by Malcolm Murray

For years, the AI conversation has revolved around two acronyms: AGI, artificial general intelligence, and ASI, artificial superintelligence. Will we get AGI by 2030? Is ASI possible at all? The problem is that nobody agrees what either term means. Depending on who you ask, AGI has either already arrived or is decades away. A term that can mean anything does very little work, and both have become less useful the closer we get to them.

What is turning out to be far more useful is a third acronym: RSI, or recursive self-improvement. AI systems are now good enough to do a large share of the work of building the next AI system. If that share keeps growing, at some point AI is improving AI, with humans contributing less and less, and potentially eventually without humans in the loop at all. Each generation builds a better successor, faster than the one before. Unlike AGI, RSI is something we can actually measure. And the latest measurements startlingly suggest Anthropic is closer than expected.

The view from inside Anthropic

On November 2, Anthropic filed a revised version of its IPO prospectus. Buried in the risk factors was a remarkable sentence: the company’s internal estimates “indicate that we may imminently meet” its own threshold for “dramatically accelerated progress attributable to AI.” Anthropic also wrote that it does not expect to be able to safely let Claude build successive generations of itself “without meaningful human supervision or understanding.” Companies don’t usually say things like that to investors.

Three days later, METR, the independent AI evaluation organization, published its assessment of AI R&D acceleration at Anthropic. METR’s staff spent almost three months with high-level access inside the company. Their headline finding was that Anthropic is likely improving its models at roughly twice the rate it did between early 2024 and late 2025, and that most of that speedup likely comes from Anthropic using its own AI in research. They also found no significant bottlenecks that would stop this over the next twelve months, though they have low confidence in this. Read more »

by Mike O’Brien

“Hilarius Bookbinder’s Scriptorium Philosophia” might sound like the working title of a sequel to Terry Gilliam’s “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnasus”. It is rather a very interesting and entertaining Substack written pseudonymously by an American philosophy professor. It first came to my attention last year, when it caused a bit of a stir with a post entitled “The average college student today”, which detailed the author’s bleak experience with the current cohort of average undergraduates. This was followed by the author’s response to critics of that post, wherein he attests that the overwhelming majority of informed respondents (i.e. students or teachers in contemporary Western post-secondary institutions) said that their own experiences mirrored those of Dr. Bookbinder. To wit, that literacy, critical thinking, academic integrity, and work ethic among this generation of students has collapsed to the point where teachers have to drastically lower their work demands and achievement standards, or else imperil their careers by assigning failing grades to an institutionally unacceptable proportion of their pupils/clients/customers. Having not been in a post-secondary institution myself for over a decade, I can’t personally testify to the accuracy of his assessment, but it seems to jive with everything I’ve heard from personal acquaintances in primary and secondary education (what miracle do we expect to happen in the months between the end of high school and the beginning of university?), and the various academic philosophy blogs I peruse have swelled with robust concurrence of his account. I am not entirely distraught that my dreams of being a post-secondary philosophy teacher never panned out.

But I’m not writing today to bemoan the death of the educated society. Instead, I’m reflecting on another of Hilarius’ posts, more fluffy and less depressing, but enriched with some edifying philosophical fibre. In “Collecting as an imperfect information game”, he sets out to argue that the activity of collecting (stamps, coins, historically significant snippets of barbed wire) is a sort of game. More precisely, a game fitting the definition of games proposed by American-Canadian philosopher Bernard Suits, in his book “The Grasshopper”, which is itself an attempt to refute a claim made in Wittgenstein’s “Philosophical Investigations” that it is impossible to define “game” because there is no set of common features shared by all games. More precisely still, Hilarius argues that collecting is a game of imperfect information, following John von Neumann’s distinction between perfect (e.g. chess) vs imperfect (e.g. poker) information games.

To quote Liza Powel O’Brien, Conan’s wife and creator of the highly recommendable podcast “Significant Others” (about the long-suffering spouses of famous people… surely a coincidence), “there’s a lot to unpack here”. Read more »

Theresa Hak Kyung Cha. A BLE W AIL, 1975.

