Friday, December 31, 2010

It does, right?

... Up Front: Why Criticism Matters. (Hat tip, Dave Lull, who also sent along the links below.)

(Of course, if you have to explain why something matters, there's a real possibility that it no longer does.)

Six accomplished critics explain the importance of their work.

Stephen Burn | Katie Roiphe
Pankaj Mishra | Adam Kirsch
Sam Anderson | Elif Batuman

Editors’ Introduction

More Critics on Criticism

For the year's end ...

... if the place I want to get to could only be reached by way of a ladder, I would give up trying to get there. For the place I really have to get is a place I must already be at now.
- Wittgenstein

In order to arrive there,
To arrive where you are, to get from where you are not,
You must go by a way wherein there is no ecstasy.
In order to arrive at what you do not know
You must go by a way which is the way of ignorance.
In order to possess what you do not possess
You must go by the way of dispossession.
In order to arrive at what you are not
You must go through the way in which you are not.
And what you do not know is the only thing you know
And what you own is what you do not own
And where you are is where you are not.
- Eliot

Rogues gallery ...

... The World's Worst Invasive Mammals.

And yes, in the comments, some suggest that humans should head the list. It is true, of course, that humans have done their share of violence to nature. But it is also true that humans are the only species that includes conservationists.

Psst ...

... HaïkuleaksHaiku Finder.

Thought for the day ...

Cure yourself of the affliction of caring how you appear to others. Concern yourself only with how you appear before God, concern yourself only with the idea that God may have of you.
- Miguel de Unamuno, who died on this date in 1936

Thursday, December 30, 2010

I'm with Gaw on this ...

... Last Christmas forever.

I like George Michael. I hope he gets his act more together than he seems to have. But how do you pass up that dark-haired chick he's with in that video? The video you can't see from the link. So here it is.

In case you're wondering ...

... What it is to be a Christian. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)


... a nameless spirituality denies that we are people with names - formed by particular cultures, times, traditions. You've just got to engage with those cultures, times and traditions, for good or ill, to become more of a person. (Hence the Dalai Lama also tells westerners not to become Buddhists.)

And this guy ...

... is supposed to be smart: CREDENTIALED, NOT EDUCATED.

Guess he can't understand Emerson, either. Or Poe. Or Melville. Or ...

Well worth reading ...

... The Sweet Despair of End-Culture Snark.

... those for whom heated argument is not their default mode of communication often go unheard in public discourse nowadays, precisely because heated argument is not their default mode.

Sad, but true. And the problem with heated arguments is that they tend to shed neither light nor warmth.

Thought for the day ...

"Security is a false God. Begin to make sacrifices to it and you are lost.
- Paul Bowles, born on this date in 1910

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Yes, but ...

... so sad that this happened at a time of celebration: A Man of Letters. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Well, I have to agree ...

... with Ann Althouse on this (of course, I liked the song when it came out): "[T]he worst pop song designed to reflect a profound moral conscience. I.e. the smuggest, most pretentious pop song in history."

I have to say -- and I don't like saying it -- but Andrew Sullivan does seem to have taken leave of his senses lately. The obsession with Sarah Palen and her family just strikes me as -- and this is putting it as politely as I can -- bizarre.

Those good old days ...

... Click clack, the typewrter is back, for an afterno n. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

If the Inquirer website's annoyingly intrusive ads is an example of how they're repsonding to the new media model, well, I can understand why Newsweek sold for a dollar. (That's an in joke, I admit.)

Faded eminence ...

... Underrated: Charles Taylor. (Hat tip, Dave Lull -- who also notes the swipe at Massim Nicholas Taleb, about which I may have more to say later on.)

Thought for the day ...

What is it they want from the man that they didn't get from the work? What do they expect? What is there left when he's done with his work, what's any artist but the dregs of his work, the human shambles that follows it around?
- William Gaddis, born on this date in 1922

Nice idea ...

... but: An NEA initiative debauches the educational value of verse: Rhyme Scheme. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Poetry Out Loud fails in practice, however, to emphasize sufficiently those qualities of poetry essential to its educative power. It is not simply that the program has been avowedly influenced by hip-hop, with its typically monotonous rhythms, and by “slam poetry,” a form of expression more akin to political propaganda than to art. A deeper problem is that the Poetry Out Loud anthology, on which participants must draw in choosing the poems they recite, favors modern poets, many of whom lack the rhythmical sophistication of the acknowledged masters of versification—the major poets in the literary canon. Of some 360 poets featured in the online anthology, more than 200 were born after 1910. With poetry so recent, it is difficult to distinguish poems with a permanent value from those that reflect transient fashions. Much of the poetry chosen for the anthology is, moreover, metrically irregular; whatever the other merits of this verse, it cannot match the intricacy and musical complexity of poetry composed in fidelity to the traditional rubrics of metrical order.


