Paul Mitchinson is a part-time writer and a full-time father of two. He writes when he can. » more about me
Caleb Crain, channeling Nicholson Baker, laments the rough untrimmed pages of certain hardcover books: It’s wretched nostalgia, and it should be stopped. All binding is centralized today, and so no customer chooses deckle edges anymore, and no one can opt out of it, either, except by waiting for the paperback. Deckle edges absorb and retain [...]
The American Conservative, paleoconservatism’s house organ, has continued its war against neoconservatism by launching a broadside against, wait for it, Christopher Hitchens. Well, no surprise there, I suppose. Hitchens has been called a neocon by the Left for years. And the paleos and the far Left have become chummier and chummier since the war in [...]
Antonia Zerbisias notes that CBC workers are being asked to sign on to some bizarre clauses in their Return To Work Protocol: 10. Upon ratification, CMG [Canadian Media Guild] and CBC will remove, as much as is possible, negative references and material [related] to the work stoppage on all their websites. 11. Upon ratification, CMG [...]
One of the most odious reviews I have ever read was penned by one of my favorite critics, Carlin Romano. Back in November 1993, he reviewed Catharine MacKinnon’s book Only Words in The Nation, opening with his infamous line, “Suppose I decide to rape Catharine MacKinnon before reviewing her book.” It got worse. “Because I’m [...]
I received a gently critical remark from a reader, and an entirely reasonable objection from Seth Roberts himself, in response to my feverish rant against Freakonomics from a couple weeks ago. A brief response. First of all, Seth Roberts’ research is fascinating and often illuminating. But the language used by the Freakonomics authors was (typically) [...]
Ed Whitlock is a marvel. At 74, he will be running in today’s Toronto Waterfront Marathon, attempting to shatter his own world record for 70+ runners. The time to beat? 2:54:49. As any amateur competitive runner will tell you, this is a crushingly fast pace. It will almost certainly place you in the very first [...]
I hesitate to call Alex Ross wrong on anything. But upon closer examination, it appears that he has seriously erred in his description of the “presidential chord,” which I referred to below. Perhaps he was misled by the otherwise excellent posting of J.D. Considine. But consider the image at your left, which has been cropped, [...]
The always essential Alex Ross decodes the mysterious presidential chord. It seems we were all wrong in assuming that Bush was simply being a jackass, cluelessly strumming a guitar while New Orleans descended into chaos. It seems to be a strongly dissonant sonority consisting of the notes G, G#, A, B, C, and D . [...]
Am I the only one who found Stephen J. Dubner and Steven D. Levitt’s Freakonomics the most ridiculously overhyped book in years? For a small book with big margins, Freakonomics certainly got a lot of exposure. It tells cute, entertaining stories more likely to be overheard in your local pub than in a faculty lounge. [...]
Blogging has been nonexistent the past week as I tinkered with the site’s inner workings. Small jobs — such as getting text to wrap around an image, or getting paragraphs to show up in my pages — turned into Herculean labours. Such is the fate of slow learners. I won’t bore you with the details, [...]