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Wuthering...
Two poisonous Tanizaki novels, Naomi and Quicksand - the same as a fruit that I’d cultivated myself Two Junichiro Tanizaki novels from the 1920s for Japanese Literature Month over at Dolce...
6 months ago
70
6 months ago
Two Junichiro Tanizaki novels from the 1920s for Japanese Literature Month over at Dolce Bellezza.  Always interesting to see what people are reading.  Thanks as usual.  18th edition! The two novels I read, Naomi (1924) and Quicksand (1928-30), are closely related.  Both...
The Elysian
How much of the planet should we harm for our comfort? Becky Chambers’ gentle sci-fi on the right amount of carbon, AC, airplanes, and yachts.
a month ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Mind Shorn of History Is Vacuous' “April 17 [in 1778], being Good Friday, I waited on Johnson, as usual.”  As was the custom in...
4 months ago
34
4 months ago
“April 17 [in 1778], being Good Friday, I waited on Johnson, as usual.”  As was the custom in school when I was growing up, I learned history as a rollcall of great men and memorized dates. “Abraham Lincoln” and “December 7, 1941” plugged leaks in my obligatory knowledge and that...
The Elysian
Going from research to writing Our third "research with me" session.
6 months ago
The Marginalian
The Great Blue Heron, Signs vs. Omens, and Our Search for Meaning One September dawn on the verge of a significant life change, sitting on my poet friend’s dock, I...
11 months ago
87
11 months ago
One September dawn on the verge of a significant life change, sitting on my poet friend’s dock, I watched a great blue heron rise slow and prehistoric through the morning mist, carrying the sky on her back. In the years since, the heron has become the closest thing I have to what...
The American Scholar
Stephanie Santana Preserving family history The post Stephanie Santana appeared first on The American Scholar.
2 months ago
Naz Hamid
Quality, Maintenance & Craft We are shokunin. Last week I was in Ojai, California, for True’s Founder Camp.[1] James Freeman,...
5 months ago
45
5 months ago
We are shokunin. Last week I was in Ojai, California, for True’s Founder Camp.[1] James Freeman, founder of Blue Bottle Coffee was in conversation with Jeff Veen, and one of the attendees asked him: “How do you maintain such high quality?” Freeman answers, “‘Maintaining’ is a...
The Elysian
Maybe villages are our future—not cities Italy's Matera as a case study for revitalizing small governments and creating a future of...
4 months ago
41
4 months ago
Italy's Matera as a case study for revitalizing small governments and creating a future of interconnected villages.
The American Scholar
The Art of Coping In a time of anger, frustration, and anxiety, the humanities have much to teach us about how to deal...
2 months ago
15
2 months ago
In a time of anger, frustration, and anxiety, the humanities have much to teach us about how to deal with life The post The Art of Coping appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'Books Which Can Be Read Again and Again' “The great bulk of the world’s prose fiction, contemporary and past, does not wear well. Almost all...
3 months ago
32
3 months ago
“The great bulk of the world’s prose fiction, contemporary and past, does not wear well. Almost all of it is soon forgotten and of those books which survive the wear of time, only a few withstand the effects of time on the reader himself. Out of all the novels ever written there...
The Marginalian
You and the Universe: N.J. Berrill’s Poetic 1958 Masterpiece of Cosmic Perspective "The universe is as we find it and as we discover it within ourselves."
12 months ago
Wuthering...
Finishing The Story of the Stone - What a blessing this is, to return to the scene of my childhood... How I wish all long novels were published in sensible multi-volume editions.  I have finished...
7 months ago
55
7 months ago
How I wish all long novels were published in sensible multi-volume editions.  I have finished The Story of the Stone, 2,500 pages in five volumes, the last two translated by John Minford.  Cao Xueqin and his posthumous editor Gao E again share credit for authorship.  Chapters...
