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Anecdotal Evidence
'Utterly Intoxicated by His Affection' Montaigne’s charming opening to his essay “Of the Education of Children”: “I have never seen a...
23 hours ago
1
23 hours ago
Montaigne’s charming opening to his essay “Of the Education of Children”: “I have never seen a father who failed to claim his son, however mangy or hunchbacked he was. Not that he does not perceive his defect, unless he is utterly intoxicated by his affection; but the fact...
Astral Codex Ten
The Twins Join The Linguistic-Symbolic Order ...
2 days ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Bolt of Inspiration Strikes Invariably' “Inspiration is perhaps merely the joy of writing: it does not precede writing.” A student and...
2 days ago
4
2 days ago
“Inspiration is perhaps merely the joy of writing: it does not precede writing.” A student and aspiring fiction writer wonders why I seldom refer to “inspiration.” What is it? Do I deny its existence? Have certain writers successfully relied on it? Can he? My answer is yes and...
The American Scholar
The Shipping News Ian Kumekawa tells the story of the global economy in one barge The post The Shipping News appeared...
2 days ago
5
2 days ago
Ian Kumekawa tells the story of the global economy in one barge The post The Shipping News appeared first on The American Scholar.
Wuthering...
What I Read in April 2025 – Have we cherished expectations? I should make that the new official slogan of the blog.  It is from p. 614 of Finnegans Wake, one of...
2 days ago
4
2 days ago
I should make that the new official slogan of the blog.  It is from p. 614 of Finnegans Wake, one of the books I recently read. FICTION The Sword in the Stone (1938), T. H. White – I for some reason did not read this as a youth.  It is wonderful, full of anachronism and parody...
Naz Hamid
Barbara “Nuggie” Schuetz-Hamid Rest in peace little one. I never would have guessed that a 4-lb Chihuahua would come into our...
3 days ago
4
3 days ago
Rest in peace little one. I never would have guessed that a 4-lb Chihuahua would come into our lives, let alone be the animal to steal my heart before Jen’s. Our previous animals — two cats and a Boxer dog — are a stark contrast to a tiny dog that we would carry around in a sling...
The Elysian
Let's read Moral Ambition together Rutger Bregman's new book is the subject of our next literary salon.
3 days ago
Astral Codex Ten
Highlights From The Comments On AI Geoguessr ...
3 days ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Among Those Who Read There is Great Variety' Writing is famously the most narcissistic of professions, even worse than acting or being a...
3 days ago
4
3 days ago
Writing is famously the most narcissistic of professions, even worse than acting or being a politician. We’re forever carrying on about ourselves and our precious insights, like the kid in class who raises his hand and goes “Ooh! Ooh!” each time the teacher asks a question....
Astral Codex Ten
Hidden Open Thread 380.5 ...
3 days ago
The Marginalian
Ocean Vuong on Anger “To be an artist is a guarantee to your fellow humans that the wear and tear of living will not let...
4 days ago
2
4 days ago
“To be an artist is a guarantee to your fellow humans that the wear and tear of living will not let you become a murderer,” Louise Bourgeois wrote in her diary as a young artist. “The poets (by which I mean all artists),” James Baldwin wrote in his late thirties, “are finally the...
Astral Codex Ten
Moldbug Sold Out "At long last, I've created the populist strongman from my classic 11,000 blog post series 'Don't...
4 days ago
2
4 days ago
"At long last, I've created the populist strongman from my classic 11,000 blog post series 'Don't Create The Populist Strongman'"
Anecdotal Evidence
'He Lies Until the Trauma Trots Away' At age fourteen, our dog, if human, would be eligible for Social Security. Luke sleeps more than he...
4 days ago
2
4 days ago
At age fourteen, our dog, if human, would be eligible for Social Security. Luke sleeps more than he did when a pup. His rear end aches and he takes nearly as many meds each day as I do. He throws up more often and has trouble jumping on the bed. We indulge him as we would a sick...
The American Scholar
Star Trek: Discovery The post <em>Star Trek: Discovery</em> appeared first on The American Scholar.
4 days ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'But No One Style, I Think, is Recommended' A reader tells me of her disgust with most insects and reptiles, the small creatures, almost...
5 days ago
2
5 days ago
A reader tells me of her disgust with most insects and reptiles, the small creatures, almost domestic, that surround us. She resents the “nature sentimentality” such “vermin” rouse in some people. They “make [her] skin crawl,” she writes – an idiom I’ve always found amusing....
The American Scholar
“Piano Fire” by Claudia Emerson Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Piano Fire” by Claudia Emerson appeared first on The...
5 days ago
The Elysian
We’ve raised $50,000—now I’m writing a book! My vision for the future of capitalism has been greenlit. Now let’s make it a reality.
6 days ago
Astral Codex Ten
Open Thread 380 ...
6 days ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'This Is My Time and Theme' “I delight sensually in Time, in its stuff and spread, in the fall of its folds, in the...
6 days ago
3
6 days ago
“I delight sensually in Time, in its stuff and spread, in the fall of its folds, in the very impalpability of its grayish gauze, in the coolness of its continuum.”  You may recognize the almost overripe prose. Ingesting so rich a diet too early in life can spoil one for plainer...
The American Scholar
Lorena Diosdado Multifaceted Latinx identities The post Lorena Diosdado appeared first on The American Scholar.
6 days ago
The Marginalian
Hope Is the Thing with Feathers, and with Fangs: The Alchemy of Unrequited Love and the Story Behind... This essay is adapted from the nineteenth chapter of my book Figuring. In the first autumn of her...
a week ago
2
a week ago
This essay is adapted from the nineteenth chapter of my book Figuring. In the first autumn of her thirties, Emily Dickinson wrote to her confidante and eventual editor Thomas Wentworth Higginson: I had a terror — since September — I could tell to none, and so I sing, as the Boy...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Death, Indeed, Continually Hovers About Us' A high-school friend writes to ask what I remember of May 4, 1970. We would graduate in a month and...
a week ago
2
a week ago
A high-school friend writes to ask what I remember of May 4, 1970. We would graduate in a month and go to university in the fall. The fear and excitement of that symbolic step toward adulthood was blunted by the killing of four students by Ohio National Guardsmen at Kent State...
The Marginalian
Stalactite & Stalagmite: A Brief Illustrated History of Earth and One Great Truth about Love We are always either drawing closer or drifting apart — there is no stasis in relationships. The...
a week ago
2
a week ago
We are always either drawing closer or drifting apart — there is no stasis in relationships. The direction of movement may change over the course of a relationship, but there is no stasis. Despite our culture’s bias for the drama of cataclysm — the violent heartbreaks, the very...
Anecdotal Evidence
'It Was a Good Moment of Remembrance' Out of the aether after twenty-six years came an email from Mikhail Iossel: “Greetings -- and...
a week ago
1
a week ago
Out of the aether after twenty-six years came an email from Mikhail Iossel: “Greetings -- and apologies for writing out of that metaphoric nowhere.” In May 1999, Mikhail was a writer-in-residence at Union College in Schenectady, N.Y., and I was a reporter for that city’s...
The Marginalian
States of Possession: Erich Neumann on Creativity, the Unconscious, and the Psychology of... There are things in life that come over you sudden as a flash flood, total as an eclipse — the great...
a week ago
2
a week ago
There are things in life that come over you sudden as a flash flood, total as an eclipse — the great loves, the great creative passions, the great urges to conquer a mountain or a theorem. They can feel like an alien invasion, like the immense hand of some imperative has seized...
Astral Codex Ten
Testing AI's GeoGuessr Genius Seeing a world in a grain of sand
a week ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Glass Filled With a Supersaturate Solution' “[S]he is one of the few truly compelling stylists now at work. Her voice is authoritative,...
a week ago
1
a week ago
“[S]he is one of the few truly compelling stylists now at work. Her voice is authoritative, confident, unfussy, exacting. She is never overtly confessional, which sets her apart from many poets writing since the Romantics. She makes rare company.”  And isn’t that what we look for...
Wuthering...
Languages and literature - Finnegans Wake becomes unbeurrable from age More keys.  As Anna Livia Plurabelle says or thinks or dreams at the very end of Finnegans...
a week ago
2
a week ago
More keys.  As Anna Livia Plurabelle says or thinks or dreams at the very end of Finnegans Wake, “The keys to.”  She is falling asleep so she unfortunately does not finish the sentence.  Some keys to the Wake: languages, literature, and themes. Languages In “Pierre Menard, Author...
Naz Hamid
The Abstraction Gap Bridging the design-development gap as AI rises. There’s a frustrating gap in how development...
a week ago
2
a week ago
Bridging the design-development gap as AI rises. There’s a frustrating gap in how development projects present themselves. What looks straightforward on GitHub — ‘just run this command!’ — quickly spirals into an odyssey of sudo permissions, package managers, and missing...
Astral Codex Ten
You Can Keep Having An Opinion Even When The Government Also Has It ...
a week ago
Escaping Flatland
Drift Right now it is April 18 and I am walking along the steep coast at the peninsula on the Northeastern...
a week ago
1
a week ago
Right now it is April 18 and I am walking along the steep coast at the peninsula on the Northeastern corner of our island.
Anecdotal Evidence
'Poor Naked Wretches, Whereso’er You Are' Aleksander Wat (1900-67) was a Polish poet and one-time Communist hounded and imprisoned by Nazis...
a week ago
2
a week ago
Aleksander Wat (1900-67) was a Polish poet and one-time Communist hounded and imprisoned by Nazis and Soviets alike. In 1964 while visiting California, he recorded lengthy conversations with fellow poet and Pole Czesław Miłosz. The transcripts were translated by Richard Lourie...