Underlying this, of course, is the usual crap about relevance.

"Oh, dear" is right ...

... The Sounds of Christmas.

Let us pray for those poor people -- and their children.

Very thoughtful ...

... and well worth pondering: Life and Meaning and Life and Meaning Again.

I certainly agree that intelligence is intrinsic to life.

Thought for the day ...

In the case of good books, the point is not to see how many of them you can get through, but how many can get through to you.
- Mortimer Adler, born on this date in 1902

Monday, December 27, 2010

Most interesting ...

... especially to me: Poem of the Week--Grevel Lindop.

I have an ring with an opal in it -- made by Gwen, who makes jewelry -- on my right hand. But I am an October child. It is my birthstone. It is said that we are the only ones who can wear opals without incurring bad luck

I'm tired ...

... and will not blog much longer tonight. BUT: My Christmas present from Debbie was Leonard Bernstein: The Symphony Edition, which I wanted because I thought it included his 1958 recording of Tchaikovsky's fourth symphony -- a great recording. It doesn't. But it does have his 1970 recording. So far, it is little different. Bernstein bonds with this symphony (as I do myself, though, obviously, in a different way). I grew up with Ormandy conducting this piece, which means I was spared any bathos and treated to glorious sound. But Bernstein gets to the heart of it.
(Actually, the first and second movements of the later recording are very similar to the earlier recording; the third movement in the later recording, however, is just a tad more deft, and the final movement of the later recording is even better than the earlier one: Bernstein, a great conductor-- aa well as a pretty good composer -- understood this music.)

Yes!

... Honor.

Please read the caption before you comment.

More on gratitude ...

... “Life itself is the gift…” — Forrest Church on gratitude, with a few words from Joseph Brodsky, too.

Once again, I feel obliged to recall John Hall Wheelock's insight that “to have lived / Even if once only, once and no more, / Will have been – oh, how truly — worth it.”

I think being alive is a grace from God. But even if you think it's just happenstance, it still seems grounds for gratitude.

Worth a look ...

... Dappled Things.

Hey, if Richard John Neuhaus spoke well of it, that's enough for me. It's also always good to pay attention to what enthusiastic young people are doing.

Well here's a different take ...

... on WikiLeaks: The Blast Shack. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

The more I think about this, the more I am convinced the outcome will be a black swan. This piece, like all the others I have looked at, interprets the matter in terms of what we know now, projecting that into the future. I suspect something unsuspected will happen. I also think that in the long run Julian Assange and Bradley Manning will become footnotes. Manning seems to me a confused young man. Give him a slap on the wrist, and let him go on with his life.

The next step ...

... Auden's "Well, so that is that. Now we must dismantle the tree ..." - From "For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio." (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Noir and me ...

... A stroll on Philadelphia's dark side. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

A couple of typos therein, but you should be able to figure it out.

Thought for the day ...

Intuition is given only to him who has undergone long preparation to receive it.
- Louis Pasteur, born on this date in 1822

The answer ...

... the other I posted A poll.

As of today Kierkegaard is the winner with 42 percent of the votes cast. John Henry Newman ame in second with 33 percent. Wittgenstein, William James, and John Polkinghorne were tied with 8 percent each.

The correct answer was Ludwig Wittgenstein.

Thought for the day ...

Develop an interest in life as you see it; the people, things, literature, music - the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself.
- Henry Miller, born on this date in 1891

Friday, December 24, 2010

Psst ...

... Sneak Preview.

I had the privilege of seeing this beforehand and I think it's great.

A poll ...

... if I am to be REALLY saved, - what I need is certainty - not wisdom, dreams or speculation - and this certainty is faith. And faith is faith in what is needed by my heart, my soul, not my speculative intelligence. For it is my soul with its passions, as it were with its flesh and blood, that has to be saved, not my abstract mind.

(So far SK and Newman are tied at 38 percent each, and Wittgenstein and Polkingnorne are also tied at 13 percent each. No votes yet for William James.)

Who said this?
Søren Kierkegaard
John Henry Newman
Ludwig Wittgenstein
William James
John Polkinghorne
Free polls from Pollhost.com

Hear, hear ...

... Twelve theses on libraries and librarians.

Librarians often contrive for themselves this Luddite image. But they are in truth the most progressive and visionary figures ... like bloodhounds, always hot on the trail of the future.

Sounds like Dave Lull to me!

Thought for the day ...

