Saturday, April 30, 2011
The literary fallacy ...
... A Commonplace Blog: The inadequacy of literature. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Afterlife ...
... On Rattigan | Bryan Appleyard. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
The whole point of a Rattigan play is that characters live in a world in which free emotional expression is not an option. In Flare Path that letter in French specifically acts as a mechanism for suppressing strong emotion. The cultivation of the self and the glorification of self-expression, which became, from the sixties onwards, the presiding ideology, were not virtues in Rattigan’s moral universe but threats. Honour, self-control and endurance were the qualities that mattered.
Thought for the day ...
After debauches and orgies there always follows the moral hangover.- Jaroslav Hašek, born on this date in 1883
Friday, April 29, 2011
Mystery ...
... The New Atlantis � The Unbearable Wholeness of Beings.
The real problem with the mechanistic view lies in the nature of its underlying metaphor. A mechanism is an artifact, and an artifact demands an artificer. To speak of an artifact for which there is no artificer is to speak nonsense. (And no, this is not meant to give credence to intelligent design theory. It is merely to say that both ID theorists and mechanists think of living things in terms of something they are not.)
Work in progress ...
... Persistence: A Rich-Media Fiction by Eric Kraft — Kickstarter. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Something I missed ...
... but thoroughly agree with: Garrison Keillor, August Kleinzahler, and the perils of one-sided fisticuffs.
I could never warm to Prarie Home Companion, either.
Thought for the day ...
Great music is that which penetrates the ear with facility and leaves the memory with difficulty. Magical music never leaves the memory.- Sir Thomas Beecham, born on this date 1879
Thursday, April 28, 2011
This week's batch ...
... of TLS Letters: RLS and ‘The Hair Trunk’, Selkirk’s goats, Rosa Luxemburg,and more!
A pretty fair appraisal ...
... I think: Joseph Epstein on A. Alvarez and Hugh Kenner on Samuel Beckett. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Changing minds ...
... The Realm of the Disenfranchised and 'The Wizard of Oz' - NYTimes.com. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Knowing that there are things you haven’t thought of and couldn’t think of (unless the furniture of your consciousness were transformed) doesn’t give you the slightest hint of what those things might be.
On the one hand ...
... Last Typewriter Factory in the World Shuts Its Doors - Nicholas Jackson - Technology - The Atlantic.
On the other hand: Relax, They’re Still Making Typewriters.
(Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
The Case for Cursive
Big thanks to Dave Lull for directing me to stories on the state of handwriting in today's world, like this one in the NY Times. I find it fascinating that this skill is maybe possibly becoming obsolete. I cannot understand the logic behind the choice not to teach handwriting, that in order to learn something new (keyboarding, computer skills) you must also stomp out all related and older but still-viable skills. It just seems so short-sighted.
Your own ding ...
... Gore, Ex-Apple Engineers Team Up to Blow Up the Book | Gadget Lab | Wired.com. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
“The app is the richest form of storytelling,” Matas said. “[Push Pop Press] opens doors to telling a story with more photos, more videos and interactions.”
And minimal reading. And, presumably, minimal thought.
Thought for the day ...
The book to read is not the one which thinks for you, but the one which makes you think. No book in the world equals the Bible for that.- Harper Lee, born on this date in 1926
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Small feast ...
... Simon Blackburn Reviews Stanley Fish's "How To Write A Sentence" | The New Republic. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
FYI ...
... Why Digital Self-publishing Frightens Some Authors�|�Stormwolf.com. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
In case you wondered ...
... The Moral Implications of Dictionaries | Front Porch Republic. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
To Johnson, the appearance of new words is just as likely as not to signify the effects of ignorance, and to constitute a real corruption in the quality of the language. To simply consent that every popular new coinage should be granted the status of proper English is to submit to a tyranny, the tyranny of popular opinion. The duty of the lexicographer, therefore, is to set his face against this tyranny, and to wage an unremitting battle against the encroachments of ubiquitous bigotry and nonsense.
