Read Something

John Updike, 1932-2009

intake — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 19:07:28 +0000

The novelist John Updike has died. One of the most acclaimed writers of the past fifty years, Updike was celebrated for his novels set in suburbia, including the “Rabbit” tetralogy (Rabbit, Run; Rabbit Redux; Rabbit Is Rich; and Rabbit at Rest). He also wrote poetry, essays, and book reviews.

Here is an AP obituary; check back for more articles and appreciations. This is a big deal.

UPDATES:

Michiko Kakutani of The New York Times offers an appraisal.

The New Yorker shares rememberances from several writers and an essay Updike once wrote about Ted Williams.

The Times of London has a nice obituary as well.

A Takedown of Billy Joel

intake — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 19:01:16 +0000

Students,

An assessment of an artist’s body of work is a nice thing to put in your critical journal. Here is one man’s take on Billy Joel. Note how the writer’s tone and diction reflect a seething anger that Joel even exists, much less that he writes and performs mediocre music.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Self-Reliance”

intake — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 20:36:49 +0000

Here is the Word file with Emerson’s essay “Self-Reliance.”

emerson-self-reliance

Interestingly, our new President says this essay is a big influence. See if you can figure out why.

Presidential Reading

intake — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 19:11:15 +0000

Recently, Karl Rove wrote a column for The Wall Street Journal about the competition he and now-former President Bush held every year to see how many books they could read.

Today, New York Times book critic Michiko Kakutani has an article about the books that have influenced Barack Obama. Nice to see that he’s a fan of Moby Dick and Marilynne Robinson.

A Couple of Readings for Next Week

intake — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 19:10:12 +0000

Here is the Thoreau piece you need to read by Tuesday:

“Where I Lived, and What I Lived For”

Feel free to tweak the Word document however you like. If you want to read more Thoreau, you can find more of him here.

And here is your Wendell Berry reading for Thursday:

Wendell Berry, “Life Is a Miracle” and “Why I Am Not Going to Buy a Computer”

If you like Wendell Berry, you can find more of him here.

The Decline of Presidential Speeches

intake — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 01:11:54 +0000

Here is a review of an interesting new book about how presidential speeches have focused less and less on logos and more and more on pathos–to America’s detriment.

Black Friday Turns Deadly

intake — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 22:16:41 +0000

To my students: What does it say about our culture if a mob of shoppers tears the doors to a Wal-Mart off their hinges and tramples several people, killing one of them? Another one of the victims was a woman who was eight months pregnant. Happy shopping, everybody.

Is Batman Effective?

intake — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 06:34:19 +0000

I just got back from seeing The Dark Knight a second time, and something struck me, not just about the film itself, but about Gotham City’s ongoing problems with crime. Batman has been around for almost seventy years now, but his home turf still looks pretty sketchy. Sure, there is a lot of suspension of disbelief that goes into writing a comic book, but shouldn’t there be some degree of change over time with regard to how Gotham City as a whole responds to Batman’s work? We don’t know the crime rate, but does it ever go down? Don’t things get quieter over there? Why don’t some of the more powerful criminals just move on down the road?

Batman is ultimately a fantasy, so most of these questions go unanswered, but there may be some logic to why things don’t change. Criminals–well, actually, people in general–have a natural lust for power, and with Gotham being the metropolis (pardon the obvious allusion) that it is, not even a superhero can prevent someone from wanting to be the main source of contraband in the city. These crooks jockeying for a monopoly on drugs run into trouble, but the Gotham P.D. and Batman only prevent the city from being overwhelmed by depravity. They never truly clean up the streets; there’s always a noticeable layer of grime.

So is it worth it for Batman to go to all the trouble? Probably. Crime is crime, and somebody has to fight it. But he could certainly use some help, and not just from Robin.

Need Advice?

intake — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 01:47:35 +0000

Consider seeking Lemony Snicket’s wise counsel.

Netflix Will Give You $1 Million…

intake — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 21:06:24 +0000

…if you can find a way to improve Cinematch’s accuracy by ten percent. Cinematch is the program that matches customer ratings with recommendations, and Netflix’s own programmers have hit a wall in trying to improve it. The New York Times has a great piece about the teams of programmers (many with no programming or mathematical background) who are trying to win the prize. Two years have passed with no one reaching that ten percent target.

One problem for many of them? This movie.