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Anecdotal Evidence
'Though Lightly Made, Are Hard to Keep' Even the most chillingly honest among us remain liars, at least to ourselves. Self-delusion is...
a year ago
13
a year ago
Even the most chillingly honest among us remain liars, at least to ourselves. Self-delusion is endemically human and not always a bad thing. It can serve as a useful motivator. Take the annual farce of New Year’s resolutions, those earnestly mustered plans for...
Josh Thompson
Persistence Persistence. It’s worth far more than any finite sum of money. Actually, it’s worth more than an...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
Persistence. It’s worth far more than any finite sum of money. Actually, it’s worth more than an unlimited amount of money, because an unlimited amount of money would complicate my life (and probably yours) far more than we can possibly imagine. Persistence. I keep trying to...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Well Educated and Glad of the Fact' “[A] literary man or woman is someone who is not only steeped in literature but has made this...
a month ago
25
a month ago
“[A] literary man or woman is someone who is not only steeped in literature but has made this immersion into literature part of his or her own life, so that the experience of books has been integral with the experience of life and therefore strongly influences his or her general...
The Marginalian
How to Be More Alive: Hermann Hesse on Wonder and the Proper Aim of Education "While wandering down the path of wonder, I briefly escape the world of separation and enter the...
a year ago
The Marginalian
The Secret Life of Chocolate: Oliver Sacks on the Cultural and Natural History of Cacao Without chocolate, life would be a mistake — not a paraphrasing of Nietzsche he would have easily...
10 months ago
23
10 months ago
Without chocolate, life would be a mistake — not a paraphrasing of Nietzsche he would have easily envisioned, for he was a toddler in Germany when a British chocolatier created the first modern version of what we now think of as chocolate: a paste of sugar, chocolate liquor, and...
This Space
39 Books: 2005 Four years later, browsing in Waterstones, I picked a book from a table and read "What will we do to...
7 months ago
62
7 months ago
Four years later, browsing in Waterstones, I picked a book from a table and read "What will we do to disappear?" – the epigram to Enrique Vila-Matas's novel Montano's Malady. It's a line taken from Maurice Blanchot's Infinite Conversation, so I had to buy it. Later that year,...
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
4
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...
Josh Thompson
Learning Spanish: Conversation connectors I’m learning Spanish right now,  as I’ve mentioned. The bad news is I’ve been in some state...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
I’m learning Spanish right now,  as I’ve mentioned. The bad news is I’ve been in some state of learning spanish for the better part of the last 15 years. My mom’s parents came here from Paraguay, and so she and her siblings are all native Spanish speakers, plus their spouses....
This Space
39 Books: 2006 My choice for 2003 began with indecision, as I couldn't imagine writing about Robert Antelme's The...
7 months ago
38
7 months ago
My choice for 2003 began with indecision, as I couldn't imagine writing about Robert Antelme's The Human Race. Instead I wondered if I could say something about Timothy Hyman's Sienese Painting. While I have little or no feeling for art, I am drawn to reading about it. The book's...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Ordinary, Helpless, Moody Human Talk' Long ago I came to accept that certain writers will never be enjoyed by certain readers. I’m...
a year ago
13
a year ago
Long ago I came to accept that certain writers will never be enjoyed by certain readers. I’m no matchmaker and don’t have the soul of a proselytizer. I resent people telling me what I ought to like. On Wednesday two young missionaries came to the front door. One launched his...
Josh Thompson
Dizzying but Invisible Depth The following is from https://plus.google.com/+JeanBaptisteQueru/posts/dfydM2Cnepe, but Google+ is...
over a year ago
3
over a year ago
The following is from https://plus.google.com/+JeanBaptisteQueru/posts/dfydM2Cnepe, but Google+ is shutdown, so it’s not easily sharable. I’m reposting here because this is such a useful post. Dizzying but invisible depth You just went to the Google home page. Simple, isn’t...
The American Scholar
Changing the Lens Exploding the Canon, Episode 5 (Finale) The post Changing the Lens appeared first on The American...
7 months ago
59
7 months ago
Exploding the Canon, Episode 5 (Finale) The post Changing the Lens appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
A Toothsome Tale Bill Schutt chomps through millennia to share the story of our pearly whites The post A Toothsome...
3 months ago
24
3 months ago
Bill Schutt chomps through millennia to share the story of our pearly whites The post A Toothsome Tale appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
Alain de Botton on the Qualities of a Healthy Mind "A healthy mind knows how to hope; it identifies and then hangs on tenaciously to a few reasons to...
a year ago
This Space
A rare sort of writer Today is Gabriel Josipovici's 80th birthday. To mark the occasion, I'll link to various posts I've...
over a year ago
59
over a year ago
Today is Gabriel Josipovici's 80th birthday. To mark the occasion, I'll link to various posts I've written over the years – after a brief interlude. I read him first in July 1988 after borrowing The Lessons of Modernism from the second floor of Portsmouth Central Library because...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Provided That He Gives Us What We Can Enjoy' A reader is enjoying Tristram Shandy and passing along choice selections from Sterne’s novel. This...
a year ago
13
a year ago
A reader is enjoying Tristram Shandy and passing along choice selections from Sterne’s novel. This she gleaned from Book V, Chap. 32, spoken by Tristram’s father:  “—Here is the glass for pedagogues, preceptors, tutors, governors, gerund-grinders, and bear-leaders, to view...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Then Came the Barbarians' “Prose poetry” suggests transfusing a patient with a blood type not his own. You’ll kill him or at...
3 months ago
43
3 months ago
“Prose poetry” suggests transfusing a patient with a blood type not his own. You’ll kill him or at least make him sick. When I confront a prose poem I run, though sometimes I pause to laugh and then run. The question becomes, which is worse: the poet’s ineptness or his...
The Elysian
Yes, Taylor Swift is just as genius as Mary Shelley The video from our live event.
3 months ago
The American Scholar
To Catch a Sunset Reflections on allergies, anxieties, and the limits of familial love The post To Catch a Sunset...
5 months ago
41
5 months ago
Reflections on allergies, anxieties, and the limits of familial love The post To Catch a Sunset appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'One Thing Always to Be Guarded Against' “Poetry, geography, moral essays, the divers [sic] subjects of philosophy, travels, natural history,...
6 months ago
59
6 months ago
“Poetry, geography, moral essays, the divers [sic] subjects of philosophy, travels, natural history, books on sciences; and, in short, the whole range of book-knowledge is before you; but there is one thing always to be guarded against; and that is, not to admire and applaud...
The Elysian
Will you explain anarchism to me? Letters to an anarchist, part one.
a month ago
The American Scholar
Kinship and Contradictions Carrie Lowry Schuettpelz on the complexities of Native American identity The post Kinship and...
3 weeks ago
22
3 weeks ago
Carrie Lowry Schuettpelz on the complexities of Native American identity The post Kinship and Contradictions appeared first on The American Scholar.
Wuthering...
Plato's Symposium - philosophy as realist fiction - pick up something to tickle your nose with, and... Philosophy makes me nervous, so I will begin my squib about Plato’s Symposium (c. 385-370 BCE) with...
over a year ago
34
over a year ago
Philosophy makes me nervous, so I will begin my squib about Plato’s Symposium (c. 385-370 BCE) with an anxiety-deflating observation:  Symposium is fiction, a long story.  It is fiction in that at least some of it is invented, but mostly in that it uses the techniques of fiction:...
Wuthering...
The elegant, intricate, sour comedies of Terence The great Roman playwright Terence wrote six plays between 166 and 160 BCE, twenty years after the...
a year ago
51
a year ago
The great Roman playwright Terence wrote six plays between 166 and 160 BCE, twenty years after the death of Plautus.  The story is that he wrote the first one at age nineteen, while enslaved, thus winning his freedom and entry into a world of aristocratic patrons.  Plautus was...
The American Scholar
Bastienne Schmidt The fabric of life The post Bastienne Schmidt appeared first on The American Scholar.
8 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'O Wonderful Nonsense of Lotions of Lucky Tiger' I’m loyal to my barbers because they have always been loyal to me. I don’t have to remind them of...
12 months ago
16
12 months ago
I’m loyal to my barbers because they have always been loyal to me. I don’t have to remind them of what I want. Every fourth Saturday I visit, like a ritual. I sit in the chair, he pins the sheet around my neck – and we talk. No micromanaging. I can forget I’m getting a haircut...
Anecdotal Evidence
Kenneth C. Kurp 1955-2024 My brother died Saturday afternoon in the hospice in Cleveland, Ohio where he spent the last two...
4 months ago
42
4 months ago
My brother died Saturday afternoon in the hospice in Cleveland, Ohio where he spent the last two weeks of his life. He was age sixty-nine. I was with him as was his son, Abraham Kurp. I watched as his eyes closed and he stopped breathing. There was another sense, too, of a sudden...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Off to Welter and Waste' The Russian-Jewish poet Boris Slutsky (1919-86) was thirty-three years old on the Night of the...
a year ago
11
a year ago
The Russian-Jewish poet Boris Slutsky (1919-86) was thirty-three years old on the Night of the Murdered Poets, and he wasn’t among them. In the final stanza of his poem “About the Jews” (trans. G.S. Smith), dating from the 1950s, Slutsky writes:  “From the war I came back safe So...
Josh Thompson
Content but Restless There is tension between being content with what you have, and striving for more. We have all heard...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
There is tension between being content with what you have, and striving for more. We have all heard the “serenity prayer”: God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, The courage to change the things I can, And wisdom to know the difference. This prayer is...
The American Scholar
What Do You Want to Know For? The post What Do You Want to Know For? appeared first on The American Scholar.
7 months ago
The Marginalian
May Sarton on How to Cultivate Your Talent "A talent grows by being used, and withers if it is not used."
a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Prejudice Against Humor?' “What is the origin of the prejudice against humor? Why is it so dangerous, if you would keep the...
