. Sometimes its a PDF that I want...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
Sometimes I (Josh) want to share around certain academic works. Sometimes its a PDF that I want someone to download and read, sometimes it’s text from a book I’ve read, and cannot otherwise get a sharable format of. So, I laboriously take photos of pages, use an optical character...
Anecdotal Evidence
'One of the Disadvantages of Wine' An offhand recounting of a conversation with Dr. Johnson:  “He has great virtue, in not drinking...
3 months ago
45
3 months ago
An offhand recounting of a conversation with Dr. Johnson:  “He has great virtue, in not drinking wine or any fermented liquor, because, as he acknowledged to us, he could not do it in moderation. Lady M’Leod would hardly believe him, and said, ‘I am sure, sir, you would not carry...
Ben Borgers
Your Feelings Are Not Unique
over a year ago
The American Scholar
“Snow” by Louis MacNeice Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Snow” by Louis MacNeice appeared first on The American...
2 weeks ago
Ben Borgers
It's Fun to Do Things with Care
over a year ago
Josh Thompson
Cheap fix to night-time teeth grinding A few years ago, I found out I grind me teeth at night. Kristi says it sounds like I’m chewing...
over a year ago
6
over a year ago
A few years ago, I found out I grind me teeth at night. Kristi says it sounds like I’m chewing marbles. Others who grind their teeth give themselves headaches, or wake themselves up at night. You can’t really stop yourself from grinding your teeth, since you’re asleep. You can...
Anecdotal Evidence
''In Prose, Plain as Pike, Pillory' Austin Clarke (1896-1974) was an Irish poet of the generation after Yeats, the slightly...
3 months ago
41
3 months ago
Austin Clarke (1896-1974) was an Irish poet of the generation after Yeats, the slightly older contemporary of Louis MacNeice and Patrick Kavanagh. In 1968 he published A Sermon on Swift and Other Poems, and the 117-line title poem appeared in The Massachusetts Review in 1970....
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."
4 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Unless It From Enjoyment Spring!' “He is the supreme poet of childhood. He is at play all his life.”  Had I read this out of context,...
a month ago
20
a month ago
“He is the supreme poet of childhood. He is at play all his life.”  Had I read this out of context, I might have assumed the writer described was Walter de la Mare, whose poetry I ignored for too long because teachers and critics told me he wrote solely for children. (Something...
This Space
The Opposite Direction, a book Please use a link below to download an ebook of posts selected from over the last seven years of...
over a year ago
47
over a year ago
Please use a link below to download an ebook of posts selected from over the last seven years of this blog.  This is the second collection after This Space of Writing and the title comes from the adolescent Thomas Bernhard's phrase repeated to an official at the labour exchange...
Ben Borgers
Publishing Class Notes
over a year ago
Josh Thompson
Quotes from 'Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving', by Pete Walker I’ve found Pete Walker’s Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving to be deeply helpful. Some of you,...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
I’ve found Pete Walker’s Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving to be deeply helpful. Some of you, many of you, have blessed me and cared for me in kind ways, sometimes with very little knowledge of what was going on, or why I was the way that I was. Thank you. I’ve been...
Anecdotal Evidence
'He Also Did Not Hope' Back to the theme of non-specialization, of writer as generalist: “Next to Montaigne, the rest of...
4 months ago
18
4 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...
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
31
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,...
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
24
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...
Ben Borgers
Majoring in more
over a year ago
sbensu
On becoming a person (book) It reframes therapy as a relationship instead of a treatment.
a month ago
Escaping Flatland
Self-help for cocoons and what's on my mind
10 months ago
The Marginalian
A Shelter in Time: John Berger on the Power of Music "Songs are like rivers: each follows its own course, yet all flow to the sea, from which everything...
a year ago
The Marginalian
18 Life-Learnings from 18 Years of The Marginalian Somewhere along the way, you realize that no one will teach you how to live your own life — not your...
2 months ago
35
2 months ago
Somewhere along the way, you realize that no one will teach you how to live your own life — not your parents or your idols, not the philosophers or the poets, not your liberal arts education or your twelve-step program, not church or therapy or Tolstoy. No matter how valuable any...
The Marginalian
Coleridge on the Paradox of Friendship and Romantic Love On sympathy, reciprocity, and satisfying the fulness of our nature.
a year ago
Wuthering...
Ovid's Amores and Marlowe's Ovid - Love slack’d my muse Since it is Valentine’s Day, I’ll riffle through Ovid’s Amores (16 BCE), as translated by Peter...
11 months ago
59
11 months ago
Since it is Valentine’s Day, I’ll riffle through Ovid’s Amores (16 BCE), as translated by Peter Green in The Erotic Poems (1982) and Christopher Marlowe as Ovid’s Elegies (1599).  A statement of purpose: I, Ovid, poet of my wantonness, Born at Peligny, to write more address. So...
The American Scholar
Ups and Downs The post Ups and Downs appeared first on The American Scholar.
a month ago
The Elysian
Writing Prompt: Fix Capitalism By September 30th.
4 months ago
The American Scholar
Bathing Badasses Vicki Valosik gets submerged in the history of synchronized swimming The post Bathing Badasses...
6 months ago
43
6 months ago
Vicki Valosik gets submerged in the history of synchronized swimming The post Bathing Badasses appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
What It Takes to Grow: Pioneering Psychoanalyst Karen Horney on the Key to Self-Realization "Self-knowledge... is not an aim in itself, but a means of liberating the forces of spontaneous...
a year ago
82
a year ago
"Self-knowledge... is not an aim in itself, but a means of liberating the forces of spontaneous growth. In this sense, to work at ourselves becomes not only the prime moral obligation, but... the prime moral privilege."
Josh Thompson
Overcome (some) barriers in work with this magic phrase You’re sending an email to your boss about some decision point you’re facing. How should you word...
over a year ago
8
over a year ago
You’re sending an email to your boss about some decision point you’re facing. How should you word it? Compare this wording: Let me know if my criteria are sound, or if you have any concerns. I’d like to get started as soon as possible. To this wording: Unless I hear otherwise,...
Josh Thompson
Habits, Milestones, and Climbing Since April 9th, I have spent exactly 70 minutes training for climbing. Prior to April 27th, I have...
over a year ago
5
over a year ago
Since April 9th, I have spent exactly 70 minutes training for climbing. Prior to April 27th, I have climbed exactly seven times in the last five months. I just spent two days at the New River Gorge and exceeded my expectations, considering my almost half-year hiatus from regular...
Ben Borgers
Trash Bags in the Laundry Room
over a year ago
The Marginalian
Time and the Soul: Philosopher Jacob Needleman on Our Search for Meaning "The real significance of our problem with time... is a crisis of meaning... The root of our modern...
11 months ago
21
11 months ago
"The real significance of our problem with time... is a crisis of meaning... The root of our modern problem with time is neither technological, sociological, economic nor psychological. It is metaphysical. It is a question of the meaning of human life itself."
Anecdotal Evidence
'What Is Called an Amateur' I recently encountered a choice example of academic snobbery, the lording of a tenured professor...
a year ago
54
a year ago
I recently encountered a choice example of academic snobbery, the lording of a tenured professor over lecturers, adjuncts and even “mere assistant professors.” Normally the perpetrator tries to disguise his snottiness or treat it as a joke but in this case the prima donna was...
Josh Thompson
How to take payments via Stripe on a Static Site I’ve had rolling around my head an idea of selling small how-to guides and resources. Things that I...
over a year ago
6
over a year ago
I’ve had rolling around my head an idea of selling small how-to guides and resources. Things that I wish existed, but have never been able to find. For example, I’ve read a bunch of books that talk about good Object-Oriented design, or refactoring code, or writing better tests....
