We want to be influenced by tradition, but not bound by it.
Digital watches, such as they are, really are a pretty neat idea. As we progress toward cloning and hydro-electric interactive bullriding, we have to consider the relevancy of an analog watch. As every PDA clipped to the waist of every rayon-shirted tech-head will attest, [...]
The primary ethical question in Melville’s “Bartleby, the Scrivener,” from the perspective of contemporary economics, is what value is Bartleby providing for his employer, our unnamed narrator? Bartleby claims he is “not particular,” but also that he “prefers not to” do any particular task with which he is charged, any of the common things a [...]
Since the bulk of my work involves teaching freshman composition, I’m frequently confronted with the prototypical disaffected late-adolescent who finds everything boring. He is bored by politics, bored by peculiar social practices, bored by gastronomy, astronomy, theology and beer.
Yes, that’s right: today’s college freshman is even bored by beer, or claims to be anyway.
This makes [...]
I recently finished a pile of books from the Book Nook that I bought last summer, all of which ended up being about upper-class (or appearing to be upper-class) women who have extramarital affairs. I guess I should have guessed, coming from a place whose Romance section comprises four aisles and half the store. [...]
Lael and I are discussing people who readily admit they don’t read and how numerous that group is becoming.
I told him that I’m always shocked when someone admits to me he or she doesn’t read. I know I look positively floored, absolutely flabbergasted. In fact, I’m assuming I probably look like they just admitted to [...]
The headline from last week’s article reveals the problem as well as anything else might: “King: Writers with Commercial Success Need Recognition.”
AP writer Hillel Italie’s article goes on to inform us of Stephen King’s recent acceptance speech for an honorary lifetime achievement award from the Nation Book Foundation during which he called for literary critics [...]