… Gene Hackman slaps homeless man | The Daily Caller.
I'd have done the same thing, and I'm 11 years younger than Hackman.
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Defending freedom …
… Silenced. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Silenced is an indispensable book and an invaluable reference for anyone interested in sustaining freedoms of conscience, speech, and religion. It is as thorough as it is devastating in its survey of Muslim-majority countries and their strictures on these freedoms, and on the influence that these very same countries are attempting to exercise, with some success, on the West’s discussion of Islam.
Booming …
… Bowker: Number of self-published books up 287% since 2006 — paidContent. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Who knew?
… Bruce Charlton's Miscellany: Case study of Leftist resentment, moral inversion and the corrosion of character: J.K Rowling. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Naturally JKR does not feel gratitude for being kept alive at a level which was luxurious by world-historical standards; why would she feel grateful to other people who had no choice in the matter but pay their taxes?And naturally she is not grateful to state officials who make their living (often a very good living) from the job of collecting and distributing such resources.Instead (since there is no such thing as neutrality of attitude) JKR feels a burning, and apparently lifelong, resentment that she was supported by others at a lower-than-average level for Scotland at that timepoint (i.e.relative poverty - not absolute poverty, where people are in danger of death from starvation, disease, exposure etc), and that she was supported in such a way, and in such a cultural climate, that she was regarded as having low status ('scapegoated and stigmatized').
Hmm …
… Essay on Jacques Barzun (1907-2012) | Inside Higher Ed. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Dave also sends along this: Barzun's mind was one of world's wonders.
“That a user had ‘the whole world of knowledge at his disposal,’ ” he writes, is “one of those absurdities like the belief that ultimately computers would think -- it will be time to say so when a computer makes an ironic answer. ‘The whole world of knowledge’ could be at one's disposal only if one already knew a great deal and wanted further information to turn into knowledge after gauging its value.”
Dave also sends along this: Barzun's mind was one of world's wonders.
FYI …
… Europe left behind as shale shock drives America’s industrial resurgence - Telegraph. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Thought for the day …
The only means of strengthening one's intellect is to make up one's mind about nothing, to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts.
— John Keats, born on this date in 1795
Stink words...
...Aint This Good English?
I am of the view that all slang is good slang. It tells us as much about language as it does about the history of a place.
I am of the view that all slang is good slang. It tells us as much about language as it does about the history of a place.
Literary ventriloquism...
...Voices Heard on the Page
The trick of creating a voice is like tuning a radio, I suppose; fuzzy static, babble, then finally the clear speech emerges.
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Hmm …
… Lewis Lapham’s Antidote to the Age of BuzzFeed | Arts and Culture | Smithsonian Magazine. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Of course, Lapham is also the fellow who wrote an eye-witness account of the 2004 Republican Convention before it took place (to his credit, he promptly apologized). Also, in this piece he seems to confuse the Roman Inquisition with the Spanish Inquisition. There was no "Holy Inquisition." Quibbling, I know, but if you're going to talk about something, know what it is.
Amiable stupidity …
… The Lexicon of Pussyfooting | First Things. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Certain images recur: abdication, desire for release, and exhausted impotence. The adult world of achieved self-discipline abdicates to an adolescent world of spontaneity and desire. Among those charged with responsibility for cultural standards, Barzun sees a strong desire for “a release from responsibility.” People “idealize youth” and “hope that youth will bring to the conduct of life an energy that manners have sapped in their elders.” The really smart and ambitious intellectuals read the signs of the times and strike poses accordingly: “Nowadays it is assumed that all attacks on culture are equal in virtue, and that attacking society, because it is society, is the one aim and test of genius.”
In case you wondered …
… The State of the Short Story. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Dave also sends along this: SOME NOTES ON THE NOVELLA.
Dave also sends along this: SOME NOTES ON THE NOVELLA.
Today's must read...
...Literature is not Data: Against Digital Humanities by Stephen Marche
Take any meaningful line in literature and the same fugitive release from the status of information is there. Take my favorite line of Shakespeare’s, from Macbeth: “Light thickens, and the crows make wing to the rooky wood.” What is the difference between a crow and a rook? Nothing. What does it mean that light thickens? Who knows? The lines, as data, are more or less nonsense. And yet they illuminate their moment radiantly.
