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Marianne Moore on the Three Elements of Persuasive Writing

Several years ago, rummaging through the archives of the Academy of American Poets, I came upon a box labeled “Ballots 1950” — the record of the secret vote by the chancellors the year the Academy’s prestigious fellowship was awarded to E.E. Cummings, catapulting him into

KDO Search Now Available to Everyone

Ok, after a week of testing, I’ve opened up KDO search to everyone. You can read more about it in my post from last week : For now, the search only looks at posts from 2014 to the present. You can search by keyword, describe what you remember (“the guy who walks in Japan”), or

Celestial nuisance

The cosmos has become a lab for the Big Questions in physics. Along the way, we’ve lost sight of its glorious messiness - by Dylan Jow Read on Aeon

Reviewing the game tapes

A long time ago, football coaches realized that watching previous games was a good way to help players learn to do better. Alas, the only thing we do with “this call may be recorded…” is use it as a cudgel for unempowered shift workers. If we actually want to improve our

Salon, one of the last OG general interest web...

Salon, one of the last OG general interest web publications, is shutting down . “When Salon launched in November 1995, the web was a very different place.” And: “We have reached the difficult decision that our publishing model is no longer sustainable.”

Rosa Parks on To Tell the Truth

In 1980, civil rights hero Rosa Parks appeared on To Tell the Truth, a long-running game show. Parks appeared alongside two other women claiming to be Parks and a celebrity panel tried to guess the identity of the true Parks. See also the appearance of a Lincoln assassination

Grocery Shopping With a Bow & Arrow

For a 1992 conceptual art piece called The Hunt , Christian Jankowski survived for a week on goods he shot at the local supermarket with a bow and arrow. To rebel against modern society, to return to nature: in pursuit of these primeval instincts, for one week, Jankowski lived

Inconvenient brands

For an upcoming blog post, I’m collecting a list of small businesses that are worth bypassing Amazon for. Holiday shopping is around the corner, and sometimes people want to put in the effort to buy something that takes more than a click. Folks like Burlap and Barrel, Gramercy