Wuthering...
Some of the difficulties of Finnegans Wake - Two dreamyums in one dromium? Yes and no error. I am too tired to write about Finnegans Wake which is a good state for writing about this dream...
a week ago
2
a week ago
I am too tired to write about Finnegans Wake which is a good state for writing about this dream novel where characters keep falling asleep.  “Dream” is conventional wisdom but I will note that no part of the book resembles any dream I have ever experienced or read about, although...
Astral Codex Ten
Hidden Open Thread 379.5 ...
a week 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...
a week ago
2
a week 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...
Astral Codex Ten
The Populist Right Must Own Tariffs ...
a week ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Frivolous Subjects?' “Frivolous subjects? Well, and thank God for it, not everybody can be writing about big,...
a week ago
1
a week ago
“Frivolous subjects? Well, and thank God for it, not everybody can be writing about big, so-called important issues: population, genes, semantics, sex, death. Surely there is value in anything that makes us laugh, that makes us understand ourselves more.”  These wise words are...
The American Scholar
Another You The post Another You appeared first on The American Scholar.
a week ago
Wuthering...
The key to Finnegans Wake - there is a limit to all things so this will never do Over the last month I read Finnegans Wake (1939).  I first read some bits of it in college, in a...
a week ago
3
a week ago
Over the last month I read Finnegans Wake (1939).  I first read some bits of it in college, in a Norton Anthology of British Literature, and other, although mostly the same, bits occasionally, mostly to remind myself what they looked like.  Anyone interested in literature should...
The Marginalian
Chance, Choice, and How to Claim Your Life Only a fool or an egomaniac would deny that chance shapes the vast majority of life. The time,...
a week ago
2
a week ago
Only a fool or an egomaniac would deny that chance shapes the vast majority of life. The time, place, culture, family, body, brain, and biochemistry we are born into, the people who cross our path, the accidents that befall us — these dwarf in consequence the sum total of our...
The Elysian
How we’re profit sharing on Metalabel A financial analysis of our first cooperative media project + where we could go from here.
a week ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Every Word Is a World' When someone had eaten his fill and couldn’t take another bite, my maternal grandmother, born the...
a week ago
1
a week ago
When someone had eaten his fill and couldn’t take another bite, my maternal grandmother, born the same year as T.S. Eliot, would say, “His sufficiency is suffonsified.” I’ve never heard another person utter those words. For most of my life I assumed the fourth word in that...
The American Scholar
“Pin Pricks of Loneliness” by Etheridge Knight Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Pin Pricks of Loneliness” by Etheridge Knight appeared first...
a week ago
2
a week ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Pin Pricks of Loneliness” by Etheridge Knight appeared first on The American Scholar.
Wuthering...
Two novels titled Attila - Maximal words striving to breach an angel I will write about two newly published translations of Spanish novels that comprise an amusing stunt...
a week ago
2
a week ago
I will write about two newly published translations of Spanish novels that comprise an amusing stunt by Open Letter Books.  They are Attila by Aliocha Coll (1991) and Attila by Javier Serena (2014), both translated by Katie Whittemore.  Coll’s Attila is a Finnegans...
Astral Codex Ten
Open Thread 379 ...
a week ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Opsimath That I Am in So Many Matters' I was a lazy student who worked hard when the task interested me and coasted the rest of the time....
a week ago
1
a week ago
I was a lazy student who worked hard when the task interested me and coasted the rest of the time. I dropped out of Latin prematurely because I couldn’t be bothered to master the ablative absolute, among other things. Formal education was an evasive game played with teachers....
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Spiritual Situation of Our Age' “Balzac is one of the most shameless traders in stereotype among the great nineteenth-century...
a week ago
1
a week ago
“Balzac is one of the most shameless traders in stereotype among the great nineteenth-century novelists. As a result, there are passages in his books that many of us today have to read in the spirit of camp as resounding expressions of the kitsch of his era.”  I’ve read so little...
Anecdotal Evidence
'He Is a Genial Companion' Tess Lewis has translated one of Montaigne’s early essays, “Of Pedantry” (c. 1572-78), in which the...
2 weeks ago
1
2 weeks ago
Tess Lewis has translated one of Montaigne’s early essays, “Of Pedantry” (c. 1572-78), in which the Frenchman issues one caution and, mid-paragraph, seems to reverse himself:  “I would be inclined to conclude that just as plants are suffocated with too much moisture and...
Astral Codex Ten
AMA With AI Futures Project Team ...
2 weeks ago
The Marginalian
The Art of Befriending Time and Change: Debbie Millman’s Illustrated Love Letter to Gardening as a... You may or may not find the meaning of life while pacing a flower bed, but each time you plunge your...
2 weeks ago
1
2 weeks ago
You may or may not find the meaning of life while pacing a flower bed, but each time you plunge your bare hands into the hummus of the Earth and run your fingers through the roots of something that hungers for the sun, you are resisting the dying of the light and saying “yes” to...
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Soliloquy for Two' The ideally named English neurologist Russell Brain died in 1966 but his textbook, Brain’s Diseases...
2 weeks ago
1
2 weeks ago
The ideally named English neurologist Russell Brain died in 1966 but his textbook, Brain’s Diseases of the Nervous System (1933), remains in print. The Royal College of Physicians has called it “the standard British textbook on his subject.” Brain was also a poet and...
The American Scholar
Coming Home Craig Thompson digs up memories of farm labor and the history of ginseng The post Coming Home...
2 weeks ago
1
2 weeks ago
Craig Thompson digs up memories of farm labor and the history of ginseng The post Coming Home appeared first on The American Scholar.
Naz Hamid
SXSW ’11 Memories are an interesting beast. I have certain core memories that are embedded deep in my mind....
2 weeks ago
2
2 weeks ago
Memories are an interesting beast. I have certain core memories that are embedded deep in my mind. The years I attended SXSW from 2007-2012 encompass some of those. In 2011, I shared a house with longtime partner-in-crime Scott Robbin, Jeff Skinner, and Sam Felder. We were off...
The Marginalian
Introducing Marginalian Editions: Extraordinary Forgotten Books Brought Back to Life I have become a person on the pages and in the margins of books. In nearly two decades of reckoning...
2 weeks ago
1
2 weeks ago
I have become a person on the pages and in the margins of books. In nearly two decades of reckoning with my reading in writing, it has been my ongoing lamentation to see works of enduring beauty and substance perish out of print — because the ideas they conduct are not the...
The Elysian
You can collect CITY STATE now The digital and print editions are now available.
2 weeks ago
Astral Codex Ten
AI Futures: Blogging And AMA ...
2 weeks ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Refreshed His Senses, Heart, and Head' If I had been in the house all day reading during a long Ohio winter, invariably my mother would...
2 weeks ago
16
2 weeks ago
If I had been in the house all day reading during a long Ohio winter, invariably my mother would say, “Go outside and blow the stink off.” My parents took a kid reading as a reproach, something unnatural and probably unhealthy – one more reason for me to be secretive. When I was...
The American Scholar
After the Fallout On jellyfish babies, my father’s pain, and the legacy of nuclear testing in the Pacific The post...
2 weeks ago
16
2 weeks ago
On jellyfish babies, my father’s pain, and the legacy of nuclear testing in the Pacific The post After the Fallout appeared first on The American Scholar.
Astral Codex Ten
Hidden Open Thread 378.5 ...
2 weeks ago
Escaping Flatland
Sometimes the reason you can’t find people you resonate with is because you misread the ones you... Sometimes two people will stand next to each other for fifteen years, both feeling out of place and...
2 weeks ago
22
2 weeks ago
Sometimes two people will stand next to each other for fifteen years, both feeling out of place and alone, like no one gets them, and then one day, they look up at each other and say, “Oh, there you are.”
Astral Codex Ten
With This Character's Death, The Thread Of Prophecy Is Severed RIP Pope Francis and a particularly interesting apocalyptic prophecy
2 weeks ago
This Space
An anniversary appeal On this day last year I began posting every day for 39 days to commemorate 39 years since I began...
2 weeks ago
16
2 weeks ago
On this day last year I began posting every day for 39 days to commemorate 39 years since I began reading books. I dug out a folder of book lists I'd kept since 1986, chose one book from each year that I'd not written about before and wrote what ever the book suggested to me....
Anecdotal Evidence
'It Was Written By a Madman' Can we be privately embarrassed in the solitude of our skulls, without an audience?...
2 weeks ago
14
2 weeks ago
Can we be privately embarrassed in the solitude of our skulls, without an audience? Embarrassment seems like a response to a social setting. In that sense, it resembles involuntary amusement. To laugh helplessly, out loud when alone, is rare among the sane. I think embarrassment...
The American Scholar
A Stronger Spine The post A Stronger Spine appeared first on The American Scholar.
2 weeks ago
The Elysian
“I sold my company to my employees” An interview with Tim Rettig, founder of Intrust IT, on how he sold his company to employees and...
2 weeks ago
13
2 weeks ago
An interview with Tim Rettig, founder of Intrust IT, on how he sold his company to employees and became an employee ownership advocate.
Astral Codex Ten
Links For April 2025 ...
2 weeks ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Absence of Her Voice From that Concord' “There are three points of view from which a writer can be considered: he may be considered as...
2 weeks ago
16
2 weeks ago
“There are three points of view from which a writer can be considered: he may be considered as a storyteller, as a teacher, and as an enchanter. A major writer combines these three – storyteller, teacher, enchanter – but it is the enchanter in him that predominates and makes him...