Together at last …
… Good fellows: Martin Scorsese and Colonel Blimp | Film | The Guardian. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Spookfest...
...The 10 Best Ghost Stories
I read Sarah Waters' The Little Stranger. It is remarkably well done. Full of the intimate details of Waters' writing, the book is a story of class envy wrapped in a horror story. Intense and unpredictable!
A more detailed review here.
I read Sarah Waters' The Little Stranger. It is remarkably well done. Full of the intimate details of Waters' writing, the book is a story of class envy wrapped in a horror story. Intense and unpredictable!
A more detailed review here.
A surprise...
...When Ian Fleming tried to escape James Bond
Clearly drawing extensively on the experiences of female acquaintances in his active private life and in his professional capacity as the well-connected foreign manager of the Sunday Times, he allows Michel to tell her story in her own way, complete with the occasional girlish exclamation mark.
Pretty petty …
… William Faulkner sues Woody Allen? - CSMonitor.com.
The passage has practically entered the language. And actually, the most memorable line in the film is "You people don't even have Novacaine."
The passage has practically entered the language. And actually, the most memorable line in the film is "You people don't even have Novacaine."
Thought for the day …
Politics is the art of preventing people from busying themselves with what is their own business.
— Paul Valéry, born on this date 1871
Monday, October 29, 2012
Listen in …
… Jacques Barzun And Civilization In Decline | On Point with Tom Ashbrook. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Non-combative discussion …
… Need Accurate Political Fact-Checking? Ask a Librarian. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I expected the recent opinion piece that I wrote (In the age of unexpectedly) to draw the usual suspects' comments, but it didn't, perhaps because it was so fact-based that even true believers found themselves hard-pressed to find anything to counter it with.
I expected the recent opinion piece that I wrote (In the age of unexpectedly) to draw the usual suspects' comments, but it didn't, perhaps because it was so fact-based that even true believers found themselves hard-pressed to find anything to counter it with.
"You fancy me mad …"
… Paris Review – “The Tell-Tale Heart” in Pictures, Daniel Horowitz. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Big bucks books …
… AbeBooks: The Visible Man: The Rare Books of HG Wells.
Wells also ended his life in despair, as evidenced by his last book, Mind at the End of Its Tether. In addition, he was a most unpleasant racist. "The swarms of black, brown, dirty-white and yellow people have to go," he wrote. "It is their portion to die out."
Oh no, not again...
...Are book blogs killing off literary criticism?
I don't know about you, but there's something about the whole debate that smacks of "let the peasants eat cake"...except that they can't possibly know what flavour cake is best, so someone with a PhD in literature should step in and tell them, after first bashing them figuratively over the head with some BS about post-structuralist this, and post-modernist that.
Eminently desirable...
...Howard Jacobson: puncturing the pieties of literary life
“You’re liberating readers from dogma, you’re liberating them from ideology, you’re liberating them from certainty,” Jacobson said. “You’re introducing your readers to the joys of utter skepticism and you’re showing them the pleasure of sarcasm and mistrust.”
Copyright excess...
...William Faulkner sues Woody Allen?
Faulkner Literary Rights, the company that controls the late author’s works, said Thursday that those 10 words uttered by Wilson’s character violates copyright and that Sony Pictures did not seek permission to use the quote.
From the grave …
… The Millions : The Man Who Blew the Dust Off James M. Cain’s Lost Last Novel. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Erratic blogging …
Yesterday, I had to leave the house early and take the train to Chestnut Hill, so I could attend Mass with my two step-grndsons and practice with John, the older of the two, for his confirmation next Sunday. As is usual with such things, it took longer than expected and I didn't get back until later than I intended. Hence, the spotty blogging yesterday.
For the defense …
… Newspapers are worth fighting for – even when they’re wrong - Telegraph. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Well, I certainly don't think newspapers should be regulated. If they break the law, prosecute them as you would anyone else. But otherwise leave them alone.
Well, I certainly don't think newspapers should be regulated. If they break the law, prosecute them as you would anyone else. But otherwise leave them alone.
