more than 95 theses

2009

December 66
November 35
October 39
September 50
August 103
July 142
June 64
May 91
April 75
March 104
February 85
January 84

2008

December 90
November 64
October 32
September 52
August 79
July 38
June 53
May 56
April 74
March 58
February 83
January 63

2007

December 56
November 63
October 81
September 86
August 1
July 63
June 82
May 48
April 53
March 73
February
January
May 1st

David Wright, "Pantoum and Variation on...

What wondrous love is this, O my soul, to cause the Lord of bliss to bear a verse and cast away,...
Apr 30th
I just noticed that A Million Penguins is...
Apr 30th

W. H. Auden, from "Atlantis"

Assuming you beach at last Near Atlantis, and begin That terrible trek inland Through squalid...
Apr 30th

the secret diary of . . .

For her biography of Louis XIV’s mistress author Veronica Buckley hit upon a startling,...
Apr 29th
“Beneath the carefully constructed veneer of a blithering...”
— Boris Johnson, Tory candidate...
Apr 29th

faith lived out

Jim Caviezel, the actor known for playing Jesus in “The Passion of the Christ,” had been outspoken...
Apr 28th

miscarriages

Even Ms. Shvarts’s central proposition — that the discomfort we feel at the word...
Apr 28th

Stevie Smith, "Sunt Leones"

The lions who ate the Christians on the sands of the arena By indulging native appetites played...
Apr 28th
portraitoftheartistasayoungman: Nicole Peterson’s Dante...
Apr 28th

Gjertrud Schnackenberg, "Snow Melting"

Snow melting when I left you, and I took This fragile bone we’d found in melting snow Before I...
Apr 26th

Wendell Berry, from "The Body and the...

The concept of health is rooted in the concept of wholeness. To be healthy is to be whole. The word...
Apr 25th

Humanistic Judaism

On a recent chilly Friday night, a few dozen members of the City Congregation for Humanistic Judaism...
Apr 25th
“The world I live in is one where I have five quarrels a day,...”
— Christopher Hitchens
Apr 23rd

masterpieces on the internet?

Any facile comparison of “quality” across different media is asking for a kicking. But I’m going to...
Apr 22nd

English as a shouted language

China intends to teach itself as much English as possible by the time the guests arrive, and Li Yang...
Apr 22nd

an unknown pollutant

In 2004, for example, researchers on the Potomac River, downstream from Washington, D.C., found...
Apr 22nd

Radio Free Europe

“Radio Free Europe? Does that still exist?” Radio Free Europe—the Cold War news...
Apr 22nd
Apr 21st
Stuart Franklin photo essay on trees
Apr 21st
Kottke mentioned this on Twitter a week or so ago, so...
Apr 21st
“Repetition alone will make something stick in a...”
— David Muhlenfeld, composer of...
Apr 21st
“No man can hear his telephone ring without wishing heartily...”
— H. L. Mencken
Apr 20th
bbum, sunlight on water (via a long exposure)
Apr 20th
two trees in a field
Apr 20th
aerial photograph of a lumberyard, from here via Kottke
Apr 20th
[here, via Monoscope]
Apr 19th

Czeslaw Milosz, "Veni Creator"

Come, Holy Spirit, bending or not bending the grasses, appearing or not above our heads in a...
Apr 19th

corruption

It’s always amazing to me that people think, “Because I thought this up, instead of...
Apr 18th

Bill James on Derek Jeter

In one way of looking at it, it makes intuitive sense that Derek Jeter could be the worst defensive...
Apr 18th

elites

Senator Obama seems honestly surprised by the furor his the-poor-cling-to-God-and-guns remarks...
Apr 18th
“That the contrastingly but equally gorgeous Rachel and Sarah...”
— A. O. Scott on...
Apr 18th
the first photograph?
Apr 17th

on the future of Catholic Higher...

In recent years, the debate in the United States, and to a lesser degree in Europe, over the...
Apr 16th
Apr 16th
Charlie Mackesy’s prodigal sons
Apr 16th
Apr 15th

Eco vs. Rorty on screwdrivers

In a debate held in 1990 with regard to the existence or otherwise of textual criteria of...
Apr 15th
Lileks
Apr 15th

a recovered radio interview with Evelyn...

