Browser Daily Newsletter 1237
The Public Voice Of Women
Mary Beard | London Review Of Books | 14th February 2014
First recorded example of a man telling a woman to ‘shut up' comes at the start of the Odyssey — the start of literature itself. "The more I have looked at the threats and insults that women have received, the more I have found that they fit into the old patterns. It doesn’t much matter what line you take, if you venture into traditional male territory, the abuse comes anyway. It’s not what you say, it’s the fact you’re saying it"
Joe Gould’s Other Secret
Joshua Prager | Vanity Fair | 11th February 2014
Joseph Mitchell's portrait of a 1940s Greenwich Village panhandler and fantasist called Joe Gould is still considered one of the finest pieces ever published by the New Yorker. It evolved into a classic short book, Joe Gould's Secret. But it was a richer and stranger story than even Mitchell let on. Gould had a benefactor as colourful as himself, a Mid-Western heiress who probably inspired Lillian Hellman's Julia
Vermeer And The Threshold
Morgan Meis | The Smart Set | 14th February 2014
Tim Jenison's film, Tim's Vermeer, argues persuasively that Vermeer used mirrors and a camera obscura to copy the composition of his paintings from nature. His "miraculous" realism was partly mechanical. But to understand Vermeer's technique is not to reduce his genius. He created "a new kind of sacred painting" that discovered religious sensibilities "hidden in plain sight" in the scenes and actions of everyday life
Bernard Williams: Essays and Reviews 1959-2002
Roger Scruton | Telegraph | 16th February 2014
Williams was "lucid, cultivated and entirely serious" as philosopher and critic. He would "perceive and expose the hidden assumptions in every argument, while understanding the goal that the argument was seeking to achieve". He was a minimalist in the tradition of Hume. "He saw the impossibility of systems and grand narratives, and at the same time wanted to uphold our ordinary ways of thinking" (Metered paywall)
Your Oral Surgeon Loves You
Christine Grillo | Medium | 13th February 2014
Trigger alert: There's a lot of dentistry in here. But if you don't mind the scraping and sewing, a nice little story. "An implant seemed like the best option for long-term dental happiness. It would be expensive, yes. Also, very painful. And it was a nine-month process. But on the plus side, I’d have the implant for 20 years, and my jawbone would stay healthy. I decided to be brave, suck up the expense, and count my blessings"
The Formation Of Love On Facebook
Carlos Diuk | Facebook Data Science | 14th February 2014
"Relationships start with a period of courtship. Messages are exchanged, profiles are visited, posts are shared. During the 100 days before the relationship starts, we observe a slow but steady increase in the number of timeline posts shared between the future couple. When the relationship starts ('day 0'), posts begin to decrease. We observe a peak of 1.67 posts per day 12 days before the relationship begins"
Video of the day: Facebook History
Thought for the day:
"The effort the writer does not put into writing, the reader has to put into reading" — Stephen Toulmin
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