Friday, May 31, 2013
That bawdy Age of Faith ...
... A Fresh, Frisky Look at Medieval Times - WSJ.com. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
These racy poems shed light on the lives of regular people in medieval times. "This shows the common people being as down and dirty as you can get. It will change people ideas about the Middle Ages as dark and church-bound and unknowable," says Mr. Bloch. "The fabliaux are similar in many ways to soaps," says Mr. Dubin. "They deal with issues and problems on people's minds, and focus on the infidelities and lies and trickeries that people commit on one another to reflect changing mores."
Somebody had to do it ...
... For President Buchanan | The American Conservative. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
The shared sense of Being …
… Essay Book Reviews - Hopkins's Wound - Dublin Review of Books. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
There wd. be no bridge, no stem of stress between us and things to bear us out and carry the mind over: without stress we might not and could not say /Blood is red/ but only /This blood is red/ or /The last blood I saw was red/ not even that, for in later language not only universals would not be true but the copula wd. break down even in particular judgements.
Because they deserve to be?
… Why the Boomers Are the Most Hated Generation - Edward Tenner - The Atlantic.
… the turbulent 1970s were succeeded not by a new depression but by the Reagan-era boom of the 1980s, in which the Boomers metamorphosed into new folk heroes/villains, the Yuppies. Only the prosperous ones were noted as constituting a generation; the poor melted back into their communities.
Authors on authors …
… Classic Books Annotated by Famous Authors – Flavorwire. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
This tells you a lot about authors, I think.
This tells you a lot about authors, I think.
Low-key celebration ...
... Barbara Pym's centenary glass of blessings | Books | guardian.co.uk. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
A thought for today ...
There is no week nor day nor hour when tyranny may not enter upon this country, if the people lose their roughness and spirit of defiance.
— Walt Whitman, born on this date in 1819
Thursday, May 30, 2013
RIP ...
... The Rev. Andrew M. Greeley, outspoken Catholic priest, dies at 85 - latimes.com.
He once devoted one of his syndicated columns to denouncing me for an unfavorable review I wrote of one of his novels. Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and may perpetual light shine upon him.
He once devoted one of his syndicated columns to denouncing me for an unfavorable review I wrote of one of his novels. Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and may perpetual light shine upon him.
Living faith ...
... I'm Gay, but I'm Not Switching to a Church That Supports Gay Marriage - Eve Tushnet - The Atlantic.
The Church needs to grow and change in response to societal changes. We can do so much better in serving the needs of gay/queer/same-sex attracted Catholics, especially the next generation. But I think gay Catholics can also offer a necessary witness to the broader society. By leading lives of fruitful, creative love, we can offer proof that sexual restraint isn't a death sentence (or an especially boring form of masochism). Celibacy can offer some of us radical freedom to serve others. While this approach isn't for everyone, there were times when I had much more time, space, and energy to give to people in need than my friends who were juggling marriage and parenting along with all their other commitments. I've been able to take homeless women briefly into my own home, for example, which I would not have been able to do as spontaneously—and maybe not at all—if I had not been single.
Let's talk about literary values …
… again: The TLS blog: In the best possible taste. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
A thought for today ...
“The truth is that solitude is the creative condition of genius, religious or secular, and the ultimate sterilising of it. No human soul can long ignore "the giant agony of the world" and live, except indeed the mollusc life, a barnacle upon eternity.”
― Helen Waddell, born on this date in 1889
This should help ...
... Thought Criminals Arrested after London Horror | FrontPage Magazine. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Yet the fabled “backlash” has never really materialized – not, at least, on anything remotely resembling the scale that the media have repeatedly predicted. On the contrary, with a very small number of minor, isolated exceptions, people in the non-Muslim world have routinely responded to Muslim violence with civilized restraint. Indeed, it’s hard to think of anything that more dramatically reflects the difference between the Islamic and Western cultures than the contrast between the brutality and scale of the jihadist attacks on the West in recent years and the extraordinarily low level and modest scale of actions taken against Muslim targets in revenge. This refusal of non-Muslims to take an eye-for-an-eye approach in response to jihadist acts is a remarkable testament to the native tolerance of Christians, Jews, and other non-Muslims – and, indeed, to the black-and-white distinction between pretty much every other religion in the world and Islam, which, alone among major faiths, instructs its adherents to see offense everywhere and to respond even to the merest cartoon with murderous violence on a global scale.