Although fascinating, the interview does not disabuse listeners of Waugh’s reputation as a...
Apr 15th
Indexed
Apr 15th

elevators

Ask a vertical-transportation-industry professional to recall an episode of an elevator in free...
Apr 15th

Ecclesiasticus

All these were honoured in their generations, and were the glory of their times. There be of them,...
Apr 15th
The Library of Congress's Flickr photostream...
Apr 14th
“Christianity is not an intellectual system, a collection of...”
— (then) Joseph Cardinal...
Apr 13th
portraitoftheartistasayoungman: Shepard Fairey—of “Obey”...
Apr 13th

cellphone futures

One morning I followed Chipchase as he waded deep into the Nima market, a hodgepodge of vegetable...
Apr 13th

an exercise in self-examination

Me thinks me have serious problem. Me thinks me addicted. But since when it acceptable to call...
Apr 12th

memory bullies

Society is now riven between the memory haves and the memory have-nots. On the one side are these...
Apr 12th
laptop positions, via Coudal on Twitter
Apr 11th

W. H. Auden, "Miranda's Song"

My dear one is mine as mirrors are lonely, As the poor and sad are real to the good king, And the...
Apr 11th
via Bibliodyssey
Apr 11th
P. J. O'Rourke's Seven Deadlies, Part II
Apr 10th

alas, poor Ringo

A vandal chopped off the head of Ringo Starr from a life-size topiary of that former Beatle over the...
Apr 10th
Warch Watch
Forro in the Dark, featuring David Byrne
Apr 9th

a loving husband

7 January 1945 Dubrovnik Darling Laura, sweet whiskers, do try to write me better letters. Your...
Apr 8th

reed madness

In the modern world, nothing in music is more tragicomic than the subject of double-reed instruments...
Apr 8th

superubiquitous computing

One of the things our grandchildren will find quaintest about us is that we distinguish the digital...
Apr 8th
V. S. Naipaul, monster
Apr 8th

W. H. Auden, 1936

Now the leaves are falling fast, Nurse’s flowers will not last; Nurses to the graves are...
Apr 7th

now I know who to blame

Here, I should like to give only one example of how technology creates new conceptions of what is...
Apr 7th
“You can now have Charlton Heston’s gun.”
— seen on Twitter
Apr 7th

names for numbers

Today, Arabic numerals are in use pretty much around the world, while the words with which we name...
Apr 7th

the dictator gene

Selfish dictators may owe their behaviour partly to their genes, according to a study that claims to...
Apr 7th
beer bottles converted into bricks
Apr 7th
“You have no idea how much nastier I would be if I was not a...”
— Evelyn Waugh to Nancy Mitford,...
Apr 5th

the party of empire

The Republican Party has become, in short, a party of empire. The conservative movement is now a...
Apr 5th

in acknowledgment of National Poetry...

“National Poetry Day” Gael Turnbull “Transform your life with poetry”...
Apr 4th

France's semicolon war

In the red corner, desiring nothing less than the consignment of the semicolon to the dustbin of...
Apr 4th

good literary advice

In a conversation between Waugh and Graham Greene, recorded by Christopher Sykes, Greene described...
Apr 3rd

Jim Manzi on card counting

My experience was that it was very easy to stay under the radar of casinos if you didn’t feel the...
Apr 2nd

I give it seven out of ten

Traditionally Outside receives extremely high ratings by those who like to see others play it, and...
Apr 2nd

a word from your host

I used a dark theme for this tumblelog during Lent, and then to a largely white one for Easter. But...
Apr 2nd

Bill James on the future of baseball

NYT reader: What do you feel is the biggest threat to the future of the popularity of baseball? And what do you see as the best opportunity for growth for the popularity of the game that M.L.B., the owners, etc. are not taking advantage of or pursuing?
BJ: The biggest problem (or threat) that we face is the poor state of amateur baseball for very young kids. Somehow, we’ve allowed highly competitive attitudes to seep down to six-year-olds and seven-year-olds, so that kids at very young ages are being taught to play the game “right” before they learn to love the game. It makes baseball seem like school — “I’ve got to do this right to please the coach.” We’re turning off millions of kids in a failing and misguided effort to accelerate the development of skills. Somehow, we’ve got to flip that back the other way, so that kids can learn to love playing the game.
Apr 2nd

Michael Kinsley on living a long time

Of all the gifts that life and luck can bestow—money, good looks, love, power—longevity is the one...
Apr 1st