Thomas Bartscherer

Aw, come on. This cancellation is not what the world needs at the moment.

The only place in DC where crime is up is the White House.

A modest plea that we all finally agree to one spelling of the name Wolf...Woolf...Woolfe...Wolfe. Can't we just pick one and be done with it?

"The summer demands and takes away too much,
But night, the reserved, the reticent, gives more than it takes."

—John Ashbery

Open. Still.

Open. Still.

Tangled up in bbblue.

Didn't work with a straightforward query, but with a second try, got the blueberry miracle.

Had to see the blueberry miracle for myself. Didn't work with a straightforward query, but I got it with a second try.

Ask it how many legs a horse has.

Talking this evening with the head of a major US foundation, recently returned from China. His overwhelming impression: they are looking toward, and building toward, the future. We in the US are not.

"They used to call them 'one,' 'two,' 'three'. You know. All the old ones. We don't do that anymore. We have all new numbers. Now it goes: 'torg,' 'frong,' 'pizazzel'. And so on. It's beautiful. No one ever thought of this before. They said, "sir, the numbers are bad." I said, "make new ones!"

"They used to call them 'one,' 'two,' 'three'. You know. All the old ones. We don't do that anymore. We have all new numbers. Now it goes: 'torg,' 'frong,' 'pizazzel'. And so on. It's beautiful. No one ever thought of this before. They said, "sir, the numbers are bad." I said, "make new ones!"

"Nothing," said Lord Mark serenely.

#WingsOfTheDove #HenryJames

Opinion | A.I. Is Not a 21st-Century Enlightenment

"what a close comparison...illuminates is not just how pernicious A.I. can be to intellectual life, but how it can undermine the very principles of the Enlightenment"

One may be less sanguine about the Enlightenment project and still affirm Bell's critique. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/02/o...

Opinion | I’m a Therapist. ChatGPT Is Eerily Effective.

Perhaps there will be a period during which a branch of therapy develops that does the hard work of preparing people to use LLMs in the way this author does. And then at some point, we realize: who needs the LLMs? And we just stick with the therapists. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/01/o...

Anyone with interest in the performing arts: this is worth reading. As a testament to Wilson's achievement, and as an example of smart, elegant writing about the arts.

"Acquired Taste v. Required Taste — On the Contested Legacy of Kant's Critique of Judgment"

Leaving aside the merits or demerits of the book, the review is poorly written. It’s telling that so many people fail to remark on that, or even assert the opposite.

A guy just wrote that AI engines are now astonishingly good at writing poetry. Which makes you wonder what he thinks writing poetry is.

Abbott sues to remove Houston lawmaker for leading redistricting quorum break The lawsuit alleges Gene Wu forfeited his office when he led the Democratic House caucus in fleeing the state over redistricting.

Donald Trump is demanding that Republicans be granted more seats in Congress without having to win more votes.

To make it happen, the governor of Texas is seeking to remove a democratically elected political opponent from office in order to replace him with someone of his choosing.

Leaving aside the merits or demerits of the book, the review is poorly written. It’s telling that so many people fail to remark on that, or even assert the opposite.

Hi, former Foreign Service Officer here

The Secretary of State might be interested to learn that visa requirements and terms are generally reciprocal. We do it to them, they do it to us.

"Acquired Taste v. Required Taste — On the Contested Legacy of Kant's Critique of Judgment"

A guy just wrote that AI engines are now astonishingly good at writing poetry. Which makes you wonder what he thinks writing poetry is.

Better: the prose introductions and interstitial prose in cook books the Rombauer's The Joy of Cooking or Child's The Way to Cook. Rombauer on stock, for example.

Robert Wilson Expanded Our Sense of Theatrical Possibility

"Wilson’s style was glacial in its pace. Very little would happen very slowly." Bless his heart.
www.nytimes.com/2025/08/01/a...