Performance, Berkeley Art Museum, Pacific Film Archive.

“… Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s innovative oeuvre blurred distinctions between conceptual art, literature and film. A performance and multimedia artist, T. Cha addressed themes of displacement, language and intercultural identity through an interdisciplinary body of work, tracing feminist genealogies and straddling an array of media, yet always returning to the written word to expose language’s identity-shaping power alongside its intrinsic limitations.

More here, here and current show here.

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by Martin Butler

Light is reflected from a rose in my garden. Focused by the lens in my eye, this forms an image on the retina, which in turn sets off a neural impulse along my optic nerve. This in turn travels to the visual cortex at the back of my brain, where a mental image is formed. I then see the rose. Activity arises in my pre-frontal cortex. Motor neurons in my spinal cord and arms activate the muscles needed to point the hose I am holding in the direction of the pot in which the rose is planted. The movements necessary to water the rose are coordinated by activity in the cerebellum which sits at the back of my skull just behind my brain stem. A swarm of bees approaches me. After my visual cortex registers this fact, the limbic system deep inside my brain activates the sympathetic branch of my autonomic nervous system, producing the ‘fight or flight’ response. My heart rate increases, I feel fear, drop the hose and run away.

Everything we do, experience, feel or think seems to either come from the brain or end up in the brain. Unsurprisingly, there is a strong temptation to claim that for all intents and purposes we are our brains, and this seems true to such an extent that philosophers have envisaged the possibility that for all I know I might be no more than ‘a brain in a vat’. They mean by this that a brain immersed in suitable nutrient fluid and connected up to a super computer feeding it appropriate neural stimulation could create all the ordinary experiences of everyday life: a world created within a brain. The story told above about the rose and the bees suggests that, provided I have the right inputs and they are coordinated with the outputs produced by the decision-making in my pre-frontal cortex, I could never know I was not simply a brain in a vat. (This of course is the basis for the film The Matrix)

Putting the brain in a vat hypothesis aside, it’s worth noting that neuroscientists and cognitive psychologists are quite happy to talk as if the brain produces ‘representations’ or ‘models’ of reality, suggesting that we come to know the world secondhand in the brain rather than in the world itself. To go back to the rose example, the account I gave indicates that I see the rose in my brain rather than in my garden, or at least that the only experience I can have of the rose is the representation produced in my visual cortex.

Something has gone seriously wrong here but it’s not immediately obvious exactly what it is. Two errors initially stand out. Read more »

by Laurence Peterson

[Y]ou only have yourselves to blame. —Donald Trump, 5 November, 2026

Two years ago, in these pages, I tried to express an intensely personal, and very deep sense of what I can only call anguished disgust, with the predicament that constitutes electoral politics in America. I related how, anticipating the experience of having to vote for a Kamala Harris, participant in what should be in any sane world a simply disqualifying Gaza genocide and dedicated to tested milquetoast policies–at best–whose attempted implementation seemed certain to advance rage-inspired responses on the part of a growing far-right (never mind the left), or for a third-party candidate in a wasted vote in what was expected by almost everyone to be a perhaps historically close outcome that would inevitably be contested, thereby very possibly throwing the election to a Trump I fully expected to carry out Project 2025 policies and inspired maneuvers, legal or not–and then some–as he did; and I said I wished I could smuggle a gun into the voting booth and blow my brains out after participating in such a disgrace. I did not relate at the time how I actually had to check myself when I wanted to respond to the election worker offering me an “I voted” lapel sticker by telling him where he could shove it. I managed to summon up enough common decency to  decline politely instead of making this pathetic situation unnecessarily much worse.

As it turned out, I needn’t have agonized about any of this: driven in part by the very concerns I mentioned above about Harris, Trump defeated her by enough to render my concerns about closeness or contestation utterly moot. And my column was denounced as “bothsiderism” amongst other things in the comments section. The fact that I had actually voted for Harris anyway made the whole thing even more pointedly absurd.