To review or not ...
...A Commonplace Blog: The verdict is in. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
The real reason for not reviewing first novels unless they have some merit is lack of space. Whenever newspapers need to economize, among the first things they cut is book coverage. So if your space is limited, first novels have to have something to recommend in order to make the cut. And readers tend to read reviews in order to find something to read. Telling about a book by someone they never heard of that isn't all that good is rather a waste of their time. Most people are not professors of literature.
The real reason for not reviewing first novels unless they have some merit is lack of space. Whenever newspapers need to economize, among the first things they cut is book coverage. So if your space is limited, first novels have to have something to recommend in order to make the cut. And readers tend to read reviews in order to find something to read. Telling about a book by someone they never heard of that isn't all that good is rather a waste of their time. Most people are not professors of literature.
That said, Lutz's statement that "the standard, centuries-old idea that evaluation is an important part of the critical act" is pretty dumb. What the hell does he think people read reviews for?
Biology as destiny...
Are we born to be bad?: A new book explores the link between biology and breaking the law
I don't think so. And this particular bit is something Frank would wanna weigh in on:
But about a month ago, my two boys, aged 11, were mugged and robbed outside a movie theatre and one was choked. Since July, our house has been burgled twice and there were another two attempted burglaries. I'm getting tired of it. I'm thinking, 'What the hell? I should be getting out of here'." "Here" being Philadelphia, where Raine lives with his wife and twin sons.
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
Swatting a fly ...
... Maverick Philosopher: Sensus Divinitatis: Nagel Defends Plantinga Against Grayling. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I've long that Grayling was overrated, but is he really that ignorant? Or does he think the rest of us are?
I've long that Grayling was overrated, but is he really that ignorant? Or does he think the rest of us are?
Another thought for today …
I don't think a whole lot. They don't pay me to think.
—Jonathan Papelbon, Phillies closer, after last night's game
The poetry market …
… Poetry in Decline- Is a Revolution Needed? | Fox Chase Review.
Markets change. Because markets are simply people looking to buy or sell. I seem to recall that Billy Collins had something resembling a best-seller some years ago. But the poetry that tends to gain the attention of the literary authorities also tends to be the sort that is attractive a coterie audience. Now, however, technology already provides the means for anyone to bring work to the attention of the public — and at relatively modest cost. All different kinds of poetry will be submitted for your consideration. It will be interesting to see what sort of work proves to have legs.
Staking out a position …
… David Mamet on 'Race', his provocative new play - Features - Theatre & Dance - The Independent. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Can't quite tell what this is, but I think it has more to do with the author of the article than the art of David Mamet.
Can't quite tell what this is, but I think it has more to do with the author of the article than the art of David Mamet.
Q & A …
… The Millions : Politics, Art, and the Practice of Writing: A Conversation with Orson Scott Card. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I warn my writing students not to submit their work to English majors, who are likely to be true believers in the anti-communication school of literature, unless they plan to do the opposite of whatever such readers suggest. Nor should they keep showing their work to the same writing group — after a year, you’ve learned everything they have to teach you, and you have nothing of value left to offer them.
A thought for today ...
This is our purpose: to make as meaningful as possible this life that has been bestowed upon us; to live in such a way that we may be proud of ourselves; to act in such a way that some part of us lives on.
— Oswald Spengler, born on this date in 1880
I agree...
...I like Likeable characters
I think literature has space for every kind. Just because someone is conflicted does not mean they can't be likeable.
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
A styling epicenter of the Old South
… ISSUE 47: Breathing the Same Air as Genius :: Oxford American - The Southern Magazine of Good Writing. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Flannery O'Connor put up with many visitors, and many of them she made fun of: "Some Very Peculiar Types have beat a path to my door these last few years and it is always interesting to see my mother hostessing-it-up on these occasions." The visitor I have imagined most, standing on the lawn and looking up at her on the porch looking down at him with her peacock stare, is James Dickey. He'd be standing there with his blue eyes gleaming at her as they did in his sheriff act in Deliverance. This would be before he took to wearing the three-foot sombrero and believing he could speak in the voice of a lobster.