The American Scholar
“Little Sleep’s-Head Sprouting Hair in the Moonlight” by Galway Kinnell Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Little Sleep’s-Head Sprouting Hair in the Moonlight” by...
2 weeks ago
20
2 weeks ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Little Sleep’s-Head Sprouting Hair in the Moonlight” by Galway Kinnell appeared first on The American Scholar.
Naz Hamid
Kin The third culture difference. One of the hardest aspects of being a third culture kid and eventually...
2 weeks ago
116
2 weeks ago
The third culture difference. One of the hardest aspects of being a third culture kid and eventually adult is the difficulty in the journey of your identity. When you're young, the movement and culture- and context-switching are par for the course — it comes with the literal...
The Elysian
How we achieve the borderless future of Terra Ignota On Ada Palmer’s utopian sci-fi series and an exploration of how we might bring it to life.
2 weeks ago
Astral Codex Ten
Open Thread 378 ...
2 weeks ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Shaping Tombs in Words' Catharine Savage Brosman describes her late husband, Patric Savage, like this:  “I am bereft   “of...
2 weeks ago
13
2 weeks ago
Catharine Savage Brosman describes her late husband, Patric Savage, like this:  “I am bereft   “of curator, you see, of one who cared tremendously— for books, for me—but would have sacrificed the whole collection for my sake.”   The poem is “Pat Curating His Library” (Arm in Arm,...
The American Scholar
Diana Antohe Threads of memory and home The post Diana Antohe appeared first on The American Scholar.
2 weeks ago
The Marginalian
The Kiln and the Quantum of Relationships Anything you give your time to and polish with attention will become a lens on your search for...
2 weeks ago
15
2 weeks ago
Anything you give your time to and polish with attention will become a lens on your search for meaning, will lavish you with metaphors that become backdoors into the locked room of your most urgent reckonings. In my nascent adventures in pottery, I have observed with great...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Our World Has Passed Away' Dinant is a small city in the Walloon region of Belgium, on the Meuse River. It is one of those...
2 weeks ago
13
2 weeks ago
Dinant is a small city in the Walloon region of Belgium, on the Meuse River. It is one of those otherwise obscure places (Fort Pillow, Lidice, My Lai) that has lent its name to an atrocity. On August 23, 1914, in the early weeks of World War I, German troops slaughtered almost...
Anecdotal Evidence
'And For It Does So Dearly Pay' Some wartime casualties are time-released. Death is deferred. In his new collection, That Mad...
3 weeks ago
12
3 weeks ago
Some wartime casualties are time-released. Death is deferred. In his new collection, That Mad Game (Scienter Press, 2025), R.L. Barth devotes three poems to a civilian, the war correspondent Albert W. Vinson, who wrote about him leading a patrol of Marines in Vietnam in 1968. The...
Astral Codex Ten
Yet Another Reason To Hate College Admissions Essays ...
3 weeks 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...
3 weeks ago
14
3 weeks 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 American Scholar
“The Overture” The post “The Overture” appeared first on The American Scholar.
3 weeks ago
The Marginalian
Twenty Ways to Matter The two great tasks of the creative life are keeping failure from breaking the spirit and keeping...
3 weeks ago
13
3 weeks ago
The two great tasks of the creative life are keeping failure from breaking the spirit and keeping success from ossifying it. If you do attain success by the weft and warp of hard work and luck, it takes great courage to resist becoming a template of yourself that replicates...
The Elysian
Digital nomads could create network states Here's how.
3 weeks ago
Astral Codex Ten
ACX Classifieds 4/25 ...
3 weeks ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Familiar Hearts of Strangers' “At bottom Chekhov is a writer who has flung his soul to the side of pity, and sees into the...
3 weeks ago
11
3 weeks ago
“At bottom Chekhov is a writer who has flung his soul to the side of pity, and sees into the holiness and immaculate fragility of the hidden striver below.”  In his letters to family and friends, Chekhov can be harsh, hectoring and even smutty, though seldom in the stories except...
The American Scholar
In the Matter of the Commas For the true literary stylist, this seemingly humble punctuation mark is a matter of precision,...
3 weeks ago
12
3 weeks ago
For the true literary stylist, this seemingly humble punctuation mark is a matter of precision, logic, individuality, and music The post In the Matter of the Commas appeared first on The American Scholar.
Ploum.net
Dédicace à Trolls & Vélo et magie cycliste Dédicace à Trolls & Vélo et magie cycliste Je serai ce samedi 19 avril à Mons au festival Trolls &...
3 weeks ago
13
3 weeks ago
Dédicace à Trolls & Vélo et magie cycliste Je serai ce samedi 19 avril à Mons au festival Trolls & Légende en dédicace au stand PVH. La star de la table sera sans conteste Sara Schneider, autrice fantasy de la saga des enfants d’Aliel et qui est toute auréolée du Prix SFFF Suisse...
Astral Codex Ten
Hidden Open Thread 377.5 ...
3 weeks ago
Naz Hamid
Hustle to Flow A meditation on entering flow state. A snack beckons. I stand up and head a few feet away to the...
3 weeks ago
12
3 weeks ago
A meditation on entering flow state. A snack beckons. I stand up and head a few feet away to the kitchen area. A hojicha latte is on my mind, and also a bite. My brain is at operational capacity, and I am in a flow state. The metabolic need feels high, and I need to keep my...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Chockfull of Love, Crammed With Bright Thoughts' Several years have passed since I last entered a bookstore selling new books, such as Barnes and...
3 weeks ago
11
3 weeks ago
Several years have passed since I last entered a bookstore selling new books, such as Barnes and Noble or the late Borders. Long ago they stopped feeling like home and a visit usually turned out to be a waste of time. Serendipitous discovery was rare. The portion of the goods on...
The American Scholar
Savory or Apples? The post Savory or Apples? appeared first on The American Scholar.
3 weeks ago
Wuthering...
What I Read in March 2025 – Some day, he thought, I must use such a scene to start a good, thick... FICTION The Return of Sherlock Holmes (1904), Arthur Conan Doyle – My emergency book, the book on my...
3 weeks ago
15
3 weeks ago
FICTION The Return of Sherlock Holmes (1904), Arthur Conan Doyle – My emergency book, the book on my phone, for when I need to read in the dark, or it is raining at the bus stop, or similar dire situations.  I have been dipping into it for two years or more, but decided to finish...
The Marginalian
3 Kinds of Loneliness and 4 Kinds of Forever Loneliness is the fundamental condition of life — we are born by another, but born alone; die around...
3 weeks ago
15
3 weeks ago
Loneliness is the fundamental condition of life — we are born by another, but born alone; die around others (if we are lucky and loved), but die alone; we spend our lives islanded in our one and only human experience — in these particular bodies and minds and circumstances drawn...
The Elysian
Yes, it can be profitable to sell print magazines and books Collectable print projects don't have to be an expensive vanity project.
3 weeks ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'You Should Take a Book of Poetry' “The Brains Trust” was a BBC radio show popular in the nineteen-forties and -fifties. A panel of...
3 weeks ago
13
3 weeks ago
“The Brains Trust” was a BBC radio show popular in the nineteen-forties and -fifties. A panel of “experts” – among them Desmond MacCarthy, Kenneth Clark and Rose Macaulay – would answer questions submitted by listeners. The U.S. had similar radio programs at the time, such as...
The American Scholar
“Wild Peaches” by Elinor Wylie Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Wild Peaches” by Elinor Wylie appeared first on The American...
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'You There in Your Straight Row on Row' On Sunday, a friend and I, after lunch at a favorite Mexican restaurant, visited Kaboom Books here...
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On Sunday, a friend and I, after lunch at a favorite Mexican restaurant, visited Kaboom Books here in Houston. He left with a stack of books. I found one: Adelaide Crapsey: On the Life and Work of an American Master (Pleiades Press and Gulf Coast, 2018). I know her thanks only to...
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My operating rules and way of living. This is a m.o. (mo) page, or modus operandi page. It lists out the way I approach my life and the rules I apply to it to thrive. This is a living document and will be added to as more comes to mind, or as I develop new ones. It is mirrored at...
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À la recherche de l’attention perdue La messagerie instantanée et la politique Vous l’avez certainement vu passer : Un journaliste américain s’est fait inviter par erreur sur un chat Signal où des personnes très haut placées de l’administration américaine (y compris le...
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What if your side hustle is being in Congress? The future of democracy is direct, online, and doesn't require politicians.
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'Yes, I'm Perfectly All Right' Had I been more clever or alert I might have heard and recorded my brother’s last words before he...
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Had I been more clever or alert I might have heard and recorded my brother’s last words before he died last August in hospice. A reader asks about this, and I admit I blew it. For the last week or so of his life, Ken was unconscious, occasionally moaning when the nurses shifted...
Wuthering...
Platonov's Chevengur - “But communism’s about to set in... Why am I finding everything so hard?” Another remarkable Russian novel finally made it into English last year, Andrey Platonov’s...
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Another remarkable Russian novel finally made it into English last year, Andrey Platonov’s Chevengur, written in 1929 but not published until 1972, in Paris. Robert and Elizabeth Chandler have been translating Platonov for decades now, and this novel and the apparatus...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Nobody to Witness Its Effects Upon Me' Johnson, Boswell and friends met for dinner at the Crown and Anchor on April 12, 1776. Among...
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Johnson, Boswell and friends met for dinner at the Crown and Anchor on April 12, 1776. Among the topics of conversation was the evergreen favorite “whether drinking improved conversation and benevolence.” Sir Joshua Reynolds maintained it did. Johnson replies:   “‘No, Sir: before...
The Marginalian
How Two Souls Can Interact with One Another: Simone de Beauvoir on Love and Friendship It is in relationships that we discover both our depths and our limits, there that we anneal...
