Posted in Marginalia, Pop Culture, Writing & Reading on Feb 25th, 2009 7 Comments »
Horrid pessimism threatens the liberal arts as much as any economic downturn. Profs no longer scare potential applicants away with tales of sweat, poverty, and misery. Instead, they prophecy the demise of a certain “American Dream,” one involving humanist ambitions: “The truth is, chances of acceptance in your field are slim, 5% to be exact.” [...]
Posted in Marginalia on Feb 22nd, 2009 2 Comments »
When I was thirteen, I took Intro to Typing. My eight-year-old brother learned to type last year and now has begun programming thanks to MIT.
Literature (and the criticism of it) has apparently begun that long-forecasted, downhill slide even as interdisciplinary, if more fragmented and “practical,” study fields increase. For some bizarre reason, teenage [...]
Posted in Marginalia, Pop Culture, Words, Writing & Reading on Feb 18th, 2009 No Comments »
When cutting-edge technology and incorrigible youth collide, language reinvents itself. Desperate British parents, take heart: you can soon reference Collins English Dictionary in order to decode what your teen’s “stunting” about being “shifted” really means. Of course, American parents can take refuge in any one of a number of online shortlists of SMS vocabulary, [...]
Posted in Marginalia, Writing & Reading on Feb 1st, 2009 No Comments »
1. Realize that you are not the only one with gaping holes in your literary knowledge.
2. Realize that you are not the only one to sheepishly question that author’s “greatness”; by the same token, you will probably not be the only to look back and find yourself prone to misplaced, hypercritical disillusionment in sundry times [...]
Posted in Marginalia, Pop Culture, Uncategorized on Jan 13th, 2009 No Comments »
To some, marginalia is heresy. Every time I touch my pencil to a margin I hear Patrick Altick retching, although the well-hidden and oft-rebuffed historian within me vehemently disagrees with the beau idéal.
How many times have you been annoyed by the marginalia left by some idiot–huge and redoubled exclamation points, uncomplimentary expressions (”absurd,” “oh, come [...]
