Category Archives: essays

Subject, Conversation, and Shape: An Analysis of Idiotarianism

Humanity 101, Masterclass, June 31st, 2010 Conversation is a sort of art, as well as a functional mechanism, with which people communicate ideas to each other and with which they also perform analyses: of the specific subjects at hand, and of the other person or people with whom they are conversing. In a recent conversation, my [...]
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I Know Something You Don’t Know

In any culture, through any language, I don’t think a single child has managed to escape the sentiment in a sing-song sort of voice, pronounced with a universal glee by little peers so pleased with the artifice of wisdom that either their cheeks hurt from smiling, or their toes hurt from curling, or both. It’s [...]
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Crafts.

Isn’t it a little maddening how one seemingly innocent word can pull double agent duty and turn its back on you just when you think you’ve understood the real meaning? It’s a dirty little trick –one that can be fun if you’re a politician or are fond of sitting around making up puns with which [...]
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A Suspicious Surplus of Kitchen Appliances

Somehow, in a potentially very sick twist of fate, the kitchen ended up becoming the arena for far more gadgets, strange yet addictively convenient devices, and noisemaking thingamajigs than the bedroom, though arguably some of the items in the standard utensils drawer could easily be transplanted with the right entrepreneurial spirit. Why this seemingly bizarre [...]
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In Praise of Criticism

Criticism, as most of the intellectual or business minded world (as well as those positioned comfortably at the rare intersections of the two) will have you know, is an essential, remarkable, and beautiful thing; something without which we might be hard-pressed to progress, and which can serve as a powerful current against the stream of [...]
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Swallow it Down

I grew up being, for the most part, a vegetarian whose diet was never riddled with the sorts of nightmarish foods that children are typically forced to eat. You know, the occasional bit of gizzard or tongue, or the venison burger when dad either went hunting or relieved his vague sense of bare-chested masculinity by [...]
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What's the Big Idea?

Adbusters has an interesting article in its latest issue (which is, if you’re not familiar with the mag, not too dissimilar from the topics of all the other issues, namely, damn the man, fight the power, and whatever the anti-establishment slogan du jour may happen to be). For a while, it seems as though author [...]
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The Department of Redundancy Department

Though internet marketing is a field that seems to have a penchant for making my blood boil, I’ve somehow had the bad luck to encounter it on an intimate basis from time to time. From my escapades in trying to drive towards the meaning of the underscored, highlighted, bold and italicized, needlessly capitalized and quoted, [...]
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What Does “Living Mindfully” Mean?

Just about every religion and philosophy on offer on the great and messy platter of self-improvement, personal development, and other fields with names that seem totally lame until you hit your late twenties when they’re suddenly ambitious, has something to say about living mindfully. For some disciplines, the concept of living mindfully is fairly elaborate, [...]
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Imitation Culture

In the past couple of years, I’ve had the pleasure –and sometimes the frustration– of paying close attention to things which can, for the purpose of practicality, be labeled as imitations. For the most part, this has taken the form of food. Coming from a society that is rich in the especially attractive quality [...]
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