During the semester I read approximately 250 pages a week, to as much as 600, if it’s thesis season–and that doesn’t even include my own writing or my email. But I also don’t notice it–I just do it, like breathing or drinking coffee or noticing where I’m walking. I did take an old-fashioned speed-reading course [...]
Entries Tagged as ‘blogs’
June 22, 2009
What’s Wrong With the American Essay?
I’m spending some time at lunch today reading Christina Nehring’s excellent essay over at truthdig.com on what is wrong with the American Essay, and she’s making some excellent points: Are we, as readers, responsible for the decline of the American essay? Have we become lazier, less interested, less educated? Attention spans, to be sure, have [...]
May 15, 2009
The Kogi Taco Truck of LA
The search for the legendary Kogi taco truck of LA. The disembodied book comes of age? “The key thing to understand about Korean Mom punishments is that they will not make sense. Ever. It will not teach you that you have done something awful, or that you have made bad life decisions, and it will [...]
December 7, 2008
I Am Either Where You Think I Am, Or, Not
It snowed this morning. It’s the first snow of the year. I woke up and there was the beautiful light off the snow in the kitchen as I came downstairs. I felt released from the fall. I took a break from updating for a while partly because the methods by which I’ve maintained this blog [...]
November 28, 2008
Dead Magazines, Undead Language
At the airport after the CLMP blogging panel, as I wait for my flight to my sister’s for the holidays, in the magazine stands, I see newly dead magazines: Men’s Vogue and Radar. I pay quietly for my Us Weekly and Dwell, and head for the gate. It feels weird to buy a dead magazine, [...]
October 26, 2008
The Good News Bad News Bears
After running the US into the ground and bankrupting the economy by running a permanent campaign and trying to create a “permanent Republican majority”, Republicans would like to warn you about the dangers of one-party rule. This is an amazing Bulgogi recipe, just to cheer you up. Also this one. McCain, the chief proponent of [...]
October 5, 2008
The Big Picture, Pre-Framed
Mark Ames at the Nation online gets it exactly right. The fix was in. There’s no other way to explain the disconnect between Sarah Palin’s performance in last night’s debate–which made me cringe so much that my forehead started to cramp–and the post-debate analysis, in which everyone in punditland agreed on the happy Hollywood ending: [...]
