Emanuel Derman

Human Affairs

Crazy Bastards www.nplusonemag.com/issue-53/the...

The brilliant George Herbert in the brilliant “The Collar” red, perhaps too dramatically by somebody, but with the text appearing on the screen, it helps to follow. youtu.be/jCT2rmMkzas?...

Typo dammit: don’t give anyone advice unless they ask you for it. It’s the right thing to do.

The first rule of my club is don’t give advice unless you rest for it

@braddelong.bsky.social In your history of societal evolution and language, how soon did lying and later total BS artistry appear?

Zip it www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4... I found this article really interesting and said things I believe in ‘the function of the artist is to make actual the spiritual.’ Anarchism meant that ‘anybody is able to make anything, particularly a work of art, spontaneously or directly – a primo.’

"In Elevated Landscapes, Dave Mandl rides every stretch of elevated subway in Brooklyn, taking photos through the train windows regardless of dirt, scratches, or grease." Beautiful book of photos by my friend @dmandl.bsky.social roman-nvmerals.myshopify.com/products/vol...

"Why did they invent reading? “Brief Hours and Weeks: My Life as a Capetonian” would almost be reason enough …" My book recommended in today's WSJ t.co/L71FznFpEp

"Doctorow’s detailed anatomy of enshittification, his comprehensive account of the sheer inventiveness of Facebook and the others, which makes 19th- or 20th-century robber barons seem tame by comparison." lareviewofbooks.org/article/gian...

Going to see Mastermind tonight. What tipped me into it was @FT review which mentions that he tries to steal four Arthur Dove paintings. First American abstract painter, I always liked him.

More and more people I know seem to have trouble understanding even slight subtleties in text, text messages, articles, emails.

The Case for Gradual Population Decline by Adair Turner @projectsyndicate.bsky.social prosyn.org/uBsB8qX

Ms. Leddy said she was focused on continuing in the world of social media influencers. “It’s my passion,” she said. “I actually do love being on camera, and I love talking to people, and I love sharing my life.” www.nytimes.com/2025/09/17/s...

Claudia Cardinale, Actress Who Was ‘Italy’s Girlfriend,’ Is Dead at 87 "You can learn beauty. Visconti taught me how to be beautiful. He taught me to cultivate mystery, without which, he said, there cannot be real beauty.” www.nytimes.com/2025/09/23/m...

The First Angel You See --Etgar Keret open.substack.com/pub/etgarker...

Amazon has a special on my book and you can, if you so wish, get it really cheap, for about $9.00, Kindle or hardcover www.amazon.com/Brief-Hours-...

If price was restraining you from enjoying my new reminiscence of youth, loves, & mores in immigrant Cape Town, adorned with 100 color photos, it’s now $17.50 on Amazon. www.amazon.com/Brief-Hours-... J M Coetzee, Nobel Laureate, says: “The chapter on the lonely Mrs Gold is a triumph.”

Terence Stamp, face of 60s British cinema and star of The Limey and Superman, dies at 87

“Now, instead of 100 bottles of olive oil, you have maybe four choices, including one that’s organic and one that’s imported from Italy” ✔️✔️✔️ www.nytimes.com/2025/08/06/b...

Sonnet 145 - never saw it before www.folger.edu/explore/shak...

At MOMA, Jack Whitten’s exhibition. Here are his notes to himself in 1972 about what to avoid in making his abstract art.

Terrifically perceptive article by David Denby about the NY intellectuals of the 30s 40s 50s 60s from Howe Trilling Mccarthy Sontag … www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

“America likes to think Every one can recover from every thing, But about this, Especially, America is wrong.” - Liam Rector www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/55004/...

On Banishment by @lionel_trolling open.substack.com/pub/johnganz...

Looking forward to getting this www.amazon.com/Everything-N...

Native-born Americans! See what it’s like to grow up in an immigrant family: “Brief Hours and Weeks awakes many memories of Cape Town, as it was half a century ago. The chapter on the lonely Mrs Gold is a triumph." - J M Coetzee, Nobel Laureate www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1068...

The unconscious has neither a clock or a calendar

On barefoot running and proprioception open.substack.com/pub/whyisthi...

South Africa Built a Medical Research Powerhouse. Trump Cuts Have Demolished It. www.nytimes.com/2025/06/17/h...

"While missiles were flying in the Middle East and Minnesota police were searching for an armed political assassin, the US president celebrated his 79th birthday by saluting a bunch of military vehicles and thousands of servicemen and women dressed in historical costumes." -- swampnotes

Alphabet Soup etgarkeret.substack.com?r=2fez&utm_c...

Rand Paul: "I've never liked the idea of the parade. I grew up in the '70s and '80s, and the only parades I can remember are Soviet parades for the most part or North Korean parades. The parades I remember from our history were different...we never glorified weapons so much...then there is the cost"

Andy Kaufman acting the mighty mouse theme song youtu.be/FlyPwWeb8-g

Die, (Russian) imperialist dogs.

What matters isn't whether something is conscious or not, but whether you hold it responsible in some way for its actions.

What fascinated me about English was what I later recognized as its hybrid etymology: blunt Anglo-Saxon concreteness, sleek Norman French urbanity, and polysyllabic Greco-Roman abstraction. —- Camille Paglia in the introduction to Break Blow Burn

"almost always, the cost of doing something is so much less important than the thing that’s getting done" open.substack.com/pub/backofmi...

On album art, Hipgnosis, and Fairport Convention. What a great cover By old friend @dmandl.bsky.social open.substack.com/pub/whyisthi...

I saw three Muratova films last week @filmlinc.bsky.social Esp liked The Tuner and Two in One. From an interview with Muratova: ‘Do you know the writer Sorokin? He was once asked: "Why do you write?" "Otherwise, I am scared," he answered. That's exactly how it is: otherwise I am scared of life.’

“Prix fixe” is French for “when you finish your meal you will have paid twice the listed price”

www.aps.org/apsnews/2025...

Getting near the end of Robinson Crusoe. From the versions I heard as a kid, I thought he stumbled across Friday rather than rescued him. The right way to read it is to drink a tot of rum at the same time, which I do

Tonight at 7 p.m. ET, it's these week's excitement-packed installment of my radio show, "It's Complicated" (an hour of prog and prog-adjacent music). Listen at wfmu.org or on the heaven-sent @wfmu.bsky.social app.

I am halfway thru Robinson Crusoe and I realize that Kafka's short story The Burrow en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bur... was a major influence on Defoe. The creature and Robinson both live in constant fear of attack, try to make themselves secure, are obsessed with signs of another life