Saturday, March 01, 2025
Appreciation …
Maugham the Master - Chronicles [Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Maugham happens to be one of my favorire authors. Of course, I'm so old, I remember watching the TV show of his stories that was on in the early '50s, which he appeared on.
Friday, February 28, 2025
Thursday, February 27, 2025
A must read
Reining In District Courts - by Glenn Harlan Reynolds
Glenn knows what he's talking about.
A lesson worth learning …
… A Christian Message in ‘Inside Out 2’? The Surprising Lesson Found in the Popular Disney Film
Who we are is not about what we do, not about what we own, and not about what we accomplish. Who we are is really about whose we are.
Wednesday, February 26, 2025
Tuesday, February 25, 2025
Monday, February 24, 2025
Sunday, February 23, 2025
Saturday, February 22, 2025
Hmm …
Stephen%20King%20Is%20Proud%20Maine%20Gov.%20Janet%20Mills%20Will%20Fight%20to%20Let%20Men%20Bully%20Women%20%u2013%20Twitchy
No guy better try mess with my daughters. He'll learn very quickly what it's like run into a guy whomstarted life in North Philly — and is the son of a cop.
Friday, February 21, 2025
Monday, February 17, 2025
Sunday, February 16, 2025
Kazuo Ishiguro
It had been quite some time since I last read a novel by Kazuo Ishiguro, but over the past week, for whatever reason, I found myself reading -- and enjoying -- An Artist of the Floating World.
This is one of Ishiguro's earliest novels, and while it may not be as evolved as Remains of the Day, say, it is a succesful work in its own right. Much of that success owes, in my estimation, to Ishiguro's narration: this is book which embarks on a series of tangents and asides, and for every step forward, there are several backward or to the side. The result, though, is not confusion: it is a holistic sense for the primary character, his history and evolution, and his relationships with family and friends.
If I had a critique of Floating World it would focus on its politics: Ishiguro flirts with Japan's imperial past and its authoritarian governments leading to the Second World War. But he never fully exposes this: his characters reference the war -- and Japan's eventual defeat -- but they do so from a distance: all of the politics here are cloaked in generalities or innuendo. It is the art which seems to draws Ishiguro's attention.
I recognize, of course, that Floating World was not strictly intended as a political novel: nor, specifically, as a history of Japan. Instead, it is a novel about reputation, apprenticeship, and advancement. Ishiguro's central character -- the aging Masuji Ono -- represents the arch of artistic fulfillment. (That fulfillment may have achieved a sort of transcendence, but it is also checkered with regret and contrition.) At the same time, however, Ono represents the sum of his memories, which take him from one story to the next. I hesitate to use the word "fractured" -- because that is not what this is novel is about: instead, it is about, perhaps, the potential for memories to come together to forge something profound: something approaching identity.
An Artist of the Floating World has lots of interesting things to say about art and its interplay with personal identity (and yes, politics too). This is an eminently readable novel worthy of thought and reflection.
Saturday, February 15, 2025
Friday, February 14, 2025
Growing old
… A Goddam Stone Wall You Butt Your Head Into.
I turn 84 in October. My view is the same as Bette Davis's: "Growing old sure in hell ain't for sissies."
Monday, February 10, 2025
Sunday, February 09, 2025
Annoying, to say the least …
if they want to have all sorts of crap prior to the Superbowl,fine. but how about keeping it pre-game. it is nearly 6:30.
Saturday, February 08, 2025
Not exactly charming …
… Kingsley Amis. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.'
Amis was always misogynistic and chauvinistic. Take a Girl Like You, for example, published in 1960, is about how the arrogant Patrick Standish is “justified” in behaving as he behaves if the female in question, Jenny Bunn, is beautiful and provocative.
Sounds like a good idea …
… Give the National Endowment for the Arts Back to the Public (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Friday, February 07, 2025
Thursday, February 06, 2025
Wednesday, February 05, 2025
Tuesday, February 04, 2025
Monday, February 03, 2025
Another ignorant legislator ~
I just saw a video of Maryland congressman Jamie Raskin going on about how Congress created USAID. JFK created it by executive order. Hence, it can be ended by executive order.
Sunday, February 02, 2025
Saturday, February 01, 2025
Friday, January 31, 2025
Oh my …
… Plane crash in Northeast Philadelphia leaves multiple houses on fire, causes explosion.
i grew up not far from North Philly airport. My brother worked there for awhile. Can't recall anything kike this happening back then.
Pathetic …
… British university puts trigger warning on Greek mythology for ‘distressing’ content.
They've only been around for more than two millenia.
Thursday, January 30, 2025
Wednesday, January 29, 2025
Getting things straight …
… Etienne Gilson’s essential book on philosophy and its history. [Hat tip, Dave lull.)
Tuesday, January 28, 2025
Janet Malcolm
I didn't know much about Janet Malcolm, but this past week, I finished Still Pictures, a posthumous collection of essays loosely focused on Malcolm and her family. I say loosely because, in the end, as Malcolm's daughter notes in her afterward, this collection is not strictly autobiographical. In each chapter, Malcolm takes a grainy old image and uses it as an entry point into the past, into her past. There are essays focused, primarily, on Malcolm's family and their emigration from Czechoslovakia to America; there are other pieces, though, about religion, American culture, and intellectual life -- both in Europe and the States. For me, what was most refreshing about this collection was its brevity, confidence, and wit: Malcolm does not reach for too much, and she does not focus her gaze entirely on herself: instead, her view is outward, from the original image to its context and history. In many ways, the result is a social history of the first half of the twentieth century: from the wars to the Cold War and beyond. For those with a special appreciation for Czech history, this collection will be particularly rewarding. All told, Still Pictures was a book to savor, and was evocative -- in all the right ways -- of Sebald, Berger, and other greats.
Monday, January 27, 2025
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