

Now a newsletterer?

After twenty years of blogging, I have followed my fellow netizens to Substack, where I am publishing a weekly newsletter. You can subscribe via the form to the left and please drop me a note with a link to your newsletter.

Taking Notes

Thinking out loud in my corner of the internets.

About

Best Of

I’ve been writing here for over a decade now. In hindsight, only a handful of those posts are still worth reading.

Colophon

The tools that go into making this website.

See Tools

Latest Essays

[Review] Everyman

I believe that we can only appreciate life when confronted with the irrevocable finality of death. I have never loved life more than in the immediate aftermath of when I was certain I would die. On those rare, few occasions everything changes. The concept of free will...

Too Much Information – Week Ending May 6

What follows is a hyperlinked version of the weekly newsletter of the Information Program of Open Society Foundations. Next week Becky Hogge will take up the newsletter one again. You can continue to follow new editions at her blog. News Turkey’s 138 Forbidden...

Too Much Information – Week Ending April 29

Once a week the Information Program of Open Society Foundations sends out a weekly digest of news, analysis and events all about ... you guessed it, information. It is usually prepared by the inimitable Becky Hogge, the former executive director of the Open Rights...

Accent and Assimilation

I like to poke fun at my friend Christian. Though he is Guatemalan, when I see him in Buenos Aires he speaks like a native Porteño. A few months later, in Santiago, and his accent changes completely to the affectionate chirpiness of Chilean Spanish. I have heard his...

How to Read Google Earth Like Proust

It is said that Marcel Proust preferred to read train timetables as he fell asleep. According to Alain de Botton: The document was not consulted for practical advice; the departure time of the Saint-Lazare train was of no immediate importance to a man who found no...

[Review] The Lacuna

I had a personal stake in this one. When I hear the prevalent claims of false nostalgia that "modern writers can't compete with the classics," I often point to Barbara Kingsolver as an obvious illustration of literary prowess that far exceeds even the greatest...