In one largish ballroom, a different sort of panel was happening. It featured the Dish’s Andrew Sullivan and two other men who looked like Andrew Sullivan — pleasant, bearded, round-faced men, which is a chic sub-style among many of the attendees here, optionally accessorized with square glasses and male-pattern baldness. The panel was called “From Philosophical Training to Professional Blogging.”
But the three men on the panel have done so, and splendidly, with varying degrees of national recognition for their thoughtful punditry on political and cultural issues. Besides Sullivan, who has a PhD in political philosophy and is known for his writings on conservatism and gay marriage, the other participants included Slate blogger Matthew Yglesias, who majored in philosophy at Harvard, and Grist magazine writer/blogger David Roberts, who has a master’s degree in philosophy from the University of Montana.
Male pattern baldness and glasses. Gah. I have two regular readers in Missoula, one at the University of Montana, if it's you, David, Hi!
- Bleggalgazing! Once again, I must have been eleventh.
- Bleggalgazing!
- When your bleggal overlords clash.
- Blogwhoring.
- Blogwhoring: @BLCKDGRD - you get many of these links faster that way.
- Pastor Sanctimonious goes after Ron Paul. YFWP's Villagers have backed off their Gingrich attacks, probably feeling they've done their job and Gingrich is meat. If Paul finishes strong in Iowa, expect a week of YFWP Villager open-warfare at Paul.
- The reactionary mind.
- The view from an Iowan.
- Hitchens was an asshole. You knew that, but...
- You'd better sing the anthem Right.
- The church of the consumer.
- Bernhard, for those of you who do.
- Beckett, for those of you who do and shortly will. I need to decide - after Murakami (I'm almost done, and holyfuck, it'll take at least a week to think about before I read any more fiction) whether to first Beckett's trilogy or Gass' Tunnel.
- Silliman's astonishingly generous litlinks.
- Binge and purge.
- A band I love covers a band I hate. Song still sucks.
- Banned by the BBC.
- Destroyer covers New Order.
CALLIGRAPHY ACCOMPANIED BY THE MOOD OF A CALM BUT DEFINITIVE SAUCE
Dick Allen
Make your strokes thus: the horizontal:
as a cloud that slowly drifts across the horizon;
the vertical: as an ancient but strong vine stem;
the dot: a falling rock;
and learn to master the sheep leg, the tiger’s claw,
an apricot kernel, a dewdrop, the new moon,
the wave rising and falling. Do these
while holding your arm out above the paper
like the outstretched leg of a crane.
The strength of your hand
will give the stroke its bone.
But for real accomplishment, it would be well
if you would go to live solitary in a forest silence,
or beside a river flowing serenely.
It might also be useful
to look down a lonesome road,
and for the future
to stare into the gray static of a television screen,
or when lost in a video game
to accept you may never reach the final level,
where the dragon awaits, guarding the pot of gold,
and that you’ve left no footprints, not a single one,
despite all your adventures,
anyone following you could ever follow.