Something you simply must read …
… both terrifying and consoling: The American Scholar: Mortify Our Wolves - Christian Wiman. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Always that little caveat, that little appeal to relevance: And the time of death is every moment. Let me tell you, it is qualitatively different when death leans over to sniff you, when massive unmetaphorical pain goes crawling through your bones, when fear—goddamn fear, you can’t get rid of it—ices your spine. St. Teresa of Ávila, describing the entry into one of the innermost rooms of the “interior castle,” into the domain of mystical experience, says, “It’s necessary that he who gives everything else give the courage also.” She means God. And God has given me courage in the past—I have felt palpably lifted beyond my own ability to respond or react. But this most recent time in the hospital, when the cancer had become so much more aggressive and it seemed for a time as if I’d reached the end of my options, I felt only death. In retrospect it seems like a large and ominous failure.
Circling the wagons…
… Penguin and Random House to merge | Business | guardian.co.uk. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Thought for the day …
I'm not afraid of death. It's the stake one puts up in order to play the game of life.
— Jean Giraudoux, born on this date in 1882
Danilo Kis
There's no question about it: the award for best book in a while goes to Danilo Kis's A Tomb for Boris Davidovich.
Wow, what a stylist. And what an incredible set of stories.
First published in 1976, A Tomb for Boris Davidovich spoke to me in large part because of its connections with the world of W. G. Sebald. The stories are imagined, it's true, but the complex histories woven by Kis endow them with a realism that relegates them - like Sebald's novels - to a realm just outside fiction, in the gray netherworlds of documentary fiction (or something like it).
Kis, who was of Yugoslav and Jewish ancestry, was a master of Europe: indeed, his stories suggets a profound understanding of the past; they also, though, suggest a cruel familiarity with communism, fascism, and the other forms of European totalitarianism that flourished between 1919 and 1945.
This familiarity results in a distinct narrative voice, one defined by its precision, but also by its detachment. It's as if Kis has co-opted the steely quality of reports filed by Europe's secret police and added to them an element of artistry: he's played the game (and won) using the enemy's tools.
With the exception of Sebald - and maybe Joseph Roth - I can't think of another author who, for me, gets at the complex relationship between history, politics, and tragedy in Europe the same way that Kis does.
Despite the sorrow of this work (and there's plenty of it to go around), I count myself as lucky to have come upon it.
Sunday, October 28, 2012
Times and places …
… ‘Back to Blood,’ by Tom Wolfe - NYTimes.com. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
The pacing of “Back to Blood” can be peculiarly slow: its individual sentences are as overstuffed with effects as one of Nestor’s muscle shirts, but the story unfolds with a lot of leisure and recap. Even so, Wolfe remains as skillful as ever in texturing the novel’s terrain, from the “prairie of concrete” formed by Hialeah’s front yards to a tired retirement complex up in Broward County where “the little iron balconettes and the aluminum frames for the sliding doors looked as if they were about to fall off and die in a pile.” Nestor’s grandmother wears exactly the right pair of white jeans, while the sunglasses he sports are “what every cool Cuban cop in Miami wore . . . $29.95 at CVS . . . gold bar, baby!”
Thought for the day …
Art is the symbol of the two noblest human efforts: to construct and to refrain from destruction.
— Evelyn Waugh, born on this date in 1903
Saturday, October 27, 2012
Hard-boiled reality...
...Sleepless in Shanghai
The story [of Bo Xilai] is apparently about to turn into a new case for Inspector Chen in the next novel in the series by Qiu Xiaolong, which goes to show that the love affair between reality and fiction is going strong. But then again, Qiu is at a safe distance in the US, while the other Chinese pulp writers seem to be living cautiously in a country without private detectives.
Unintended consequences …
… In Praise of Toleration | Laissez-Faire Bookstore. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
It Usually Begins with Ayn Rand is a jazz improvisation on the early history of the modern libertarian movement, not a transcript. But what a sax solo! (Of course, Rand didn’t like jazz either.)
My own libertarianism had nothing to do with Ayn Rand, whom I did not read until late in life and only because I had to write an article. The key influences on me were Albert Jay Nock's Memoirs of a Superfluous Man and George Woodcock's Anarchism.
Here we go again …
… It's Genre Fiction. Not That There's Anything Wrong With It! : The New Yorker. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Vintage review …
… Maverick Philosopher: Whittaker Chambers' 1957 Review of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged.
