Survey, interrupting

I am reading Paul Newman’s obituary on nyt.com, and suddenly an invitation to take a survey is slapped over the text I’m reading. Annoyed, I close the invitation. It seems obvious that this is a poor way to offer a survey. I’ve just started reading something of geniune interest to me, I’m a paragraph or [...]

Lamenting the death of the friend I never met

David Foster Wallace killed himself last Friday, I learned this morning. He was brilliant; he wrote fearlessly, with a ferocious glee. As people absorb the news of his death, a lot is being said about his fiction, but I liked his essays best of all. “A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again” is one [...]

Hello, three readers

Nice to see you again! Yes, it’s been a while. I admit it — I’ve been squandering my time on Facebook and Twitter and being a dad and working for a living. But now I’m back, rejoining the ranks of the blog world’s long tail, taking my place in the lower 99 percent, and and [...]