mustard seed

this post serves three purposes: 1. showing off 2. recommending / derecommending literature (this actually helps YOU in your quest to efficiently read everything in the world worth reading) (but it doesn't justify showing off) (my apologies) 3. enough analysis / summary / comprehension to feel like i haven't totally mentally slacked off this summer so i go back to school in five days , and i'm very on-the-fence about it. i always get excited about change, but i always get sad about change. i feel like i am the rope in a tug-of-war - except a tug-of-war between two very strong men, men so strong and so equally matched that the rope doesn't move (i am thinking about this, and i supposed the strong part doesn't really matter.... the men could very easily be total weaklings. or strong women. or weak women. or squirrels. it doesn't matter as long as they are equally matched. but this is a post about literature, not about physics, so onwards). this is nice because i...

so i know i didn't post the link to the earlier-mentioned David Foster Wallace Kenyon College Commencement speech, and i still won't, because i kind of feel like it might be illegal since it's a book now (and you really can't find too many links for it since they have all been removed due to the book's publication). i'm just posting about it again to reiterate that you should read it . and if that means coming to my house, sitting on our purple couch and reading our copy of it, then do that . my dad bought it the other day and everyone here has read it twice through so far at least. i'm on summer mode! this is a new sort of summer mode, since i'm not doing any sports (no 6am swim team, no afternoon soccer, no running, no workout.... this will start to be bad in a few days). this new sort of summer mode entails never leaving my bed. until someone shows up at my door because i get so excited to see people that i leap out of bed to greet them. so come over...

i'm supposed to be doing homework, but i have no motivation. or had no motivation, until, in my procrastinating, i stumbled across Bill Watterson's Kenyon College commencement speech , which i think is really good. there are some things that life, work, and play have in common, and if we can find those things and do them, we've found a good path. (Dorothy Sayers touches on this - actually, Dorothy Sayers annihilates this subject - in her essay "Why Work?" which you should hunt down and read as well). David Foster Wallace also gave a commencement speech at Kenyon in 2005, you can find it online or, if you want to spend money, they turned it into a cute little book with goldfish on it (which of course catches my attention). if you read this blog and you don't go take a few minutes to read both of those as a result, you're missing out. this is sort of a threat, sort of a guilt trip, and sort of hoping you will read and enjoy both :) if you don't read th...

... this blog. (particularly: this post ) i follow it, and i don't think it shows up on my blogroll on the right over there. anyways, i think everyone should at least read it or click around on it. a lot of really interesting thoughts. good science/economic/social trend following. i appreciate the stance. add it to your list, it is worth your time.