ribbonfarm
Covid and Noun-Memory Effects
Ever since I got a bout of Covid a couple of years ago (late 2022), I’ve noticed memory problems of...
6 months ago
Ever since I got a bout of Covid a couple of years ago (late 2022), I’ve noticed memory problems of a very specific sort: Difficulty remembering names. Especially people names, but also other sorts of proper nouns. This is especially marked when it comes to remembering names of...
The American Scholar
“Planetarium” by Adrienne Rich
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “Planetarium” by Adrienne Rich appeared first on The American...
8 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “Planetarium” by Adrienne Rich appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
Catalina Schliebener Muñoz
Playing with dolls
The post Catalina Schliebener Muñoz appeared first on The American Scholar.
7 months ago
Playing with dolls
The post Catalina Schliebener Muñoz 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
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...
Josh Thompson
Waking Up Early 2.0
A few months ago, I wrote about
waking up early.
I tracked my progress for almost a month, and most...
over a year ago
A few months ago, I wrote about
waking up early.
I tracked my progress for almost a month, and most of the days I woke up between 4:45 and 6:00. My “must be up by” time is 7:30a, so waking up more than an hour and a half early counts as a huge win.
From mid-may until June 7, I...
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Profoundly Bitter Lesson'
My friend
Moshe Vardi is a computer scientist at Rice University, the Karen Ostrum...
a year ago
My friend
Moshe Vardi is a computer scientist at Rice University, the Karen Ostrum George
Distinguished Service Professor in Computational Engineering. He has published
an essay, “A Moral Rot at Rice University”:
“I was well
aware that antisemitism is alive and well in the US,...
The Marginalian
The Universe and the Soul: Richard Jefferies on Nature as Prayer for Presence
How to grow "absorbed into the being or existence of the universe."
a year ago
How to grow "absorbed into the being or existence of the universe."
The Marginalian
The Importance of Trusting Yourself: Nick Cave on the Relationship Between Creativity and Faith
"There is more going on than we can see or understand, and we need to find a way to lean into the...
a year ago
"There is more going on than we can see or understand, and we need to find a way to lean into the mystery of things."
The American Scholar
Imperfecta
Her brother’s disease leads a writer to challenge how we conceive of human abnormality in the...
6 months ago
Her brother’s disease leads a writer to challenge how we conceive of human abnormality in the emerging era of gene editing
The post Imperfecta appeared first on The American Scholar.
Ben Borgers
The Brain Can Observe Itself
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Future Spells Only Disaster'
Several
weeks ago in a post I wrote about Robert Conquest I referred to “the essential
books...
5 days ago
Several
weeks ago in a post I wrote about Robert Conquest I referred to “the essential
books published in the twentieth century,” and listed some of the titles deserving
a place in that category. Most, I wrote, “are not found in the traditionally
defined literary categories; that...
Anecdotal Evidence
'They Will Leave Behind Trenches'
“You wouldn’t
give up utopia it was too nourishing seductive / For mommy’s boys the heirs of
fortune...
2 months ago
“You wouldn’t
give up utopia it was too nourishing seductive / For mommy’s boys the heirs of
fortune heirs / To the bloody myths of the twentieth city.”
Today is the
centenary of Polish poet and essayist Zbigniew Herbert. The
Anglophone world has been fortunate. Herbert’s poems...
The American Scholar
Rhyme, Not Repetition
All that’s past isn’t necessarily present
The post Rhyme, Not Repetition appeared first on The...
7 months ago
All that’s past isn’t necessarily present
The post Rhyme, Not Repetition appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Perpetual Fountain of Fun'
“It was not
only in the best company he uttered his best things. He was a perpetual
fountain of fun;...
6 months ago
“It was not
only in the best company he uttered his best things. He was a perpetual
fountain of fun; an improvisatore, who
raised upon some shrewd comment wild edifices of exaggeration. His talk
ascended from rational wit to buffoonery; yet his towerings never daunted
others. He...
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
“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
'Well-known Types of Miracle'
It’s grim
out there and getting grimmer. Two poems encountered on the same day provided a
touch of...
8 months ago
It’s grim
out there and getting grimmer. Two poems encountered on the same day provided a
touch of buoyancy. The first was originally written in Russian by Vladimir
Nabokov on May 6, 1923:
“No, life is
no quivering quandary!
Here under
the moon things are bright and dewy.
We are...
Josh Thompson
Full Copy of 'The Atlanta Zone Plan' from 1922
A Warning and a Request
In a moment, you will read the full text of a 1922 marketing pamphlet. This...
over a year ago
A Warning and a Request
In a moment, you will read the full text of a 1922 marketing pamphlet. This document is an important thread to understanding some very large political problems facing the world today, specifically housing, affordability, the growing wealth gap, and...
The Elysian
Week 4: One pitch several places
9 months ago
The American Scholar
“The Pulley” by George Herbert
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “The Pulley” by George Herbert appeared first on The American...
3 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “The Pulley” by George Herbert appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
A Stranger in the Seven Hills
A refugee’s experience in the Eternal City
The post A Stranger in the Seven Hills appeared first on...
4 months ago
A refugee’s experience in the Eternal City
The post A Stranger in the Seven Hills appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
Heroism and the Human Search for Meaning: Ernest Becker on the Hidden Root of Our Existential...
"To become conscious of what one is doing to earn his feeling of heroism is the main self-analytic...
a year ago
"To become conscious of what one is doing to earn his feeling of heroism is the main self-analytic problem of life."
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
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “Full Moon Rhyme” by Judith Wright appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Laurels All Are Cut'
A thoughtful
reader, knowing of my fondness for A.E. Housman’s poems, has sent me the
English...
9 months ago
A thoughtful
reader, knowing of my fondness for A.E. Housman’s poems, has sent me the
English composer John Ireland’s 1928 setting for a verse from Last Poems (1922, that literary annus mirabilis). The baritone is Mark
Stone; the pianist, Sholto Kynoch. Here is Housman’s poem,...
Escaping Flatland
Living 80 years, you can have 8 lives
Highlights from the cutting room floor, pt. 2
a month ago
Highlights from the cutting room floor, pt. 2
The American Scholar
Mortal Coils
We aren’t alone in facing the inevitable
The post Mortal Coils appeared first on The American...
4 months ago
We aren’t alone in facing the inevitable
The post Mortal Coils appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
The Donkey and the Meaning of Eternity: Nobel-Winning Spanish Poet Juan Ramón Jiménez’s Love Letter...
"Come with me. I'll teach you the flowers and the stars."
a year ago
"Come with me. I'll teach you the flowers and the stars."
The Marginalian
The Rigor of Angels: Human Nature and the Nature of Reality
"What we are striving for lies inside us; we find ourselves in the world and the world in...
a year ago
"What we are striving for lies inside us; we find ourselves in the world and the world in ourselves."
Anecdotal Evidence
'An Echo of a Song a Stranger Sang'
I’m reminded
of my age only when someone holds a door open for me (That’s my job!) or performs some...
2 months ago
I’m reminded
of my age only when someone holds a door open for me (That’s my job!) or performs some other courtesy. I was returning to
my car from the university library, carrying a canvas tote bag of books, walking with the aid of my cane, as usual, when a
young man asked if he...
The Marginalian
Emerson on the Singular Enchantment of Indian Summer (and a Better Term for This Liminal Season...
"There are days... wherein the world reaches its perfection, when the air, the heavenly bodies, and...
2 months ago
"There are days... wherein the world reaches its perfection, when the air, the heavenly bodies, and the earth, make a harmony."
Astral Codex Ten
Hidden Open Thread 360.5
...
2 weeks ago
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
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
Octavia Butler (and Whitman’s Ghost) on America
“Choose your leaders with wisdom and forethought,” Octavia Butler (June 22, 1947–February 24, 2006)...
2 months ago
“Choose your leaders with wisdom and forethought,” Octavia Butler (June 22, 1947–February 24, 2006) urged in her prophetic Parable of the Talents, written in the 1990s and set in the 2020s. Her words remain a haunting reminder that our rights are founded upon our...
Josh Thompson
A 40 Hour Work Week
Business Insider posted an article on why we have a
40 hour work week.
The author blames big...
over a year ago
Business Insider posted an article on why we have a
40 hour work week.
The author blames big business for why we’ve not dropped below 40 hours per week. He thinks that if America became less consumer-driven, our economy would collapse.
He’s got the wrong starting assumptions...
sbensu
Love's Executioner (book)
Countertransference applies to regular conversation.
a month ago
Countertransference applies to regular conversation.
Ben Borgers
Giving Out Chick-fil-A on a Schedule App
over a year ago
The Elysian
Your ideas for improving capitalism
A collection of responses to my writing prompt.
2 months ago
A collection of responses to my writing prompt.
Josh Thompson
An announcement, and a teaser (for you rock climbers)
Here’s a clip from a video I shot today.
Can you guess what’s coming?
(This is all going to happen...
over a year ago
Here’s a clip from a video I shot today.
Can you guess what’s coming?
(This is all going to happen on
The Climber’s Guide)
(Warning to mobile users: big gif)
In case you didn’t guess, or you guessed wrong…
I’m shooting tons of video for a course. It’s going to be awesome. It’s...
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Mind Quite Vacant Is a Mind Distress’d'
I’ll be
going halftime at the university, effective July 1, in preparation for retiring
later this...
6 months ago
I’ll be
going halftime at the university, effective July 1, in preparation for retiring
later this year. I knew a guy in high school who already yearned for retirement
despite never having had a job, whereas I’d been working since I was twelve. He
wanted to play golf and go...
Josh Thompson
Fry Your Pizza
Here’s a problem many of us first-worlders have: cold pizza.
There are two options. Microwave it, or...
over a year ago
Here’s a problem many of us first-worlders have: cold pizza.
There are two options. Microwave it, or throw it in the toaster oven or regular oven. A microwave makes it soggy, and a regular oven takes forever to heat it up.
(If you’re willing to eat it cold, may god have mercy on...
Wuthering...
