Author: Chad
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A skeptic’s ‘Glance at the Public Libraries’ of 1928, from H.L. Mencken’s ‘American Mercury’
Watch out, world: we’ve got ourselves a 90-year-old hot take! In the June 1928 issue of The American Mercury, a periodical edited by the famous journalist H.L. Mencken, there’s an article by Fletcher Pratt called “A Glance At The Public Libraries”. I stumbled upon the issue while processing material at the Frances Willard House Museum.…
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Ace Ventura: Reader
“Fiction can be fun, but I find the reference section much more enlightening.” — Ace Ventura: Pet Detective I was into the Ace Ventura movies to an embarrassing degree as a tween. They entered my consciousness and comic sensibility at the perfect time. I quoted them often. There’s even home video of me doing a pretty good…
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Lincoln’s letter to Grant: ‘You were right, and I was wrong’
This letter from President Lincoln to Major General Ulysses Grant in July 1863 might be the last documented instance of a president apologizing for anything: My dear General I do not remember that you and I ever met personally. I write this now as a grateful acknowledgment for the almost inestimable service you have done…
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Reading serendipitously
In an interview, Sven Birkerts talks about how serendipity guides his reading: Any good book will, in the manner of a pool-table bumper, send you angling off to another, and that to another, on and on. The trails are not predictable, they really are serendipitous, but not in the manner of Pandora (“If you liked…
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Black Panther
So, did it meet my expectations? Definitely. I can’t believe writer-director Ryan Coogler is only 31, and that Michael B. Jordan (also 31) has been in so many great roles already. I couldn’t help noticing the similarities to Wonder Woman. Hotly anticipated origin stories of beloved but neglected characters, both featuring hidden utopias, badass bands of…
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Wendell Berry on education in the presence of fear
In a speech given right after September 11, Wendell Berry kept his focus on the long-term concerns of a society and the principles of a proper education: The complexity of our present trouble suggests as never before that we need to change our present concept of education. Education is not properly an industry, and its…
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Trump’s Razor
Trump is either hiding something so threatening to himself, or he’s criminally incompetent to be commander in chief. It is impossible yet to say which explanation for his behavior is true, but it seems highly likely that one of these scenarios explains Trump’s refusal to respond to Russia’s direct attack on our system — a…
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New font based on Lithuania’s Act of Independence
Eimantas Paškonis made a beautiful new font based on the manuscript of the Act of Independence of Lithuania, passed in 1918: The whole project took more than 6 months. First of all, a high-resolution scan of the Act of Independence of Lithuania had to be obtained from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Then the person who…
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1946 Olympia typewriter vs. 2012 iPad – who ya got?
Matt Thomas, via Submitted For Your Perusal, spotlights an interesting contrast between two New York Times stories in the same week. Exhibit #1, from a brief feature on Danielle Steel: After all these years, Steel continues to use the same 1946 Olympia typewriter she bought used when working on her first book. “I am utterly, totally and faithfully…
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At the corner of ‘84 Charing Cross Road’ and Typewriter Street
A stately British bookseller and an American writer exchange letters across the pond? Sounds like a cozy English romance novel to me. Turns out 84, Charing Cross Road is neither a novel nor a romance, but a collection of actual letters from over 20 years of correspondence, and it’s delightful. Frank Doel, one of the booksellers…
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Refer Madness: The Worst Thing
Refer Madness spotlights strange, intriguing, or otherwise noteworthy questions I encounter at the library reference desk. Some days on the desk are rough. Challenging patrons, technical difficulties, a case of the Mondays—whatever the issues are, like sneezes and football sacks they often come in bunches to create a day that’s better forgotten. This was not one of those days. First,…
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How to ‘Win Bigly’? Have no shame
Until about two years ago I knew Scott Adams only as the Dilbert guy. But once he started accurately predicting Donald Trump’s unconventional political path using the lenses of persuasion and hypnotism, gaining critics along the way but scoring on predictions over and over when most everyone else was aghast at Trump’s successes, I figured…
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Media of the moment
An ongoing series on books, movies & more I’ve encountered recently: Nurtured By Love by Shinichi Suzuki. Great little book on how to cultivate talent, specifically in children and music but also for anyone in anything. On Trails: An Exploration by Robert Moor. Enjoyed the adventure of this winding, informative book on the nature of trails…
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School of Rock
“We’re not goofing off. We’re creating musical fusion.” The video of a guy drumming to the “Just give up” speech from School of Rock inspired me to rewatch that 2003 Richard Linklater film for the first time in a while. It’s a meaningful movie for me, coming out when I was in high school and…
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Drumming to Dewey Finn in ‘School of Rock’
File this under “things I’d never think of but now make perfect sense”: drumming synced to Dewey Finn’s “Just give up” speech in School of Rock. Incredible. He has a bunch more too, like Willy Wonka and Fawlty Towers. School of Rock was a formative movie for me. It came out when I was in…