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Category archive: Commonplace Book

Downtime

Dropped Jim off at the airport yesterday morning. Picked up groceries, came home, worked at home. Today, intended to go... (More...)

Adaptation

Just heard Bernice Johnson Reagon on NPR, talking about, among other things, her experience (as part of the Civil Rights... (More...)

Westerns and science fiction

The opportunity of a Western is that it takes issues of our culture—conflict, racial conflict, economic injustice, what is... (More...)

The effect of reading

"[W]hat with little sleep and much reading his brains got so dry that he lost his wits." —Don Quixote, chapter... (More...)

Paleface anthropology

I'm reading William Tenn's 1958 story "Eastward Ho!" (as reprinted in the 60th-anniversary volume The Very Best of Fantasy &... (More...)

Heist movies are meta-movies?

Nice line from an article about Steven Soderbergh's films: [...] nearly every heist movie—predicated on an elaborate and improbable plan... (More...)

Gilmore Girls on privilege

I was watching Gilmore Girls while entering subs into the database tonight, and encountered this exchange: Doyle: Man, I hate... (More...)

The trick to the travelin'

The Short Sisters' version of "It's a Pleasure to Know You" just came up on iTunes as I was packing,... (More...)

David Foster Wallace on tourism

Recently came across an interesting footnote about tourism (specifically about Americans being tourists in small-town or rural America) in David... (More...)

Wicked fairies and christenings

Way back in late 2000 or early 2001, Palo Alto mainstay Stacey's Bookstore was having a going-out-of-business sale, and Nao... (More...)

Benchley on Great Literature

As Robert Benchley once said: Great literature must spring from an upheaval in the author's soul. If that upheaval is... (More...)

Underestimating power

Cute bit from Overheard in New York: The United Nations, Encapsulated Dude #1: They have been underestimating my power. Dude... (More...)

Dancing above the abyss

I'm most of the way through re-reading the original Earthsea trilogy. This morning, came across a line I particularly liked:... (More...)

Emperors

Found while trying to decide whether to keep various paperbacks from among my father's books: It is not always a... (More...)

Latin verb placement

Peter Dickinson is probably best known in sf circles for the fictional-science book The Flight of Dragons and the kids'... (More...)

Dirge Without Music

Another thing I just found in old email. Dirge Without Music by Edna St. Vincent Millay; from The Buck in... (More...)

Poly Pogo

Just came across this tidbit in old email. In the Pogo comic strip dated 13 December 1951, Churchy and Albert... (More...)

Greek suffix meets Lingua Terra

Sometimes people complain that the word polyamory is a mix of Latin and Greek roots. I've been known to make... (More...)

Austen on journaling

I've finished Mansfield Park, which I'll write more about later, and have started Northanger Abbey, which contains more lively and... (More...)

Orwell on writing

Vardibidian's comments on The Elements of Style indirectly brought to mind George Orwell's 1946 essay "Politics and the English Language."... (More...)

Zinsser

Just came across something I posted to a mailing list back in mid-1999; thought it was worth recycling as a... (More...)

Spam notes

Noted in passing: got spam this morning from one Ereshkigal Browne. Who knew that the goddess of the underworld had... (More...)

Thoreau on journaling

A conversation with Karen M. the other night somehow came 'round to the Transcendentalists, which reminded me of one of... (More...)

Steerpike

Someone's mention of Gormenghast reminded me that I didn't especially like Titus Groan (the first book) but that it did... (More...)

Dancing quote

I can't find my book darts, so here's another commonplace-book entry: Dear me, dancing is peculiar when you really think... (More...)

Two Le Guin quotations

I see no reason not to use a journal as, among other things, a commonplace book. So I'll quote two... (More...)