11 months ago
13
11 months ago
“What is the origin of the prejudice against humor? Why is it so dangerous, if you would keep the public confidence, to make the public laugh? Is it because humor and sound sense are essentially antagonistic? Has humanity found by experience that the man who sees the fun of life...
Anecdotal Evidence
'An Impetuous Eagerness to Subvert' Dr. Johnson describes the poet and physician Mark Akenside: “He certainly retained an unnecessary...
6 months ago
56
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
'Books in the Running Brooks' One of my favorite literary analogies: “The work of a correct and regular writer is a garden...
11 months ago
18
11 months ago
One of my favorite literary analogies: “The work of a correct and regular writer is a garden accurately formed and diligently planted, varied with shades, and scented with flowers; the composition of Shakespeare is a forest, in which oaks extend their branches, and pines tower in...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Beyond the Language of the Living' “After someone dies I find it hard to delete their contact from my phone. It feels cruel somehow, as...
4 months ago
44
4 months ago
“After someone dies I find it hard to delete their contact from my phone. It feels cruel somehow, as if it was a final obliteration.”  I didn’t know others felt this way, and dismissed it as my indulgence in sentimentality. Rabbi David Wolpe’s admission comes as reassurance. I...
Josh Thompson
Quitting the shallow for the deep Deep work over shallow TL;DR: I’m off social media, but want to keep a functioning Twitter URL. So,...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
Deep work over shallow TL;DR: I’m off social media, but want to keep a functioning Twitter URL. So, it redirects here. This year’s “best book I’ve read” label might go to Cal Newport’s Deep Work. Here’s the gist: One of the most valuable skills in our economy is becoming...
Ben Borgers
Writing Tasks Down
over a year ago
The Elysian
Your alternatives to democracy Entries to the March writing prompt.
8 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Hundred Words for the Word Brother' One of the stranger events recounted by Montaigne:  “[I]f I must bring myself into this, a brother...
2 months ago
22
2 months ago
One of the stranger events recounted by Montaigne:  “[I]f I must bring myself into this, a brother of mine, [Arnaud, Lord of] Saint-Martin, twenty-three years old, who had already given pretty good proof of his valor, while playing tennis was struck by a ball a little above the...
Anecdotal Evidence
'And Then Became a Name Like Others Slain' In a six-word paragraph in “Preliminary,” his brief introduction to Undertones of War, Edmund...
a month ago
24
a month ago
In a six-word paragraph in “Preliminary,” his brief introduction to Undertones of War, Edmund Blunden articulates the impulse that would drive his poetry for the next half-century: “I must go over it again.” Psychically, there was no Armistice. Whether to purge its memory or...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Moved—Stopp’d--Shall I Go On?—No' The professor asked me to write a paper on Tristram Shandy, the novel she had introduced to us in...
a month ago
22
a month ago
The professor asked me to write a paper on Tristram Shandy, the novel she had introduced to us in her eighteenth-century English fiction class. It was her favorite novel. Its bawdy humor matched her own. For me it was love at first sight – for the novel, I mean. I was already a...
The American Scholar
Moondance Experience the marvel that is The post Moondance appeared first on The American Scholar.
4 months ago
Wuthering...
Oedipus at Colonus by Sophocles - indeed his end / Was wonderful if ever mortal’s was Oedipus at Colonus by Sophocles is one of the plays that got me excited about the entire project of...
over a year ago
49
over a year ago
Oedipus at Colonus by Sophocles is one of the plays that got me excited about the entire project of reading or re-reading the complete plays.  The last surviving tragedy, even if it hardly recognizable as a tragedy, it provides a coherent ending to the tragic tradition.  It is...
sbensu
Default blind In a software business, it is hard to even know what is going on.
3 months ago
This Space
39 Books: 2013 I reread books like Aharon Appelfeld's A Table for One and Anne Atik's How It Was as if returning to...
7 months ago
51
7 months ago
I reread books like Aharon Appelfeld's A Table for One and Anne Atik's How It Was as if returning to a particular bench with a view of the sea. On first glance A Table for One promises only banal, coffee-table memories and reflections, and that would be almost right: Real...
The Marginalian
The Value of Being Wrong: Lewis Thomas on Generative Mistakes In praise of our "property of error, spontaneous, uncontrolled, and rich in possibilities."
a year ago
The Marginalian
The First Scientist’s Guide to Truth: Alhazen on Critical Thinking Born into a world with no clocks, telescopes, microscopes, or democracy, Ḥasan Ibn al-Haytham...
a year ago
13
a year ago
Born into a world with no clocks, telescopes, microscopes, or democracy, Ḥasan Ibn al-Haytham (c. 965–c. 1040), known in the West as Alhazen, began his life studying religion, but grew quickly disenchanted by its unquestioned dogmas and the way it turned people on each other with...
The Marginalian
Make Yourself a Seer: The Teenage Arthur Rimbaud on How to Be a Poet and a Prophet of Possibility "The day of a single universal language will dawn!... This language will be of the soul, for the...
a year ago
7
a year ago
"The day of a single universal language will dawn!... This language will be of the soul, for the soul, encompassing everything, scents, sounds, colors, one thought mounting another."
Ben Borgers
r/AskReddit
over a year ago
Josh Thompson
RailsConf CFP Outline I’m pitching some ideas for RailsConf. I only heard about it a few days ago (oops) so this is a bit...
over a year ago
2
over a year ago
I’m pitching some ideas for RailsConf. I only heard about it a few days ago (oops) so this is a bit rushed: Idea 1: “Junior” Developers are the Solution to Many of Your Problems Abstract: Our industry telegraphs: “We don’t want (or know how to handle) ‘Jr. Devs’.” Jr. Devs, or as...
Ben Borgers
What is JumboCode?
a year ago
Ben Borgers
The TikTok Peer Group
over a year ago
Ben Borgers
Gimme Back My Headphones
over a year ago
The American Scholar
The Given Child To what lengths would a mother go to ensure her family’s survival in a remote Himalayan village? The...
7 months ago
20
7 months ago
To what lengths would a mother go to ensure her family’s survival in a remote Himalayan village? The post The Given Child appeared first on The American Scholar.
Ben Borgers
Publishing Class Notes
over a year ago
The Marginalian
Uses of the Erotic: Audre Lorde on the Relationship Between Eros, Creativity, and Power "There is, for me, no difference between writing a good poem and moving into sunlight against the...
a year ago
Josh Thompson
Input metrics vs. Output metrics It’s tempting to track results, when trying to accomplish something. If you’re working on any...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
It’s tempting to track results, when trying to accomplish something. If you’re working on any project of sufficient size, the results will come slowly, fitfully, and sometimes not at all. So, don’t track results, track your efforts. (Yes, how very American of me. I don’t believe...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Not At All Reliable for Climbing On' Decades ago I interviewed a guy who had climbed all forty-six of the high peaks in New...
9 months ago
17
9 months ago
Decades ago I interviewed a guy who had climbed all forty-six of the high peaks in New York’s Adirondack Mountains in his bare feet. Surprisingly, he completed the shoeless stunt without serious injury. It was one of those Ripley’s-Believe-It-or-Not accomplishments that seems...
The Marginalian
Nikolai Vavilov and the Living Library of Resilience: The Story of the World’s First Seed Bank and... The most moving story of self-sacrifice in the history of science.
a year ago
Josh Thompson
Monthly Review: November This is my second monthly review, and I’m hooked. I’ve thought this coming review frequently, but I...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
This is my second monthly review, and I’m hooked. I’ve thought this coming review frequently, but I thought about that as I was conducting my month. This proactive review is in line with Viktor Frankl’s admonition to “live every day as if it were your second chance to live it.”...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Curiosity' Someone is forever rediscovering the novels of Dawn Powell. Just this week I reread My Home Is Far...
yesterday
2
yesterday
Someone is forever rediscovering the novels of Dawn Powell. Just this week I reread My Home Is Far Away (1944), one of her “Ohio novels.” Here she describes children out after dark in the winter in a small town. I choose it because it is typical of Powell’s prose, not a...
Josh Thompson
On Minimalism I reluctantly call myself a minimalist. I’d prefer to call myself an “enoughalist”. This reluctance...
over a year ago
3
over a year ago
I reluctantly call myself a minimalist. I’d prefer to call myself an “enoughalist”. This reluctance is because I think the label brings in a bunch of connotations that I don’t like. Our apartment never looked like this. Source: home-designing.com What is Minimalism? a removal or...
Anecdotal Evidence
'I'm Not a Funny Man' “All writers that are worth anything are humorists.”  It’s one of those preposterously broad...
a year ago
18
a year ago
“All writers that are worth anything are humorists.”  It’s one of those preposterously broad observations you want to immediately endorse or dismiss, but if “humor” is defined liberally and we accept it as a spectrum ranging from the driest wit to slapstick, farce and bawdy,...
Ben Borgers
Tufts Meal Plans Are a Scam
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Landscape in One Word!' “When, in the course of a day, a man has read a newspaper, written a letter, and not wronged anyone,...
a month ago
22
a month ago
“When, in the course of a day, a man has read a newspaper, written a letter, and not wronged anyone, that is more than enough.” Enough for what? Probably to have established a minimum standard of decency and contentment. Jules Renard (1864-1910) is no stuffy moralist. There’s...
Anecdotal Evidence
'He Could Take Part in This Savouring of the World' One of the ways biologists distinguish the animate from the inanimate, and the dead, is motility....
5 months ago
28
5 months ago
One of the ways biologists distinguish the animate from the inanimate, and the dead, is motility. Life moves independently, under its own power. Stasis suggests the end of life. Travel is especially prized by those unable to do so, whether confined to bed or a Soviet Bloc regime....
sbensu
Enterprise sales meets product development What I’ve learned from selling enterprises while developing a new product. This is less of a guide...
