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Category Archives: General
Greatest Chess Books (Part I)
You know that guy who you didn’t invite to your party but shows up anyway, wielding his guitar like a blunt musical instrument, trying hard to be soulful, earnest, totally in love with music but totally and absolutely horrible at … Continue reading
Lolita at 62
[1955 cover from WikiMedia Commons] Dolores Haze– the “nymphet” of Vladimir Nabokov’s greatest novel (rightfully found in many lists of best novels)– would be 62 this year… in America at least, where Lolita wasn’t published until 1958. [photo via David … Continue reading
On the Depths and Mysteries of the Universe
[photo by jjjohn] “Look,” he said. “This landscape of clouds and sky. At first glance you might think that the depths are there where where it is darkest; but then you realize that the darkness and softness are only the … Continue reading
Wendell Berry on Hayden Carruth
[photo shamelessly cadged from this profile of Carruth] “I think that Hayden’s idea of a livable life is a life that has affection in it– a life, to give it the fullest scope of his art, in which the things … Continue reading
A Brief Digression on Matters of Lost Time (John Hodgman)
The Mac ads quickly started making me clench my teeth, but John Hodgman is brilliant. The Areas of My Expertise is one of the funniest books I’ve ever read and I have high hopes for More Information Than You Require. … Continue reading
Ulysses Update – Wandering Rocks
[photo by Jamelah] This relatively straightforwardly written section of Ulysses was quite a changeup from the complex “Scylla and Charybdis” book just before. In The Odyssey Ulysses chooses to sacrifice 6 of his men rather than risk the Wandering Rocks, … Continue reading
Paging Robert Johnson
[photo by abbyladybug] While browsing Brian’s trove of links, a pointer to an Esquire article caught my eye. It tells the story of the discovery, attempt at authentication, and subsequent wrangling over the ownership and authenticity of what might be … Continue reading
The Atlantic Redesigned
The Atlantic has been redesigned: Here’s my brief review: horrible. The block on the lower right looks like a joke that no one was willing to call a joke, a kind of Sokal Hoax of type design. Ugh. [via Kottke]
RIP: William Claxton
Sad news. William Claxton, photographer responsible for many iconic images of jazz musicians and celebrities, has died. Along with pictures by William Gottlieb, Herman Leonard and Milt Hinton, when I think of jazz, photos by Claxton come to mind. A … Continue reading
Ulysses Update
[photo by Bikkhu] Finished Book 9 (Scylla and Charybdis) of Ulysses. I found Book 9 fiendishly difficult, not because the writing style was impenetrable, but because I found it continually difficult to get a good grasp of the two main … Continue reading
Friday Facts (2008/10/10)
[photo by Eva the Weaver] Some facts in lieu of a post: I believe a significant part of the next 25 years of new music was prefigured by E.L.O.’s concept album Time Grating the frozen butter into the flour with … Continue reading
The Ironist
[image by S. Casey] David Foster Wallace’s passing has spurred a lot of conversations that in one way or another invoke the idea of irony and his work’s relationship to it. Some of the arguments to be found in and … Continue reading
Posted in General
Tagged david foster wallace, dfw, irony, Psyche, reading, richard rorty
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Brief Ulysses Update
[image by maxf] Just finished Episode 8, The Laestrygonians. Random, likely incoherent thoughts that’ve crossed my mind over the last 60 pages or so: There’s something interesting and tricky going on with the voice and perspective of Bloom’s monologue… a … Continue reading
Ulysses Annotated
Ulysses Annotated is a great resource when tackling Joyce’s densely allusive novel, but in some ways it is almost as unwieldy as Ulysses itself! If you make it through the lengthy, but immensely useful introduction– which is generally concerned with … Continue reading
Kerning Gone Bad
see more pwn and owned pictures A little bit of typographical knowledge can be a dangerous thing…
Joyce’s Prose Poetry
Some segments from Chapter 1 with a musicality that particularly appealed to my ear, even if they are sometimes unpleasant: If I were suddenly naked here as I sit? I am not. Across the sands of all the world, … Continue reading
Funnier Than I Remembered
Ulysses– at least through the first chapter– has more humor than I remembered. Perhaps because I was overwhelmed the first time around, I didn’t put catch it as often as I should. And Joyce tends to immediately follow the funniest … Continue reading
Ulysses – Sound and Sense
[photo by editor_tupp] Reading the first section of Ulysses, I was– like Scott– struck by the sound of the words tumbling around inside Stephen Dedalus’ head. There are many passages which read like (deeply allusive and heavily referential) prose poems. … Continue reading
(Re)Reading Ulysses
Monday morning I Twittered that I was digging into Ulysses, a book I read once and too-quickly many years ago, and before I knew it a few friends were joining in. We have formed some kind of rule-free, schedule-less reading … Continue reading
Jill Greenberg’s John McCain Photos
I was wondering why my more-than-two-year-old post on Jill Greenberg’s children and monkey photos was suddenly getting comments again and then I heard about the controversy surrounding her photos of John McCain, one of which was featured on the cover … Continue reading