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It is in relationships that we discover both our depths and our limits, there that we anneal ourselves and transcend ourselves, there that we are hurt the most and there that we find the most healing. But despite what a crucible of our emotional and spiritual lives relationships...
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'The Rest Is Silence' Here I pause to remember a forgotten poet who remembered a slightly less forgotten poet – a reminder...
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Here I pause to remember a forgotten poet who remembered a slightly less forgotten poet – a reminder that all of us are eminently forgettable, regardless of our purported virtues. Walter de la Mare died on June 22, 1956, at age eighty-three. The journal Poetry assigned William...
The American Scholar
Muscle Memory Michael Joseph Gross on the importance of strength, past and present The post Muscle Memory appeared...
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Michael Joseph Gross on the importance of strength, past and present The post Muscle Memory appeared first on The American Scholar.
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An American case for building new cities We need to remember how to build things.
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“It is not easy to write essays like Montaigne, nor Maxims in the manner of the Duke de la Rochefoucault.”  Who could think otherwise? The two Frenchmen are masters of diametrically opposed forms. In Montaigne’s hands, an essay can afford to be expansive. In fact, expansiveness –...
The American Scholar
Doing Nothing Is Everything An areligious writer finds peace in a Benedictine monastery The post Doing Nothing Is Everything...
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An areligious writer finds peace in a Benedictine monastery The post Doing Nothing Is Everything appeared first on The American Scholar.
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De l’utilisation des smartphones et des tablettes chez les adolescents De l’utilisation des smartphones et des tablettes chez les adolescents Chers parents, chers...
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De l’utilisation des smartphones et des tablettes chez les adolescents Chers parents, chers enseignants, chers éducateurs, Nous le savons toutes et tous, le smartphone est devenu un objet incontournable de notre quotidien, nous connectant en permanence au réseau Internet qui,...
The Marginalian
Carl Jung on Creativity The question of what it takes to create — to make something of beauty and substance that touches...
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The question of what it takes to create — to make something of beauty and substance that touches other lives across space and time — is one of the deepest, oldest questions, perhaps because the answer to it is so unbearably simple: everything. We bring everything we are and...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Let Us Think That We Build Forever' I’ve just learned that the English poet Clive Wilmer died on March 13 at age eighty. I knew him...
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I’ve just learned that the English poet Clive Wilmer died on March 13 at age eighty. I knew him first as a friend and champion of Edgar Bowers, Thom Gunn and Dick Davis, a co-translator of the Hungarian poet Miklós Radnóti, a serious reader of John Ruskin and a fine poet in his...
The American Scholar
Facts of the Case The post Facts of the Case appeared first on The American Scholar.
a month ago
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Join us for a discussion about CITY STATE A literary salon discussion about autonomous governance.
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Repeat great words, repeat them stubbornly Intensely Human, No 4: The Envoy of Mr Cogito
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'Some Bloodless Snippet of History' Since he was a little boy my middle son has been a serial enthusiast. Back then it was rocks,...
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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 American Scholar
“Campo dei Fiori” by Czesław Miłosz Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Campo dei Fiori” by Czesław Miłosz appeared first on The...
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a month ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Campo dei Fiori” by Czesław Miłosz appeared first on The American Scholar.
Ploum.net
La fin d’un monde ? La fin d’un monde ? La fin de nos souvenirs Nous sommes envahis d’IA. Bien plus que vous ne le...
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La fin d’un monde ? La fin de nos souvenirs Nous sommes envahis d’IA. Bien plus que vous ne le pensez. Chaque fois que votre téléphone prend une photo, ce n’est pas la réalité qui s’affiche, mais une reconstruction « probable » de ce que vous avez envie de voir. C’est la raison...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'Style Is the Forgetting of All Styles' “I recall admiring the calmly expository flavor and simple, nonjudgemental humanity of profile...
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“I recall admiring the calmly expository flavor and simple, nonjudgemental humanity of profile stories Patrick Kurp contributed to the Gazette, years and years ago.”  After three decades, I’ve heard from a former newspaper colleague, a music writer, Mike Hochanadel. A...
The American Scholar
Helina Metaferia An army of activists The post Helina Metaferia appeared first on The American Scholar.
a month ago
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Grassroots movements are building garden cities We're changing the aesthetic from the bottom up.
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How to Be More Alive: Artist and Philosopher Rockwell Kent on Breaking the Trance of Near-living The point, of course, is to make yourself alive — to feel the force of being in your sinew and your...
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The point, of course, is to make yourself alive — to feel the force of being in your sinew and your spirit, to tremble with the beauty and the terror of it all, to breathe lungfuls of life that gasp you awake from the trance of near-living induced by the system of waste and want...
Anecdotal Evidence
'I Took Off My Hat to This Little Fool' “Is it not strange that the phantoms of a blood-stained period have so airy a grace and look with...
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“Is it not strange that the phantoms of a blood-stained period have so airy a grace and look with so tender eyes? -- that I recall with difficulty the danger and death and horrors of the time, and without effort all that was gracious and picturesque?”  The Battle of...
Wuthering...
Andrey Platonov's "Soul" - the universal happiness of the unhappy I read Andrey Platonov’s novel Chevengur (1929) not too long ago and the collection of stories Soul...
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a month ago
I read Andrey Platonov’s novel Chevengur (1929) not too long ago and the collection of stories Soul (1935-46) last month.  Here we will have some notes.  These are the Robert and Elizabeth Chandler translations (four additional translators assist with Soul).  Those dates are for...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Livelier in Pleasant Weather' Magazines have long been fond of asking well-known writers to recommend books appropriate to...
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Magazines have long been fond of asking well-known writers to recommend books appropriate to certain times of year, usually as Christmas gifts or so-called “beach reading.” The results tend to be surprisingly conventional and unrewarding, with pleasing exceptions. Consider...
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Anecdotal Evidence
'People Who Just Love the Proximity of Books' Left in a hefty anthology titled The Faber Book of War Poetry (ed. Kenneth Baker, 1996) was...
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Left in a hefty anthology titled The Faber Book of War Poetry (ed. Kenneth Baker, 1996) was a postcard from O’Gara & Wilson, Ltd. Booksellers in Chicago. More than forty years ago I visited that shop near the University of Chicago and purchased a partial set of Conrad for 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...
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Italy's Matera as a case study for revitalizing small governments and creating a future of interconnected villages.
The Marginalian
Lights On: Consciousness, the Mystery of Felt Experience, and the Fundamental Music of Reality When I was five, not long after the night I sat on my father’s shoulders among the thousands of...
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When I was five, not long after the night I sat on my father’s shoulders among the thousands of people on the yellow brick plaza in front of the Bulgarian Parliament singing protest songs to take down the Communist dictatorship, my parents got us a hamster. I would say got me a...
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Isometric Deadlift Holds (for Climbing!) alternative titles: yielding isometric mid-thigh pin pulls, isometric deadlift 'holds' for fun and...
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alternative titles: yielding isometric mid-thigh pin pulls, isometric deadlift 'holds' for fun and climbing Introduction A few months ago, I began some barefoot sprints up a hill at a local park, and discussed also adding heavy kettlebell swings. My back started feeling great,...
Anecdotal Evidence
'After So Many Deaths I Live and Write' One needn’t be a fetishist or even a book collector – reader is close enough -- to prize an...
a month ago
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One needn’t be a fetishist or even a book collector – reader is close enough -- to prize an “association copy,” a term neatly defined here: “A book that belonged to or was annotated by the author, someone close to the author, a famous or noteworthy person, or someone especially...
The American Scholar
Splitting Our Sides A new biography of a comedy pioneer The post Splitting Our Sides appeared first on The American...
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a month ago
A new biography of a comedy pioneer The post Splitting Our Sides appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Perry Bible...
Blocked The post Blocked appeared first on The Perry Bible Fellowship.
a month ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'To Guide Him in the Real World' In 1899, Edwin Arlington Robinson read Thoreau’s Walking, a work based on an 1851 lecture...
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In 1899, Edwin Arlington Robinson read Thoreau’s Walking, a work based on an 1851 lecture published posthumously in 1862. Robinson was not impressed by his fellow New Englander. He condemned Thoreau’s “glorified world-cowardice” in a letter to his friend Daniel Gregory...
The American Scholar
Terra Do Queixo The post Terra Do Queixo appeared first on The American Scholar.
a month ago
The Marginalian
Carl Linnaeus’s Flower Clock “The eternal problem of the human being is how to structure his waking hours,” the Canadian...
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“The eternal problem of the human being is how to structure his waking hours,” the Canadian psychiatrist Eric Berne observed in his 1964 classic Games People Play. Four centuries earlier, Galileo had both combated and complicated the problem by inventing timekeeping and with it,...
The Elysian
What comes after the sovereign individual? A discussion with Lauren Razavi about sovereign collectives.
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Take a part of the world that you love and give it your care Edward Weston, Armco Steel, Ohio, 1922
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'So a Fool Returneth to His Folly' Grownups seldom credit children with insight into human psychology, thus treating them as smaller,...
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Grownups seldom credit children with insight into human psychology, thus treating them as smaller, more annoying versions of themselves. My father had an acquaintance even he knew was a fool. By admitting such knowledge, he was violating adult solidarity. His friend's customary...
The American Scholar
“The Dream” by Theodore Roethke Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “The Dream” by Theodore Roethke appeared first on The...
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Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “The Dream” by Theodore Roethke appeared first on The American Scholar.
Ploum.net
Goodbye Offpunk, Welcome XKCDpunk! Goodbye Offpunk, Welcome XKCDpunk! For the last three years, I’ve been working on Offpunk, a...