Since a great many of us dislike much that Miss Rand dislikes, quite as heartily as she does, many incline to take her at her word. It is the more persuasive, in some quarters, because the author deals wholly in the blackest blacks and the whitest whites. In this fiction everything, everybody, is either all good or all bad, without any of those intermediate shades which, in life, complicate reality and perplex the eye that seeks to probe it truly. This kind of simplifying pattern, of course, gives charm to most primitive story-telling. And, in fact, the somewhat ferro-concrete fairy tale the author pours here is, basically, the old one known as: The War between the Children of Light and the Children of Darkness. In modern dress, it is a class war. Both sides to it are caricatures.
Today …
… In its 10th year, Philly Zine Fest uses "HallowZine" theme - Philly.com. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Thought for the day …
In marriage there are no manners to keep up, and beneath the wildest accusations no real criticism. Each is familiar with that ancient child in the other who may erupt again. We are not ridiculous to ourselves. We are ageless. That is the luxury of the wedding ring.
— Enid Bagnold, born on this date in 1889
Friday, October 26, 2012
More …
… Cultural historian, author Jacques Barzun dies - San Antonio Express-News. ( Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Earlier today, thanks to Dave, I linked to a piece about what Barzun believed, the point being that he wasn't a practicing Catholic. What I got out of it was that he was a Catholic much like I was when I didn't practice: a cultural Catholic. It's all between him and God.
Earlier today, thanks to Dave, I linked to a piece about what Barzun believed, the point being that he wasn't a practicing Catholic. What I got out of it was that he was a Catholic much like I was when I didn't practice: a cultural Catholic. It's all between him and God.
Yes …
… Instapundit — INSTAVISION: I talk to Camille Paglia about art, art history, and why she’s not voting for Obama.
Camille stiffed me for a review once, but I forgive her.
Camille stiffed me for a review once, but I forgive her.
Ambitious flick …
… A riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma - Roger Ebert's Journal. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Appreciation …
… The Achievement of Jacques Barzun | First Things. (Hat tip, Dave Lull, who also sends along this:
… What Did Barzun Believe?
… What Did Barzun Believe?
How very sad …
… Jacques Barzun, Historian and Scholar, Dies at 104 - NYTimes.com. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
What a great man and thinker. Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and may perpetual light shine upon him.
… Dave also sends: Jacques Barzun, wide-ranging cultural historian, dies at 104.
What a great man and thinker. Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and may perpetual light shine upon him.
… Dave also sends: Jacques Barzun, wide-ranging cultural historian, dies at 104.
Thought for the day …
An author knows his landscape best; he can stand around, smell the wind, get a feel for his place.
— Tony Hillerman, who died on this date in 2008
Thursday, October 25, 2012
Interestingly...
...Penguin and Random House in merger talks
"But the deal makes sense: Amazon's market share of physical and ebooks in the UK is fast approaching 40%, with competition now only really provided by equally huge tech giants such as Apple and Google. Publishers simply need greater muscle if they're going to have a presence on these new platforms and a say in how these markets develop.
Building bridges …
… Michael S. Malone: How to Avoid a Bonfire of the Humanities - WSJ.com. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
My own view is that you have to go back to a classical education — which fits you to do anything , because you are, well, educated.
My own view is that you have to go back to a classical education — which fits you to do anything , because you are, well, educated.
Dress up, you readers …
… AbeBooks: Literary Halloween Costumes.
I once attended a costume party with my late first wife. The party we were attending was a classic Yuppie enterprise and we could not enter unless in costume (I have no memory of what Zelda was wearing, but she could pull off anything.). I was simply dressed in jeans and some jacket or other. So when asked about my costume, I said that was I dressed as Marko Levytsky, the well-known Ukrainian dissident, and that I was sure they had all heard of him. And indeed they said they had, and I was admitted, and turned out to be something of a hit. As it happens, though, Marko — who was truly Ukrainian — was a high school classmate and sometime boyfriend of my stepdaughter Gwen. Marko and I, in fact, became very close friends; he was like the son I never had. But he was not a well-known Ukrainian dissident. I always loved it that our so-sophisticated hosts bought into my line. So did Marko, who found the whole story endlessly hilarious. Marko died at too young an age a few years ago. I still miss him.
