What a wonderful back-from-the-break surprise. Thank you for it! Funny, I have the same Essay collection from Montaigne on my shelf. Thanks to you, Umberto, and Nassim, I will feel less guilty about not having read more pages out of it. Curious: which newsletters do you read with great pleasure yourself?
I read a essay daily for about a month at the pandemic peak. I arrived at the translation through Sarah Bakewell's book on Montaigne: "How to Live?" which I immensely enjoyed. She seems to recommend Frame translation over the others -- although I have a close friend who thinks Screech translation is more accessible. Life is just too short to read two separate translations! So one's got a pick by sampling.
oh, favorite newsletters. been reading ones like Matt Levine (how is he so consistently witty!) for a long time before substack came around. Another reader asked the same. Seems like a good post for future - picking them and saying why.
"Subscribers are waders dipping their feet in the waters ...The wader, like the reader, is there to just spend the moment.
So beautifully written, just like many other parts of this lovely edition of your newsletter! Loved it!
Also, I have frequently thought about the act of piling up unread books, and also shared the BBC article (Tsundoku: The art of buying books and never reading them) ... thanks for adding your perspective (and support) for Tsundoku! :-)
The stink spirit was actually a river spirit, you started off with how LLMs are like the stink spirit and ended with how newsletters/books are like rivers, I am wondering if it was coincidental or by design? I too subscribe to a lot of newsletters and read only a few. Yours maybe one of the few I read regularly. During this post (issue?) I realized why I like your newsletter, it's because it usually has something I would have liked to write myself.
thanks, Sandeep! In the film, it is indeed a river spirit caught up in the muck. A reminder to not pollute our rivers like our minds! Writing outcomes, like this one, are often not by design. One notices some unanticipated connections, while writing :).
Thank you for this wonderful post, Prof Senthil. You have absolved me from my guilt of unread newsletter pileup in my inbox. I have always prided myself on the number of read books in my humble physical+online library but your post gives me new ideas. It's fascinating to see The Dude making it beside some of the literary greats like Eco & Russell. I still fondly remember one of my English textbook lessons titled "Knowledge and Wisdom" by Bertrand Russell and have developed enormous respect for the educators who pick those items for the school textbooks.
Now that this newsletter came out of the Anti-library, I'll compensate by adding "The Complete Essays of Montaigne" to it.
What a wonderful back-from-the-break surprise. Thank you for it! Funny, I have the same Essay collection from Montaigne on my shelf. Thanks to you, Umberto, and Nassim, I will feel less guilty about not having read more pages out of it. Curious: which newsletters do you read with great pleasure yourself?
I read a essay daily for about a month at the pandemic peak. I arrived at the translation through Sarah Bakewell's book on Montaigne: "How to Live?" which I immensely enjoyed. She seems to recommend Frame translation over the others -- although I have a close friend who thinks Screech translation is more accessible. Life is just too short to read two separate translations! So one's got a pick by sampling.
oh, favorite newsletters. been reading ones like Matt Levine (how is he so consistently witty!) for a long time before substack came around. Another reader asked the same. Seems like a good post for future - picking them and saying why.
"Subscribers are waders dipping their feet in the waters ...The wader, like the reader, is there to just spend the moment.
So beautifully written, just like many other parts of this lovely edition of your newsletter! Loved it!
Also, I have frequently thought about the act of piling up unread books, and also shared the BBC article (Tsundoku: The art of buying books and never reading them) ... thanks for adding your perspective (and support) for Tsundoku! :-)
Thank you Raju. Tsundoku. that's another Japanese word I love!
Here is the link to the article you were talking about.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-44981013
The stink spirit was actually a river spirit, you started off with how LLMs are like the stink spirit and ended with how newsletters/books are like rivers, I am wondering if it was coincidental or by design? I too subscribe to a lot of newsletters and read only a few. Yours maybe one of the few I read regularly. During this post (issue?) I realized why I like your newsletter, it's because it usually has something I would have liked to write myself.
thanks, Sandeep! In the film, it is indeed a river spirit caught up in the muck. A reminder to not pollute our rivers like our minds! Writing outcomes, like this one, are often not by design. One notices some unanticipated connections, while writing :).
Thank you for this wonderful post, Prof Senthil. You have absolved me from my guilt of unread newsletter pileup in my inbox. I have always prided myself on the number of read books in my humble physical+online library but your post gives me new ideas. It's fascinating to see The Dude making it beside some of the literary greats like Eco & Russell. I still fondly remember one of my English textbook lessons titled "Knowledge and Wisdom" by Bertrand Russell and have developed enormous respect for the educators who pick those items for the school textbooks.
Now that this newsletter came out of the Anti-library, I'll compensate by adding "The Complete Essays of Montaigne" to it.