The American Scholar
“What a Strange Path” Three new prompts The post “What a Strange Path” appeared first on The American Scholar.
3 weeks ago
This Space
39 Books: 1993 I've written about Gert Hofmann's novels a few times, most recently Veilchenfeld (Our Philosopher in...
8 months ago
36
8 months ago
I've written about Gert Hofmann's novels a few times, most recently Veilchenfeld (Our Philosopher in the US edition), but not his short stories. In the year Hofmann died aged only 62, I bought and read Balzac's Horse and other stories in the wonderful Minerva paperback imprint....
The Marginalian
The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows: Uncommonly Lovely Invented Words for What We Feel but Cannot Name "Despite what dictionaries would have us believe, this world is still mostly undefined."
9 months ago
Escaping Flatland
Advice from my editor A sculptural representation of JS Bach’s Fugue in E Flat Minor by Henrik Neugeboren “I can’t make...
6 months ago
68
6 months ago
A sculptural representation of JS Bach’s Fugue in E Flat Minor by Henrik Neugeboren “I can’t make myself finish this one,” Johanna said one night when we were reading together in bed. She was working her way through a 6021-word essay draft about identities as interfaces that I...
The Elysian
Idea Labs! An open thread for collaborative worldbuilding Let's brainstorm the future together.
9 months ago
The American Scholar
“The Peace of Wild Things” by Wendell Berry Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “The Peace of Wild Things” by Wendell Berry appeared first on...
6 months ago
69
6 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “The Peace of Wild Things” by Wendell Berry appeared first on The American Scholar.
Astral Codex Ten
Open Thread 361 ...
2 weeks ago
The Elysian
Humanity from the perspective of robots Talking points for our literary salon next week.
8 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Relief, Joy, or Nostalgia' “Of course, no one simply reads, or rereads, a given book. One reads a certain edition at a specific...
8 months ago
63
8 months ago
“Of course, no one simply reads, or rereads, a given book. One reads a certain edition at a specific time in one’s life, and the particular book’s smell, typeface, and paper can be as much a part of the experience as one’s physical and emotional circumstances.”  I used to think...
Steven Scrawls
Word Rot Word Rot Unless you are extraordinarily unfortunate, every problem you ever face will have been...
a year ago
7
a year ago
Word Rot Unless you are extraordinarily unfortunate, every problem you ever face will have been faced in some form by someone who came before you. That person may have already shared the story of that challenge, and that story might have melded with other tales to form collective...
Anecdotal Evidence
'With Squeaky Wit the Light, Improper Verse' Without context or other clue, who do you think might have written this tart...
7 months ago
46
7 months ago
Without context or other clue, who do you think might have written this tart little couplet?:  “With squeaky wit the light, improper verse Falls on the heavy lunch and makes it worse.”   I first encountered him in the eighth grade, in English class. He was sold to us as the “poet...
Josh Thompson
Rails Migration: When you can't add a uniqueness constraint because you already have duplicates I get to occasionally contribute to the Wombat Security dev blog. I wrote the following for...
over a year ago
7
over a year ago
I get to occasionally contribute to the Wombat Security dev blog. I wrote the following for development.wombatsecurity.com. This post has been updated to reflect some lessons learned while running this migration in production. Don’t leave a column without an index at any point in...
Escaping Flatland
Swimming in July Just the pure physical joy of thrashing your arms around in water. To fill the kid’s buckets and...
5 months ago
58
5 months ago
Just the pure physical joy of thrashing your arms around in water. To fill the kid’s buckets and throw it at the sun—the way the water falls apart into drops, and then into mist, the way a rainbow appears for a second and is gone.
The Marginalian
Fox and Bear: A Tender Modern Fable About Reversing the Anthropocene, Illustrated in Cut-Cardboard... An antidote to the civilizational compulsions that rob human nature of nature.
a year ago
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...
8 months ago
45
8 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...
The Marginalian
But We Had Music: Nick Cave Reads an Animated Poem about Black Holes, Eternity, and How to Bear Our... How, knowing that even the universe is dying, do we bear our lives? Most readily, through...
9 months ago
38
9 months ago
How, knowing that even the universe is dying, do we bear our lives? Most readily, through friendship, through connection, through co-creating the world we want to live in for the brief time we have together on this lonely, perfect planet. The seventh annual Universe in Verse — a...
Escaping Flatland
Having a shit blog has made me feel abundant From Giacometti’s sketch book
3 months ago
Josh Thompson
Turing Prep Chapter 2: Run your first tests (and make them pass) Preparing for Turing Series Index What follows is an eight-part series that will help you pick up...
over a year ago
6
over a year ago
Preparing for Turing Series Index What follows is an eight-part series that will help you pick up useful information about a number of topics related to Ruby, specifically geared for students learning the Ruby programming language, as part of the Turing School’s Backend Software...
Wuthering...
Books I read, and desks I saw, in July - hoping he might tell me, / tell me what the waves don't... Right, July, July, so long ago.  I was on the road a little bit, making literary pilgrimages. ...
5 months ago
47
5 months ago
Right, July, July, so long ago.  I was on the road a little bit, making literary pilgrimages.  Pittsfield, Massachusetts, for example, to Herman Melville’s Arrowhead: On this spot, not at this exact desk but in front of this exact window, Herman Melville wrote Moby-Dick,...
The Marginalian
How to Be a Living Poem: Lucille Clifton on the Balance of Intellect and Intuition in Creative Work... "I didn’t graduate from college, which isn’t necessary to be a poet. It is only necessary to be...
a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Not At All Abashed Before the Fact' “We do not go to cowards for tender dealing; there is nothing so cruel as panic; the man who has...
a year ago
13
a year ago
“We do not go to cowards for tender dealing; there is nothing so cruel as panic; the man who has least fear for his own carcass, has most time to consider others.”  What a remarkable sentence, one I would never have the guts to write. It’s not the sentiment but the form that’s so...
The American Scholar
Imperiled Planet The ecological havoc we’ve wrought The post Imperiled Planet appeared first on The American Scholar.
4 months ago
23
4 months ago
The ecological havoc we’ve wrought The post Imperiled Planet appeared first on The American Scholar.
Ben Borgers
Tufts Meal Plan Wrapped
10 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Probity Was Perhaps the Highest Good' As a newspaper reporter I covered only one capital murder trial. This was in rural Indiana in 1983....
9 months ago
18
9 months ago
As a newspaper reporter I covered only one capital murder trial. This was in rural Indiana in 1983. At the age of eighteen, William Spranger had fatally shot a town marshal, William Miner, in the back with the officer’s service revolver. The jury found Spranger guilty and Judge...
Wuthering...
Books I read in March 2024 - Literature was a game of pillaging, and this book showed it. A nice little run at Persian literature this month.  And I am reading in Portuguese again,...
9 months ago
31
9 months ago
A nice little run at Persian literature this month.  And I am reading in Portuguese again, slowly, slowly. PERSIAN LITERATURE, MOSTLY CLASSICAL Shahnameh: The Persian Book of Kings (1110),  Abolqasem Ferdowsi – See here for notes on this big epic in Dick Davis’s translation. The...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Life Is So Long' Several years ago I was diagnosed with a condition called MGUS (pronounced EM-gus) -- monoclonal...
9 months ago
24
9 months ago
Several years ago I was diagnosed with a condition called MGUS (pronounced EM-gus) -- monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance. It’s a symptom-less and in most cases benign disorder, but it can be a precursor to multiple myeloma. It means I see my oncologist once a...