I once attended a costume party with my late first wife. The party we were attending was a classic Yuppie enterprise and we could not enter unless in costume (I have no memory of what Zelda was wearing, but she could pull off anything.). I was simply dressed in jeans and some jacket or other. So when asked about my costume, I said that was I dressed as Marko Levytsky, the well-known Ukrainian dissident, and that I was sure they had all heard of him. And indeed they said they had, and I was admitted, and turned out to be something of a hit. As it happens, though, Marko — who was truly Ukrainian — was a high school classmate and sometime boyfriend of my stepdaughter Gwen. Marko and I, in fact, became very close friends; he was like the son I never had. But he was not a well-known Ukrainian dissident. I always loved it that our so-sophisticated hosts bought into my line. So did Marko, who found the whole story endlessly hilarious. Marko died at too young an age a few years ago. I still miss him.
Ghosts …
… Write My Essay, Please! - Richard Gunderman - The Atlantic. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
It certainly isn't ethical. It is also definitely stupid, since sooner or later people are bound to find out that you can't write.
It certainly isn't ethical. It is also definitely stupid, since sooner or later people are bound to find out that you can't write.
Blood indeed …
… Tom Wolfe on his new book, Back to Blood - Telegraph.
He was shown around the city by a Cuban-American journalist on the Miami Herald. Attempting to be inconspicuous, Wolfe left his white suits in the closet, and usually wore a navy blazer with khaki trousers and a tie. None the less, he was recognised by a bouncer at a strip club and a horde of drunken half-naked students at an orgiastic yachting regatta, who dive-bombed his boat. Both these venues furnished rich material for the book. He also went to the crack-ravaged black slums, and the private pre-opening of Art Basel Miami Beach, the show where the billionaire collectors come to do their shopping.
Changes …
…TS Eliot prize for poetry announces 'fresh, bold' shortlist | Books | guardian.co.uk. (Hat tip, Sarah Weinman.)
Artistic hunger...
...Colm Tóibín: you have to be a terrible monster to write
In The Master, Tóibín’s Booker-shortlisted novel based on the life of Henry James, he describes James being at his sister’s bedside as she lies dying. James has never seen anyone die before, yet that hasn’t stopped him imagining in his fiction what it is like. But as he watches his sister he realises the limitations of his own imagination.
Hyphenated man …
… Raymond Chandler, gritty enchanter | TLS. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Like P. G. Wodehouse (with whom he almost overlapped at Dulwich), Chandler is famous for his similes, such as “We looked at each other with the clear innocent eyes of a couple of used car salesmen”, or “as debonair as a French count in a college play”. Though Marlowe is characterized by his wisecracks and verbal sparring, he can also be more subtle in his humour: “I could see, even on that short acquaintance, that thinking was always going to be a bother to her”. Not least, Chandler is a master of the capsule description, many of his subsidiary characters recalling those bleak figures in Edward Hopper paintings: “The clerk on duty was an eggheaded man with no interest in me or anything else. He wore parts of a white linen suit and he yawned as he handed me the desk pen and looked off into the distance as if remembering his childhood”. As Chandler once wrote in a letter, “It doesn’t matter a damn what a novel is about. The only fiction of any moment in any age is that which does magic with words”.
Thought for the day …
Whoever will be free must make himself free. Freedom is no fairy gift to fall into a man's lap. What is freedom? To have the will to be responsible for one's self.
— Max Stirner, born on this date in 1806
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Awesome …
… The experience of awe can slow down perceived time in people's lives - Washington Times. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Old master …
… Religio Medici and Urne-Burial - The Barnes and Noble Review. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Religio Medici was the first book I bought on my Kindle.
Religio Medici was the first book I bought on my Kindle.
How about morality and decency?
… Sexual assault essay raises questions about anonymity, invention - latimes.com. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I really don't think the literary issues are the most important aspects of this? If what the essay says is true, the author is a monster.
I really don't think the literary issues are the most important aspects of this? If what the essay says is true, the author is a monster.
Junior …
… The Millions : Frankly Singing.
DEbbie and I saw Frank Jr. sometime last year. Excellent band, excellent concert.
DEbbie and I saw Frank Jr. sometime last year. Excellent band, excellent concert.
Jack Kerouac …
… Collected Poems (The Library of America). (Hat tip, Rus Bowden,)
Rus also sends along this:
… Anne Waldman In Performance.
Rus also sends along this:
… Anne Waldman In Performance.
Masterwork …
… The American Spectator : Salvation Alley.
I reviewed Damnation Street and it really is excellent.
What the author does here, I think, is unprecedented. I don't believe there's ever been a detective epic before -- a trilogy of free-standing books bound together by a single transcendent theme.
