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I never got past more than a few chapters of this book, but the notes I took on the preface (written by Saul Bellow) and the first three or four chapters are extensive enough that it seems worth sharing them. … From the Foreword Written by Saul Bellow: On Academics : “Academics, even those describing…
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I love how Dana envisions the “common reader” — not the “incurious mass audience of the popular media” but rather “the idea of the general reader envisioned by Samuel Johnson and Virginia Woolf felt the vitality of literature depended — the intelligent, engaged non-specialist.” The first essay is the titular piece. It begins “American poetry…
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On Strawberries: “In material fact, Strawberries belong only to themselves. The exchange relationships we choose determine whether we share them as a common gift or sell them as a private commodity. A great deal rests on that choice. For the greater part of human history, and in places in the world today, common resources were…
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This isn’t Carl Sagan’s best book, but it was his last, and it has plenty of good stuff to say. … Chapter 5 is about “Four Cosmic Questions” 1st cosmic question: “Was there ever life on Mars?” 2nd cosmic question: “Is Titan a laboratory for the origins of life?” 3rd cosmic question: “Is there intelligent…
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Bertrand Russell on Common Words and Proper Names: “Common words, even proper names, are usually really descriptions. That is to say, the thought in the mind of a person using a proper name correctly can generally only be expressed explicitly if we replace the proper name by a description.” See, there really is something in…
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With “Amusing Ourselves to Death,” Neil Postman has written the kind of book where every couple sentences you stop and think. I could literally study this book one or two sentences at a time. These are the kinds of books that I want to write. I’m sure I’ve said this before, but I will say…
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Once in my young adulthood, I managed a list of blogs, podcasts, and YouTube channels which covered Magic the Gathering. The list became more work than it was worth, and in 2026, it seems such a list isn’t even worth maintaining. But, it turns out, there are still plenty of blogs when it comes to…
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My first foray into taking a term and adding the current year to it yields some interesting results, although it seems NotebookLM focused on the term “umwelt” instead. Still then, it’s worth looking at what it found for me. The sources it found revolve around an exploration of “the evolving role of the organism as…
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I decided to query NotebookLM with the question “how intellectual joy can be a form of self care.” I got the idea from a Prose and Petticoats video on Emelie Du Chatelet, and it was a comment that Emmelie Arents made as an observation of Emelie’s work. There are a lot of great sources on…
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From Anthony Veasna So, “baby yeah” Brilliant writer who “accidentally” overdosed in 2020. “My friend and I saw each other as hopeless writers, misunderstood prophets, critics of our cultural moment who rejected obvious and reductive politics. We never indulged in ordinary pursuits because we yearned to write masterpieces, timeless works infused with nihilistic joy and…