January 2012
“‘Listen,’ said Bernie Krause. He rolled down his car window, and we...”
– The Sound of Silence (The quietest place in the lower forty-eight) . Most have never heard it? What is he talking about? Here in the suburbs, and I suppose everywhere except the most concrete-dominated sections of cities, the dawn chorus goes on unabated. Around here the birds actually start well...
Jan 27th
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Jan 27th
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“When I’m at the computer I feel as if I’m plugged straight into the...”
– Joanne Harris: My desktop | Books | guardian.co.uk
Jan 27th
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“If you have read several books by Don DeLillo, sooner or later you will have a...”
– A Different Kind of Delirium by Charles Baxter | The New York Review of Books
Jan 27th
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“In a companion survey of 500 of Africa’s most active Twitter users, the...”
– How Africa Tweets
Jan 27th
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“The university exchange programme Erasmus is barely mentioned in the business...”
– Umberto Eco
Jan 26th
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“Desperate for help [with his failing vision], Huxley was persuaded to pursue the...”
– The Doors of Perception: What did Huxley see in mescaline? | Books | guardian.co.uk
Jan 26th
“Why are creative people so deeply sceptical of Britain’s honours system?...”
– Don’t call me Sir: why do artists snub royal honours? | Art and design | guardian.co.uk. Or maybe there’s more than one reason. In 1952 C. S. Lewis turned down a CBE, and it’s not likely that his thoughts were the same as Lucian Freud’s.
Jan 26th
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“On December 10, 1810, in a muddy field around 25 miles from London, a fight took...”
– Brian Phillips on the boxing career of freed American slave Tom Molineaux - Grantland. A powerful story, beautifully told. Brian is so, so good.
Jan 26th
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“The real question, John [of the Cross] suggests, is about what you are really...”
– Rowan Williams, “The Dark Night”
Jan 26th
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“Vladimir Putin has laid out his plans to compile a canon of 100 Russian books...”
– Vladimir Putin plans 100-book Russian canon all students must read | Books | guardian.co.uk
Jan 26th
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Jan 26th
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for anyone who might be interested. . . .
My posts at the Atlantic’s Technology Channel are listed here.
Jan 25th
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Why Is the Subtitle Font in 'Mission Impossible 4'... →
Jan 24th
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“Internet executives like Mark Zuckerberg like to argue that...”
– Rough Type: Nicholas Carr’s Blog: Piracy and privacy
Jan 24th
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“On March 29, 1962, the Village Voice ran a full-page ad touting the merits of...”
– Paris Review – Mistaken Identity, Jenny Hendrix
Jan 24th
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“Television is a very different experience in the age of video on demand. Even if...”
– Great piece by Tim Carmody
Jan 24th
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Jan 24th
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“The home schooling movement, by contrast, has no access to funding nor any...”
– Noah Millman » Textbook Cases
Jan 24th
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“Books, I fancy, may be conveniently divided into three classes: — (1) Books to...”
– Oscar Wilde, “To Read or Not to Read” (1886)
Jan 24th
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“• Those that belong to the emperor • Embalmed ones • Those that are trained •...”
– Categories to which beasts belong, from Jorge Luis Borges, “The Analytical Language of John Wilkins” (1942)
Jan 24th
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Richard Wilbur, "To the Etruscan Poets"
Dream fluently, still brothers, who when young Took with your mother’s milk the mother tongue, In which pure matrix, joining world and mind, You strove to leave some line of verse behind Like still fresh tracks across a field of snow, Not reckoning that all could melt and go.
Jan 24th
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Jan 24th
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“The Giants’ win over the 49ers in a magnificent throwback conference...”
– Did Giants Strategically Concuss Kyle Williams? — The Sports Section
Jan 24th
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“Justice Sonia Sotomayor then writes, agreeing with Scalia’s trespass approach,...”
– U.S. v. Jones: Supreme Court Justices Alito and Scalia brawl over technology and privacy. - Slate Magazine
Jan 24th
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“There have been three major changes to 21st century writing: (1) writing is more...”
– New Rules: Writing Well In The 21st Century | A.T. | Cleveland
Jan 23rd
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“Blogging demonstrates the persistence of a key truth in the history of reading,...”
– Caleb McDaniel
Jan 23rd
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“In the early 19th century Lord Byron was the most-quoted author, the most...”
– Warren Ellis » GUEST INFORMANT: Jess Nevins. Read all of Jess’s fascinating post, which sheds an interesting light on the issues I raised in my first real post at the Atlantic’s Technology Channel earlier today.
Jan 23rd
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Jan 23rd
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Jan 22nd
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“As Schiller ticked down the list, for feature after feature — portability,...”
– Matthew Battles: It doesn’t take Cupertino to make textbooks interactive » Nieman Journalism Lab
Jan 21st
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“The publishers’ dream of creating content once and having it run everywhere is...”
– A First Take on Apple’s New Education Tools « The Scholarly Kitchen
Jan 21st
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“His strong point is that religion never lost faith in using culture to improve...”
– Alain de Botton: a life in writing
Jan 21st
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“Jobs didn’t just use pseudo-asceticism for marketing. He wielded purist...”
– Jaron Lanier
Jan 20th
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“Christopher Nolan views anarchy with dread, and human behavior in the absence of...”
– Taylor Marvin
Jan 20th
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“Now both individual authors and trade and textbook presses can be drawn into a...”
– Tim Carmody
Jan 19th
“What people haven’t seemed to notice is that on earth, of all the billions...”
– Tim Maudlin
Jan 19th
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“The book as such isn’t obsolete; inherently, it’s less immediate and raw, going...”
– “Saving My Life,” by David Shields  |  Little Star Journal
Jan 19th
Czeslaw Milosz, from "From the Rising of the Sun"
My generation was lost. Cities too. And nations. But all this a little later. Meanwhile, in the window, a swallow Performs its rite of the second. That boy, does he already suspect That beauty is always elsewhere and always delusive? Now he sees his homeland. At the time of the second mowing. Roads winding uphill and down. Pine groves. Lakes. An overcast sky with one slanting ray. And...
Jan 19th
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Jan 19th
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“There are two reasons, basically, why soccer lends itself to spectatorial...”
– Brian Phillips on soccer and boredom - Grantland
Jan 18th
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“I doubt that humility is among the first traits most people think of when they...”
– Women in the Academy & Professions: What I Wish My Pastor Knew About… The Life of a Scientist - InterVarsity.org
Jan 18th
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Jan 18th
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Jan 18th
“The system the judges upheld had its roots in feudalism. Edward I, one of...”
– You Can’t Read This Book: why libel tourists love London | Law | The Observer
Jan 18th
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“These are the kinds of issues publishers of electronic textbooks have to...”
– Tim Carmody
Jan 18th
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“Stressing out too much about opposition often leads you to miss out on allies...”
– Tim Burke
Jan 17th
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“When you have just been told that the girl you love is definitely betrothed to...”
– P. G. Wodehouse, Summer Lightning
Jan 17th
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Reverting to Type: a Reader's Story
Since the publication of my book The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction, a number of people have asked me about my history as a reader: what I read when I was younger, how my reading shaped my own development, and so on. They are sometimes surprised to learn that almost all of my reading, before my college years, involved science (especially astronomy) and science fiction. In...
Jan 13th
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“When [Graham] Greene died, his heirs and trustees were faced with the conundrum...”
– On margins | Robert McCrum | Books | guardian.co.uk
Jan 12th
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