The other porn addiction

Hal Niedzviecki in The Other Porn Addiction, from Walrus Magazine, April 2009: British social theorist Nikolas Rose talks about the modern individual as an “entrepreneur of him- or herself” who is “to conduct his or her life, and that of his or her family, as a kind of enterprise, seeking to enhance and capitalize on [...]

Art = suffering: Snicket

[Daniel Handler, a.k.a. Lemony Snicket] said people are attracted to dark and subversive stories this time of year, in part because of the dark and cold outside. “In real life, I prefer miracles and goodness. In a work of art, I prefer the opposite. I think people often get confused over what they like in [...]

Inflating the lit quotient

I know i’m mostly regurgitating the words of others and contributing little original thought on this blog these days — ’tis the widespread curse of blogging (and often of journalism) in the modern world. In my defence, it’s an unaccustomed thrill to have a good computer and fast Internet access, so i’ve been ranging widely [...]

Deep artsy thought (not mine)

Here are a couple of pithy ideas taken from from the endnotes to Voyage Along the Horizon, by Spanish novelist Javier Marías (written at the age of 21). Longest literate sentences i’ve ever read, by the way. [The] end of a novel isn’t usually very important. In fact, people never seem to remember the endings [...]