June 2011
1 tag
That girl, that job, that adventure? Not going to...
I’m about 250 pages into 1Q84, and it reminds me of one of the things that nag me a little about Murakami’s books. It’s the idea that interesting things happen to passive people. If you’ve read a few Murakami novels, you’ll know that most of his protagonists are basically the same dude, even if they have different names. I don’t think it’s a spoiler for me...
Week 25
Border towns are places were abstract political and cultural boundaries become concrete and particular. The Ferghana Valley contains one patchwork of national en- and exclaves superimposed on another patchwork of cultural enclaves; Bir Tawil is claimed by no one; Osinów Dolny, just on the Polish side of the border with Germany, consists almost entirely of hairdressers. These places “throw...
A Promise
If I ever write a book of nonfiction, it will not have a title of the form Poetic Title: Subtitle That Explains What’s Really Going On.
Here are the books that have won a Pulitzer in the general nonfiction category since 2000:
Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II
Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan
Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama, the Climactic Battle of the Civil...
“He would be a good-looking man if he were not ugly.”
– A friend of his describes Giacomo Casanova.
Every medium that can be digitalized (and that’s pretty much all of them) now faces a crisis of identity. Photography, journalism, literature, painting and film (but not, say, sculpture or architecture) must now reinvent themselves as ones and zeros. This problem existed in 1991 and in 2001, but in 2011, the problem seems especially important, probably because at long last, the changes have...
Manga, game theory, literary theory
I don’t read a lot of manga, but recently I’ve been plowing through Death Note and Liar Game. What these have in common is a focus on applied game theory: they are essentially comics about games in which rational actors must try to act so as to maximize certain utility functions while also taking into consideration the other actors’ attempt at same. The excellent Stanford...
1 tag
“Some things are in our control and others not. Things in our control are...”
– Epictetus, the Stoic philosopher. Many are fond of quoting the Stoics, but I have yet to find anyone who actually lives by their words. (Related: many are fond of quoting Jesus.)
1 tag
1 tag
I’ve previously summarized my interest in history as “inventors, explorers and empires.” As a kid, open spaces were lands to be conquered. I’d stand on top of a small hill, looking down on dominions over which great nations fought; in my head, epic campaigns played out. One hillock would make treaties with another; a third would ambush the two first; a fourth would amass a...
May 2011
1 tag
