When the child was born, everybody noticed that she looked more exotic than guralka and equally at home in the traditions and civilizations of both oriental East and bohemian West.
John Roedel: The Cosmic Dancer
Respiratory infection found in dinosaur that lived 150m years ago Guardian
One of the topic covered last night included Why do some people evade infection when there’s COVID in the house?
David Foster Wallace, Elizabeth Wurtzel, Kurt Cobain — why were prominent artists of the ’90s so marked by tragedy?
The Pope urged believers to not yield to disappointment “when we catch nothing”, to not give up. Always, he said, “in personal life as well as in the life of the Church and society, there is something beautiful and courageous that can be done.”
Navigating the sea of life without fear
99 million-year-old flowers found perfectly preserved in amber bloomed at the feet of dinosaurs CNN
Parliamentary Book Awards shortlists
In The Bookseller Sian Bayley reports that Hale, Sanghera and Brown make Parliamentary Book Awards shortlists.
The Parliamentary Book Awards are for political writing, and: "are awarded across three categories and voted for by parliamentarians". Two of the categories are also for works byparliamentarians, but at least there's also a Best Political Book by a Non-Parliamentarian-category
The winners will be announced on 9 March.
It is said that before entering the sea
a river trembles with fear.
She looks back at the path she has traveled,
from the peaks of the mountains,
the long winding road crossing forests and villages.
And in front of her,
she sees an ocean so vast,
that to enter
there seems nothing more than to disappear forever.
But there is no other way.
The river can not go back.
Nobody can go back.
To go back is impossible in existence.
The river needs to take the risk
of entering the ocean
because only then will fear disappear,
because that’s where the river will know
it’s not about disappearing into the ocean,
but of becoming the ocean.
- History and literature
- Food as language
- Sex and secrets
- Adolph Reed
- Secrets to Gonzo journalism
- Anton, Deneen, Hazony
- Self-pity of cyclists
- "Shooketh"
- Sci-fi to our rescue?
- Lady of deadpan
Lifehacker: “I don’t mean to be alarmist, but you really need to stop throwing your coffee grounds away. Like, now. Do you know how wildly versatile they are? How many glorious, non-intuitive ways you can repurpose the remains of your morning cup of joe around your home, your garden—even your body?
Their microbial, anti-inflammatory, and antioxidant properties, combined with natural odor-absorbency and rough texture make make them one of the most useful things you’ve ever tossed into the garbage. Give your grounds new life by repurposing them in one of these ingenious ways…”
'A Throb of Pleasure in His Heart
“So, in a sense, you’re always writing for the future. It’s just that, when you do get older, the . . . future seems nearer. (Laughter) So, ideally, I would like to write for an audience who know the same things I do, and in fact, who have shared the same experiences I've had. (Laughter) That’s impossible; you can’t multiply yourself . . .”
Ah, but you can. Like most other humans, writers are Heraclitean by nature, ever in flux. In the space of a sentence we can be two or three people. We may try hard to be single, to maintain the illusion of unity, but it’s a ruse. Think of novelists and poets who happily inhabit dozens of autonomous beings. Think of the salesmen who recalibrate with every customer who walks through the front door. We’re always more complicated than most of us understand. I’m no longer the guy who drank his morning coffee.
The speaker above is the poet Donald Justice in a 1979 interview. Justice says he writes for the future. When an editor had rejected one of his sonnets, Charles Lamb declared to Bryan Waller Procter in an 1829 letter: “Damn the age; I will write for Antiquity!” Both are correct, depending on the time of day. When I was in college, a lot of bloviation focused on the myth of the Ideal Reader. I recognized this as just another academic con job. Readers are real and we can’t presume to understand them or aim to please them. The best we can hope for is pleasing ourselves and serendipitously pleasing a few others. When Milton addresses his Muse in Paradise Lost, his stand-in for the Holy Spirit, he pleads: “Still govern thou my song / Urania! and fit audience find, though few.”
I started Anecdotal Evidence sixteen years ago, on February 5, 2006. No focus group was consulted and I had little idea of audience beyond the hunch that some people still like to read good books. I’m no critic but I wanted to share my enthusiasm for books, reading, writers and writing – things I already liked thinking and talking about. I’m pleased and proud that the first words posted on this blog were lines from William Hazlitt’s essay “The Fight”:
“. . . we agreed to adjourn to my lodgings to discuss measures with that cordiality which makes old friends like new, and new friends like old, on great occasions. We are cold to others only when we are dull in ourselves, and have neither thoughts nor feelings to impart to them. Give a man a topic in his head, a throb of pleasure in his heart, and he will be glad to share it with the first person he meets.”
When I look at the blog list to the left I see the names and websites of five people we’ve lost since this blog started – most recently, Terry Teachout. I’ve been blessed with some excellent readers.