Wednesday, July 31, 2013
Good choice …
… Tom Stoppard named winner of 2013 PEN Pinter prize for 'courageous' work | Stage | The Guardian. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Hence Obama's Reelection ...
The theory of the "wisdom of the crowd" has been used to explain everything from the overall accuracy of Wikipedia to the logic of democracy. And in general, that principle is true: Choices made by many are usually better than those made by a few or one.
But new research from Arizona State University and Uppsala University in Sweden adds a caveat to that notion, showing that while crowds might indeed be wise when it comes to making tough, close calls, they are actually worse than individuals at choosing between two options, one of which is vastly superior to the other. When the choice is easy, in other words, the crowd can actually be pretty dumb.
"Who am I to judge?"
As for “who am I to judge,” surely the pope is not relinquishing the church’s assertion of authority in matters of faith and morals. But he was adopting a tone of humility. And tone matters.
...it matters to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender youth, especially those raised Catholic, who grow up thinking that their desires are not just a sin but a perversion, a moral stain of the highest order.
This is so right.
I grew up in Bala Cynwyd, a suburb immediately outside Philadelphia,
in the 60’s and 70’s and actually being myself in life, a trans woman, was something
I couldn’t even think about, something I had to bury as deeply as possible, because
it was a “perversion, a moral stain of the highest order” according to the
Catholic environment I knew. And as I went on in life -- living in Bala Cynwyd
even today -- the moral side which required so much effort for me to come to
terms with is now gone, because I continue, in every way I can, to live
according to the Will of God. As a trans
woman. And that is okay before God, I think.
And by doing so, I have come into contact with, and made friends
with, some of the most disadvantaged, unpleasant people you can imagine, who
are trans, the same as me. Recently two
of them, two of my trans sisters, were killed in separate incidents, one last night, by someone who forced his way into her apartment, another last week, in
Philadelphia.
The disposable people, the perverted, the drug addled sex workers, the killable. Because they are trans.
So thank you Your Eminence.
Who are any of us to judge?
Who are any of us to judge?
A thought for today …
Human memory is a marvelous but fallacious instrument. The memories which lie within us are not carved in stone; not only do they tend to become erased as the years go by, but often they change, or even increase by incorporating extraneous features.
— Primo Levi, born on this date in 1919
Well, maybe …
… The Ideal English Major - The Chronicle Review - The Chronicle of Higher Education. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Sounds more imaginary to me than ideal. And what has any of it got to do with majoring in English?
Sounds more imaginary to me than ideal. And what has any of it got to do with majoring in English?
I majored in English. I had to major in something. But I went to college to be educated, not to be trained in anything. I had some great teachers and some great classmates. The experience helped form who I am.
Tuesday, July 30, 2013
Good selection …
… The Ten Best Lesser-Known Harry Nilsson Songs : The New Yorker. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Influence …
… Edmund Wilson and the Review | 50 Years | The New York Review of Books. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Hmm …
… Adam Kirsch Reviews Reza Aslan's Powerful Biography of Jesus, 'Zealot' – Tablet Magazine. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
This sounds like a pretty unoriginal idea to me. Perhaps it is better researched and reasoned, but it is certainly not the first book to advance to notion of Jesus as revolutionary.
As to the business Zealots didn't emerge until 66 AD, what about the postle who is referred to as Simon the Zealot.
More on Reza Aslan here: Reza Aslan, a Media Martyr and a Bully. (Also from Dave.)
As to the business Zealots didn't emerge until 66 AD, what about the postle who is referred to as Simon the Zealot.
More on Reza Aslan here: Reza Aslan, a Media Martyr and a Bully. (Also from Dave.)
Tracking the decline …
… The American Scholar: Be Careful What You Wish For - Paula Marantz Cohen. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Unfortunately, what we will be left with is a tribe of technocratic philistines.
Unfortunately, what we will be left with is a tribe of technocratic philistines.
Tribes Where Religion Was ...
Tom Wolfe discusses the ideas and inspirations for Back to Blood, a story of decadence and the new America.
Taming the monkey brain …
… Is the sound of silence the end of the self? – Tim Parks – Aeon.
