September 2008
12 posts
Hectic Days
Sorry I haven’t posted lately. A brief update to let you know why…
I’ve started my MA at the Centre for Medieval Studies in Toronto. Best Medieval program in North America, no doubt! Also the craziest. Contrary to all sound academic advice I’ve ever received (you know, all that stuff about getting sleep and not drinking too much coffee), my MA Latin prof essentially said...
Teeheehee, Bitter Glee →
I hate to kick econ folks when they’re down, but in spite of my generally genial nature, this post makes me feel warm and fuzzy. In any case, no econ student knows what shadenfreude means, so it’s a victimless crime…
Politishop 8.0 | Mark Fiore's Animated Cartoon... →
This one’s for my misanthropic and digital-media-literate friends out there!
Civility and Deference →
I came across this Sentences article today in which Wyatt Mason took issue with a political columnist. Essentially, the columnist lamented the necessity for “civility” in political dialogue, saying that substance of argument should come before friendliness of style. Mason unpacks the etymology of “civility”—as we literary types are wont to do—and discovers that...
The Life Pod →
I found this little doozy on Andrew Sullivan’s Atlantic Monthly Blog with the description “I need one”. I need one too.
Also, for those of you obsessed with Genghis Kahn…*cough* John *cough*… it’s decribed as “The Yurt of the Future”. Neat, eh? (That was a little inside, wasn’t it?)
My Latest Read (Vacation Edition Continues)
Still Life with Rice by Helie Lee was yet another recommendation from my mother. She tends to stack them up, you see. I began this book with some trepidation, considering the quality of her last suggestion, the “ok but not great” Book of Joby. Still Life’s first chapter soon exascerbated my fears…
Lee, a second-generation, Korean-American, 90s girl describes the process by...
The Politics of Pronouns - Paper Cuts - Books -... →
Teeheehee…
Grammar and political intrigue: what could be better?
“You wouldn’t be an academic if you didn’t think you were a fraud!”
– Peter the Anglo-Saxonist
A Nature Poem
Here’s a poem I started while driving the prairies, after I saw a series of giant thunderstorms lumbering across the terrain. This was right around Regina, where the sky seems really large and interesting because there’s absolutely nothing to look at on the ground. This poem’s called “Before the Tornado”…
You, great Storm, With crest of sunlight’s silver...
The Walrus Blogs ยป Lowbrow and Street Art: A... →
An interview with Nick Mount about conceptual and aesthetic artistic drives, and the seeming divorce between these two impulses.
That sounds really highfalutin, but when you consider Mount’s essay, entitled “The Renaissance of Cute”, it might seem a bit more accessible! Give the inteview and Mount’s original essay a read. They’re worth the time.
For me, it’s a...