11 months ago
4
11 months ago
What I’ve learned from selling enterprises while developing a new product. This is less of a guide and more of a cautionary tale.
Ben Borgers
Strong Hobbies
over a year ago
Josh Thompson
MySQL concatenation and casting I recently set up my environment for working through SQL for Mere Mortals. I’ll record some...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
I recently set up my environment for working through SQL for Mere Mortals. I’ll record some interested tidbits here as I go. Chapter 5: Concatenation without the || operator I use MySQL at work, and MySQL doesn’t support the || operator for string concatenation. So, in the book,...
Ben Borgers
Did MCAS Matter?
over a year ago
Josh Thompson
Piece by Piece The following is inspired by Amy Hoy. I’ve got a secret to share: I’m working on building a product...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
The following is inspired by Amy Hoy. I’ve got a secret to share: I’m working on building a product (of the digital variety) that will be so damn goodpeople will pay me $100 or more to get it.  I’ve got a lot of bits and pieces of it littered around the internet, my computer,...
This Space
Ultimate things: The Aphorisms of Franz Kafka Although we are unmusical, we have a tradition of singing     Josephine the Singer, or the Mouse...
over a year ago
35
over a year ago
Although we are unmusical, we have a tradition of singing     Josephine the Singer, or the Mouse Folk The first reason to celebrate Shelley Frisch’s new translation into English of Kafka’s short prose written in the village of Zürau, now Siřem in the Czech Republic, is that...
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
21
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...
Steven Scrawls
Quicksilver and Clay Quicksilver and Clay Like everyone else, I walk around the world in a body made of quicksilver and...
11 months ago
4
11 months ago
Quicksilver and Clay Like everyone else, I walk around the world in a body made of quicksilver and clay. The pieces of my body—my sense of humor, my beliefs, my opinions and artistic sensibilities and worldviews, everything—combine to present a cohesive self to be...
The American Scholar
Divided Providence Faith’s pivotal role in the outcome of the Civil War The post Divided Providence appeared first on...
a month ago
11
a month ago
Faith’s pivotal role in the outcome of the Civil War The post Divided Providence appeared first on The American Scholar.
This Space
39 Books: Introducing a blog series In 1985, I read two books. The following year I read a lot more, and it was then I began to keep a...
8 months ago
58
8 months ago
In 1985, I read two books. The following year I read a lot more, and it was then I began to keep a list of each book I finished. I've kept the list ever since. In this blog series I will choose one book from each of the 39 years and write whatever occurs to me and post whatever...
Josh Thompson
How to Move Kristi and I are moving to Colorado in July. We’ve taken three broad steps to make this move...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
Kristi and I are moving to Colorado in July. We’ve taken three broad steps to make this move happen: We both are in process with new jobs I just started working remotely for Litmus, which means I can seamlessly transition to Colorado this summer. Kristi spent a few days last week...
Ben Borgers
Your Feelings Are Not Unique
over a year ago
The American Scholar
Kat Wiese Taking flight The post Kat Wiese appeared first on The American Scholar.
a month ago
Ben Borgers
elk.sh
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Larkin Was a Larrikin' At age ten or so I had a pen pal, a girl from New South Wales, Australia. We both wrote in pencil on...
11 months ago
19
11 months ago
At age ten or so I had a pen pal, a girl from New South Wales, Australia. We both wrote in pencil on lined paper, and we met through our respective newspapers in Cleveland and Sydney. The correspondence lasted for a year or so and I don’t remember what either of us ever said to...
Anecdotal Evidence
'I Don’t See Other People As Peculiar' For my money, the Canadian short story writer is Mavis Gallant (1922-2014), not Alice Munro, who is...
11 months ago
16
11 months ago
For my money, the Canadian short story writer is Mavis Gallant (1922-2014), not Alice Munro, who is too dull to endure. (Joseph Epstein said of her work: “Humor never obtrudes.”) Born in Montreal, Gallant moved to Europe in 1950, hoping to give up journalism and write fiction....
Anecdotal Evidence
'Mandelstam Dances Barefoot in the Snow Alone' “In the end like all great poets he became a jester”  Not the usual encomium one expects for Osip...
2 months ago
26
2 months ago
“In the end like all great poets he became a jester”  Not the usual encomium one expects for Osip Mandelstam, dead at age forty-seven in a Soviet camp, but the eulogist is Zbigniew Herbert, a congenitally ironic poet, ever aware of the comic in the appalling. For my birthday I...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Deaf Unto the Suggestions of Tale-bearers' “Though the Quickness of thine Ear were able to reach the noise of the Moon, which some think it...
10 months ago
50
10 months ago
“Though the Quickness of thine Ear were able to reach the noise of the Moon, which some think it maketh in it rapid revolution; though the number of thy Ears should equal Argus his Eyes . . .”  The first surgery on my left ear was fifty years ago, prompted by a perpetually...
The Marginalian
Ursula K. Le Guin on Change, Menopause as Rebirth, and the Civilizational Value of Elders "Into the space ship, Granny."
a year ago
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
31
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...
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
61
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...
The Marginalian
How to Love Yourself and How to Love Another: A Playful and Poignant Vintage Illustrated Fable about... The great problem of consciousness is that all it knows is itself, and only dimly. We can override...
a month ago
18
a month ago
The great problem of consciousness is that all it knows is itself, and only dimly. We can override this elemental self-reference only with constant vigilance, reminding ourselves again and again as we forget over and over how difficult it is — how nigh impossible — to know what...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Go to the Bookcase' I heard an echo in something I wrote the other day, a dependent clause, inconsequential in itself....
a month ago
16
a month 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...
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,...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Scabrous Memory Writhes Here, Underneath' I’ve just learned that some thirty percent of Houston, the nation’s fourth-largest city, is paved,...
a month ago
20
a month ago
I’ve just learned that some thirty percent of Houston, the nation’s fourth-largest city, is paved, covered in concrete and asphalt. That doesn’t count buildings and other structures. It amounts to roughly 384 square miles of ground surface that is “case-hardened, carapaced,” to...
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...
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
A Glow in the Consciousness: The Continuous Creative Act of Seeing Clearly "Simply to look on anything... with the love that penetrates to its essence, is to widen the domain...
6 months ago
33
6 months ago
"Simply to look on anything... with the love that penetrates to its essence, is to widen the domain of being in the vastness of non-being."
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Brave Respect the Brave' In observance of Memorial Day, R.L. Barth sent me a poem by Ambrose Bierce, one I had never read...
7 months ago
58
7 months ago
In observance of Memorial Day, R.L. Barth sent me a poem by Ambrose Bierce, one I had never read before, “To E.S. Salomon” (Black Beetles in Amber, 1892). Here is the memorably pertinent third stanza:  “The brave respect the brave. The brave Respect the dead; but you -- you...
Josh Thompson
Cultivate the Skill of Undivided Attention, or 'Deep Work' (Crosspost from... Dan Moore is always welcoming to guest authors; he accepted something I wrote: Cultivate the Skill...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
Dan Moore is always welcoming to guest authors; he accepted something I wrote: Cultivate the Skill of Undivided Attention, or “Deep Work” (Letters to a New Developer). It ended up on Hacker News with 100 comments. I wrote this back in December 2019, forgot to post here until...
This Space
39 Books: 2003 This year I read Robert Antelme's The Human Race for the first time. I was nonplussed. The strange...
7 months ago
69
7 months ago
This year I read Robert Antelme's The Human Race for the first time. I was nonplussed. The strange title, closer to popular sociology than memoir, should have been a warning. This was not quite the horror story one imagines of memoirs from those who survived Nazi concentration...
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
3
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....
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
12
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...
Wuthering...
On Great Writing by Longinus - But greatness appears suddenly; like a thunderbolt it carries all... I will deposit my notes on On Great Writing, which is either a 3rd century text by Longinus, one of...
over a year ago
39
over a year ago
I will deposit my notes on On Great Writing, which is either a 3rd century text by Longinus, one of the great scholars and rhetoricians of his time, or was written earlier and is by someone else.  Who knows.  I will call the author Longinus, and call the work On the Sublime, the...
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
29
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...
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...
Anecdotal Evidence
'New Eyes Each Year' From 1955 until his death in 1985, Philip Larkin worked as a librarian at the Brynmor Jones Library...
10 months ago
19
10 months ago
From 1955 until his death in 1985, Philip Larkin worked as a librarian at the Brynmor Jones Library at the University of Hull, eventually becoming its director. Although Larkin complained about the time-consuming nature of the job, taking him away from poetry and other writing,...
Anecdotal Evidence
'How Quickly It Would Slip By' “[S]ome of the memories I can now summon up have a greater intensity than the events...
4 months ago
37
4 months ago
“[S]ome of the memories I can now summon up have a greater intensity than the events themselves seemed to possess at the time, or rather – since memory has a filter of its own, sometimes surprising in what it suppresses or retains, but always significant – some of them stand out...
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...
3 weeks ago
21
3 weeks ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Full Moon Rhyme” by Judith Wright appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
Caprock Adventures worth the silence The post Caprock appeared first on The American Scholar.
8 months ago
The Elysian
Writing Prompt: What movement does the world need right now? And how do we build it?
a month ago
The Marginalian
Birds, Loves, and Obscure Sorrows: The Best of The Marginalian 2024 Hindsight is how we connect the dots that figure our lives. To look back on even a single year is to...
a week ago
16
a week ago
Hindsight is how we connect the dots that figure our lives. To look back on even a single year is to see clearly the contour of who we are in its points of attention and priority. “How we spend our days,” Annie Dillard wrote, “is how we spend our lives.” How we spend our minds is...
Josh Thompson
Climbing in Cuba, 2019 A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to go climbing in Cuba. Mark and Dave, walking back from...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to go climbing in Cuba. Mark and Dave, walking back from climbing outside Viñales Locals crag, called “The roof of the world”. Stunning routes. because it was so hot, we spent a lot of time in this cave. Kristi and I tend to stick...
