Telling someone to love literature because reading is good for society is like telling someone to believe in God because religion is good for society. It’s a utilitarian argument for what should be a personal passion.
It would be better to describe reading not as a public duty but as a private pleasure, sometimes even a vice. This would be a more effective way to attract young people, and it also happens to be true. When literature was considered transgressive, moralists couldn’t get people to stop buying and reading dangerous books. Now that books are considered virtuous and edifying, moralists can’t persuade anyone to pick one up.
Miyazaki drawings for Sherlock Hound, via Austin Kleon.
On 21 years of using Markdown — and in hopes of at least 21 more.
The Last Days of the Southern Drawl:
Recent studies suggest I’m part of a trend: Young people are losing their southern accents. By the end of my life, there may be no one left who speaks like my father outside the hollers and the one-horse towns.
I’m part of the trend too: I certainly have a Southern accent, but it’s not as pronounced as it was when I was younger, and I profoundly regret that.
On the plus side, though, a Southern friend of mine sent me this: Redneck Shakespeare. A thing of great beauty.
Exotic Botany… (1804), by James Edward Smith
I wrote a post for my Buy Me a Coffee supporters on the importance of redundancy in one’s stupidity-prevention system.
I’ll be offline for the next week or so as I try to finish a complete draft of my Sayers biography, but as I ride into the sunset I’ll share the news that Dan Wang’s annual letter is back, after a year’s hiatus during which he published an excellent book. Ciao for now!
Dictating a passage of my Sayers bio to my computer, I uttered the name “Bertie Wooster.” The computer rendered that as “Birdy Worcester.” I now want a canary I can name Birdy Worcester.
I wrote about design amnesia.
Happy 90th birthday to Sandy Koufax, who became my favorite baseball player when I was eight years old. And that never changed.
Let this give you hope in the New Year: No matter how powerful AI becomes, it will never quench the primal human desire to tell total strangers on the internet that they’re stupid and wicked.
Listening with pleasure to this conversation between Sam Harris and Ross Douthat, I felt that they were often talking past each other and thus failing to identify the true nature of their disagreement. I can help with that!
Re: what human life might be like in a post-scarcity society, I’d recommend my essay on Iain M. Banks’s Culture novels. (I’d also recommend Banks’s novels, of course, but first things first.)
Re: demons, I’d recommend my outline of a demonology.
Sidney Lumet, from Making Movies:
The sound editor on Murder on the Orient Express hired the “world’s greatest authority” on train sounds. He brought me the authentic sounds of not only the Orient Express but the Flying Scotsman, the Twentieth Century Limited, every train that had ever achieved any reputation. He worked for six weeks on train sounds only. His greatest moment occurred when, at the beginning of the picture, the train left the station at Istanbul. We had the steam, the bell, the wheels, and he even included an almost inaudible click when the train’s headlight went on. He swore that all the effects were authentic. When we got to the mix (the point at which we put all the sound tracks together), he was bursting with anticipation. For the first time, I heard what an incredible job he’d done. But I had also heard Richard Rodney Bennett’s magnificent music score for the same scene. I knew one would have to go. They couldn’t work together. I turned to Simon. He knew. I said, “Simon, it’s a great job. But, finally, we’ve heard a train leave the station. We’ve never heard a train leave the station in three-quarter time.” He walked out, and we never saw him again.
I feel great sorrow for this man.
Today is the feast day of St. Thomas Becket — known in his own time as Thomas of London. A white back I wrote a briefish essay about him and his native city.