I reviewed Damnation Street and it really is excellent.
Thought for the day …
Affliction is more apt to suffocate the imagination than to stimulate it.
— Denise Levertov, born on this date inn 1923
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Small world …
… The Most Ingenious Book: How to Rediscover Micrographia - Download The Universe. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Brilliant student …
… Poetry Daily Prose Feature: George Steiner, Last of the Europeans. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Thought for the day …
I am certain there is too much certainty in the world.
— Michael Crichton, born on this date in 1942
Monday, October 22, 2012
For no reason in particular …
… except that I love the song and it reminds me of wild years. Of course, you had to be there.
Unexpected hipness …
… The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain at Carnegie Hall - NYTimes.com. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
This might surprise you …
… Unlikely Liberal: Sarah Palin.
Full disclosure: I know Matt Zencey. We worked at The Inquirer for a bit when I returned to edit the letters to the editor. He's a nice guy, and this looks like a very interesting book.
Full disclosure: I know Matt Zencey. We worked at The Inquirer for a bit when I returned to edit the letters to the editor. He's a nice guy, and this looks like a very interesting book.
Side order of verse …
… ‘The Hungry Ear - Poems of Food and Drink,’ Kevin Young, Editor - NYTimes.com. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
More Mendelsohn...
...Bookforum talks with Daniel Mendelsohn
If you could only "like" things the world would just look like Facebook. It’s puerile, it’s ridiculous. But then so is the whole negative/positive divide in the first place. Probably 99% of reviews should be mixed reviews, because no book is perfect. This is the pernicious inheritance of Amazon; the rankings, the thumbs up, thumbs down. That’s not what criticism is. It’s not intellectually useful, it’s a consumerist approach: should I buy it or should I not buy it? Well, I don’t give a fuck if you buy it or not. If you don’t read Aeschylus I guarantee you it’s not gonna hurt Aeschylus; it’s certainly not why I’m talking to you about Aeschylus.He has a point there but I am not sure I like the way he is making it. The debate over what constitutes literary fiction versus genre fiction is an old one, but to categorically state that one cares two hoots about public opinion indicates a certain hubris about one's role as a critic and the public's intelligence.
The top 100 …
… Essay: Amanda Katz On Amazon's Author Popularity Rankings : NPR. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Quite a pair …
… Ernest Hemingway and Dorothy Parker - The Barnes and Noble Review. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
The art of the personal...
...A Story to Believe in
“My parents study many great cultures around the world and have a very democratic view of art,” explains Benh. “They think art exists in everyday communication, in jokes, and in people who try and sell you shirts outside department stores, rather than just in museums. They believe that the highest art exists at the dinner table and in traditions and in something your grandmother makes for you, and this art is just as poetic as that which exists in the work of a Pulitzer Prize-winning Harvard graduate. That sort of understanding has shaped my way of looking at and understanding the world in beautiful ways, and that’s something that will probably be found in all my films.”
Thought for the day …
A simple grateful thought turned heavenwards is the most perfect prayer.
— Doris Lessing, born on this date in 1919
Let them in...
...People power
Hardik Desai, for example, persuaded hard-nosed investors to put $300,000 into his start-up, which made diagnostic technology. But he could not persuade the immigration authorities to let him work for his own company without proving that it could pay his salary for a long time—something almost no new firm can prove. So he had to shut it down.Of course, there are types and types of immigrants. Mr Desai looks like the kind the US should welcome.
Sunday, October 21, 2012
Back story …
… David Mitchell on the Film Adaptation of Cloud Atlas | Word Craft - WSJ.com. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Neglected master …
… Patrick White: Under the Skin - Telegraph. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
To the singer Van Morrison, in Ireland, White was one of the greatest influences on his life. He was the recipient of the only fan letter that Salman Rushdie has written (after finishing Voss); as well, of an impromptu speech from the Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko, for whom reading Voss was a searing experience. “It is like using an iron crowbar at minus 65 degrees centigrade in Siberia: when you let go, part of the skin adheres to it. Part of me went to Voss and blood too.” White, he was saying, does more than get under your skin; in his best work, he flays the reader bare.
