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{ Category Archives } Readings

Robert Hughes (1938-2012)

Like many other Americans, I became aware of Hughes through his “Shock of the New” documentary and considered myself lucky to snag a copy of the hardback from a remainder table at the (long-gone and lamented) Intimate Book Shop in 1983. Most people can name critics of movies, music, and books because we hear those products [...]

Examining the unlived life

Alex has a wonderful essay up this week on the unexamined life vs the unlived life. I recognized so much of myself in his description of his early college self. And i would say it’s only been fairly recently that I’ve decided to bias myself towards action — even fidgety action — over excessive rumination. [...]

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The Suck Fairy

From Jo Walton at Tor.com comes the idea of The Suck Fairy, that scourge of re-reading that somehow curdles fondly remembered books upon second reading. Working alongside the Suck Fairy are her siblings the Racism Fairy, the Sexism Fairy, and the Homophobia Fairy, according to Walton. One might add the Bad Writing Fairy; sometimes re-reading [...]

Lavers on The Simple Life

My previous post Fred Stutzman and Facebook reminded me of an essay from the May/August 2000 issue of North American Review. The essay I tore out and kept in my “Essays” folder lo these many years was by the writer Norman Lavers, now retired from teaching English and enthusiastically maintaining a site on The Robber [...]

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Unit Structures

Image by Getty Images via Daylife Fred Stutzman is a PhD student at SILS and the creator of numerous good things, among them ClaimID and the Mac-based Freedom (which I used today to good effect). He has a blog, Unit Structures, and tends to post announcements of upcoming events or good ‘n’ chewy postings related [...]

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