December 2007
19 posts
Matisse: Ulysses →
“Matisse did not read Joyce before executing the etchings, but instead reread Homer’s Odyssey.”
if:book: ron silliman: "the chinese notebook" →
The eBook is a lossy format: ‘Project Gutenberg happily presents their version of Tristram Shandy online in a plain text version: at certain points, the reader sees “(two marble plates)” or “(two lines of Greek)” and is left to wonder how much the text has changed between the page and the screen. …how Sterne would have laughed at “(page numbering skips ten...
Twilight of the Books →
Begins as a Chicken Little piece on the decline of reading, but veers into a fascinating discussion of orality and literacy.
Inside the CIA's notorious "black sites" →
Torture, American style →
“It might make Americans uncomfortable, but the modern repertoire of torture is mainly a democratic innovation.”
"Slavoj Žižek" on Kinder Surprise →
The Mookse and The Gripes →
George Saunders on Daniil Kharms →
“Kharms’s stories are truly odd, as in: at first you think they’re defective.”
(For the record, translations of his stories have been available in the West since the 70s.)
“Serfs were essential to the Sheremetev palaces and their arts… Many of...”
– Orlando Figes, Natasha’s Dance: The Cultural History of Russia, via Identity Theory
