But like many an inarticulate young lover, I thought for a time that seduction was a matter of giving the right book to the right woman. In my case it was Barthes’s A Lover’s Discourse: a meditation on Goethe’s Sorrows of Young Werther that catalogues the melancholic lover’s prized ‘image repertoire’ – the scene of waiting, the feeling of being dissolved in the presence of the loved being, the attraction of suicide – and thinly veils the author’s own life as a middle-aged gay man in Paris in the 1970s. This gift was always a prelude to disaster.

– RB and Me: An Education is an essay by Brian G. Dillon about his relationship with the books of French philosopher Roland Barthes. It's also a lovely autobiography of an awkward boy finding his place in life. Dillon's website collects his essays, and is trove of interesting insight. Besides writing essays and fiction, Dillon is also the UK editor of Cabinet Magazine, and you can read a fair number of his articles online, including ones on Beau Brummel and the cravat, hypochondria and hydrotherapy.
posted by Kattullus on Dec 1, 2011 - 4 comments

Alexis Soyer lived quite an an amazing life. According to his wiki, he "was a French chef who became the most celebrated cook in Victorian England" who also "during the Great Irish Famine in April 1847, ... invented the soup kitchen and was asked by the Government to go to Ireland to implement his idea. This was opened in Dublin and his "famine soup" was served to thousands of the poor for free. Whilst in Ireland he wrote Soyer's Charitable Cookery. He gave the proceeds of the book to various charities. He also opened an art gallery in London, and donated the entrance fees to charity to feed the poor." And then there is also the remarkable story of Soyer's Magic Stove.
posted by puny human on Jul 30, 2010 - 16 comments

Madman or genius? Well... madman. But being confined to an asylum (with one of his symptoms described as "manic invention") didn't keep Karl Hans Janke from developing elaborate theories of atomic energy, flight, space travel and the history of humanity, creating over 4,000 complex drawings and even models over 40 years of incarceration for paranoid schizophrenia. [more inside]
posted by Shepherd on Jun 2, 2008 - 4 comments

The Queer, the Quaint, the Quizzical (1882). A Cabinet for the Curious.
posted by stbalbach on Mar 21, 2007 - 18 comments

Newsfilter: Canada's New Cabinet. Featuring thrills (former Liberal David Emerson crosses the floor to serve as International Trade Minister, and affect the balance of power), spills (Michael Fortier, who is not an MP, will be appointed to the Senate to serve as Public Works and Government Services Minister on the condition that he resign to run for Parliament in the next general election, upsetting some) and chills (everybody's favourite whipping boy, Stockwell Day as Minister of Public Safety). (as a bonus - and for those ignoramuses that care not for the intricacies of Canadian politics - pay some mind to the newly redesigned globeandmail.com, especially the prominence of public commentary on every article - it's the embodiment of newsfilter!)
posted by loquax on Feb 6, 2006 - 85 comments

The Cabinet National Library. A charming piece of dry, conceptual humor. A little banal, perhaps. There is also a hidden agenda.
posted by undule on Sep 22, 2005 - 11 comments

"We're in an age where we don't want to deal with serious issues, we want to deal with little boys pitching baseballs who might be 14 instead of 12." Hart says he just shook his head when he saw a former Clinton administration Cabinet official on TV Tuesday calling for the formation of a commission to study the best way to combat terrorism. "If a former Cabinet officer didn't know, how could the average man on the street? I do hope the American people understand that somebody was paying attention."
posted by rathikd on Sep 13, 2001 - 4 comments

Revealing look at Bush's policy and cabinet. Scary.
posted by skallas on Feb 11, 2001 - 14 comments

The Age of Embarrassment "Bush’s cabinet choices are an assortment of right-wing ideologues, fat cats, has-beens, wannabees, and plain ol’ opportunists. There’s not a visionary in the bunch." Truth? Or liberal hysteria?
posted by owillis on Jan 4, 2001 - 14 comments

Colin Powell to become the secretary of state, which seems ok on the surface, but after looking at the functions of the position, wouldn't he make a better secretary of defense instead? I can't say I'm comfortable with the thought of the leading US diplomat and negotiator being someone so closely tied with military force (side question: would a war man negotiate peace treaties or get us into more bombing missions?). I also find it odd that in the acceptance speech, he can speak of the horrors of Iraq's "weapons of mass destruction" and in the same breath talk about how the US should build up a missile defense system (our missiles aren't capable of mass destruction?). What do you think about the appointment?
posted by mathowie on Dec 16, 2000 - 35 comments