The writing process
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On chess as a window to the soul.
I loved chess growing up, enough that I always felt a shiver of pleasure when games appeared in novels.
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On Marlon James’s “A Brief History of Seven Killings.”
James created a striking depiction of some of the brutal homophobic lives eddying near Bob Marley.
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On computing and word magic.
Both computers and golems are given life by the generative power of words.
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On free-market economics & the actual meaning of words.
Despite being rather politically liberal, I consider myself a free market economist. (Maybe it’s unfair to self-describe as an economist, though? I did the coursework for a master’s degree in economics… but couldn’t get a degree because I didn’t complete the residency requirement. I was enrolled as an undergraduate at the time, and apparently would’ve…
basic research, beekeeping, CAFOs, cap and trade versus carbon tax, capital gains tax, carbon tax, Collapse, definition of fortuitous, definition of peruse, do taxes make people work less, Easter Island, economics, education spending, fortuitous, free market, free market distortions, free market economist, free-market fundamentalist, government subsidies, health spending, infrastructure, infrastructure spending, James Surowiecki, Jared Diamond, Joseph Stiglitz, market solutions, market solutions versus government solutions, mis-used words, misused words, New York Review of Books, patent protections, peruse, politicians misusing words, politics, pollution, positive externalities, pro-life, progressive taxation, right-wing economist, Stiglitz, subsidies, tax on high earners, taxation, taxing negative externalities, Thomas Friedman, tragedy of the commons, why does Easter Island have no trees, Why I Am Pro-Life, Why the Rich Are So Much Richer
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On mental architecture and octopus literature.
I might spend too much time thinking about how brains work. Less than some people, sure — everybody working on digital replication of human thought must devote more energy than I do to the topic, and they’re doing it in a more rigorous way — but for a dude with no professional connection to cognitive…
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On child pornography & an odd coincidence in timing.
Reading about the prosecution of a well-known fast food spokesperson has felt unnerving to me. In part because it’s always sad to hear about the type of activity he was convicted of. And in part because that particular well-known fast food spokesperson is featured in my (unpublished) book & is described in dialogue as being…
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On avuncular master-shamble-works.
Amit Chaudhuri’s Odysseus Abroad follows the protagonist, Ananda, a young Indian man studying poetry in London, as he strolls through the city, completing errands, reminiscing, before meeting his uncle and striking out together. A single day, á la Ulysses, although the protagonist often predicts what his uncle will do — what he will say about his…
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On reading books in prison (which luckily I have never done).
In case you want to read more about mothers hurting their daughters to protect them from worse horrors, but you’ve already finished Toni Morrison’s Beloved and you want something longer than Jamaica Kincaid’s “Girl,” you could pick up Morrison’s new God Help the Child. God Help the Child felt less powerful than Beloved (as do most books, honestly); the…
Frank Brown Cloud 