The City and the Suburbs – Part 1

A while back I threatened to write a three-part series about three great albums that feel thematically connected: Sonic Youth’s Daydream Nation, the Smashing Pumpkins’ Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, and Arcade Fire’s The Suburbs. So here goes. Daydream Nation I remember vividly the first time I ever listened to this – I was … Continue reading The City and the Suburbs – Part 1 →

Reading Aloud

After my students too the AP English exam in May, I had some extra time, and wanted to try something new. We're supposed to read The Great Gatsby during the junior course, and, now having read that book something like 10 times, I wanted to mix it up a bit. What I decided to do … Continue reading Reading Aloud →

The Oxbow Incident

There is a possible world very close to ours, differing ever so slightly, in which I drowned yesterday on the Oxbow river in Portland, OR. Here's what happened. I was with my friends Margaret and Hector--we had been rafting together before, and were actually lamenting how calm the river seemed. This would make it difficult … Continue reading The Oxbow Incident →

Point Omega

The summer novel-reading season is here. Though this latest effort of Don DeLillo's is probably better designated as a novella, coming in at just less than 120 pages, and they're pretty tiny pages. There's some interesting stuff here - the book is bookended by its protagonist viewing an art installation at the Met in New … Continue reading Point Omega →

Just Another Word for Nothing Left to Lose

A Review of Jonathan Franzen's Freedom "what is most essential to our personhood is not the ends we choose but our capacity to choose them... It makes the individual inviolable only by making him invisible, and calls into question the dignity and autonomy this liberalism seeks above all to secure" (Michael Sandel, Liberalism and the … Continue reading Just Another Word for Nothing Left to Lose →

The Big Lebowski

It's been very quiet here at OP, so I thought I may as well use the venue to announce some good news. My friend Adam and I heard yesterday that an essay we proposed for Blackwell's The Big Lebowski and Philosophy was accepted and will be published in 2012--released at that year's "Lebowskifest," no less. … Continue reading The Big Lebowski →

The Freak Book

Now a large herd of swine was feeding there on the hillside; and they begged him to let them enter these. So he gave them leave. Then the demons came out of the man and entered the swine, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and were drowned. When the herdsmen saw … Continue reading The Freak Book →

Why Not Harvest Their Organs?

Last night my sister Kristina asked me the following question: "In States that have the Death Penalty, why don't we 'redistribute' the organs of the executed? That way those who took life (lives) would be used to save life (lives)." My initial response was to trot out a Kantian line about using people as mere … Continue reading Why Not Harvest Their Organs? →

Roskolnikov’s Final Dream

Throughout Crime and Punishment, dream-sequences intermingle with reality. Roskolnikov especially has a handful fo dreams. Something in the quality of Dostoevsky's prose makes one miss the transitions, so you can read for several pages of what feels like reality before being pulled back by a character waking up. These dreams are used not just to … Continue reading Roskolnikov’s Final Dream →

Crime and Punishment

[After a bit of a hiatus, I'll post a few more Dostoevsky Reading Project thoughts - this is hopefully 1/3 on Crime and Punishment, but I also have to start work again tomorrow...] I read Crime and Punishment once before, when I was a senior in college. I don’t remember why I decided to read … Continue reading Crime and Punishment →