In the year 1760, a Swiss naturalist named Charles Bonnet became concerned when his grandfather Charles Lullin began to experience a parade of “amusing and magical visions.” The eighty-nine-year-old Lullin was being visited by visions of people, birds, carriages, and buildings, all of which were invisible to everyone but him. Apparently these mysterious objects materialized [...]

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I’m in love with this book right now, and I just read this rather brilliant passage (which comes as the protagonist is sitting in the ER with his friend, who lies strapped to the bed, stomach-pumped after swallowing too many pills):
I’ll convey that while I’m living things very similar to things I’ve seen happen before, [...]

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The Uros people of Lake Titicaca have a unique way of life – they build their own islands, float them on the lake and then proceed to live on them. Here is a glimpse of their world, where their homemade “islands” are truly “in the stream”.

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Unwrap each present as if it’s a new love
Feel the square contours of each cardboard box holding within it the mysterious prospects of a new object to be held within your hands
To be owned and controlled only by you so you may discover all of the mysteries held within
Happy Christmas, the new sun is [...]

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Apparently I share the same birthday with David Foster Wallace, Chuck Palahniuk, and W.H. Auden — which is pretty awesome. Unfortunately, I also share the same birthday as Robert Mugabe — which is rather unfortunate indeed.

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I hadn’t realized this was on YouTube until today — when it went up on Smashingtelly. I used it in two different courses when I was teaching college English. As a seminal (and interesting) piece of cultural criticism, it’s definitely worth watching/reading.

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