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Goodbye Offpunk, Welcome XKCDpunk! For the last three years, I’ve been working on Offpunk, a command-line gemini and web browser. Offpunk.net While my initial goal was to browse the Geminisphere offline, the mission has slowly morphed into cleaning and unenshitiffying the modern...
Robert Caro
Rifling Through the Archives with Legendary Historian Robert Caro SMITHSONIAN: Reams of papers, revealing how the scholar came to write his iconic biographies are...
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'To Make Her Smile and Keep Her in Their Game' A friend called to chat while driving to Dallas to visit her mother. My friend is my age. Her mother...
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A friend called to chat while driving to Dallas to visit her mother. My friend is my age. Her mother is ninety-six years old. She lives on her own and only recently, after falling, did she agree to start using a cane. I’m not sure anyone is prepared to get old (or not get old)....
The American Scholar
Song for the Earth Finding a message for today in the music of Gustav Mahler The post Song for the Earth appeared first...
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a month ago
Finding a message for today in the music of Gustav Mahler The post Song for the Earth appeared first on The American Scholar.
Naz Hamid
Forty-Seven I turned another year older. A collection of small moments and choices that let me be me. One...
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I turned another year older. A collection of small moments and choices that let me be me. One guidepost for each year I've been alive — some I've practiced for decades, and a few new ones. Feel out the day and go where your energy wants you to. Your energy is precious. Don’t let...
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a month ago
Wuthering...
the calm vegetable clairvoyance of these great rooted lives - John Cowper Powys's trees -... Wolf Solent has pressed his beautiful young wife against an ash tree, presumably as a prelude to...
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Wolf Solent has pressed his beautiful young wife against an ash tree, presumably as a prelude to sex, but he begins rubbing the bark: ‘Human brains! Human knots of confusion!’ he thought.  ‘Why can’t we steal the calm vegetable clairvoyance of these great rooted lives?’ (Wolf...
The Elysian
It’s time for Thomas Jefferson's village-states His small, democratic communities would revive and defend our republic.
a month ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'But They Are Very Bad Poems' Eugenio Montale speaking with an interviewer, American poet W.S. Di Piero, in 1973:  “Political...
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Eugenio Montale speaking with an interviewer, American poet W.S. Di Piero, in 1973:  “Political ideas are best expressed in prose. Why should we express political ideas in such an abstruse language as poetry? If I were to write against the war in Viet Nam, I would write in prose,...
Wuthering...
Wolf Solent and A Glastonbury Romance - Both the two great forces pouring forth from the... Last summer I read John Cowper Powys’s novel Wolf Solent (1929) and recently I read A Glastonbury...
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Last summer I read John Cowper Powys’s novel Wolf Solent (1929) and recently I read A Glastonbury Romance (1932), not his first novels but the first that anyone noticed.  Wolf Solent is a plump 600 pages, and Glastonbury a monstrous 1,100.  Powys was 56 when the first was...
Robert Caro
Why Has ‘The Power Broker’ Had Such a Long Life? NEW YORK TIMES: Robert Caro created a lasting portrait of corruption by turning the craft of...
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NEW YORK TIMES: Robert Caro created a lasting portrait of corruption by turning the craft of journalism into a pursuit of high art.
Robert Caro
Robert Caro Reflects on ‘The Power Broker’ and Its Legacy at 50 NEW YORK TIMES: Caro’s book on Robert Moses is also a reflection on “the dangers of unchecked...
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NEW YORK TIMES: Caro’s book on Robert Moses is also a reflection on “the dangers of unchecked power,” and remains more relevant than ever.
Robert Caro
A Peek Inside Robert Caro’s Home Library, Hidden Shelves and All THE WASHINGTON POST takes us inside Robert Caro’s literary collection, and shows us the most...
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THE WASHINGTON POST takes us inside Robert Caro’s literary collection, and shows us the most precious volumes in his home library.
Robert Caro
The Power Broker Book Club The “99% Invisible Breakdown” podcast spent a year reading The Power Broker with guests Conan...
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The “99% Invisible Breakdown” podcast spent a year reading The Power Broker with guests Conan O’Brien, Robert Caro, and others.
The Marginalian
Walt Whitman on Owning Your Life At the bottom of the abyss between us is the hard fact that to be a person, a particular person, is...
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At the bottom of the abyss between us is the hard fact that to be a person, a particular person, is so profoundly different from what any other person can suppose. This is why one of the hardest learnings in life is that you cannot love — or scold, or coax, or palter — anyone out...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Without One Wonder in the Sky!' John Partridge (1677-1715) was an English shoemaker-turned-astrologer who claimed to have refined...
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John Partridge (1677-1715) was an English shoemaker-turned-astrologer who claimed to have refined his “science.” Don’t smirk or pity our benighted forebears. Newspapers still publish astrology columns and dozens of astrological publications remain in print. See Modern Astrology...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Read During Every Possible Free Moment' A reader asks, “How did you learn to read so fast?” The answer is simple: I didn’t. I have always...
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a month ago
A reader asks, “How did you learn to read so fast?” The answer is simple: I didn’t. I have always read slowly, often taking notes, which makes it even slower. This frustrated me when I was young, and I briefly contemplated enrolling in one of Evelyn Wood’s...
The American Scholar
The Most Famous Unknown Artist David Sheff puts Yoko Ono in the spotlight The post The Most Famous Unknown Artist appeared first on...
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David Sheff puts Yoko Ono in the spotlight The post The Most Famous Unknown Artist appeared first on The American Scholar.
Ploum.net
The candid naivety of geeks The candid naivety of geeks I mean, come on! Amazon recently announced that, from now on, everything...
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a month ago
The candid naivety of geeks I mean, come on! Amazon recently announced that, from now on, everything you say to Alexa will be sent to their server. Pluralistic: Amazon annihilates Alexa privacy settings, turns on continuous, nonconsensual audio uploading (15 Mar 2025)...
The Elysian
Should we create more US states? Inside the growing movement to redraw state lines, and why it might be better for liberals and...
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Inside the growing movement to redraw state lines, and why it might be better for liberals and conservatives alike.
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The Marginalian
On Play The necessities of survival make our lives livable, but everything that makes them worth living...
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The necessities of survival make our lives livable, but everything that makes them worth living partakes of the art of the unnecessary: beauty (the cave was no warmer or safer for our paintings, and what about the bowerbird?), love (how easily we could propagate our genes without...
Anecdotal Evidence
'We Are Not So Full of Evil As of Inanity' Montaigne devotes a brief essay to a pair of pre-Socratic Greek thinkers, “Of Democritus and...
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Montaigne devotes a brief essay to a pair of pre-Socratic Greek thinkers, “Of Democritus and Heraclitus.” The former is reputed to have been a misanthrope, perhaps a melancholic. The latter was known as “the laughing philosopher.”  The essayist begins by weighing the importance...
The American Scholar
Transcending the Glass Ceiling Five women who made important contributions to 19th-century American philosophy finally get their...
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a month ago
Five women who made important contributions to 19th-century American philosophy finally get their due The post Transcending the Glass Ceiling appeared first on The American Scholar.
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The Elysian
How WeFunder democratizes business ownership A discussion with Jonny Price, president of WeFunder.
a month ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Dust and Shadows' Here I encounter yet again the bothersome issue of major vs. minor writers. When “minor” is used as...
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Here I encounter yet again the bothersome issue of major vs. minor writers. When “minor” is used as a purely dismissive judgment, beware. There are minor writers who write beautifully and earn our respect and even love – Max Beerbohm is the first who comes to mind – and...
The American Scholar
The One Who Got Away The post The One Who Got Away appeared first on The American Scholar.
a month ago
Robert Caro
‘The Power Broker’ Is Finally Getting a Digital Edition. What Took So Long? Caro’s mammoth study of the urban planner Robert Moses is coming out as an e-book on the 50th...
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Caro’s mammoth study of the urban planner Robert Moses is coming out as an e-book on the 50th anniversary of the biography’s publication.
The Marginalian
Comets, Orbits, and the Mystery We Are: The Enchanted Celestial Mechanics of Australian Artist Shane... “We are bathing in mystery and confusion,” Carl Sagan told his best interviewer. “That will always...
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a month ago
“We are bathing in mystery and confusion,” Carl Sagan told his best interviewer. “That will always be our destiny. The universe will always be much richer than our ability to understand it.” We have wielded our tools of reason at the mystery — theorems and telescopes, postulates...
Astral Codex Ten
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a month ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Least Motion of Wonder in Himself' In 1968, my high-school English teacher loaned me the anthology of short stories she had used at...
a month ago
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a month ago
In 1968, my high-school English teacher loaned me the anthology of short stories she had used at Kent State University just a few years earlier. Included were the usual suspects -- Maupassant, Hemingway, Chekhov, Eudora Welty – but I read them because I knew nothing. Among the...
The American Scholar
“Käthe Kollwitz” by Muriel Rukeyser Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Käthe Kollwitz” by Muriel Rukeyser appeared first on The...
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Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Käthe Kollwitz” by Muriel Rukeyser appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
Cones, Coning, and Fixing Junctions, And How And Why “Traffic Cones and Junction Fixes: A DIY Guide” ? this is very drafty This post is probably best...
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“Traffic Cones and Junction Fixes: A DIY Guide” ? this is very drafty This post is probably best viewed on desktop, with some links opening new tabs, viewed, closed, and then this post returned to. There’s a lot of videos farther down, some of them are tiktoks (sorry) and some of...