Ben Borgers
Thumbs up for Six Flags
over a year ago
The Marginalian
Kafka on Friendship and the Art of Reconnection Among the paradoxes of friendship is this: All friendships of depth and durability are based on a...
a month ago
22
a month ago
Among the paradoxes of friendship is this: All friendships of depth and durability are based on a profound knowledge of each other, of the soul beneath the costume of personality — that lovely Celtic notion of anam cara. We bring this knowledge, this mutual understanding, to...
Anecdotal Evidence
'It Is a Rite of Finitude' Most of Richard Wilbur’s poetry I read retrospectively, in books, long after it was written and...
7 months ago
60
7 months ago
Most of Richard Wilbur’s poetry I read retrospectively, in books, long after it was written and first published in magazines. One exception I remember is “All That Is,” which appeared in the May 13, 1985 issue of The New Yorker. I had mostly stopped reading the magazine by...
Josh Thompson
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
4
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...
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...
yesterday
1
yesterday
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.
The Marginalian
The Challenge of Closeness: Alain de Botton on Love, Vulnerability, and the Paradox of Avoidance The psychological machinery of our commonest coping mechanism for the terror of hurt, rejection, and...
a year ago
Ben Borgers
Late Night Sprints
over a year ago
Ben Borgers
App Identity
over a year ago
The American Scholar
“The Imaginary Iceberg” by Elizabeth Bishop Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “The Imaginary Iceberg” by Elizabeth Bishop appeared first on...
8 months ago
26
8 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “The Imaginary Iceberg” by Elizabeth Bishop appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
Circles of Influence I was listening to a podcast today, where they said if you have problems knowing what to write...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
I was listening to a podcast today, where they said if you have problems knowing what to write about, or you’ve hit a block, write about something that angers you. This is easy. I could write about any number of things that we’ve all read in a newspaper, and get good and angry...
Ben Borgers
War Room “Bib”
a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'For a Dream's Sake' Interviewer: “Do you feel you could have had a much happier life?”  Philip Larkin: “Not without...
a year ago
12
a year ago
Interviewer: “Do you feel you could have had a much happier life?”  Philip Larkin: “Not without being someone else. I think it is very much easier to imagine happiness than to experience it. Which is a pity because what you imagine makes you dissatisfied with what you experience,...
Ben Borgers
The Cost of Building an Idea
over a year ago
Josh Thompson
Crock Pots are Foolproof, Right? A while back I got together with my good friend Dustin. I had an evening free, wanted to cook, AND...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
A while back I got together with my good friend Dustin. I had an evening free, wanted to cook, AND hang out with good friends. I wanted to try a really good looking recipe, and watch Django Unchained. The cooking instructions for the recipe was “cook on low for 7-9 hours”. I...
This Space
39 Books: 1986 In my second year of reading, I read four novels by DM Thomas, beginning with his most famous, The...
8 months ago
28
8 months ago
In my second year of reading, I read four novels by DM Thomas, beginning with his most famous, The White Hotel, in the edition below with its very 1980s cover design. I look at the single-word titles of the others and can remember absolutely nothing about them. Both the title...
The Marginalian
How People Change: Psychoanalyst Allen Wheelis on the Essence of Freedom and the Two Elements of... "We create ourselves. The sequence is suffering, insight, will, action, change."
a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'All Sorts of Characters in the World' “His poems are not much read now.” Sad words, often deserved but occasionally unjust. Of course,...
a year ago
12
a year ago
“His poems are not much read now.” Sad words, often deserved but occasionally unjust. Of course, much of poetry is no longer read, not even by those who consider themselves poets. Who besides eccentrics and cranks reads Pope, Tennyson and Longfellow? The opening question is posed...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Wisdom As a Kind of Courtesy' “[A] reverence for the natural world, and a conviction that intelligent sanity is both more...
a year ago
16
a year ago
“[A] reverence for the natural world, and a conviction that intelligent sanity is both more difficult than unreflective complacency and more interesting than madness.”  That’s how the poet Dick Davis characterized the concerns of Janet Lewis and her husband Yvor Winters in his...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Death Is Not Far From Me' It’s in the nature of most writers to come up with their own rules and obey them when it serves...
10 months ago
29
10 months ago
It’s in the nature of most writers to come up with their own rules and obey them when it serves their purposes. Even the strictest formalist bends a little in the service of what works aesthetically. The byproduct of that decision-making process is “style.” Good work can come out...
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...
The Marginalian
The Warblers and the Wonder of Being: Loren Eiseley on Contacting the Miraculous "The time has to be right; one has to be, by chance or intention, upon the border of two worlds. And...
11 months ago
18
11 months ago
"The time has to be right; one has to be, by chance or intention, upon the border of two worlds. And sometimes these two borders may shift or interpenetrate and one sees the miraculous."
This Space
39 Books: 2007 When I chose the book for 2007, the constraint of the 39 Books series presented a problem: how can I...
7 months ago
62
7 months ago
When I chose the book for 2007, the constraint of the 39 Books series presented a problem: how can I write about a 350-page novel last read 17 years ago without taking several days to reread it? Answer: not at all, so I started reading. What good fortune! How well Hugo Wilcken...
The Marginalian
Leonard Cohen on the Antidote to Anger and the Meaning of Resistance One of the commonest and most corrosive human reflexes is to react to helplessness with anger. We do...
5 months ago
50
5 months ago
One of the commonest and most corrosive human reflexes is to react to helplessness with anger. We do it in our personal lives and we do it in our political lives. We are living through a time of uncommon helplessness and uncertainty, touching every aspect of our lives, and in...
This Space
The disaster of writing: My Weil by Lars Iyer "When a plane crashes, a bomb explodes, a city floods or a pandemic begins, Lucy Easthope's phone...
a year ago
15
a year ago
"When a plane crashes, a bomb explodes, a city floods or a pandemic begins, Lucy Easthope's phone starts to ring" says the blurb to her recent book subtitled Stories of Love, Loss and Hope from an Expert in Disaster, and goes on to report rapturous praise from critics and...
The Marginalian
Between Encyclopedia and Fairy Tale: The Wondrous Birds and Reptiles of 18th-Century Artist Dorothea... Imagine a world of constant wars and deadly plagues, a world without eyeglasses, bicycles, or...
3 months ago
38
3 months ago
Imagine a world of constant wars and deadly plagues, a world without eyeglasses, bicycles, or sanitation. Imagine being a gifted child in that world, knowing you are born into a body that will never be granted the basic rights of citizenship in any country, into a mind that will...
Ben Borgers
Donating forks to the dining hall
7 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Domestic Privacies" Marilyn Sides won this reader’s heart in the third paragraph of her 2018 essay “The Consolations of...
9 months ago
25
9 months ago
Marilyn Sides won this reader’s heart in the third paragraph of her 2018 essay “The Consolations of Literature,” when she refers to Dr. Johnson as “grand master of English prose.” She also practices what Anecdotal Evidence preaches: “the intersection of books and life.” We might...
Josh Thompson
Training for climbing (progress update) I am at the end of my second iteration of climbing training, and this is how it went and what I...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
I am at the end of my second iteration of climbing training, and this is how it went and what I learned: I completed the workout twelve times, but I took a twelve-day break between workout eleven and twelve. I first skipped a workout because I had ripped skin open on one of my...
The Marginalian
Poetry as Prayer: The Great Russian Poet Marina Tsvetaeva on Reclaiming the Divine "In our age, to have the courage for direct speech to God (for prayer) we must either not know what...
5 months ago
The American Scholar
Insisting on the Positive A popular historian’s philosophical musings The post Insisting on the Positive appeared first on The...
4 months ago
24
4 months ago
A popular historian’s philosophical musings The post Insisting on the Positive appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
Consciousness, Artificial Intelligence, and Our Search for Meaning: Oliver Sacks on ChatGPT, 30... "We are not incoherent, a bundle of sensations, but a self, rising from experience, continually...
a year ago
48
a year ago
"We are not incoherent, a bundle of sensations, but a self, rising from experience, continually growing and revised... Through experience, education, art, and life, we teach our brains to become unique. We learn to be individuals. This is a neurological learning as well as a...
Anecdotal Evidence
'He Was Spared That Annoyance' As expected, Beryl made landfall near Matagorda early Monday as a Category 1 hurricane. Sustained...
5 months ago
57
5 months ago
As expected, Beryl made landfall near Matagorda early Monday as a Category 1 hurricane. Sustained winds hit 80 m.p.h. By 7 a.m. we could hear a hum like a dentist’s drill when the wind gusted. Trees fell and we watched water fill the street, top the curb and slosh on the lawn....
Anecdotal Evidence
'Those Move Easiest Who Have Learned to Dance' Hugh Kenner glosses a well-known couplet in Alexander Pope’s “Essay on Criticism” (1711) by...
a year ago
11
a year ago
Hugh Kenner glosses a well-known couplet in Alexander Pope’s “Essay on Criticism” (1711) by reference to Newton’s second law of motion (published in 1687 in his Principia Mathematica, one year before Pope’s birth) and “numerous points of disequilibrium”:  “True ease in writing...
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...
The American Scholar
A Giant of a Man The legacy of Willie Mays and the Birmingham ballpark where he first made his mark The post A Giant...
2 months ago
26
2 months ago
The legacy of Willie Mays and the Birmingham ballpark where he first made his mark The post A Giant of a Man appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'And Now We Shall Never, Never See Her Again' Ian Donaldson begins his 2011 biography of Ben Jonson not with the poet’s birth nor even his death...
a year ago
8
a year ago
Ian Donaldson begins his 2011 biography of Ben Jonson not with the poet’s birth nor even his death but with his interment in Westminster Abbey. Though a popular playwright during his lifetime, Jonson died in poverty and was buried vertically in order to consume less valuable real...