LIFE then ...
... Transmissions from a Lone Star: Party of the damned | Columnists | RIA Novosti.
“They came from 69 nations: one emperor, eight kings and a cardinal, grand dukes, crown princes, and sheikhs, presidents, premiers and vice presidents…They dined sumptuously on roast peacock, drank the finest wine… Fifty gold-threaded uniforms for (the) royal court cost $1,000 each…Colored light bulbs alone cost $840,000.”
Brooklyn bound ...
... Almost Amis. (Hat tip, Ed Champion, who correctly describes it as ridiculously epic.)
Thought for the day ...
Hero-worship is strongest where there is least regard for human freedom.- Herbert Spencer, born on this date in 1820
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Con amore ...
... Anecdotal Evidence: `From Books, Madam, Like Everyone Else.'
It is worth remembering that amateur means lover.
Time after time ...
... David Eagleman and Mysteries of the Brain : The New Yorker. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I have myself had the experience of time slowing down as I fell. So I know that is precisely true.
... how much of what we perceive exists outside of us and how much is a product of our minds? Time is a dimension like any other, fixed and defined down to its tiniest increments: millennia to microseconds, aeons to quartz oscillations. Yet the data rarely matches our reality.
Bleak outlook ...
... Verse and worse: choosing poems for readers' gender | Books | guardian.co.uk. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
Wordsworth is considered girly enough to have three poems in the female-friendly edition, and none in the book for boys. The dreamy lines of Christina Rossetti are again only for girls, although there are so few women in the boys' book that this is hardly surprising. The four women considered boisterous enough for boys are Emily Dickinson, Emma Lazurus, Laura Richards and Julia Ward Howe, who snuck in with the warlike "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" alongside the good, solid, masculine fare of Robert Louis Stevenson and Rudyard Kipling.
Thought for the day ...
Be content with what you are, and wish not change; nor dread your last day, nor long for it.- Marcus Aurelius, born on this date in 121
Monday, April 25, 2011
Very interesting
... Status Update: The Personal Essay in the Age of Facebook | TriQuarterly Online.
Why do I think this is very interesting? First, because Susan is a very good writer -- I can highly recommend Slipping the Moorings -- and a very bright person. But also because I've been doing some work in this line and I think she's pretty much on the money.
History alive ...
... Stratblog: Elizabeth, The Armada and the Strategy of Yin | Via Meadia.
Nice to know this book hasn't been forgotten.
The text we used was Garrett Mattingly’s delightful The Armada, a triumph of scholarship, strategic analysis and literature all at once.
Hmm ...
... Reform the PhD system or close it down : Nature News.
One reason that many doctoral programmes do not adequately serve students is that they are overly specialized, with curricula fragmented and increasingly irrelevant to the world beyond academia. Expertise, of course, is essential to the advancement of knowledge and to society. But in far too many cases, specialization has led to areas of research so narrow that they are of interest only to other people working in the same fields, subfields or sub-subfields. Many researchers struggle to talk to colleagues in the same department, and communication across departments and disciplines can be impossible.
Hmm ...
... A Case for Hell - NYTimes.com. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
This is more a case for believing in Hell rather for Hell itself. The two are not quite the same. I certainly think we "will not come out of it until we have paid the last penny," and I even go along with the notion of everlasting fire. But the nature of eternity makes eternal damnation a little difficult.
FYI ...
... How meditation might ward off the effects of ageing - Readability. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
In case you wondered ...
... How Easter and Christianity undermine atheism - USATODAY.com.
We can’t reduce the whole of reality to what our senses tell us for the simple reason that our senses are notorious for lying to us. Our senses tell us that the world is flat, and yet it’s not. Our senses tell us that the world is chaotic, and yet we know that on both a micro and a macro level, it’s incredibly organized. Our senses tell us that we’re stationary, and yet we’re really moving at incredible speeds. We just can’t see it.
