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What is metafiction, anyway?
Patricia Waugh defines metafiction as “fictional writing which self-consciously and systematically draws attention to its status as an artifact in order to pose questions about the relationship...
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That Which Was Never Meant To Be Seen
“I perceive, the backs of young ladies’ drawings, like the postscripts of their letters, are the most important and interesting part of the concern.” - from The Tenant Of Wildfell Hall, Anne Brontë The...
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The Best Analyses of Mad Men
Oh boy. That’s it for another year. To be honest, that season six finale could have served as the Big Finale and it would’ve still been okay. I can’t wait to see what’s in store for Don Draper next...
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Marginalia
Here’s what I think about writing in books: 1. Don’t do it to library books. Scribbling in pencil is no better than doing it in ink. 2. Writing on your own books is one privilege of buying them with...
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High Place Phenomenon
High place phenomenon is that weird urge you get to jump off a bridge. I don’t get that. I get a strange variation on that. I remember standing on a bridge one time holding a tennis ball. I wondered...
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Did the author really do that?
Last night’s bookclub discussion dwelt for a short while upon whether Anne Bronte meant for Gilbert Markham in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall to be a sympathetic character or not. Markham is a violent man...
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Bad Movies
My husband loves awful movies. The worse the better, if that makes sense. He borrows them from a guy at work who also loves bad movies. I suspect they love to complain about them. It’s like a...
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“Tomboys” of Literature
The tomboy archetype in children’s fiction is an excellent example of abjection. Rather than accept their own femininity, heroines such as Jo march and Anne Shirley suppress it by manifesting...
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Can music change your life?
“You’re only as good as your record collection” –DJ Spooky via Austin Kleon Whenever I spend the night at the house of a relative I’m surprised at how much the background media (along with lighting)...
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On Wealth
The Psychology of Wealth from TSP Will reading make you rich? from Salon How do you get someone to lose interest in their hobby? Pay them to do it from io9 10 Things More Likely To Happen Than Winning...
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Poverty
I’ve never given poor people credit for having noble souls, on the pretext that they are poor and only too well acquainted with life’s injustices. But I have always assumed that they would be united in...
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Modern Beauty: It’s flesh deep
The Mary Sue shared this short video. It’s Dustin Hoffman getting emotional about the epiphany he had after dressing up as a woman for Tootsie (1982). This is an interview from 2012, so I find it...
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False Dichotomies
di·chot·o·my /dīˈkätəmē/: Noun A division or contrast between two things that are or are represented as being opposed or entirely different. Repeated branching into two equal parts. *** NATURE/NURTURE...
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Your Town, Portrayed As Fiction
Quick, quick, what’s the capital of Australia? Huh? Huh? If you answered ‘Sydney’ YOU’RE WRONG. It’s Canberra. About two hours’ drive inland and southish of Sydney. I live in Canberra. Sort of. Just...
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The Importance of Weather in Fiction
from The Book Show – interview with John Mullan Ramona Koval: There’s so many things in this book that I wanted to talk to you about. You say that the British novel took a long time to discover a sense...
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The Evolution Of Men
Humans offer an interesting example of sexual selection. In many traditional societies men go to considerable lengths to control the sexual and therefore reproductive potential of women, including...
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On Stammering and Coincidence
I had a university lecturer who stuttered. He had recently retired, and had come back to the Religious Studies department because his replacement had been dismissed under secret circumstances, though...
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Interesting Links Related To Fish
Print Ad for athelete’s foot cream 1. Aquarium Sink – for people who really love their fish 2. Some people are making glow in the dark sushi 3. Most fish evolved in fresh water, from io9 4. Why This...
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On Feeling Cold
It is cold. It is cold and it is wet and we were going to drive to the snow at the weekend, except why bother when you can be cold in the comfort of your own home? It might not be so cold if...
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We Like What We Are Told To Like
In case you’d like a short summary of all the media this past week, I’ll save you a few hours of Internet reading: 1. A baby was born in the UK. It’s called Alexander something, single-handedly...
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