The Human Condition
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The Logos
We do not prove the existence of the poem. It is something seen and known in lesser poems.It is the huge, high harmony that soundsA little and a little, suddenlyBy means of a separate sense. It is and itIs not and, therefore, is. In the instant of speech,The breadth of an accelerando moves,Captives the being, widens–and
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The Dream Prison of Conventional Wisdom, Part I
In the last several years I have been impressed with the power and persistence of conventional thinking in the face of powerful evidence that would contradict it. So what do I want to say here that hasn't be said a thousand times before referencing Thomas Kuhn and paradigm shifts, etc. Everybody reading here already understands
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Mud (again)
[I posted this thought piece on the film Mud in June when it was in the theaters, but since the movie is out in DVD now, I thought I'd post it again. It might help those of you puzzled about what that post about Mandela and Che was all about–this angel/imp, Huck/Tom polarity is for
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What’s the Difference between Mandela and Che?
Various notable individuals have lauded Guevara as a hero; for example, Nelson Mandela referred to him as "an inspiration for every human being who loves freedom",while Jean-Paul Sartre described him as "not only an intellectual but also the most complete human being of our age". Others who have expressed their admiration include authors Graham Greene, who remarked that Guevara "represented the idea
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Francis Spufford on Lennon’s ‘Imagine’
Or for a piece of famous fluffiness that doesn’t just pretend about what real lives can be like, but moves on into one of the world’s least convincing pretenses about what people themselves are like, consider the teased and coiffed nylon monument that is “Imagine”: surely the My Little Pony of philosophical statements. John and
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Some Thoughts on ‘Breaking Bad’
I came to this show late. I've only watched the first season, and a couple of episodes in the second. I realize that the show's finale is only two episodes off, but I wanted to say a few things about it as it relates to the 'missing middle" post I put up a few days
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The Historical Norm
A description of Germany around 1618: The peasantry for the most part lived in ingnrance of the events happening about them, suffered their efffects mutely, and broke into revolt only when conditions became intolerable. Among townsfolk a better diffusion of knowledge made possible the rudimentary expression of public opnion, but only the relatively wealthy and
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Mud
I saw Jeff Nichols' film Mud last night, and it's one of those couple-of-times-a-year movies you wake up the next morning with on your mind. It's very, very rich. This movie asks important questions about love and truth, about the truth of youthful idealism, and its fierceness in a spirited, young soul, and also about its limits, its
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Being in the Grip of Compulsions We Don’t Understand
I have been getting this feeling lately about the big historical sweep of things and of our individual seemingly insignificant part to play in it. It’s a feeling of how mostly things don’t change, and yet how they do, how greed and powerlust seem to be in the driver’s seat, and yet that they are