Ovid's Amores and Marlowe's Ovid - Love slack’d my muse
Since it is Valentine’s Day, I’ll riffle through Ovid’s
Amores (16 BCE), as translated by Peter...
10 months ago
Since it is Valentine’s Day, I’ll riffle through Ovid’s
Amores (16 BCE), as translated by Peter Green in The Erotic Poems
(1982) and Christopher Marlowe as Ovid’s Elegies (1599). A statement of purpose:
I, Ovid, poet of my wantonness,
Born at Peligny, to write more address.
So...
The Marginalian
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
"We are all interconnected in the universe, and from this, universal responsibility arises... Everyone has the responsibility to develop a happier world."
The American Scholar
Betsy, Mary, and Trish
The post Betsy, Mary, and Trish appeared first on The American Scholar.
7 months ago
The post Betsy, Mary, and Trish appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
The Birth of the Byline: How a Bronze Age Woman Became the World’s First Named Author and Used the...
Days after I arrived in America as a lone teenager, the same age Mary Shelley was when she wrote...
6 months ago
Days after I arrived in America as a lone teenager, the same age Mary Shelley was when she wrote Frankenstein, not yet knowing I too was to become a writer, I found myself wandering the vast cool halls of the Penn Museum. There among the thousands of ancient artifacts was one to...
Blog -...
Book Review - Shots from the Hip
In the fields of Taoism, herbalism, and Chinese culture, Daniel Reid is a
legendary author who has...
over a year ago
In the fields of Taoism, herbalism, and Chinese culture, Daniel Reid is a
legendary author who has written books that have changed the course of
lives. His most recent publication is a two-book memoir entitled Shots from
the Hip, a colourful account of his many exotic...
The American Scholar
Tramping With Virginia
A seminal essay about walking the streets of London can present challenges in the classrooms of...
7 months ago
A seminal essay about walking the streets of London can present challenges in the classrooms of today
The post Tramping With Virginia appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
Stunning 200-Year-Old French Illustrations of Exotic, Endangered, and Extinct Birds
From peacocks to penguins, a winged menagerie of wonder.
a year ago
From peacocks to penguins, a winged menagerie of wonder.
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
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...
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
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...
Wuthering...
Sōseki's Kokoro and two Tanizaki genre exercises - I resolved that I must live my life as if I were...
It is the 16th year of Dolce Bellezza’s remarkable Japanese Literature Challenge – in the old days...
a year ago
It is the 16th year of Dolce Bellezza’s remarkable Japanese Literature Challenge – in the old days for some reason we “challenged” people to read – which reminded me, as it often has, that I have never read anything by Natsumi Sōseki, the earliest of the greatest 20th century...
The American Scholar
Such as It Is
The post Such as It Is appeared first on The American Scholar.
2 weeks ago
The post Such as It Is appeared first on The American Scholar.
Wuthering...
Paradoxes and epistemology - early Greek philosophy as conceptual innovation - "Zeno argues...
The conceptual innovation of Thales that we identify as the birth of philosophy quickly spun off...
a year ago
The conceptual innovation of Thales that we identify as the birth of philosophy quickly spun off other conceptual innovations. A real conceptual innovation does not require a book or even an argument. You say there are many gods? But what if there were one? Or none? ...
sbensu
Collapse: The Fall of the Soviet Union
Notes from reading the book by Zubok
10 months ago
Notes from reading the book by Zubok
The Marginalian
The Art of Withstanding Abandonment: The Patience of the Penguin and How Evolution Invented Faith
“Let us love this distance which is wholly woven of friendship, for those who do not love each other...
4 months ago
“Let us love this distance which is wholly woven of friendship, for those who do not love each other are not separated,” Simone Weil wrote in her soulful meditation on the paradox of closeness and separation. To be separated from a loved one — in space or in silence, by choice or...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Remarkable Literary Judgment'
She was
twelve or thirteen, a girl in a hooded sweatshirt seated beside a woman I
assume was her...
4 months ago
She was
twelve or thirteen, a girl in a hooded sweatshirt seated beside a woman I
assume was her mother. She sat on the aisle two rows ahead of me. The cabin of
the plane glowed with screens while she was reading Andrew R. MacAndrew’s 1961 translation
of Dead Souls, the Signet...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Gleams Like a Warm Homestead Light'
Here is
epigram 1.33 by Marcus Valerius Martialis (c. 38-102 A.D.), better known in
English as...
2 months ago
Here is
epigram 1.33 by Marcus Valerius Martialis (c. 38-102 A.D.), better known in
English as Martial:
“In private
she mourns not the late-lamented;
If someone’s
by, her tears leap forth on call.
Sorrow, my
dear, is not so easily rented.
They are
true tears that without witness...
The Marginalian
The Beach and the Soul: Anne Morrow Lindbergh on the Benedictions of the Sea
"The sea does not reward those who are too anxious, too greedy, or too impatient... Patience,...
6 months ago
"The sea does not reward those who are too anxious, too greedy, or too impatient... Patience, patience, patience, is what the sea teaches. Patience and faith. One should lie empty, open, choiceless as a beach."
This Space
39 Books: 2012
Of all the books in this series, this was the one I most wanted to write about and also the one I...
7 months ago
Of all the books in this series, this was the one I most wanted to write about and also the one I knew would be impossible to write about, at least in a couple of distracted hours. Imagine this: through mathematical calculation, close reading and literary detective work, a...
The Marginalian
The Necessity of Our Illusions: Oliver Sacks on the Mind as an Escape Artist from Reality
"We need detachment... as much as we need engagement in our lives... transports that make our...
a year ago
"We need detachment... as much as we need engagement in our lives... transports that make our consciousness of time and mortality easier to bear."
Anecdotal Evidence
'Poets Who Are Plain and Gladsome'
Being or
pretending to be a philistine is great fun. It was one of Philip Larkin’s favorite
ruses...
9 months ago
Being or
pretending to be a philistine is great fun. It was one of Philip Larkin’s favorite
ruses (“Books are a load of crap”). It’s certain to rile the pompous and
pretentious, so all you have to do is sit back and enjoy the sputtering. I’ve
happened on a first-rate anthology of...
Josh Thompson
Write It Now
The original post
note from October 5, 2021: This was typed up/published in about 20 minutes, took...
over a year ago
The original post
note from October 5, 2021: This was typed up/published in about 20 minutes, took 2x as long as I wish it had. I could make it 10x better with another hour of work, but I only have 20 minutes.
I’m a fan of “conceptual frameworks”
This concept has been important...
The Marginalian
Audubon on Other Minds and the Secret Knowledge of Animals
“In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with...
4 months ago
“In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear,” Henry Beston observed of other animals two generations before naturalist Sy Montgomery...
Anecdotal Evidence
'To Be at Home in Other Places'
At his day
job my current barber is a counselor working with street people who have alcohol
and/or...
a month ago
At his day
job my current barber is a counselor working with street people who have alcohol
and/or drug problems. Like most in that field, he values his clients and
dislikes the bosses, who live by the dictates of bureaucracy. Barbers are like
bartenders. The good ones usually...
The Marginalian
An Illustrated Field Guide to the Science and Wonder of the Clouds
Clouds drift ephemeral across the dome of this world, carrying eternity — condensing molecules that...
5 months ago
Clouds drift ephemeral across the dome of this world, carrying eternity — condensing molecules that animated the first breath of life, coursing with electric charges that will power the last thought. To me, a cloud will always be a spell against indifference — a little bloom of...
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Master of Light But Stinging Irony'
I bought
Vikram Seth’s novel-in-verse The Golden
Gate when it was published in 1986. Around that...
6 months ago
I bought
Vikram Seth’s novel-in-verse The Golden
Gate when it was published in 1986. Around that time I was giving up the
practice of writing in books, which had always left me a little uncomfortable. Instead,
I switched to keeping notebooks. In The
Golden Gate I see that I...
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
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...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Some Godforsaken Province'
After the
Nazis invaded Poland in 1939, the poet Aleksander Wat fled to Lwów, already
occupied by...
7 months ago
After the
Nazis invaded Poland in 1939, the poet Aleksander Wat fled to Lwów, already
occupied by the Soviets. He was arrested by the NKVD the following year and
held in a military prison in that city, then moved to Kiev, the Lubyanka in Moscow, and Saratov, more than...
This Space
39 Books in one
For anyone interested (you there in the phone box), here's a PDF of the 39 Books series.
39 Books:...
7 months ago
For anyone interested (you there in the phone box), here's a PDF of the 39 Books series.
39 Books: PDF
As the introduction explained, the books were chosen from those on my books-read lists that I hadn't written about before. I thought it might be instructive to contrast the...
The American Scholar
The Patron Subjects
Who were the Wertheimers, the family that sat for a dozen of John Singer Sargent’s paintings?
The...
a month ago
Who were the Wertheimers, the family that sat for a dozen of John Singer Sargent’s paintings?
The post The Patron Subjects appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Milestone, Insignificant'
Understandably,
readers and critics like to take credit for rediscovering forgotten writers...
4 weeks ago
Understandably,
readers and critics like to take credit for rediscovering forgotten writers and
resuscitating their reputations. Imagine being the guy who, in 1909, read Moby-Dick (1851; out of print, 1887) and
declared Melville (d. 1891) a genius a decade before Van Doren,...
Anecdotal Evidence
'That Marsh Light Is Still Burning Hard'
I’m
suspicious of the itch for ranking books and making lists. Too often it’s a substitute...
10 months ago
I’m
suspicious of the itch for ranking books and making lists. Too often it’s a substitute for
actually reading them, a ruse for flaunting one’s hipness or sophistication. My
late friend David Myers was fond of assembling such lists, which are likely to
assure higher-than-average...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Everything is Singing, Blooming and Sparkling'
In a May 4, 1889 letter to his friend and editor
Alexi Suvorin, Chekhov complains of taking no...
8 months ago
In a May 4, 1889 letter to his friend and editor
Alexi Suvorin, Chekhov complains of taking no interest in “reviews,
conversations about literature, gossip, successes, failures, high royalties,”
and adds:
“[I]n short, I’ve become a damn fool. My soul
seems to be stagnating. I...
