Like Having Fairies at the Bottom of Your Garden
Margaret Atwood tweets. She posted a delightful essay about the experience at the New York Review of Books blog. She describes it as having 33,000 precocious grandchildren.
Tagged: words
Popular Science
When I was young, I had a vast collection of old Popular Science magazines. I used to spend hours poring over them. I memorized vast numbers of strange machines, weird inventions, and odd facts...
John McPhee
John McPhee has always been one of my favorite writers. I remember when I was young and would go over to my grandmother’s house. I would sit on the couch and flip through her...
Whole Earth Discipline
I’m currently reading Stewart Brand’s latest book, Whole Earth Discipline. It’s basically about how he has changed his mind on the environmental effects of: Urbanization Nuclear Power Genetically Engineered Crops I’ll talk about the...
Ed Thigpen
Ed Thigpen died yesterday. He was the drummer on so many of those great Oscar Peterson records. Together with Ray Brown, they defined what the Jazz trio should sound like. Tonight at dinner, I...
Gatz & Holden
We went to see Gatz at the ART the other night. Gatz is a play by the Elevator Repair Service which is based on the novel The Great Gatsby. It’s a very interesting production....
Jonathan Haidt Interview
The Utne Reader has an interesting interview with Jonathan Haidt about politics. If you’re not familiar with Jonathan Haidt, he’s a Professor of Social Psychology at the University of Virginia. He’s done a lot...
The Financial-Industrial Complex
Simon Johnson has an article in the NYTimes today with another suggestion on reforming the finance industry. He compares the dangers we face from this industry to the dangers Eisenhower warned about with the...
2009 in Ideas
The New York Times annual Year in Ideas section is out today. That’s always worth checking out. As their intro says: … we have hunted eclectically, though not without discrimination, for noteworthy notions of...
The Political Mind
I just finished reading George Lakoff’s book The Political Mind. If you’re not familiar with him, he’s a cognitive linguist at Berkeley. That means that he researches the ways in which language use reflects...
