As I was coming up with my own list of “influential” books and scanning some of the ones others picked, I got to thinking a bit about just what we mean when we say a book “influenced” us. People used the term in a variety of ways, but it seemed as though most of the […]

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It’s been a while since we had a good blogmeme, but this past week a slew of my favorite writers have been playing the “name ten books that influenced you” game.  Scanning my shelf, the ones that jump out: Code — Lawrence Lessig I can trace my interest in most of the core issues I’ve […]

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It seems like every year someone feels obligated to remind us that the Economics Nobel isn’t a real Nobel Prize because it’s not one of the categories established by Alfred Nobel’s will. Yglesias does the honors this year, implying that this is some sort of strange scam where the Bank of Sweden somehow convinced people […]

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So, the video in my previous post—rather half-assedly assembled on a late-night whim in my apartment (and judging by the comments, I should really tidy up said apartment a bit next time such a whim strikes)—seems to have become a whole lot more successful than I’d have thought possible. What I’d love to do in […]

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Quick obnoxious quibble with this: Before I put forth new thoughts, let me clarify that while I do think it is deceptive to clean an always messy living room before a first date — that it is “apt to give a false impression of reality” — I don’t think there is anything wrong with doing […]

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You’ve probably read something like this before: I’d like to talk about government. The conservative/corporate propaganda machine has turned “government” into a bad word. Conservatives portray our government as some kind of enemy of the public. We have all heard the scare stories about the harm done by meddlesome regulations from intrusive big government programs […]

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I exhume (or imagine?) a few more in the filmography of James O. Incandenza.

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Remember this theme music? If, like me, you spent many an evening in your childhood glued to PBS Mystery‘s broadcasts of the fantastic old Granada Sherlock Holmes adventures starring the inimitable Jeremy Brett, it triggers a sort of Pavlovian surge of anticipation and endorphin release. I’d half forgotten I had the full run in my […]

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In a show of extreme foolhardiness, I’ve got a long, rambling post over on A Supposedly Fun Blog about the narrative structure of Infinite Jest. The foolhardy part is that I’m basing my theory on the first 60 pages or so, which means in true blog form, I’m spouting off before I really know what […]

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In case anyone’s interested, I’m joining a bunch of other mostly-political blogger friends who are reading (and writing about) David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest this summer over at A Supposedly Fun Blog.

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