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Magnetism, an Ardor, a Refusal to Be False'
“It’s
against his nature to be a critic—he is too grateful.”
That’s from one
of Elias Canetti’s...
2 months ago
“It’s
against his nature to be a critic—he is too grateful.”
That’s from one
of Elias Canetti’s notebooks, collected in Notes
from Hampstead (trans. John Hargraves, 1998). While I admire the work of a
handful of critics – Dryden, Johnson, Winters, Cunningham, a few others –...
Ben Borgers
I Misjudged My Chinese Professor
over a year ago
The Marginalian
A Whole of Parts: Philosopher R.L. Nettleship on Love, Death, and the Paradox of Personality
"Death is self-surrender... Love is the consciousness of survival in the act of self-surrender."
a week ago
"Death is self-surrender... Love is the consciousness of survival in the act of self-surrender."
The American Scholar
Bards Behind Bars
Reading Sartre aloud inside a maximum-security prison
The post Bards Behind Bars appeared first on...
7 months ago
Reading Sartre aloud inside a maximum-security prison
The post Bards Behind Bars appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'Where I Went and Cannot Come Again'
A brief
return to the Russian word toska
mentioned in Thursday’s post by Gary Saul Morson in...
8 months ago
A brief
return to the Russian word toska
mentioned in Thursday’s post by Gary Saul Morson in reference to Chekhov. Dave
Lull alerted me to Nabokov’s explication of the word in his translation of
Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin. In the
second of the four volumes, Nabokov writes:
“No...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Daring to His Own Disadvantage'
“The words
poetic and fatuous ought not to be synonyms; and to encounter a mind which is
against...
5 months ago
“The words
poetic and fatuous ought not to be synonyms; and to encounter a mind which is
against mock society, mock poetry, mock justice, mock spirituality—against any form of enslavement—is a benefit.”
Marianne
Moore could be a soft touch when it came to reviewing. She could...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Where Silence Suddenly Erupts in Speech'
Zbigniew Herbert
visited Western Europe for the first time in 1958-59: France, then England,
Italy,...
a year ago
Zbigniew Herbert
visited Western Europe for the first time in 1958-59: France, then England,
Italy, France again and back to Poland. His budget was tight but Herbert was
no hedonistic tourist. Nor was he a stuffy academic or critic. The essays in Barbarian in the Garden (1962;...
Wuthering...
Books I Read in July 2023
How embarrassing that I did not write a thing this month,
but I promise I had a good excuse. ...
a year ago
How embarrassing that I did not write a thing this month,
but I promise I had a good excuse. Posts
on Cynicism, Epicureanism, and Stoicism will appear this month, I swear, or at
least hope. My eventual excuse this month will
be, I am afraid, even better.
Still, I...
Josh Thompson
Processes Vs. Goals (or, Systems vs. Accomplishments)
In this
excellent article on systems vs. goals, James argues that even if you did not pursue any...
over a year ago
In this
excellent article on systems vs. goals, James argues that even if you did not pursue any specific goals, with the right
system, you will still go a long way.
This idea has been floating around my head for over a year, now, and I think it’s slowly coalescing into something...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Every Departure Destroys a Class of Sympathies'
As a boy I
was spared most deaths. I've read of people who lose parents, siblings and close
friends...
5 months ago
As a boy I
was spared most deaths. I've read of people who lose parents, siblings and close
friends when young, and wonder how they adapt to unprecedented loss. They have
nothing to compare it to. The death that hit me hardest was President Kennedy’s,
a month after my eleventh...
The American Scholar
Feels Like Coming Home
The wonders of the coastal redwood
The post Feels Like Coming Home appeared first on The American...
4 months ago
The wonders of the coastal redwood
The post Feels Like Coming Home appeared first on The American Scholar.
Ben Borgers
Un-figure-out-able Software
over a year ago
Josh Thompson
Turing Prep appendix: Troubleshooting Errors
Pretty much any time I hear the same question twice, I will try to add a section here for it, and...
over a year ago
Pretty much any time I hear the same question twice, I will try to add a section here for it, and make it as findable by future students as possible.
Do you have a question not answered here? PLEASE send me a DM in Slack or @ me (I’m josh_t in the Turing slack). I’ll take a...
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Man of My Kidney'
I met my
nephrologist for the first time when we shared an elevator to his office on the
fourth...
8 months ago
I met my
nephrologist for the first time when we shared an elevator to his office on the
fourth floor of the hospital. Between patients he was eating a banana, his breakfast, and carried a stack of folders in his other hand. On the front of his
white lab coat was his name, the...
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
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...
Josh Thompson
12 Lessons Learned While Publishing Something Every Day for a Month
A month ago, I decided to publish something every day for at least thirty days.
I read a few others...
over a year ago
A month ago, I decided to publish something every day for at least thirty days.
I read a few others who did something similar, and discussed all the benefits. I’ve found myself struggling with creating something and then making it public. (Public here, on another project, or at...
The Marginalian
How to Miss Loved Ones Better: The Psychology of Waiting and Withstanding Absence
On "the capacity to bear frustration without turning against one’s needy self, or against the person...
4 months ago
On "the capacity to bear frustration without turning against one’s needy self, or against the person one needs."
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
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...
Ben Borgers
Why Do I Care About Grades?
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Be Able to Call It a Poem'
A few poets
are born into each generation. A measure of the rareness of their gift is...
4 days ago
A few poets
are born into each generation. A measure of the rareness of their gift is the
proliferation of wannabes who make poetic gestures, relish the title “poet” and
write undistinguished prose. I was given an issue of American Poetry Review, a magazine I
haven’t looked at in...
The American Scholar
Agent 37
The post Agent 37 appeared first on The American Scholar.
6 months ago
The post Agent 37 appeared first on The American Scholar.
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
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...
Ben Borgers
Have Your Cake and Eat It Too
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'You Have to Read the Words'
“Tolstoy was
so much better than any other writer who ever lived that you couldn’t even
remotely...
3 months ago
“Tolstoy was
so much better than any other writer who ever lived that you couldn’t even
remotely compare anyone to him.”
I first read
War and Peace in the eighth grade in
a paperback abridgement. I remember reading it in science class, half-heartedly
hiding the book behind the...
The American Scholar
Our Pets, Our Plates
In defense of the furred and the hoofed
The post Our Pets, Our Plates appeared first on The American...
6 months ago
In defense of the furred and the hoofed
The post Our Pets, Our Plates appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'He Has Embalmed So Many Eminent Persons'
Over the
years I wrote thousands of pieces – hard news stories, features, columns,
obituaries,...
9 months ago
Over the
years I wrote thousands of pieces – hard news stories, features, columns,
obituaries, reviews of books, movies and music – for the newspapers where I
worked in Ohio, Indiana and New York. They’re clipped and saved in a chaotic file
cabinet. Most, I, like the rest of the...
Anecdotal Evidence
'To Consider Seriously My Condition'
Soon after
he is shipwrecked on an island off the coast of Venezuela and has finished...
a year ago
Soon after
he is shipwrecked on an island off the coast of Venezuela and has finished salvaging
everything useful from the wreckage, Robinson Crusoe builds a calendar:
“After I had
been there about ten or twelve days, it came into my thoughts that I should
lose my reckoning of...
Josh Thompson
Switching to Jekyll
Why I switched to Jekyll
A few days ago, I was really feeling the urge to write a short little blog...
over a year ago
Why I switched to Jekyll
A few days ago, I was really feeling the urge to write a short little blog post. So, I put it in a gist on Github.
I’m an advocate of writing publicly, and making it a habit, so why was I putting it in a gist, instead of here, on my website, where I...
The American Scholar
Lift Off
The post Lift Off appeared first on The American Scholar.
7 months ago
The post Lift Off appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Discussian of General Ideas'
A friend who
is not a dedicated reader but has more common sense and worldly knowhow than I’ve
ever...
5 months ago
A friend who
is not a dedicated reader but has more common sense and worldly knowhow than I’ve
ever possessed tells me he plans to reread Animal
House and 1984. Neither have I
read since junior-high school, probably the ideal time for such books, which
are among the most...
Josh Thompson
Migrating my Jekyll site to Netlify
Troubleshooting Netilify deploy
Ugggh I moved intermediateruby.com to Netlify a few months ago in...
over a year ago
Troubleshooting Netilify deploy
Ugggh I moved intermediateruby.com to Netlify a few months ago in like 10 minutes, so my primary site, josh.works, should take maybe 20, right?
I’m a few hours deep. Here’s what I get when Netlify tries to build:
I should have done the following...
The Marginalian
Between Encyclopedia and Fairy Tale: The Wondrous Birds and Reptiles of 18th-Century Artist Dorothea...
Imagine a world of constant wars and deadly plagues, a world without eyeglasses, bicycles, or...
3 months ago
Imagine a world of constant wars and deadly plagues, a world without eyeglasses, bicycles, or sanitation. Imagine being a gifted child in that world, knowing you are born into a body that will never be granted the basic rights of citizenship in any country, into a mind that will...
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
Preparing for Turing Series Index
What follows is an eight-part series that will help you pick up useful information about a number of topics related to Ruby, specifically geared for students learning the Ruby programming language, as part of the Turing School’s Backend Software...
This Space
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
"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...
Josh Thompson
2020 Annual Review
please note: i’m publishing this far after it was drafted, which was in January 2021. It’s being...
over a year ago
please note: i’m publishing this far after it was drafted, which was in January 2021. It’s being published in June 2022 - I’m trying to back-fill ‘annual reviews’, I never finished this one or published it, until now.
Is it even possible to mention a 2020 review without somehow...
Ben Borgers
The Magic of the Common Room
over a year ago
Ben Borgers
It Does Have to Be Every Day
over a year ago
This Space
Books of the year 2024
In order of being read.
Giorgio Agamben – What I saw, heard, learned…
One night, along Venice’s...
2 weeks ago
In order of being read.