More radical, and mortifying perhaps, are solutions involving ritual prayer, rosaries, or mantras. Such an approach feels like a full-scale assault on the self, with an acoustic weapon. Despite, or perhaps because of, my religious childhood, I have never tried this. I’ve never desired a mantra. I suspect, as with music, once the mantra is over, the chattering self would bounce back more loquacious and self-righteous than ever.
I do pray the rosary — in Latin, which turns the words into something like a chant. The inner chatter continues for a bit, but tends to become more muted after a while. And then, from time to time, there are moments when I — whoever that may be — am simply there, listening to the Latin, and otherwise pretty much thought-free.
Running Away?
There’s a deep irony in the fact that our rational, secular society, driven by science and technology, is emptying out its churches only to reconstruct them as cinemas. Replacing the ‘good book’ with films about Harry Potter and hunger games; reconstructing the inner worlds of our imagination — once the realm of prayer and ascetic meditation — inside the digital domain of computers: it seems that no matter how hard we try to convince ourselves that reality is only material, we continue to reach for the ideal forms that lie beyond. Are we simply recasting age-old delusions for the modern era?
Fine and dandy …
… I am Dandy - The Return of the Elegant Gentleman Book Review — Gentleman's Gazette. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
What is the relation between a flâneur and a dandy?
What is the relation between a flâneur and a dandy?
99 and Still Sweeping ...
In all his years of working — more than 84 — no one has ever asked him if he likes his job. "Life can't always be easy, but you do your best and be grateful," he says.
It's not much, earning minimum wage to move dirt around a parking lot. But for now, Mr. Newton has a purpose, something to do. He matters.
People tell him he inspires them. If he misses a day for a doctor's appointment, his co-workers worry. When he's gone, he will leave a hole.
The meaning of life? "Only God knows," says Mr. Newton. But with his beaten broom, sweeping a sprawling seafood warehouse, he seems to have found the secret to not dying.
A thought for today …
If I could I would always work in silence and obscurity, and let my efforts be known by their results.
— Emily Brontë, born on this date in 1818
Continuing My Summer of Shakespeare...
...I've just completed A Midsummer Night's Dream. As fantasy goes, I liked it about as much as The Tempest, but not nearly as much as a good comedy like Love's Labors Lost. Probably my favorite from this summer: yes, I concede -- Romeo and Juliet (of which I was deprived as a high schooler). Reading it as an adult, buried in assumptions and expectations, was a remarkable experience.
A propos, some recent Shakespeare posts from the UK:
Monday, July 29, 2013
Another viewpoint …
… Paul Davis On Crime: In The Age Of Terrorism, Curtailing NSA Is Madness.
I do not think the government — and this administration in particular — can be trusted with such wide powers of surveillance. I also don't think most of it has anything to do with protecting anybody — except perhaps politicians from those who disagree with them.
Book pirates …
… Diana Peterfreund Blog | An Epidemic of Plagiarism in the Indie World. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Good …
… Momentum Builds Against N.S.A. Surveillance - NYTimes.com. (Hat tip, Lee Lowe.)
… Mr. Sensenbrenner, a Republican veteran and one of the primary authors of the post-Sept. 11 Patriot Act, stepped to a microphone on the House floor. Never, he said, did he intend to allow the wholesale vacuuming up of domestic phone records, nor did his legislation envision that data dragnets would go beyond specific targets of terrorism investigations.
Okay, I Know We Are Trendy But ...
Religious right leader, and former GOP presidential candidate, Pat Robertson said on his show recently that he believes transgender people are real, and that there’s “no sin” associated with that:“There are men who are in a woman’s body… it’s very rare but it’s true, or women that are in men’s bodies, and they want a sex change and that is a very permanent thing…. I don’t think there’s any sin associated with that. I don’t condemn somebody for doing that.”
Mummy, Is That You?
It has not been a peaceful afterlife. Since its discovery 90 years ago, Tutankhamun’s mummy has repeatedly been disturbed in the name of research – from its dramatic unwrapping in the 1920s to controversial CT scans and DNA tests of the present day.