A must-read …
… What Can You Really Know? by Freeman Dyson | The New York Review of Books. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Holt’s philosophers belong to the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Compared with the giants of the past, they are a sorry bunch of dwarfs. They are thinking deep thoughts and giving scholarly lectures to academic audiences, but hardly anybody in the world outside is listening. They are historically insignificant. At some time toward the end of the nineteenth century, philosophers faded from public life. Like the snark in Lewis Carroll’s poem, they suddenly and silently vanished. So far as the general public was concerned, philosophers became invisible.
RIP …
… George McGovern: An Appreciation - Hit and Run : Reason.com. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
McGovern died this morning.
McGovern died this morning.
Media spectacle...
...Naked intent
The royal press machine is a far more slick operation than it was in Diana’s days and perhaps they could look to other celebrities in how to combat such an insatiable appetite. Perhaps they should cut out the middleman and start a royal blog, updated daily by several members of the household complete with pictures and Twitter feeds—and then ask people to sign up? Kate’s private parts should remain private but if everyone wants a piece of her, maybe she should be the one dishing them out.
Thought for the day …
Christianity is not a theory or speculation, but a life; not a philosophy of life, but a life and a living process.
— Samuel Taylor Coleridge, born on this date in 1772
Saturday, October 20, 2012
Celebrating the Earth …
… Mapmaker Connie Brown Takes on the World | Creating - WSJ.com. (Hat tip, Julie Chovanes.)
Neurologically real …
… Study Shows How Prayer, Meditation Affect Brain Activity (VIDEO). (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Have a listen …
… Dangerous Minds | Samuel Beckett: Reads from his novel ‘Watt’. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Mad world …
… Céline: Master of misanthropy.
I've never understood why adherents of something called National Socialism should thought right-wing, and I do think Céline's novel is a masterpiece of sorts. But I also think J.B. Priestley was on to something when he wrote this of it: "Something satisfying and valuable can be created out of a sane man looking at a mad world, or a madman making what he can out of a sane world; but a mad account of a mad world leaves us dissatisfied, unless we also have felt nothing but sick disgust for years and years."
Much in what he says …
… Bryan Appleyard — The Resistible Rise of the Corporate Con Artist. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
The solution to the problem is subtler, though, than just more regulation, because the big players tend to gain influence over the regulators, with the result that the regulations turn out to favor just those players and not their smaller, often better competitors.
The solution to the problem is subtler, though, than just more regulation, because the big players tend to gain influence over the regulators, with the result that the regulations turn out to favor just those players and not their smaller, often better competitors.
Preview …
I attended a screening of Paula's film last week at Drexel, and thought it was outstanding. A must-see if you want to gain some understanding contemporary China.
Thought for the day …
Expression, to a great extent, is a matter of terms, and terms are anyone's. The meaning of 'God' may have a billion interpretations if there be that many souls in the world.
— Charles Ives, born on this date 1874
Sound advice...
...Emma Donahue: The books interview
The awful thing, though, is that if you use your life for fiction, afterwards you tend to remember the fiction better than the life, because you've gone over and over it. In Hood, for example, I drew a lot on convent school; one day I mentioned something about our school to my girlfriend at the time and she said 'No, Emma, that's from your book.' I didn't want that to happen with Finn, so I marked up a copy of Room with yellow highlighter to record which bits were based on him. There was yellow on every page.
Friday, October 19, 2012
Brave New World
Seems to me that, despite its popularity, Brave New World is one of those books that you either read in high school or don't read at all (and just pretend to have).
I'll be the first to admit that I didn't read this book growing up. But something told me that I should - and so I did.
The first thing to note about Brave New World, I think, is that it's not perfect. In fact, I found it to be unbalanced. It's a story in search not only of itself, but of a central character. Because whereas the novel ends with the sad demise of the Old World (as manifest in the Savage), it begins with the travails of Bernard, who confronts Huxley's universe in all its awful mechanization.
I'm not sure which story I found more compelling, though there's no denying the power of the Savage's implosion (or was it enlightenment?) toward the end of the book.
And another thing: what's scariest, I think, about this novel is not that we've entered the universe imagined by Huxley (because we have); it's that he imagined that universe when he did, eighty years ago. To me, that's evidence of some sort of visionary.
To close, another thought: I think Huxley resorts at the end of the novel to a dialogue between the Savage and one of the Controllers which is too didactic, too instructive. It's as if Huxley wanted to be sure his readership got it.