Giorgio Agamben – What I saw, heard, learned…
One night, along Venice’s Zattere, watching the putrid water lap at the city’s foundations, I saw that we exist solely in the intermittence of our being, and that what we call I is just a shadow...
Anecdotal Evidence
'And Talked Down Speechless Death'
In my November 1 post I asked, “Does anyone know anything about Edward Case?” I had stumbled
on a...
2 days ago
In my November 1 post I asked, “Does anyone know anything about Edward Case?” I had stumbled
on a gifted poet previously unknown to me who had died in 1985. This week I heard
from his son James Case, an architect living in New Jersey, who briefed me on
his father and his work....
Anecdotal Evidence
Arthur Krystal
My review of
two books by Arthur Krystal -- A Word or
Two Before I Go: Essays Then and Now and Some...
5 months ago
My review of
two books by Arthur Krystal -- A Word or
Two Before I Go: Essays Then and Now and Some Unfinished Chaos: The Lives of F. Scott Fitzgerald – is
published in Ron Slate’s On the Seawall.
The American Scholar
From All Souls by Saskia Hamilton
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post From <em>All Souls</em> by Saskia Hamilton appeared first on...
2 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post From <em>All Souls</em> by Saskia Hamilton appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
The Messiah in the Mountain: Darwin on Wonder and the Spirituality of Nature
Here we are, matter yearning for meaning, each of us a fragile constellation of chemistry and chance...
7 months ago
Here we are, matter yearning for meaning, each of us a fragile constellation of chemistry and chance hurtling through a cold cosmos that has no accord for our wishes, takes no interest in our dreams. “I can’t but believe that all that majesty and all that beauty, those fated and...
The Elysian
Let's read the Terra Ignota series together
Our summer reading is Ada Palmer's feat of utopian worldbuilding.
6 months ago
Our summer reading is Ada Palmer's feat of utopian worldbuilding.
Josh Thompson
Job Hunting Recommendations for Early-Career Software Developers
I’ve distilled a number of conversations into this post.
Some of it is specific to getting a remote...
over a year ago
I’ve distilled a number of conversations into this post.
Some of it is specific to getting a remote job and working remotely, but all of it is applicable for any kind of software-related role. It’s probably applicable to non-software roles, but this is where most of my exprience...
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
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...
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
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,...
Josh Thompson
December 2016 Goals
December 19th seems a bit late to write about December’s goals, huh?
Nonetheless, I’ve had some, and...
over a year ago
December 19th seems a bit late to write about December’s goals, huh?
Nonetheless, I’ve had some, and I will still have them through the end of the month.
I
did post a review of November a few days ago. This should really be rolled into that. A “monthly review/going forward”...
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Taste for Strolling in Cemeteries'
Just
as most of the people we encounter across a lifetime mean nothing to us and
will not...
a year ago
Just
as most of the people we encounter across a lifetime mean nothing to us and
will not even
linger in memory, as they stir neither distaste nor devotion, so it is with
books and writers. Had I been one of those desperately obsessive readers who
records every title read, I...
The American Scholar
Imperiled Planet
The ecological havoc we’ve wrought
The post Imperiled Planet appeared first on The American Scholar.
4 months ago
The ecological havoc we’ve wrought
The post Imperiled Planet appeared first on The American Scholar.
Wuthering...
Books I Read in May 2023
I had a good time.
GREEK PHILOSOPHY
The Nicomachean Ethics (4th C. BCE), Aristotle - a post,...
a year ago
I had a good time.
GREEK PHILOSOPHY
The Nicomachean Ethics (4th C. BCE), Aristotle - a post, however shallow, should appear soon.
FICTION
Joseph in Egypt (1936), Thomas Mann
The Long Valley (1938)
&
The Grapes of Wrath (1939), John Steinbeck - I last read this probably...
ribbonfarm
Sons of the Soil, Migrants, and Civil War,
We read an interesting paper today (ht Sachin Benny with an assist from ChatGPT) in the Yak...
8 months ago
We read an interesting paper today (ht Sachin Benny with an assist from ChatGPT) in the Yak Collective weekly governance study group (Fridays at 9 AM Pacific). Sons of the Soil, Migrants, and Civil War, by James D. Fearon and David D. Laitin (World Development, V 39, No. 2,...
The Marginalian
Magnolias and the Meaning of Life: Science, Poetry, Existentialism
On cruelty, kindness, and the song of life.
a year ago
On cruelty, kindness, and the song of life.
The Marginalian
Wonder-Sighting on Planet Earth: The Space Telescope Eye of the Scallop
Inside Earth's most alien vision.
a year ago
Inside Earth's most alien vision.
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Postmodern Pigeonhole Is a Shuck'
With Tom
Disch’s suicide in 2008 we lost not only one of our best poets, a fine writer
of short...
a month ago
With Tom
Disch’s suicide in 2008 we lost not only one of our best poets, a fine writer
of short stories and of one novel, Camp
Concentration, but perhaps the most entertaining of our critics. His only
recent rivals have been Turner Cassity and R.S. Gwynn. “Entertainment” and...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Amber of His Style'
Isaac
Waisberg at IWP Books has digitalized three volumes of Desmond MacCarthy’s essays
and reviews...
8 months ago
Isaac
Waisberg at IWP Books has digitalized three volumes of Desmond MacCarthy’s essays
and reviews -- Portraits (1931), Criticism (1932), Memories (1953) – with a promise of more to come. MacCarthy’s reputation
in the U.S. is almost sub-atomic. Devotees of Bloomsbury think of hm...
sbensu
Designing for support teams
Support agents spend their entire lives using the same software. Their needs are very different from...
11 months ago
Support agents spend their entire lives using the same software. Their needs are very different from consumer software. Here are some things to keep in mind.
Anecdotal Evidence
'Poets in an Age of Prose'
Yvor Winters
published his final book, Forms of Discovery,
in October 1967, three months before his...
a year ago
Yvor Winters
published his final book, Forms of Discovery,
in October 1967, three months before his death from cancer at age sixty-seven on
January 25, 1968. Read his late correspondence in The Selected Letters of Yvor Winters (ed. R.L. Barth, 2000) for an
understanding of the...
Anecdotal Evidence
'We Live Missing Something'
Four years
late, I’ve read Gary Saul Morson’s “Poet of Loneliness,” his review of Fifty-Two Stories...
8 months ago
Four years
late, I’ve read Gary Saul Morson’s “Poet of Loneliness,” his review of Fifty-Two Stories (Knopf, 2020), a
Chekhov translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. I ordered the
collection early in the COVID-19 lockdown and will always associate it with the
other...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Uneven, Irregular, and Multiform Movement'
“There are
readers—and I am one of them—whose reading is rather like a series...
2 months ago
“There are
readers—and I am one of them—whose reading is rather like a series of
intoxications.”
Driving while
reading is discouraged. Once, in Bellevue, Wash., while stopped at a red light,
I was intoxicated by the book propped against the wheel until a cop pulled up, rolled...
This Space
39 Books: 2009
The further I get into this series, the fewer books there are on my yearly lists that I haven't...
7 months ago
The further I get into this series, the fewer books there are on my yearly lists that I haven't already written about and among those few that I feel able to write about. For 2009 there is one outstanding exception: another book about a writer exiled in Paris. Already in this...
Josh Thompson
Twenties vs. Thirties (from a feeling-behind-the-curve 27 year old.)
Some months ago I found a very encouraging article, comparing one’s twenties to one’s thirties. I’ve...
over a year ago
Some months ago I found a very encouraging article, comparing one’s twenties to one’s thirties. I’ve scoured everywhere that I stick notes and interesting reads, and cannot, for the life of me, find the article.
The internet is littered with tons of
fluff pieces talking about sex...
Anecdotal Evidence
'What Is Called an Amateur'
I recently encountered
a choice example of academic snobbery, the lording of a tenured professor...
a year ago
I recently encountered
a choice example of academic snobbery, the lording of a tenured professor over lecturers,
adjuncts and even “mere assistant professors.” Normally the perpetrator tries
to disguise his snottiness or treat it as a joke but in this case the prima
donna was...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Read a Little, Listen to a Little Music'
“To tend the
world: read a little, listen to a little music.”
I was slow
to warm to the late Adam...
a year ago
“To tend the
world: read a little, listen to a little music.”
I was slow
to warm to the late Adam Zagajewski. I still prefer his essays to his poems,
which often seem sentimental and formless, as though he demanded too little of
himself when writing poetry. Only in the five...
sbensu
Everybody is the main character
People are motivated and engaged with the work only if they feel in charge of their own destiny....
a year ago
People are motivated and engaged with the work only if they feel in charge of their own destiny. Make it clear to them that they are!
Anecdotal Evidence
'One of the Least Appealing Aspects of Our Species'
The twentieth
century was a graduate-level education in irony. Our medical advances...
2 months ago
The twentieth
century was a graduate-level education in irony. Our medical advances were
extraordinary – antibiotics, insulin, the Salk and Sabin vaccines. Airplanes, television,
computers, space exploration. And yet Guy Davenport was not being needlessly morbid
when he...
This Space
Wall by Jen Craig
“This novel gives the reader one of the best depictions of thinking in fiction that I have read in a...
a year ago
“This novel gives the reader one of the best depictions of thinking in fiction that I have read in a long time” – Talking Big
"... combines exactitude and vagueness, immediacy and distance, to approximate how scatty, worm-like human thought might be represented on the page" – The...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Craft Is Perfected Attention'
The
campiness can get a little thick when the poet/publisher/photographer Jonathan
Williams...
a year ago
The
campiness can get a little thick when the poet/publisher/photographer Jonathan
Williams (1929-2008) is in the neighborhood, but he’s always festive, the sort
of fellow you could hire to turn around tedious parties or staff meetings. A
reader says she is enjoying Williams’...
Ben Borgers
Optimizing Kiwi for scale
over a year ago
Josh Thompson
62 lessons learned after one year of full-time travel
Kristi and I
put together a non-comprehensive list of things we’ve learned while traveling full-time...
over a year ago
Kristi and I
put together a non-comprehensive list of things we’ve learned while traveling full-time last year.