Escaping Flatland
Why we ended up homeschooling “Little Sister”, Agnes Martin, 1962
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Anecdotal Evidence
'The Earliest of My Friends Is Gone' I often speak or exchange texts with my nephew. Soon he’ll turn thirty-six, but he lives in...
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19
a month ago
I often speak or exchange texts with my nephew. Soon he’ll turn thirty-six, but he lives in Cleveland, 1,200 miles away, and I seldom see him. Distance warps the sense of duration, so I think of him as frozen in his early twenties. We spoke on Sunday and for the first time since...
The American Scholar
Cobi Moules Landscapes of queer joy The post Cobi Moules appeared first on The American Scholar.
a month ago
The Elysian
Multi-country civilizations are good, actually A vibe shift in favor of annexation would be counterproductive 🌏
a month ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Better to Have a Distinct Word for Each Sense' On Monday, March 23, [1772], I found him busy, preparing a fourth edition of his folio...
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17
a month ago
On Monday, March 23, [1772], I found him busy, preparing a fourth edition of his folio Dictionary.”  Dr. Johnson published the first edition of his Dictionary on April 15, 1755, two-hundred-seventy years ago. It contained some 42,000 entries and he had worked on it for...
Anecdotal Evidence
'What a Delight in Being a Discoverer!' The library catalogue said Walter Savage Landor’s Poems, the 1964 Centaur Press edition selected and...
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a month ago
The library catalogue said Walter Savage Landor’s Poems, the 1964 Centaur Press edition selected and introduced by Geoffrey Grigson, had not been checked out by another patron (hardly surprising) and should be on the shelf. I couldn’t find it. Not a good sign. That could mean the...
The Elysian
Suggestion Box This is where to leave ideas for my We Should Own The Economy project.
a month ago
The Marginalian
The Half Room of Living and Loving When I can’t sleep, I read children’s books. One night, I discovered In the Half Room (public...
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a month ago
When I can’t sleep, I read children’s books. One night, I discovered In the Half Room (public library) by Carson Ellis in my tsundoku — an impressionistic invitation into a world where only half of everything exists. Leafing through this quietly delightful treasure, I had a flash...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Your Literary Judgments Are Not Interesting' All of us when young – readers, I mean – fancy ourselves rebels and independent thinkers but most of...
a month ago
19
a month ago
All of us when young – readers, I mean – fancy ourselves rebels and independent thinkers but most of us are afflicted to varying degrees with the superego of the age. That is, we are influenced, whether we know it or not, by the critical climate, by the judgments and fashions of...
Astral Codex Ten
More Drowning Children ...
a month ago
The American Scholar
“The Nakedness of Woman” The post “The Nakedness of Woman” appeared first on The American Scholar.
a month ago
Ploum.net
Du désir profond de se faire arnaquer Du désir profond de se faire arnaquer Pour suivre les modes et faire comme tout le monde Stefano...
a month ago
21
a month ago
Du désir profond de se faire arnaquer Pour suivre les modes et faire comme tout le monde Stefano Marinelli, un administrateur système chevronné, installe principalement des serveurs sous FreeBSD, OpenBSD ou NetBSD pour ses clients. Le plus difficile ? Arriver à convaincre un...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Gives to Airy Nothing a Local Habitation' What attracted me was the anthologist’s audacity in titling his book: 100 Best Poems in the English...
a month ago
21
a month ago
What attracted me was the anthologist’s audacity in titling his book: 100 Best Poems in the English Language (1952). In his introduction, Stephen Graham does little to impress us with his literary humility. His anthology is, he writes, “perhaps the only one of its kind,...
The American Scholar
Mr. Olympia When the ancient Greeks looked at human muscle, they saw something different than we do The post Mr....
a month ago
16
a month ago
When the ancient Greeks looked at human muscle, they saw something different than we do The post Mr. Olympia appeared first on The American Scholar.
Astral Codex Ten
Hidden Open Thread 373.5 ...
a month ago
The Elysian
US states should have autonomy—like EU countries All we need to change is taxation.
a month ago
Astral Codex Ten
Misophonia: Beyond Sensory Sensitivity ...
a month ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'They Will Never Seem Boring' “And my final advice is to try, every week or so, to learn something by heart. A surprising amount...
a month ago
21
a month ago
“And my final advice is to try, every week or so, to learn something by heart. A surprising amount will remain in the memory, and more and more as you train it; and then, as you walk or work or sit in the subway, you will have something more than daily trivialities to occupy your...
The American Scholar
Two Names The post Two Names appeared first on The American Scholar.
a month ago
The Marginalian
How to Get Out of Your Own Way: John Berryman on Defeating the Three Demons of Creative Work John Allyn Smith, Jr. was eleven when, early one morning in the interlude between two world wars,...
a month ago
21
a month ago
John Allyn Smith, Jr. was eleven when, early one morning in the interlude between two world wars, not long after his parents had filed for divorce, he was awakened by a loud bang beneath his bedroom window. He looked to see his father dead by his own gun. Within months, his...
Naz Hamid
Operating Rules for Email Collaboration Writing, giving, and soliciting feedback via your inbox. For over 25 years, I’ve been using email to...
a month ago
23
a month ago
Writing, giving, and soliciting feedback via your inbox. For over 25 years, I’ve been using email to collaborate and work with people. Before there were any messaging platforms, project management tools, and hybrid tools like Slack and Discord, phone calls, Skype and email were...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Very Empire of Connotation' “[T]he partisan of parsimony sees prose as a vehicle for meaning and nothing more, even if...
a month ago
18
a month ago
“[T]he partisan of parsimony sees prose as a vehicle for meaning and nothing more, even if their feigned rhetoric-of-no-rhetoric is in reality one of the oldest rhetorical gambits there is.”  I have a taste for two seemingly mutually exclusive schools of prose that may not be all...
The American Scholar
“The Yellowhammer’s Nest” by John Clare Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “The Yellowhammer’s Nest” by John Clare appeared first on The...
a month ago
19
a month ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “The Yellowhammer’s Nest” by John Clare appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
How to Meet Your Mystery: Thomas Merton on Solitude and the Soul "It is a vocation to become fully awake, even more than the common somnolence permits one to be,...
a month ago
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a month ago
"It is a vocation to become fully awake, even more than the common somnolence permits one to be, with its arbitrary selection of approved dreams, mixed with a few really valid and fruitful conceptions."
Astral Codex Ten
Open Thread 373 ...
a month ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'To Have the Heart Partially Erased' “Hatred, suspicion, malice and madness seem to be reaching new highs everywhere. . . . Perhaps...
a month ago
20
a month ago
“Hatred, suspicion, malice and madness seem to be reaching new highs everywhere. . . . Perhaps madness, like cancer, is a way of life trying to transcend itself.”  This might be a template for next week’s column, a pundit’s lamentation ready for copying-and-pasting. In fact,...
The Elysian
Introducing CITY-STATE Seven writers exploring autonomous governance.
a month ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Pic-nic and Polka' Julius Charles Hare (1795-1855) was an English theologian, a learned man who amassed a library of...
a month ago
20
a month ago
Julius Charles Hare (1795-1855) was an English theologian, a learned man who amassed a library of more than 12,000 volumes. In 1828, Walter Savage Landor published the third volume of his Imaginary Conversations and included one titled “Archdeacon Hare and Walter Landor.” The...
Anecdotal Evidence
'But Man Is Not Born for Happiness' “[P]oets are a very worthless, wicked set of people.”  How did William Cowper, himself a fine and...
a month ago
16
a month ago
“[P]oets are a very worthless, wicked set of people.”  How did William Cowper, himself a fine and neglected poet, come to this conclusion? In a letter to Rev. John Newton, written March 15, 1784, Cowper tells his friend he has just finished reading the eight volumes of Dr....
Wuthering...
What I Read in February 2025 – All human minds are in touch with a dark reservoir of our race’s... One of these books is 1,100 pages long.  It was just by chance that I read two genuinely disgusting...
a month ago
25
a month ago
One of these books is 1,100 pages long.  It was just by chance that I read two genuinely disgusting books at around the same time. FICTION A Glastonbury Romance (1932), John Cowper Powys -  I will write a bit about this beast, soon.  That line in the title is from Chapter 25,...
The Marginalian
Any Common Desolation "You may have to break your heart, but it isn’t nothing to know even one moment alive."
a month ago
The Elysian
I'm crowdfunding a book—we've raised $38,000 already! But writing about a better economy isn't enough, we have to build it too.
a month ago
Escaping Flatland
King of the sea snakes This one is a mix of things.
a month ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Thanks for This Fancy, Insect King' I once spent most of a day in an upstate New York marsh with a neuroethologist, a biologist who...
a month ago
19
a month ago
I once spent most of a day in an upstate New York marsh with a neuroethologist, a biologist who studies how an animal’s nervous system determines its behavior. His specialty was the order Odonata – dragonflies and damselflies. Like any journalist who’s paying attention, I got a...
The American Scholar
The Root Cause Padraic X. Scanlan tells the real history of the Irish Potato Famine The post The Root Cause...
a month ago
24
a month ago
Padraic X. Scanlan tells the real history of the Irish Potato Famine The post The Root Cause appeared first on The American Scholar.
Astral Codex Ten
Hidden Open Thread 372.5 ...
a month ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Mystery of Language I Shall Never Solve' Quite a marvelous season after a protracted Northern winter, spring is the hoariest of subjects for...
a month ago
20
a month ago
Quite a marvelous season after a protracted Northern winter, spring is the hoariest of subjects for a poem. How many ways are there to be jubilant or render the sensation of “cavorting with the milkmaids,” as an old friend once put it? The effort usually comes off as hackneyed or...