John Williams
Is it just me - or do the slender novels published by the NYRB pack a serious emotional punch? I ask because I've just finished John Williams's Stoner, a captivating, but ultimately devastating, book of memory and redemption.
Set on the campus of the University of Missouri in the years between the First and Second World Wars, the novel charts the loneliness attached to the Academic Life. There were moments in Stoner (which takes its name from the novel's central character, William Stoner) which approached a sort of American Existential: for as the aging professor contemplates his career, Williams constructs a universe tinged with sorrow, one which resembles the atmosphere of Cather's The Professor's House. The difference, however, is that Williams is unrelenting - positively unrelenting - in his quest for the meaning of regret. (And I mean no disrespect to Cather, because I enjoyed The Professor's House.)
This book really is a masterpiece - a quiet, unassuming masterpiece in which Williams captures the missed opportunities that, in the end, return to us with a frightening, unavoidable consistency. I leave the last word for Williams (271):
"And like any traveler, he felt that there were many things he had to do before he left; yet he could not think what they were."
Thought for the day ...
All day long the door of the sub-conscious remains just ajar; we slip through to the other side, and return again, as easily and secretly as a cat.- Walter de la Mare, born on this date in1873
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Tough subject ...
... A Commonplace Blog: Novels about Jesus. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I think the best way to approach Jesus fictionally is by indirection, as in Pär Lagervist's Barabbas (an excellent book). On the other hand, Franz Werfel's Song of Bernadette is so good it's hard not to think he could have done a good job. Kazantzakis's book is unfairly criticized, I think. After all, Jesus is known to have been tempted, and in Kazantzakis book, if memory serves, he in fact overcomes the last temptation.
Thought for the day ...
As to that leisure evening of life, I must say that I do not want it. I can conceive of no contentment of which toil is not to be the immediate parent.- Anthony Trollope, born on this date in 1815
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Work and luck ...
... On Poetry - Matthew Zapruder and Rachel Wetzsteon - NYTimes.com. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Family business ...
... Elmore Leonard And Sons' Recipes For Writing, Fried Spam : NPR. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
FYI ...
... Science Friday Archives: Science Diction: The Origin Of The Word 'Robot.' (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I actually read R.U.R. years ago. Didn't know it was Čapek's least favorite among his works.
Posing fundamental questions ...
... The Vintage Thrillers of John Buchan - The Barnes & Noble Review. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Thought for the day ...
I got disappointed in human nature as well and gave it up because I found it too much like my own.- J. P. Donleavy, born on this date in 1926
Friday, April 22, 2011
Uncle Bill ...
... On William Harrington: My Uncle the Thriller Author | The Abbott Gran Medicine Show. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Metafictional wonder ...
... The Tragedy of Arthur - The Barnes & Noble Review. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Contentions ...
... A Commonplace Blog: Viktor Frankl and Auschwitz. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
No human experience is comparable to Auschwitz. There is no possible advice that floats like ash from the crematorium’s chimney. The Holocaust is another world, and any effort to adjust it to the ordinary world of ordinary human experience is a perversion and a lie.
I wonder, though. Frankl was only briefly at Auschwitz, as I recall, and was a slave laborer for six months or so after being moved to a camp connected to Dachau. I would hesitate to challenge the view of anyone who had actually experienced the horror of the camps. That said, David's post makes for powerful and unsettling reading.
Thought for the day ...
All nature wears one universal grin.- Henry Fielding, born on this date in 1707
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Preview ...
... The Los Angeles Review of Books � ReadySteadyBlog � ReadySteadyBook - a literary site. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
What to do with leisure ...
... Judith Flanders explores the history of Broadway, according to Larry Stempel, Stephen Sondheim and Charlotte Greenspan - TLS.
James Garfield, the twentieth President of the United States (and a character in Sondheim’s Assassins), suggested that “We may divide the whole struggle of the human race into two chapters. First, the fight to get leisure; and then the second fight of civilization – what shall we do with our leisure when we get it?”.
