2024-11-20: To conform is to submit and to win is to conform, to be beaten. Fernando Pessoa, The Book of …
2024-11-01: Having read even a few dozen books in common is a force more binding than blood. Cormac McCarthy, …
2024-10-02: Tergiversate (v) - To use evasions or ambiguities; equivocate. From the Latin tergum, the back + …
2024-09-13: Americans love being conned if you can do it in a style that is both grand and entertaining. …
2024-09-03: Today I learned that Mumbai’s Dharavi slum has an estimated GDP of close to $1 billion.
2024-08-05: He used to say to his son that life’s decisive truths exist secretly in abandoned books. Andrey …
2024-07-30: We have to begin to laugh at everything, to the point of chaos if necessary, and create an …
2024-07-20: invidious (adj) - (of an action or situation) likely to arouse or incur resentment or anger in …
2024-06-11: Gado (n, Portuguese) - cattle or livestock, and recently, supporters of Brazilian right-wing dipshit …
2024-05-24: You dwell in ignorance as you embark upon new roads, and do not recognize marvels as you live them: …
2024-04-26: In contrast to revenge, which is the natural, automatic reaction to transgression and which because …
2024-04-24: There is reason, after all, that some people wish to colonise the moon, and others dance before it …
2024-04-24: It’s somebody with a very weird looking hammer imagining the existence of deeply implausible nails. …
2024-04-20: At first there was nothing…then nothing turned itself inside-out and became something. Sun …
2024-04-18: The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity. W. B. Yeats, …
2024-04-15: The world is too vast to live in a single place, or three, or four. Ko Un, via this video of Not …
2024-04-13: ELO’s debut album was released in the United States in March 1972 as No Answer. The name originated …
2024-04-12: solecism (n): 1. A nonstandard usage or grammatical construction; 2. A violation of etiquette; 3. An …
2024-04-10: When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies? Perhaps to be too practical is …
2024-04-10: Our first impressions are not only our own: they are bathed in the light of our parents’ heyday. …
2024-04-09: Eccentricity has always abounded when and where strength of character has abounded; and the amount …
2024-04-08: A mind is like a parachute. It doesn’t work if it is not open. Frank Zappa
2024-04-08: Imbricate: (adj) having regularly arranged, overlapping edges, as roof tiles or fish scales.
2024-03-04: Lahar (n) - An avalanche of volcanic water and mud down the slopes of a volcano.
2024-03-04: Shitegeist (n) - The popular but worthless spirit or mood of the times.
2024-03-02: Anything that degrades culture shortens the path to servitude. Albert Camus
2024-03-01: Otiose (adj) - Lazy or indolent; pointless or superfluous; ineffective or futile.
2024-02-29: This is the way you look at the poorest details of the world resurfaced: you feel their singleness …
2024-02-25: Today I learned that the Orinoco River, which flows north into the Caribbean, is naturally connected …
2023-10-25: The J R Family of Companies Invents Facebook Advertising…sell advertising mail the magazine free to a guaranteed audience…they’ll …
2023-08-29: In the beginning, there’s no sudden cut, no catastrophe or collapse, only a slight sense of …
2023-02-20: Nugatory (adj) - Of no value or importance. From the Latin nugatorius, from nugari “to trifle,” …
2023-02-13: Uxorious (adj) - Having or showing a great or excessive fondness for one’s wife. From the Latin …
2022-10-29: The night closed like a trapdoor, and the ensuing peace made me wish I had been sleeping. …
2022-08-03: On this day in 1527 On this day (August 3) in 1527, the first English-language letter known to be sent from North …
2022-07-13: A Magician Explains Why We See What’s Not There Our visual system is continuously predicting the …
2022-04-29: ”Literature…allows us to recall from oblivion all that which the contemporary eye, more immoral …
2022-04-23: Today I learned that Gram Parsons is buried in the Garden of Memories Cemetery, Metairie, Louisiana, …
2022-04-01: “The man who finds his homeland sweet is still a tender beginner; he to whom every soil is as his …
2022-03-06: Oblomovism (n) - The inability to bring oneself to act; apathy; indolent, lazy inertia. After the …
2022-02-24: agnotology (n) - the study of deliberate, culturally-induced ignorance or doubt, typically to sell a …
2022-02-18: On this day in 1930, Elm Farm Ollie became the first cow to fly in an airplane.
2022-02-03: On this day in 1972, the deadliest blizzard in history began in Iran, dropping up to 9 meters of …
2022-01-23: “True literature can exist only where it is created, not by diligent and trustworthy …
2022-01-12: “Whenever I went someplace, I liked to present myself with such problems that gave me—someone …
2021-10-29: Today I learned that Persian identity once transcended the boundaries of political empires, …
2021-10-22: Aporetic (adj) - characterized by an irresolvable internal contradiction or logical disjunction.
