Category Archives: Uncategorized

Living by Feeding

Posted on March 17, 2015 by Francois Lachance

Elif Shafak PEN HG Wells Lecture Democracy is not a medal that once earned can be framed and hung on a wall to hide the cracks. It is a delicate ecosystem, a living and breathing environment of interacting beings, checks … Continue reading →

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O Book Ends

Posted on March 15, 2015 by Francois Lachance

Brian Dillon Suppose a Sentence A set of meditations on a set of sentences. The first author in the series is Shakespeare; the last is Anne Boyer. The one is entitled “What, Gone Without a Word?”; the other, “What How … Continue reading →

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think, talk, listen, write

Posted on March 14, 2015 by Francois Lachance

shalan joudry Promptly A miscellany of writing tips and tales from Nova Scotian authors. A fundraiser for the Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia. Head to the land (forest, brook, seaside, tundra — wherever nature is still the boss). Hopefully this … Continue reading →

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Progressive Discipline

Posted on March 13, 2015 by Francois Lachance

Ralph Nader The Seventeen Traditions “The Tradition of Discipline” When the look alone didn’t work, they [Mother and Father] relied on a sequence of three Arabic reprimands. the mildest was skoot or skiti (male or female), the next stage was … Continue reading →

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Mordant Wit and Medicine

Posted on March 11, 2015 by Francois Lachance

Agatha Christie The Mirror Crack’d From Side to Side (1962) A comment on clinical practice … “The young doctors are all the same,” said Miss Marple. “They take your blood pressure, and whatever’s the matter with you, you get some … Continue reading →

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Fun Fact

Posted on March 10, 2015 by Francois Lachance

Shari Kasman Rocks Don’t Move and Other Questionable Facts In a box outside her home, Shari Kasman collected facts in exchange for books, with the hope of learning something new. What showed up in the box was a mix of … Continue reading →

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Tables, Tools, Tasks

Posted on March 9, 2015 by Francois Lachance

Donald Knuth’s Turing Award lecture, “Computer Programming as an Art” (1974) Well, it’s true, not all programming tasks are going to be fun. Consider the “trapped housewife,,” who has to clean off the same table every day: there’s not room … Continue reading →

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Querying and Queering Digital Humanities

Posted on March 7, 2015 by Francois Lachance

A seriously engaging tour de force. “Why Are the Digital Humanities So Straight?” by Edmond Y. Chang in Alternative Historiographies of the Digital Humanities edited by Dorothy Kim, Adeline Koh It is described as “An essay in the form of … Continue reading →

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Three Assumptions

Posted on March 4, 2015 by Francois Lachance

little lessons … These days, those phones in our pockets are changing our minds and hearts because they offer us three gratifying fantasies. One, that we can put our attention wherever we want it to be; two, that we will … Continue reading →

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In A Previous Life I Was a Crème Caramel

Posted on February 28, 2015 by Francois Lachance

Brooks Haxton, translator Fragments: the collected wisdom of Heraclitus 17 Pythagoras may well have been the deepest in his learning of all men. And still he claimed to recollect details of former lives, being in one a cucumber and one … Continue reading →

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