Monsters exist, but they are too few in numbers to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are…the functionaries ready to believe and act withou...

... The Worst Movie Year Ever? God knows, movies are sure in hell not better than ever.

... to me: Was Cardinal Newman a saint? The purpose of a university, for Newman, was to ensure that those educated there had “a cultivated ...

... of TLS Letters : Arthur Koestler and women, Mailer’s war, Operatic beds, and more!

... as we say over here: Mandelson, the triumph .

... An Agnostic Manifesto . The person best-qualified to comment on this, of course, is Mark Vernon, whose After Atheism , which I read last...

I cannot express it: but surely you and everybody have a notion that there is, or should be, an existence of yours beyond you . - Emily Bron...

... Books Behind Bars: The Best Prison Literature .

... The Best Magazine Articles Ever . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.) Lots of the usual suspects, and I guess they mean best American magazine articl...

... via Instapundit ... REASON TV: On The Set of Atlas Shrugged — 53 Years In The Making.

... courtesy of Dave Lull by way of the Maverick Philosopher : Don Colacho’s Aphorisms . Here's one I especially like: "There is an...

... Essay Contest .

... here's Martin Amis on euthanasia . Perhaps the problem with aging would seem less if we, like earlier generations, honored age inste...

... Dismissive Josipovici . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.) Actually, Josipovici may be on to something.

God does not die on the day when we cease to believe in a personal deity, but we die on the day when our lives cease to be illumined by th...

... My neighbor: Volodya Nabokov .

... Protest in Bell, California: Residents Have Had Enough Of Overpaid Civil “Servants.”

... The Library of America launches a blog . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

... The Dabbler . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

... THE SCIENCE SHELF NEWSLETTER .

Whenever a theory appears to you as the only possible one, take this as a sign that you have neither understood the theory nor the problem...

... Paperback Writers: Henry Miller's Grecian days . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

... for my friend Judith: The pen and the pain . I'm concerned, of course. But I would even more concerned if I didn't know that Jud...

(Via Instapundit .)

... Journolisters Risked Their Integrity . I can't ever remember any of my colleagues at The Inquirer talking like this about those they...

... according to Richard Feynman: The Difference between ‘True Science’ and ‘Cargo-Cult Science’ . … there is one feature I notice that is g...

... On crime & thrillers: Manhattan Noir 2, The Classics . Not so brief may be Paul's wait for that Philly collection. The collector...

... Big Questions Online . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

... Richard Strauss in Life and Death . (That sounds like John Gielgud doing the voice-over.)

... Shav vs. Shakes . Also, don't miss The Smiling Genius . More here . I never realized that "Hot Diggity" was based on Char...

... `As Charming, and As Absolute' . I never met Guy Davenport, but he was a friend of my late friend, the composer John Davison. Both w...

... Bookshelf porn .

... Collectible Travelogues .

Statistics are the triumph of the quantitative method, and the quantitative method is the victory of sterility and death. - Hilaire Belloc ,...

... Oh I get it, it’s a sci-fi novel! (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

... It turns out that Starbucks is just a company . The author of this excerpt is terribly confused if he thinks that people today have few...

... I Write Like . (Hat tip, Lee Lowe.) I plugged in something from a blog post, something from a column, and something from a review. The r...

... Mencken was right: ... My Antonia: Some Observations . ... My Antonia: Another Observation .

... courtesy of Paul Davis.

... at Five Chapters: What A Good Boy .

... The Limits of the Coded World . (Hat tips, Lee Lowe and Dave Lull.) The model in question holds that the universe exists in space and ti...

Idealism is the noble toga that political gentlemen drape over their will to power. - Aldous Huxley , born on this date in 1894

... ny my friend Lee Lowe: The White Ribbon .

... San Francisco’s “finger man”: Zborowski revisited . What I am envious of is that Cynthia is going to meet and talk with the great Rober...

... for the next big Nabokov controversy: Freeing "Pale Fire" From Pale Fire . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

... Sir Arthur Conan Doyle . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

... 'The Hundred-Foot Journey' by Richard C. Morais: Slumdog sous-chef . ... The Washington Post and the Web revolution . ... ...

In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world tha...

... I love this song (it evokes intense personal reminiscence). But let's be honest. It is utterly contrived. "I'm just livin...