2021-09-01: “I think we have lost a very important science: ethics. People admire lying. They admire cheating. …
2021-08-10: On this day in 1856, the Last Island Hurricane made landfall in Lousiana as a Category 4 storm, …
2021-07-13: The question is not ‘Where is the truth?’ It is: ‘Who is being truthful?’ On the epistemological …
2021-06-13: Today I learned about mautâm, a cyclic ecological phenomenon occuring every ~50 years, when vast …
2021-06-04: Eccentricity as an Antidote to a World Gone Mad While an honest assessment of the past might make us realize “the low likelihood of the present and …
2021-05-20: Cathexis (n) - investment of mental or emotional energy in a person, object, or idea.
2021-05-15: Today I learned that turkey vultures’ sense of smell has been used to locate leaks in an oil …
2021-05-13: On this day in 1958, Ben Carlin became the first (and only) person to circumnavigate the Earth by …
2021-05-12: Today I learned that euhemerism is an approach to the interpretation of mythology in which …
2021-04-26: Today I learned that in the second century BCE, Eratosthenes developed an algorithm used to this day …
2021-01-26: Sesquipedalian (adj) - Long and ponderous; polysyllabic. From the Latin sēsquipedālis, of a foot and …
2020-12-09: Today’s amazing word is “gallimaufry” (n) - A jumble or hodgepodge.
2020-10-31: A hero is a goddam stupid thing to have in the first place and a general block to anything you …
2020-10-10: Inquiline (n) - An animal that characteristically lives commensally in the nest, burrow, or dwelling …
2020-09-23: Read, read, read, read, read. Those who read own the world; those who immerse themselves in the …
2020-09-19: On this day in 1940, Polish underground resistance soldier Witold Pilecki was voluntarily captured …
2020-09-16: Pleonasm (n): The use of more words than are required to express an idea; redundancy. As in the man …
2020-09-09: The Inferno The inferno of the living is not something that will be; if there is one, it is what is already …
2020-07-01: Today I learned about Müllerian mimicry, “in which species with strong defences evolve to resemble …
2020-06-14: Literature is the most agreeable way of ignoring life. Fernando Pessoa
2020-06-10: Today I learned about Henry Wickham, an “explorer” and braggart who, in 1876, smuggled rubber seeds …
2020-05-18: Pierre’s Insanity Pierre’s insanity consisted in the fact that he did not wait, as before, for personal reasons, which …
2020-04-25: Prolepsis (n) - The representing of a thing as existing before it actually does or did so. As in he …
2020-04-22: It is decidedly difficult to tell a lie when you don’t know the truth. Péter Esterházy, from this …
2020-04-16: On Boredom A generation that cannot endure boredom will be a generation of little men, of men unduly divorced …
2020-02-19: On this day in 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, clearing the way for …
2020-02-15: Check out this fantastic word: autochthonous au·toch·tho·nous (ô-tŏk′thə-nəs) adjective: 1. …
2019-12-21: Today I learned that oropolitics is the use and abuse of mountaineering for political purposes. The …
2019-12-10: Events in themselves are not so interesting to me as the conditions that led to the events. These …
2019-12-06: The Whole Usefulness of Education The whole usefulness of education consists only in the memory of it, for just as having heard …
2019-11-26: In true reality, there is nothing but relationships. Piet Mondrian (via a MoMA placard)
2019-11-22: One of my favorite acts of early technoanarchy, the Max Headroom broadcast signal intrusion, …
2019-11-10: The movers and shakers depend on the visions of the dreamers: those for whom the world is real are …
2019-11-07: On this day in 1907, railroad engineer Jesús García saved the entire town of Nacozari de García by …
2019-11-01: It’s only defamation if it’s not true, 1831 edition Today I learned that in 1831, French satirical artist Charles Philipon “published a drawing of the …
2019-10-20: Today I also learned that Standard Oil founders John D Rockefeller and William Rockefeller Jr. were …
2019-10-13: Today I learned that Waylon Jennings gave up his seat on the flight that crashed and killed Buddy …
2019-10-08: You know, people say that things move faster nowadays, but Napoleon’s empire only existed for ten …
2019-10-02: Today I learned about…Hanlon’s razor: Never attribute to malice that which is …
2019-09-25: Men are disturbed not by things, but by the view which they take of them. -Epictetus
2019-09-19: This list of terms of venery (the collective name for a group of animals) is often pleasantly …
2019-09-17: On this day in 1859, Joshua A. Norton of San Francisco proclaimed himself Norton I, Emporer of the …
2019-09-05: The remarkable story of George Psalmanazar, the mysterious 18th century Frenchman who successfully …
2019-09-01: On this day in 1914, the last known passenger pigeon, Martha, died in Cincinnati.