In my book The Shadow King: The Bizarre Afterlife of King Tut’s Mummy, I wanted to tease apart the results of these studies, getting to the bottom of scientists’ arguments to see what their work tells us about the life and death of this ancient king. But along the way I became fascinated by the lives of the scientists themselves, and the unexpected paths that drew them to Tutankhamun.
Non-human persons …
… Dolphins gain unprecedented protection in India | Environment | DW.DE | 24.05.2013. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
The town scold …
… Anecdotal Evidence: `A Wise Man Will Attend to Each One's Report'.
Emerson noted that "Henry is, with difficulty, sweet."
Emerson noted that "Henry is, with difficulty, sweet."
Simple Pope ...
Catholics are asking, by emphasizing the image of the simple pope, is Francis bringing the mystical office — seen as a living symbol of God’s stewardship of the world — too far down to earth? And is calling Francis the “humble pope” implying that other popes — particularly Francis’ predecessor Benedict XVI — were not humble?Speaking to National Catholic Report’s John Allen, Jr., from Rio De Janeiro, Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput said this week that the right wing of the church has been “generally not happy” with Francis.
Sadly true sometimes …
… Zealotry of Guerin: The Bad Doctors (James Ensor).
The late Heraclitus once noted that "doctors cut, burn, and torture the sick, and then demand of them an undeserved fee for such services."
The late Heraclitus once noted that "doctors cut, burn, and torture the sick, and then demand of them an undeserved fee for such services."
A thought for today …
Boyhood is the longest time in life for a boy. The last term of the school-year is made of decades, not of weeks, and living through them is like waiting for the millennium.
— Booth Tarkington, born on this date in 1869
Sunday, July 28, 2013
FYI …
…Traditional Latin Mass in Philadelphia: Holy Trinity Traditional Latin Mass Community: Beginnings.
This is where I now attend Sunday Mass.
This is where I now attend Sunday Mass.
Feathered friends …
… Wings of desire: why birds captivate us | Books | The Guardian. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
Kinds of drafts …
… The Trip to Echo Spring by Olivia Laing: On the need of hyperarticulate people to get raving drunk.
Why do writers drink?
(Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Why do writers drink?
(Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
As someone who spent many years packing it away, I think the idea that there is a mystery to drunkenness is pernicious. Drunkenness – and I prefer that term to alcoholism – is a form gluttony. One drinks because one likes to, and one likes (usually) what it does to one. A psychiatrist once told me I was the best drunk he had ever seen. he meant that could put away astounding amounts while remaining lucid. As with all good things, one's drinking days must come to an end. And stopping really isn't as hard as it is made out to be.
Can This Really Be True?
WASHINGTON (AP) — Four out of 5 U.S. adults struggle with joblessness, near poverty or reliance on welfare for at least parts of their lives, a sign of deteriorating economic security and an elusive American dream.
Survey data exclusive to The Associated Press points to an increasingly globalized U.S. economy, the widening gap between rich and poor and loss of good-paying manufacturing jobs as reasons for the trend.
The findings come as President Barack Obama tries to renew his administration's emphasis on the economy, saying in recent speeches that his highest priority is to "rebuild ladders of opportunity" and reverse income inequality.
Four Out of Five
The "Other Holy Land"
And what carried a wallop of revelation to me—both as I prepared and as I taught—was how much my Christian faith owes to this land. Not just because of Athanasius, or his fellow North African bishop Augustine. On the plane and in the Kuwaiti terminal I had been reading Thomas Oden's startling book, The African Memory of Mark. Oden reclaims ancient African traditions that link Mark, of the gospel that bears his name, to Africa. Mark not only grew up in modern-day Libya, according to the old traditions Oden retrieves, he also established a Christian beachhead in Alexandria—the very city in which I found myself.
A thought for today …
Whenever a theory appears to you as the only possible one, take this as a sign that you have neither understood the theory nor the problem which it was intended to solve.
— Karl Popper, born on this date in 1902
Saturday, July 27, 2013
Well worth a look or several …
… Faculty Detail | Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts | Museum and School | 1805.
I ran into Richard earlier today in the Italian Market. He really is a very fine painter.
