Finished reading: 3 Shades of Blue by James Kaplan. A brilliant book, but in its later stages immensely sad. 📚
Read this by Ted Gioia in conjunction with my everyone knows post. Twenty years from now, nobody will believe parents who say “But I had no idea that giving my five-year-old a smartphone would be harmful!” People will say, “You knew, but you didn’t care.” And they’ll be right to say it.
Brent Nongbri on Candida Moss’s recent work: “Overall, this book has an effect that is similar to that of E.P. Sanders’s Paul and Palestinian Judaism (1977). Even if you don’t agree with every interpretive move the author makes, the collective force of the book’s examples leaves you with what can only be described as a new perspective. In other words, if the field takes God’s Ghostwriters seriously (and it should), then there is no going back. And the way forward will involve greater effort to pay attention to the enslaved people who played important parts in producing, promulgating, and preserving the writing of the Roman world.”
If I’m irritible over the next few days, it’s because Apple’s forced reset of my password means that all of my app-specific passwords have been erased and now I have to create new ones. Great.
This award-winning building … is a glass cuboid. The world’s ten billionth glass cuboid.
What happened to Michael Tsai also happened to me today. Annoying as heck. All my Apple devices are confused.
Re: this list of sites that prohibit your linking to anything but their home page — I wonder how it would play out if a dispute about this policy went to court here in the U.S.? What if I linked to a page on Bill Gates’s site and he sued me? What would be the legal basis for his suit, and what would be the best legal defense of my Right To Link? (I suppose my lawyer would have to say something more than “You posted this on the open web, dumbass.")
Like almost every other writer in America, I’ve weighed in on that Elle Griffin nobody-buys-books post – or one implication of it anyway.
Taken in SE Colorado, March 2023.
Live webcam at Valles Caldera, New Mexico. The webcam is cool but it’s one of those places that simply can’t be appreciated except in person — a photo doesn’t capture the scale of the place.
Reading this because it’s discussed, with considerable energy, in Sayers’s Gaudy Night. 📚
This morning I wrote my most boring post ever! It’s about citations of a literary critic.
UW-M Special Collections – one of my favorite Tumblrs.
I wrote about how I decide what literary fiction not to read.
I just love type in cases.
The Guardian: “As people get older, they revise the age they consider to be old upwards.” This is good for me to know, since before too long I will officially be middle-aged.
Currently reading: Gilead by Marilynne Robinson. I wrote a post about returning to this great book. 📚
Me: I just spilled hot coffee all over my chest!
My son: Oh no! Is the coffee okay??
I wrote an extremely spoilery post about Gene Wolfe’s strange novel Peace.
The OED has just added 23 Japanese words, mainly involving food and entertainment.
High is Adam Roberts in his thriller mode. Think: Mission: Impossible on Mars. Brilliant. So much fun. 📚