“I always thought that inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just show up and get to work.” That’s one of many, many tidbits to be found at the site for Andrew Zuckerman’s new book, Wisdom. Go there. Watch the clip. Then see if you can resist the urge to buy the book.
“The inclination to read a huge Victorian novel, the capacity to untangle a metaphor in a line of verse, the desire to study and emulate a distant historical figure, the urge to ponder a concept such as Heidegger’s ontic-ontological difference over and over and around and around until it breaks through as a transformative insight [...]
My goal is to redefine the whole history of rhyme
‘Cause the only way to free the soul is to free the mind
And no wisdom as old as this should be confined
To total mystery, so we’ll just read the signs
And DaVinci codes, and try to see the science
In this linguistically-composed pristine design
–extracted from Rhyme Renaissance by [...]
It’s been a while since I did a “this recent discovery suggests Lovecraftian spookiness” post, so let’s do one of those.
According to National Geographic, a series of partially underwater temples—”A labyrinth filled with stone temples and pyramids in 14 caves”— have been found off the Yucatan.
The article talks about how these temples map onto legends [...]
I have 10.5 hours of scheduled meetings tomorrow. 10.5 hours. Scheduled.
I should totally just call in sick and lie around the hotel reading Disch and Akunin.
Over at the blog Steven Brust shares with his roommates, the question was posed about the “golden books“–those ones that because you hit them at just the right time, and they were just the right thing, made a lasting change in you, and how you interact with the world.
I didn’t comment there, but I’ve been [...]
You know what I hate? When I can tell that something in what I’m reading (or seeing) is a reference to something, and I don’t know what that something is. Sometimes it’s an inside joke, but more often it’s a literary reference, or an allusion to some knowledge I don’t have. Most of the time [...]
…because man I love books. I love the good stories, and I love the well-crafted physical objects as well. Love ‘em. So let’s talk about a whole bunch of book-related topics, to give me a book fix.
First I’d like to do a little bit of a rant about books as commercial objects. Actually, as I’m [...]
If I were to wish for anything, I should not wish for wealth and power, but for the passionate sense of potential — for the eye which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible. Pleasure disappoints; possibility never.
—Søren Kierkegaard
Words ought to be a little wild for they are the assaults of thought on the [...]
Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.
—Edgar Allen Poe
Reading furnishes the mind only with material for knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours.
—John Locke, Of Reading
Why shouldn’t things be largely absurd, futile, and transitory? They are [...]
On my last excursion to Boston, while I sadly did not get to do the Readercon thing1, I did get to pick up a couple of more Centipede Press books that I had directed to my US mail drop (a.k.a. “Matt’s house”): a copy of the much talked about Lovecraft art book, which I scored [...]
The KGB Raffle winners are up.
It appears I have won a wormhole.
Could this, combined with my recently acquired Mad Scientist goggles, be the beginning of my career as a supervillain?
Or, alternately, the beginning of a mildly comic adventure through time and space?
No blogging today, nothing’s getting between me and the new Taltos1 book.
I’ve known Steve for quite few years now, but I’ve known Vlad since I was 10 years old–we go waaaay back. And unlike many people I knew when I was ten, I’m always glad to see him when he comes around.
If that made you [...]
I read a lot of science fiction. I have, since I was a kid–the first novel with no pictures I ever read was A Wrinkle In Time. The first “adult” book I ever read was Foundation.
When I was younger I had the opportunity to read a lot of the early short work in the [...]
I was delighted to find out this week that Emma Bull is writing a sequel to Territory (you might recall I was pretty excited about that one), tentatively titled Claim.
Of course, in the interim, I can always get a hit of Shadow Unit. (I think I might have mentioned that once or twice, possibly.)
I have [...]
will shetterly
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