The Marginalian
May Sarton on How to Cultivate Your Talent "A talent grows by being used, and withers if it is not used."
over a year ago
The Marginalian
Don’t Waste Your Greening Life-Force: Hildegard’s Prophetic Enchanted Ecology The year is 1174. Gravity, oxygen, and electricity have not been discovered. Clocks, calculus, and...
7 months ago
56
7 months ago
The year is 1174. Gravity, oxygen, and electricity have not been discovered. Clocks, calculus, and the printing press have not been invented. Earth is the center of the universe, encircled by heavenly bodies whose motions are ministered by angels. Most people never live past...
Wuthering...
The Story of the Stone, fairy tale and realism - Not so wonderful, really, is it? I left the characters of The Story of the Stone as they were buying drapes and tablecloths for a...
10 months ago
72
10 months ago
I left the characters of The Story of the Stone as they were buying drapes and tablecloths for a party.  I will rejoin the party planning momentarily. The Story of the Stone is a massive domestic novel about an extended family.  The main plot is the teenage love triangle, but...
Anecdotal Evidence
'What May Save Us Is Conversation' A friend tells me he and three other men have for a decade met monthly for lunch and conversation....
6 days ago
14
6 days ago
A friend tells me he and three other men have for a decade met monthly for lunch and conversation. All work or worked in the past for the same government agency in Washington, D.C. Conversation tended toward the traditionally male – politics, sports, health. Inevitably, opinions...
sbensu
There Is No Antimemetics Division Notes on the book.
10 months ago
Ben Borgers
A Design Improvement for Our Communal Showers
over a year ago
Josh Thompson
Related to Grief & Sadness & Supremacy Introduction this post is very drafty, but has been sitting around getting longer for a few weeks...
3 months ago
26
3 months ago
Introduction this post is very drafty, but has been sitting around getting longer for a few weeks now, so I’m simply posting now and will do some more rounds of cleanup, probably. I’d started writing some of this in a letter to a friend, then noticed that, with a little...
The Marginalian
Alone Together: An Illustrated Celebration of the Art of Shared Solitude “One can never be alone enough to write,” Susan Sontag lamented in her diary. “Oh comforting...
a year ago
31
a year ago
“One can never be alone enough to write,” Susan Sontag lamented in her diary. “Oh comforting solitude, how favorable thou art to original thought!” the founding father of neuroscience exulted in considering the ideal environment for creative breakthrough. All creative people,...
The Marginalian
The Power of Being a Heretic: The Forgotten Visionary Jane Ellen Harrison on Critical Thinking,... "If we are to be true and worthy heretics, we need not only new heads, but new hearts, and, most of...
over a year ago
53
over a year ago
"If we are to be true and worthy heretics, we need not only new heads, but new hearts, and, most of all, that new emotional imagination... begotten of enlarged sympathies and a more sensitive habit of feeling."
The Marginalian
Birds, Loves, and Obscure Sorrows: The Best of The Marginalian 2024 Hindsight is how we connect the dots that figure our lives. To look back on even a single year is to...
8 months ago
46
8 months ago
Hindsight is how we connect the dots that figure our lives. To look back on even a single year is to see clearly the contour of who we are in its points of attention and priority. “How we spend our days,” Annie Dillard wrote, “is how we spend our lives.” How we spend our minds is...
The Marginalian
How to Be a Happier Creature It must be encoded there, in the childhood memories of our synapses and our cells — how we came out...
3 weeks ago
16
3 weeks ago
It must be encoded there, in the childhood memories of our synapses and our cells — how we came out of the ocean 35 trillion yesterdays ago, small and slippery, gills trembling with the shock of air, fins budding feet, limbs growing sinewy and furred, then unfurred, spine...
The Marginalian
How to Live a Miraculous Life: Brian Doyle on Love, Humility, and the Quiet Grace of the Possible Suppose we agree that we are here to love anyway — to love even though the work is almost unbearably...
