Archives for July 3, 2018

From 2003:

Sooner or later, everybody with a computer discovers the Internet Anagram Server, a Web site that generates anagrams of any phrase you plug into it. What you mostly get are reams of garbage, but sift through it long enough and you can usually find some gems.

I got tired of writing the other day and decided to run my name through the Internet Anagram Server, and was surprised to receive in return a fairly large number of anagrams that could be related to my career as a drama critic…

Read the whole thing here.

“I know very well, for what concerns myself, that from having been brought up in my childhood to a plain and straightforward way of dealing, and from having had an aversion to all manner of juggling and foul play in my childish sports and recreations (and, indeed, it is to be noted, that the plays of children are not performed in play, but are to be judged in them as their most serious actions), there is no game so small wherein from my own bosom naturally, and without study or endeavour, I have not an extreme aversion from deceit.”

Michel de Montaigne, “Of Custom, and That We Should Not Easily Change a Law Received” (trans. Charles Cotton)