The fickleness of fame ...
... The biblioracle remembers Warwick Deeping - Chicago Tribune. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Sounds good to me …
… Aaron Minsky brings us rock cello! | OUPblog. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
It certainly sounds vastly better than the ten minutes of contemporary crap they played at the Philadelphia Orchestra a few weeks ago.
It certainly sounds vastly better than the ten minutes of contemporary crap they played at the Philadelphia Orchestra a few weeks ago.
Intelligence and faith …
… The atheist orthodoxy that drove me to faith | CatholicHerald.co.uk.
Of course, you won't find him without using your mind.
As a teenager, I realised that I needed to read beyond my staple polemicists, as well as start researching the ideas of the most egregious enemies of reason, such as Catholics, to properly defend my world view. It was here, ironically, that the problems began.See also this, courtesy of Dave Lull: You Can't Think Your Way to God.
Of course, you won't find him without using your mind.
Not dead yet …
… Maverick Philosopher: Philosophy Always Buries Its Undertakers. (Hat tip, Dave Lull, who also sends along Tallis's article.
Missed calling …
… Benjamin Robert Haydon – bad painter, fine writer — The Dabbler. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Well, there have been worse painters.
Well, there have been worse painters.
A thought for today ...
I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them.
— Ian Fleming, born on this date in 1908
Monday, May 27, 2013
You need to trick yourself into this?
... Mind Tricks for a Lasting Summer - WSJ.com. (Hat tip, Julie Chovanes.)
Verbal economy ...
... Lydia Davis hints at move to microblogging fiction | Books | guardian.co.uk. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
"I do see an interest in writing for Twitter," Davis, from Massachussetts, said. "While publishers still do love the novel and people do still like to sink into one, the very quick form is appealing because of the pace of life."
The force of myth …
… Ian Hamilton's collected poems are a source of wonder, review - Telegraph. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
A poetics of faith …
… ‘My Bright Abyss,’ by Christian Wiman - NYTimes.com. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
In reflecting on the meaning of Christ’s passion for his own life, Wiman finds that it reveals that “the absolutely solitary and singular nature of extreme human pain is an illusion.” It is the resolutely incarnational nature of the religion that draws him in. “I am, such as I am, a Christian,” he writes, “because I can feel God only through physical existence, can feel his love only in the love of other people.” His love for his wife and children, he realizes, is both human and entirely sacred. And here the poet comes to the fore, insisting on the right to embrace contradiction without shame. “I believe in absolute truth and absolute contingency, at the same time. And I believe that Christ is the seam soldering together these wholes that our half vision — and our entire clock-bound, logic-locked way of life — shapes as polarities.”
Hardly surprising ...
... David Brooks on Language: Our Words Don't Reveal Our Worldview | New Republic. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
... the faddish attempt to apply the Big Data approach to social psychology via Google’s Ngram viewer tool will shed much less light on these matters than many expect. In any language, concepts are expressed by several words and phrases at any given time, all of which morph eternally with the passage of time.
A thought for today ...
Experience is a dim lamp, which only lights the one who bears it.
— Louis-Ferdinand Celine, born on this date in 1894
Sunday, May 26, 2013
Evolutionary teleology...
...Where Thomas Nagel Went Wrong
Joan Roughgarden, an ecologist and evolutionary biologist at the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology, agrees that evolutionary biologists can be nasty when crossed. "I mean, these guys are impervious to contrary evidence and alternative formulations," she says. "What we see in evolution is stasis—conceptual stasis, in my view—where people are ardently defending their formulations from the early 70s."
Does writing have a future? A noted Canadian philosopher gazes into the future
… Does writing have a future? A noted Canadian philosopher gazes into the future. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
According to the U.S. National Institutes for Health, meanwhile, the incidence of narcissistic personality disorder is nearly three times as high for people in their 20s as for the generation that is now 65 or older — 58-per-cent more college students scored higher on a narcissism scale in 2009 than in 1982. These trends strongly correlate to the rise of online connectiveness.
