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Grabbag and Chills

Politics, history, philosophy, my favorite pieces of internet candy, and other things that I can’t squeeze into my other publications

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Writing

Jess Brooks in Grabbag and Chills

Dec 6, 2017

“This is How Literary Fiction Teaches Us to Be Human”“

“More recently, Trends in Cognitive Sciences reported more findings that link reading and empathy, employing a test called “Mind of the Eyes” in which subjects viewed photographs of strangers’ eyes, describing what they believed that…

Jess Brooks in Grabbag and Chills

Nov 19, 2017

“The mysterious origins of punctuation”

“In the 3rd Century BCE, in the Hellenic Egyptian city of Alexandria, a librarian named Aristophanes had had enough. He was chief of staff at the city’s famous library, home to hundreds of thousands of scrolls, which were all frustratingly time-consuming to…

Jess Brooks in Grabbag and Chills

Nov 18, 2017

“The New York Times Is Not Built For This”

“This sort of absolute lack of a reason to exist is the hallmark of Frank Bruni columns. He writes with the haunted air of a man who has deadlines, but no ideas. He is living proof that it is possible to sustain a writing career for year after year…

Jess Brooks in Grabbag and Chills

May 6, 2017

“The Linguistic Appeal Of ‘Garbage Person,’ The Internet’s Favorite Insult”

““Garbage person,” like “bloodsucker” or “Neanderthal,” is the type of descriptor that pretty much defines itself. In the interest of clarity, though, the term as used here does not refer to a…

Jess Brooks in Grabbag and Chills

Mar 25, 2017

“A Beginner’s Guide to Invisibility”

“just what is invisibility? Is it the condition of being transparent, so that all light passes through you undisturbed? Or of being cloaked in something all-concealing, like Harry Potter sneaking around Hogwarts? Or does it mean to be incorporeal, so that you exist…

Jess Brooks in Grabbag and Chills

Mar 16, 2017

“Behind the Scam: What Does It Take to Be a ‘Best-Selling Author’? $3 and 5 Minutes.”

“Last week, I put up a fake book on Amazon. I took a photo of my foot, uploaded to Amazon, and in a matter of hours, had achieved “№1 Best Seller” status, complete with the orange…

Jess Brooks in Grabbag and Chills

Mar 14, 2017

“WHEN A SELF-DECLARED GENIUS ASKS YOU TO READ HIS MASTERPIECE”

“A writer named Alan — I won’t mention his last name, even though he clearly craves the attention — sent me a link to his self-published something, followed by a P.S.: “Feel free to continue to ignore my work, just be…

Jess Brooks in Grabbag and Chills

May 9, 2016

“THE FIRST WOMAN TO PUBLISH A BOOK IN ENGLISH LIVED IN ONE ROOM, WALLED OFF FROM SOCIETY”

“In England, from about the 12th to the 16th century, an estimated 780 people chose to live permanently shut up in a room attached to a church. They were called anchorites, from…

Jess Brooks in Grabbag and Chills

Dec 21, 2015

“MARIA POPOVA — Cartographer of Meaning in a Digital Age”

“We seem to be bored with thinking. We want to instantly know… We’ve been infected with a kind of pathological impatience that makes us want to have the knowledge but not do the work of claiming it… The only thing to glean from…