Abstract Archive

Giant wheel riding at the Minnesota State Fair: Watching the bikes roll in during Free Ride III as Craig blabs:

Short on bandwidth for books lately, so my bedstand’s a nest of mags and newspapers. The August 21st issue of the New Yorker has been so satisfying I’m inspired to share two bits: “Conflicts of Interest” by Nicholas Lemann: Why all the hating on lobbyists and special interests? According to the early-20th-century theorist Arthur Bentley, [...]

There’s no real organizing principle to my newest Muxtape update, other than “stuff I’ve been liking sequenced to avoid jarring transitions.” Marc annotated his latest mix on his blog, which is cool but more ambitious than I’m feeling this morning. My neighbor’s problematic daughter (who I may elaborate on one day) cranks the most obnoxious [...]

Sarah got her Olympics fix on Monday, so last night we tuned in global entertainment of a different sort—just as kinetic, costumed and heavily made-up but with fewer cloying Coke spots. Black Book, a Dutch war thriller about a Jewish heiress turned Nazi spy, bounded along with so many twists that I was propelled to [...]

As often as we use them, you wouldn’t believe how tough it is to name the 100 most common words in the English language. This quiz gives you five minutes to do it. I expected to break 50%, but got a lame 46.