I ran into Richard earlier today in the Italian Market. He really is a very fine painter.
Hmm …
… Michael Arditti: why I write fiction about faith | Books | The Guardian. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I think there's a bit of terminological confusion here. Faith, religion, and church are definitely connected, but are by no means identical. And when we start opposing liberalism and fundamentalism, with a mention of something right-wing, then connect Jesus to Marxism (try that on the victims of the Stasi), you've stopped thinking radically (i.e., down to the root of the matter) and are settling on clichés.
You can look it up …
… The Millions : Détente by Index: On Earl Sprague’s Invitation to a Subheading. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Idea and reality …
… Fallen Idols - NYTimes.com. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Don't turn them into idols, and the won't fall off their pedestals.
Don't turn them into idols, and the won't fall off their pedestals.
Dilemna or Dilemma???
From Andrew Lewis, UK; a similar question came from Jim Black in the US.: My daughter, who lives in the Cayman Islands and works in the media, asked me the other day whether dilemma is ever spelt dilemna.
Forever Young ...
Forget F Scott Fitzgerald’s dictum about there being no second acts in American lives. Time Out Of Mind, part two of Ian Bell’s magisterial biography of Bob Dylan, gives us a third and a fourth and sundry other acts in an ongoing drama.
A thought for today …
Any subject can be made interesting, and therefore any subject can be made boring.
— Hilaire Belloc, born on this date in 1870
Characters and Wives
Why are we drawn to stories about people falling in love? There are likely a host of reasons, but here’s a good one: marriage, when observed from a place of solitude, has the power of dream. Solitary people fall in love with couples, imagining their own lives transformed by such a union. And once the transformation finally happens, people need to talk about it, telling not only their families, friends, and strangers on the bus but also themselves—repeating it to make it real, to investigate the mystery of marital metamorphosis. And they get good at the telling. People who cannot otherwise put together an adequately coherent narrative to get you to the neighborhood grocery will nonetheless have a beautifully shaped tale of how he met she (or he met he, or she met she) and became we.
Such stories often have many literary qualities. They rely, almost by definition, on the revelation and transformation of character—the same elements that are the backbone of literary stories. The narratives have a mystery at the beginning: how the characters begin loving each other before they understand they’re doing it, the way sleep enters our bodies before we’re actually asleep; and like sleep, we fall into love, and fall deeper as we go. The narratives also have something like a built-in ending. A wedding, after all, is the traditional conclusion for comedies, and it is meant to indicate that the transformation has transpired. Passing through the ritual of the wedding ceremony, the bride and groom are irrevocably changed.
It seems to me that “How I Met My Spouse” stories are the perfect venue for the study of characterization. I’m going to use my own story of how I met my wife to display a dozen slightly unusual methods of characterization.
Friday, July 26, 2013
Words ...
Every once in a while we need to step back and do a national performance review and see if the English language is doing its job properly. We need to see if certain terms are being misused or abused or flat-out hijacked. And then we need to fix things. It is ridiculous to call a person ordering a Frappuccino at Starbucks "the next guest."
It's Not Just Dan Brown!
Brown's present subject of Dante -- one of the giants of Western literature -- provides a superb background for a modern fictional adventure. But there are, in fact, real scientific mysteries about Dante -- which should well be explored. The geometry of Dante's universe, for example, as described in the Divine Comedy, has been studied by mathematicians, and some see in it an example of non-Euclidean geometry.
Dante and his world. A fresco by Domenico di Michelino, in the Duomo of Florence (Wikimedia Commons)
This picture shows some of the "curvature" of Dante's universe: the Earth, the stars, the planets, Hell -- the Inferno -- and Dante's beloved Florence in the background. If one follows Dante's description of the circles of hell, the mountain of Purgatory, Jerusalem, and the enigmatic Empyrean, it's possible to see here an unconventional kind of geometry (non-Euclidean), as described in the link above.
But the Dantesque mystery that I want to explore here is far deeper, and, to my knowledge, has not been studied much since the 19th century. It's a deep astronomical conundrum that has consumed me ever since I came upon it a few years ago.