The American Scholar
“The Testimony of J. Robert Oppenheimer: A Fiction” by Ai The post “The Testimony of J. Robert Oppenheimer: A Fiction” by Ai appeared first on The American...
2 months ago
Ben Borgers
I want to use all of my ridiculously many meal swipes
over a year ago
The Marginalian
An Almanac of Birds: Divinations for Uncertain Days I have found that the surest way of seeing the wondrous in something ordinary, something previously...
5 months ago
39
5 months ago
I have found that the surest way of seeing the wondrous in something ordinary, something previously underappreciated, is coming to love someone who loves it. As we enter each other’s worlds in love — whatever its shape or species — we double our way of seeing, broaden our way of...
The Marginalian
A Stone Is a Story: An Illustrated Love Letter to Deep Time and Earth’s Memory We are denizens of an enormous pebble drifting through the cosmic ocean of pure spacetime — a planet...
a year ago
40
a year ago
We are denizens of an enormous pebble drifting through the cosmic ocean of pure spacetime — a planet made a world largely by its rockiness. Rock gave us mountains and beaches, bridges and kitchen countertops, gave us the first Promethean fire that sparked civilization. A rock is...
Ben Borgers
I Miss Google Classroom
over a year ago
The Marginalian
How to Grow Up: Nick Cave’s Life-Advice to a 13-Year-Old "Fill yourself with the beautiful stuff of the world... Get amazed. Get astonished. Get awed on a...
a year ago
51
a year ago
"Fill yourself with the beautiful stuff of the world... Get amazed. Get astonished. Get awed on a regular basis, so that getting awed is habitual and becomes a state of being."
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...
Ben Borgers
My Office Makes Me Feel Stupid
over a year ago
Astral Codex Ten
Prison And Crime: Much More Than You Wanted To Know ...
a month ago
Josh Thompson
Avoid a car accident with a $3 tool TL;DR: Buy a blind spot mirror for your car. They are $2, and can keep you from getting in an...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
TL;DR: Buy a blind spot mirror for your car. They are $2, and can keep you from getting in an accident. Not a lot of people have them, though they’re awesome. I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about how to make driving safer. Step 1 to making driving safer is “don’t...
Josh Thompson
Setting up Application Performance Monitoring in DataDog in your Rails App When I write guides to things, I write them first and foremost for myself, and I tend to work...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
When I write guides to things, I write them first and foremost for myself, and I tend to work through things in excruciating detail. You might find this to be a little too in-depth, or you might appreciate the detail. Either way, if you want a step-by-step guide, this should do...
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
80
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."
Blog -...
Book Review - The Surrender Experiment With the book The Surrender Experiment, author Michael (Mickey) Singer, gives us a gift. In this...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
With the book The Surrender Experiment, author Michael (Mickey) Singer, gives us a gift. In this eloquently penned biography of his “journey into life’s perfection”, he demonstrates the beauty that life can provide for us when we are not solely guided by our logical,...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Favourable Enough for a Writer' Jules Renard writing in his journal on November 22, 1906:  “I am in no great hurry to see the...
a year ago
16
a year ago
Jules Renard writing in his journal on November 22, 1906:  “I am in no great hurry to see the society of the future – our own favourable enough for a writer. By its absurdities, its injustices, its vices, its stupidities, it nourishes a writer’s observations. The more men...
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
11
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...
The Marginalian
Marie Howe’s Stunning Hymn of Humanity, Animated "It began as an almost inaudible hum..."
9 months ago
This Space
Blood Knowledge by Kirsty Gunn "A novel is a kind of lazy way of writing a short story, a short story a lazy way of writing a poem"...
a month ago
25
a month ago
"A novel is a kind of lazy way of writing a short story, a short story a lazy way of writing a poem" said Muriel Spark, adding by explanation: "The longer they become, the more they seem to lose value". We might wonder then if the most value is to be found in the shortest novels,...
The American Scholar
Ho Ho Horror Why not make this Christmas a little darker? The post Ho Ho Horror appeared first on The American...
a week ago
15
a week ago
Why not make this Christmas a little darker? The post Ho Ho Horror appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'Colder Here Than Organized Charity' Hugh Kenner’s first extant letter to Guy Davenport is dated March 7, 1958. Its manner is at once...
10 months ago
20
10 months ago
Hugh Kenner’s first extant letter to Guy Davenport is dated March 7, 1958. Its manner is at once business-like and chatty: “I hope subsequent activities haven’t yet sufficed to obliterate our Boston dinner last fall from your memory.” The men had first met in 1953 when each...
The Marginalian
Anne Morrow Lindbergh on Embracing Change in Relationships and the Key Pattern for Nourishing Love "All living relationships are in process of change, of expansion, and must perpetually be building...
10 months ago
The American Scholar
The Scales The post The Scales appeared first on The American Scholar.
6 months ago
Astral Codex Ten
The Innocent And The Beautiful Have No Enemy But Time ...
3 weeks ago
Wuthering...
Plato's Republic - justice, fantasy and censorship - We'll ask Homer not to be angry I had ambitions to write about Plato’s Republic with some thoroughness, but I guess I will just...
a year ago
63
a year ago
I had ambitions to write about Plato’s Republic with some thoroughness, but I guess I will just pursue one point.  Good enough. I have been separating Socrates from Plato, an imaginative exercise based on circular criteria.  The more Socratic of the Socratic dialogues are...
Ben Borgers
Stubborn Consistency [100 daily blog posts]
over a year ago
The Marginalian
Wonder-Sighting on Planet Earth: The Space Telescope Eye of the Scallop Inside Earth's most alien vision.
a year ago
Ben Borgers
Bronze, Silver, Gold
over a year ago
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
The Marginalian
Kierkegaard on the Value of Despair "To despair over oneself, in despair to want to be rid of oneself, is the formula for all despair."
a year ago
Josh Thompson
Limitations of My Own Thinking I sometimes make recommendations, or at least recount a story that has “actionable insights”....
over a year ago
3
over a year ago
I sometimes make recommendations, or at least recount a story that has “actionable insights”. Anytime this happens, I start tripping over myself with warnings and qualifying statements. Here’s what would happen: I would make a recommendation (“start a side project to help get a...
This Space
A modern heretic Literature can be defined by the sense of the imminence of a revelation which does not in fact...
over a year ago
45
over a year ago
Literature can be defined by the sense of the imminence of a revelation which does not in fact occur. I used this line, apparently from Borges, as an epigram to an essay in the early days of online writing. I can't remember what book it came from and after searching I found a...
Anecdotal Evidence
'There Is No Nothingness' Once asked about politics in a symposium portentously titled “The Writer’s Situation,”...
4 months ago
35
4 months ago
Once asked about politics in a symposium portentously titled “The Writer’s Situation,” J.V. Cunningham replied:  “You can write on politics or not. I do not. But is politics meant here? Or is it, rather, ideology? The latter is religious, not political, though religion...
The Marginalian
The Great Blind Spot of Science and the Art of Asking the Complex Question the Only Answer to Which... “Real isn’t how you are made… It’s a thing that happens to you,” says the Skin Horse — a stuffed toy...
a month ago
27
a month ago
“Real isn’t how you are made… It’s a thing that happens to you,” says the Skin Horse — a stuffed toy brought to life by a child’s love — in The Velveteen Rabbit. Great children’s books are works of philosophy in disguise; this is a fundamental question: In a reality of matter,...
Josh Thompson
Three Levels of Competence Raise your hand if you’d like to be better at climbing. Yeah. Me too. I’ve spent an unusual amount...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
Raise your hand if you’d like to be better at climbing. Yeah. Me too. I’ve spent an unusual amount of time working with beginners, to help them improve at climbing. I’ve also worked a lot with (what I would consider to be) intermediate climbers, so can get better. I’ve certainly...
Wuthering...
The endlessly adaptable plays of Plautus - I’ll make it into a comedy with some tragedy mixed in The plays of Plautus are the foundation of Western comedy.  That they are based on the plays of...
a year ago
51
a year ago
The plays of Plautus are the foundation of Western comedy.  That they are based on the plays of Menander and the other Greek New Comedy writers was irrelevant, since all of those texts were soon lost.  Plautus (and his successor Terence) carried the stage traditions, the...
Ben Borgers
Customer Rewards Programs
over a year ago
The Elysian
Every company should be owned by its employees Central States Manufacturing as a model for employee-ownership.
5 months ago
ben-mini
IMG_0416 Between 2009 and 2012, Apple iPhones and iPod Touches included a feature called “Send to YouTube”...
2 months ago
6
2 months ago
Between 2009 and 2012, Apple iPhones and iPod Touches included a feature called “Send to YouTube” that allowed users to upload videos directly to YouTube from the Photos app. The feature worked… really well. In fact, YouTube reported a 1700% increase in total video uploads...
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
40
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 American Scholar
Part of the Parade The post Part of the Parade appeared first on The American Scholar.
2 months ago
Ben Borgers
Recording Screencasts
over a year ago
The Marginalian
The Broadest Portal to Joy "Despite every single lie to the contrary, despite every single action born of that lie — we are in...
a year ago
57
a year ago
"Despite every single lie to the contrary, despite every single action born of that lie — we are in the midst of rhizomatic care that extends in every direction, spatially, temporally, spiritually."
The Marginalian
Blue Is the Color of Desire: The Science, Poetry, and Wonder of the Bowerbird For all the enchantment the color blue has cast upon humanity, no animal has fallen under its spell...
a year ago
56
a year ago
For all the enchantment the color blue has cast upon humanity, no animal has fallen under its spell more hopelessly than the bowerbird, whose very survival hinges on blue. In a small clearing on the forest floor, the male weaves twigs and branches into an elaborate bower, which...
Anecdotal Evidence
'There Will Be No One Left Who Knew Their Cost' For the boys in the neighborhood, our primary occupation when chores were finished and the grownups...