Better late ...
... we hope: Jack Kerouac's Big Sur heads to the big screen | Film | guardian.co.uk. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Thought for the day ...
Depression is the inability to construct a future.- Rollo May, born on this date in 1909
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Grand tour ...
... The Millions : The James Joyce Book Club: Julian Rios’s The House of Ulysses. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Thought for the day ...
No man knows till he has suffered from the night how sweet and dear to his heart and eye the morning can be.- Bram Stoker, who died on this date in 1912
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Images of horror ...
... Review: Drawings from the Gulag by Danzig Baldaev � The Dabbler.
I hope someone sends a copy to Eric Hobsbawm.
Thought for the day ...
All that non-fiction can do is answer questions. It's fiction's business to ask them.- Richard Hughes, born on this date in 1900
Monday, April 18, 2011
Apologies ...
I had hoped to do a bit of blogging at The Inquirer this afternoon, but couldn't get the computer to copy anything from one site to another. I will look into that tomorrow. In the meantime I had to help an an elderly couple I know get back on the internet (which I did) and now that I am home I have things to do and am mainly exhausted. That is fine, because I realize now is what I want to do is keep working at a nice clip and one day just run out of gas. Not going to do anything tonight because I really am tired.
Certain certainties ...
... Book Review: Moral Combat - WSJ.com. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
To write a history of morality, Mr. Burleigh must steer between the conventions of the historians and the ethicists. On the one hand, he makes no claim to knowledge of the under lying ethics of war. On the other, he does not regard morality, as some historians might, only as one factor among others, to be understood dispassionately. He insists on the ineluctable historical presence of morality in our lives, which leads him to his basic insight: that those who did evil believed that they were doing good.
Creative uncertainty ...
... He Plants His Footsteps On The Sea: Faith Matters | Via Meadia.
God seems to believe in keeping it real. He wants us to face challenges that are bigger than anything we know, more complicated than we can figure out, and so dangerous and all encompassing that we are forced to develop our gifts and our characters to the highest possible degree. He wants us to ‘be all that we can be’, and he won’t take anything less.
That’s not how we want it. Human beings want to tame the wild uncertainty that surrounds us on every side. We want that raging sea to calm itself, now. We want predictable returns on our stock investments, and we want steady economic growth. We want to build institutions that can carry on just as they are until the end of time; uncertainty is the dish humans hate most — and it’s the one thing we can count on God to serve.
Remembering ...
... POETRY MONTH: Kevin Young: 'Ardency: A Chronicle of the Amistad Rebels' | Huntington News. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
Thought for the day ...
Writing is the only way to distance oneself from the century in which it was one’s lot to be born.- Nicolás Gómez Dávila (Don Colacho)
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Luxurious lines ...
... The Millions : Treasure Unearthed: Sir Thomas Browne’s Urn Burial. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Farewell to an ancient tree ...
... In memory of a ponderosa pine friend | this lively earth.
This link had been included in a comment on my WFTC column, but I have only just seen it.
Inclusive, all right ...
... Electrician faces sack for displaying Christian cross in his van - Telegraph.
Maybe he should display the Koran. Bet they wouldn't complain about that.
Scary ...
... I’m a poet. I need my mouth. : Patricia Smith : Harriet the Blog : The Poetry Foundation. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Pretty harsh ...
... Jenny Diski on Tiger, Tiger by Margaux Fragoso – review | Books | The Guardian. (Hat tip, Lee Lowe.)
Footloose legend ...
... Book Review: Johnny Appleseed - WSJ.com. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
The primitive businessman had no overhead but sky. He carried an ax, a scythe and a hoe. Nature watered his trees, and for transportation he used those callused feet. He usually slept outside. He dined on nuts and berries "straight out of the John the Baptist cookbook," Mr. Means says—although eating locusts, he adds, "would have taxed Chapman's animism."
Loops of self-consciousness ...