Astral Codex Ten
OpenAI Nonprofit Buyout: Much More Than You Wanted To Know ...
a month ago
Naz Hamid
Quality, Maintenance & Craft We are shokunin. Last week I was in Ojai, California, for True’s Founder Camp.[1] James Freeman,...
a month ago
26
a month 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 Marginalian
The Strength to Remember and the Strength to Forget: James Baldwin on What Makes a Hero “Let everything happen to you,” wrote Rilke, “Beauty and terror.” It is not easy, this simple...
a month ago
18
a month ago
“Let everything happen to you,” wrote Rilke, “Beauty and terror.” It is not easy, this simple surrender. The courage and vulnerability it takes make it nothing less than an act of heroism. Most of our cowardices and cruelties, most of the suffering we endure and inflict, stem...
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...
a month ago
31
a month 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...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Things That Might Have Been and Never Were' My middle son enjoys a genre of fiction known as “alternate history.” Among its practitioners is the...
a month ago
18
a month ago
My middle son enjoys a genre of fiction known as “alternate history.” Among its practitioners is the American novelist Harry Turtledove. As I understand it, the premise is simple: change an event in the past and see what happens in subsequent history. Hitler, for instance, dies...
The American Scholar
Consolidated Ruin The post Consolidated Ruin appeared first on The American Scholar.
2 months ago
Astral Codex Ten
The Ozempocalypse Is Nigh Sorry, you can only get drugs when there's a drug shortage.
2 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Better Bread Than Is Made of Wheat' Sometimes disparate things almost announce their covert similarities and linkages, in a way...
2 months ago
19
2 months ago
Sometimes disparate things almost announce their covert similarities and linkages, in a way Aristotle would have understood, and it makes good sense to combine them. I was looking for something in The Poet’s Tongue, the anthology compiled by W.H. Auden and the schoolmaster John...
The American Scholar
“After Great Pain, a Formal Feeling Comes” by Emily Dickinson Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “After Great Pain, a Formal Feeling Comes” by Emily Dickinson...
2 months ago
17
2 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “After Great Pain, a Formal Feeling Comes” by Emily Dickinson appeared first on The American Scholar.
Ploum.net
N’attendez pas, changez vos paradigmes ! N’attendez pas, changez vos paradigmes ! Il faut se passer de voiture pendant un certain temps pour...
2 months ago
21
2 months ago
N’attendez pas, changez vos paradigmes ! Il faut se passer de voiture pendant un certain temps pour réellement comprendre au plus profond de soi que la solution à beaucoup de nos problèmes sociétaux n’est pas une voiture électrique, mais une ville cyclable. Nous ne devons pas...
Astral Codex Ten
What Happened To NAEP Scores? ...
2 months ago
The Marginalian
Miss Leoparda: A Painted Parable of the Third Way and How to Change the World When told that there are only two options on the table and when both are limiting, most people,...
2 months ago
19
2 months ago
When told that there are only two options on the table and when both are limiting, most people, conditioned by the option dispensary we call society, will choose the lesser of the two limitations. Some will try to find a third option to put on the table; they may or may not...
Astral Codex Ten
Open Thread 372 ...
2 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Most Noteworthy Action of Human Life' I dreamed my late brother was here in Houston, a city he never visited. He was phobic about flying...
2 months ago
19
2 months ago
I dreamed my late brother was here in Houston, a city he never visited. He was phobic about flying and traveled by air only twice in his life, when very young. We were seated across from each other, on the couches by the front window. What I remember of the dream is brief, little...
The American Scholar
Luis Alvaro Sahagún Nuño Ancestral healing The post Luis Alvaro Sahagún Nuño appeared first on The American Scholar.
2 months ago
The Perry Bible...
0 Percent Chance The post 0 Percent Chance appeared first on The Perry Bible Fellowship.
2 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Something Irrepressibly Celebratory' A longtime reader of Anecdotal Evidence has commented on my March 1 post:  “One of my...
2 months ago
21
2 months ago
A longtime reader of Anecdotal Evidence has commented on my March 1 post:  “One of my worst apprehensions about my son’s college education came true in his freshman English class. The professor brought up Lamb only to highlight something he said that would strike modern...
The Marginalian
Obsidian and the Birds: An Odyssey of Wonder from the Aztecs to the Quantum World A recent visit to Teotihuacán — the ancient Mesoamerican city in present-day Mexico, built by...
2 months ago
27
2 months ago
A recent visit to Teotihuacán — the ancient Mesoamerican city in present-day Mexico, built by earlier cultures around 600 BCE and later rediscovered by the Aztecs — left me wonder-smitten by the see-saw of our search for truth and our search for meaning, by a peculiar confluence...
Anecdotal Evidence
'And Does the Time Seem Long?' “Maurine Smith died March 8, 1919, at the age of twenty-three years. Nearly her whole life had been...
2 months ago
18
2 months ago
“Maurine Smith died March 8, 1919, at the age of twenty-three years. Nearly her whole life had been one of intense physical suffering, and she knew few of the usual felicities.”  Yvor Winters is introducing us to a poet whose name you likely have never encountered.  Smith and...
The Perry Bible...
Snowflake The post Snowflake appeared first on The Perry Bible Fellowship.
2 months ago
Ploum.net
20 years of Linux on the Desktop (part 3) 20 years of Linux on the Desktop (part 3) Previously in "20 years of Linux on the Deskop": After...
2 months ago
25
2 months ago
20 years of Linux on the Desktop (part 3) Previously in "20 years of Linux on the Deskop": After contributing to the launch of Ubuntu as the "perfect Linux desktop", Ploum realises that Ubuntu is drifting away from both Debian and GNOME. But something else is about to shake the...
ben-mini
Platform or Point Solution? A while back, I wrote a post titled “What is a Platform?”. I defined what a platform is and why tech...
2 months ago
28
2 months ago
A while back, I wrote a post titled “What is a Platform?”. I defined what a platform is and why tech companies are so determined to become labeled as one. My definition of a platform is a tool that allows users to define and build their own things, which can be used by other...
Wuthering...
Clarice Lispector's Near to the Wild Heart - When she spoke, she invented crazy, crazy! My subject is Clarice Lispector’s Near to the Wild Heart (1943), her first novel, and the only book...
2 months ago
27
2 months ago
My subject is Clarice Lispector’s Near to the Wild Heart (1943), her first novel, and the only book of hers I have read.  I read Alison Entrekin’s English translation because 1) I did not have a Portuguese text handy and 2) I figured it would be too hard for me, which I think is...
Anecdotal Evidence
'His Rising and His Fading Is Most Beautiful; A librarian friend and I were talking about the similarities between library cataloguing and...
2 months ago
18
2 months ago
A librarian friend and I were talking about the similarities between library cataloguing and taxonomy in biology – the art of classification – and the sort of people such specialized disciplines attract. Formerly a piano teacher, she was attracted to library science by way of...
Astral Codex Ten
Why Should Intelligence Be Related To Neuron Count? ...
2 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Writers That Are Worth Anything Are Humorists' Bertie Wooster has asked if he can purchase a gift for Jeeves while he is out, and the valet...
2 months ago
18
2 months ago
Bertie Wooster has asked if he can purchase a gift for Jeeves while he is out, and the valet replies: “‘Well, sir, there has recently been published a new and authoritatively annotated edition of the works of the philosopher Spinoza. Since you are so generous, I would appreciate...
The Marginalian
Against Self-Improvement: Adam Phillips on the Danger of Treating Ourselves as Pathological Patients... "So much depends on what we can make of what happens to us."
2 months ago
Astral Codex Ten
Open Thread 371.5 ...
2 months ago
The Elysian
The company of the future looks like this A Guest Lecture with Salim Ismail, author of Exponential Organizations
2 months ago
Escaping Flatland
An essay in which my friend feels stuck and I suggest relaxing some constraints The short version is that my friend, in my opinion, thinks about what he wants in a too constrained...
2 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'All That Is Human Slips Away' Varlam Shalamov (1907-82), who ought to know, opens a poem with this line: “Memory has veiled / much...
2 months ago
19
2 months ago
Varlam Shalamov (1907-82), who ought to know, opens a poem with this line: “Memory has veiled / much evil . . .” Shalamov survived almost eighteen years in the Gulag, in the Arctic region known as Kolyma. His final imprisonment, from 1937 to 1951, was imposed after he referred to...
The American Scholar
Brown Wasps The post Brown Wasps appeared first on The American Scholar.
2 months ago
Astral Codex Ten
Spring Meetups Everywhere 2025 - Call For Organizers ...
2 months ago
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 --...
2 months ago
20
2 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...
The American Scholar
“Writing in the Dark” by Denise Levertov Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Writing in the Dark” by Denise Levertov appeared first on...
2 months ago
22
2 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Writing in the Dark” by Denise Levertov appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
Insomnia and the Secret Life of Ideas: Kafka on the Relationship Between Sleeplessness and... Where we go when we go to sleep and why we go there is one of the great mysteries of the mind. Why...
2 months ago
28
2 months ago
Where we go when we go to sleep and why we go there is one of the great mysteries of the mind. Why the mind at times refuses to go there, despite the pleading and bargaining of its conscious owner, is a greater mystery still. We know that ever since REM evolved in the bird brain,...
This Space
A measure of forever For me, fiction is a space of plainness and excess.             Amina Cain When TS Eliot read...
2 months ago
25
2 months ago
For me, fiction is a space of plainness and excess.             Amina Cain When TS Eliot read Dante for the first time, he noted a discrepancy between his enjoyment and his understanding, leading to the famous claim that "genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood"....
Astral Codex Ten
Open Thread 371 ...
