Remember when you were a kid and you’d overhear grownups talking about insurance and taxes, IRAs, mortgages and interest rates? Remember thinking to yourself, do they really understand that stuff? Remember how boring it all sounded and how frightening it was to imagine that someday you might have to know about it too, that someday…
I’ve been re-reading bits of Mishima’s Sea of Fertility tetralogy: book 1 – Spring Snow book 2 – Runaway Horses book 3 – The Temple of Dawn book 4 – The Decay of the Angel. Basically in a Japanese phase, I guess. I’ve been devouring Murakami. Of his books, the only ones I haven’t read…
I’m intrigued by the names the U.S. attaches to its military operations (most recently “Enduring Freedom” nee “Infinite Justice”). I just discovered several good lists (including this list) of such operations. I’d comment on some of the names – some of them real head-scratchers – but I think they really need to speak for themselves.…
A friend (who shall remain nameless) has lately become too cool to be tolerated… Dave Eggers wrote a pretty eloquent rant on the notion of selling out (vs. being authentic or cool), which was reprinted by Harpers a couple of summers ago, but what Eggers misses (and which he is somewhat guilty of himself) is…