9 months ago
16
9 months ago
For the boys in the neighborhood, our primary occupation when chores were finished and the grownups were leaving us alone was “playing Army.” All of us had toy guns or at least sticks. Given our ages, when dividing into good guys and bad guys, the latter were always Germans and...
ben-mini
Buying a House Two days ago, I decided I want to buy my first house. My goal is to purchase it before the summer of...
3 months ago
7
3 months ago
Two days ago, I decided I want to buy my first house. My goal is to purchase it before the summer of 2025. Why are you buying a house? To make money. I see this as an opportunity in a space that many friends and family consider a safe, high-return bet (if done right). When...
Astral Codex Ten
Open Thread 357 ...
a month ago
Josh Thompson
The advantage of low friction goals If you have a project, make it easy to take small steps. I’m trying to publish something every day...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
If you have a project, make it easy to take small steps. I’m trying to publish something every day for a month. Normally, I would sit down at my computer, open a text editor, write something, the copy it into Squarespace, and customize the post from there. “Customization”...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Entertain As Well As Illuminate' “Here’s a thought: literary criticism ought to entertain as well as illuminate.”  Bracing words to...
a year ago
11
a year ago
“Here’s a thought: literary criticism ought to entertain as well as illuminate.”  Bracing words to encounter while writing a book review. The writer is the poet David Mason. Quoted is the opening sentence of his review/essay “Two Poet-Critics,” devoted to Clive James and John...
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
36
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 Marginalian
Alone Together: An Illustrated Celebration of the Art of Shared Solitude “One can never be alone enough to write,” Susan Sontag lamented in her diary. “Oh comforting...
a year ago
13
a year ago
“One can never be alone enough to write,” Susan Sontag lamented in her diary. “Oh comforting solitude, how favorable thou art to original thought!” the founding father of neuroscience exulted in considering the ideal environment for creative breakthrough. All creative people,...
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Chap Who Doesn't Care Much About Anything' Below the masthead of the August 19, 2024 issue of The Daily Chronicle is a brief, boxed...
4 months ago
44
4 months ago
Below the masthead of the August 19, 2024 issue of The Daily Chronicle is a brief, boxed announcement:  “Today is National Orangutan Day. The apes are the largest tree-dwelling animals on Earth. They spend 90 percent of their time in trees, even sleeping in leafy nests. No wonder...
The Marginalian
An Introvert’s Field Guide to Friendship: Thoreau on the Challenges and Rewards of the Art of... "We only need to be as true to others as we are to ourselves that there may be ground enough for...
a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'This Refined, White-Sheeted Torture' My tutelary spirit of recent days has been the American poet L.E. Sissman, dead from Hodgkin...
4 months ago
34
4 months ago
My tutelary spirit of recent days has been the American poet L.E. Sissman, dead from Hodgkin lymphoma at age forty-eight. Out in the hall I spoke with three oncologists  after they had yet again examined my brother. I asked the question no one had yet asked: How much time does...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Chevengur' My review of Chevengur by Andrey Platonov, translated by Robert and Elizabeth Chandler, is published...
12 months ago
13
12 months ago
My review of Chevengur by Andrey Platonov, translated by Robert and Elizabeth Chandler, is published in the Wall Street Journal.
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...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Related But Detached' I’ve seen Hamlet on the stage only once, in 1971. The prince was played by Dame Judith Anderson,...
10 months ago
17
10 months ago
I’ve seen Hamlet on the stage only once, in 1971. The prince was played by Dame Judith Anderson, unconvincing in her early seventies. Wrong sex, wrong age, wrong play – a stillborn theatrical stunt. My reaction was perhaps the worst that staged Shakespeare can inspire – boredom...
The American Scholar
All Talk Ease of communication will not save us The post All Talk appeared first on The American Scholar.
a month ago
9
a month ago
Ease of communication will not save us The post All Talk appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Art and Practice of Reading Aloud to Others' A longtime reader in Philadelphia, a retired attorney, tells me that since the start of the COVID-19...
a year ago
34
a year ago
A longtime reader in Philadelphia, a retired attorney, tells me that since the start of the COVID-19 lockdown he has been reading books aloud to his wife, most recently The Wife of Martin Guerre by Janet Lewis. His list of more than a dozen titles includes Moby-Dick (“our overall...
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Glory Seemingly Reserved For Poems' “He was born in the jumbled catacombs of the stair-stepped port of Odessa, late in 1894. Irreparably...
5 months ago
43
5 months ago
“He was born in the jumbled catacombs of the stair-stepped port of Odessa, late in 1894. Irreparably Semitic, Isaac was the son of a rag merchant from Kiev and a Moldavian Jewess. Catastrophe has been the normal climate of his life.”  Though born within five years of each other,...
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
Wuthering...
everything in a being is always repeating - reading Gertrude Stein's The Making of Americans Since I actually read the thing for some reason I will write some notes on Gertrude Stein’s enormous...
7 months ago
66
7 months ago
Since I actually read the thing for some reason I will write some notes on Gertrude Stein’s enormous The Making of Americans: Being a History of a Family’s Progress (1925).  It is a monster.  Why did I read it?  No, that is not the right questions.  There are good reasons to read...
The Elysian
Who's qualified to save the world? Two climate dystopias on unlikeable saviors.
6 months ago
ribbonfarm
Truth-Seeking Modes Been on a Venn diagram kick lately, since being primed to think in Venns by Harris campaign. This...
4 months ago
4
4 months ago
Been on a Venn diagram kick lately, since being primed to think in Venns by Harris campaign. This one summarizes an idea I’ve long been noodling on: The healthiest way to relate to a truth-seeking impulse is as an infinite game, where the goal is to continue playing, not arrive...
The Marginalian
Curiosity as an Instrument of Love: Thoreau and the Little Owl "If you would learn the secrets of Nature, you must practice more humanity than others."
3 months ago
The Marginalian
The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating: An Uncommon Meditation on Presence and the Aperture of Wonder "Survival often depends on a specific focus: a relationship, a belief, or a hope balanced on the...
a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Demographer of the Common Woe' Only in the last twenty years or so have I started accumulating deaths, logging them on a...
a year ago
29
a year ago
Only in the last twenty years or so have I started accumulating deaths, logging them on a internal list and weighing them against my own precious self. I’ve led a improbably healthy life which only encouraged the universal young man’s conviction that I was immune to mortality and...
Ben Borgers
The Brain Can Observe Itself
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Silent Conversation' “To talk and dispute are more the practices of the Platonic school than to read and meditate....
10 months ago
15
10 months ago
“To talk and dispute are more the practices of the Platonic school than to read and meditate. Talkative men seldom read. This is among the few truths which appear the more strange the more we reflect upon them. For what is reading but silent conversation?”  This passage is...
Josh Thompson
Dream Big, and Build Optionality We all can dream big. I have dreams, and you probably do to. For example: Travel, location...
over a year ago
3
over a year ago
We all can dream big. I have dreams, and you probably do to. For example: Travel, location independent living, being wealthy/choosing to do work that interests you, enjoying “simple” things. The list could go on, and on, and on. But then we go right along doing all the normal...
Astral Codex Ten
Hidden Open Thread 360.5 ...
2 weeks ago
The Elysian
Social Development > Self-Development We need one much more than the other.
2 days ago
Josh Thompson
Turing Prep Chapter 1: Make Mod 1 Easier Than It Otherwise Would Be Preparing for Turing Series Index What follows is an eight-part series that will help you pick up...
over a year ago
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...
Josh Thompson
OK, some new books Yesterday, I proclaimed “ No new books”. I spent a lot of time today thinking about that...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
Yesterday, I proclaimed “ No new books”. I spent a lot of time today thinking about that proclamation. Do I really want to limit myself to just the books that I’ve already picked for myself? Yes. Maybe. There’s a kind of book I don’t want to read any more of. That’s the “get...
The American Scholar
Sheep Jones Swimming below the surface The post Sheep Jones appeared first on The American Scholar.
5 months ago
The American Scholar
“How Happy Is the Little Stone” by Emily Dickinson Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “How Happy Is the Little Stone” by Emily Dickinson appeared...
7 months ago
60
7 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “How Happy Is the Little Stone” by Emily Dickinson appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
Sidekiq and Background Jobs for Beginners I’ve recently had to learn more about background jobs (using Sidekiq, specifically) for some bugs I...
over a year ago
3
over a year ago
I’ve recently had to learn more about background jobs (using Sidekiq, specifically) for some bugs I was working on. I learned a lot. Much of it was extremely basic. Anyone who knows much at all about Sidekiq will say “oh, duh, of course that’s true”, but at the time, it wasn’t...
The Marginalian
What Rises from the Ruins: Katherine Anne Porter on the Power of the Artist and the Function of Art... "We understand very little of what is happening to us at any given moment."
a year ago
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
Josh Thompson
Typing for Programmers If you had to distill my ability to bring value to those around me, it would be “Josh types good”. I...
over a year ago
3
over a year ago
If you had to distill my ability to bring value to those around me, it would be “Josh types good”. I can press these magical little keys on this little metal box here, and make these words come out. If you’re reading these words, you don’t care how these words actually got on...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Some Spirit That Didn’t Wobble' “As a youngster I came to the classics simply by following the clues of other writers. Cooper,...
a year ago
29
a year ago
“As a youngster I came to the classics simply by following the clues of other writers. Cooper, Stevenson, Whitman, even Edgar Rice Burroughs seemed to lead, allusion by allusion, back to a body of writing that was solider and wiser, some spirit that didn’t wobble, wasn’t under...
Ben Borgers
Batching
over a year ago
Astral Codex Ten
Hidden Open Thread 362.5 ...
yesterday
Ben Borgers
War Room: Expansion features
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
4
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
sbensu
Incentives as selection effects When you apply a new incentive, you select for a new population that prefers the incentive.
