Pylimitics

"Simplicity" rearranged


Uncategorized

  • Cheshire Cat

    One of the (many) oddball characters in Alice in Wonderland is the Cheshire Cat. He doesn’t really do much in the story besides grin, and then gradually disappear (except for his grin). Have you ever wondered why a grinning feline would be called a “Cheshire Cat”? Lewis Carroll could have just invented it — he… Continue reading

  • A Medley

    Motion Age This used to be the space age. Also the atomic age. The age of television. Before that, the radio age. The automobile age. The digital age. Those are all what we see right before our eyes. But what about a little bit in the future? Say, five or six centuries at least. That… Continue reading

  • A long and varied post punctuated by quotations from Robert Pirsig rather than titles

    “When you live in the shadow of insanity, the appearance of another mind that thinks and talks as yours does is something close to a blessed event.” ― Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Gunden died quietly in their sleep, so when they awoke (as everyone does) in a world that was very similar… Continue reading

  • Henry Darger

    In an article in The Atlantic, “Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid,” Jonathan Haidt mentions James Madison’s recognition that democratic societies can suffer from “the turbulence and weakness of unruly passions.” Haidt points out that to create a “sustainable republic” is to “build in mechanisms to slow things down” and “cool… Continue reading

  • Welcome

    If you’ve arrived from either my Happened or Hills and Water newsletters, welcome! All the same content will be here, but no longer cluttering up your email inbox. There may still be some rough edges; this is a WordPress site and I haven’t used WordPress in ages (and it seems they’ve upgraded it). Pay attention… Continue reading

  • Latest Experiment

    This is my latest approach to pasting pages to the walls and poles around town. It’s going to take the place of a couple of SubStack newsletters. When I publish newsletter issues I feel like I’m contributing to the world glut of spam. If you want to read what I publish here, you have to… Continue reading

About Me

I’m Pete Harbeson, a writer located near Boston, Massachusetts. In addition to writing my own content, I’ve learned to translate for my loquacious and opinionated pup Chocolate. I shouldn’t be surprised, but she mostly speaks in doggerel. You can find her contributions tagged with Chocolatiana.