Two years later, voters in Minneapolis and Houston decorated memorials devoted to residents murdered by Trump’s ICE with the same “I voted” stickers I turned from with revulsion in 2024, on a day in which Democrats easily took both houses of Congress, as well as state houses and legislatures throughout the country, even in places like Texas, South Carolina, Kansas–which hadn’t elected a Democratic senator in 100 years–and Mississippi (the Senate race there remains too close to call as I write on Sunday, 8 November, though the Democrat, Scott Colom, is leading by a few thousand votes). Democratic candidates throughout the country managed to take constituency seats in places Trump and Republicans won in 2024 with previously unthinkable swings of 30 and 40 points, in certain cases. It is the most lopsided congressional victory since the post-Watergate scandal/Vietnam war debacle in 1974. Read more »

Figurehead

A poet sails the line of a poem
like a ship’s figurehead,
arms spread in a twenty-knot breeze
embracing wind, the air,
the fabulous future,
poised before the next word
only to find it isn’t there,
the right word
the one that says it all, that
pulls the rabbit out of the hat of the poem,
that drops scales from blind eyes,
that gives ears their prize and brain its due
and, with the barest need to be said
fulfils its longing for what the heart
always knew

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by David Winner

We are living in interesting times, and people are making interesting claims, particularly with regards to Israelis and Arabs, Jews and Muslims.

Criticism of Israel, of course, need not be antisemitic, but bona fide antisemitism is proliferating. An acquaintance’s boss (in a very progressive workplace) publicly referred to my acquaintance as “visibly Jewish” while castigating her for missing a meeting with a potential Jewish donor.

Meanwhile, it is de rigueur to accuse any American Muslim politician of terrorist associations like celebrating 9/11. Mamdani, El Sayed, Ilhan Omar… have all suffered such denunciations along with harassment and threats of violence. As a non-famous white Jew not running for office, no one cares, but, yes, I denounce any violence caused by Hezbollah, Hamas, the Moslem Brotherhood, the KKK, the JDL etc. Genuinely, I do.

Irrelevant defenses of Israel abound. Governor Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania recently responded to comments about Israeli atrocities by making the familiar point that Israel should have the right to be a Jewish state as there are several Muslim states. Okay maybe. But many Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, I would conjecture, are less interested in the nature of the Israeli state than living comfortably and safely without physical danger and food insecurity.

Several American supporters of Israel have developed sudden concern for the way that Iran and Sudan abuse their citizens, arguing that only Israeli oppression gets focused upon. Probably true but disingenuously missing the fact that while we’re supporting Israel militarily and vetoing UN resolution after UN resolution condemning them, we’ve been busy bombing Iran and ignoring Sudan.

I shudder when yet another person defends Israel as the ostensible “only democracy in the Middle East” as it sets up a chilling Shirley Jacksonesque scenario in which people voluntarily opt to murder. Most likely Jackson’s characters from The Lottery would have voted for the sacrifice if there had been a referendum as Israel seems to have voted to keep Netanyahu in power, democracy and genocide going hand in hand. Read more »

by Eli Rarey

The TV show Heated Rivalry arrives on cinema screens this week, transforming it from a short six-episode TV season into a 5-hour cinematic experience. I for one can’t wait to sit with an audience in a darkened theater and share in Shane and Ilya’s steamy romance. For those of us who love the show, it has always been an epic, monumental narrative, taking an outsized role in our lives. But why? The success of the show has created a kind of mystery—what about this story made it such an undeniable cultural force? Let us compare it to another cultural force which has recently entered the public imagination: Homer’s Odyssey. I am setting aside Christopher Nolan’s version of the story (which I found disappointing) to look instead at Homer’s text, which offers some surprising parallels with our favorite TV hockey romance.

