Reading - A G P D

You can’t tell people anything

The things you say often don’t stick, and the few things that do stick are often distorted.

Against the boundaries of any single destiny

More different lifestyles are represented to us daily, televisually than to any previous group of people, and actual jobs are more specialized.

It’s odious to slap your fools

Even the dignitaries of the Church in the middle ages kept fools to make them laugh—or to laugh at them.

The intensity of exuberance

In group celebrations we find exuberance differently. A love of festivities is universal, observed William James, and in many respects celebration is yet another form of human play.

“Pride makes us artificial and humility makes us real.”

—Thomas Merton I highly recommend this article on The Improvement Illusion by Justin Murphy.

Robert Hayden’s poem “American Journal”

much here is beautiful, dream like vistas reminding me of home

We call it the zeitgeist

All of this is part of a shared space, it is what we call the zeitgeist, the spirit of the time, which is also what we express ourselves through.

Here is a story of a woman running away from tigers

Each moment is just what it is. It might be the only moment of our life, it might be the only strawberry we’ll ever eat.

Jan 2022: Reddit

And if they’re driving slow, it’s because they’re transporting a large cake.

Read the best essays before next year

Here you’ll find online essays on counterculture, pleasure, beauty, pre-state societies, love, cults, and individualism.

Zweig on Memory

A sort of jellyfish glistening in the abysses of consciousness…

Einstein’s Three Rules of Work

In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.

Culture is to society as style is to the individual

An answer to the sterile ends of pure utility and the cold-heartedness of a survival mindset.

Eric Fromm on how love is primarily giving, not receiving

In the most general way, the active character of love can be described by stating that love is primarily giving, not receiving. What is giving?

Relearning how to think according to David Foster Wallace

I have come gradually to understand that the liberal arts cliché about “teaching you how to think” is actually shorthand for a much deeper, more serious idea:

Do you remember when we talked about…?

Now Greif does not grieve as much as I about the warning sign he nailed onto the hedonist storeroom of memories that live rent-free in my mind. He insists this habit of happiness-by-experience results in “a life of permanent dissatisfaction and a compulsion to frenetic activity.”

The past woven into the present

Our lives are made up of so many people who become parts of our lives and like lines from your favorite book, some parts of them remain long after they leave. And in the same exact way, it’s comforting to know there are so many lives you’re still a part of that you have noContinue reading “The past woven into the present”

Kierkegaard on expression, irony, and humor

Pure thinking is a phantom.

How to lose a nuclear weapon

Despite an extensive search, not a single trace of the crew nor the plane nor the cores has ever been found.

Do you know about the nuclear exercise “Snowball” or Снежок?

In the days after, Soviet scientists’ reports detailed the impact of the nuclear blast on everything: vegetation, animals, shelters, vehicles, houses. And a small part on human lives.

Sunday Showcase: Whistler’s “Nocturne: Blue and Gold…” is melodious and harmonious

Since when does aesthetic consideration take precedence over realistic observations? Well, since Whistler. He painted the commonplace with mood, color, and form.

Oak Ridge’s radioactive mist

Swim naked in the local lake with Oak Ridge native Megan Fox, the mist caressing both of their faces would be radioactive.

Yeltsin’s close nuclear call

It’s January 25, 1995 and you’re President Boris Yeltsin activating the “nuclear briefcase”.

The tragic actor departs: a poem paired with oil paintings

And they are right, I think.
We all hate home
And having to be there.

Carl Sagan on the dumbing down of America and how science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking

I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time.

Temptations while rich

woman wearing red parka jacket while standing on brooklyn bridge

Don’t brag about morals until you have money to fund your temptations.

Billy Collins on the arbitrary distinction between revision and writing

And when I revise, I’m writing, aren’t I?

Billy Collins on how no man is lonely while eating spaghetti

This time, I was at a corner table at Pasta Vivace!
on that side street next to the old music store.

What does surveillance look like?

When everyone is watched, every behavior becomes dangerous.

Sip your coffee and open the door to “Beer Mode”

tattooed woman eating pizza while sitting near unrecognizable female friend

Beer mode is a state of unfocused play where you discover new ideas. In contrast, coffee mode is a state of focus where you work towards a specific outcome.

The Great Silence, The Fermi Paradox

It’s an entirely new situation, emerging from the physical possibilities that will face any species that can overcome the natural interstellar quarantine of its solar system.

Carry on: an epitaph to a bag

Epitaph to a bag with a face.

Pulitzer Prize winners Will and Ariel Durant on the lessons of history

The conservative who resists change is as valuable as the radical who proposes it.

Pythagoras and Hepatia

Pythagoras vs. beans and Hepatia vs oyster shells.

Hotter than ever

Is it hot in here or is there another wildfire? Links to articles about wildfires, climate change, environmental alarmism, and cattle.

Weeklinks – Edition 3

This week’s links on creativity, social media, distractions, tips on writing and drawing, art, Lady Lilith, and Max Ernst. PLUS! Unusual inspiration for unusual times.

Weeklinks – Edition 2

This week’s links on the secret wanderings of 900 cats, saving like a pessimist, observing the toxic clouds from fire and rockets, and plants!

Sunday Showcase: Expansion by Paige Bradley

The Sunday Showcase, not to be confused with “The Sunday Scaries”, literally zooms in on a piece of artwork and shares videos and/or quotes from the artist.

Weeklinks – Edition 1

This week’s links on the causal relationship between Vitamin D + COVID-19, the vaccine-autism myth,+ PBA cards!

Merriam-Webster’s Words of the Day Quiz for August

11 new words, brought to you by Merriam-Webster

Harvest

It’s harvest and I ask for more time without pressure.

Vespers (End of August)

selective focus photography of red fruits

And some things have the nerve to be getting started…

To be a scientist is to be naive

What is the cost of lies?

Yordi As Seen By Yordi: #1 in an interview series

This is the first “interview” (it’s very short, only a few quotes from each conversation) with friends and family members who are Deaf. My 25 year-old brother, Yordi, is using photography as a way to escape from his three other roommates, not counting the kitten and the Dalmatian, all of which are Deaf, except forContinue reading “Yordi As Seen By Yordi: #1 in an interview series”