Like many who went through college and then grad-school in the religion / literature / philosophy circles, I’ve read and pondered my share of Derrida and the consequences of ontology on our “demon-haunted world” … another reason I’ve absolutely loved playing AC Valhalla (about 125 hours in at this point since picking it up over …
Ironic that you’re reading this on my blog… Almost every writer or artist I know has a newsletter. One way to understand this boom is that as social media has siloed off chunks of the open web, sucking up attention, the energy that was once put into blogging has now shifted to email. — Read …
Fun read: As a writer of nonfiction, I can’t help but love writing’s roots in enumerating concrete objects and reality itself. The textual analyst part of me loves how Mesopotamian tokens were wrapped in clay envelopes after being impressed on the soft exterior – perhaps clay-wrapped tokens of meaning give rise to the notion that …
Was Writing Developed by Poets, Priests, our Accountants? Read More »
“The map above shows the locations of the 8 Wizarding schools that have been revealed so far, that exist in the Harry Potter universe.” Source: Wizarding School Locations from Harry Potter – Brilliant Maps I’ve always loved maps and map-making. As a kid, I filled notebooks with imaginary island countries or continents (and their cities) on …
Wizarding School Locations from Harry Potter (or Love Letters to My Kids) Read More »
It annoys me beyond belief when people tell me our podcasts “should be 20 or so minutes” on Thinking.FM… All-day podcasts and brick-sized books. Or, why 2015 was the year the long form fought back | Books | The Guardian: “There is something almost inexpressibly appealing about this, in an era when almost all other …
Keep in mind… Focus Fracas – The Chronicle of Higher Education: “We talk a lot about distraction, but the way we tend to talk about it suffers from historical amnesia. Since the invention of writing, people have warned about its supposedly harmful effects. Socrates thought it would weaken readers’ memories. ‘Be careful,’ Seneca warned, ‘lest …
“An American professor happened upon a manuscript by one of the Bible’s translators at Cambridge, a discovery that may shed light on how the translators worked.” Source: Earliest Known Draft of King James Bible Is Found, Scholar Says
“Brilliant Books compared Lee’s new book to James Joyce’s Stephen Hero, a book that was never pitched as a mainstream novel. “Hero was initially rejected, and Joyce reworked it into the classic Portrait,” the store explained in its statement. “Hero was eventually released as an academic piece for scholars and fans—not as a new ‘Joyce …
Michigan Bookstore Offers Refunds For “Go Set a Watchman” Read More »
“In one of her last interviews, conducted in 1964, Lee said: “I think the thing that I most deplore about American writing … is a lack of craftsmanship. It comes right down to this — the lack of absolute love for language, the lack of sitting down and working a good idea into a gem …
Way more people watch TV and movies and listen to music than read books or magazines. That’s why we’re starting to see that Netflix is Netflix, Spotify is Spotify, and ebook and magazine subscription sites are, well, something else. Source: What Scribd’s growing pains mean for the future of digital content subscription models » Nieman …
Beautiful (and horribly depressing) read: It is not just that people with degrees in English generally go to work for corporations (which of course they do); the point is that the company, in its most cutting-edge incarnation, has become the arena in which narratives and fictions, metaphors and metonymies and symbol networks at their most …
The older I get, the more I want to share the joys of “the canon” and liberal arts in general. Every generation feels that its world is slipping into the morass of public, but our Amazon reviews and Buzzfeed listicles don’t make me feel any more assured that we’re not… Although serious writers continue to …
Worth your time (and I love the dig at Amazon and the cartel of book publishers): Books aren’t just commodities; the profit motive is often in conflict with the aims of art. We live in capitalism, its power seems inescapable – but then, so did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be …
I was really excited to be on Merianna and Elisabeth’s podcast Thinking Out Loud to talk about reading and writing in the 21st cent (and beyond). Great podcast they have going.
One of my favorite days of the month… new Audible credits are here!
Parker’s Back is still one of my favorite stories, and I’ll definitely be picking this up: She sensed that the act of creation in both was not her own. “My dear God,” she wrote, “how stupid we people are until You give us something. Even in praying it is You who have to pray in …
My favorite line from my favorite episode of Dr Who: Doctor Who “The Impossible Astronaut” (Episode 6.1) | Planet Claire Quotes: “The Doctor: Mr. President. That child just told you every you need to know, but you weren’t listening. Never mind, though, ’cause the answer’s yes. I’ll take the case. Fellas, the guns? Really? I …
Despicable: Ancient Manuscripts In Timbuktu Reduced To Ashes : The Two-Way : NPR: “‘These priceless manuscripts are my identity, they’re my history. They are documents about Islam, history, geography, botany, poetry. They are close to my heart and they belong to the whole world,’ the mayor said.” Fundamentalists in Mali aren’t the first or the …