Use your gifts faithfully, and they shall be enlarged; practice what you know, and you shall attain to higher knowledge.
- Matthew Arnold, born on this date in 1822

Thursday, December 23, 2010

The Counterlife


Journal entry from Mexico City:

Score one for Irony.

I mean, really, what are the odds that I should become consumed by Philip Roth's Counterlife in a place whose foundations are firmly, unshakably, Catholic? Truly, reading Roth's novel this week has been surreal: after all, here I am, surrounded at almost every turn by visual representations of Christ, and yet, in my lap, I'm holding a sort of Jewish jeremiad.

I could go on and on about this irony, and about the triumph that is The Counterlife, but I won't - if only because the irony, much like the novel, speaks - absolutely, insistently - for itself.

I will say, though, that the final seventy-five pages of this masterpiece are as good as it gets.

And so, come on, let's leave behind (or at least revisit) those tired characterizations of Roth. After all, this novel is about so much more than tribalism, or tribal affiliation, or paranoia, or the modern construction of "we."

It's a book, in the end, about one hopelessly, endlessly complicated thing: history. And it's the sad (at moments in this novel, devastating) revelation that "conflict is never rooted in the here and now but...originates so far back that all that remains of the grandparents' values are the newlyweds' ugly words" which endows The Counterlife with such a ferocious, such a spirited punch.

I couldn't put this book down.

Once again ...

... Bellow's letters: They don’t say that about Idi Amin. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Don’t ask the wives. (Except the last one, Janis, who was a force behind this volume, mother of his last child, and staunch keeper of the flame.) They lived with the man who wrote these letters. They also lived with the man who wrote the novels, and the distance between these two men, you imagine, must be part of the story of the wives’ fiery sense of right and wrong. Bellow’s striving with life’s problems, when the reviewers’ backs were turned, most often involved the complications of the heart, to put it nicely. One might instead speak of matrimonial torture, faithlessness, cheating, divorce, alimony, parental access and the courts. Bellow had a big heart for struggling male souls, and the letters are at their most tender when he’s dealing with people like Berryman or John Cheever – ‘you were engaged, as a writer should be, in transforming yourself … I loved you for this’ – but the wives, sadly, emerge with snakes for hair. In fact he gives them the same sort of critical dermabrasion he gives to the critics, searing their faces: you never understood me; you’re not qualified to judge me; why don’t you just climb into the centre of your smallness and fuck off and die.

"[Y]ou were engaged, as a writer should be, in transforming yourself ..." There is a widespread notion that the creation of art is so important that it gives artists license to behave however they wish. Well, it isn't and they shouldn't.

Light blogging ...

... I had to be out and about this afternoon, getting things for a Vigilia supper we're having tomorrow night (on Christmas we're going out with friends to ... a Chinese restaurant). So blogging is going to be light in the meantime. And who the hell is bothering to read blogs now anyway?

This week's batch ...

... of TLS Letters: Vichy as a buffer state, Them cornfields, Shelley at Eton, and more!

Thought for the day ...

If we want everything to remain as it is, it will be necessary for everything to change.
- Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, born on this date in 1896

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Well, now ...

... here's a list: Notable Books of 2010. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

For the recent solstice ...

... “…and eyes full of tinsel and fire.”

Where the hell was Jeff Sypeck when I wanted to study the Middle Ages? Probably not born. Oh, well.

What a useful site ...

... at least for a Catholic Taoist like myself: Tao Te Ching.

We all have one ...

... Our Musical Soul.

I remember the first time I heard Daphnis et Chloe. I thought I had never heard anything so beautiful.

Drab soap opera ...

... Chelsea Girl: Andrew Butterfield Reviews Steve Martin's An Object Of Beauty. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Measurement and forecasting ...

... A Scientist, His Work and a Climate Reckoning. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

The presumption throughout this article is that an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide necessarily results in an increase in temperature. This has been called global warming. All of which is fine, except that the global average temperature has been stable for the past several years while -- according to the article -- the atmospheric CO2 level has continued to increase. Also, if CO2 causes the temperature to rise, I don't see how it can be made to account for current chilly temperatures. Remember, I am agnostic on this issue. I do not see that a conclusive case has been made either way. But I do think there are sound reasons to doubt some of the logic employed by the AGW advocates (don't identify weather with climate -- except when the weather seems to support AGW, for instance). Anyway, I've posted plenty of stuff questioning AGW. Seems only fair to post this as well.

I link. You decide for yourself. In the meantime, here's something I posted a link to a while back: The Super La Nina and the Coming Winter.

Why, of course ...

... Mnot Your Mother's Narnia.

Perhaps Palin could do us a favor, and read Tom Friedman and Malcolm Gladwell. That would finish them off.

