Computers Don’t Laugh
A few days ago, whether through algorithmic calculation or sheer coincidence, the website academia.edu invited me to comment on a paper called “The Last Defence of Human Language: Speech Community”. I hemmed and hawed...
Marcella! A Review of Amarcord
This one is a memoir, rather than a cookbook. It’s full of detailed information: places, times, details about food and preparation and teaching and publishing — and marriage. There’s a particularly memorable contrast between...
What is Real? The Unfinished Quest for the Meaning of Quantum Physics: Book Review
Adam Becker, What is Real? The Unfinished Quest for the Meaning of Quantum Physics, London: John Murray, 2018. This book is, at heart, a history of one literally earth-shaking event in the history of...
Field Green: Book Review
It must be a memoir. A reader — or a fact-checker — could challenge any number of things, especially names, including the name of the author. But there can be no doubt about the...
Books and Islands: Book Review
I was born and raised in Minnesota, much of which lies in Ojibwe country. For years, however, I assumed that I should study my own heritage, namely German, and so I grew up in...
Re-reading the Picture of Dorian Gray
I’ve never really been attracted to the horror genre. The story invariably seems too contrived to be plausible. I need the horror to be real. The Picture of Dorian Gray is definitely a horror...