Monday, February 26, 2007
Crooked Timber challenges us to discover the best first paragraphs of academic texts. They provide this example:
“Affluence breeds impatience and impatience undermines well-being. This is the core of my argument. For detail and evidence, go directly to the chapters; for implications, to the conclusion, which also has chapter summaries.” (Avner Offer, The Challenge of Affluence)
That’s [...]
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Sunday, February 18, 2007
Alan Dugan’s off-putting rhythm and his messianic carpentry metaphor makes love a labor of suffering and still finds room for a partner. I enjoy the way he manages to build a love poem out of his self-obsession and his undirected fury… even though I don’t experience love that way, I recognize the power of the [...]
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Saturday, February 10, 2007
Women’s petition against coffee from 1674:
Thus like Tennis Balls between two Rackets, the Fopps our Husbands are bandied to and fro all day between the Coffee-house and Tavern, whilst we poor Souls sit mopeing all alone till Twelve at night, and when at last they come to bed smoakt like a Westphalia Hogs-head we have [...]
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Thursday, January 11, 2007
“It is said that this manifesto was more than a theory, that it was an incitement. Every idea is an incitement. It offers itself for belief and if believed it is acted on unless some other belief outweighs it or some failure of energy stifles the movement at its birth. The only difference between the [...]
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Thursday, January 4, 2007
“…if they do get down to asking the forty-something asking-and-telling homos, something very, very calamitous will have to have happened.” -David Rakoff
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It’s probably obvious to most people, but the complete works of Shakespeare are available online. I just discovered this, and am currently reading The Tempest. Some of my favorite Shakespeare lines appear in that play:
PROSPERO
Abhorred slave,
Which any print of goodness wilt not take,
Being capable of all ill! I pitied thee,
Took pains to [...]
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Saturday, November 25, 2006
…the traditional policy process was viewed not only as unproductive but “perilous.” Information, that is, could slow decision-making; indeed, when it had to do with a bold and risky venture like the Iraq war, information and discussion — an airing, say, of the precise obstacles facing a “democratic transition” conducted with a handful of troops [...]
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Wednesday, August 23, 2006
Defenseless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.
W.H. Auden, “September 1, 1939″
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Saw the movie version of Proof the other night. It’s a nicely written mystery, masquerading as a family drama. I especially liked these lines:
“If I go back to the beginning. I could start it over again. Here. I could go line by line. Try and find a shorter way. I could try [...]
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From Henry Reed’s Lessons of The War:
I. Naming of Parts
To-day we have naming of parts. Yesterday,
We had daily cleaning. And to-morrow morning,
We shall have what to do after firing. But to-day,
To-day we have naming of parts. Japonica
Glistens like coral in all of the neighboring gardens,
And to-day we have naming of parts.
This is the lower sling [...]
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