2019-07-31: The revolutionary charge of utopia In architecture, critical activity has always been connected with the concept of utopia; utopia is …
2019-07-31: Wherever God erects a house of prayer / the Devil always builds a chapel there; / And ’t will …
2019-07-29: Everyone we meet along the way Whoever we are, we’re always moving along our own routes, finding ourselves in foreign lands, …
2019-06-28: The energy of the universe is constant. The entropy of the universe tends to a maximum. Rudolf …
2019-06-28: Today I learned about the Hayflick Limit: the number of times a human cell can undergo mitosis …
2019-06-07: History is the vast store of human conciousness adrift in the gulf of time, the present living in …
2019-06-05: Switch ‘the’ to ‘a’ and the world changes. Laurie Anderson
2019-05-23: Today I learned about Poles of Inaccessibility.
2019-05-20: Today I learned that on this day in 1570, the Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, considered the first true …
2019-05-20: You weren’t educated, you were trained. Alejandro Zambra, Multiple Choice (it’s a beautiful, …
2019-05-15: Not Another Way of Saying Things Using in one tongue the word for a thing in the other makes the attributes of both reasound: if you …
2019-05-01: Don’t take any guff from these swine Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (Profanity …
2019-04-28: And the people bowed and prayed to the neon god they made, and the sign flashed out its warning in …
2019-04-18: Today I learned about…The McGurk Effect, a perceptual phenomenon that demonstrates an …
2019-04-12: Today I learned about…Allison Guyat. I should have been a geologist. Or an oceanographer. Or
2019-04-10: The clearest and most creative thoughts The clearest and most creative thoughts are those that occur during one of three states: the first …
2019-04-07: Today I learned about…the Bengali Hungry Generation poets (1961-1965), whose approach was to …
2019-04-07: What War of the Worlds Did All unwittingly Mr Orson Welles and the Mercury Theatre of the Air have made one of the most …
2019-03-28: Today I learned about…Jerrie Cobb, a female pilot and obvious badass who unofficially …
2019-03-21: There is a special providence for drunkards, fools, and the United States of America. Check out the …
2019-03-16: A society based on artists could be trouble, but a society without artists could be really …
2019-03-11: This nonsense of earning a living We must do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living. It is a …
2019-02-22: Today I learned about the Gin Craze
2019-02-20: Lafourche Cajun Vernacular “Traînasse,” from “traîner,” to drag or haul, is a marsh word that typically refers to a pirogue …
2019-02-12: Here, on the internet, is a nowhere space, a shallow time. It is a flat and impenetrable surface. …
2019-02-05: It’s after the end of the world, don’t you know that yet? Sun Ra
2019-01-02: Today I learned about the Draupner Wave, observed in the North Sea in 1995, confirming the …
2018-12-22: The text is a tissue of quotations drawn from the innumerable centres of culture…. the writer can …
2018-12-18: Madness is the result of the shock produced in man by his own intelligence and we still haven’t …
2018-12-14: A democracy where public life is made up of strife between political parties is incapable of …
2018-11-29: During WWII, the Maharaja of Nawanagar volunteered to host nearly a thousand Polish refugee children …
2018-11-21: Today I learned, somehow for the first time, that The Moon Is Flipped Upside Down in the Southern …
2018-11-13: Overheard: “Racist jokes? Bah! They’re all the same.”
2018-11-09: An invisible web of fiction surrounds us and we struggle as prisoners inside it like those who …
2018-10-25: Any day is a good day when you learn about a new cool person: may I present Grandma Gatewood, born …
2018-09-28: ”Pharisaism, stupidity, and despotism reign not in merchants’ houses and prisons alone. I see them …
2018-09-25: “Only the fruits of thought and artistic creation justify man's presence in the world.” - Sergio …
2018-08-13: Top notch wisdom in tonight’s baseball telecast: “Don’t play to prove the haters wrong, play to …
2018-06-22: I’ll go and stay a while, and all the folks I meet they’ll say, “You won’t …
2018-06-17: As the island of our knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance. physicist John …
2018-06-16: By failing to read or listen to poets, society dooms itself to inferior modes of articulation: those …
2018-06-15: Surprise wisdom from a World Cup TV commentator: The true history of the world is the history of …
2018-06-13: It takes a lot of water I was born in the rain on the Pontchartrain, underneath the Louisiana moon. I don’t mind the strain …
2018-06-10: Now, I understand, my privilege means giving up all claims on life as the casual, criminal thing it …
2018-06-08: Move If I’m an advocate for anything, it’s to move. As far as you can, as much as you can. Across …
2018-05-08: We live longer but... We live longer / but less precisely / and in shorter sentences / We travel faster, farther, more …
2018-04-13: The World is a Song I sense the world might be more dreamlike, metaphorical, and poetic than we currently believe—but …
2018-03-22: On Boundaries Boundaries, after all–of custom, of language, of what is and is not permitted–not only function to …
