My favorite food boy Alton Brown is quoted in Wired this month on natural and genetically modified foods: Every bite that goes into our mouths has been genetically engineered, which is not to say that what we eat is unnatural. Odds are we wouldn’t have broccoli if some farmers in Italy hadn’t spotted a naturally [...]
Archive | June, 2003
Isn’t It Ironic?
Well, maybe, but probably not. Zoe Williams’ article from the Guardian (leave it to the Brits) examines this popularly misused word in our ironically post-ironic culture. From the article: But irony as part of the British literary tradition doesn’t, generally speaking, commence with Romantic irony, but rather with the device that has its roots in [...]
White on White
Well, we are one step closer to the complete homogenization of America. From the NYTimes today: “‘Whether you call it revolution or evolution, the big companies now have the opportunity to be even bigger and stronger,’ said Blair Levin, a former top official for the commission who is now an analyst at the investment bank [...]
Shelley’s Satanic Poet
Shelley, in his A Defense of Poetry, begins by making a distinction between reason and imagination: “Reason is the enumeration of quantities already known; imagination is the perception of the value of those quantities, both separately and as a whole.”
Rolling Along
From today’s Corinth Tattler: “Sisyphus, legendary founder of our fair city and lover of Anticleia, was condemed to eternal life rolling a stone up the hill in the realm of Hades. He accused Zeus, well known father of the gods, of abducting Aegina, vacationing daughter of the river-god Asopus. The god of the heaven and [...]
The Lessons of Hell
At his lowest point as a man and hero, Odysseus looks inward — away from the living — in order to see just how he fits into the world of the living, how he got to the position he’s in, and what he can to extricate himself from hell.
Poor, Confusing Elpenor
Near the end of his stay with Circe in Book X of the Odyssey, Odysseus and crew prepare to leave Aiaia and head for the Underworld. It wasn’t his idea: Circe told him to go to hell. Well, what does he expect? He hung out with her for a year, ate her food, shared her “flawless bed of love,” and one day — from the prompting of his men — decides to leave, and fairly urgently judging by what happens to Elpenor.
