Light reading

Manhattan's lost meat infrastructure . Today was in theory my "weekend" day, only really the timing is such that I needed to...

Did I ever link to this at the time? Anyway, some thoughts on immersion - in novels, in games, in water - following the publication of The...

I flagged this quotation mentally as I was reading for class, only I dimly remembered (and indeed it is so!) I blogged it the last time I ta...

Douglas Hofstadter and the problem of understanding human intelligence : Consider that computers today still have trouble recognizing a hand...

A tribute by Luc Sante .

It is a long time since I was wholly psychologically in thrall to Lou Reed, but for a number of years (from 17 to 21, maybe?) I think I list...

Death of a record-breakingly gigantic Great Dane . (Via Rivka.) He slept in his own queen-sized bed.

I'm leading a class at the CUNY Graduate Center in a couple weeks: reading will be two of my favorite essays by Hazlitt, "On My Fir...

The revolution in artificial limbs . Toronto was highly worthwhile but very very tiring! About to head to the library for some Tom Jones ...

Slightly overwhelming week, though a lot of good stuff. Went to the launch last night for my old friend Luke Barr's book Provence, 1970...

"Every week, tourists come, even though the island has nothing but cats." ( Via - courtesy of Jessie and Steve.)

An outtake from the wretched review that I'm still wrestling with (when they don't come out right the first time round, they often t...

Wheelmen is causing my jaw to drop: much of this story, of course, I know already, but even so, the revelations about the financial impropr...

RIP Norman Geras . I was honored to be included in Norm's writer's choice series in 2007. I touched there, I see, on some of the ...

Aciman on Proust at the WSJ : Proust is interested in minutiae because life, as he sees it, is seldom ever about things, but about our impre...