6 months ago
Escaping Flatland
Can we scale cultures that support learning? new essay in Asterisk
3 months ago
Astral Codex Ten
Links For December 2024 ...
2 weeks ago
The Marginalian
In the Dark: A Lyrical Illustrated Invitation to Find the Light Behind the Fear The mind is a camera obscura constantly trying to render an image of reality on the back wall of...
a year ago
13
a year ago
The mind is a camera obscura constantly trying to render an image of reality on the back wall of consciousness through the pinhole of awareness, its aperture narrowed by our selective attention, honed on our hopes and fears. In consequence, the projection we see inside the dark...
Josh Thompson
Cancel Your Cable. Seriously. No one likes to waste money, right? There are two things that are even worse to...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
No one likes to waste money, right? There are two things that are even worse to waste. Time Energy Money can be earned, and if more is needed, you can spend less or earn more. Energy is what you need to bring ideas to fruition. Unlimited time with no energy gets you nowhere, as...
Josh Thompson
Jaywalking: What, So What, What To Do What Is “Jaywalking” authors note: This feels very draft-y. There’s two distinct perspectives I note...
7 months ago
4
7 months ago
What Is “Jaywalking” authors note: This feels very draft-y. There’s two distinct perspectives I note in my mind, as I write this. Some people might “believe in jaywalking” and view non-car-users as an underclass, and act in such a way that makes this belief manifestly obvious....
Josh Thompson
On Learning As a student at Turing, I’ve recently been thinking about learning how to learn, specifically in the...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
As a student at Turing, I’ve recently been thinking about learning how to learn, specifically in the context of software development. I am a bit hyperactive when it comes to trying to learn new things. Over the years, I’ve done plenty of ineffective learning, and at least a...
Ben Borgers
Saturday, January 15, 2022
over a year ago
The Marginalian
A Spell Against Stagnation: John O’Donohue on Beginnings "Our very life here depends directly on continuous acts of beginning."
a year ago
The American Scholar
Last Laugh The post Last Laugh appeared first on The American Scholar.
5 months ago
Josh Thompson
Learn to Type - Again Yesterday, we talked about why the Caps Lock key should be converted into a delete key. What I’ve...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
Yesterday, we talked about why the Caps Lock key should be converted into a delete key. What I’ve learned from learning Colemak Short, focused practice yields great results. When I start a timer for twenty minutes, I feel a sense of urgency, rather than defeat. Time boxing...
Steven Scrawls
Stone Hands Reaching Stone Hands Reaching I’m told the statue is right in front of me, so I reach out and find myself...
6 months ago
4
6 months ago
Stone Hands Reaching I’m told the statue is right in front of me, so I reach out and find myself touching a stone forearm. It’s cold, of course, and it’s coarser than skin, but tracing along the arms is enough to bring back memories of being comforted, of being held, when I was a...
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.
Anecdotal Evidence
'His Empty Heart is Full at Length' Two-hundred-fifty years ago, in the late summer and fall of 1773, Dr. Johnson and Boswell made their...
a year ago
14
a year ago
Two-hundred-fifty years ago, in the late summer and fall of 1773, Dr. Johnson and Boswell made their grand tour of Scotland, including the Hebrides, and both would publish accounts of their adventures. Johnson’s A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland appeared in...
The American Scholar
“To a Friend Whose Work Has Come to Nothing” by William Butler Yeats The post “To a Friend Whose Work Has Come to Nothing” by William Butler Yeats appeared first on The...
a month ago
The Marginalian
The Parts We Live With: D.H. Lawrence and the Yearning for Living Unison "We ought to dance with rapture that we should be alive and in the flesh, and part of the living,...
8 months ago
Escaping Flatland
Notes on energy and intelligence becoming cheaper In 2015, I amused myself by training a neural network to generate poems in the style of various...
a year ago
10
a year ago
In 2015, I amused myself by training a neural network to generate poems in the style of various poets I knew and submitted the results to a fanzine.
Anecdotal Evidence
'Jell-O Once a Week' On Thursday I slipped my brother some Montaigne without him knowing the source. It...
4 months ago
41
4 months ago
On Thursday I slipped my brother some Montaigne without him knowing the source. It wasn’t plagiarism, exactly, and it was paraphrased. It’s a well-known passage from the essay “That to philosophize is to learn to die,” one that always reminds me of Spinoza:  “It is uncertain...
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
20
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...
Anecdotal Evidence
'But, Take It From This Famous Pote [sic]' Isaac Waisberg of IWP Books has published his latest anthology of Horace translations, this time a...
11 months ago
16
11 months ago
Isaac Waisberg of IWP Books has published his latest anthology of Horace translations, this time a generous 417 versions of Ode I.5, the “Ode to Pyrrha,” dating from 1621 to 2007. The one I’m familiar with is John Milton’s, described by the poet as “rendered almost word for word...
The Marginalian
Of Wonder, the Courage of Uncertainty, and How to Hear Your Soul: The Best of The Marginalian 2023 Hindsight is our finest instrument for discerning the patterns of our lives. To look back on a year...
a year ago
15
a year ago
Hindsight is our finest instrument for discerning the patterns of our lives. To look back on a year of reading, a year of writing, is to discover a secret map of the mind, revealing the landscape of living — after all, how we spend our thoughts is how we spend our lives. In...
Josh Thompson
Things That Are Surprisingly Good For The Cost (AKA How I want to build my tiny house) Working title: “My Dream Backyard House/ADU/round-one-of-building-experiment” I’m trying to build a...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
Working title: “My Dream Backyard House/ADU/round-one-of-building-experiment” I’m trying to build a kinda cool, quirky, sensitive-to-supply-chain-disruption, cheap, functional, emotionally healing home in my back yard. We love to host friends and family, guests, maybe AirBnB...
The Marginalian
How the Octopus Came to Earth: Stunning 19th-Century French Chromolithographs of Cephalopods The art-science that captured the wonder of some of "the most brilliant productions of Nature."
a year ago
The Marginalian
The Human Scale: Oliver Sacks on How to Save Humanity from Itself "...or there will be genocide, atomic bombs, and we'll all perish and take the planet with us."
a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Meaning of Sidereal Time' Years ago I was at a birthday party where one of the other guests was a stand-up comic and part-time...
a year ago
10
a year ago
Years ago I was at a birthday party where one of the other guests was a stand-up comic and part-time journalist who lived in Woodstock, N.Y. He was smart, quick, funny and surprisingly well-read (he knew who Edward Dahlberg was). Neither of us was much of a party-goer so we spent...
Josh Thompson
December Review, January Goals This is a follow-up from last month’s goals 1. Deepen Knowledge of Back-end Development I finished...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
This is a follow-up from last month’s goals 1. Deepen Knowledge of Back-end Development I finished OverTheWire’s Bandit series, except the last lesson, which didn’t make sense. (It does now! Turns out login shells and “regular” shells are different. I’ll take another spin at it...
Anecdotal Evidence
''In Prose, Plain as Pike, Pillory' Austin Clarke (1896-1974) was an Irish poet of the generation after Yeats, the slightly...
2 months ago
38
2 months ago
Austin Clarke (1896-1974) was an Irish poet of the generation after Yeats, the slightly older contemporary of Louis MacNeice and Patrick Kavanagh. In 1968 he published A Sermon on Swift and Other Poems, and the 117-line title poem appeared in The Massachusetts Review in 1970....
The American Scholar
“water sign woman” by Lucille Clifton Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “water sign woman” by Lucille Clifton appeared first on The...
2 months ago
34
2 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “water sign woman” by Lucille Clifton appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
Jason Middlebrook Tree rings in time The post Jason Middlebrook appeared first on The American Scholar.
3 months ago
ben-mini
Modality Switching Online I hate it when my dad leaves me a voicemail. Whenever I open my phone and see the pending voicemail,...
6 months ago
4
6 months ago
I hate it when my dad leaves me a voicemail. Whenever I open my phone and see the pending voicemail, I roll my eyes. He tends to meander. My dad’s messages can range from 40 seconds to 2 minutes. He typically wants to inform me of something, like an upcoming family event or an...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Dense, Democratic, Vulgar' When high summer arrives  -- in Texas, long before this Thursday’s equinox – I think of Saratoga...
6 months ago
43
6 months ago
When high summer arrives  -- in Texas, long before this Thursday’s equinox – I think of Saratoga Springs, N.Y., where we bought our first house and lived for seven years. The Saratoga Race Course was less than a mile away. So were Yaddo and Broadway, the main drag downtown. We...
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
30
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...
ribbonfarm
Protocol Entrepreneurship I’m running the Summer of Protocols program for the Ethereum Foundation again this year. Here is the...
9 months ago
4
9 months ago
I’m running the Summer of Protocols program for the Ethereum Foundation again this year. Here is the Call for Applications. I’d appreciate any help getting it in front of the right candidates. The core of it is what we’re calling Protocol Improvement Grants (PIGs): 90k for a team...
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Forlorn Hope' Published in the February 1950 issue of Partisan Review was a “symposium” -- always a feature...
a month ago
26
a month ago
Published in the February 1950 issue of Partisan Review was a “symposium” -- always a feature beloved by editors and loquacious respondents – this one titled “Religion and the Intellectuals.” Such things tend to be heavy on posturing and vast generalizations. I might have been...
The American Scholar
“Hymn” by A. R. Ammons Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Hymn” by A. R. Ammons appeared first on The American...
7 months ago
30
7 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Hymn” by A. R. Ammons appeared first on The American Scholar.
Blog -...
Book Review - King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine This book is a timeless classic that had a significant impact on deepening my understanding of the...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
This book is a timeless classic that had a significant impact on deepening my understanding of the masculine. Published in 1990, King, Warrior, Magician, Lover introduces readers to the concept of mature masculine archetypes and their immature shadows. The authors, Robert...