... Is It Safe to Eat Breakfast . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.) I usually don't get around to it until about noon, though I am usually up by 6. ...

... Your Move: The Maze of Free Will . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.) It’s undeniable that the way you are initially is a result of your genetic inhe...

... Online reviewers cultivate 'super' status . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

... Speakers of Klingon gather in Essington . Great story. Who knew?

... Life Explained, Part Two: "Life Is A Long Discovery, Isn't It?"

All human wisdom is summed up in two words; wait and hope. - Alexander Dumas , born on this date in 1802

... this may offend. I looked on YouTube for some of the punk bands I rather liked in the early '80s. Real punk bands. Not the synthetic...

.. great true rocker. What's a true rocker? Well, let's put it this way. I am a first generation rock 'n' roller. Bruce Spri...

... The Struggle for the (Possible) Soul of David Eagleman . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.) Though Eagleman’s scientific and literary lives seem radi...

An age which is incapable of poetry is incapable of any kind of literature except the cleverness of a decadence. - Raymond Chandler , born o...

.. so that people can read the second comment: This looks interesting .. .

... From Troy to the Caribbean: Homer onstage . Derek Walcott's Omeros is a wonderful book.

... On Edward Hopper's SUMMER EVENING . There is an excellent poem that pertains to this painting in Seeded Light , a review of which is...

... The Paper . (Hat tip, Paul Davis.)

... Lisa reads: Proust’s Overcoat by Lorenza Foschini .

My scientific studies have afforded me great gratification; and I am convinced that it will not be long before the whole world acknowledge...

... One-fourth of Democrats think Jesus will ‘definitely return’ in 40 years.

... that Jacques Brel would have been taken with the role of Don Quixote? For if he as a madman lived, he surely as a wise one died.

Blogging has been light because (a) I had a review due that I found found hard to write (only so much space and I wanted to say more than I ...

... Happy Birthday, Papa. Ernest Hemingway's Life In Photos/Hemingway On Crime. I knew it was Hemingway's birthday and thought of qu...

... and fits of torpor. What more could you want? Life in exotic Palo Alto .

... Times loses almost 90% of online readership . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.) I already subscribe to the WSJ online and to the TLS (both Murdoch p...

... There's a new zip in the strip (and the flesh is fresh)!

... Sticking the world together with words . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.) Foreign languages are unsettling. They remind us how arbitrary the menta...

... The Children of Children Keep Coming .

... Burns in Stone . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

An administrator in a bureaucratic world is a man who can feel big by merging his non-entity in an abstraction. A real person in touch with ...

... this has to be one of the best performances I've ever seen.

... Local Area Events . Featuring Sloane Crosley. I remember when Sloane used to visit my office in the days when she was a publicist. Glad ...

... The mystery of time .

Often have I wondered with much curiosity as to our coming into this world and what will follow our departure. - Petrarch , born on this da...

... for the colorless: Slice of San Francisco history: Tinker, tailor, author, spy .

... at Five Chapters: Paris .

... Star Performer . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

... The Critical Flame: Volume 2, Issue 8 | July — August 2010 .

... quite what to make of this: No One Left to Pray To? For Hitchens's view, look here .

A human life is a schooling for eternity. - Gottfried Keller , born on this date in 1819

... A utumn Sky Poetry No.18 .

... Sentimentality is poisoning our society . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.) Sentimentalists try to make up for a lack of feeling by emotional exh...

... by Ed Champion: Jennifer Howard's review of Nicholas Carr's "The Shallows" and William Powers's "Hamlet'...

... A hunk, a hunk of burning Liz and Dick . ... An American hero time forgot . ... Halting aging and putting off ...

For me, poetry is always a search for order. - Elizabeth Jennings , born on this date in 1926

... "This perfect thing is made of gin and vermouth," Or, A toast to Bernard DeVoto .

... For Andrew Young: "His Last Autumn" .

... The Trouble With Amazon . The loss of serendipity that comes with not knowing exactly what one is looking for is lamented by ex-Amazon ...

... Let's get together: summer reading recommendations . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.) Some random comments: I gather that Margaret Drabble Phar...

... Secular Britain . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.) Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler write in their book Connected, “One way to make social net...

If all the rich people in the world divided up their money among themselves there wouldn't be enough to go around. - Christina Stead ,...

... Donald Windham .

... James F. Ross (1931 – 2010) . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)