Close to the beginning of the middle volume of the Divine Comedy, the Purgatorio, Dante writes (Canto I, 22-27; Allen Mandelbaum's translation, Bantam, 1984):
Then I turned to the right, setting my mind
upon the other pole, and saw four stars
not seen before except by the first people.
Heaven appeared to revel in their flames:
o northern hemisphere, because you were
denied that sight, you are a widower!
(I' mi volsi a man destra, e puosi mente
a l'altro polo, e vidi quattro stelle
non viste mai fuor ch'a la prima gente.
Goder pareva 'l ciel di lor fiammelle:
oh settentrional vedovo sito,
poi che privato se' di mirar quelle!)
What a mystery! Dante wrote this around AD 1300 (he was born in 1265, and the Inferno, begins with: "When I had journeyed half of our life's way," Nel mezzo del cammin di nosta vita, which scholars have take to mean he wrote it at about age 35). The verses above clearly describe the southern-hemisphere constellation Crux -- better known as the Southern Cross. But the stars of the southern hemisphere were only explored for the first time by northern-hemisphere navigators a century and a half after Dante's time!
The Southern Cross asterism, in the constellation Crux, photo: oneminuteastronomy.com
How could Dante, writing in the very early 1300s, know about a constellation first seen by the Venetian explorer Alvise Cadamosto, who noted it while sailing off the African coast in 1455, and more precisely described by later navigators: Amerigo Vespucci (who saw the constellation as an almond, Mandorla) in his voyages to South America in 1499 to 1502, and later by Ferdinand Magellan, who sailed from the Atlantic to the Pacific in 1519 to 1522? I've posed this question to some of the world's leading astronomers, but no one has an answer.
Chromatic bicentenary …
… The Brilliant, Troubled Legacy of Richard Wagner | Arts and Culture | Smithsonian Magazine. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I was somewhat taken with Wagner when I was in my teens, but now I can generally pass, though I remain impressed and moved by Parsifal.
I don't think so...
Writing a collective novel: why many minds are better than one
To me, it sounds like a case of too many cooks...
To me, it sounds like a case of too many cooks...
... I Am
Much of Nadler’s work exemplifies what the French call “haute vulgarisation,” high-level popularization. You don’t need to have aced Epistemology 101 to understand his books; you just need to pay close attention to his clear, patient exposition. In “The Philosopher, the Priest, and the Painter,” Nadler has, moreover, written his most inviting book yet.
Given its subtitle, “A Portrait of Descartes,” one would naturally expect an account of the life and thought of this key modern philosopher. But that subtitle is actually a sly pun.
A thought for today …
There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self.
— Aldous Huxley, born on this date in 1894
Thursday, July 25, 2013
Vintage commentary …
… Kenneth Burke On Samuel Taylor Coleridge: September 13, 1939 | New Republic. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
And the nominees are …
… Man Booker longlist 'most diverse' in prize's history, say judges | Books | guardian.co.uk. (Hat tip, Sarah Weinman.)
Literary conversation .…
… Dana Gioia’s 'Pity the Beautiful': A talk with a major poet | Facts and Arts. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Christian Scandal ...
The Catholic Church is deeply troubled these days, and the trouble is what it always is: evil on the job, what we call sin. The problem is popularly called the "scandal." For Christians, however, being accused of scandal is an expectation, not a problem. It is how we know we are on the right track and not the wrong one.
We do not avoid scandal; we seek it out. Our Lord and Savior was fatherless, as the world saw it. His life therefore began in scandal. He was born destitute in a stable: also scandalous. Everything he advised was scandal - that fathers forgive sons who had renounced their birthrights, that prostitutes caught in the act not be punished, that the lame be healed on the Sabbath, that lepers be hugged, that Samaritans might be more righteous than priests, that servants are better than masters, that the donations of poor widows are better than the gifts of the wealthiest.
We wallow in scandal. In fact, as soon as we seek to avoid scandal, we run into trouble.
A bishop becomes aware of the evildoing of one of his priests and hides the fact so no scandal touches his diocese. That bishop thereby renounces every shred of advice Jesus ever gave. Only one horrific result is possible, and we have all witnessed it in the universal Church.