Samples:
Kristi
1. Josh and I are such a good team, and we balance each other.
We’ve figured out our strengths and how to contribute to our successes together. It’s...
Ben Borgers
Tuesday, January 18, 2022
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'We Enter Again November'
The final
stanza of Howard Nemerov’s “Elegy of Last Resort” from his second collection, Guide to the...
2 months ago
The final
stanza of Howard Nemerov’s “Elegy of Last Resort” from his second collection, Guide to the Ruins (1950):
“We enter
again November; cold late light
Glazes the field, a little fever of love,
Held in numbed hands, admires the false gods;
While lonely on this coast the...
Anecdotal Evidence
'There Is No Nothingness'
Once asked
about politics in a symposium portentously titled “The Writer’s Situation,”...
4 months ago
Once asked
about politics in a symposium portentously titled “The Writer’s Situation,” J.V.
Cunningham replied:
“You can
write on politics or not. I do not. But is politics meant here? Or is it,
rather, ideology? The latter is religious, not political, though religion...
The Perry Bible...
The Hare and the Tortoise
The post The Hare and the Tortoise appeared first on The Perry Bible Fellowship.
2 months ago
The post The Hare and the Tortoise appeared first on The Perry Bible Fellowship.
sbensu
Hiring from Big Tech
Some brief notes about the subject
9 months ago
Some brief notes about the subject
The Marginalian
Practical Mysticism: Evelyn Underhill’s Stunning Century-Old Manifesto for Secular Transcendence and...
"Because mystery is horrible to us, we have agreed for the most part to live in a world of labels;...
a year ago
"Because mystery is horrible to us, we have agreed for the most part to live in a world of labels; to make of them the current coin of experience, and ignore their merely symbolic character, the infinite gradation of values which they misrepresent."
ribbonfarm
Bangalore Meetup Report
Did a ribbonfarm meetup in Bangalore last night, the first ever in India. Thanks to Abhishek Agarwal...
7 months ago
Did a ribbonfarm meetup in Bangalore last night, the first ever in India. Thanks to Abhishek Agarwal for organizing. I think this is the first meetup I’ve done since the last Refactor Camp in 2019. It was kinda last minute, which is why I only posted on Substack rather than here...
The American Scholar
“The Poet’s Occasional Alternative” by Grace Paley
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “The Poet’s Occasional Alternative” by Grace Paley appeared...
4 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “The Poet’s Occasional Alternative” by Grace Paley appeared first on The American Scholar.
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
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.
The Marginalian
Thank You, Everything: An Illustrated Love Letter to the World
We forget that none of this had to exist — that we weren’t owed mountains and music by the universe....
3 weeks ago
We forget that none of this had to exist — that we weren’t owed mountains and music by the universe. And maybe we have to forget — or we would be too stupefied with gratitude for every raindrop and every eyelash to get through the daily tasks punctuating the unbidden wonder of...
This Space
The end of literature, part five
"Stupid" and "a marketing exercise" were the first two descriptions I saw of the New York Times' 100...
5 months ago
"Stupid" and "a marketing exercise" were the first two descriptions I saw of the New York Times' 100 Best Books of the 21st Century polled from hundreds of "literary luminaries" offering ten choices each, and while it is both of those things, "parochial" is the first word that...
Ben Borgers
Customer Rewards Programs
over a year ago
Wuthering...
Mohamed Mbougar Sarr's La plus secrète mémoire des hommes - one of his objectives was to be original...
La plus secrète mémoire des hommes (2021) by
Senegalese novelist Mohamed Mbougar Sarr, published in...
8 months ago
La plus secrète mémoire des hommes (2021) by
Senegalese novelist Mohamed Mbougar Sarr, published in English as The Most
Secret History of Men (2023), is the first imitation of Roberto Bolaño I
have seen outside of Latin American literature.
Many reviews note that Sarr’s novel is...
Steven Scrawls
Care doesn't scale
Care Doesn’t Scale
I met a social worker whose job was to look after four orphaned
children. She’d...
2 months ago
Care Doesn’t Scale
I met a social worker whose job was to look after four orphaned
children. She’d alternate with her coworkers spending 24 hours at a time
living with the kids, effectively acting as their parent. The children,
unsurprisingly, had a lot of trauma and so her job...
Anecdotal Evidence
'I’d Be the Man Dares Clearly Sing'
I have no
musical talent apart from a sometimes annoying gift for remembering lyrics, and
not always...
8 months ago
I have no
musical talent apart from a sometimes annoying gift for remembering lyrics, and
not always the good stuff. I know all the words to a radio jingle for a car
dealer in Cleveland, circa 1964, among other clutter. A related symptom is the long-lasting
earworm. Much of this...
This Space
Notes from overground
Seventeen years ago my copy of Richard Ford's The Lay of the Land was delayed in the post and...
a year ago
Seventeen years ago my copy of Richard Ford's The Lay of the Land was delayed in the post and arrived long after the novel had been reviewed in all the big newspapers so, instead of riding the wave of publication, I was dragged under by its backwash. I had to answer a question...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Misrepresenting the Past and Its Culture'
I was still
a kid when Marshall McLuhan became the sage du
jour in the sixties. Television was a...
a year ago
I was still
a kid when Marshall McLuhan became the sage du
jour in the sixties. Television was a “cool” medium, according to Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (1964).
The cooler the medium, McLuhan wrote, “the more someone has to uncover and
engage in the media” and...
Ben Borgers
Prototyping an AI-powered note-taking app
a year ago
The Elysian
The rich are controlling our government
Ok but what can we do about it?
3 weeks ago
Ok but what can we do about it?
The Elysian
The "letters to an anarchist" post-mortem
Peter and I discuss our letter writing series.
4 weeks ago
Peter and I discuss our letter writing series.
The Elysian
Yes, Taylor Swift is just as genius as Mary Shelley
The video from our live event.
3 months ago
The video from our live event.
Josh Thompson
Resources for People with Jobs
RESOURCES FOR PEOPLE WITH JOBS
You spend most of your waking hours at work. So, spend a few of those...
over a year ago
RESOURCES FOR PEOPLE WITH JOBS
You spend most of your waking hours at work. So, spend a few of those waking hours when you’re
not at work thinking about how to improve the hours that you
are working. Often, improving your work means you can improve your work conditions and...
The Elysian
Asia and the future of the nation state
A discussion with Benjamin Perry.
2 months ago
A discussion with Benjamin Perry.
Anecdotal Evidence
'He Worked His Weaponed Wit'
A reader is
displeased: “Oh my aren’t you witty?” He/she was offended by something I had written a...
a year ago
A reader is
displeased: “Oh my aren’t you witty?” He/she was offended by something I had written a long time ago about Robert Bly. Granted, criticizing Bly is like
shooting fish in the bathtub with a bazooka. I was a little ashamed of myself
but that passed. My consolation is...
The American Scholar
“Tristan da Cunha” by Roy Campbell
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “Tristan da Cunha” by Roy Campbell appeared first on The...
5 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “Tristan da Cunha” by Roy Campbell appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
So you want to work remotely...
Josh’s “rules” for getting a sweet remote job
A few weeks ago, I met a fantastic guy who is...
over a year ago
Josh’s “rules” for getting a sweet remote job
A few weeks ago, I met a fantastic guy who is contemplating next steps for work. He is great at what he does, and is thinking about what direction to go in his life. He’s young, and thought working remotely sounded pretty cool. I...
The Marginalian
Reason and Emotion: Scottish Philosopher John Macmurray on the Key to Wholeness and the Fundaments...
"The emotional life is not simply a part or an aspect of human life. It is not, as we so often...
a year ago
"The emotional life is not simply a part or an aspect of human life. It is not, as we so often think, subordinate, or subsidiary to the mind. It is the core and essence of human life. The intellect arises out of it, is rooted in it, draws its nourishment and sustenance from it."
Anecdotal Evidence
'He Is the Andy Warhol of Art'
Guy
Davenport was our Johnny Appleseed of culture. He was an academic who published
in Harper’s and...
6 months ago
Guy
Davenport was our Johnny Appleseed of culture. He was an academic who published
in Harper’s and the Journal of the American Institute of Architects;
Life magazine and Art News; National Review and Inquiry.
He sowed allusions without regard for pretentious pieties. He loved...
The American Scholar
Stereotypes and the City
What to make of HBO’s attempts to diversify an iconic show?
The post Stereotypes and the City...
8 months ago
What to make of HBO’s attempts to diversify an iconic show?
The post Stereotypes and the City appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'Intensely Cultivated and Painstakingly Honest'
In the brief foreword to her first prose collection, Predilections
(1955), Marianne Moore writes as...
a month ago
In the brief foreword to her first prose collection, Predilections
(1955), Marianne Moore writes as good an apologia for her manner of writing, among others, as I’ve ever encountered:
“Silence is
more eloquent than speech – a truism; but sometimes something that someone...
Anecdotal Evidence
'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
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...
The Marginalian
Notes on Complexity: A Buddhist Scientist on the Murmuration of Being
"You are this body, and you are these molecules, and you are these atoms, and you are these quantum...
a year ago
"You are this body, and you are these molecules, and you are these atoms, and you are these quantum entities, and you are the quantum foam, and you are the energetic field of space-time, and, ultimately, you are the fundamental awareness out of which all these emerge."
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Artist Knows He Is Ready'
A young
reader complains that he’s “good with words” but doesn’t know what to write
about. It sounds...
7 months ago
A young
reader complains that he’s “good with words” but doesn’t know what to write
about. It sounds as though he seizes up when he sits down at the keyboard. To
call his condition “writer’s block” would be premature. He’s too inexperienced
for that to be happening already. The...
Josh Thompson
My all-time favorite question to ask people (and why you should ask it too)
I met two people yesterday from Colorado, while in Spain. We climbed together yesterday and today,...
over a year ago
I met two people yesterday from Colorado, while in Spain. We climbed together yesterday and today, and Kristi and I had dinner with them.
Half way through the meal, I asked my all-time favorite question:
If you could go back to twenty five year old you, and tell yourself...