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Minority report ...

... Overrated: Nassim Nicholas Taleb. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

I reviewed The Black Swan, and what I thought about it then is what I still think: that its epistemological implications, especially for historiography, are considerable, since in the latter case it would involve reconstructing the ignorance prevailing at any given time. This review, in my opinion, rather oversimplifies what Taleb had to say. And the aphorism is a literary form that can be taken up by anyone at any time of life.

Ongoing ...

... Against “net neutrality”.

Of course, if you think this will weaken the effect of those you disagree with, you won't be opposed. But if so, you are not in favor of free expression.

Overcoming ...

... The joy, terror and ennui of new experiences.

I got over my fear of standing in front of audience thanks to a required course in college: Rhetoric and Public Speaking.

From the comments

... a point well made:

Shelley said...

Apologies for visiting twice in one week, but it might be a good time for us to do some Paul Revere-ing on the Internet–today the FCC is passing down the first of the Net Neutrality rulings. Al Franken on HuffPo (scroll down middle column there) says we should be outraged, and he doesn’t usually exaggerate. The Internet should not be headed toward corporate blogs buying the fast lane and the rest of us stuck in slow.

Not sure where to make our voice heard, by emailing the White House or maybe the FCC page with How To Make ECFS Express Comments? It might be good if non-corporate websites had a community way for us to alert each other when something important like this comes up. Please consider passing it on.

I don't know about Al Franken not being given to exaggeration, but I'm glad to hear he objects, and glad to know that he and I finally agree on something. I don't know if the FCC or the White House would heed any comments, however many and however negative, because both think they know better. I would suggest getting in touch with one's Congressman (though mine is a buffoon) or senators. See also Hands off tomorrow's Internet.

Good news ...

... Philosophy Lives. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

It seems to me that M-theory is simply a conditional proposition: If there are multiple universes, then there need be no creator. But there is no evidence for the postulated multiple universes. So all they are saying is that it is theoretically possible that God does not exist. Not exactly evidence-based reasoning, however.

Back in October ...

... the story was: WINTER TO BE MILD PREDICTS MET OFFICE.

... using data generated by a £33million supercomputer...
Happily, this is only weather.

Here's something related: The man who repeatedly beats the Met Office at its own game.

Thought for the day ...

People think that because a novel's invented, it isn't true. Exactly the reverse is the case. Biography and memoirs can never be wholly true, since they cannot include every conceivable circumstance of what happened. The novel can do that.
- Anthony Powell, born on this date in 1905

Woe is he ...

... December: Difficulties.

I sympathize. Years ago, when I had a large and drafty house in Germantown, something almost always went wrong the heating system in ... December.

I never miss an opportunity ...

... to highlight sprezzatura: Virginia Postrel on Glamour.

It is a word I first came upon in Burckhardt's The Civilization of the Renaisssance in Italy, which is a great book.

Watch where you go ...

... for books: Book Review: Of Thee I Sing by B. H. Obama.

Glad to see Daniel detested Julie & Julia as much as I did.

Thought for the day ...

A tragedy need not have blood and death; it's enough that it all be filled with that majestic sadness that is the pleasure of tragedy.
-Jean Racine, born on this date in 1639


Sunday, December 19, 2010

Hmm ...

... Astronomer Sues the University of Kentucky, Claiming His Faith Cost Him a Job.

With his faith, Dr. Gaskell, who now works at the University of Texas but has accepted a job in Chile, does embrace views that most of his peers find indefensible. In a 1998 survey, 7.5 percent of physicists and astronomers in the National Academy of Sciences said they believed in God — and many of the believers would still concede that science explains the universe better than a reading of Genesis.

"...views that most of his peers find indefensible." What might those views be? That Big Bang theory sounds an awful lot like "Let there be light"? It's not as if he were arguing on behalf of the world being created in six 24-hour periods. I believe in a creator. That does not make me a "creationist," which I am not. Maybe some of the people at the University of Kentucky need to make plain to themselves what or whom they are talking about.

An observation ...

... the first of what I hope will be a regular feature.

Recently, there have been -- in Ireland, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy and Greece -- riots protesting government policies. In the U.S. -- that troglodytic region -- there were some gatherings in D.C. But they all fell under the rubric of the Constitutionally acknowledged right of the freedom of citizens to peaceably assemble, and nothing remotely violent occurred.
Instead, we had an election. Americans still think they -- the citizens -- are where the power comes from. If anyone disapproves of how the vote went -- well, that's their problem. Maybe they should move to Europe and join a riot.

Case in point: THOUSANDS Of Protesters Storm Government Building After Rigged Elections in Belarus – Opposition Candidate Beaten to a Pulp.