The connection between this and social networking should be evident: More people can say what's on their minds to more people than ever before. And most people think little and express themselves worse.
By the way, I agree with all but the last of the predictions that conclude this piece.
‘Forty-One False Starts,’ by Janet Malcolm - NYTimes.com
… ‘Forty-One False Starts,’ by Janet Malcolm - NYTimes.com. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Perhaps it also tells us something about Janet Malcolm, and maybe something about writers — and the rest of us. Just because it is hard to depict goodness is no reason not to try. In fact, you would think it would be the ultimate challenge.What she found instead is that Sischy was, to put it simply, a good person: “a pleasant, intelligent, unassuming, responsible, ethical young woman.” Naturally, Malcolm concludes, “I . . . turned away in disappointment.”The paradox is so familiar that it barely needs remarking: goodness, which we praise so highly in life, is infertile terrain for a writer, whether a novelist or a journalist.
Knowing Achilles …
… Ray Manzarek, 1939-2013 | The Weekly Standard.
… [the] instrumental midsection almost always begins with a virtuoso organ performance. Then Manzarek backs off to allow Krieger to display his own skills, the sitar-influenced sound of the guitar often forming a counterpoint to, or even a fight with, the organ. Densmore’s drumming keeps the rhythm of Manzarek’s riff going—until, in the signal that the climax has arrived, the drums shift to the beat of Krieger’s guitar riff and decide the battle. The three musical Doors were, in essence, a talented jazz trio. A jazz trio, that is, who happened to back a rogue frontman heading places no jazz trio typically goes.
Fishy anniversary …
… It Has Hooked Generations of Fishermen | Izaak Walton | The Compleat Angler | By H. George Fletcher - WSJ.com. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
… Walton [was] an amiable and modest man of pious interests, for whom "Study to be quiet" (1 Thessalonians 4:11) was a favored motto. A royalist profoundly saddened by the English Civil War and the Commonwealth, he worked as an ironmonger in London near St. Dunstan's, the future parish of Ebenezer Scrooge. Walton's minister was John Donne, whom he attended in Donne's final illness and recalled with a biography. Married and widowed twice (only two of his 10 children outlived him), Walton was just shy of his 60th birthday when his book appeared, and he lived on for three more decades. His spelling was emblematic of his age, which was indifferent about such things. Isaac at birth and Isaac on his gravestone in Winchester Cathedral, he regularly signed himself simply Iz: Wa: in script and print. And of course our "Complete" was his "Compleat." When not emending his "Angler" and welcoming adjunct authors, he wrote short biographies, or Lives, of men important to church and state, and edited their prose and verse.
Hmm …
… What The New York Times Missed When It Tried to Explain Conspiracy Theories - Hit and Run : Reason.com. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I honestly cannot think of a single conspiracy theory I subscribe to, principally because such theories tend to violate the law of parsimony. Conspiracies do occur, of course, but you need convincing evidence to even start taking them seriously.
A thought for today ...
Civility costs nothing and buys everything.
― Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, born on this date in 1689
Substantial accidents...
...Tessa Hadley: 'I cried on my way to school every day'
"I do think it is a gender thing. I intuited that writers like Beckett and Burroughs were not keen on that terrible old phrase – the pram in the hall. When I was a teenager, I was reading about how to live. I couldn't fit my sloppy, messy, hopeful, female side into that austere, male framework."
Saturday, May 25, 2013
Can you believe it?
... 1975 : Tornado Outbreaks Blamed On Global Cooling | Real Science. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
True, but ...
... The rise of the fourth branch of government - The Washington Post.
The obesity and corresponding ungainliness of the federal bureaucracy has been patently manifest throughout my life. Professor Turley's latter-discovery of it bears comparison to Monsieur Jordain's discovery that he was speaking prose.
Professor Turley wonders if "the suggestion that someone, even the president, is in control of today’s governments may be an illusion." But the president is supposed to be in control. And just because someone says he don't know nothin' doesn't mean that's true, especially when that someone is so detailed and self-referential when it comes to anything he claims to have been in charge of.