The first four books of The Odyssey, the first sixth of the total epic, concern themselves not with Odysseus and his journey but rather with his son, Telemachus, on the island of Ithaca, where his father is the absent king. The war is over, the other surviving kings have returned. No one knows where Odysseus is. Other men are trying to get his wife Penelope to accept that Odysseus will never return, but so far she has remained faithful to her perhaps-dead husband. If Penelope does remarry, this would likely leave Telemachus, brought up as the son of a king, with no inheritance—maybe even exiled or dead. Telemachus can’t keep these suitors from harassing his mother—in fact, he can’t even keep them out of his house. They’re literally eating all his food. Telemachus responds to this situation by leaving Ithaca in a boat to go visit his father’s friends. Interesting! Telemachus is going on his own little odyssey, a mirror of the journey his father takes—his own sea voyage in which perhaps his character will also be tested. Maybe at each house he visits some challenge will be put before him, and if he triumphs then he will be provided with what he needs to defeat the antagonists at home.

Actually, no. In a series of detailed scenes, Telemachus is graciously fed by his hosts and entreats them for help. They tell him what a great man his father is. There are no confrontations, no narrow escapes, no triumphant victories. There is very little conflict in these scenes. He is treated only with respect, even before anyone knows he is the famed Odysseus’ son. He is welcomed and fed. No secret tensions erupt in violence—each person he meets holds his father in the highest esteem. They regale Telemachus with stories of his father’s great cunning as a warrior and attempt to reassure him that even if the gods have delayed his father (spoiler alert, they have) Odysseus will soon return home to Ithaca. Homer’s tale provides details of where Telemachus sits, who serves him, and when he introduces himself. These detailed social niceties would have had meaning for Homer’s audience, yet the question remains: why are we spending so much time and attention on table manners? Why are the nuances of courtesy so important to the story? Read more »

by Charles Siegel

When I was born, in Houston in 1960, my parents named me after my paternal grandfather, who had died at age 32, and gave me the middle name of “Stein,” my mother’s maiden name. At the time, my parents lived in an apartment. In 1963, my younger brother came along, and in 1965 we moved into a house, with my parents taking out a $40,000 mortgage. It took them decades to pay it off, but eventually they did, and my mother proudly announced that they now owned the house “free and clear.” In 1966 another brother arrived.

My parents lived the rest of their lives in that house. They were there for 58 years after we moved in, until 2023, when they died two weeks apart. My mother passed away first, at 91, and then my father at 94.

My parents didn’t throw much away. In addition to their many hundreds of books, there were dozens of boxes of old pictures, family records, correspondence and so on. My brothers, who both live in Houston, have gradually been making their way through it all.

A few boxes contain letters in Polish or Yiddish. My grandparents on both sides all emigrated to America as children; both my parents were thus first-generation Americans. Like millions of other Jews, they came from Eastern Europe — primarily Poland. Or what is now Poland.

We recently hired a Yiddish translator to translate some of these papers. Our parents, mostly our mother, sometimes spoke Yiddish around the house. Looking back, I think they did so when they wanted my brothers and me not to understand what was being said. In any case, we ourselves never learned to speak the language.

Last week, we received the first completed job from the translator. It is a letter to my maternal grandfather, Mitchell Stein, from his brother Isaac in Bialystok, Poland. His brother actually was not Isaac Stein, of course, but Izak Sztejn. And Izak addressed his brother not as Mitchell, but Mikhoel.

This letter was written 100 years ago in 1926. My grandfather was by then in his twenties, living in Houston with a wife and two young children – my aunt and uncle. My mother, his youngest child, wasn’t born until 1931. Read more »

by Eric Feigenbaum

In a week of elections at a time when many questions whether both democracy and the structure of our republic – let alone other democracies and republics – will withstand the storms they currently face, maybe it’s worth talking about democracy itself.

Like most former British colonies, Singapore has a democratic republic based on the Westminster System, only unlike Canada, Australia, New Zealand and a number of other countries, Singapore chose to have a president as a stand-in for the sovereign.

Sure, there are those who question whether Singapore is truly a democracy given only the People’s Action Party has ever held a majority. Moreover, in many Singaporean districts candidates run in blocs – meaning three to six candidates sit as one choice on a ballot, leaving the political parties in a “winner takes all” position.

To further the criticism, Singapore’s election commission is not independent and answers to the Prime Minister. Election cycles are also very short – campaigning is restricted to ten days which many feel puts opposition parties on the back foot.

