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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...
5 months ago
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5 months ago
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...
5 months ago
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5 months ago
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...
5 months ago
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5 months 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...
5 months ago
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5 months ago
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...
5 months ago
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5 months 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...
5 months ago
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5 months ago
Inside the growing movement to redraw state lines, and why it might be better for liberals and conservatives alike.
Astral Codex Ten
Hidden Open Thread 374.5 ...
5 months ago
The Marginalian
On Play The necessities of survival make our lives livable, but everything that makes them worth living...
5 months ago
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5 months ago
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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5 months ago
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...
5 months ago
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5 months 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.
Astral Codex Ten
"Deros And The Ur-Abduction" In Asterisk ...
5 months ago
The Elysian
How WeFunder democratizes business ownership A discussion with Jonny Price, president of WeFunder.
5 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Dust and Shadows' Here I encounter yet again the bothersome issue of major vs. minor writers. When “minor” is used as...
5 months ago
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5 months ago
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.
5 months 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...
5 months ago
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5 months ago
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...
5 months ago
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5 months 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
Meetups Everywhere Spring 2025: Times & Places ...
5 months 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...
5 months ago
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5 months 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...
5 months ago
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5 months ago
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...
5 months ago
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5 months ago
“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
5 months ago
Astral Codex Ten
Open Thread 374 ...
5 months ago
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...
5 months ago
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5 months 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.
5 months ago
The Elysian
Multi-country civilizations are good, actually A vibe shift in favor of annexation would be counterproductive 🌏
5 months 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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5 months 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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5 months 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.
5 months 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...
5 months ago
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5 months 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...
5 months ago
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5 months 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 ...
5 months ago
The American Scholar
“The Nakedness of Woman” The post “The Nakedness of Woman” appeared first on The American Scholar.
5 months 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...
5 months ago
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5 months 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...
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5 months 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....
5 months ago
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5 months 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 ...
5 months ago
The Elysian
US states should have autonomy—like EU countries All we need to change is taxation.
5 months ago
Astral Codex Ten
Misophonia: Beyond Sensory Sensitivity ...
5 months 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...
5 months ago
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5 months 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.
5 months 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,...
5 months ago
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5 months 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...
5 months ago
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5 months 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...
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“[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...
5 months ago
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5 months 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,...
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"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 ...
5 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'To Have the Heart Partially Erased' “Hatred, suspicion, malice and madness seem to be reaching new highs everywhere. . . . Perhaps...
5 months ago
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5 months 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.
5 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Pic-nic and Polka' Julius Charles Hare (1795-1855) was an English theologian, a learned man who amassed a library of...
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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...
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“[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....