Monthly Archives: April 2021

Dreams and Anna Karenina

Janet Malcolm writes: * Tolstoy was obviously well acquainted with the guard who stops us at the border of sleep and awakening and confiscates the brilliant, dangerous spoils of our nighttime creations. The capacity to recreate these fictions in the … Continue reading

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Want to Hookup?: Sex Differences in Short‑term Mate Attraction Tactics

From Evolutionary Science: * While a great deal of psychological research has been conducted on sex-specific mate choice preferences, relatively little attention has been directed toward how heterosexual men and women solicit short-term sexual partners, and which acts are perceived … Continue reading

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Spite: The Upside of Your Dark Side

Here are some highlights from this 2021 book: * What exactly is spite? According to the American psychologist David Marcus, a spiteful act is one where you harm another person and harm yourself in the process. 2 This is a … Continue reading

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The End?

There’s an enormous appetite among right-wingers I know to believe that the Derek Chauvin verdict represents the end of America (Tucker Carlson taps into this yearning). I don’t share this apocalyptic vision. Do you have a theory for why so … Continue reading

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The Shadow in the Garden: A Biographer’s Tale by James Atlas

Here are some highlights from this 2017 book: * Janet Malcolm: “The biographer is writing a life, not lives, and to keep himself on course, must cultivate a kind of narcissism on behalf of his subject that blinds him to … Continue reading

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