Shadows aren't tangible and neither is time and yet both have been a subject of preoccupation for humanity. In Shirley Jackson's 1958 novel The Sundial, members of a wealthy family and their close associates find themselves obsessed with validation through the intangible and the abstract even as these things give the characters warning of a very ( Read more... )

( Read more... )

I dreamt last night I made a lemon meringue pie with pecans in a huge, novelty martini glass and I tried to eat it while driving downtown. I don't think this has anything to do with the fact that I stayed up late finishing Bleak House, the great Charles Dickens novel in which the author builds a critique of England's Chancery court system by ( Read more... )

Back in the tech mall. Here I am with my new laptop, but the wi-fi just doesn't seem to work at school anymore. Anyway, it's air conditioned in here.

Just came from Mythology class where instead of doing group work myself and five other students talked about television. Doctor Who came up, I said I'd seen every episode in existence. I explained I ( Read more... )

To those interested in the craft of writing, it's difficult to explain the difference between "writing for yourself" and a narcissistic self absorption. The former is very important, the latter is almost inevitably detrimental. A good demonstration of both concepts is H.P. Lovecraft's The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, a novel which I really don't ( Read more... )