Still, despite its shortcomings, this section of the book contains some of Huxley's most scathing (and convincing) criticism of the modern world: namely that we've experienced a shift "from truth and beauty to comfort and happiness." There's no denying this sad fact, I'm afraid.
The last word is reserved for Huxley:
"Actual happiness looks pretty squalid in comparison with the overcompensations for misery."
Well-deserved …
… George McGovern: An Appreciation - Hit and Run : Reason.com. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
So would I. And surprise, surprise, folks: I voted for George Mc Govern, and even wrote a letter to my future employer, the Philadelphia Inquirer, about what I then took to be — and in my opinion was — its unfair coverage of him.
Four decades later, America's president is a law prof with a kill list. I'd take McGovern over Obama any day.
So would I. And surprise, surprise, folks: I voted for George Mc Govern, and even wrote a letter to my future employer, the Philadelphia Inquirer, about what I then took to be — and in my opinion was — its unfair coverage of him.
No words minced …
… Paris Review – In Which Richard Burton Discusses Poetry, Sadie Stein. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Stand-off …
… Can Religious Belief Be Tested? by Georges Rey | The New York Review of Books. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Fine points …
… The Smart Set: The New Anti-Semitism - October 18, 2012.
It became clear … that two positions had emerged: the position within which the Holocaust and other anti-Semitic atrocities are seen as one instance of many examples of genocidal horror, and the position within which the Holocaust and anti-Semitism are seen as distinct historical and moral entities. One side mocked the idea of comparative victimhood; the other warned that downplaying the uniqueness of the Holocaust could lead to Holocaust denial.
This is a characteristically even-handed and insightful bit of of a analysis. My own feeling is that even though, as Kenneth Patchen put it, "there are no proportions in death," there was something uniquely evil about the Holocaust and to acknowledge that is hardly to give mass murderers like Stalin and Mao a pass. It also seems to me that criticism of Israeli foreign policy (the point of which is that nation's survival) is usually just a disguise for anti-Semitism. What exactly is so great about Palestinian or Iranian foreign policy?
There really is no new anti-Semitism. Just the same old same old.
The future opt newspapers …
… Guardian 'seriously discussing' end to print edition - Telegraph. (Hat tip Sarah Weinman.)
Thought for the day …
To believe only possibilities is not faith, but mere philosophy.
— Sir Thomas Browne, born on this date in 1605
Thursday, October 18, 2012
The war on humor …
… Bryan Appleyard — The Prig Imperiale. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
They would be called in to advise the Swedish and Danish governments on how to prevent the broadcasts of The Killing and Wallander overseas as they show their countries as eminently mockable zones of unrelieved misery and depression.
You mean, they're not? (I should mention that, years ago, I went to wedding reception at Pulaski Hall, which was — surprise, surprise — a Polish-American club. I am myself part Polish. Anyway, I was pleased to find there a booklet that was a compilation of — Polish jokes.)
To each his own …
… Why George Lucas Is the Greatest Artist of Our Time - The Chronicle Review - The Chronicle of Higher Education. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Can't say I was ever much of a Star Wars fan myself.
Can't say I was ever much of a Star Wars fan myself.
Works of a holy madman …
… Early Jodo vs Late Jodo — The Dabbler.
… in a seemingly abandoned city that is rotting and crumbling, a cat emerges from the shadows to stretch itself in a lone beam of sunlight. At the order of the boy in the tower, Meduz the Hawk attacks. I won’t tell you what happens next, although I will say that what on the surface seems like gross-out horror is actually a dense, resonant, symbolic something-or-other that feels a little like a poem, a little like a parable, a little like a riddle, and a little like an isolated sequence from a long nightmare.
Success, finally...
...Junot Diaz: From Jersey boy to genius
Towards the end of this piece, Diaz claims he is an Obama man, alluding to Mitt Romney as the "devil". It says something about this blog that I do not need to worry about posting this piece in spite of knowing Frank's political leanings. That's more than can be said for some of the blogs on Mr Diaz's side of the fence.
Heart of grace...
...Colm Tóibín's Mary helps us understand the inexplicable
Facing her own death, she moves towards silence and the “soothing, dwindling light”. There is something archetypal about her; she appears here not as a modern woman, but as a way for Tóibín to understand the infinite and the inexplicable. This is a flawless work, touching, moving and terrifying – even for an atheist Jew like me.
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