It's still a good idea to start where the buck is supposed to stop, and to prefer evidence to self-serving testimony.
Traveling far on a stationary bike …
… Sven Birkerts - The art of attention. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
The French philosopher Simone Weil said: ‘Absolutely unmixed attention is prayer.’ To attend, etymologically, is to ‘stretch toward’, to seek with one’s mind and senses. Paying attention is striving toward, thus presupposing a prior wanting, an expectation. We look at a work of art and hope to meet it with our looking; we already have a notion of something to be had, gotten. Reading, at those times when reading matters, we let the words condition an expectation and move toward it.
A thought for today …
Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson, born on this date in 1803
A tale of two stories...
...The Great and Reluctant Adaptations
It is almost amusing how Changez never looks within himself, and always searches elsewhere for reasons and destination for his anger. In the novel, for example, the main spark for his fury is the build-up of military force between India and Pakistan following the attack on Parliament on December 11, 2001 -– something for which Changez never assigns blame except on America, which he argues was pushing India into confrontation although Pakistan had been such a loyal little ally. He doesn’t appear particularly religious, a point Hamid recently stressed in a Guardian op-ed, but he does repeatedly call Afghanistan a “fellow Muslim nation”, and talks about Lahore as being at the edge of a contiguous map of safely Muslim-majority countries, “the last Muslim city... [with an] understated bravado characteristic of frontier towns.” Changez is definitely not a Punjabi first, unlike enough other people in Lahore. “Not for us,” he says proudly of his warrior heritage at one point, “the vegetarian dishes one finds across the border to the east.” Yes, Indian Punjab, that vegetarian paradise.This is an excellent piece, much in agreement with my own poor opinion of the novel.
Friday, May 24, 2013
Papa's list …
… Ernest Hemingway Creates a Reading List for a Young Writer, 1934 | Open Culture. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
We are all "us" now ...
... We need to talk about Islamism – Telegraph Blogs.
We fear that if we look too closely or think too clearly, or talk too much about the problem of Islamism, and the connections as well as the separations between it and Islam, then we will be sent into the cold – shunned by colleagues, not invited to this dinner party, or that conference. We may even face social death itself by being called "Islamophobic". The university today is a stultifyingly conformist institution, reminiscent of those old Soviet-era "cultural associations". The standard version, the line, is policed rigorously. And the only accredited language in which people are allowed to speak is full of well-rehearsed evasions and apologias and exculpatory frameworks.
Constructing paintings …
… Edward Hopper's Inspirations in New York City : The New Yorker. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Has he been to Iowa? I have. More than once. And I've been to to New York City a lot. And I don't see his point.
“In New York, you can look into people’s lives. That’s the feeling I’m interested in. You don’t get that in Iowa.”
Has he been to Iowa? I have. More than once. And I've been to to New York City a lot. And I don't see his point.
Sophistication and credulity …
… Back to work : Essays in Idleness. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
These simple & backward — tribals, subsistence farmers, hardscrabble types — function in the world of real particulars, facing realities from which the urbane are eager to detach themselves. They are the people to whom the mediaeval Church was speaking, in sermons, pageants, statuary, & stained glass — rendering the ineffable in comprehensible form. To dismiss them as so many superstitious peasants awaiting liberation by literacy & technology is to misunderstand: that we, ourselves, are superstitious peasants — voting in our masses for “hope & change,” & prone to belief in every other sort of magic. Every day I see around me in the city behaviour that exhibits a credulity no peasant farmer could afford to entertain in his hard, earthy sphere & orbit.
Picture and pattern …
… How an Entirely New, Autistic Way of Thinking Powers Silicon Valley | Wired Opinion | Wired.com. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Once I realized that thinking in patterns might be a third category, alongside thinking in pictures and thinking in words, I started seeing examples everywhere. (At this point, this third category is only a hypothesis, though I’ve found scientific support for it. It has transformed my thinking about autistic people’s strengths.)
Loving specificities …
… Anecdotal Evidence: `An Immense Elaboration'.
