The Greatest Opening Line in Literature No. 3
Franz Kafka, The Trial (Willa Muir Translation)
Alexander Kaplan Poetry
Housework and Depression
Live Last read · last published · next check
Latest posts
Philip Larkin, "If, My Darling" Annotated
If my darling were once to decide / Not to stop at my eyes, / But to jump, like Alice, with floating skirt into my head, // She would find no table and chairs, / No mahogany claw-footed sideboards, / No undisturbed embers; // The tantalus would not be filled, nor the fender-seat cosy, / Nor the shelves stuffed with small-printed books for the Sabbath, / Nor the butler bibulous, the housemaids…
VOTE FOR ME
Very Serious Proposals from a Very Serious Person
A Walk in the Park
Alice and Bob work for a delivery company.
The Shape of Things to Come
When I was young, the future was above the past: / Time was like a triangle turned upside down.
Manchester Bridge
Ah, the beginning of June in beautiful Richmond, Virginia.
I'm Out of Poems
If you’ve been reading my stuff lately, you’ve probably noticed a distinct lack poetry here at Alexander Kaplan Poetry.
Judge Art with Error Bars
I aim to solve the big philosophical questions on this Substack blog newsletter whatever this is.
In Defense of Rote Memorization
I wasn’t supposed to write an entire essay on The Social Network.
The Tragic Irony of The Social Network
If you’ve never seen the first five minutes of The Social Network, you’re missing out.
So You Want to Be an English Major, Part 1
Bachelor's Edition
I Like Capitalism Because I Hate Companies
The way to get rich, back in the bad old days, was to (1) get yourself an army, (2) invade another country, and (3) steal all their shit.
that dog. Is the Best Band You've Never Heard
Or maybe not: I don’t know what bands you’ve heard.
I Enjoyed All 1,156 Pages of IT
About nine hundred pages into Steven King’s 1986 magnum opus, I figured things out: IT is a combination of The Complete Fiction of H.P. Lovecraft, One Thousand and One Nights, and Winesburg, Ohio.
Reading Is Hallucinating
I have this theory that, no matter how weird reality is, we can never fully comprehend its weirdness because, well, it’s reality: it’s all we know.
Pleasants Hardware
There are a lot of things I hate about myself, but even when my mood is suicidally low, I can always depend on one fact to prop up my self-esteem: I make things.
Science Fiction Is the Child of Realism
When I was young, I assumed realism was the basis from which all other genres rebelled.
Fuck-Ups
I’m an alcoholic, and let me tell you something no one else will tell you: alcoholism is cool.
Wendy Cope, "Lonely Hearts" Annotated
Can someone make my simple wish come true?
In Which I Solve the Trolley Problem Forever
You're Welcome
Three Arguments for Free Will
For many years, I didn’t believe in free will.