9 months ago
66
9 months ago
Suppose we agree that we are here to love anyway — to love even though the work is almost unbearably difficult, even though we know that everything alive is dying, that everything beautiful is perishable, that everything we love will eventually be taken from us by one form of...
The Marginalian
Facts about the Moon: Dorianne Laux’s Stunning Poem about Bearing Our Human Losses When Even the... “Hearing the rising tide,” Rachel Carson wrote in her poetic meditation on the ocean and the meaning...
a year ago
103
a year ago
“Hearing the rising tide,” Rachel Carson wrote in her poetic meditation on the ocean and the meaning of life, “there are echoes of past and future: of the flow of time, obliterating yet containing all that has gone before… of the stream of life, flowing as inexorably as any ocean...
The American Scholar
The Linguistics of Brain Rot Adam Aleksic on how social media is transforming our words The post The Linguistics of Brain Rot...
a month ago
15
a month ago
Adam Aleksic on how social media is transforming our words The post The Linguistics of Brain Rot appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
William James on Love "If it comes, it comes; if it does not come, no process of reasoning can force it. Yet it transforms...
a year ago
55
a year ago
"If it comes, it comes; if it does not come, no process of reasoning can force it. Yet it transforms the value of the creature loved."
Anecdotal Evidence
'To Think, to Read, to Meditate, to React' Often, I think of the late Adam Zagajewski urging young poets – and by extension, the rest of us --...
5 months ago
35
5 months ago
Often, I think of the late Adam Zagajewski urging young poets – and by extension, the rest of us -- to “read everything.” The suggestion is not dictatorial. The Pole even admits he is a “chaotic reader,” as most of us are. I’ve never been systematic about much of anything...
This Space
The criticism of Lessons, the lessons of criticism I give thanks to Ryan Ruby for his review of Lessons, Ian McEwan’s latest novel. It brings to our...
over a year ago
59
over a year ago
I give thanks to Ryan Ruby for his review of Lessons, Ian McEwan’s latest novel. It brings to our attention that rare thing, joy of joys, a novel telling the story of a life remarkably similar to the author’s own set against the backdrop of recent history. Ruby shows how the...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Some Bloodless Snippet of History' Since he was a little boy my middle son has been a serial enthusiast. Back then it was rocks,...
4 months ago
44
4 months ago
Since he was a little boy my middle son has been a serial enthusiast. Back then it was rocks, carnivorous plants, Dmitri Mendeleev and the periodic table, coins, electronics – one focus of interest after another. He wasn’t fickle or easily distracted by the next shiny thing....
The Elysian
No, we shouldn't return to the climate of the 18th century Improving the climate is a better goal than trying to fight change.
2 months ago
Josh Thompson
Notes on the movie Frozen, which I dislike, and Suzume, which is excellent Introduction part of a longer series of drafts about the novel experience of being a parent, to...
6 months ago
40
6 months ago
Introduction part of a longer series of drafts about the novel experience of being a parent, to someone currently best defined as ‘a young child’. I once wrote a lot about my experiences of things, then took a break, and drafted this blog post on a few pages of yellow legal pad,...
The American Scholar
“Faustina, or, Rock Roses” by Elizabeth Bishop Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Faustina, or, Rock Roses” by Elizabeth Bishop appeared first...
6 months ago
34
6 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Faustina, or, Rock Roses” by Elizabeth Bishop appeared first on The American Scholar.
Wuthering...
there is no wisdom in me; and that is true enough - what is knowledge? - Theaetetus and Parmenides The epistemological crisis of Greek philosophy has surprised me.  The early attempts to...
over a year ago
63
over a year ago
The epistemological crisis of Greek philosophy has surprised me.  The early attempts to systematically understand, without the help of the revealed truth of religion, difficult concepts like existence and virtue led, almost immediately, to the question of whether anyone can...