Perhaps because I spent the first eight years of my life surrounded by factories and warehouses and train yards, I love paintings of industrial scenes. There is a very nice just about where I am sitting. I am also very fond of Sheeler, who was a Philadelphian and worked for many ears just outside of Doylestown. Patrick says that Sheeler "seems to have absorbed the lessons of abstraction in order to do something else." I think that's true. I also think it's necessary. Form is abstract and must be mastered in order that the form of life can be properly depicted. It is not, however, an end in itself.
Back-scratching …
… AttackingtheDemi-Puppets: The Buddy System.
Note that in Greenman’s view of literature there are no standards, and there are no distinctions—other than assumed workshop standards of the well-written sentence, meaningless or not, and mild situations and emotions sure not to displease writing peers. Agreement. Beyond these basics, there’s no judgment of literary works, and no way to judge them. “Some people will like the work and some won’t,” is the notion, all a matter of feelings and impressions with no thought involved.
Memory's caprice ...
...The Curse of Reading and Forgetting : The New Yorker. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
If we are cursed to forget much of what we read, there are still charms in the moments of reading a particular book in a particular place. What I remember most about Malamud’s short-story collection “The Magic Barrel” is the warm sunlight in the coffee shop on the consecutive Friday mornings I read it before high school. That is missing the more important points, but it is something. Reading has many facets, one of which might be the rather indescribable, and naturally fleeting, mix of thought and emotion and sensory manipulations that happen in the moment and then fade. How much of reading, then, is just a kind of narcissism—a marker of who you were and what you were thinking when you encountered a text? Perhaps thinking of that book later, a trace of whatever admixture moved you while reading it will spark out of the brain’s dark places.
If we are cursed to forget much of what we read, there are still charms in the moments of reading a particular book in a particular place. What I remember most about Malamud’s short-story collection “The Magic Barrel” is the warm sunlight in the coffee shop on the consecutive Friday mornings I read it before high school. That is missing the more important points, but it is something. Reading has many facets, one of which might be the rather indescribable, and naturally fleeting, mix of thought and emotion and sensory manipulations that happen in the moment and then fade. How much of reading, then, is just a kind of narcissism—a marker of who you were and what you were thinking when you encountered a text? Perhaps thinking of that book later, a trace of whatever admixture moved you while reading it will spark out of the brain’s dark places.
A thought for today ...
The capacity you're thinking of is imagination; without it there can be no understanding, indeed no fiction.
William Trevor, born on this date in 1928
Thursday, May 23, 2013
Q & A ...
... The Art of Staying Focused in a Distracting World - James Fallows - The Atlantic. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Just what you've been waiting for ...
... Joyce Collection: A first-draft version of Finnegans wake: Contents. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
In case you wondered …
… BBC News - Viewpoint: When did people stop thinking God lives on a cloud? (Hat tip, Lee Lowe.)
I remember when Honest to God came out. I was still in college. Believe it or not, some of my fellow students and I actually discussed the issues it raised. If memory serves, the consensus was that it was just another watering-down in the interest of increasing the numbers occupying pews. To begin with, did anyone ever think that God lived on a cloud? I think most people understood that as imagery for illustrating an age-old tale about life (what schooled people call mythos). So much of the modernizing regarding faith is grounded in the assumption by merely schooled that the rest of us are all fundamentally ignorant and stupid. Whereas it is mostly the other way around. Knowing a lot about ideas about things does not always — or even often — translate into any understanding of things themselves.
Still getting things wrong
… Fact-Checking Dan Brown’s ‘Inferno’: 10 Mistakes, False Statements, and Oversimplifications - The Daily Beast.
Years ago, I did some fact-checking of The Da Vince Code:
Years ago, I did some fact-checking of The Da Vince Code:
Poetry rustlers …
… Another plagiarism scandal hits poetry community | Books | guardian.co.uk. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
Phantom editor …
… Talking to editors about the "Vigilante Copy Editor" | MobyLives. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
A thought for today ...
One of the qualities of liberty is that, as long as it is being striven after, it goes on expanding. Therefore, the man who stands in the midst of the struggle and says, 'I have it,' merely shows by doing so that he has just lost it.
— Henrik Ibsen, who died on this date in 1906
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
A study in contradictions ...
