Waggish - 2/95 - David Auerbach on literature, philosophy, film, etc.

David Auerbach

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Continuity as Commodity and Fetish

Sherlock Holmes, Marvel Comics, and Doctor Who: three versions of continuity and their problems. The symbiotic relationship between creators and fans yields a false god.

Aug, 08 · in Essays

Gore Vidal on Henry Miller

My most vivid memory of Vidal is him hilariously trashing Henry Miller’s Sexus–but really trashing the man, his work, and his very existence.

Aug, 03 · in Miscellania

Heidegger’s Theology of Being

Herman Philipse makes very fine tombstones. This particular tombstone is for Martin Heidegger: a very critical exegesis of his philosophy that ends with a damning verdict.

Jul, 30

Middlemarch and Mary Garth

People often forget Mary Garth in George Eliot’s Middlemarch. She is the third heroine of the book, not as idealistic as Dorothea and not as shallow as Rosamond, but wittier and probably smarter than both. Much of the critical work on Middlemarch barely mentions her.

Jul, 23

The Binding of Isaac and the Binding of Symbols

In The Stupidity of Computers, I discussed how computers require rigidly defined ontologies, which are then enforced on us. What happens in the collision between slippery life and a fixed ontology? Here is a case ...

Jul, 17

Jacob Burckhardt on Amateurism

When it comes to scholarship and criticism, I prefer Jacob Burckhardt’s amateur/specialist dichotomy to Isaiah Berlin’s fox and hedgehog: The word ‘amateur’ owes its evil reputation to the arts. An artist must be a master ...

Jul, 13

Jan Assmann on Auschwitz and Guilt

I don’t study ethics much because there is already such a high bar in reaching a minimal level of human decency, so slicing and dicing moral principles feels like buying a fuzzy sweater for a ...

Jul, 03

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RT @wlai: Sad that there's no more Twinkies. The world will have one less word to insult an AsianAmerican who's "yellow on the outside & ...

Uncanny moments in Europe: having little idea whether a given little-known-in-America book is little-known or HUGE in Europe.

Striking line (in several ways) from Ai Weiwei in Never Sorry: "My name has become a brand for liberal thinking and individualism." @aiww

My Articles Elsewhere

n+1: The Stupidity of Computers

Triple Canopy: Anonymity as Culture

The Mythology of László Krasznahorkai

Hans Blumenberg and His Myth Science Arkestra

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"Those who live in the present but who harbor no doubts about the structure of authority, those whose anger does not drive them to delve into the essentials, and those whose approach to their art raises no questions, all of these must renounce their status as artists."
—Masayuki Takayanagi