• david.c.biddle@gmail.com
Brain on music

The Psychology of Sound

I’ve spent my entire life astounded by the magic of music, appreciating everything from opera and Gregorian chant to bluegrass and every kind of jazz there is. But what exactly is being touched in us and inspired when we listen […]

Why There Are No Final Drafts

I completed the first draft of a story called “Millie Floating” in the fall of 2004. In those days, my goal was to edit a project until I had a final draft, at which time I could send it out […]

Maybe Everything Depends on the Wedding

What the writer leaves out is the fact that not only do the lovers travel into the sun (such a beautiful and straightforward metaphor for the future) but the rest of the world rides off with them as well.

Those Who Wake Up in Love

Love seems to be growing rarer and rarer in this world, doesn’t matter which kind I’m talking about. There’s vitriol and hostility everywhere — on all sides. I get it, I suppose. Love in every form requires vulnerability and courage. […]

No Translation Possible: On Reading Roberto Bolaño

“Nothing happened today. And if anything did, I’d rather not talk about it, because I didn’t understand it.” – Roberto Bolaño, “The Savage Detectives”  I have discovered the work of Chilean poet/novelist/essayist, Roberto Bolaño, in the past year. For years […]

“Natural Symbols”: On the Brutality of Popular Opinion and Why You Think You’re Always Right

Anthropologist Mary Douglas published a book called Natural Symbols 45 years ago. It’s a gateway into thinking about how individuals encode their perceptions of reality through the complex cosmology of cultural symbols they live in — bodily or “natural” symbols in particular. The […]

Not the Marriage Plot: On Men Reading Novels in the 21st Century

Here’s what I think about at some point of every day: What is going on in this world that would lead so many men far, far away from reading modern literary novels? I’ve written here at this blog and in […]

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