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
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...
ribbonfarm
Storytelling — Philosophical Stakes
Via the latest issue of Simon de la Rouviere’s excellent Scenes with Simon newsletter, I found a...
9 months ago
Via the latest issue of Simon de la Rouviere’s excellent Scenes with Simon newsletter, I found a video on good endings by Michael Arndt, screenwriter of Little Miss Sunshine, that basically answers the question I explored in Just Add Dinosaurs, where I argued that Matthew Dicks’...
This Space
The Lascaux Notebooks by Jean-Luc Champerret
Lascaux, a placename standing for the abyssal revelation of the cave paintings discovered there...
over a year ago
Lascaux, a placename standing for the abyssal revelation of the cave paintings discovered there after millennia in darkness, and Notebooks, suggesting a private endeavour, preparation, a work to come. While neither is secret as such, neither was meant for the light. Two intrigues...
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
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
The Sound of the Picturesque
Charles Ives and the Visual
The post The Sound of the Picturesque appeared first on The American...
3 months ago
Charles Ives and the Visual
The post The Sound of the Picturesque appeared first on The American Scholar.
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
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....
sbensu
Notes on UX and LLM integrations
I analyze 8 apps (ChatGPT, Notion, Perplexity, etc.) that use or integrate LLM and try to break down...
a year ago
I analyze 8 apps (ChatGPT, Notion, Perplexity, etc.) that use or integrate LLM and try to break down when and why they work well, or poorly.
Anecdotal Evidence
'He’s a Person of Joy, a Fanatic'
Unlike my
sons, I can’t listen to music while working – that is, writing. When the music
is good,...
a year ago
Unlike my
sons, I can’t listen to music while working – that is, writing. When the music
is good, that’s what I’m doing, listening. Otherwise, I don’t need a soundtrack
for my life. I would find that annoyingly attention-splitting. What I do
instead is periodically take a break...
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
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
Little Black Hole: A Tender Cosmic Fable About How to Live with Loss
Right this minute, people are making plans, making promises and poems, while at the center of our...
a year ago
Right this minute, people are making plans, making promises and poems, while at the center of our galaxy a black hole with the mass of four billion suns screams its open-mouth kiss of oblivion. Someday it will swallow every atom that ever touched us and every datum we ever...
This Space
The end of something
Thirteen years ago I posted The beginning of something to mark the fifteenth anniversary of Spike...
a year ago
Thirteen years ago I posted The beginning of something to mark the fifteenth anniversary of Spike Magazine (not to be confused with Spiked), which I helped to found when the world wide web was forming, and to comment on the direction online literary culture had taken. By that...
The American Scholar
Let Us Compare Mythologies
Exploding the Canon, Episode 4
The post Let Us Compare Mythologies appeared first on The American...
8 months ago
Exploding the Canon, Episode 4
The post Let Us Compare Mythologies appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'Soothe the Soul and Nurture the Imagination'
“Among the
lessons we’ve learned during these past few difficult years of pandemic,
climate crisis...
a year ago
“Among the
lessons we’ve learned during these past few difficult years of pandemic,
climate crisis and political discord is that beauty and nature matter more than
ever, and that if our homes are to be sanctuaries from an often harsh outside
world, then we should fill them with...
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
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...
Josh Thompson
About working remotely at Litmus with Pajamas.io
A while back, I wrote a long interview for
Pajamas.io, a publication around remote work. I’ve pasted...
over a year ago
A while back, I wrote a long interview for
Pajamas.io, a publication around remote work. I’ve pasted the entire article here below.
When Josh Thompson wanted to move out to rural Colorado with his family to be closer to the mountains he loves to climb, he knew finding a company...
The American Scholar
Caprock
Adventures worth the silence
The post Caprock appeared first on The American Scholar.
8 months ago
Adventures worth the silence
The post Caprock appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
Why I Eat Bacon Every Day (And You Should Too)
note: as of late 2017, I’ve rolled over to a mostly vegetarian diet. I still love meat, but don’t...
over a year ago
note: as of late 2017, I’ve rolled over to a mostly vegetarian diet. I still love meat, but don’t feel comfortable eating it, for ethical reasons. I still believe that, on a whole, bacon is good for you, and I still eat veggies and many eggs every day. I just don’t eat bacon or...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Who Needs Your Stories?'
Have you
ever read something – it might be a poem or a history
book, almost anything – and...
2 months ago
Have you
ever read something – it might be a poem or a history
book, almost anything – and encountered a phrase or sentence so self-contained
and dense with meaning, in words so perfectly arranged, that you stop reading,
ponder and write it down? You may not even continue with...
The American Scholar
Born to Be Wild
One founding family’s centuries-long journey
The post Born to Be Wild appeared first on The American...
7 months ago
One founding family’s centuries-long journey
The post Born to Be Wild appeared first on The American Scholar.
This Space
The enigma for criticism
To this day, I can learn only from bad films. The good ones I watch in the same spirit in which I...
a year ago
To this day, I can learn only from bad films. The good ones I watch in the same spirit in which I watched when I was a kid. The great ones, even when I see them many times, are just an enigma.
Werner Herzog describes a few "bad films" in his autobiography, all from his...
The Marginalian
bell hooks on Love
"We can never go back... We can go forward. We can find the love our hearts long for, but not until...
a year ago
"We can never go back... We can go forward. We can find the love our hearts long for, but not until we let go grief about the love we lost long ago... All awakening to love is spiritual awakening."
The American Scholar
Paradise Reclaimed
Olivia Laing on the dark histories and utopian dreams of the flower bed
The post Paradise Reclaimed...
5 months ago
Olivia Laing on the dark histories and utopian dreams of the flower bed
The post Paradise Reclaimed appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
Boulder Ruby Group meetup notes
Move Slow and Improve Things: Performance Improvement in a Rails App
Boulder Ruby Group Monthly...
over a year ago
Move Slow and Improve Things: Performance Improvement in a Rails App
Boulder Ruby Group Monthly Meetup @Recurly Offices, Feb 13, 2018
Slides are available here on Dropbox
Git Push, Git Paid
Here’s the “Git Push, Git Paid” t-shirt I mentioned:
Thoughtbot designed these, and it...
The American Scholar
Numbers Game
A novelist’s indictment of how we account for our history
The post Numbers Game appeared first on...
7 months ago
A novelist’s indictment of how we account for our history
The post Numbers Game appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Moment Before the Germans Will Arrive'
A Jewish
friend writes: “The distraction of the war and its repercussions around the
world is making...
a year ago
A Jewish
friend writes: “The distraction of the war and its repercussions around the
world is making concentration on other things difficult. . . . I wish I could tune the news out. But
the stakes for the future of Israel and of Jewish life generally are too great
for me to be...
ribbonfarm
Protocol Entrepreneurship
I’m running the Summer of Protocols program for the Ethereum Foundation again this year. Here is the...
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...
The Marginalian
The Science of Tears and the Art of Crying: An Illustrated Manifesto for Reclaiming Our Deepest...
“All the poems of our lives are not yet made. We hear them crying to us,” Muriel Rukeyser writes in...
2 months ago
“All the poems of our lives are not yet made. We hear them crying to us,” Muriel Rukeyser writes in her timeless ode to the power of poetry. “Cry, heart, but never break,” entreats one of my favorite children’s books — which, at their best, are always philosophies for living. It...
This Space
"When now?"
Out of curiosity, I read a few novels that over the last year have received the highest praise on...
over a year ago
Out of curiosity, I read a few novels that over the last year have received the highest praise on social media and literary podcasts, and have appeared multiple times in newspaper Books of the Year choices and on prize shortlists, and one that even won a prize. I wanted to see...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Last of All Last Words Spoken Is, Good-bye'
Memory is often
an obligation, an expression of gratitude and fondness. It can be faulty, of
course,...
a year ago
Memory is often
an obligation, an expression of gratitude and fondness. It can be faulty, of
course, especially with age, and it pays to double-check the important things
if you intend to share the memories with others. I’ve just learned that a guy I
haven’t seen in half a...
The American Scholar
Bubble Girl
The kidnapping that once riveted the nation
The post Bubble Girl appeared first on The American...
7 months ago
The kidnapping that once riveted the nation
The post Bubble Girl appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'Known to All But Themselves'
Suddenly,
there’s nothing shameful about ignorance. I mean personally, not as an indictment
of the...
5 months ago
Suddenly,
there’s nothing shameful about ignorance. I mean personally, not as an indictment
of the bigger culture. There’s so much I don’t know or understand, and that
knowledge of my ignorance no longer bothers me very much. I still like learning
things but there was a time when...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Let Us See Them There in the Shadows'
A childhood
acquaintance has died. We were never close. In fact, I didn’t know he was still
alive...
6 months ago
A childhood
acquaintance has died. We were never close. In fact, I didn’t know he was still
alive until a friend told me he was dead. What I remember is his face, his
general demeanor, roughly the sort of behavior I could expect of him. I last
saw him more than half a century...
Robert Caro
Robert Caro on the Art of Biography
I was never interested in writing biographies merely to tell the lives of famous men. From the first...
a year ago
I was never interested in writing biographies merely to tell the lives of famous men. From the first time I thought of becoming a biographer
Anecdotal Evidence
'Nor, Quitted Once, Can It Be Quite Recalled'
I think we have
fetishized age thirteen. It’s linguistic: the first -teen, as though that were some...
a month ago
I think we have
fetishized age thirteen. It’s linguistic: the first -teen, as though that were some rite of passage. I remember awaiting
that age with trepidation, uncertain what was expected of me. I knew
contemporaries who were already shaving and one who was pregnant. (Where...
The American Scholar
“The Horses” by Edwin Muir
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “The Horses” by Edwin Muir appeared first on The American...
3 days ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “The Horses” by Edwin Muir appeared first on The American Scholar.
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
We don’t often associate Charles Ives and Gustav Mahler, but both
The post Anchoring Shards of Memory appeared first on The American Scholar.