... Robert Potts reviews The Pale King by David Foster Wallace in the TLS.
Wallace was a formidable philos-ophy student, as well as an impressive junior tennis player and linguistics enthusiast; he wavered between philosophy and creative writing, to the extent that his supervisor Jay Garfield comments “I thought of David as a very talented young philosopher with a writing hobby, and did not realize that he was instead one of the most talented fiction writers of his generation who had a philosophy hobby”.
Today's Inquirer reviews ...
... I review Simon Tolkien's latest: Evidence of guilt, yet gnawing doubts.
... Impressive poetry, full of doubleness.
Thought for the day ...
Difficult times have helped me to understand better than before, how infinitely rich and beautiful life is in every way, and that so many things that one goes worrying about are of no importance whatsoever.- Isak Dinesen, born on this date on 1885
Saturday, April 16, 2011
When a little goes a long way ...
... The Book Haven � Blog Archive � Ginsberg: “America when will you be angelic?”
I once walked out of a Ginsberg reading. He just didn't seem very interesting. At least not that night.
No apology needed ...
... John Updike's "James Agee, Talker" | The New Republic. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
If Agee is to be remembered, it should be for his few, uneven, hard-won successes. The author of the best pages ofLet Us Now Praise Famous Men and A Death in the Family owes no apology to posterity. As to “the quarter of a million unsigned words,” surely a culture is enhanced, rather than disgraced, when men of talent and passion undertake anonymous and secondary tasks. Excellence in the great things is built upon excellence in the small; Agee’s undoing was not his professionalism but his blind, despairing belief in an ideal amateurism.
Very sad news ...
... A Commonplace Blog: It seeks me out that sometime did me flee. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Those of us who pray should say some prayers for David.
See also these, which Dave has just sent along: Diagnosed with cancer and Cancer etiquette.
Post bumped.
Cart, meet horse ...
... Matt Ridley on Cause and Effect Mix-Ups | Mind & Matter - WSJ.com. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Thought for the day ...
Of all the ways of defining man, the worst is the one which makes him out to be a rational animal.- Anatole France, born on this date in 1844
Friday, April 15, 2011
In case you wondered ...
... Why the iPad Is Changing Everything — Again � Tennant: Digital Libraries. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Interiors ...
... 'Rooms With A View: The Open Window In The 19th Century' At The Met | The New Republic. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I'm late with this ...
... but Julian Barnes is featured this week: Sleeping With John Updike — Part One � Five Chapters.
Thought for the day ...
Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact.- Henry James, born on this date in 1843
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Objecting to accuracy ...
... For New Mass, Closer to Latin, Critics Voice a Plain Objection - NYTimes.com. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
In the current Mass, when the priest says, “The Lord be with you,” the congregation responds, “And also with you.” Come November, the congregation will respond, “And with your spirit.”
That's because "et cum spiritu tuo" means -- mirabile dictu! -- "and with your spirit."
Check out the comments.
Thought for the day ...
While it is well enough to leave footprints on the sands of time, it is even more important to make sure they point in a commendable direction.- James Branch Cabell, born on this date in 1879
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
FYI ...
... Amazon.com: Jacques Barzun: Portrait of a Mind eBook: Michael Murray: Books. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
A day late with this ...
... The Centered Librarian: April 12, 1861 the American Civil War began. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Day work ...
... Letters reveal Walt Whitman's other job: Government clerk | McClatchy. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
Thought for the day ...
It is, I believe, the primary charm of poetry to give the lesson of mirage, that is, to show the fragile and vibrant movement of creation, in which the word is in a certain way human quintessence, prayer.- J. M. G Le Clézio, born on this date in 1940
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
OK by me ...
... The Motherf**cker With the Hat, Catch Me If You Can | Don't Let Its Name Be a Curse | Theater Review by Terry Teachout - WSJ.com.