Escaping Flatland
Morning ritual + reading recommendations
11 months ago
Josh Thompson
Playing with the HTTP send/response cycle in Ruby, without Faraday ("HTTP Yeah You Know Me" project) As part of the HTTP Server project. First, I’m working through Practicing Ruby’s “Implementing an...
over a year ago
8
over a year ago
As part of the HTTP Server project. First, I’m working through Practicing Ruby’s “Implementing an HTTP File Server” for general practice and understanding. I’m going to use Postman to capture traffic and try to replicate some of the things the guides reference. Lastly, I just...
ben-mini
Root Canals and Bill Gates In Finding Nemo, there was a scene about a root canal surgery that absolutely terrified me: This...
6 months ago
4
6 months ago
In Finding Nemo, there was a scene about a root canal surgery that absolutely terrified me: This could just be me, but I spent a remarkable amount of my childhood worrying about root canals. Horror stories like these created a universal phobia that dentists suck and that’s...
The Marginalian
An Illustrated Ode to Love’s Secret Knowledge When Dante wrote of “the Love that moves the Sun and the other stars,” he was shining a sidewise...
3 months ago
42
3 months ago
When Dante wrote of “the Love that moves the Sun and the other stars,” he was shining a sidewise gleam on the secret knowledge of the universe, the knowledge by which everything coheres. All love is an outstretched hand of curiosity reaching for knowledge — a tender...
The Marginalian
Some Thoughts about the Ocean and the Universe How to bear the gravity of being.
a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Taking Your Time, Angel of Death' I like plain speaking when it comes to death. Not needlessly harsh but direct and above all...
a month ago
30
a month ago
I like plain speaking when it comes to death. Not needlessly harsh but direct and above all unvarnished, no flowers, closer to a coroner’s report than a greeting card. A well-meaning reader has sent belated condolences for my brother’s death in August without once using any of...
The Marginalian
Kinship in the Light of Conscience: Peter Kropotkin on the Crucial Difference Between Love,... “Every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you,” Whitman wrote in what may be the most elemental...
4 months ago
36
4 months ago
“Every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you,” Whitman wrote in what may be the most elemental definition of solidarity — this tender recognition of our interdependence and fundamental kinship, deeper than sympathy, wider than love. Half a century after Whitman’s atomic...
Josh Thompson
Illdefined Success is Unattainable We all probably have a few projects floating around our head, but they seem daunting. If it doesn’t...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
We all probably have a few projects floating around our head, but they seem daunting. If it doesn’t seem daunting, it’s not much of a project, and you should either ramp it up until it’s daunting, or discard it. So - we have a daunting project. Now what? If you’re like me, you’ll...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Never Has a Man Deserved a Reputation Less' My middle son, a Marine Corps officer at Quantico, asked last week if I would interested in “working...
a year ago
14
a year ago
My middle son, a Marine Corps officer at Quantico, asked last week if I would interested in “working through Wittgenstein” with him. Of course, so we met online on Sunday for ninety minutes and read propositions 1 and 2 of his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. I first read the book...
sbensu
Breaking changes in JSON APIs A collection of common breaking changes to JSON APIs for you to keep in mind as you design.
a year ago
The American Scholar
“Planetarium” by Adrienne Rich Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Planetarium” by Adrienne Rich appeared first on The American...
8 months ago
62
8 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Planetarium” by Adrienne Rich appeared first on The American Scholar.
Ben Borgers
I Keep Rewriting My Personal Website
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Nor, Quitted Once, Can It Be Quite Recalled' I think we have fetishized age thirteen. It’s linguistic: the first -teen, as though that were some...
a month ago
20
a month ago
I think we have fetishized age thirteen. It’s linguistic: the first -teen, as though that were some rite of passage. I remember awaiting that age with trepidation, uncertain what was expected of me. I knew contemporaries who were already shaving and one who was pregnant. (Where...
Anecdotal Evidence
'An Open-ended Project' Two writers separated by language, experience and two and a half centuries make...
10 months ago
27
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 Marginalian
Bunny & Tree: A Tender Wordless Parable of Friendship and the Improbable Saviors That Make Life... Traversing the landscape of life on the wings of trust.
a year ago
This Space
39 Books: 1989 Nowadays I would be put off reading a book labelled controversial and exciting gossipy attention on...
8 months ago
32
8 months ago
Nowadays I would be put off reading a book labelled controversial and exciting gossipy attention on TV and in newspapers, but in 1989 I read Alexander Stuart's The War Zone that did exactly that. It was later made into a controversial film. The only thing I remember of the...
The Marginalian
Poetic Ecology and the Biology of Wonder "The real disconnect is not between our human nature and all the other beings; it is between our...
a year ago
62
a year ago
"The real disconnect is not between our human nature and all the other beings; it is between our image of our nature and our real nature."
ribbonfarm
Decision Brownouts In thinking about decision-making under stress, most people focus on fight-or-flight responses. Both...
8 months ago
7
8 months ago
In thinking about decision-making under stress, most people focus on fight-or-flight responses. Both fighting and fleeing are obvious courses of action that inherit a clear sense of direction from the characteristics of the threat itself, and are energized by the automatic...
Josh Thompson
Mythical Creatures: Refactoring wizard.rb Preparing for Turing Series Index What follows is an eight-part series that will help you pick up...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
Preparing for Turing Series Index What follows is an eight-part series that will help you pick up useful information about a number of topics related to Ruby, specifically geared for students learning the Ruby programming language, as part of the Turing School’s Backend Software...
The Marginalian
A Republic of the Sensitive: E.M. Forster on the Personal and Political Power of Empaths and the... "I believe in... an aristocracy of the sensitive, the considerate and the plucky. Its members are to...
2 months ago
29
2 months ago
"I believe in... an aristocracy of the sensitive, the considerate and the plucky. Its members are to be found in all nations and classes, and all through the ages, and there is a secret understanding between them when they meet."
The American Scholar
Sienna Martz Sculpting the detritus of fast fashion The post Sienna Martz appeared first on The American Scholar.
2 months ago
34
2 months ago
Sculpting the detritus of fast fashion The post Sienna Martz appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
Trader Joe's Parking Lot Hey Trader Joe’s, This is a bit of an open letter, inspired by a recent visit to the local Trader...
a year ago
4
a year ago
Hey Trader Joe’s, This is a bit of an open letter, inspired by a recent visit to the local Trader Joe’s. I just moved to this part of Denver, and now for the first time am living within like a 3 minute scoot of a Trader Joe’s. I know that some people like to complain about...
Ben Borgers
Why I Love Tailwind CSS
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'An Impetuous Eagerness to Subvert' Dr. Johnson describes the poet and physician Mark Akenside: “He certainly retained an unnecessary...
6 months ago
61
6 months ago
Dr. Johnson describes the poet and physician Mark Akenside: “He certainly retained an unnecessary and outrageous zeal for what he called and thought liberty; a zeal which sometimes disguises from the world, and not rarely from the mind which it possesses, an envious desire of...
Anecdotal Evidence
'It's on the Russian Level' “I’m not a great reader of fiction. I read through all of Jane Austen with pleasure. I read through...
5 months ago
32
5 months ago
“I’m not a great reader of fiction. I read through all of Jane Austen with pleasure. I read through George Eliot at school, but I was too young to appreciate her then. But about a year ago I read Middlemarch. Most marvellous book. Best thing in nineteenth-century English fiction,...
The Marginalian
The Moon and the Yew Tree: Patti Smith Reads Sylvia Plath’s Haunting Portrait of Depression "This is the light of the mind, cold and planetary."
a year ago
The Marginalian
Flowers for Things I Don’t Know How to Say: A Tender Painted Lexicon of Consolation and Connection “To be a Flower is profound Responsibility,” Emily Dickinson wrote. From the moment she pressed the...
