Eastern Plaguelands Boogie. Me and Knowmai are grinding content for fun....

The Beav and I rented this watched the first third and then I got called away by the phone. Rental...

A friend suggested this film, and I’m glad. It was a smart, funny movie that looked great. I guess the...

Steve McQueen’s Shame is a disturbing movie for unexpected reasons. First off, it’s not shocking, which says something about how...

Rewatched this movie and still love it. A great sci-fi movie and a great Star Trek film. I can’t wait...

I haven’t looked but, judging by the visual style and celebration of tastefully ostentatious consumption, I’m assuming the director of...

Rewatched this on Christmas day. It’s much better than I remember. Especially the music. …ahhh, the beauties of predigital animation....

Neith, Atmos and Speaks all rolled as undead alts for some Christmas fun in the starting zone....

The day began quietly with reindeer and a new hat. But it ended with a bang when Icepick achieved the...

The government is supposed to be for the benefit of the people who live in it. It is not supposed...

So in the days leading up to my defence, I found myself at the Bibliothèque nationale and grabbed a copy...

Oh Joy! Rapture! I’ve got a brain!...

Istanbul by Orhan Pamuk The same friend who suggested The Museum of Innocence passed this book along. It’s pretty spectacular…and...

It happened when he was on vacation. In a bar naturally. The big one. No power anywhere. City dark for...

Lazy weekend morning hanging out for fun....

Still nothing… ...

Got nothing… ...

All extra curricular culture came grinding to a halt this week to make time for Survivor: Heroes v. Villains, which...

The cameraman fiddled with his equipment. The wind and the sand kept jamming everything up. "This going to be long?"...

He stepped into the elevator, dug the key out of his pocket, turned it in the slot, pressed "P." The...

Knowmai and Dahlram in Stormwind waiting to catch a ride north....

Christopher and His Kind by Geoffrey Sax I went to the closing day screening of this BBC adaptation of Christopher...

Ides of March by George Clooney A well-made movie that is smart enough to know a little goes a long way. The...

The Beav read this book in French, liked it and passed it on. It’s a story told by an old...

Captain America by Joe Johnston I don’t need a movie about a skinny guy learning how to be a man...

I also continued my mindless movie watching, although Unstoppable by Tony Scott may not qualify. Scott’s films are almost always...

I watched this as part of my on-going mindless, movie fun and because it has Julianne Moore, who I can’t...

I read this looking for a book to teach with The Shallows. It’s plodding at bits because it’s driving home...

I just reread this novel. Absolutely extraordinary. A narrative of patterns. I took extensive notes in my edition. When I...

The protagonist shoots the villain in cold-blood. Little Beaver: Qu’est-ce qu’ils vont faire? Significant Otter: Arrêter le film. Tu ne...

Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks Consider Phlebas tells of a galactic war between a human-computer and an “alien” civilization....

I don’t know André Forcier’s earlier work, but I’ve seen his last three films. Along with Xavier Dolan’s two films,...

The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien I hadn’t read this book since I was a child. Rereading it now,...

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is...

I watched Breakfast with Scot after a long day of grading. The kid’s great and had me laughing at the...

Emerson by Lawrence Buell is an excellent entry point into Emerson-studies. I’ve read and enjoyed Emerson’s essays on and off...

How to Practice by the Dalai Lama. Find the card file here. ...

Diane Ravitch’s The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education has...

An excellent book I’ll have more to say about later. ...

Thoughts Without a Thinker by Mark Epstein. Find the card file here. ...

I started Pen of Iron: American Prose and the King James Bible by Robert Alter with high expectations, and the introduction...

Marilynne Robinson’s Absence of Mind is an apology for religious thought in the face of the New Atheist assault on...

Grandin is interested in how the affects–those root emotional responses that Eve Sedgwick discusses in some of her last essays–offer...

For my first appearance at a Dead Writer's party, I went as Herman Melville and read an introductory remark and...

Finding time to read on my own is not easy especially when so much of my time is spent rereading...

A difficult book that took me forever to read. Powerful scenes and moments, extraordinary language. This book exists. It doesn’t communicate. I...

A better, more developed book that The Bachelor of Arts. Narayan is representing a different sense of self, and so...

“The way of the world is to bloom and to flower and die but in the affairs of men there...

I read most of Friedman’s novels years ago and thought she was a stand out with genuine talent. (Her early...

Just like I remembered it. Tedious. I read half. That’s enough. August 2011 ...

I saw it, so I log it… The movie thinks it’s a prequel. Good visual sense but clumsy, non-dramatic, and laborious...

In the small bookstore in Hampi Bazaar (there were probably less than 100 books), I found a pile of Malgudi...

This novel reminded me of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. Both are about a man stripped down to basics by apocalypse....

A huge novel that is carefully written and that I often enjoyed. But it’s not easy going: partly because of...

“You have to be somebody before you can share yourself.” I read this book right after it came out. Its...

Explosion in a Cathedral by Alejo Carpentier I’ve now read enough of Carpentier to have a sense of what he...

This book kept me up all night the evening I finished it. My mind was racing. I couldn’t sleep. With...

A history of Zen Buddhism. The first chapter–a more general history–was a repeat of Conze’s book. There wasn’t much difference...

I showed Jean Genet‘s Chant d’Amour to Big D and The Beav. Twenty-five minutes of experimental queer cinema, and they watched...

A history of early American exploration organized around Horowitz’s travels to the places where the explorers set foot to ground....

At which point in your memoir does common decency require you hint that your awesomeness–or at least the opportunity to...

A useful, concise history of Buddhism. Divides the history into three waves that helped make sense of odd comments I’d...

A collection of lectures about Indian spirituality by India’s first Nobel Laureate. They are interesting but also vague and non-historical....

The Hindus: An Alternative History by Wendy Doniger I read this book slowly over my trip to India, and without...

Our bigger-and-better society is now like a hypochondriac, so obsessed with its own economic health as to have lost the...

I was sent to this book by a blog a friend linked to, and I’m glad I found it. Most...

I read this one night after talking about India with TW. I remember thinking it was fine, a nicely done,...

Brad Delong of all people raved about this book on his blog. I hadn’t read a fantasy novel in a...

I read a few books about India while I was getting ready for my trip. This was a deceptively smart...

A new blog. A new mission....

Right now as you read, some idealistic computer nerd may be running an algorithm, trying to save a copy of...