Your Coca-Cola sign, rattling (December 5, 2003)

We are beginning to witness the failure of democracy and the rise of plutocratic empire. De Tocqueville and Franklin predicted it; perhaps de Tocqueville was the more prescient when he admitted representative democracy’s keystone fault lay in both voters’ and representatives’ predilection for acting in one’s short-term self-interest. Democracy only succeeds when education allows the [...]

The Endurance Expedition (February 27, 2003)

Last night I bought a book I’ve been after for a year or more: South — The ENDURANCE Expedition by Ernest Shackleton. Granted, it’s not all that hard to find, but I found myself stymied by one of my cardinal book-buying rules — namely, if it’s a well-known work of literature, and I don’t need [...]

Canon Aid

Canon aid
February 26, 2006
World War I is still bleeding into us.
See, Leavis and T.S. Eliot really defined the standard canon of English literature. Eliot, with his conservative St. Louis starched upbringing, was stunned into a bleak and declining view of civilization by the First World War — or, shall we say — civilization, he believed, [...]

Stacks of Antiquated Oblongs

Stacks of antiquated oblongs
January 26, 2006
I’m reading again. Done with Houellebecq’s The Elementary Particles, which is very curious, clinically pornographic, largely pessimistic, and perhaps necessary. Wanted to put myself back into The Piano Teacher but I’m fairly sure The Girlfriend swiped it from its temporary placement on the floor of my study to use for [...]