8 months ago
62
8 months ago
“To be a Flower is profound Responsibility,” Emily Dickinson wrote. From the moment she pressed the first wildflower into her astonishing teenage herbarium until the moment Susan pinned a violet to her alabaster chest in the casket, she filled her poems with flowers and made of...
Wuthering...
The Story of the Stone, volume 2 - all agreed that this was the definitive poem on the subject of... I have continued on with The Story of the Stone, the 2,500 page 18th century Chinese novel by, or...
a month ago
29
a month ago
I have continued on with The Story of the Stone, the 2,500 page 18th century Chinese novel by, or mostly by, Cao Xueqin.  Here I will write about the second volume of the David Hawkes translation, The Crab-flower Club.  Last time, after reading the first fifth of the novel, I...
sbensu
Creative kernels Artists can often trace entire pieces around one idea that drives everything else.
6 months ago
The Elysian
Week 4: One pitch several places
9 months ago
The Marginalian
The Rigor of Angels: Human Nature and the Nature of Reality "What we are striving for lies inside us; we find ourselves in the world and the world in...
a year ago
Josh Thompson
Why Your Belayer is Keeping You from Climbing Hard(er) Since climbing regularly again (!!!), I’ve observed lots of belaying in the gym. I can’t walk up to...
over a year ago
6
over a year ago
Since climbing regularly again (!!!), I’ve observed lots of belaying in the gym. I can’t walk up to a stranger and say “Excuse me, sir, I noticed that your poor belaying is totally crippling your climber’s ability to try hard, and actively eliminating any hope you had of...
The Elysian
Week 5: Write one (pitchable) think piece
9 months ago
The American Scholar
The Next New Thing In architecture, the gulf between the traditional and the modern seems wider than ever before The...
6 months ago
23
6 months ago
In architecture, the gulf between the traditional and the modern seems wider than ever before The post The Next New Thing appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
The Weight of a Stone Searching for stability in an erratic world led Oliver Sacks and other writers to the realms of...
a week ago
16
a week ago
Searching for stability in an erratic world led Oliver Sacks and other writers to the realms of geology The post The Weight of a Stone appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Recon Patrol Is a Small Unit' “A 21-year old Marine Corporal leading his first patrol — a 10-man Reconnaissance Team — kept a cool...
5 months ago
43
5 months ago
“A 21-year old Marine Corporal leading his first patrol — a 10-man Reconnaissance Team — kept a cool head in a tight situation.”  Long before he was a poet and publisher, R.L. Barth in 1968-69 was a Marine serving as a patrol leader in the 1st Reconnaissance Battalion in Vietnam....
Ben Borgers
Productivity YouTubers
over a year ago
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
27
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...
The Marginalian
Nobel-Winning Poet Joseph Brodsky on the Remedy for Existential Boredom "Try to stay passionate, leave your cool to constellations. Passion, above all, is a remedy against...
6 months ago
43
6 months ago
"Try to stay passionate, leave your cool to constellations. Passion, above all, is a remedy against boredom. Another one, of course, is pain... passion's frequent aftermath."
Ben Borgers
The Brain Can Observe Itself
over a year ago
sbensu
How to avoid breaking APIs The main trick is to design them with extension in mind so that you won't have to break them later.
a year ago
7
a year ago
The main trick is to design them with extension in mind so that you won't have to break them later.
Josh Thompson
Book Notes: 'The Case Against Sugar' by Gary Taube In the last few weeks, I read The Case Against Sugar by Gary Taubes. I found it to be compelling...
over a year ago
6
over a year ago
In the last few weeks, I read The Case Against Sugar by Gary Taubes. I found it to be compelling (more on that in a moment) and I want to be impacted by them. I want the daily decisions that I make to be subtly influenced by this author and these books. Related but in a different...
The American Scholar
Agent 37 The post Agent 37 appeared first on The American Scholar.
7 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Vacuum with American Light' Edward Hopper is often a favorite painter of literary-minded people because, I suspect, so many of...
8 months ago
63
8 months ago
Edward Hopper is often a favorite painter of literary-minded people because, I suspect, so many of his works suggest in-media-res excerpts from larger narratives. Looking as his paintings is like opening a novel to a memorable scene, without access to backstory or subsequent...
The Marginalian
Octavia Butler’s Advice on Writing "No matter how tired you get, no matter how you feel like you can’t possibly do this, somehow you...
a year ago
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...
2 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'That Other Thermopylae, the Alamo' A reader asks for impressions of Texas, a place she, a lifelong Northerner, has never visited....
7 months ago
50
7 months ago
A reader asks for impressions of Texas, a place she, a lifelong Northerner, has never visited. Twenty years ago last month I saw Texas for the first time, and the first surprise, seen from the air, was abundant greenery. I was expecting desert and tumbleweeds. Houston is...
Ben Borgers
Not Developer Enough
over a year ago
Josh Thompson
Mocks & Stubs & Exceptions in Ruby Some of my recent work has been around improving error handling and logging. We had some tasks that,...
over a year ago
6
over a year ago
Some of my recent work has been around improving error handling and logging. We had some tasks that, if they failed to execute correctly, were supposed to raise exceptions, log themselves, and re-queue, but they were not. The class in which I was working managed in large part API...
The Elysian
Social Development > Self-Development We need one much more than the other.
a week ago
The Marginalian
Excellent Advice for Living: Kevin Kelly’s Life-Tested Wisdom He Wished He Knew Earlier "The chief prevention against getting old is to remain astonished."
a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'To Amuse and Gratify Her Own Self' In her first collection, A Good Time Was Had By All (1937), Stevie Smith includes a couplet already...
a year ago
17
a year ago
In her first collection, A Good Time Was Had By All (1937), Stevie Smith includes a couplet already suggesting themes that would go on preoccupying her:   “All things pass Love and mankind is grass”.   In scripture, grass is the default metaphor for the transience of life. In the...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Laurels All Are Cut' A thoughtful reader, knowing of my fondness for A.E. Housman’s poems, has sent me the English...
10 months ago
17
10 months ago
A thoughtful reader, knowing of my fondness for A.E. Housman’s poems, has sent me the English composer John Ireland’s 1928 setting for a verse from Last Poems (1922, that literary annus mirabilis). The baritone is Mark Stone; the pianist, Sholto Kynoch. Here is Housman’s poem,...
The Elysian
It's ok to live in a fantasyland That's the joy of being a writer.
2 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'They Will Leave Behind Trenches' “You wouldn’t give up utopia it was too nourishing seductive / For mommy’s boys the heirs of fortune...
2 months ago
39
2 months ago
“You wouldn’t give up utopia it was too nourishing seductive / For mommy’s boys the heirs of fortune heirs / To the bloody myths of the twentieth city.”  Today is the centenary of Polish poet and essayist Zbigniew Herbert. The Anglophone world has been fortunate. Herbert’s poems...
The Marginalian
The Courage to Be Yourself: Virginia Woolf on How to Hear Your Soul "Beyond the difficulty of communicating oneself, there is the supreme difficulty of being oneself."
a year ago
The Marginalian
The Ant, the Grasshopper, and the Antidote to the Cult of More: A Lovely Vintage Illustrated Poem... “Enough is so vast a sweetness, I suppose it never occurs, only pathetic counterfeits,” Emily...
a year ago
14
a year ago
“Enough is so vast a sweetness, I suppose it never occurs, only pathetic counterfeits,” Emily Dickinson lamented in a love letter. In his splendid short poem about the secret of happiness, Kurt Vonnegut exposed the taproot of our modern suffering as the gnawing sense that what we...
The American Scholar
“Spring” by J. R. Solonche Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Spring” by J. R. Solonche appeared first on The American...
