Civilized nations shouldn't let citizens vote their (or especially others') civil rights away, period.

Is that true? I mean, Jessamyn West said it, and she usually knows what she's talking about. But isn't the whole idea behind government this "give away some rights voluntarily" concept?

Not that this has any bearing on Prop 8, of course, which I believe to have been voted in by a group of foolish, slightly bigoted folks who were consistently lied to by a well-organized and heav... more->

My wonderful mother bought me tickets to see Tom Stoppard's 2006 play, Rock and Roll at the Goodman Theatre on Sunday. It was fantastic! Stoppard is no longer as witty, I feel, and he no longer seems to write about existential issues (Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead will probably always be one of his best plays).

However, he is still hyperintellectual. I sometimes forget how much I adore that... whew, there was one scene, with three academics at a dinner table discussing... more->

Hey, wow, I found a googlewhack, my first one! My boss used (perhaps unintentionally) an extremely obscure botanical term today, so obscure that Google only mentions it once. Go ahead, google:

I want to vociferously thank whomever it was that sent me a used copy of Martin Amis' novel London Fields. I really appreciate the thought, and was genuinely touched--the more so because it was sent anonymous!

However, if you (or, indeed, anyone who has read the book) could let me know whether it is worth continuing to read, I should greatly appreciate it. I'm only a few chapters in, but so far it is literal where it should be metaphoric, and the conceit that should be literally tru... more->

All morning I was reading a book by Jesse Ball, and listening to world Inferno Friendship Society and running on the machine d'ellipse, and everything was full of beauty, and I felt like I could almost be someone who did things, or made things, or went mad.

I wondered why I ever played video games, instead of forging beauty from the world in some complicated process that I could almost envision.

Then I got to work, and everything has been steadily falling into mundani... more->

The other day I discovered, upon awaking, that my favorite band had in fact never existed. In my dream, the lead singer was either driving our car or else was in England with us (for I sat in the back, and he was to my left).

He asked us whether we would mind if he rehearsed a song in the car with us. He had a CD with the instrumental version, to which he added his own voice as we drove. Apologetically, he put it on repeat--he needed to practice it many times though. We were in the habit of liste... more->