Saturday, October 29, 2011

Hedera

Behold the hedera: ❧

According to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, "[the hedera] appears in 8th-century manuscripts, separating text from commentary, and after a period out of fashion it made an unexpected return in early printed books. Then it faded from view."

Just the punctuation mark I've been searching for—bring back the hedera!

Regrets


-Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes



Click on this comic for a sharper, easier-to-read image.

Monday, October 10, 2011

Two Love Stories

Every adult life could be said to be defined by two great love stories. The first--the story of our quest for sexual love--is well known and well charted, its vagaries form the staple of music and literature, it is socially acceptable and celebrated. The second--the story of our quest for love from the world--is a more secret and shameful tale. If mentioned, it tends to be in caustic, mocking terms, as something of interest chiefly to envious or deficient souls, or else the drive for status is interpreted in an economic sense alone. And yet this second love story is no less intense than the first, it is no less complicated, important or universal, and its setbacks are no less painful. There is heartbreak here too.

-Alain de Botton, Status Anxiety