8 months ago
27
8 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Spring” by J. R. Solonche appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
No New Books I’ve promised myself that I won’t add any more books to my Kindle, either by purchasing them from...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
I’ve promised myself that I won’t add any more books to my Kindle, either by purchasing them from Amazon, or downloading them online, or renting them from a Library. Why? I’ve let reading about doing things stand in the way of doing the things. No amount of educational literature...
Wuthering...
The Story of the Stone, fairy tale and realism - Not so wonderful, really, is it? I left the characters of The Story of the Stone as they were buying drapes and tablecloths for a...
3 months ago
43
3 months ago
I left the characters of The Story of the Stone as they were buying drapes and tablecloths for a party.  I will rejoin the party planning momentarily. The Story of the Stone is a massive domestic novel about an extended family.  The main plot is the teenage love triangle, but...
Anecdotal Evidence
'We Toated Him' R.L. Barth, a Marine Corps veteran of the Vietnam War, has written a new poem, “Exercise”:  “The...
a year ago
14
a year ago
R.L. Barth, a Marine Corps veteran of the Vietnam War, has written a new poem, “Exercise”:  “The chopper landed; in full combat gear We loaded single file to practice rappelling Into a jungle lacking an LZ. The exercise aborted when a cherry, Some private with a couple weeks...
Josh Thompson
Parenting: A Place for Sources And Stories As some of us are or might be, I “am a parent”, or I “have a child”, or something like that. This is...
7 months ago
6
7 months ago
As some of us are or might be, I “am a parent”, or I “have a child”, or something like that. This is complex for me to write and engage with, because something that is certainly true for all of us is that we “have a parent” or we “have been a child”. To talk about any of it is to...
The American Scholar
Cancer The post Cancer appeared first on The American Scholar.
4 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Companionable Room' I had a minor problem with the university library’s catalog. When I requested two books stored...
11 months ago
15
11 months ago
I had a minor problem with the university library’s catalog. When I requested two books stored off-site in the Library Service Center I got this message: “No items can fulfill the submitted request.” That made no sense and I couldn’t figure out a way around the roadblock, so I...
The Marginalian
The Hot Shower as Uncommon Prayer One of the paradoxes of being alive is that it is often through the extremes of sensation, through...
12 hours ago
7
12 hours ago
One of the paradoxes of being alive is that it is often through the extremes of sensation, through the shock of having a body, that we come most proximate to the subtleties of the soul. Walt Whitman knew this: “If the body is not the soul,” he sang electric, “what is the soul?”...
Anecdotal Evidence
'One I Loved Taught Here, Provoking Strife' When Yvor Winters retired from the Stanford English Department in 1966 after almost forty years, the...
2 months ago
32
2 months ago
When Yvor Winters retired from the Stanford English Department in 1966 after almost forty years, the university published a commemorative volume, Laurel, Archaic, Rude: A Collection of Poems. It gathers twenty-six poems written by former students, including Edgar Bowers,...
Josh Thompson
Be a little better at personal email The next bunch of posts will be me “clearing out the drawers” of notes I have scattered across my...
over a year ago
6
over a year ago
The next bunch of posts will be me “clearing out the drawers” of notes I have scattered across my phone, computer, and brain. There is no unifying theme to what will be written here. Three recommendations to email better TL;DR Email should usually be as short as possible. More of...
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
27
8 months ago
A brief look at a grand narrative The post Interlude: The Idea of “The West” appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
Moonlight and the Magic of the Unnecessary Every night, for every human being that ever was and ever will be, the Moon rises to remind us how...
10 months ago
56
10 months ago
Every night, for every human being that ever was and ever will be, the Moon rises to remind us how improbably lucky we are, each of its craters a monument of the odds we prevailed against to exist, a reliquary of the violent collisions that forged our rocky planet lush with life...
Wuthering...
Ovid's Metamorhpses, Canto 6 - the sexual assaults - Because the lewdness of the Gods was so blazed... Back to Ovid. First, I have just begun Paul Barolsky’s Ovid and the Metamorphoses of Modern Art...
11 months ago
25
11 months ago
Back to Ovid. First, I have just begun Paul Barolsky’s Ovid and the Metamorphoses of Modern Art from Boticelli to Picasso (2014), a work of art history about Ovid written in the spirit of Ovid.  The book is of the highest interest, and is a long way from the catalogue of...
The Marginalian
The Fairy Tale Tree Creativity is at bottom the combinatorial work of memory and imagination. All of our impressions,...
12 months ago
21
12 months ago
Creativity is at bottom the combinatorial work of memory and imagination. All of our impressions, influences, and experiences — every sight we have ever seen, every book read, every landscape walked, every love loved — become seeds for ideas we later combine and recombine,...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Everyone He Knew Something About' A reader who enjoys the novels of Sinclair Lewis tells me she is put off by the length and dullness...
2 months ago
21
2 months ago
A reader who enjoys the novels of Sinclair Lewis tells me she is put off by the length and dullness of Mark Schorer’s 1961 biography of the Nobel laureate. I haven’t read Lewis since high school and have never read Schorer’s 867-page behemoth but I sympathize. I remember reading...
Josh Thompson
A message for high schoolers tl;dr: Before you start looking at colleges, be able to discuss coherently the following three...
over a year ago
6
over a year ago
tl;dr: Before you start looking at colleges, be able to discuss coherently the following three topics: Credentialism Signaling Opportunity cost If you can wrap your head around that, you’ll be ahead of most of your peers. I’ve got a few links for you farther down in this...
Steven Scrawls
Easy Questions, Part 2: Delusional Desires in Fiction Easy Questions, Part 2: Delusional Desires in Fiction In Part 1, I examined a few common tropes in...
7 months ago
6
7 months ago
Easy Questions, Part 2: Delusional Desires in Fiction In Part 1, I examined a few common tropes in stories and suggested that some stories might explore certain questions not because those questions are interesting, but because engaging with those questions allows the story to...
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...
6 months ago
59
6 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...
ribbonfarm
Ribbonfarm is Retiring After several years of keeping it going in semi-retired, keep-the-lights-on (KTLO) mode, I’ve...
3 months ago
8
3 months ago
After several years of keeping it going in semi-retired, keep-the-lights-on (KTLO) mode, I’ve decided to officially fully retire this blog. The ribbonfarm.com domain and all links will remain active, but there will be no new content after November 13th, 2024, which happens to be...
The Marginalian
The Proper Object of Love: Iris Murdoch on the Angst of Not Knowing Ourselves and Each Other One of the hardest things to learn in life is that the heart is a clock too fast not to break. We...
5 months ago
60
5 months ago
One of the hardest things to learn in life is that the heart is a clock too fast not to break. We lurch into loving, only to discover again and again that it takes a long time to know people, to understand people — and “understanding is love’s other name.” Even without...
Josh Thompson
The Housing Market Is Absolutely Insane: How To Fix It I had a brief exchange with a good friend recently: The housing market is indeed insane. This...
over a year ago
5
over a year ago
I had a brief exchange with a good friend recently: The housing market is indeed insane. This problem that we’re both discussing is: Unbelievable ($650,000 for a fixer upper) Oppressive (“unjustly inflicting hardship and constraint, especially on a minority or other subordinate...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Oaks That Were Acorns That Were Oaks' We hear acorns hitting the roof of the house and the cars. It makes the cats nervous and sounds like...
a year ago
39
a year ago
We hear acorns hitting the roof of the house and the cars. It makes the cats nervous and sounds like slow hail. The crop this year is prodigious. The patio is covered with them, more than the squirrels can keep up with. Stomping on them make a satisfying crack/pop sound. I’ve...
The American Scholar
Up Close The post Up Close appeared first on The American Scholar.
4 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Very Close to the Caliber of Mark Twain' I found a 2001 interview with Shelby Foote in The American Enterprise. The author of the three...
