Tag: artifacts
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The Memory Theater, Revisited
Late last year, I published the sketch of an essay here called “Don’t Take Away My Memory Theater.” The feedback that came in the comments from you readers was enough to encourage me to try developing the ideas in it even more. Now, finally, a much-extended version has been published by the good people at…
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Don’t Take Away My Memory Theater
What concerns me about the coming literary apocalypse that everybody now expects—the full or partial elimination of paper books in favor of digital alternatives—is not chiefly the books themselves but the assortments in which they find themselves. Specifically, I am concerned about what’s going to happen to my own library. For public and academic libraries,…
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The Proof Industry
Today at The Guardian, a bit of a glimpse into my ongoing obsessions about proofs for the existence of God. Just last night, sifting through a novella I wrote as a freshman in college, I discovered a whole forgotten chapter about the proofs—for some reason, they have been following me so doggedly all these years.…
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Seeing Home
I keep seeing license plates. Only certain ones, only ones from places I’ve lived before. Who knew that Brooklyn had so many cars visiting from Virginia? The other night I saw Rhode Island. And I never see anything else—not Connecticut or Jersey, or Pennsylvania or any other. I certainly never notice New York plates. The…
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The Defense Department Gospel
Donald Rumsfeld took the Lord’s name in vain. Today at Religion Dispatches, I discuss the documents released by GQ this weekend, cover sheets for 2003 intelligence briefings that Rumsfeld delivered to President Bush. On them, Biblical passages sit suggestively alongside scenes of desert warfare. With only the most cursory bit of investigation, I was able…
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Credit Card Rosary
The Row Boat has already become something of a destination for people interested in wallets. This post is a contribution to that burgeoning tradition. My friend/hero Will, who for the months since his success in electing Barack Obama president has made it his business to travel around “visiting people,” sent me a delightful little gift…
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The Poem of Force
Some time ago, a dear friend shared with me a photocopy of some sections of Simone Weil’s essay The Iliad or The Poem of Force. I remember being haunted by those pages at the time, and I kept them in a safe and prominent place but never opened them again. Until, at least, the other…