Not That I'm Surprised With This Sort of Coincidence Any More
A week ago I was introduced to Angus and Basil by a friend, Melanie, who mentioned that a short film they made was going to be screened at Atlanta Film Festival shorts program: 48 Hour Film Project, Best of Atlanta. "Yolk of Authority" is the name of their film. On Tuesday night I ran into an acquaintance, Khurram, who introduced me to a local actor, Shezi, who mentioned he was in a 48-hour-project film. "Which one?" I asked. Yolk of Authority. On Saturday, after watching the shorts, I chatted with Gerry, an ACLU lawyer in Atlanta. Gerry mentioned that he also knows Shezi, because Shezi had been an intern at the ACLU. Later that night I met Jerry once again at a party and he mentioned that he had taught Jen last semester.

From "What is a Classic" by J. M. Coetzee
If there is anything that gives one confidence in the classic status of Bach, it is the testing process he has been through within the profession. Not only did this provincial religious mystic outlast the Enlightenment turn toward rationality and the metropolis, but he also survived what turned out to have been a kiss of death, namely, being promoted during the nineteenth-century revival as a great son of the German soil. And today, every time a beginner stumbles through the first prelude of the "48," Bach is being tested again, within the profession. Dare I suggest that the classic in music is what emerges intact from this process of day-by-day testing? (italics mine)

The Return of Straight and Crooked Thinking
The bad news: Robert Thouless's Straight and Crooked Thinking, a most commendable survey of unsound arguments, is out of print.
The good news: a summary is now available online.

Seeing is Believing
As Stanley Kaufmann pointed out in a movie review last year, movies play on the "seeing is believing" phenomenon. You can watch a character do something implausible like fight an entire army single-handed (Rambo III), dodge bullets (Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins), or explode from overeating (The Meaning of Life). And yet you believe that it happens because you see it. Today's blogdex features "The Reality of Running Away from Stuff" by Idris Hsi, a description humans can outrun. I mention it here because this is the first time someone I know has been blogdexed. (Idris is a teaching assistant's teaching assistant at Georgia Tech.)

Elated
I just discovered Experimental Philosophy, a new group blog about my favorite subject. I was unaware that it had a name, even though I have been aware that there are researchers at intersection of philosophy and experimental psychology. Furthermore, on eof the contributors to this blog is Al Mele, formerly of Davidson College but now at FSU.

Indian poet Dom Moraes dies
A more extensive obituary in Outlook India includes selections from his prose and poetry. They also have a list of his book reviews and articles, which includes this review of From The Holy Mountain, a travelogue by William Dalrymple.

Everyone Wants to be Cary Grant
Turner Classic Movies is screening North by Northwest, Notorious, and Suspicion today (link will expire). They're also premiering "Cary Grant: A Class Apart", a TCM documentary, at 8 p.m. Eastern.