“This story involves rabbits, but it’s not a kid’s tale.” Thus begins Phil Bronstein’s account of the rise and fall of a feminist sex shop, in case you need a good idea for a play. “Obama is symbolically ridding the executive mansion—and, by extension, the U.S. Presidency—of the xenophobia that has informed the American rejection [...]
At LRB, Daniel Soar provides a delightful etymological history of the @ sign, which is often referred to with the French term arobase. Evidently, the glyph has roots in commercial measurement units in 16th century Florence. But … The French wouldn’t have got their arobase if they hadn’t derived it not from Italy but from [...]
A couple weeks ago, Commonweal published an excerpt from Terry Eagleton’s new book (based on a lecture series at Yale), in which the well-known critic asks a question whose exploration promises to diagnose aspects of our cultural condition in the West nowadays: Why are the most unlikely people, including myself, suddenly talking about God? Who [...]
On the heels of my last post about the craft of deterministic argumentation, here’s a related idea from the good folks at talkingphilosophy. It starts out like this. Mike LaBossiere has recently suffered an injury, see. Naturally, people keep telling him that “it could have been worse.” LaBossiere finds the comment reassuring. But … I [...]
Flannery O’Connor didn’t live a flashy life – “from Georgia, liked birds, died of lupus” – says Jamelah Earle, who might not recommend Brad Gooch’s biography to you, unless you want to know how somebody comes up with a story about a bible salesman who steals a girl’s prosthetic leg … In his critique of [...]
For a couple of months I’ve been trying to get a handle on a wispy problem that seems to be clouding debates about the current economic crisis. Something feels deeply wrong about how these discussions function as discussions, and I’ve been trying to pinpoint the shadowy rhetorical origin of this disquiet, if it exists. I [...]
So this is my 100th post, folks. Huzzah! Writing duckanddrakes has been a rewarding pastime over the last year. During the next few weeks, I’ll be giving some thought to this blog and its future. For the time being, here’s an index to a few posts that exhibit what I’ve been trying to do here. [...]
From argle-bargle to snollygoster: are these the 100 funniest words in English? On this day in 1970, James Dickey published Deliverance. His son Christopher recalls: “it seemed to me then and for a long time afterward that forces of self-indulgence and self-destruction, which were always there in my father but held in check, were now [...]
More handwriting: a gracious note from novelist Agatha Christie to filmmaker Billy Wilder. Christie praises Wilder’s successful adaptation of Christie’s Witness for the Prosecution, probably the strongest film version of her work that we’ll ever see. You can buy the letter at this bookstore, if you’re in Baltimore and can spare $6,000.
You can find a new article extolling the value of the humanities just about every day of the week. Scroll down on this very site, stranger, and you’ll find a pile of links to such articles, many of which I’ve discussed during the year (!) that I’ve maintained this blog. The preponderance of such articles [...]
At Inside Higher Ed, Chad Aldeman explains that academic institutions just don’t have the resources to identify the most worthy student applications from within the colossal piles that they receive. “The myth of a meritocracy, on which the selective admissions system is built,” Aldeman confesses “is substantially a lie.” So how about a lottery? Here’s [...]
You! Drop what you’re doing and read Chris Mooney’s critique of George Will’s hissy little column on “global cooling.” Mooney’s article is everything that op-ed writing ought to be: polite, well-reasoned, utterly devastating. I wish that all writers cared so much about explaining the problems of reliable knowledge that subtend superficial and overheated policy disputes. [...]
Wall Street Journal theater critic Terry Teachout observes: I can’t recall ever hearing a single boo at a Broadway show, a classical concert, a dance performance or a nightclub gig. Teachout’s onto something about the way we live now – the silence of the Boo speaks volumes because it contradicts the value that we otherwise [...]
Michelle, myself and I: some advice for Barack Obama from the much-neglected Department of Pronouns. The Atlantic’s Barbara Wallraff and Joe Pickett of the American Heritage Dictionary are having a polite conversation about polite conversation. “It’s not about unrequited tragic love,” observes Sancho Panza of Engelbert Humperdinck’s operatic version of Hansel and Gretel, “it’s about [...]
“He stops in the middle and just strums the rhythm…” Daniel Arizona remembers Buddy Holly. Christopher Guerin lists 46 authors who can be relied upon to produce a novel regularly every couple of years. There’s only one problem: “the list is pretty much the same as it was ten years ago.” And they’re all getting [...]
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