I came across an essay almost a year old by one Mattias Desmet called “The De-Souling of the World.” It ends with these lines: “This revolution essentially boils down to this: a society led by a propagandized mass is replaced by a society led by a group of people connected through sincere speaking. […] What …
Continue reading “Language, Sincerity and Authenticy in the Machine Age”
Recent events — or the media imagery thereof — put in my mind an old Thomas Pynchon article, “Is It O.K. To Be A Luddite?” from nearly forty years ago. There’s a photo that could go with this, but it’s far too obvious, so you’ll have to settle for Kong. For readers interested in the …
Two dishes today. One is a variation on the previously-posted risotto-in-a-bag dish. It was “Mexican night” at the cafeteria Wednesday and I was generously given by the server a large quantity of cooked shrimp, presumably for use in shrimp tacos. Having lived not too far from the Sea of Cortez recently, I can’t imagine why …
There’s no age quite as awkward as the semi-pubescent 11-14 age range which corresponds to what we now know as the middle school years. My own awkwardness at that age can probably best be encapsulated by a rundown of my lunchtime eating habits: every day, a can of StarKist albacore tuna, some saltines, and a can of …
Continue reading “Sorry, Charlie: Deep Parables of Consumer Capitalism”
From Per Petterson’s remarkable I Curse the River of Time, two visions of death. He seems to think that the first, and not the second is inevitable, yet he spends considerably more effort describing the second, more pleasant alternative, so which can he hope for? …when it came to dying, I was scared. Not of …
I had a relatively minor surgery last week and thus had more than the usual amount of time to sit around reading, especially about healthcare, medicine, and most of all its incredible rising cost. From Craig Bowron’s most recent article in the Washington Post comes an excellent meditation on dying in the 21st century, on …
While trying to research publication information on the Italian guidebook that profiled my home state, a visit to Amazon.it, which just opened this year, revealed the following warning: Dear Customer, It now seems certain that by September 1, a law on the price of books in Italian will come into effect. The main article states: …
About a month ago, Tim Parks wrote a piece for Italian business paper il Sole 24 Ore about Jonathan Franzen’s popularity in Europe. He referred to the piece in a talk that he gave to Milan’s Stampa Estera. That piece is now out in English via the New York Review of Books and interested readers …
Tim Parks stands out from most expatriate writers on Italy by choosing to write about the daily realities of a life lived among regular people. Lesser writers are enchanted into irrelevance by the cultural, gastronomic and sartorial consumption opportunities afforded to them by the bel paese, but not so Parks, who divines trenchant observations on family, …
Have you ever wanted to do something difficult, perhaps out of frustration, or to beat fear? Maybe you ran a marathon, or took up biking, or read a long book or worked out a difficult puzzle. What you in all likelihood did not do was have men ten years your junior punch you in the …