The Marginalian
Jealousy and Its Antidote: Pioneering Psychiatrist Leslie Farber on the Tangled Psychology of Our... "Every jealous person knows jealousy to be a brutally degrading experience and resists with all his...
a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Not Merely Mental Stenography' “Allow me a small confession: It has been some time since I have truly enjoyed an essay in a...
4 months ago
45
4 months ago
“Allow me a small confession: It has been some time since I have truly enjoyed an essay in a literary magazine. There are too many essays, and vanishingly few good essayists. There seems to be real confusion about whether style can conceal a fundamental incuriosity, whether...
ben-mini
Commoditize Your Complements To the man who coined the phrase, “nothing in life is free”… have you been on GitHub...
4 months ago
4
4 months ago
To the man who coined the phrase, “nothing in life is free”… have you been on GitHub lately? Open-source is software that anyone can freely view, use, modify, and share because its code is publicly available on sites like Github and Huggingface. My last coding project alone was...
Anecdotal Evidence
'That Judgment Day of Man’s Illusions' In 1956, The American Scholar asked forty-three writers, critics and scholars to name the book...
7 months ago
66
7 months ago
In 1956, The American Scholar asked forty-three writers, critics and scholars to name the book published in the preceding twenty-five years they believed to have been “the most undeservedly neglected.” For this reader, sorry to say, most of them remain neglected. I don’t even...
This Space
39 Books: 2020 It may be a sign of something that I read Louis-René des Forêts's Poems of Samuel Wood several years...
7 months ago
61
7 months ago
It may be a sign of something that I read Louis-René des Forêts's Poems of Samuel Wood several years after reading A Voice from Elsewhere in which Maurice Blanchot dedicates three unusually personal (and often bewildering) essays to them. The book's title is adapted from a line...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Cursed with an Acute Literary Conscience' Who among critics would begin a review with so seemingly inartistic a statement?:  “Some writers...
a year ago
7
a year ago
Who among critics would begin a review with so seemingly inartistic a statement?:  “Some writers have a dread of platitudes. I have not. What is a platitude but an expression of the wisdom of the ages, the synopsis of a theory that was long ago propounded, tested, established,...
Josh Thompson
Corollas and U-Hauls These last few posts have a theme. We moved. I’m writing about it a lot because I thought about it a...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
These last few posts have a theme. We moved. I’m writing about it a lot because I thought about it a lot, and a lot of work went into it. When moving across the country, you have a few options. You could higher a moving company, who comes and boxes up your house, packs a truck,...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Beauty, Clarity, Consolation, Truth' The blogosphere is infested with hair-trigger book critics whose job it is, at long last, to set you...
a year ago
11
a year ago
The blogosphere is infested with hair-trigger book critics whose job it is, at long last, to set you straight. Their world is strictly binary --  like/dislike, good/bad – and they are fond of superlatives: the best/the worst. Dissent sparks crackdowns and there is no appeals...
The Marginalian
The Dalai Lama’s Ethical and Ecological Philosophy for the Next Generation, Illustrated "We are all interconnected in the universe, and from this, universal responsibility arises......
a year ago
53
a year ago
"We are all interconnected in the universe, and from this, universal responsibility arises... Everyone has the responsibility to develop a happier world."
Wuthering...
Middle period Plato - He’s garbage, he cares about nothing but the truth. Assembling yesterday’s post I saw that I was only missing one dialogue from Plato’s early period, so...
a year ago
68
a year ago
Assembling yesterday’s post I saw that I was only missing one dialogue from Plato’s early period, so I knocked off Greater Hippiaslast night.  The early dialogues are generally short; the three in the “death of Socrates” group are only fifty pages total, for example. Hippias is...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Amid Tremendous History, New Pity' Oscar Williams (1900-4) was a middling poet with a gift for compiling excellent anthologies, thirty...
9 months ago
21
9 months ago
Oscar Williams (1900-4) was a middling poet with a gift for compiling excellent anthologies, thirty of which he published during his lifetime. Early on, several of them were my primers, an inviting way to learning the poetic tradition in English on the cheap. One of them, the...
This Space
The disappearance of criticism, part two A friend mentioned to me that he felt alienated by the articulacy of a literary critical book he was...
over a year ago
36
over a year ago
A friend mentioned to me that he felt alienated by the articulacy of a literary critical book he was reading; by its neutrality of tone, by its calm. Unruffled was another word he used. We all might recognise this feeling while assuming it is admiration, respect, perhaps even...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Monsoons, Boredom, Stench' R.L. Barth takes as the epigraph to his new chapbook, Ghost Story (Scienter Press, Louisville, Ky.,...
10 months ago
25
10 months ago
R.L. Barth takes as the epigraph to his new chapbook, Ghost Story (Scienter Press, Louisville, Ky., 2024), a passage from Dr. Johnson’s Idler essay for September 2, 1758:  “I suppose every man is shocked when he hears how frequently soldiers are wishing for war. The wish is not...
Ben Borgers
3:00 a.m. Radio
over a year ago
The American Scholar
A Ray of Sunshine The post A Ray of Sunshine appeared first on The American Scholar.
4 months ago
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...
Anecdotal Evidence
"The Saint’s Strange Way to Practice Death" Among the road kill I’ve tallied on Houston streets, the most common casualty is the...
9 months ago
15
9 months ago
Among the road kill I’ve tallied on Houston streets, the most common casualty is the strangely spelled opossum (from the Powhatan). The least common, incidentally, is the armadillo, with two KIAs sighted in twenty years, both being pecked at by crows. Natives here seem uncommonly...
Ben Borgers
Website redesign, December 2022
over a year ago
The American Scholar
“He Asked About the Quality” by C. P. Cavafy Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “He Asked About the Quality” by C. P. Cavafy appeared first...
6 months ago
57
6 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “He Asked About the Quality” by C. P. Cavafy appeared first on The American Scholar.
Ben Borgers
Sunday, January 16, 2022
over a year ago
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
11
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...
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.
Steven Scrawls
Word Rot Word Rot Unless you are extraordinarily unfortunate, every problem you ever face will have been...
a year ago
4
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...
The Marginalian
2,000 Years of Kindness From Marcus Aurelius to Einstein, poets and philosophers on the deepest wellspring of our humanity.
a year ago
Wuthering...
Books I Read in July 2023 How embarrassing that I did not write a thing this month, but I promise I had a good excuse. ...
a year ago
55
a year ago
How embarrassing that I did not write a thing this month, but I promise I had a good excuse.  Posts on Cynicism, Epicureanism, and Stoicism will appear this month, I swear, or at least hope.  My eventual excuse this month will be, I am afraid, even better. Still, I...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Whole Point of Literature' I learned of some twits who see no reason to read Tolstoy because he was such a terrible...
2 months ago
33
2 months ago
I learned of some twits who see no reason to read Tolstoy because he was such a terrible human being, as though this constituted recently declassified information. Such an understanding of literature and literary history, if followed to its logical conclusion, will result in a...
The American Scholar
Dottie Lo Bue House and home The post Dottie Lo Bue appeared first on The American Scholar.
2 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Flowering Shrubs of His Letters' To some writers we feel an unbudgeable loyalty that defies critical understanding and even good...
a year ago
12
a year ago
To some writers we feel an unbudgeable loyalty that defies critical understanding and even good taste. I can’t defend my love of Sherwood Anderson’s stories and no longer feel the need to do so. At some point a reader gives up trying to impress others with his sophistication,...
Escaping Flatland
6 lessons I learned working at an art gallery On agency, doing value-aligned work, and making your job fun
a month ago
The Marginalian
The Paradise Notebooks: A Poet and a Geologist’s Love Letter to Life Lensed Through a Mountain "Each world bears all the worlds we might find within it. If you understand one outcropping of...
8 months ago
65
8 months ago
"Each world bears all the worlds we might find within it. If you understand one outcropping of stone, or one wildflower, or one hummingbird — if we see our way along the tracery of cause and effect, the mystery of change and recreation — then we are led to everything we see, and...
The American Scholar
“Snow” by Louis MacNeice Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Snow” by Louis MacNeice appeared first on The American...
a week ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Mouldering Boots of Other Days' The triolet, like its cousins the rondeau, rondel, and rondelet, is an intricate French verse form,...
9 months ago
51
9 months ago
The triolet, like its cousins the rondeau, rondel, and rondelet, is an intricate French verse form, usually eight lines long and written in iambic tetrameter. The first line is repeated as the fourth and seventh lines. Among English-language poets, Robert Bridges and Thomas Hardy...
Josh Thompson
Collateralizing Mortgages and Loans With the Present Value of Rent Flow this is a draft document, it pairs with this Planned Unit Development application draft...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
this is a draft document, it pairs with this Planned Unit Development application draft document Inspiration comes from many places, but most strongly it draws heavily from Order Without Design. I’ve quoted in depth two pages below, but there is many other sections of the book...
Wuthering...
there is no wisdom in me; and that is true enough - what is knowledge? - Theaetetus and Parmenides The epistemological crisis of Greek philosophy has surprised me.  The early attempts to...
a year ago
39
a year ago
The epistemological crisis of Greek philosophy has surprised me.  The early attempts to systematically understand, without the help of the revealed truth of religion, difficult concepts like existence and virtue led, almost immediately, to the question of whether anyone can...
The American Scholar
On Book August Wilson’s play just hit the big screen, but even greater rewards await on the page The post On...
a month ago
22
a month ago
August Wilson’s play just hit the big screen, but even greater rewards await on the page The post On Book appeared first on The American Scholar.
Escaping Flatland
On having more interesting ideas “To write well, all you have to do is cultivate your mind and then write what you see.” When I talk...
7 months ago
73
7 months ago
“To write well, all you have to do is cultivate your mind and then write what you see.” When I talk to people who have worked with their ideas seriously for 10+ years, it feels like I can throw any topic on them and they’ll have an interesting idea, or if not an idea so at least...