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.