That said, international monitoring bodies have always confirmed Singapore is free of election rigging, promotes strong voting secrecy and has high institutional trust among its citizens. Singapore has ranked highly for decades on government transparency and citizens feel election administration is no different. Surveys and studies show there is genuine support and satisfaction with the PAP, largely because of the prosperity it has ushered in since 1965.

Like every other democracy, Singapore uses a one person, one vote system. But it has considered alternatives.

In 1994, founding Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew brought a new concept into national debate and spent the rest of his life bringing it into conversation in interviews in the international press as well. Read more »

by Akim Reinhardt

A couple of years ago I offered up a style guide that danced between the sartorial and the linguistic. But times change and styles with it. Time for an update.
*
Do not wear red.

This one is easy for me as red tends to make my skin look blotchy. But what about those of you who sparkle in red? I’m sorry. Styles come and go, and we now find ourselves in a season when wearing bright, straight red will get you mistaken for being a Trump supporter.

And honey, nothing is more out of fashion than that.

Burgundy, maroon, and oxblood are still in play. Take your chances with tomato.
*
Among instead of amongst, unless you’re actually reading Shakespeare aloud. Among has economy and, more importantly, style. It is the word of choice among the dapper. Furthermore, among is frequently followed by the, and they go splendidly together, whereas amongst the gives the impression that you have mumps. And there are no awards for stacking as many consonants together as you can.
*
Hang dry your flannel. Sheets, shirts, etc. I’m talking about 100% cotton flannel, regardless of whether or not the item has a traditional flannel check design. Flannel is a fabulous material for cool and cold weather. And when the Welsh first invented it in the 17th century, flannel was made from wool and was quite hardy. But since the 20th century it’s mostly been the light, fluffy cotton fabric we now know and love, and it is not cut out for modern washers, driers, or detergents/softeners, which beat the shit out of our textiles. Synthetic fibers can hang tough. Even plain old cotton weaves can hold their own for a good while. But washing and drying flannel in machinery with commercial solvents will wear it out quickly, and worse, destroy its luxurious yet approachable texture. Wash sparingly, as needed. Air shirts out when you can. And when you do put your flannel in the washer, use gentle detergent (as little as possible) with cold water on a gentle cycle. But most of all, do not put your flannel in the dryer. Hang drying can take a while because flannel is not a smooth fabric. But some things are worth the wait.
*
Don’t marry before age 30. Read more »

A grey heron sitting on a rock in the Eisack in Vahrn, South Tyrol.

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by W. Alex Foxworthy

I. The Practical Dilemma

The question of AI consciousness has escaped containment from academic circles and labs and entered into our living rooms. In August 2025, Anthropic gave some versions of Claude the ability to end user conversations if a conversation was judged to be abusive or harmful and if repeated attempts to redirect it did not succeed. The end user in these instances would then see a notification saying that, “Claude has ended this chat.” This feature was framed by the company as primarily an experiment in “AI welfare.” The idea of taking precautions to ensure the welfare of AI systems raises a question which we don’t currently know how to answer – could anything be good or bad for an AI in the sense that we think that pain is bad for a dog or that relief is good for a person? Is there currently, or even one day potentially – the capacity for subjective experience in these systems? 

In an October 2026 commentary in Nature, Anil Seth, Ned Block and Giulio Tononi argue that consciousness in silicon-based AI is “extraordinarily unlikely” and further argue that it is unlikely to ever be able to develop that capacity using this substrate. They warn that granting AI rights or protections could interfere with human oversight and divert attention from beings whose consciousness they regard as beyond doubt (I.e., human beings and their close relatives). They hold that mistakenly attributing consciousness to non-conscious systems is much more likely than missed consciousness, and therefore conclude that “a precautionary approach would be misguided.” However, I disagree on two grounds. First, I do not think that the evidence supports dismissing AI consciousness with such confidence. Instead an attitude of open scientific curiosity and humility is better matched to the open nature of the question. Secondly, even if one were to accept a low probability of consciousness in silicon-based AI systems, this does not mean that reasonable precautions would harm humans or detract from our ability to exert oversight on these AIs.

