Can dogs understand metonymy? I argue yes, with five examples.
Michael Lesiuk
Danaerys is the villain, I mean come on everyone, that’s the whole point
Dany is the villain. That is the point of her arc. She is turning into Mad King Aerys. We are explicitly told that when a Targaryen is born, the gods flip a coin: genius or madness. Dany's coin is starting to land the wrong way. Like her father, who was charismatic in...
History, retrospection and narrative
How does art stand in relation to the tradition and history which preceded it? How is the meaning of history made, un-made, or re-made? It is not that "history is written by the victors." No, the proper cliché to mention here is the moment in the classic adventure...
Art, Poetry, the Imagination and the Future
Is poetry a message in a bottle? A message from the future? Does it unearth the things we know, but cannot yet say? “In March 2003, Donald Rumsfeld engaged in a little bit of amateur philosophising: ‘There are known knowns. These are things we know that we...
J.D. Salinger’s “Ocean Full of Bowling Balls” has been leaked
Four years ago I wrote a post about hard to find, unpublished short stories by J.D. Salinger, including his short story "The Ocean Full of Bowling Balls." Since then I've taught a few English Lit courses that have had several of Salinger's short stories and Catcher in...
Resources for Non-Academic Careers and Humanities PhDs
Note: Contact me if you have additions or even ideas for additions. Sections ♦ THE SKY IS FALLING (if you’re a PhD) ♦ Relax, Friend: There Are Non-Academic Opportunities ♦ We Need to Fix the Academy ♦ Cool Programs Aimed at Taking that Initial Step ♦ It’s OKAY to...
Joe Hill’s NOS4A2: Creativity, Inscape, and Horror
Joe Hill has a new book out, and it’s filled with references to his father, Stephen King, to David Mitchell, and to Gerard Manley Hopkins (and to others, I’m sure). Although the references to Mitchell are somehow the most surprising to me, it’s the references to...
Stephen King’s The Dark Tower: a re-read, hazy thoughts, and the Virtual
I'm re-reading Stephen King's Dark Tower series (so I know the ending), and so far I've been very impressed. Having re-read the earlier ones again (I'm on the sixth book, Song of Susannah, right now), some of the things that I was on the fence about, and the things...
Gimmick episodes on television shows (Supernatural, Fringe, X-Files, etc.)
I'm binging through Supernatural on Netflix, and I just got to Season 4, episode 5, "Monster Movie." (Slight spoilers for jokes ahead.) I just wanted to let everyone know that this episode includes the 1931 version of Dracula (corny accent and all) driving off on a...
“Story of Your Life” by Ted Chiang
I just read "Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang. You can find it here: Stories of Your Life and Others. The Kindle version is $7.69. It's really good. It's reminded me (somewhat) of that Star Trek: The Next Generation Episode, "Darmok,"...
Article on George Eliot’s Sympathy, Ethics, and Atheism in LA Review of Books
Look No More Backward: George Eliot and Atheism by Rohan Maitzen. She's an English associate professor who teaches at Dalhousie and blogs at Novel Readings. Good stuff. Gooood stuff. The article includes my favourite quote from "The Natural History of German Life"...
Slavoj Žižek on wrapping your head around Hegel
Standard Žižek. Vulgar jokes combined with an encouragement to not settle for your initial, first-glance interpretation. Also, the idea that Hegel somehow thought that history's over with him, that he comes at the end. It's -- I mean, it's empirically not true....
Anthony Trollope and Stephen King on writing ten pages per day
Two prolific writers from two different centuries agree: 10 pages a day keeps... uh, "not being prolific" away. All those I think who have lived as literary men,—working daily as literary labourers,—will agree with me that three hours a day will produce as much as a...
Žižek, the Coen Bros., and C.S. Peirce on the semiotic reality of math formulas
How do you represent what can't be represented? (Painfully inadequate metaphors, duh.) Then, the Symbolic Real. It's simply, for example, scientific discourse, scientific formulas, like quantum physics. Why is this Real? For a simple reason: the minimum definition of...
On fonts, mind control, contexts
Fonts control our minds. Everyone knows that. I feel like Roland Barthes' Mythologies really needs a chapter on The New Yorker's font and its connotations/myth. Did I read The New Yorker? This question had a dangerous urgency. It wasn't any one writer or...
Writers on literary criticism and autobiography
What does literary criticism say about the critic? This is the story of my life—that is what must always be heard when someone speaks of someone else, cites or praises him or her. -- Jacques Derrida, Aporias p. 2 Dickens was no hero; he was a powerful, clever,...
Jacques Derrida and Stephen King on sleeping when not writing
I'm tempted to say this is true of any vocation. If you don't work at whatever it is you work at... That is to say, when I don't write, there is a very strange moment when I go to sleep. When I have a nap and I fall asleep. At that moment, in a sort of half sleep, all...
Charles Dickens, on not writing, for various reasons
On thinking about Barnaby Rudge (1840-41): "I didn’t stir out yesterday, but sat and thought all day; not writing a line; not so much as the cross of a t or dot of an i. I imaged forth a good deal of Barnaby by keeping my mind steadily upon him; and am happy to say I...
Slavoj Žižek, on writing books
I like his method. I have a very complicated ritual about writing. It's psychologically impossible for me to sit down, so I have to trick myself. I operate a very simple strategy which, at least, with me, works. I put down ideas, but I put them down usually already in...
Fix iStat Nano or iStat Pro Processes in Mountain Lion
Okay, I lied in my title. If you have iStat Nano, you have to switch to iStat Pro for this fix. Don't worry: it's freeware. Anyways, the point is, if you've used the iStat Nano or the iStat Pro Dashboard Widget to check on your Mac's system processes in the past, and...