A great film ...

... All heart and no napkins. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

I think Fred MacMurray is the one to watch in The Apartment. He is wondrously callous. By the way, I think Mark Steyn is every bit as good on politics as he is on films, but I can see why those who are unsympathetic to his politics would think otherwise.

Lives in brief ..

... Lazy Sunday Afternoon: They left early.

I think Mendelssohn is generally thought to be the musical prodigy of all time, because some his early works -- like the octet, but also the overture to A Midsummer Night's Dream -- were not only written when he was very young, but are masterpieces.

Most impressive ...

... Sarah Ruden, a joyful iconoclast. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

In my circles, we're supposed to deride the flag-waver who asserts that God loves our nation more than others, but I'm bored with that, and more inclined to get annoyed with the typical clerical politician of the left--just because no one around me challenges him, however strange his statements: for example, that "poverty elimination" and Christianity are functionally the same thing.

Aside from the obvious Scriptural and theological objections you could make to that, there are horrors of the twentieth century to look back on: the massive poverty elimination projects in the Soviet Union, North Korea, Cambodia, China, and Tanzania. The result was always elimination of the poor, those irritating barriers between human ideology and agency, and the paradise leaders insisted that these can create on their own






Thought for the day ...

The happiness of the drop is to die in the river.

- Al-Ghazali, who died on this date in 1111

More wonders ...

... of communism: Who assigned you that rank?

I do, of course, understand that this is nothing compared to what the free enterprise system would have done to him.

This is great ...

... and I will probably plug it more than just once. I pre-ordered this, I've seen it, and I loved it. I have the privilege of talking with Harry a few times and somewhere around here is a letter - a real typed, signed letter -- from him. He deserves to be remembered.

Who Is Harry Nilsson (And Why Is Everybody Talkin' About Him)? - Trailer.
(Hat tip, Dave Lull. Thank you, Dave!)

Bryan resurfaces ...

... and appears to be doing to many drugs: Sci-Fi Drugs. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Literary fortune ...

... Surprised by C.S. Lewis: Why his popularity endures.

Lewis’ books remain strong sellers. His “Mere Christianity” has been on the BookScan Religion Bestseller’s list a record 513 weeks since the list started in 2001. At least 430,000 copies of Lewis’ books have been sold this year alone, HarperOne officials said.

Pretty impressive figures.

Intervals of feelings ...

... Lionel Shriver on William Trevor: A Crowded Head. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Not so fast ...

... Why atheism can't replace religion.

... for many people, religion is not merely a way to deal with fear, uncertainty, and emotional difficulties. In my experience, many people follow a particular religious way of life because they believe that it is true. The problem with a market-based analysis of the future of religion, as well as the market-based practices present in many contemporary religious communities, is that religion at its best is not a consumer product Rather, at its best religious faith calls for sacrifice, unselfishness, love, and a willingness to remove oneself from the center of the universe, so to speak. In order to be willing to live in such a way, a self-centered market-based approach to religion will not do.
See also: Book Review—The Will of God.

Most of these ...

...wouldn't be on my list, but then, I'm not sure what my list would be: Book List.

Hard to imagine that Aquinas's Summa has not been immensely influential. I summed up when went before, and what came after was largely an attack upon it. A perfect focal point.

Not to worry ...

... it's only weather: Coldest December Since Records Began.

If it were record heat, of course, that would be something else as well.

Anniversary ...

... Spotty History, Maybe, but Great Literature. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

On this topic, the must-read id Dana Gioia's On "Paul Revere's Ride" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

And here's a copy of a review I wrote some years back: Longfellow revisited.

Perspective ...

... 13 Underrated Books of 2010.

My friend Andrew Ervin makes the list. Andrew reviewed for me. In fact, he may have gotten his start as a reviewer at The Inquirer.

Ed Champion review Westlake's Memory for The Inquirer and, as I recall, liked it a lot.

Thought for the day ...

I want to look at life - at the commonplaces of existence - as if we had just turned a corner and run into it for the first time.
- Christopher Fry, born on this date in 1907

Friday, December 17, 2010

God's one recorded laugh ...

... which appears to be ongoing: 'Humorists'. (Hat tip, (Paul Davis.)

This week's batch ...

... of TLS Letters: Vichy as a buffer state, Bruno Bettelheim, M-theory, and more!

He won't get an argument from me ...

... Big Government, Big Business Both Evil: 'Black Swan' Taleb.

When The Inquirer was owned by Knight-Ridder I used to quip that working for a large corporation was a lot like living in the Soviet Union. Concentrated loci of power gravitate around each other.