PolyArchive

I like these kinds of lists on other sites and newsletters, so why not give it a go? Judith Humphrey | Fast Company: Six Verbs That Make You Sound Weak (No Matter Your Job Title). I’m guilty of oh, 5 of out the 6. Olivia B. Waxman | Time: What Caused the Stock Market Crash […]

Review: Chasing the Bright Side by Jess Ekstrom This book covers a lot of the same ground that many positive-thinking self-help books do, but the author has some interesting stories to share. In particular, the relative she called “Uncle Bernie” became infamous when he stole away the wealth of many high-profile victims as well as […]

Review: Elgin Park: Visual Memories Of Midcentury America at 1/24th Scale This book reflects an interesting and unique project by artist Michael Paul Smith: he has created a fictional mid-century town. Using historically accurate car models (from the Franklin Mint and other sources), his own model buildings and roads, and his outdoor surroundings, he stages […]

Review: All Blood Runs Red by Tom Clavin, Phil Keith I had never even heard of Eugene Bullard before I read this book. His bravery and determination is truly inspiring, especially in the face of the many hardships he faced. It’s amazing to consider that one person’s life could take so many drastic turns, from […]

Search Terms Bring You Here I love advice columns in general, even when the columnist is terrible at his/her job. It’s fascinating, the problems that resonate so strongly inside a person that they ask a stranger for help. Anyway. Captain Awkward is one of the good ones, but one of my favorite series on the […]

  “I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure, which is: Try to please everybody.”  – Herbert Swope

One of  the first TED talks made available online in 2006, Sir Ken Robinson’s “Do Schools Kill Creativity?” remains the most-watched talk on the TED.com website. In addition to the speaker’s excellent rhetorical techniques (which, indeed, have helped set the tone for many future TED and TEDx events), the subject matter, if anything, rings even […]

I thought, on the train, how utterly we have forsaken the Earth, in the sense of excluding it from our thoughts. There are but few who consider its physical hugeness, its rough enormity. It is still a disparate monstrosity, full of solitudes & barrens & wilds. It still dwarfs & terrifies & crushes. The rivers […]

I have been alone in Paris, alone in Vienna, alone in London, and all in all, it is very much like being  alone in Green Town, Illinois. It is, in essence, being alone. Oh, you have plenty of time to think, improve your manners, sharpen your conversations. But I sometimes think I could easily trade […]

The Underground Seamus Heaney There we were in the vaulted tunnel running, You in your going-away coat speeding ahead And me, me then like a fleet god gaining Behind you before you turned to a reed Or some new white flower japped with crimson As the coat flapped wild and button after button Sprang off […]

Day and night the telescreens bruised your ears with statistics proving that people today had more food, more clothes, better houses, better recreations — that they lived longer, worked shorter hours, were bigger, healthier, stronger, happier, more intelligent, better educated, than the people of fifty years ago. Not a word of it could ever be […]

I love, love, love T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets (previously). The words, “We shall not cease from exploration” give me goosebumps every time I read them. How does one take those words to heart, to take a visceral experience and illuminate the everyday tedium with it? To just not cease from exploration? Can it be that […]

A few days ago, I finally finished Nicholas Carr’s The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains. The fact that it took me so long to read a book about typewriters, the internet, psychology, and other things I love probably proves Carr’s point better than anything I can write here. So here are […]

i can read. There are some things I miss about my old job, such as the awesome schedule and some great colleagues. I miss the concise emails signed only “gs” and the trips across the street to the basement where a very cool crew of a former navy seal, an artist/fashionista, and an independent scholar/former […]

    Photo by George Berkentin / Conde Nast Archive myvintagevogue.