... Slide Show: Carolyn Drake's Photographs of Central Asia : The New Yorker. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
The everlasting blurb …
… Two thumbs up! (I hated it). (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I reviewed Henry Miller's posthumously published Crazy Cock. It's not very good. In fact, it's pretty terrible. I said that, except for Miller aficionados, no one would want to read it. I was blurbed accordingly: "For Miller aficionados."
I reviewed Henry Miller's posthumously published Crazy Cock. It's not very good. In fact, it's pretty terrible. I said that, except for Miller aficionados, no one would want to read it. I was blurbed accordingly: "For Miller aficionados."
I like children...
...An atheist was seated next to a little girl on an airplane and he turned to her and said, "Do you want to talk? Flights go quicker if you... strike up a conversation with your fellow passenger."
The little girl, who had just started to read her book, replied to the total stranger, "What would you want to talk about?"
"Oh, I don't know," said the atheist. "How about why there is no God, or no Heaven or Hell, or no life after death?" as he smiled smugly.
"Okay," she said. "Those could be interesting topics but let me ask you a question first. A horse, a cow, and a deer all eat the same stuff - grass. Yet a deer excretes little pellets, while a cow turns out a flat patty, but a horse produces clumps. Why do you suppose that is?"
The atheist, visibly surprised by the little girl's intelligence, thinks about it and says, "Hmmm, I have no idea." To which the little girl replies, "Do you really feel qualified to discuss God, Heaven and Hell, or life after death, when you don't know shit?"
And then she went back to reading her book.
This was picked up from that all-weather arbiter also called Facebook
Appreciation …
… Remembering Henry Hope Reed by Francis Morrone – The Municipal Art Society of New York. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I have collected many stories of Henry and the things he said on walking tours. He had a definite point of view. To some he was a “fuddy duddy.” His scorn for Modernist architecture made him not a few enemies. In fact, that scorn made even MAS uneasy. It’s why, in order to balance the walking tours’ point of view, MAS enlisted the aid of a MoMA intern named Ada Louise Huxtable to put together some Modernist-friendly walking tours. (As readers of this blog well know, Ada Louise Huxtable died this past January, at the age of 91. The twin deaths of Ada Louise Huxtable and Henry Hope Reed bring down the curtain on preservation’s greatest generation.) Henry later shifted his tours to the Museum of the City of New York, but he remained involved with MAS and would even lead MAS tours again.
A thought for todat …
The first moments of sleep are an image of death; a hazy torpor grips our thoughts and it becomes impossible for us to determine the exact instant when the 'I,' under another form, continues the task of existence.
— Gerard de Nerval, born on this date in 1808
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
The kiss of death …
… Scholars in Bondage - The Chronicle Review - The Chronicle of Higher Education. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
It is unclear whether the grave problems with these books stemmed from the authors' wary job maneuvering in a depressed market or were imposed by an authoritarian academic apparatus of politically correct advisers and outside readers. But the result is a deplorable waste. What could and should have been enduring contributions to both scholarship and cultural criticism have been deeply damaged by the authors' rote recitation of theoretical clichés.If anything could kill kink, it would be the academy.
Q&A with...
...Todd May
I certainly have felt this way. But as a logical matter, it doesn’t make any sense to me why that would be the case—why anything would be less meaningful simply because it doesn’t endure forever. Same with beauty—why would something be less beautiful simply because it wasn’t permanent? It existed for a while, it was meaningful for a while, it was beautiful for a while. Why is it so hard for us to get our heads around that idea?
Tyranny alert …
… Parole Refusal Sparks Fears For Jailed Chinese Dissident's Health. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
Of course, in this country, as Glenn Reynolds likes to point out, "Scapegoated filmmaker Nakoula is still in jail."
Of course, in this country, as Glenn Reynolds likes to point out, "Scapegoated filmmaker Nakoula is still in jail."
Tracking a phrase …
… “Did You Lose the Keys Here?” “No, But the Light Is Much Better Here” . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Scripture and democracy …
… The American Spectator : The Book We Still Can’t Spare. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Tales of Cleveland …
… Anecdotal Evidence: `Culture Is Not Neglected Amid Such Prosperity'.