2 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Rosebuds Are Rare As a Day in June' Fortune cookies no longer contain fortunes. Tucked inside the sugary shells are slips of paper...
2 months ago
21
2 months ago
Fortune cookies no longer contain fortunes. Tucked inside the sugary shells are slips of paper printed with platitudes. I carry one such slip in my wallet, salvaged from a forgotten meal at least a decade ago: “Four basic premises of writing: clarity, brevity, simplicity, and...
The American Scholar
Tiger Mom At a forest preserve in India, a writer sees the world anew and learns how to focus her son’s...
2 months ago
16
2 months ago
At a forest preserve in India, a writer sees the world anew and learns how to focus her son’s restless mind The post Tiger Mom appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
Who Would I Be Off My Meds Can weaning oneself off pharmaceuticals ease the cycle of perpetual suffering? The post Who Would I...
2 months ago
16
2 months ago
Can weaning oneself off pharmaceuticals ease the cycle of perpetual suffering? The post Who Would I Be Off My Meds appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
A Midsummer Night’s Stream A Midsummer Night’s Stream The post A Midsummer Night’s Stream appeared first on The American...
2 months ago
The American Scholar
American Carthage Echoes from the ancient conflicts between Hannibal’s city and Rome continue to reverberate well into...
2 months ago
13
2 months ago
Echoes from the ancient conflicts between Hannibal’s city and Rome continue to reverberate well into the present The post American Carthage appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
Who’s to Say? A bewildering take from a noted scholar of Christianity The post Who’s to Say? appeared first on The...
2 months ago
12
2 months ago
A bewildering take from a noted scholar of Christianity The post Who’s to Say? appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
Learning to Be Social What might Rousseau teach us about how to live with others? The post Learning to Be Social appeared...
2 months ago
9
2 months ago
What might Rousseau teach us about how to live with others? The post Learning to Be Social appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
Chapters and Verse Looking for the poet between the lines The post Chapters and Verse appeared first on The American...
2 months ago
16
2 months ago
Looking for the poet between the lines The post Chapters and Verse appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
Asteroid Hunters The scientists and engineers who defend our planet day and night from potentially hazardous space...
2 months ago
10
2 months ago
The scientists and engineers who defend our planet day and night from potentially hazardous space rocks The post Asteroid Hunters appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
The Murderer as Everyman Arthur Fleck’s rise and fall The post The Murderer as Everyman appeared first on The American...
2 months ago
The American Scholar
Lessons From Harlem A white blues player’s streetside education The post Lessons From Harlem appeared first on The...
2 months ago
8
2 months ago
A white blues player’s streetside education The post Lessons From Harlem appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
Once More, Without Feeling Can a memoir be effective when it lacks any warmth? The post Once More, Without Feeling appeared...
2 months ago
10
2 months ago
Can a memoir be effective when it lacks any warmth? The post Once More, Without Feeling appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
Maximalisma A professor endeavors to separate treasure from trash—before her children have to do it for her The...
2 months ago
9
2 months ago
A professor endeavors to separate treasure from trash—before her children have to do it for her The post Maximalisma appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
Revenants The post Revenants appeared first on The American Scholar.
2 months ago
The American Scholar
Electrons That Bind The molecule at the center of everything The post Electrons That Bind appeared first on The American...
2 months ago
8
2 months ago
The molecule at the center of everything The post Electrons That Bind appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
Between Memory and Hope The love poetry of Anthony Walton The post Between Memory and Hope appeared first on The American...
2 months ago
9
2 months ago
The love poetry of Anthony Walton The post Between Memory and Hope appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
Food for Thought A pragmatic approach to one of humanity’s gravest threats The post Food for Thought appeared first...
2 months ago
10
2 months ago
A pragmatic approach to one of humanity’s gravest threats The post Food for Thought appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
Raspberry Heaven A yearly back-yard harvest opens a door to the divine The post Raspberry Heaven appeared first on...
2 months ago
8
2 months ago
A yearly back-yard harvest opens a door to the divine The post Raspberry Heaven appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
Spring 2025 The post Spring 2025 appeared first on The American Scholar.
2 months ago
The Elysian
I'm crowdfunding my next book advance And sharing the earnings with readers.
2 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Take His Experience Along With Him' We shouldn’t be surprised that bookish tastes change across time. They mature, just as some of us...
2 months ago
19
2 months ago
We shouldn’t be surprised that bookish tastes change across time. They mature, just as some of us do. The books we choose to read and reread follow a path parallel to our experience and maturity. This isn’t to imply “progress.” It’s not as though all of us shed bad taste and move...
The Perry Bible...
Bubbled The post Bubbled appeared first on The Perry Bible Fellowship.
2 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Shut Not Thy Purse-Strings' Unlike his friends Coleridge, Hazlitt, Wordsworth and Hunt, who often made fools of themselves as a...
2 months ago
20
2 months ago
Unlike his friends Coleridge, Hazlitt, Wordsworth and Hunt, who often made fools of themselves as a result, Charles Lamb had little interest in the momentous events of his day. About “Boney” – Napoleon Bonaparte – he wished only to know the dictator’s height, unlike Hazlitt, who...
The Marginalian
The Souls of Animals “They do not sweat and whine about their condition,” Walt Whitman wrote of the other animals, “they...
2 months ago
29
2 months ago
“They do not sweat and whine about their condition,” Walt Whitman wrote of the other animals, “they do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins, they do not make me sick discussing their duty to God, not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning...
Ben Borgers
Make sure your university events are actually interesting
2 months ago
Astral Codex Ten
Everything-Except-Book Review Contest 2025 ...
2 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Secret Hidden From Yourself' Howard Nemerov was born on Leap Year Day in 1920 – February 29 -- meaning his birthday can be...
2 months ago
20
2 months ago
Howard Nemerov was born on Leap Year Day in 1920 – February 29 -- meaning his birthday can be accurately observed only every fourth year – a nice metaphysical conundrum. This reminds me of a cousin who was bitter because she was born on Christmas Day and felt she was getting less...
The American Scholar
Something New in the West Kurt Beals on translating All Quiet on the Western Front The post Something New in the West appeared...
2 months ago
20
2 months ago
Kurt Beals on translating All Quiet on the Western Front The post Something New in the West appeared first on The American Scholar.
Astral Codex Ten
Links For February 2025 ...
2 months ago
Astral Codex Ten
Hidden Open Thread 370.5 ...
2 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Delicate, Invisible Web You Wove' Who wrote this about whose poetry?:  “For here the water buffalo may rove, The kinkajou,...
2 months ago
19
2 months ago
Who wrote this about whose poetry?:  “For here the water buffalo may rove, The kinkajou, the mungabey, abound In the dark jungle of a mango grove . . .”   I might have guessed Kipling or some forgotten Georgian poet. Perhaps it’s a verse omitted by Eliot from Old Possum’s Book of...
The American Scholar
The Resistance Fighter as Philosopher Remembering Vladimir Jankélévitch The post The Resistance Fighter as Philosopher appeared first on...
2 months ago
21
2 months ago
Remembering Vladimir Jankélévitch The post The Resistance Fighter as Philosopher appeared first on The American Scholar.
Ploum.net
The Engagement Rehab The Engagement Rehab I’ve written extensively, in French, about my quest to break my "connection...
2 months ago
20
2 months ago
The Engagement Rehab I’ve written extensively, in French, about my quest to break my "connection addiction" by doing what I called "disconnections". At first, it was only doing three months without major news media and social networks. Then I tried to do one full year where I...
The Elysian
How I read Today I spoke with Harrison about how I read.
2 months ago
The Marginalian
Matrescence: The Cellular Science of the Unself One of the most discomposing things about the sense of individuality is the knowledge that although...
2 months ago
28
2 months ago
One of the most discomposing things about the sense of individuality is the knowledge that although there are infinitely many kinds of beautiful lives, there is but one way to come alive — through the bloody, sweaty flesh of another; the knowledge that your own flesh is made of...
The Perry Bible...
Ditty The post Ditty appeared first on The Perry Bible Fellowship.
2 months ago
Astral Codex Ten
Why I Am Not A Conflict Theorist ...
2 months ago
Josh Thompson
On Peeing Introduction Yes, peeing. Also called ‘pissing’, or ‘urination/urinating’. I noticed a collection of...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
Introduction Yes, peeing. Also called ‘pissing’, or ‘urination/urinating’. I noticed a collection of thoughts emerging in my mind, tied together with a very specific theme. I was pretty grown before I had necessarily encountered any of these things, so if any of this is...
Josh Thompson
On Magic, and Magic Strings Introduction v drafty, but wanted to get this out today. I’m publishing two pieces today, this piece...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
Introduction v drafty, but wanted to get this out today. I’m publishing two pieces today, this piece you’re reading now is vastly more important than the other one, but it might be worth the click: On Peeing. It’s very different than this one. I’ve long had a central organizing...
Steven Scrawls
Space to Play Space to Play I remember childhood as the slow advance of a great laboring Seriousness. When I was...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
Space to Play I remember childhood as the slow advance of a great laboring Seriousness. When I was in middle school, an awareness began to settle on me that great beings known as “colleges” watched from afar; by high school I understood that I ought to order my life to be...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Like an Occupying Army' Two unrelated situations bring poems, song lyrics and old television commercial jingles to...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
Two unrelated situations bring poems, song lyrics and old television commercial jingles to mind, seemingly out of nowhere: on first waking in the morning and while preparing a meal in the kitchen. None is summoned. They blip to the surface like bubbles in a pond. Last weekend I...
The American Scholar
Winter Sun The post Winter Sun appeared first on The American Scholar.
2 months ago