Archive for the 'smart people' Category

If Ecstasy Be Present

Thursday, May 21st, 2009

I am reading about Arthur Machen, who was apparently an influence on Yeats, Pierce, and Lovecraft, and a friend of A. E. Waite.
His philosophy and approach reminded me a lot of Barfield, but I couldn’t find an explicit link. 
Here is an excerpt from a review of his book Hieroglyphics, describing his theory of “ecstasy”:
"Hieroglyphics" [...]

More on Jon Stewart

Tuesday, March 31st, 2009

My recent post comparing Jon Stewart to Shakespeare’s “Bottom” provoked some passionate responses which served to illustrate my point.  For readers who are interested in these things, I will now share some recently-released data to illustrate the situation.
The reactions to me initial post can be lumped into three general categories, all of which I will [...]

Comeuppance: Costly Signaling, Altruistic Punishment, and Other Biological Components of Fiction

Wednesday, March 11th, 2009

Tyler Cowan mentioned the book a couple of weeks ago, and intrigued by the title, I purchased a copy of “Comeuppance: Costly Signaling, Altruistic Punishment, and Other Biological Components of Fiction ”, by William Flesch via Harvard University Press.  I’m glad I did.  It is one of the best books I’ve read in a long [...]

Short List of Influential Books

Sunday, September 21st, 2008

Vittorio has “tagged” me, which means that I am supposed to share a list of books which have had a great impact on me. By “books”, I take him to mean that form of communication which is reproduced in print and, more importantly, which can be identified simply by Title and Author or ISBN. This [...]

You Aren’t What You Eat

Thursday, November 1st, 2007

A big “thank you” to whichever reader recommended I read “De La Mettrie’s Ghost”!  The recommendation was made in comments to another post 2 years ago, and I only recently got around to reading it.  In fact, I got annoyed with it at first, and put it down to finish a couple of other books.  [...]