I, too, have had a brush with grisly. Around the corner from the house where I spent my first eight years was the house where Gary Heidnik imprisoned several women he had kidnapped. Interestingly, Heidnik grew up in Cleveland.
I, too, have had a brush with grisly. Around the corner from the house where I spent my first eight years was the house where Gary Heidnik imprisoned several women he had kidnapped. Interestingly, Heidnik grew up in Cleveland.
Happy 325th …
… The marginalized Alexander Pope | OUPblog. (Hat tip, Dave Lull, who also sends along The dire offences of Alexander Pope | OUPblog.
Monday, May 20, 2013
Banville on Banville ...
... John Banville, The Sea - with annotations | Books | guardian.co.uk. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Hmm …
… George Orwell's critique of internet English | Books | guardian.co.uk. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Would that be all blogs and emails? I know of some pretty well-written blogs, and Joseph Epstein and Frederic Raphael just published a collection of their emails. As always , there is good writing and bad.
… any struggle against the abuse and impoverishment of English online (notably, in blogs and emails).
Would that be all blogs and emails? I know of some pretty well-written blogs, and Joseph Epstein and Frederic Raphael just published a collection of their emails. As always , there is good writing and bad.
The government is coming …
… True Scandal | National Review Online. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
All of my life there has never been a want of people preaching revolution. But the U.S. is actually founded on rebellion. If Americans sense that the government is Washington is coming to resemble the government of King George III, they are likely to grow rebellious. These days, of course, rebellion would take quite a different form, and be centered on social media. Further proof that the first amendment is no less essential to our freedom than the second.
The art of being ordinary …
… ‘That’s all well and good for sheep, but what are WE to do?’. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Well, I'll post it …
… because that's what bloggers do, and that's how we know more now than might have been the case in the past: TWIN PHILLY SCANDALS - Catholic League.
Moralizing pleasure …
… Anecdotal Evidence: `Comfortably Settled in an Arm-Chair, Reading'.
In America at least, the Puritans are always with us.
In America at least, the Puritans are always with us.
Dante lives …
… Joan Acocella: Dante in Translation and in Dan Brown’s “Inferno” : The New Yorker. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
A thought for today …
The more one judges, the less one loves.
— Honoré de Balzac, born on this date in 1799
Sunday, May 19, 2013
Q & A …
… The University Bookman: Copperheads, Community, and Those Who Have Lost. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Someone had to say it...
...The losing game of writing books to win
The trouble starts at the moment when you get the crazy idea that not winning a prize means you're no good. It doesn't mean that at all. I have been a member of several judging panels. I have witnessed the strange dynamic of their functioning. Forces that outsiders can't even conceive of are at work in those meeting rooms. Under all their beautiful intelligent reasoning, prize judges, like people in every sphere of action, are driven by unconscious urges. How could it be otherwise? They are not sphinxes, or oracles, or disembodied spirits. They are people, subject to moods, full of contradictions and unacknowledged emotions and thwarted longings of their own.
Not so fast …
… The Vocabula Review - The Two Natures: A Sort of Philosophical Ramble, Complete with Apes, Medieval Sages, Gay Rights, Grammarians, False Teleology, Alexander Pope, and Blood-Drinking Martians — Parts 1 and 2. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Actually, separating is from ought isn't as easy as herein suggested. The digestive is known to act in a particular way. If it fails to act that way, and one gets sick, one is surely justified in concluding that it is not working as it ought to.
In the other direction, global warming denialism seems heavily invested in a hazy conflation of the two natures. Not long ago, one congressman opined that the scientific data and theories had to be mistaken, since the Bible shows God taking direct responsibility for Nature. Perhaps this should really be called prescriptive supernaturalism — the insistence that reality itself does and must correspond to one's religious preconceptions. The penchant seems unlikely to produce much good public policy.
Come now. The unnamed congressman's remark would not be taken seriously by most people on either side of the debate. The author should also take some time to read E. Kirsten Peters's The Whole Story of Climate, which is about what we might call the geology of climate. He would discover that much that he thinks he knows is not so.
And the winners are ...
... Congratulations to the 2012 Nebula Award Winners | Tor.com. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
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