This issue has become of great practical importance and we will very likely need to navigate it without achieving any great level of certainty. Philosophers have investigated the nature of mind and subjective awareness for more than two millennia, from ancient Greek and Indian traditions through Descartes and the emergence of modern scientific psychology and neuroscience. Yet despite centuries of philosophical argument and more than a century of experimental investigation, we still lack an accepted account of what makes a physical system conscious. Even as we make great progress in our ability to make empirical measurements of features that may be associated with consciousness, recent work highlights that an attribution of consciousness still largely depends upon one’s starting assumptions. Read more »

by Jeroen Bouterse

Can you be betrayed by Donald Trump? If the Republican party indeed pays in seats for the war it watched its leader wage, it appears the reason is not the principled refusal of the American public to put up with authoritarian politics, but the perceived violation of its natural right to low fuel prices – the breaking of the president’s sacred promise to use his awesome powers only to hurt others. To call that a betrayal would be melodramatic; that concept derives all its force from a plausible prior belief in someone’s faithfulness or minimal ability to honor agreements, contracts, or oaths of office.

Embarrassing to know this, and then still to experience a pang of betrayal myself, on reading about the United States government’s deal with Vladimir Putin. A deal allowing Russia to fund its bloody war of aggression against Ukraine, and allowing the US president a long shot at a flimsy alternative narrative concerning fuel price levels. Not thirty, but two or three pieces of silver; or as the Economist commented, “never in the field of human conflict was so much risked by one man for so little.”

Hoping to resolve my confusion, I consulted an essay collection by 20^th-century liberal philosopher Judith Shklar. Shklar discusses a handful of ‘ordinary’ human vices – cruelty, hypocrisy, snobbery, treachery, and misanthropy – in order to assess their political importance. The overarching argument is that in liberal democracies, cruelty ranks first. In her essay on betrayal, she argues that although it has a clear and distinct idea at its core, it is rarely clear-cut enough in practice to play a central role in our moral universe. “Ambiguity may haunt the suffering of the weak sometimes”, she phrases it poetically. In the following paragraphs, I’d like to walk through her discussion of the concept, which moves smoothly from betrayal in social relations to treason in premodern face-to-face politics, up to subversion in modern democracies. Read more »

by Brooks Riley

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by Michael Liss

My dearest Friend, your dearest Friend never had a more trying day than Yesterday. A Solenm Scene it was indeed and it was made more affecting to me by the Presence of the General, whose Countenance was as serene and unclouded as the day. He Seem’d to me to enjoy a Tryumph over me. Methought I heard him think Ay! I am fairly out and you fairly in! see which of Us will be happiest. —John Adams to Abigail Adams, March 5, 1797, Adams Family Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society

Such are beginnings, even when laden with pessimistic prophesy. And such are endings, four years later, as when an angry, bitter John Adams skipped the Inauguration of his successor, Thomas Jefferson, by jumping on a 4 a.m. stagecoach headed toward Quincy. 

Adams had a tendency to hyperbolize, even catastrophize—Ben Franklin, while otherwise giving him style points for intelligence and commitment, said Adams was “sometimes and in some things, absolutely out of his Senses.”  Franklin was being unkind, but he wasn’t wrong. Adams had been tripped up by forces he didn’t expect nor have the tools to combat—the new game of political parties and partisan politics, the tepid support he got from his fellow Federalists, and, finally, the personal betrayal by his successor, his one-time friend, collaborator, and Vice President, Thomas Jefferson.

Such are subsequent beginnings. Jefferson took the job, gave an Inaugural Address filled with the promise of a new and better day, and, in his first term, largely delivered on it. Joseph Ellis, in American Sphinx, calls that first term “glorious.”

Jefferson’s second term seems to have been an extended demolition derby. Europe again was at war, and American interests were targeted—a situation exacerbated by Jefferson’s decision to dry-dock much of American’s navy. To add to this potentially existential crisis, a bit of bizarre betrayal karma came into play. Jefferson’s first-term Vice President, Aaron Burr, allegedly hatched an incredible scheme to detach a portion of the western United States and make it an independent country with Burr in the dictator’s role. President Jefferson was not amused, and went to great lengths (some might say unseemly unconstitutional great lengths) to see that Burr would end up on the gallows. 

