The Marginalian
The Marginalian

Reads from 2013

Susan Sontag on How the False Divide Between Pop Culture and “High” Culture Limits Us
Susan Sontag on How the False Divide Between Pop Culture and “High” Culture Limits Us

“There are contradictory impulses in everything.”

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The Perils of Plans: Why Creativity Requires Leaping into the Unknown
The Perils of Plans: Why Creativity Requires Leaping into the Unknown

“The job—as well as the plight, and the unexpected joy—of the artist is to embrace uncertainty, to be sharpened and honed by it.”

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Self-Portrait as Your Traitor: A 21st-Century Illuminated Manuscript
Self-Portrait as Your Traitor: A 21st-Century Illuminated Manuscript

“One must have a reason for reflection — an eye to admire variations.”

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Albert Camus on Happiness, Unhappiness, and Our Self-Imposed Prisons
Albert Camus on Happiness, Unhappiness, and Our Self-Imposed Prisons

“Those who prefer their principles over their happiness, they refuse to be happy outside the conditions they seem to have attached to their happiness.”

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Sylvia Plath’s Unseen Drawings, Edited by Her Daughter and Illuminated in Her Private Letters
Sylvia Plath’s Unseen Drawings, Edited by Her Daughter and Illuminated in Her Private Letters

“It gives me such a sense of peace to draw; more than prayer, walks, anything. I can lose myself completely in the line, lose myself in it.”

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Kurt Vonnegut’s Life-Advice to His Children
Kurt Vonnegut’s Life-Advice to His Children

Educate yourself, welcome life’s messiness, read Chekhov, avoid becoming an architect at all costs.

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Great Writers Reflect on the Divide Between Private Person and Public Persona in Hand-Drawn Self-Portraits
Great Writers Reflect on the Divide Between Private Person and Public Persona in Hand-Drawn Self-Portraits

“Only the crazed and the privileged permit themselves the luxury of disintegration into more than one self.”

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The Science of Why Our Brains Are Wired to Connect
The Science of Why Our Brains Are Wired to Connect

“The self is more of a superhighway for social influence than it is the impenetrable private fortress we believe it to be.”

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The Interpretation of Leonard Bernstein’s Dreams
The Interpretation of Leonard Bernstein’s Dreams

Freud, Jung, sexual identity, and the creative process.

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Walk This World: A Celebration of Life in a Day
Walk This World: A Celebration of Life in a Day

A heartening reminder of the human commonality underpinning cultural differences in vintage-inspired illustrations and charming verses.

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