Desk Notes by Charles Schifano

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When a new idea strikes—in the shower, during a walk, amid a lively conversation—the moment feels limitless.
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If you’ve ever frightened a large crowd, you’ve felt the shiver.
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A remarkable coincidence that feels suspicious.
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How peculiar it is that the very people most entrusted with passing on our cultural gems are occasionally the people most hostile to that very job.
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The most commonplace political lie involves resolution.
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Once you retell your story, you begin to notice aspects that are a tad spooky.
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Today’s primary currency isn’t money, nor is it institutional power, but simply celebrity, that most vital of contemporary desires.
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A sense of trajectory gives an essay a sense of movement and creates the potential for the fortuitous.
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My first instinct is to dismiss the apocalyptic chatter.
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Just as you wouldn’t ever tap Louie Armstrong on the shoulder and say that’s not the proper way to play, you probably shouldn’t start announcing that…
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Once upon a time in a shadowy cave long ago there was a two-part test to determine art.
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If you want to get ahead in political journalism, you must learn how to take a banal, humdrum, and consensus opinion and make it appear groundbreaking.
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Desk Notes by Charles Schifano

Exploring writing, travel, and literature.
Most Popular—Literature
The Problem With Contemporary WritingTo care about the state and quality of writing today is to scream into a void while knowing that the void does nothing but laugh.
Losing a LanguageIf you have ever learned a new language, you will recognize these struggles.
Most Popular—Personal
SoundlessNothing makes you doubt the merits of a music education more than a neighbor who takes up the violin.
WhisperIn the São Paulo summer, the air is salty and thick and the rains are always just minutes away.
Most Popular—Contemporary
The Power StruggleThe purpose of life, it seems abundantly clear, is to charge your devices.
How We Read NowTo stroll through the modern library in your pocket is to watch the once static and eternal books around you contort and transform before your very eyes.

Desk Notes by Charles Schifano

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