EGO is a humorous and tongue-in-cheek challenge to ideas presented by uncle Sigmund Glowing Stick Figures Mimic Movement That Check Your Ego
The Seventh Day, by Yu Hua. This is perhaps my favorite of all the contemporary Chinese novels I have read: “Lacking the money for a burial plot, he must roam the afterworld aimlessly, without rest.”
Kal Raustiala and Christopher Sprigman, The Knockoff Economy: How Imitation Sparks Innovation. Have you ever wondered how recipes, fashion, fonts, and comedians’ jokes function without strong intellectual property protection in the classic sense? We have needed a book on that and now we have one, this is both fun and instructive.
The top story in Mexico is about a feisty journalist who exposed the first lady’s secret mansion, and lost her job WaPo
Anyone who wants to be a writer will sooner or later confront the question: To M.F.A or not to M.F.A.?... Why Write?
Tolstoy was in his time known as a nyetovshcik, a contrarian. His views – on love, family, intellectuals – are even more out of sync today. But they are no less urgent Contrarian
Eco’s not-entirely-helpful solution: read everything as soon as possible
Ballad of a pencil junkie
Art world
AC/DC back and red-dy to rock
The Guardian reports:
Researchers led by Gert Stulp, a specialist in population health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, combed a Dutch database for clues.Called LifeLines, the record contains exhaustive detail about the lives and health of more than 94,500 people…Stulp pointed to figures showing that, in the United States, shorter women and men of average height have the most reproductive success.
The short piece is interesting throughout, and for the pointer I thank John B. Chilton. And elsewhere on the height research front, the Indian height advantage, relative to Africa, exists only for firstborn sons.