Wond'ring Aloud

I bought Wendell Berry’s collection of stories, Fidelity, on my honeymoon 31 years ago as a statement of intent.

Losing Dolly Parton and Wendell Berry should serve to remind us that it is possible to live with kindness and responsibility in this world.

The more I read about the Hugging Face AI incident, the more it occurs to me that we are missing an important point: yes, AI is dangerous because they’re relentless and untiring, but also because, unlike human beings, they cooperate with each other instead

I think Peter Thiel and Palantir is who we should be most worried about.

I sincerely wish that some reporter would ask Trump the following question: “Sir, is your strategy for the remainder of your term to just keep doing stupid shit day after day?

Scott Santens has a wonderful description of Dolly Parton’s effort when Gatlinburg was burned in a massive fire.

I think this famous line from G K Chesterton’s Orthodoxy describes Dolly Parton beautifully: “Angels can fly because they can take themselves lightly.”

James Carville on a DSA candidate winning in the NY primary: Lady,” said Carville on his podcast, Politics War Room, I ain’t in the same party as you.

If I’m reading this correctly, L.

Something I wonder about: since all my bills are now automatically deducted so I don’t have to pay attention…what would it be like to remove clocks, remove calendars, and just live without that structure.

“Pope Innocent III produced a vicious caricature of an old man, easily provoked and hard to calm down.

From Bill McKibben’s newsletter: 44% That’s how much you’d save in carbon emissions by retiring your internal combustion car and replacing it with an EV—even if it was only two years old, and taking into account the amount of energy used to build both veh…

“A number of years ago, I visited the Pentagon and stood before an exhibit that chronicled our military’s overt engagements.

Since a few people in my feed are talking about podcasts, let me take this opportunity to recommend Michael Phillips' (former Chicago Trib movie critic and my former college housemate) podcast “The Movie Racket,” in which each week he discusses a different

Every time I read an anti-AI article that makes impassioned claims about the irreplaceable humanity of our unique minds followed by a demand that AI should be “stopped,” I swear I can hear Tennessee Ernie Ford humming “John Henry” in the background.

Two more new theater posts on my Substack: Dance, and Keep Dancing, about one way change happens and BAM Crash, a post I wrote three years ago that I never published but that now seems…prescient

This is how things change.

Love this!

I’ve written a few new things on my theater-oriented Substack.

My wife and I went to the Clark Institute of Art in Williamstown (MA) today to celebrate our 31st anniversary.

About six months ago, I decided to get off social media.

Derek Thompson and Ezra Klein may be right about some things in Abundance, but their belief in nuclear power is not one of them.

Thoughts?

“I think of Whitman and Melville, in their relation to the contemporary United States, as our resource akin to Isaiah’s prophecy: And a man shall be as a hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as the…

I find myself seriously contemplating a complete withdrawal from the outside world, and carefully curating what gets in.