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A Pair of Thoughts on Empty Rooms
A Pair of Thoughts on Empty Rooms Upton House (Joseph Lister/Wikicommons) First from the Irish writer James Stephens (1880-1950): At last the room was as bare as a desert and almost as uninhabitable....
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Spending Sundays with Susan Sontag
Spending Sundays with Susan Sontag Rebecca Chace’s “Regarding the Pain of Trump” in the Los Angeles Review of Books, September 30, 2017, has several nods and references to Susan Sontag. And I was...
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The Life of Books in 18th Century Autobiography
The Life of Books in 18th Century Autobiography From the Autobiography (1795) of Edward Gibbon (1737-1794): It is whimsical enough, that as soon as I left Magdalen College my taste for books began to...
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Recent Thoughts on Russian Conservatism (with Literary Comparisons)
Recent Thoughts on Russian Conservatism (with Literary Comparisons) The structure of these regional directorates has remained largely unchanged for decades, which, when combined with the FSB’s system...
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From Russia with Grub = Salo from Ukraine
From Russia with Grub = Salo from Ukraine So after reading this review “Russian House Through the Eyes of a Russian Transplant in Austin,” (Austinot.com, September 19, 2017) by Yulia Dyukova...
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Reading about Russia on Friday
Reading about Russia on Friday Via Catapult.co, Sabrina Jaszi translated a short story “Bluebells” from русский to English (for the first time!), written in the late 1950s-1960s by Reed Grachev...
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Initial Thoughts on the Breech between Digital and Analog
Initial Thoughts on the Breech between Digital and Analog The steam engine with a governor provides a typical instance of one type, in which the angle of the arms of the governor is continuously...
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Digitally Transferring Authority: On Geography, Technology, & Power
Digitally Transferring Authority: On Geography, Technology, & Power Numbers are the product of counting. Quantities are the product of measurement. This means that numbers can conceivably be...
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The Greatness of Russia and the Greatness of Texas
The Greatness of Russia and the Greatness of Texas Russians call World War II, “The Great Patriotic War,” and Dr. Victor Davis Hanson, whom I almost never agree with, has a decent article out today...
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An Attempt At Meditating on Metaphor
An Attempt At Meditating on Metaphor A metaphor is just a particular tool for mythmaking, and as C. S. Lewis points out, there are two ways in which we use metaphor: one for teachers, another for...
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Disenchantment
Disenchantment Disenchantment with rhetoric about law that ignores legal realities: A very important think piece by Jesse Singal: “There Have Been So Many Bad Lefty Free-Speech Takes Lately,” New York...
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The Trouble with Reading Too Many Good Books
The Trouble with Reading Too Many Good Books Twenty-four years ago, Harold Bloom said we should read only canonical works, only the best of the best: Who reads must choose, since there is literally...
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Reading About AI and All That
Reading About AI and All That Three interesting pieces on AI and its potential malevolence or benevolence: Wesley J. Smith, “An AI Thanksgiving Proclamation,” First Things, November 24, 2017. Scott...
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From the “Fortnightly Review”
From the Fortnighly Review It took a while, but after many years I’m quite happy to call myself an “international writer,” after having a piece published by the Fortnightly Review of England-France....
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When Late-19th Century Daughters Remember The Fiddles of their Fathers
When Late-19th Century Daughters Remember The Fiddles of their Fathers The other day I was doing some background research on my grand-grandfather by reading Emma Guest Bourne’s (1882-1959) A Pioneer...
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Some Notes on “How to Think” by Alan Jacobs
Some Notes on How to Think (2017) by Alan Jacobs “To be freely aware and richly responsible” means gracefully attending to the “relational goods” of one’s neighbor (Jacobs 47-49)…. One must graciously...
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Scottish Schadenfreude from David Hume
Scottish Schadenfreude from David Hume “[David Hume] loved to puncture convictions and to discomfit dignitaries. He was sincerely irreligious, but he also wanted to shock. Such Schadenfreude doubtless...
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Two Brief Thoughts on Reading Books
Two Brief Thoughts on Reading Books A ghost––either of Isaac D’Israeli (1766–1848), or Andrew Lang (1844–1912), or Jorge Borges (1899–1986)––asks how differently I read a book (or author) when: (1)...
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Between Real and Unreal in Death and Pornography
Between Real and Unreal in Death and Pornography Beginning with Oscar Wilde (1854-1900): Yes, Mr. Gray, the gods have been good to you. But what the gods give they quickly take away. You have only a...
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How to Lose Friends & Influence Over People: Write about Race (Part I of III)
How to Lose Friends & Influence Over People: Write about Race (Part I of III) Toward Some Solutions to the Political Problem of Writing about Race while Being Aware of One’s Own Race Part I....
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