Escaping Flatland
Garlic and gravel
fragments
5 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'How It Sounds When Read Out Loud'
Our
eighth-grade English teacher, Miss Clymer, had us open the textbook to a poem
written...
a month ago
Our
eighth-grade English teacher, Miss Clymer, had us open the textbook to a poem
written seventy-five years earlier and picked students to read aloud each of
its four, eight-line stanzas. She suggested we pay attention to who is
speaking, as the poem is written as a dialogue...
Wuthering...
You drool from it. You are happy. - Louis-Ferdinand Céline’s Voyage au bout de la nuit
Finally, I have finished Louis-Ferdinand Céline’s Voyage au bout
de la nuit (1932), known in English...
4 months ago
Finally, I have finished Louis-Ferdinand Céline’s Voyage au bout
de la nuit (1932), known in English as Journey to the End of Night. That “end of night” is death. The existence of death makes everything
hateful and nullifies the value of anything else. I gotta say that the...
Josh Thompson
Book Notes: 'The Case Against Sugar' by Gary Taube
In the last few weeks, I read The Case Against Sugar by Gary Taubes.
I found it to be compelling...
over a year ago
In the last few weeks, I read The Case Against Sugar by Gary Taubes.
I found it to be compelling (more on that in a moment) and I want to be impacted by them. I want the daily decisions that I make to be subtly influenced by this author and these books.
Related but in a different...
Josh Thompson
Some Lessons Learned While Preparing for Two Technical Talks
A few weeks ago, I gave two talks about Ruby and Rails:
An 8-minute lightning talk about using...
over a year ago
A few weeks ago, I gave two talks about Ruby and Rails:
An 8-minute lightning talk about using .count vs .size in ActiveRecord query methods
A 30-minute talk at the Boulder Ruby Group arguing that developers should embrace working with non-development business functions, and the...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Such a Touchy, Testy, Pleasant Fellow'
One of the
curses of a good memory is the inability to forget stupid, hurtful things we
said in the...
7 months ago
One of the
curses of a good memory is the inability to forget stupid, hurtful things we
said in the past, and sometimes last week. Years ago I wrecked a friendship
with a glib remark, a wisecrack that I didn’t even believe but had convinced
myself was funny (it was, in fact, but...
Anecdotal Evidence
'He Was Spared That Annoyance'
As expected,
Beryl made landfall near Matagorda early Monday as a Category 1 hurricane.
Sustained...
5 months ago
As expected,
Beryl made landfall near Matagorda early Monday as a Category 1 hurricane.
Sustained winds hit 80 m.p.h. By 7 a.m. we could hear a hum like a dentist’s
drill when the wind gusted. Trees fell and we watched water fill the street,
top the curb and slosh on the lawn....
Steven Scrawls
I want to love fiction
I want to love fiction
I want to love fiction.
I want to love both reading and writing fiction. I...
8 months ago
I want to love fiction
I want to love fiction.
I want to love both reading and writing fiction. I want to obsess
over the craft of fiction, to pore over characterization and structure,
to create stories that radiate color and humanity and hope.
I want fiction to be a tool for...
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
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
'Companionable Room'
I had a
minor problem with the university library’s catalog. When I requested two books
stored...
11 months ago
I had a
minor problem with the university library’s catalog. When I requested two books
stored off-site in the Library Service Center I got this message: “No items can
fulfill the submitted request.” That made no sense and I couldn’t figure out a
way around the roadblock, so I...
Anecdotal Evidence
'If the Nation Is to Be Saved From This Menace'
“To the
thinking man there are few things more disturbing than the realization that we
are becoming...
10 months ago
“To the
thinking man there are few things more disturbing than the realization that we
are becoming a nation of minor poets.”
P.G.
Wodehouse is being kind. He wrote “The Alarming Spread of Poetry” in 1916 when
the blight was fresh and perhaps still reversible. His Exhibit A is...
Astral Codex Ten
The Innocent And The Beautiful Have No Enemy But Time
...
3 weeks ago
Blog -...
Book Review - Iron John
Iron John by Robert Bly is a classic book about men. It has legions of
ardent fans, but I...
over a year ago
Iron John by Robert Bly is a classic book about men. It has legions of
ardent fans, but I reluctantly admit I am not one of the more zealous.
Although the book has high points – the classic story of Iron John as put
down by the Grimm brothers stands out to me, as well as an...
Anecdotal Evidence
'To Feel With Melancholy Wonder'
I was
introduced to the poet, critic and editor Stanley Burnshaw (1906-2005) in the mid-Seventies
by...
6 months ago
I was
introduced to the poet, critic and editor Stanley Burnshaw (1906-2005) in the mid-Seventies
by Edward Dahlberg, a difficult man who furthered my education. Collected in Epitaphs for Our Time: The Letters of Edward
Dahlberg (George Braziller, 1967) are five letters to...
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
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.
Anecdotal Evidence
'Leave Him Something to Imagine'
“I am now
beginning to get fairly into my work; and by the help of a vegetable diet, with
a few of...
a year ago
“I am now
beginning to get fairly into my work; and by the help of a vegetable diet, with
a few of the cold seeds, I make no doubt but I shall be able to go on with my
uncle Toby’s story, and my own, in a tolerable strait line.”
By the time
a persevering reader has reached Book...
The Marginalian
The Sky and the Soul: 19th-Century Norwegian Artist Knud Baade’s Transcendent Cloudscapes
Nothing on Earth appears more divine yet attests more fully to the materiality of being than clouds...
a year ago
Nothing on Earth appears more divine yet attests more fully to the materiality of being than clouds — enchanting emblems of the water cycle that makes this rocky planet a living world, drifting across our shared dome as if exhaled by some lovesick god. That we should have such a...
The Marginalian
The Heart of Matter: Pierre Teilhard de Chardin on Bridging the Scientific and the Sacred
"Blessed be you, mighty matter, irresistible march of evolution, reality ever new-born; you who, by...
a year ago
"Blessed be you, mighty matter, irresistible march of evolution, reality ever new-born; you who, by constantly shattering our mental categories, force us to go ever further and further in our pursuit of the truth."
The Elysian
Am I an anarchist?
Letters to an anarchist, part seven.
a month ago
Letters to an anarchist, part seven.
Astral Codex Ten
Take The 2025 ACX Survey
...
2 weeks ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'It Is Wonderful to Be a Writer'
I met the Israeli novelist
Aharon Appelfeld in 1987 on the same day I met Raul Hilberg and Cynthia...
8 months ago
I met the Israeli novelist
Aharon Appelfeld in 1987 on the same day I met Raul Hilberg and Cynthia Ozick.
I had read Appelfeld’s first novel, Badenheim
1939 (1978; trans. 1980), several years earlier and found it disturbing in
a novel way. The action takes place on the cusp of...
Escaping Flatland
Authenticity as dialogue
John Stuart Mill, notetaking, rationality, and emotion
a month ago
John Stuart Mill, notetaking, rationality, and emotion
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Cool Malignity of Othello'
“As Shakespeare
went on, however, he became interested in why people like evil, not for their
own...
a year ago
“As Shakespeare
went on, however, he became interested in why people like evil, not for their
own advantage but for its own sake.”
In his
lecture on Othello, W.H. Auden understands,
as a growing number of our contemporaries do not, that evil is autonomous and
self-justifying....
Josh Thompson
Two Things That Are Helping Me (Finally) Learn Spanish
Kristi and I are in Costa Rica for the month of January. We spent two months in Buenos Aires this...
over a year ago
Kristi and I are in Costa Rica for the month of January. We spent two months in Buenos Aires this summer. That means in the space of six months, I’ll have spent three months in a Spanish-speaking country, yet
I’ve not made significant progress on my spanish.
That’s not to say...
The Marginalian
Blue Is the Color of Desire: The Science, Poetry, and Wonder of the Bowerbird
For all the enchantment the color blue has cast upon humanity, no animal has fallen under its spell...
a year ago
For all the enchantment the color blue has cast upon humanity, no animal has fallen under its spell more hopelessly than the bowerbird, whose very survival hinges on blue. In a small clearing on the forest floor, the male weaves twigs and branches into an elaborate bower, which...
This Space
39 Books: 1987
From two books in the first year of reading and twenty-four in the second, I read eighty-six in the...
8 months ago
From two books in the first year of reading and twenty-four in the second, I read eighty-six in the third, including a lot more non-fiction. This was due to cycling to libraries in adjacent towns where the selection was wider. One of them had my first non-novel choice: this...
The Marginalian
Marie Howe’s Stunning Hymn of Humanity, Animated
"It began as an almost inaudible hum..."
9 months ago
"It began as an almost inaudible hum..."
ribbonfarm
Intellectual Menopause
I ran across the alarming phrase intellectual menopause a few months ago in John Gall’s...
4 months ago
I ran across the alarming phrase intellectual menopause a few months ago in John Gall’s Systemantics, and it naturally stuck in my brain given I’m pushing 50 and getting predictably angsty about it. The phrase conjures up visions of a phenomenon much more profound and unfunny...
sbensu
The secondary market in gift cards
This post by patio11 covers a few things that I learned working with gift cards over the years.
over a year ago
This post by patio11 covers a few things that I learned working with gift cards over the years.
Josh Thompson
Letter to Two Climbers (Part 2)
Hello again, it’s me! We met climbing a few days ago.
I wrote you a letter, but didn’t want to leave...
over a year ago
Hello again, it’s me! We met climbing a few days ago.
I wrote you a letter, but didn’t want to leave it on such a pessimistic note.
First, I commend you both for getting out there. You both invested a lot in making that weekend happen. You acquired the correct tools, and spent...
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 post What Do You Want to Know For? appeared first on The American Scholar.
Escaping Flatland
Thinking about perceptiveness
links
4 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'We Find It Hard to Read Great Books at All'
A young reader
tells me he is unable to read most books written before “about the middle of the
60s....
8 months ago
A young reader
tells me he is unable to read most books written before “about the middle of the
60s. I like Vonnegut. A lot of the stuff before that is like a foreign language
to me.” I’m reminded of an English professor who told me more than half a century ago that
most of her...