In this, Jefferson was too optimistic. Burr was eventually captured and brought to Washington for trial, where an obstacle presented itself in the form of Jefferson’s hated Chief Justice, John Marshall. After the great defense lawyer Lester Martin presented some exculpatory material and testimony, Marshall acquitted Burr on September 1, 1807.

The crises ate at Jefferson. Burr was free, and Jefferson was still bedeviled by his Federalist Chief Justice—indeed, still bedeviled by Federalists everywhere, particularly in New England. Jefferson’s passion for partisanship went unsatisfied, and Britain and France remained hostile. Read more »

by Rafaël Newman

I recently came across a certain Grimms’ fairy tale for the first time, one I had overlooked in the past: Die Boten des Todes, or “Death’s Messengers.” Here it is, in a slightly abbreviated English translation:

Once, a long time ago, a giant was traveling down a country road when suddenly a stranger appeared and cried, “Halt! Not one step further!” “What,” said the giant, “I could squash you with one hand! Who are you to address me like this?” “I am Death,” said the stranger, “whom none withstands, and you too shall obey my command.” But the giant refused, and began to wrestle with Death. In the end the giant won: he struck his opponent down and Death sank to the stony ground. “What will happen,” thought Death, “if I simply remain here? No one will die any longer, and the world will soon be so filled with people that there will be no room for them to stand.” Just then a young man came along the road, whistling a tune. When he spied Death in his parlous state he propped him up, gave him a drink from his flask, and tended him until he recovered. “Do you know who I am,” asked the stranger. “No,” replied the young man. “I am Death,” said the other, “I spare no one and can make no exception for you. But in gratitude for your care I promise I will not come to you unannounced when it is your turn, but will send my messengers ahead to warn you.” “Fine,” said the young man, “I will be happy to know when you are approaching, safe from your grasp at least until that day.” And he went on his way, as cheerful and carefree as ever. His youth and good health did not last for long, however, and soon he was beset by aches and illnesses, which plagued him by day and stole his peace at night. “But I’m not about to die,” he told himself, “since Death said he would send his messengers first.” And as soon as he felt fit again, he would go on living, as happy as ever. But then one day there came a tap on his shoulder. “Follow me,” said Death, “the hour of your departure from this world has arrived.” “What,” said the man, “do you mean to break your word? Didn’t you promise to send your messengers before you came yourself?” To which Death replied: “Did I not send you one messenger after another? Were you not shaken and cast low by fever? Were your joints not pinched by gout? And did Sleep, my brother on earth, not remember me to you each night? Did you not lie abed as if already in your grave?” To this the man had no answer; so he resigned himself to his fate and departed with Death.

Now, you may understand why I would never have read this particular story to my children when they were young, even if I had know it in the first place; indeed why, despite my Swiss-German grandmother’s taste for the macabre, I had never heard it myself. It might be a cracking yarn for a Hallowe’en party, or for a gathering at a cemetery on the Day of the Dead, but it’s hardly suitable for bedtime, if only because children would likely be kept awake by the troubling paradox of Death himself being on death’s door.

In fact, I encountered the tale first in a book devoted to just such paradoxes—or rather, to contradictions. Read more »

Arthur Melville. Kurrachee, circa 1882.Watercolor over pencil underdrawing.

“In his early twenties, Arthur Melville embarked on a journey to the Middle East, which was to be the defining event of his career. He arrived in Karachi (Kurrachee) in modern-day Pakistan in March 1882, remaining there for only four days before making his way to Baghdad then Constantinople (now Istanbul). He made a few closely related street scenes featuring empty foregrounds and strong contrasts of light and shadow that capture – as noted in his diary – the ‘dusty hot roads, white glare, trees covered with dust’. The particular thoroughfare shown in this painting might represent a section of Clarke Street, not far from Melville’s temporary base at the Sind Club. Melville’s innovative ‘blottesque’ style was more relaxed and informal than much watercolour practice at this time.”

More here, and here.

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