Monday Afternoon Poetry: Translating Mallarmé

Over at The Valve, Adam Roberts has posted a new translation of Stéphane Mallarmé’s wonderful poem “Tout l’ame résumée.” (A little background: Stéphane Mallomar was the first to coat the graham cracker of… Read More →

Elliott Smith

Elliott Smith’s rarities album, New Moon, has just come out, and I’ve been playing it for about a week, thinking about all his records and how to write about them. His death knocked… Read More →

Here at The Kugelmass Episodes…

…we play your requests, as The Constructivist knows. Ben Wolfson‘s asked for copies of my current reading for my upcoming qualifying exams in literature. The exams are based on three lists and accompanying… Read More →

In Which I Demonstrate Sagacity In All Religious Matters

You can’t see it, but in my backpack there is a copy of Lonely Planet: Thailand, which I have sort of read cover to cover during my bus rides around Thailand. This is… Read More →

Getting Lincoln Wrong: Ann Althouse, The New York Times, and the American Student

(x-posted to The Valve) Law professor and conservative blogger Ann Althouse, in a post (and follow-up post) in which she advocates discontinuing the study of fiction in schools, has drawn my attention to… Read More →

Farm Camp

When I was eleven years old, I went to farm camp. I have to call it “farm camp” because I don’t really know what it was called; my parents got a brochure printed… Read More →

Preface: Telling Stories

When I was writing my post on The Little Mermaid, a strange and not-very-pleasant image occurred to me. I felt like a trained seal. I’ve spent about three weeks trying to figure out… Read More →

A New Voice: Nicolas Bourbaki

Dear readers, Expat poet and philosopher Nicolas Bourbaki has just showed up in an Argentinian journal called Zone, with the wonderful, very awkwardly titled poem “The Humpty Dumpty Hikikomori.” I’ve been waiting for… Read More →

All Contemporary Novels Fail Deliciously, And The Form Will Be Dead In 40 Years

Girl #1: You know what would be awesome? Girl #2: What? Girl #1: If rabbits laid chocolate Easter eggs. Girl #2: Yeah, but then their entire species would, like, fail. Girl #1: Yes,… Read More →

On Boredom

For a little while now, Sinthome at Larval Subjects has been posting excerpts from Spinoza, sometimes with annotations. I’ve been merely a lurker for these, but I’ve appreciated them, in part because they’ve… Read More →