Josh Thompson
Denver.rb meetup notes
Move Slow and Improve Things: Performance Improvement in a Rails App
Denver.rb Monthly Meetup...
over a year ago
Move Slow and Improve Things: Performance Improvement in a Rails App
Denver.rb Monthly Meetup @WeWork, Feb 12, 2018
We talked about performance profiling!
Here’s the slides, on Dropbox
I’m working on going deeper on the topic of Rails performance. I’ve got a lot more on the...
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
“[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...
Josh Thompson
Continuous Glucose Monitors: Why & What
This is a story and explanation about why I sometimes wear a glucose monitor. It’s visible on the...
8 months ago
This is a story and explanation about why I sometimes wear a glucose monitor. It’s visible on the rear of my upper arm, usually sparks a question or two, I’ve usually stumbled through a response, now I can simply pass this page along to anyone who asks.
Since maybe 2018, every...
Anecdotal Evidence
'What Will Become of My Diary?'
“During the
morning hours of the first of September 1939, war broke out between Germany and
Poland...
4 months ago
“During the
morning hours of the first of September 1939, war broke out between Germany and
Poland and indirectly between Germany and Poland’s allies, England and France.
This war will indeed bring destruction upon human civilization which merits
annihilation and destruction....
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
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...
Ben Borgers
Lessons Learned from Hanging Posters
over a year ago
This Space
No safe landing
A review of A Winter in Zürau and Partita by Gabriel Josipovici
Gabriel Josipovici has said that...
3 months ago
A review of A Winter in Zürau and Partita by Gabriel Josipovici
Gabriel Josipovici has said that as a critic he is conservative but as a novelist he is radical. The second claim may not be controversial but the first will come as a surprise to those who remember what he said...
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
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
"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
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...
sbensu
The person behind the idea
When reading, it is worth understanding the kind of person authors are.
a month ago
When reading, it is worth understanding the kind of person authors are.
The Elysian
Substack could create the future of books
Here’s how that could look.
8 months ago
Here’s how that could look.
Ben Borgers
I Keep Rewriting My Personal Website
over a year ago
Josh Thompson
LeetCode: Words From Characters, and Benchmarking Solutions
I recently worked through a LeetCode problem.
The first run was pretty brutal. It took (what felt...
over a year ago
I recently worked through a LeetCode problem.
The first run was pretty brutal. It took (what felt like) forever, and I was not content with my solution.
Even better, it passed the test cases given while building the solution, but failed on submission.
So, once I fixed it so it...
Anecdotal Evidence
'I Wish That He’d Arrived Much Sooner'
I offended
a reader by referring to Samuel Taylor Coleridge as “a brilliant windbag junkie.”
Let’s...
a year ago
I offended
a reader by referring to Samuel Taylor Coleridge as “a brilliant windbag junkie.”
Let’s consider each part of the epithet. “Brilliant”? Without question. He wrote
three incontestably good poems but Coleridge is an early specimen of the “public
intellectual,” bristling...
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
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
'Each Sweaty Midnight I’m a Lifer'
Think of
this as an unexpected coda to Monday’s post, “A Recon Patrol Is a Small Unit,”
in which I...
4 months ago
Think of
this as an unexpected coda to Monday’s post, “A Recon Patrol Is a Small Unit,”
in which I asked readers to report anything they knew about the war
correspondent Albert W. Vinson. He was author of a dispatch recounting a 1968 reconnaissance
patrol in Vietnam led by the...
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Similar Universality of Voice'
I reproach
my younger self for being lazy and not seriously studying languages other than
English. I...
6 months ago
I reproach
my younger self for being lazy and not seriously studying languages other than
English. I dabbled in Latin and German and retain a smattering of vocabulary
and little grammar. If I were to study another language today my first choice
would likely be Italian in order to...
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
These last few posts have a theme. We moved. I’m writing about it a lot because I thought about it a lot, and a lot of work went into it.
When moving across the country, you have a few options. You could higher a moving company, who comes and boxes up your house, packs a truck,...
Josh Thompson
Find out how much money you've made (in your entire life)
This post went by on the Personal Finance subreddit today:
https://www.ssa.gov/myaccount/
After...
over a year ago
This post went by on the Personal Finance subreddit today:
https://www.ssa.gov/myaccount/
After creating an account / logging in, click on Earnings, then add the columns. If you have been working for many years, try copying/pasting the column in excel and using the sum...
ben-mini
The Inner Game of Tennis
I just finished reading The Inner Game of Tennis by Tim Gallwey. Originally published in 1974, the...
2 months ago
I just finished reading The Inner Game of Tennis by Tim Gallwey. Originally published in 1974, the book explores how the thoughts of an athlete affect their game. It’s lauded as being at the forefront of what we now call “sports psychology”. Although my competitive sports days...
The American Scholar
“Guests” by Celia Thaxter
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “Guests” by Celia Thaxter appeared first on The American...
2 weeks ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “Guests” by Celia Thaxter appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
Oliver Sacks on Despair and the Meaning of Life
"The meaning of life... clearly has to do with love — what and whom and how one can love."
a month ago
"The meaning of life... clearly has to do with love — what and whom and how one can love."
Wuthering...
Ovid's Metamorphoses, Canto I, "Of shapes transformde to bodies straunge"
Some notes on Canto I of Ovid’s Metamorphosis (8 CE). Just some of the things I am looking for...
a year ago
Some notes on Canto I of Ovid’s Metamorphosis (8 CE). Just some of the things I am looking for or
enjoying while reading Ovid’s epic of “forms changed / into new bodies.” (tr. Charles Martin, 2004, p. 15). Or, per Arthur Golding (1567, p. 3 of the
Paul Dry paperback) “Of...
The American Scholar
Good Vibrations
One eccentric’s desert landmark allows visitors to bathe in sound
The post Good Vibrations appeared...
8 months ago
One eccentric’s desert landmark allows visitors to bathe in sound
The post Good Vibrations appeared first on The American Scholar.
Wuthering...
Heraclitus and Empedocles - Everything flows - eyes roamed alone
My rummage through the early Greek philosophers has been rewarding, but it is a strange exercise. ...
a year ago
My rummage through the early Greek philosophers has been rewarding, but it is a strange exercise. “Readers of this book will, I suspect, be frequently perplexed and sometimes annoyed” write Jonathan Barnes in Early Greek Philosophy, a collection with commentary of the most...
The Marginalian
How the Sea Came to Be: An Illustrated Singsong Celebration of the Evolution of Life
“Who has known the ocean? Neither you nor I, with our earth-bound senses,” Rachel Carson wrote in...
a year ago
“Who has known the ocean? Neither you nor I, with our earth-bound senses,” Rachel Carson wrote in the pioneering 1937 essay that invited the human imagination into the science and splendor of the marine world for the first time — a world then more mysterious than the Moon, a...
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
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...
Josh Thompson
Five Lessons Learned in Buenos Aires
Note: This is an unedited draft of a post from July 5, 2015. Almost exactly one year ago, written...
over a year ago
Note: This is an unedited draft of a post from July 5, 2015. Almost exactly one year ago, written after a week in Buenos Aires. Since writing this post, Kristi and I have continued on to more than a year of non-stop travel, though we’re settling down back in Golden, CO in about...
The Marginalian
Lichens and the Meaning of Life
"We are lichens on a grand scale."
a year ago
"We are lichens on a grand scale."
Anecdotal Evidence
'It Is the Past That Cast the Stars'
I and the
first issue of Mad magazine arrived
in October 1952. A decade or so later I was a devoted...
a year ago
I and the
first issue of Mad magazine arrived
in October 1952. A decade or so later I was a devoted reader. That same month, Poetry, a journal I would start reading
a few years after Mad, published its fortieth anniversary issue. Included is the work of more than fifty poets,...
Josh Thompson
Trip Report: New River Gorge
Kristi and I are spending a few weeks in Fayetteville, WV, home of the New River Gorge. There’s...
over a year ago
Kristi and I are spending a few weeks in Fayetteville, WV, home of the New River Gorge. There’s fantastic climbing here. I climbed with good friends, and was absolutely humbled by how strong they all are. (My defense, at least for the next few weeks, is that I’ve not climbed...
The 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
"This is the light of the mind, cold and planetary."
Astral Codex Ten
The Early Christian Strategy
...
a month ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Half the Pleasure of Reading New Books'
“[M]ost
American boys are hurried into active life so early, that even the few who have
the...
a year ago
“[M]ost
American boys are hurried into active life so early, that even the few who have
the possibility of developing literary taste have scarcely time to do so. Unless
they read the great English classics in high school and in college, they never
find time to read them.”
In...
The American Scholar
Red Tide Warning
Living on Florida’s Gulf Coast means having to coexist with pervasive and toxic algal blooms—and...
7 months ago
Living on Florida’s Gulf Coast means having to coexist with pervasive and toxic algal blooms—and neighbors who don’t always believe what they see
The post Red Tide Warning appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
A Giant of a Man
The legacy of Willie Mays and the Birmingham ballpark where he first made his mark
The post A Giant...
2 months ago
The legacy of Willie Mays and the Birmingham ballpark where he first made his mark
The post A Giant of a Man appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
The Humanistic Philosopher and Psychologist Erich Fromm on Love and the Meaning of Respect
"Care and responsibility are constituent elements of love, but without respect for and knowledge of...
5 months ago
"Care and responsibility are constituent elements of love, but without respect for and knowledge of the beloved person, love deteriorates into domination and possessiveness."
The Elysian
I'd like to open a Singapore franchise please?
Franchise Cities as an alternative to Charter Cities.
9 months ago
Franchise Cities as an alternative to Charter Cities.
Anecdotal Evidence
'Seeing Means Going Over the Details'
Isaac Waisberg, the internet’s librarian-in-chief, has published two passages by...
a year ago
Isaac Waisberg, the internet’s librarian-in-chief, has published two passages by Émile-Auguste
Chartier (1868-1951), the French proto-blogger better known as Alain. He was a professor
of philosophy whose students included Raymond Aron and Simone Weil. Both excerpts
are taken from...
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