The Marginalian
Bertrand Russell on the Salve for Our Modern Helplessness and Overwhelm "A way of life cannot be successful so long as it is a mere intellectual conviction. It must be...
over a year ago
30
over a year ago
"A way of life cannot be successful so long as it is a mere intellectual conviction. It must be deeply felt, deeply believed, dominant even in dreams."
The American Scholar
Braña Curuchu The post Braña Curuchu appeared first on The American Scholar.
8 months ago
sbensu
Semantic gaps Swedish has a specific word for each of the four grandparents: mormor, morfar, farmor, farfar....
a year ago
20
a year ago
Swedish has a specific word for each of the four grandparents: mormor, morfar, farmor, farfar. English doesn’t. So when you mention your 'grandma' to a Swede, they are left wondering 'which grandma?' even if it is not relevant to the story. That is a semantic gap.
The Marginalian
Louise Erdrich on the Deepest Meaning of Resistance "Resist loss of the miraculous by lowering your standards for what constitutes a miracle. It is all...
9 months ago
The Marginalian
Swan Sky: A Bittersweet Vintage Japanese Meditation on Love, Loss, and the Eternal Consolations of... To me, what makes the majestic migration of birds so moving is that it is a living spell against...
a year ago
99
a year ago
To me, what makes the majestic migration of birds so moving is that it is a living spell against abandonment. No one is leaving and no one is being left in this unison of movement along a vector of common purpose. It is the only instance I know of a transition that is not a...
The Marginalian
From Cells to Souls: The Poetic Science of How the Brain Became The making of our densely networked crucible of thought and tenderness.
over a year ago
The American Scholar
Spring 2025 The post Spring 2025 appeared first on The American Scholar.
5 months ago
The Marginalian
200 Years of Solitude: Great Writers, Artists, and Scientists in Praise of the Creative and... There is a silence at the center of each person — an untrammeled space where the inner voice grows...
a year ago
74
a year ago
There is a silence at the center of each person — an untrammeled space where the inner voice grows free to speak. That space expands in solitude. To create anything — a poem, a painting, a theorem — is to find the voice in the silence that has something to say to the world. In...
The American Scholar
Last Laugh The post Last Laugh appeared first on The American Scholar.
a year ago
Josh Thompson
Barefoot Sprinting Up a Grassy Hill, & Kettlebell Swings Introduction A few months ago, maybe in November, certainly by December, I began this ‘barefoot...
5 months ago
53
5 months ago
Introduction A few months ago, maybe in November, certainly by December, I began this ‘barefoot sprinting up grassy hills’ thing I’m going about to talk about in detail below. Shortly after I started, I began making use of the kettlebells I’d usually ignored at the gym(s) I have...
The American Scholar
“The Horses” by Edwin Muir Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “The Horses” by Edwin Muir appeared first on The American...
7 months ago
Ben Borgers
5 Pages a Day
over a year ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Rivian — Pentagram A custom typeface for the American electric vehicle manufacturer reflects its spirit of innovation...
9 months ago
20
9 months ago
A custom typeface for the American electric vehicle manufacturer reflects its spirit of innovation and adventure. Söhne is the typeface du jour of late (Stripe, OpenAI/ChatGPT, Rivian prior to this, and even this very website), and its nice to see Pentagram evolve it in...
The Marginalian
How to Bless Each Other: Poet and Philosopher John O’Donohue on the Light Within Us and Between Us "The structures of our experience are the windows into the divine. When we are true to the call of...
a year ago
The Marginalian
Delight Between Science and Magic: Euler’s Disk and the Sound of the Singularity One afternoon in the late 1980s, sitting in the company cafeteria, aerospace engineer Joseph Bendik...
9 months ago
66
9 months ago
One afternoon in the late 1980s, sitting in the company cafeteria, aerospace engineer Joseph Bendik found himself so bored that he took a coin out of his pocket and began spinning it atop the table. In a testament to the eternal paradox of boredom and wonder as two sides of the...
The Elysian
Deep-research an article with me A six-week workshop for writers.
7 months ago