The old and the new
Greetings. If you're visiting here for the first time, please feel free to look around. I have nearly 8 (!) years of blogging archived here, but as of August 2011, I'm no longer updating this site. You...
View ArticleReading 100 years of solitude nearly ruined all literature for me.
The night I finished it, the summer of 2007, I lay on my stomach in bed and looked across the pillows at Jeremy and said, I don't think I'll ever read another novel again.What shocked me, in the last...
View ArticleThe eternal present
Observation #2 on time: when it starts moving in CADS, it moves fast. We've shifted from an eternal world in the first 50 pages, where no one dies and all history exists at once (as Tim observed), to...
View ArticleA quick break
I haven't abandoned CADS, and while I'm overdue for a post, I'm up-to-date on my reading, and will try to have something tonight.In the meantime, however, I have another pressing issue on my mind. DC...
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Because steampunk is really all about the joy of being alive
A steampunk take on the conclusion of the Original Series Star Trek episode, "The Menagerie"I also rather enjoyed this strip, which is hotter than your mom.
View ArticleTheses on journalism: an experiment in format
(I posted the following on Twitter earlier today.)Fair warning: I don't really spend much time thinking about journalism.However, prompted by an interesting albeit somewhat roundabout (my fault, not...
View ArticleIt's not a bug, it's a feature!
Cute video from the Sun (UK), in the style of an Apple new product video.I'm not sure how much I want to nitpick. I've spent a lot of time in this space arguing that print is a highly developed...
View ArticleIf I were writing a political movie, this is how it would end
Michigan Republican gubernatorial candidate Rick Snyder is proposing to eliminate the Michigan Business Tax and replace it with a "6 percent flat corporate income tax." Snyder estimates that the flat...
View ArticleWhat we talk about when we talk about books
(This is also posted at Bookfuturism)I'm taking it for granted that I'm preaching to the choir here when I say that books are different things. Books are novels, nonfiction, collections of photos,...
View ArticleA little controversy is a good thing
I gave a presentation on Lansing Literary Magazines at Ignite Lansing 3.0 on Friday night. I thought the presentation went well, and while I didn't bowl over the crowd (there were both more dynamic...
View ArticleLansing Lit Mags
I have some thoughts on the presentation after re-watching it, but for now, if you haven't seen it, my 3/5/10 Ignite Lansing presentation on Lansing Literary Magazines is available at YouTube here.
View ArticleSummer reading
I'm currently buried neck-deep in reading for my MA thesis on Gertrude Stein, but I'm starting to get really excited about being free to read anything I want this summer, and at the top of my list is...
View ArticleLansing Lit Mags, and me.
I've already posted a link to a slides-only video version of my Lansing Lit Mags presentation at Ignite Lansing 3.0. This afternoon, LCC TV posted video of both the slides and me. I think I have a...
View ArticleThere are only three meaningful places to cut federal spending
Last Friday, I tweeted a link to an Economist poll in which 92% of Americans said that it was important to balance the federal budget within the next few years, and 62% said that the budget should be...
View ArticleThere are things we can agree on, even across the spectrum
Andrew Sullivan echoes my point in yesterday's post (of course, I'm really echoing him and other reasonable people all along the political spectrum):When they [Tea Partiers] propose cuts in Medicare,...
View ArticleDiary of a Casual Gamer #1: Getting Lost
(This was originally posted at Ditching Otis)Playing Red Dead Redemption and Final Fantasy XIII at the same time is more than a little jarring. Not, of course, because of the wildly divergent settings....
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A modest proposal
(This piece was originally posted at Ditching Otis.)There has been a small outcry in the sports world over the past few days after a blown call by umpire Jim Joyce cost Detroit Tigers pitcher Armando...
View ArticleThe coach and the professor
Mitch Albom on MSU criticism of media coverage of Tom Izzo's flirtation with the Cleveland Cavaliers:Tuesday night's gathering bordered on choosing a pope. A school president gushing over keeping --...
View ArticleConfessions and Extra Lives
(This piece was originally posted at Ditching Otis.)I have a confession to make. I’m not an unbiased reader of Tom Bissell. I have a not-entirely rational investment in writers from my alma mater, and...
View ArticleThe best of Wordwright
Wordwright has been around for more than five years now, and it seemed an opportune time to collect some of the keepers. Thus here, in reverse chronological order, are 16 posts that hold up well, offer...
View ArticleThe library is worth supporting
(An edited version of this letter was run in the June 30 edition of Lansing City Pulse)In 2005, my wife and I moved back to the Lansing area after an unsuccessful year looking for work in Detroit and...
View ArticleThree final reasons to vote "yes" on renewing the CADL millage
(Originally published at www.supportcadl.org)1. Library usage is up, not down. In fact, it's way up. And CADL is not asking for one penny of increased funding. Not one penny Seriously.2. If the millage...
View ArticleI'm never in favor of book burnings
A few thoughts which probably don't qualify as full-fledged opinions:That crazy pastor in Florida has every right to burn whatever book he wants, just as I have every right to criticize him for it and...
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Know your battles
Let me start off, like a good academic, with a caveat. I read the political cartoonist Chuck Asay pretty regularly, and while this in no way implies that I agree with the man on a regular basis, it...
View ArticleAnother fantasy political speech
I'm just sick over the attempted assassination of Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona over the weekend, which left six people dead, including a federal judge and a nine-year-old girl.I don't have that much...
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