Monthly Archives: September, 2009
They Make Everything… Groovy
Sadly, I only found out about the Where The Wild Things Ought to Be contest after the winner was picked. Sponsored by We Love You So, the official blog of the Spike Jonze film adaptation of Where The Wild Things Are, intrepid Photoshoppers were invited to wild up the scene, artwork, or video clip of [...]
Ideological Creep
Yesterday's headline over at the New York Times' Media Decoder blog gave me pause for a moment: Critics Claim Ideological Creep at The Wall Street Journal Many fans of The Wall Street Journal worried that the newspaper would become a cat toy for Rupert Murdoch after he bought it, but the paper’s shift toward a [...]
Review Redux 9-27-09
Ackerly’s Hindoo Holiday as appreciated by Michael Dirda — Barnes and Noble Review, September 23, 2009 When this book about J.R. Ackerly’s Indian travels first was published in 1932, Evelyn Waugh greeted it as “radiantly delightful.” It remains so even in our often too-politically correct times. In fact, it’s more correct than ever. Nocturnes: Five Stories of [...]
Park & Read
As an east coast city dweller, I don't usually connect the term "drive-by" with books. But apparently out in Hollywood they're working to remedy that, one garage door at a time. The L.A. Times' Barbara Thornburg recently discovered a wonderful trompe l'oeil bookshelf mural on Mulholland Highway. It turns out the garage in question belongs [...]
!@%$#%@!
A whole book devoted to my favorite word. It’s not that I use it that frequently. But by keeping my powder dry, I get a small but very satisfying explosion of anger, frustration or sometimes humor. The cover captures that effect but just imagine the big bang if they had used the word itself. And [...]
The Light Gleams an Instant, Then It’s Night Once More
My question on this particular Monday night is as follows: How does one get to be the person, or sit on the committee, that comes up with the topics for these surveys all over the internet? You know the kind I'm talking about: "Studies show young children who are read to on a regular basis [...]
Jung Again
"It is plain," C.S. Lewis wrote, "that … the same story may be a myth to one man and not another." If so, then how can we be sure that it's really a myth? He had a passing interest in anthropological and psychological theories about where the recurring motifs in the world's religions and legends [...]
Perfect is the Enemy of Good
On June 5, 2009, Readerville closed up shop, and by June 6 I had started giving serious thought to what would come next. Readerville was good to me in a number of ways, but being part of the blogging team there really struck a chord. I loved the whole colloquy I'd gotten going with the [...]
