Nate Barksdale

The Joys and Perils of Overlapping Reading

By Nate Barksdale

Originally published in Comment, 10 December 2010

My latest online column Comment Magazine

There are many reasons why I was never able to finish reading Crime and Punishment—the type was a bit on the small side, the names and the chapters were a little too long, the plot reminded me of a bad experience I had in high school—but, in hindsight, I'd say the blame falls heaviest at the feet of two men. I am speaking, of course, of Gandhi and Hitler.

How Not to Do Your Physics Homework

By Nate Barksdale

Originally published in the print edition of Comment, 1 September 2010

My latest online column Comment Magazine

Foucault's pendulum has fallen. On April 6, the steel cable snapped and sent it crashing onto the polished floor of the Musée des Artes et Metiers in Paris. The 28 kilogram brass weight ended its 159-year career—the dented bob is, a museum spokesperson affirmed, beyond repair—doing what it was meant to do: obeying the law of gravity. I have to admit I shed a tear (or at least the idea of a tear) for the fallen bit of scientific history, not because I'd visited the pendulum myself, or even read the 1988 Umberto Eco novel which takes its title and climax from the now-not-swinging orb. I have my own tangled history with pendulums—one stretching back, depending how you count it, decades, even centuries. It's quite a bit of weight to bear, but a tale worth telling.

My Charango

By Nate Barksdale

Originally published in Comment, 24 September 2010

My latest online column Comment Magazine

A few months ago, around my thirty-fourth birthday, I decided what I really needed was a smaller guitar. A man reaches a certain age, I guess, and after spending most of my life figuring out tunes on a classical guitar, I figured I'd gotten as good at "Wayfaring Stranger" as I was going to get. I thought something smaller might enliven the mix.

Subtleties

By Nate Barksdale

Originally published in Comment, 11 June 2010

My latest online column Comment Magazine

One Friday night in the early 1990s, my family rented an old black-and-white foreign film for our weekend's entertainment. I don't recall the movie's title, let alone what any of us thought of it when we viewed it, but I remember very clearly a bit of promotional copy on the front of the VHS cassette's cardboard slipcase, in the space usually reserved for Siskel and Ebert's thumbs: NOW WITH YELLOW SUBTITLES!

A graphical analysis of national anthem lyrics

With attention to religious expression, Olympic performance,
and general bloodthirstiness

By Nate Barksdale

February 2010

One of my 2010 New Year's resolutions was simple: I wanted to learn the words to the French national anthem. My reasons for memorizing "La Marseillaise" were twofold: first, I'd always wanted to sing along with that climactic scene in Casablanca where Bogart, Bergman, and the whole gang at Rick's Café Américain join together to drown out an annoying chorus of Nazi officers. And second, for the past few years I've undertaken an unsuccessful effort to teach myself the language of Voltaire and Hulot, largely by watching Le 20 Heures, the French national broadcaster's nightly newscast.

Tracking your taco's global journey; an argument for perfect boredom that sounds nearly heavenly; an odd, wonderful short montage Everything is Everything, by Koki Tanaka, and the triumphal return of Bozo the Clown to Mexican investigative journalism.

Culture-making.com is a blog founded by Andy Crouch and co-designed/curated by me. I post there most weekdays, joined by Andy, Christy Tennant, et al.

Lego globe

I wonder if they used red and orange legos for the globe's core? I hope so. via famous landmarks in lego | speedytown.com

Troubleshooting book technology at the Medieval helpdesk; the slow-form culture making of Montenegro's landfill-island churches; Peter Gabrial's lovely cover of the Magnetic Fields' "The Book of Love"; and five questions about greeting cards and valentines.

Culture-making.com is a blog founded by Andy Crouch and co-designed/curated by me. I post there most weekdays, joined by Andy, Christy Tennant, et al.

Indian schoolroom posters: Wings of Birds, Eatables of Animals, and much more; Hot dogs of Latin America; An interesting take on the no-vacancy sign in rural Wyoming; the moral duty of buying books; and a peek at antique Chinese snuff bottles, which are beautiful, and much smaller than expected.

Culture-making.com is a blog founded by Andy Crouch and co-designed/curated by me. I post there most weekdays, joined by Andy, Christy Tennant, et al.

Jason Holly

Love this. It made me slightly less happy once I saw that it was a custom designed-for-designers design rather than a found object. But only slightly. via boooom!