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What I Did on My Summer Vacation

September 10, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur

It wasn’t really a vacation, but I did take about ten days off Facebook and I shirked some other social media responsibilities while I cleared my head a bit and reworked some projects. It’s satisfying to at least challenge the inevitability of those connections once in a while and to get a clearer sense of just what they are contributing to the ongoing work. And it was past time for me to look back through my stack of nearly completed book projects and see which of them still made sense to me, as a step toward deciding if they are likely to make sense to anyone else.

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Ricardo Mella, “Beyond the Ideal” (1913)

September 10, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur

Believe, fight and cling to the dead cult—all the believers do the same. It doesn’t matter whether the idol is made of clay, bronze or meat. It doesn’t matter whether it is dissolved in the mental haze or in the whirlwind of passion. For the ideal, first living and then dead, the inhuman law of sacrifice is fulfilled. … Do not strip away their illusion, their precious illusion. They will defend themselves like lions, tear at you like panthers, howl like hyenas. There is no animal more fierce than the believer.

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The Life and Astonishing Adventures of John Daniel (1770)

September 7, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur

The melancholy Occasion of his Travels, His Shipwreck with one Companion on a desolate Island. Their way of Life. His accidental discovery of a Woman for his Companion. Their peopling the Island and also a Description of a most surprising Eagle, invented by his Son Jacob, on which he flew to the Moon, with some Account of its Inhabitants. His return, and accidental Fall into the Habitation of a Sea Monster, with whom he lived two Years. His further Excursions in Search of England. His Residence in Lapland, and Travels to Norway, from whence he arrived at Aldborough, and farther Transactions till his Death, in 1711. Aged 97.

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