From the monthly archives:

May 2008

Spark, CBC Radio

This spring a Slate story of mine sparked some interest online, at Buzzfeed and 43 Folders, which led to this radio interview for a program called Spark at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, a former employer of mine. Haven't had the courage to check the finished product yet, but here goes.
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Interview: Zenware [CBC Radio]

Interview: Zenware [CBC Radio]
This spring a Slate story of mine sparked some interest online, at Buzzfeed and 43 Folders, which led to this …

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The great wall dividing the two cultures of the sciences and humanities has no substance. We can walk right through it.

The great wall dividing the two cultures of the sciences and humanities has no substance. We can walk right through it.
Measure for Measure – …

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Rachel’s Taqueria (3/5) on Yelp.com

Rachel’s Taqueria (3/5) on Yelp.com
I agree with the other discriminating reviews here: the food is flavorful (and the best Mexican in much of South …

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When Hippocrates said that “life is short, art is long,” he did not mean that art outlives the artist. The “father of medicine” instead diagnosed a basic fact of life: true art or skill takes a lifetime of effort to perfect, and the path is fraught with “occasional crises, perilous experiences, and difficult judgments.

When Hippocrates said that “life is short, art is long,” he did not mean that art outlives the artist. The “father of medicine” instead diagnosed …

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What Motivates the Wine Shopper? — Eric Asimov – New York Times

What Motivates the Wine Shopper? — Eric Asimov – New York Times
Wine’s Pleasures: Are They All in Your Head?…

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It’s not a good mental atmosphere for creative work. Eventually it reduces the available subject matter to stays at artists’ colonies. It saps your courage, your willingness to stand alone; it induces you to accommodate, to ingratiate, to give over, to play safe. What’s ruled out by this mad double vision is an idea of writing as something worked at steadily and alone over a lifetime, the vehicle for a writer’s deepest concerns as they grow and change — the kind of career that Gissing had a hundred years ago, that gave us “New Grub Street” and a handful of other powerful, forgotten books.

It’s not a good mental atmosphere for creative work. Eventually it reduces the available subject matter to stays at artists’ colonies. It saps your courage, …

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One conclusion I draw from this analysis of the origin of art and story is that attention—engagement in the activity—matters before meaning. Aristotle understood this. So do artists, authors, and audiences. Even children under the age of three grasp the crucial role of catching and holding the attention of listeners. At this age their stories are as much poems as narratives, focusing on striking characters and effects that violate expectations, but in a structure that resembles theme and variation, a simpler kind of pattern, rather than the event continuity that adults expect of stories.

One conclusion I draw from this analysis of the origin of art and story is that attention—engagement in the activity—matters before meaning. Aristotle understood this. …

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