Having handed in my tenure file, and gotten my book accepted (yay!), I'm now, for the first time in years, in a place where I can think about doing some really serious reading outside the topics of my research, while I wait for the results to come in on the first, and do copy preparation [...]...

I just finished Gregory Gibson's Hubert's Freaks (subtitle "the rare book dealer, the Times Square talker and the lost photos of Diane Arbus"). It was one of those strange books which sounds interesting but then has you thinking you made a mistake in starting, but suddenly hooks you and has you reading to the end. [...]...

I didn't know him, although I did know and love his novels – Patrick Nielsen Hayden knew man and work both, and has more of substance to say than I ever could. John Clute reviewed his most recent book a couple of weeks ago, and quoted a poem that he published in the Paris Review, [...]...

On the basis of not paying particularly close attention but listening to what Australian friends had to say, I'd formed a generally positive impression of Australian PM Kevin Rudd. Now I see that Rudd has been stupid enough to weigh into a controversy about the artistic depiction of child nudity with the following comment: "Frankly, I [...]...

Matt Yglesias on patriotism: American liberals and American conservatives are both Americans so our American patriotism is very similar. We just have different ideas about politics. Specifically, I would say that liberals do a better job of recognizing that much as we may love America there's something arbitrary about it—we're just so happen to be Americans [...]...