2018-03-19: Democracy Democracy does not mean you will never have corrupt politicians. Democracy is what you do when you …
2018-02-21: May we all get to heaven... Well raise another round boys and have another glass be thankful for today knowing it will never …
2018-01-27: Complexity and Ignorance In pursuing the objective to generalize theoretical models we must ask ourselves whether greater …
2018-01-20: Chance Chance is not simply a matter of choosing, but the result of that which might have happened anyway.- …
2018-01-05: To Rule Forever To rule forever, it is necessary only to create, among the people one would rule, what we call...Bad …
2017-12-22: What Bores You Q: What things bore you? Roberto Bolaño: The empty discourse of the Left. I take for granted the …
2017-12-15: Swimmin Time In the distance is the gloom of the end of days, when the sun calls home its wandering rays, when …
2017-11-29: On Poets If I had to hold up the most heavily fortified bank in America, I'd take a gang of poets. The …
2017-11-07: Never Real Historians We are never real historians, but always near poets, and our emotion is perhaps but an expression of …
2017-09-23: Nationalist Cultures We all know nationalist cultures are boring. - Dany Laferriere is amazing in this Paris Review …
2017-09-13: The World is an Enigma I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma made terrible by our own …
2017-09-01: Rag Water and Bitters and Blue Ruin Well, it's Ninth and Hennepin All the doughnuts have names that sound like prostitutes And the …
2017-08-26: Never Attained ...until the philosophy which holds one race superior and another inferior is finally and …
2017-08-20: The Non-Eclipse What if this eclipse somehow just didn’t happen? It would be even more terrifying for us than the …
2017-05-10: Medicine, Magic, Art It's a turn-around jump shot it's everybody jump start it's every generation throws a hero up the …
2017-05-01: Confidence We nuh concern with who hawking / When dem spit can't reach where we walking. - Protoje, …
2017-04-24: The Default Setting The world will not discourage you from operating on your default-settings, because the world of men …
2017-04-16: Hidden in the Language You should distrust any language that uses the same word for libre and gratis. - Laia Jufresa, Umami …
2017-04-07: The American Fate yet there is no avoiding time, the sea of time, the sea of memory and forgetfulness, the years of …
2017-02-13: Men of Action All "direct" persons and men of action are active just because they are stupid and limited. How …
2017-01-26: Street People I'm hangin' out with the street people / They've got it down / Hangin' out with the street people / …
2016-12-15: History and Fiction History, really, is fiction - not because it is made up of invented facts, for the facts are real, …
2016-12-13: The Storyteller It is the storyteller... who makes us what we are, who creates history. The storyteller creates the …
2016-12-09: Prophecy What prophecy actually is is not that you actually know that the bomb will fall in 1942. It's that …
2016-12-05: Sermons Is a sermon most off putting when delivered from the pulpit of a cathedral or a street corner? - …
2016-11-24: I'll Rise You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt …
2016-11-22: There is no folly of the beasts of the earth which is not infinitely outdone by the madness of men. …
2016-11-20: Communication is, precisely, the avoidance of sincerity in order to reach agreement. - Daniel …
2016-11-16: Places and people are like things: both made of memories and meaningful to us in the same way: we …
2016-11-13: We can prevent reading: but in the decree that forbids reading there will still be read something of …
2016-11-09: But what if everything that is to happen has already happened, and only the consequences are playing …
2016-11-08: Poets are set against the world because they cannot accept that what there seems to be is all there …
2016-11-05: Is the engineer an artist? Good question. My favorite quote: It has to do with: Are we good …
2016-11-02: Every Western ideology promises some ultimate goal — a happy, a just, or a peaceful society. I don't …
2016-10-13: One should not fear the rebel. One should not be afraid of becoming a rebel himself. To do something …
2016-10-08: I smile to keep from howling, I sing so I won't pray or curse. - Roberto Bolaño, The Savage …
2016-10-03: I think good narrative comes from observing the world and what happens inside yourself. The …
2016-09-29: I personally feel that no one gives a shit about my books — maybe I'm just a pessimist — and that …
2016-09-23: Science is what we understand well enough to explain to a computer; art is everything else. - Donal …
2016-09-22: I want to be around people that do things. I don’t want to be around people anymore that judge or …
2016-09-19: It's a terrible thing for children not to get bored and for adults not to get lost anymore - Valeria …
2016-09-15: I am interested in art as a means of living a life; not as a means of making a living. - Robert …
2016-09-12: Salt on wound / And water on mud / We are only memories / On the run across time - Fadwa Suleiman, …
2016-09-06: When truly brothers, men don't sing in unison, but in harmony. -W.H. Auden
2016-09-04: Cynicism is a poverty of curiosity and imagination and ambition. - Maria Popova