Why is it that so many artistic wonders were mad? These people could never function in most contexts, but as musicians, painters, writers, they thrived. There’s another bio out now, on one of my favorite writers, Philip K. Dick. It’s called I Am Alive and You Are Dead: A Journey into the Mind of Philip […]
As we trade links and debate the importance of blogging to journalism, or who’s influenced who, tons of trash is posted online. Nobody seems to know how to write. Well, not nobody. But you know what? I think this essay on writing essays would do a lot of the blogosphere some good. Makes me wonder […]
Bonjour paresse is a newish book in France that is apparently selling like mad. It’s basically a kind of satirical attack on the private sector and of course the bureaucracy (oops, I originally typed bureaucrazy, and it might be closer to the truth) of France, but also the whole philosophy of business and working for […]
Via Arts & Letters Daily, this is a taste of Dawkins’ new book Walking back to genesis. It looks like a fascinating piece, exploring the path of our evolution backwards to the first life on earth, conceived of as a Chaucerian pilgrimmage. And it’s probably of particular interest to SF geeks like me, who could […]
I found a decent poem here and I think you’ll think it’s decent too, in its dubious yet hopeful middle-class rendition of how money and capitalism apparently works.