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In Search of Lost Time: Further Reading
With thanks to all who have read and shared my “In Search of Lost Time” (an essay on why academics work so much, published in Inside Higher Ed today), here are a few links for further reading. Most of...
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The Meaning of Life; or, How to Avoid the Midlife Crisis
Why do successes sometimes feel like failures? As philosopher Kieran Setiya points out in a wise new essay, “Our achievements, whatever they are worth, are always numbered” (10). Each time we...
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Upgrade Vortex
upgrade vortex, n. The hidden temporal, cognitive, and/or financial costs of getting a new electronic device (tablet, smart phone, computer, etc.). We need a term to describe the experience of...
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Running Out of Time
Following a December blog-conversation about Atul Gawande’s Being Mortal (occasioned in part by her own chemo), my friend Alison Piepmeier asked me to send her a contribution to her blog, Every Little...
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Farewell to Facebook. Mostly.
I’ve been meaning to write this post for a few months. Over the past year or so, I’ve been gradually drifting away from Facebook. Lately, the drift has become a decisive move. Last month, I downloaded...
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The Archive of Childhood, Part 3: Earliest Memories
The third in my occasional “Archives of Childhood” series. The Archive of Childhood, Part 1: Crayons (27 Dec. 2014) The Archive of Childhood, Part 2: The Golliwog (13 Jan. 2015) What are your earliest...
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This is the time. #PlagueSongs, no. 13.
For my first punk “plague song,” here’s “There Is No Time,” from Lou Reed, one of the godfathers of punk. I chose it because it’s an urgent call to action. The song is two decades and many musical...
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4′ 33″ #PlagueSongs, no. 20. AND 43 notes on silence, time, & the corona era
John Cage in The Hague, Netherlands, 1988. Photo by Paul Bergen.I added the quotation from Cage’s “Experimental Music” (1957). 1 There is no such thing as an empty space or an empty time. There is...
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Plague Is Halfway Over (If You Want It)
I wrote the following this morning, in my journal. I thought (perhaps wrongly) that it might resonate with — or even help — others. So, I am sharing it here. Welcome to pandemic day 250. If your...
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“a nest of trying”: the pandemic at 500 days
If your plague began (as mine did) on March 14 2020, then today is day 500 of our plague era. (If it didn’t, then adjust your count accordingly.) As I noted at plague day 250, very early on I decided...
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