writing
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Vanity (Book)fair
Enrique Vila-Matas, Bartleby y compañía (p.26):“The entirety of Walser’s work, including his ambiguous silence of twenty years, served as a commentary on the vanity of every enterprise, and even the vanity of life itself.” Todo la obra de Walser, incluido su ambiguo silencio de veintiocho años, comenta la vanidad de toda empresa, la vanidad de Continue reading
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Smash the Sets!!!
Whether you view him as a crank or a prophet, you have likely seen Marshall McLuhan cited ad nauseam in discussions of media and its effects on the mind. I was particularly taken with this set of quotes: McLuhan once said to his friend and colleague Tom Langan, while watching television, “Do you really want Continue reading
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Like Old Man Like Yells At Sky
In my more peevish moods, I give vent to my spleen. Years ago, I found that I could no longer listen to NPR for a simple reason: too many of the hosts sounded too inarticulate to be taken seriously as representatives of an organization belonging broadly to the intellectual logosphere of our country. As much Continue reading
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The Ivory Tower Gets a Trust Fund
At the beginning of his Vocation Lectures (issued by NYRB as Charisma and Disenchantment, Max Weber explains that under the German university system of the late 19th century, only the rich could realistically pursue academic careers. At the time, junior scholars with only one published book to their name rented out their services in a Continue reading
EGO LECTOR 