3 months ago
41
3 months ago
I found a 2001 interview with Shelby Foote in The American Enterprise. The author of the three volumes of The Civil War: A Narrative (1958-1974) was asked by Bill Kauffman about the scarcity of politicians who are today capable of formulating their own coherent let alone eloquent...
Josh Thompson
A Small Goal is Better than a Grand Plan We all have grand plans. Who’s future projection of themselves goes something like this: “One day,...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
We all have grand plans. Who’s future projection of themselves goes something like this: “One day, when I’m rich (goal one), location independent (goal two), and married to a fabulous woman (goal three), I will travel the world (goal four) while exploring my hobby of ___ (goal...
The 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
The Marginalian
How to Say Goodbye: An Illustrated Field Guide to Accompanying a Loved One at the End of Life "If you don't know what to say, start by saying that... That opens things up."
a year ago
The Marginalian
An Ecology of Intimacies At its best, an intimate relationship is a symbiote of mutual nourishment — a portable ecosystem of...
9 months ago
29
9 months ago
At its best, an intimate relationship is a symbiote of mutual nourishment — a portable ecosystem of interdependent growth, undergirded by a mycelial web of trust and tenderness. One is profoundly changed by it and yet becomes more purely oneself as projections give way to...
Josh Thompson
The Power Broker, Chapter 30: Robert Moses and Mayor Vincent R. Impellitteri Note from Josh: The following is an excerpt of chapter 34 of the Power Broker, called “Moses and the...
a year ago
6
a year ago
Note from Josh: The following is an excerpt of chapter 34 of the Power Broker, called “Moses and the Mayors”. The chapter is about Moses’ relationship with all of the mayors of NYC that overlapped with Moses’ “rule” over NYC. This excerpt covers just one of the mayors’ overlap...
The Marginalian
Comet & Star: A Cosmic Fable about the Rhythms and Consolations of Friendship People pass through our lives and change us, tilting our orbit with their own. Sometimes, if the...
2 months ago
40
2 months ago
People pass through our lives and change us, tilting our orbit with their own. Sometimes, if the common gravitational center is strong enough, they return, they stay. Sometimes they travel on. But they change us all the same. The great consolation of the cosmic order is the...
Ben Borgers
War Room
over a year ago
Josh Thompson
Accomplishments and Achievements We’re encouraged to accomplish and achieve, yes? From birth, we pass milestones. Generally these...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
We’re encouraged to accomplish and achieve, yes? From birth, we pass milestones. Generally these milestones grow in complexity as we add to our abilities - it’s been a while since I’ve been rewarded for not wetting myself - but they are usually on par with our abilities. For...
The American Scholar
All in Your Head The post All in Your Head appeared first on The American Scholar.
a month ago
Josh Thompson
Constraints Constraints are USUALLY seen in a negative light. Google defines it as: a limitation or...
over a year ago
7
over a year ago
Constraints are USUALLY seen in a negative light. Google defines it as: a limitation or restriction Here’s some example constraints that we find in the world around us, which we often view as an annoyance or frustration: I have to be to work by 9a I have to get up at 7a I have...
Ben Borgers
The Code That Keeps Me Alive
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Arid Interrogation' As boys, in our imaginations we tested ourselves. Would we prove courageous in combat? Our fathers...
4 months ago
46
4 months ago
As boys, in our imaginations we tested ourselves. Would we prove courageous in combat? Our fathers had, so we believed, during World War II. Could we withstand torture? These virtues, touched with Hollywood melodrama, seemed like essential aspects of maturity. We wanted to be...
The American Scholar
Catalina Schliebener Muñoz Playing with dolls The post Catalina Schliebener Muñoz appeared first on The American Scholar.
7 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'There Is Brio Enough Here' A word I’ve always liked is brio. It sounds like the name of a commercial product, floor wax or an...
a year ago
15
a year ago
A word I’ve always liked is brio. It sounds like the name of a commercial product, floor wax or an energy drink. We have an Italian restaurant in Houston called Brio. My Italian dictionary translates it as “zest” and the OED gives “liveliness, vivacity, ‘go.’” It suggests...
The Elysian
I'm not going to have kids to save the economy Not on my list of reasons to have children.
8 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Certificate of Naturalization' In our basement was a gray file cabinet we were forbidden to touch. Naturally I opened it and in one...
4 months ago
35
4 months ago
In our basement was a gray file cabinet we were forbidden to touch. Naturally I opened it and in one of the drawers I found an old leather wallet containing the ID cards of a stranger with the surname Kurpiewski. Who is this? Why is the name so similar to ours? I couldn’t ask...
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
12
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...
Josh Thompson
Trip Report: New River Gorge Kristi and I are spending a few weeks in Fayetteville, WV, home of the New River Gorge. There’s...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
Kristi and I are spending a few weeks in Fayetteville, WV, home of the New River Gorge. There’s fantastic climbing here. I climbed with good friends, and was absolutely humbled by how strong they all are. (My defense, at least for the next few weeks, is that I’ve not climbed...
The American Scholar
Our Pets, Our Plates In defense of the furred and the hoofed The post Our Pets, Our Plates appeared first on The American...
7 months ago
66
7 months ago
In defense of the furred and the hoofed The post Our Pets, Our Plates appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'I Wish He Would Explain His Explanation' On this date, April 10, in 1816, Coleridge and Lord Byron met for the only time, at the latter’s...
9 months ago
32
9 months ago
On this date, April 10, in 1816, Coleridge and Lord Byron met for the only time, at the latter’s house in Piccadilly. Earlier, Coleridge had a friend deliver to Byron a copy of his latest and last play, Zapolya, and a letter explaining that for the previous fifteen years he had...
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
13
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...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Appear to the Public to be Some Sort of Miracle' On Christmas Eve 1890, Chekhov writes to his friend and editor Alexi Suvorin:  “I believe in both...
5 months ago
44
5 months ago
On Christmas Eve 1890, Chekhov writes to his friend and editor Alexi Suvorin:  “I believe in both [Robert] Koch and spermine, and I praise the Lord. Kochines, spermines, etc. all appear to the public to be some sort of miracle that has sprung unexpectedly from someone’s head like...
The Marginalian
God, Human, Animal, Machine: Consciousness and Our Search for Meaning in the Age of Artificial... An inquiry into the eternal enchantment of why the world exists.
a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Still to Suruiue in My Immortall Song' Many of the best things in life, so long as they persist, are accompanied by a shadow of...
2 weeks ago
20
2 weeks ago
Many of the best things in life, so long as they persist, are accompanied by a shadow of their disappearance. If fortunate, we learn this lesson early. Their transitoriness becomes part of their charm, whether a cat, a garden or a brother. We are grateful and enjoy them...
The Marginalian
The Merger Self, the Seeker Self, and the Lifelong Challenge of Balancing Intimacy and Independence Each time I see a sparrow inside an airport, I am seized with tenderness for the bird, for living so...
8 months ago
60
8 months ago
Each time I see a sparrow inside an airport, I am seized with tenderness for the bird, for living so acutely and concretely a paradox that haunts our human lives in myriad guises — the difficulty of discerning comfort from entrapment, freedom from peril. It is a paradox rooted in...
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
18
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....
Anecdotal Evidence
'That Lofty Vehicle, High Dudgeon' A friend is studying Greek while reading Emily Wilson’s new translation of the Iliad alongside...
a year ago
15
a year ago
A friend is studying Greek while reading Emily Wilson’s new translation of the Iliad alongside George Chapman’s version of Homer from the seventeenth century. Like me, she’s a reader not a scholar, and like generations of students and common readers I first encountered Chapman...
Anecdotal Evidence
'For the Ordinary Educated Man' I’ve read most of Robert Conquest’s books – history, poetry, fiction – and here is the sole passage...
