"Being in a minority, even a minority of one, did not make you mad… If you clung to the truth even against the whole world you were not mad. Sanity is not statistical."
– George Orwell, 1984
"X hits the spot"
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"At the entrance to science, as at the entrance to hell, the demand must be made: HERE MUST ALL DISTRUST BE LEFT; ALL COWARDICE MUST HERE BE DEAD!"
– Dante
What’s the big idea?
“Dostoevsky tackled free will, Tolstoy the meaning of life – but is it still possible to write philosophical novels?”
"People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can’t find them, make them."
– George Bernard Shaw, “Mrs. Warren’s Profession,” 1893
A Literary Exploration of How Power Corrupts
“This story is ‘about how the worlds of journalism and fiction writing are not as unimaginably different as one might think.’”
George Whitman, American dean of Paris literary scene, dies at 98
NexNote: Au revoir, monsieur Whitman.
“Living by a motto taken from Yeats — “Be not inhospitable to strangers lest they be angels in disguise” — Whitman helped out bohemian souls in return for them lending a hand in the shop or cooking supper. Hundreds left behind handwritten notes telling their life story.”
Clive Thompson on the Future of Printed Books
“Will the ebook kill off the print book?”
Every time I hear that question, I think about the “paperless office.” Back in the ’80s, the rise of word processors and e-mail convinced a lot of people that paper would vanish. Why print anything when you could simply squirt documents around electronically?”
Academy bats for films based on Filipino literature
NexNote: SA WAKAS! Palakpakan!
““The MMFF committee has already approved this, but we are still looking for funding,” Martinez told Inquirer Entertainment, adding that the National Center for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) has agreed to hand out film grants, but he’s still awaiting response from the Quezon City Film Development Council.”
Rethinking rereading
“But as my friend pointed out, there is a compelling argument against rereading. There are so many good books and so little time—it’s impossible to get through all of them before you die. Every time I choose to reread a book, I am effectively adding one more to the enormous pile I will never read. When you put it like that, how can I justify rereading Middlemarch for the fourth or fifth time when I could be starting on Moby Dick? And in any case, isn’t there something deplorably unadventurous about rereading?”
10 Themes Shared By Historical Fiction and Science Fiction
” You love spaceship fights and zooming through futuristic cities like Coruscant. But you also love gladiator fights and seeing 1920s Atlantic City recreated for Boardwalk Empire. Why is that? Though historical fiction is supposedly based in facts about the past, the genre has a surprising amount in common with the speculative tales of science fiction. Here are ten major themes and ideas shared by HF and SF.”
