Funfare for the Common Man

When it comes to reading, the question I probably get asked more than any other is this: ‘how the hell do you find the time to read?’ More specifically, it’s more along the lines of ‘where do you find the time to read so [damn] much?’ ‘Reading is the best education.’ (Fran Lebowitz) In 2005, I started keeping a meticulous list of what I read, something bibliophiles sometimes refer to as a BOB:  ‘a book of books’. It’s a great snapshot of how reading shapes me during a particular period of my life, or at the very least, a simple way to keep track of what I read. Though I’d heard about this idea long ago, the editor of the NYTBR captures this far more eloquently than I could ever hope to: “Bob offers immediate access to where I’ve been, psychologically and geographically, at any given moment in my life,” she explains in My Life With Bob . “Each entry conjures a memory that may have otherwise gotten lost or blurred with time.” I can’t tell you the precise figures, b...

After my last post, I was asked this: ‘are all your posts going to be so negative?’ From the falling intonation and the forlorn look on my interlocutor’s face, I think she was somewhat disappointed with my, uh, ‘tone’ in my last offering. A few days later, I was asked an almost identical question, yet with a completely different look and sound of expectation and delight: ‘are all your posts going to be about complaining and the things that people do to annoy you?’ This time it was said with rising intonation and a look of ‘oh, please, more, more, more!’ I said something like ‘most probably.’ She broke into a wide smile and started rubbing her hands with glee. A fellow misanthrope! Hey, you can’t please everyone “The safest way of not being very miserable is not to expect to be very happy.” Schopenhauer “Have I not the reason to hate and to despise myself? Indeed I do; and chiefly for not having hated and despised the world enough.” William Hazlitt, On the P...

If there has been one constant and consistent – and incessant – narrative coursing through this blog over the years it has been my ad nauseam ranting and raving about technology. I think it all started with this post from 2010 and from then on, it’s always hard to resist the temptation to have another whinge about technology and its pernicious effects. Perhaps one day I will look at it from the other side and come up with something positive. But for now… I do realise that ‘technology’ is such a ridiculously broad area to complain about. There are far too many angles to tackle, but there are two trends that worry me the most: the idea that technology is a panacea for so many problems, or what Evgeny Morovoz calls the ‘folly of technological solutionism’ , and how impatient it has made [some of] us. What I’ve been reading The other day I read ‘ How It Became Normal to Ignore Texts and Emails ’. The headline alone was enough to make me feel better about life, especially with...