What makes "Hat" more than just a foul-mouthed, fast-moving farce is that Mr. Guirgis's real subject turns out to be moral relativism. The impeccably sober Ralph D., who has swapped booze for fluorescent-colored nutritional beverages, preaches the gospel of AA with a convert's fervor, yet it doesn't stop him from doing whatever he wants to whomever he wants. Jackie, by contrast, has yet to master his self-destructive impulses, but at least he knows that the point of getting sober is not to become more efficient at taking advantage of other people: "Your—whaddyacallit—your world view? It ain't mine. And the day it is, that's the day I shoot myself in the head. I didn't get clean to live like that."
A chat ...
... with Elif Batuman. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I wanted The Possessed to be fiction, actually, so I could take more liberties with it. But because it is based on true stuff there was a lot of pressure for it to be non-fiction, and when it is your first book, you have to do what you are told.
Thought for the day ...
As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.- Lucius Annaeus Seneca, who died on this date in 65
Monday, April 11, 2011
Blogging has resumed ...
... but that will be it for tonight. I've been up since before 5 a.m. I still have some reading to do, and I'm kind of tired. Hope to back up to speed tomorrow.
Critics and assholes ...
... When Falls the Coliseum � The tedium of the provincial, hack critic.
Such people cannot be subject to enough contempt and ridicule.
As for Kraft Macaroni & Cheese — there’s a hell of a lot more nutritional value to be had in a single box of that stuff than in the entirety of some asshole television critic’s oeuvre, written for an advertising distribution pamphlet.
***
If eating a meal at The Olive Garden is this man’s definition of abject misery, in a world in which the United States just entered a third warin the Middle East, in which a civil war is raging in the Ivory Coast, in which tens of thousands of people have been killed in the drug war in Mexico, well, then, yes, I know that he’s being hyperbolic but Mr. Gold is just a big giant asshole, isn’t he?
Such people cannot be subject to enough contempt and ridicule.
Blogging curtailment ...
My Comcast internet conenction went down last night, and my phone was off as well this morning. So I was unable to blog this morning. I am back working at The Inquirer now, and certainly don't have any time to blog. So blogging will resume sometime later on. Ciao!
Thought for the day ...
It is not love, but lack of love which is blind.- Glenway Wescott, born on this date in 1901
Sunday, April 10, 2011
I agree ...
... Paul Davis On Crime: A Prince Of The City Himself: New York Film Director Sidney Lumet Dies.
But I haven't seen much mention of one his films that I think is especially good -- one that ought to be shown again these days: The Pawnbroker.
Full disclosure ...
As of tomorrow morning I will no longer be quite so retired from The Inquirer. To be precise, I will be a temporary, part-time staff member. Nothing important. I'm just going to edit the letters to the editor, sit in on the editorial board meetings, and maybe write something from time to time.
Too much praise , maybe ...
... Inside David Foster Wallace's Private Self-Help Library | The Awl. (Hat tip, Virginia Kerr.)
This leads me to think that I should elaborate on the importance of being shallow -- like me.
Wallace's self-image was fragile and complex, but he was consistent on these points, from then onward. His later work enters into many, many kinds of minds, many points of view, with unvarying respect and an uncanny degree of understanding. Every kind of person was of interest to him.
The love his admirers bear this author has a peculiarly intimate and personal character. This is because Wallace gave voice to the inner workings of ordinary human beings in a manner so winning and so truthful and forgiving as to make him seem a friend.
Sounds right to me ...
... The Management Myth - Magazine - The Atlantic.
After I left the consulting business, in a reversal of the usual order of things, I decided to check out the management literature. Partly, I wanted to “process” my own experience and find out what I had missed in skipping business school. Partly, I had a lot of time on my hands. As I plowed through tomes on competitive strategy, business process re-engineering, and the like, not once did I catch myself thinking, Damn! If only I had known this sooner! Instead, I found myself thinking things I never thought I’d think, like, I’d rather be reading Heidegger! It was a disturbing experience. It thickened the mystery around the question that had nagged me from the start of my business career: Why does management education exist?
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