5 months ago
42
5 months ago
I’ve read most of Robert Conquest’s books – history, poetry, fiction – and here is the sole passage I have almost committed to memory:  “Literature exists for the ordinary educated man, and any literature that actively requires enormous training can be at best of only peripheral...
Ben Borgers
App Identity
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Dead in Their Silences Keep Me in Memory' Edwin Muir (1887-1959) I first knew as the translator with his wife Willa of Kafka’s novels...
a year ago
11
a year ago
Edwin Muir (1887-1959) I first knew as the translator with his wife Willa of Kafka’s novels and stories. I remember chancing on The Castle at the public library in the mid-sixties, knowing nothing about Kafka. Only now do I appreciate the debts incurred – to Kafka, to the Muirs....
This Space
39 Books: 1996 It's a commonplace that in reading novels one can escape the ravages of time. In 1994, I borrowed my...
8 months ago
39
8 months ago
It's a commonplace that in reading novels one can escape the ravages of time. In 1994, I borrowed my student housemate's innocent-looking hardback edition of Nicholson Baker's The Fermata in which Arno Strine writes about how he can actually stop time. The title refers to the...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Now You Are Elsewhere' I came late to the poet Henri Coulette, long after his death in 1988 at age sixty, and promptly fell...
10 months ago
24
10 months ago
I came late to the poet Henri Coulette, long after his death in 1988 at age sixty, and promptly fell for his charms. Chief among them are elegance, technical virtuosity, wit and devotion to his native turf, Southern California. Like one of his favorite writers, Raymond Chandler,...
This Space
39 Books: 2001 In 1995 I found this hardback edition in the British History section of a Brighton bookshop six...
8 months ago
59
8 months ago
In 1995 I found this hardback edition in the British History section of a Brighton bookshop six years after the French original was cited by Gabriel Josipovici as one of his books of the year: "a beautifully controlled examination of the effect on [Roubaud] of his wife's death...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Diana Steads Him Nothing, He Must Stay' For earned emotional intensity, especially coming from a man seldom associated with emotion, you...
a year ago
16
a year ago
For earned emotional intensity, especially coming from a man seldom associated with emotion, you can hardly outdo A.E. Housman, as recounted by one of his students in Richard Perceval Graves’ A. E. Housman: The Scholar-Poet (1979):   “One morning in May, 1914, when the trees in...
Anecdotal Evidence
'We Live Missing Something' Four years late, I’ve read Gary Saul Morson’s “Poet of Loneliness,” his review of Fifty-Two Stories...
9 months ago
29
9 months ago
Four years late, I’ve read Gary Saul Morson’s “Poet of Loneliness,” his review of Fifty-Two Stories (Knopf, 2020), a Chekhov translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. I ordered the collection early in the COVID-19 lockdown and will always associate it with the other...
Josh Thompson
Be Gentle to You There are many types of people in the world, all with different approaches to “getting stuff done”....
over a year ago
6
over a year ago
There are many types of people in the world, all with different approaches to “getting stuff done”. My approach to doing stuff is different from my wife’s approach. (Who’da thunk?) These two years of marriage have revealed much. One of these “revelations” was this: my sense of...
Ben Borgers
60 kHz
over a year ago
Wuthering...
Wealth by Aristophanes - gout here, pot bellies there, ... obesity beyond all bounds We saw Sophocles and Euripides end their long careers with masterpieces, but we do not have that...
over a year ago
49
over a year ago
We saw Sophocles and Euripides end their long careers with masterpieces, but we do not have that luck with Aristophanes.  Wealth (388 BCE) is thin, scattershot, perhaps even a bit defeated or exhausted. The conceit is as usual excellent.  Plutus, the god of wealth, is freed...
Blog -...
Book Review - Dancing Naked in the Mind Field Dancing Naked in the Mind Field, the autobiography of Kary Mullis, published in 1998, is...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
Dancing Naked in the Mind Field, the autobiography of Kary Mullis, published in 1998, is reminiscent of another Nobel Prize winning autobiography, Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!. Dr. Mullis and Dr. Feynman had a great deal in common, including their incomprehensible...
The Marginalian
Center of the Universe: Non-Speaking Autistic Poet Hannah Emerson’s Extraordinary Poem About How to... "Please try to go to hell frequently because you will find the light there."
a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'And Talked Down Speechless Death' In my November 1 post I asked, “Does anyone know anything about Edward Case?” I had stumbled on a...
a week ago
19
a week ago
In my November 1 post I asked, “Does anyone know anything about Edward Case?” I had stumbled on a gifted poet previously unknown to me who had died in 1985. This week I heard from his son James Case, an architect living in New Jersey, who briefed me on his father and his work....
Josh Thompson
Turing Prep Chapter 3: Moar Mythical Creatures Preparing for Turing Series Index What follows is an eight-part series that will help you pick up...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
Preparing for Turing Series Index What follows is an eight-part series that will help you pick up useful information about a number of topics related to Ruby, specifically geared for students learning the Ruby programming language, as part of the Turing School’s Backend Software...
This Space
39 Books: 1994 Given that my undergraduate degree was in Philosophy, it may seem odd that this the first book of...
8 months ago
66
8 months ago
Given that my undergraduate degree was in Philosophy, it may seem odd that this the first book of philosophy in the series. Many will say it is not a book of philosophy at all. That would explain why I gorged on Nick Land's The Thirst for Annihilation: Georges Bataille and...
Ben Borgers
Have Your Cake and Eat It Too
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Let the Words Glide Through the Air' Some years ago, out of the blue, a reader whose name I have forgotten sent me a copy of No Earthly...
a year ago
34
a year ago
Some years ago, out of the blue, a reader whose name I have forgotten sent me a copy of No Earthly Estate: The Religious Poetry of Patrick Kavanagh (The Columba Press, Dublin, 2002) by Father Tom Stack. I was grateful because it sent me back to the Irish poet (1904-67) who seems...
The Elysian
The "letters to an anarchist" post-mortem Peter and I discuss our letter writing series.
a month ago
Ben Borgers
Waking up Early
over a year ago
The Marginalian
The Science of Tears and the Art of Crying: An Illustrated Manifesto for Reclaiming Our Deepest... “All the poems of our lives are not yet made. We hear them crying to us,” Muriel Rukeyser writes in...
2 months ago
29
2 months ago
“All the poems of our lives are not yet made. We hear them crying to us,” Muriel Rukeyser writes in her timeless ode to the power of poetry. “Cry, heart, but never break,” entreats one of my favorite children’s books — which, at their best, are always philosophies for living. It...
The American Scholar
Laura S. Lewis Welding trash into treasure The post Laura S. Lewis appeared first on The American Scholar.
8 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Life Is Slow Dying' One of Philip Larkin’s most technically adept poems, “Here,” is never self-consciously flashy,...
a year ago
9
a year ago
One of Philip Larkin’s most technically adept poems, “Here,” is never self-consciously flashy, though the first of its three sentences is twenty-five lines long. Its earliest readers perhaps flipped past it in The Whitsun Weddings (1964) -- it’s the first poem in the collection –...
The Perry Bible...
Invasion The post Invasion appeared first on The Perry Bible Fellowship.
a month ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'I Suppose Age Brings Context' An old friend and former blogger in England has been reading Anthony Hecht and detects what he calls...
3 months ago
31
3 months ago
An old friend and former blogger in England has been reading Anthony Hecht and detects what he calls “a very faint ghost of Hart Crane at times.” It’s not a connection I have ever made but I recognize a certain lushness of diction in both of them.  “[I]t's a similar sense of...
Anecdotal Evidence
‘A Pocket Universe’ We lost power again around noon Saturday. No idea when it will be restored. Here is “The Next Book,”...
