Time for me is double-edged: Every day brings me further from the low of my last cancer relapse, but every day also brings me closer to the next cancer recurrence — and eventually, death. Perhaps later than I think, but certainly sooner than I desire. There are, I imagine, two responses to that realization. The […]
Quotes
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
On the Difference Between ‘Technical’ and ‘Tactical’ Spies
Why then does the American public still consider all spies to be demons? Why does the public make no distinction between technical spies like Julius Rosenberg stealing useful knowledge and tactical spies like Kim Philby destroying human lives? Perhaps it is because the American public is misled by the American secrecy system. The secrecy system is a bureaucratic monster that classifies vast quantities of information as secret, making it impossible for the ordinary citizen to see the difference between important and unimportant secrets.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Childhood Development and the Psychological Roots of Disgust
Disgust has deep psychological roots, emerging early in a child’s development. Infants and young toddlers don’t feel grossed out by anything—diapers, Rozin observes, are there in part to stop a baby “from eating her shit.” In the young mind, curiosity and exploration often overpower any competing instincts. But, at around four years old, there seems to be a profound shift.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Raymond Chandler on the Oscar Voting Process, Circa 1948
It doesn’t really seem to make much difference how the voting is done. The quality of the work is still only recognized in the context of success. A superb job in a flop picture would get you nothing, a routine job in a winner will be voted in. It is against this background of success-worship that the voting is done, with the incidental music supplied by a stream of advertising in the trade papers (which even intelligent people read in Hollywood) designed to put all other pictures than those advertised out of your head at balloting time.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Are We in a New Era of ‘Re-Wilding’?
The contrasting conditions of the resurgent Föritz and the depleted forests of Albania are a microcosm of the planet. We are living in the Anthropocene, a time when human activity, more than anything else, shapes the earth’s climate and ecosystems. Our hunting, fishing, deforestation, overgrazing, and pollution have created a period of mass extinction the likes of which haven’t occurred since the dinosaurs. E. O. Wilson, the preeminent biologist and conservationist, predicts we could lose half of all species on the earth by the end of this century.
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Lorrie Moore on Her First Encounter with Miranda July
“When it came time for July to speak, she stood up and started singing. She was large-eyed and lithe. I don’t remember what song it was—something she had written herself, I believe. I was startled. Who was this woman?”
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
The Nightmare Dream of a Thinking Machine
The question “Can a machine think?” has shadowed computer science from its beginnings. Alan Turing proposed in 1950 that a machine could be taught like a child; John McCarthy, inventor of the programming language LISP, coined the term “artificial intelligence” in 1955. As AI researchers in the 1960s and 1970s began to use computers to recognize images, translate between languages, and understand instructions in normal language and not just code, the idea that computers would eventually develop the ability to speak and think—and thus to do evil—bubbled into mainstream culture.
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How a Famed Danish Restaurant Brought Japanese Sensibilities to Their Tokyo Pop-Up
He could have made his life easier by being less ambitious, but that’s not what Noma does. Instead, they’ve taken their strictly seasonal and regional agenda and applied it to the islands of Japan instead of the Nordic region. “I made seven trips here in the past year. I’ve been everywhere in Japan,” he explains.
Posted inBooks, Fiction, Quotes
Laura van den Berg’s First Novel Explores Illness, Immunity, and Isolation
Three things brought me to the hospital. In my first month, in the library, I wrote it all out on sheets of paper and pretended I was telling someone a story. Number one: the sickness itself. The first case was reported in June, in Bakersfield, California, when a fifty-year-old woman named Clara Sue Borden stumbled […]
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How Mardi Gras Helped Make Mahalia Jackson a Political Activist
“I never did like the world-famous Mardi Gras that went on in New Orleans. It was a beautiful sight, but to me it was horrible. I have seen so many people hurt on that particular day . . . The white people would celebrate their Mardi Gras with big and expensive floats that went down the main part of Canal Street, which were very beautiful and high class . . . But for my people, for them it would be such a tragedy. “