7 months ago
63
7 months ago
We lost power again around noon Saturday. No idea when it will be restored. Here is “The Next Book,” a 1969 poem by James Hayford (Star in the Shed Window: Collected Poems 1933-1988, New England Press, 1989): “May the next book you read Be what you need— “A pocket...
ribbonfarm
Harberger Tax It’s always nice to see trails of thought connect up. An idea I first encountered and really liked...
9 months ago
6
9 months ago
It’s always nice to see trails of thought connect up. An idea I first encountered and really liked in a 2014 Steve Randy Waldman (interfluidity) post has apparently since acquired a name and a more extended provenance. Waldman’s post, Tax price, not value, presents the idea as a...
The American Scholar
Red Tide Warning Living on Florida’s Gulf Coast means having to coexist with pervasive and toxic algal blooms—and...
7 months ago
67
7 months ago
Living on Florida’s Gulf Coast means having to coexist with pervasive and toxic algal blooms—and neighbors who don’t always believe what they see The post Red Tide Warning appeared first on The American Scholar.
Ben Borgers
School But Online
over a year ago
Josh Thompson
The Power of an Audacious Goal I generally try to hedge the risks I face. I’m no daredevil, nor do I love danger, but I do love...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
I generally try to hedge the risks I face. I’m no daredevil, nor do I love danger, but I do love pursuing opportunities that take me beyond my comfort zone. The funny thing about going beyond your comfort zone is that once you’ve done it once or twice, you redefine your comfort...
The American Scholar
Rhyme, Not Repetition All that’s past isn’t necessarily present The post Rhyme, Not Repetition appeared first on The...
7 months ago
25
7 months ago
All that’s past isn’t necessarily present The post Rhyme, Not Repetition appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'At Least When Practised By a Master' I know several industrious readers who read nothing but novels, not even short stories and certainly...
a year ago
12
a year ago
I know several industrious readers who read nothing but novels, not even short stories and certainly not biographies, poetry or other forms of nonfiction. Some are devoted to genre fiction – mysteries, science fiction – and at least one sticks to the “classics” -- Austen and...
Josh Thompson
Career advice for Millenials. (ugh. I hate this title) Hah! You thought I had career advice? Not quite. Christian Bonilla writes one of the best blogs...
over a year ago
6
over a year ago
Hah! You thought I had career advice? Not quite. Christian Bonilla writes one of the best blogs I’ve ever read at Smart Like How. Please click over there, and read a few of his posts. He talks about being data savy even if you’re not a data scientist. He covers how to suceed...
This Space
The end of literature, part four This tweet has been seen thousands of times since it was posted on the 82nd anniversary of Britain...
over a year ago
37
over a year ago
This tweet has been seen thousands of times since it was posted on the 82nd anniversary of Britain and France declaring war on Germany. Not that the coincidence means much. At least, no more than what the general population, interest and powerful mean here, or indeed what poetry...
The Marginalian
The Great Blue Heron, Signs vs. Omens, and Our Search for Meaning One September dawn on the verge of a significant life change, sitting on my poet friend’s dock, I...
4 months ago
41
4 months ago
One September dawn on the verge of a significant life change, sitting on my poet friend’s dock, I watched a great blue heron rise slow and prehistoric through the morning mist, carrying the sky on her back. In the years since, the heron has become the closest thing I have to what...
The American Scholar
Poco a Poco The post Poco a Poco appeared first on The American Scholar.
2 months ago
The American Scholar
Facing the Facts An antiquated take on antiquity The post Facing the Facts appeared first on The American Scholar.
7 months ago
The American Scholar
Imperfecta Her brother’s disease leads a writer to challenge how we conceive of human abnormality in the...
7 months ago
25
7 months ago
Her brother’s disease leads a writer to challenge how we conceive of human abnormality in the emerging era of gene editing The post Imperfecta appeared first on The American Scholar.
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
41
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
The Source The post The Source appeared first on The American Scholar.
3 months ago
The Elysian
Week 3: The dream pitch
9 months ago
Josh Thompson
A Runbook for Upgrading Your Parent's Junky Old Laptop to a Chromebook tl;dr: I’m creating a runbook for a very specific, delicate, and potentially time-consuming and...
over a year ago
7
over a year ago
tl;dr: I’m creating a runbook for a very specific, delicate, and potentially time-consuming and emotionally-charged operation to replace my 70-year-old newly-widowed mother-in-law's ancient desktop computer with a easy-for-me-to-manage Chromebook Update: I posted to r/ChromeOS...
Ben Borgers
Website Rewrite 2
over a year ago
Josh Thompson
The Slight Edge, and why you should read it I read The Slight Edge a few months ago. Since then, it’s been the book I recommend most often to...
over a year ago
7
over a year ago
I read The Slight Edge a few months ago. Since then, it’s been the book I recommend most often to most people. (I don’t make book recommendations willy-nilly, but if something seems relevant to what the person I’m speaking to is experiencing/thinking about, I make a...
Ben Borgers
Teaching Enthusiasm
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'That Is My Ambition Here' Does anyone still read “Invictus”? Is it part of any school’s curriculum? It was as late as 1965,...
a year ago
10
a year ago
Does anyone still read “Invictus”? Is it part of any school’s curriculum? It was as late as 1965, when Miss Wagy had us memorize it in eighth-grade English. The poem is irresistible for recitation, whether privately in times of self-doubt or at the Kiwanis luncheon: “I am...
Escaping Flatland
Becoming perceptive This is the second part of an essay series that began with “Everything that turned out well in my...
4 months ago
62
4 months ago
This is the second part of an essay series that began with “Everything that turned out well in my life followed the same design process.” It can be read on its own.
Ben Borgers
Web of Thoughts
over a year ago
ribbonfarm
Sons of the Soil, Migrants, and Civil War, We read an interesting paper today (ht Sachin Benny with an assist from ChatGPT) in the Yak...
8 months ago
4
8 months ago
We read an interesting paper today (ht Sachin Benny with an assist from ChatGPT) in the Yak Collective weekly governance study group (Fridays at 9 AM Pacific). Sons of the Soil, Migrants, and Civil War, by James D. Fearon and David D. Laitin (World Development, V 39, No. 2,...
Josh Thompson
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
4
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...
The Marginalian
Roxane Gay on Loving vs. Being in Love and the Mark of a Soul Mate "It isn’t perfect, not at all. It doesn’t need to be. It is, simply, what fills you up."
a year ago
Josh Thompson
October 2016 Review October 2016 Review This month’s review. In another few days I’ll post the goals for November. I...
over a year ago
6
over a year ago
October 2016 Review This month’s review. In another few days I’ll post the goals for November. I had three goals for October, as of about 12 days ago: October goals: Programming I wanted to finish a certain Rails Tutorial, and move on to the next one. This project I made zero...
Josh Thompson
Maybe "Now" Is Not the Right Time Recently I deleted a bunch of old notes I had in Evernote. Some of the notes were almost immediately...
over a year ago
7
over a year ago
Recently I deleted a bunch of old notes I had in Evernote. Some of the notes were almost immediately unneeded, like old receipts and confirmations.  Much of the rest was notes related to goals (“Checklist to move out of MD Apartment”, “Planning trip to Buenos Aires”) or to...
Ben Borgers
HEY’s Fun Names
over a year ago
This Space
The end of something Thirteen years ago I posted The beginning of something to mark the fifteenth anniversary of Spike...
a year ago
55
a year ago
Thirteen years ago I posted The beginning of something to mark the fifteenth anniversary of Spike Magazine (not to be confused with Spiked), which I helped to found when the world wide web was forming, and to comment on the direction online literary culture had taken. By that...