Protecting the weak instead of the powerful is the greatest scandal of all, be it a prostitute dragged naked to the town square to face the grim rage of fellow sinners, or a child walking into the arms of a priestly predator. The task of the follower of Jesus is simple: Step between the powerful aggressor and the helpless target. Side with the vulnerable one.
De gustibus …
… Ivebeenreadinglately: Travis McGee is no fan of Chicago. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Me, I love Chicago. I even lived there for a bit.
Me, I love Chicago. I even lived there for a bit.
Q&A …
… Los Angeles Review of Books - The Past Gets Bigger And The Future Shrinks: An Interview With Martin Amis. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Does anyone remember Martin Amis in the film A High Wind in Jamaica?
Does anyone remember Martin Amis in the film A High Wind in Jamaica?
It Was Ever Thus ...
Whether we are considering the Gnostic kernel-thought of cosmic revisionism; or the Marxist-Socialist doctrine of social rehabilitation; or the current global warming hysteria which aims for the restoration of a pre-industrial planet; or the mental sedatives known as the doctrines of “social justice” and “universal human rights” which, as Daniel Hannan elaborates in The New Road to Serfdom, have nothing to do with new rights but with institutional centralization and international organizations that “get to determine what our rights are”; or the Obamantra of “hope and change” and all that it implies of redistributive economics, what we are observing is the perpetual march of human folly. It will stop at nothing — neither dogmatic ignorance, nor cultivated nihilism, nor imaginary resolutions, nor planned upheaval, nor destructive violence — to construct a pristine simulacrum of the Gnostic hallucination as if it were a viable alternative to the world as it fundamentally is and always will be.
This is by David Soltay, who is, among other things a poet. I find it oddly comforting, because, as Frank has pointed out here many times, the complete and utter failure of our Ruling Class is astonishing, he acquiescence by the Ruled Class is insane, and -- to me -- both have happened so quickly and universally. As Soltay points out here, it is a battle about Articles of Faith, and it has happened many, many times before.
And on a related note I absolutely think there has been progress in all sorts of ways, empirically verifiable. Just look around. We would be dead, most of us, without the progress that has been made. You may want FASTER progress and that is good for you. But I think the average person is far better off than they were twenty, forty, sixty, one hundred etc. years ago, or even further back, where people lived till 40, or not, when children died at birth or soon after, so couples would have many children just to make sure some survived, when the rich and powerful had a stranglehold on all. And you can claim now that they still do, as we sit, far better fed than people throughout history, and far more comfortable, communicating over an electronic marvel, but that just isn't right I think -- and to claim it is I think diminishes the actual truth of suffering today.
Of course, as in all things, that is my perspective -- that of a transgendered person who has been kindly granted a platform here by Frank. In the old days, my kind would have been killed a long time ago, or I would have killed myself cause of the rejection I would have faced ... and now I still have my stunning and glorious partner of twenty five years, our four kids, my law practice, and my life, within one mile of where I grew up. So yes, I see things through my own prism...
A thought for today …
All the things one has forgotten scream for help in dreams.
— Elias Canetti, born on this date in 1905
Wednesday, July 24, 2013
A soul divided …
… Transmissions from a Lone Star: The Slow Creative Death of Vladimir Mayakovsky | Columnists | RIA Novosti.
This rotten material is important. Viewed in context, it exposes the unbearable struggle taking place inside Mayakovsky as he fought to adapt to a time that had no place for him. The straining for effect, the leaden weight of political correctness – all of that is tangible in his later poetry. It cheapened his work and ate at his soul, and he was acutely aware of what was happening to him.
Dumb despots …
…US Military and German Police Respond to Facebook Post about NSA Walk - SPIEGEL ONLINE. (Hat tip, Lee Lowe.)
Bangert took their first piece of advice, registering his "demonstration" even though, as he says, "it wasn't supposed to be one." But he ignored the police's second suggestion and reported on their visit on his Facebook page. "How much more proof do you need," he wrote. "Everyone says that they aren't affected. But then I invite people for a walk and write obvious nonsense in the invitation and suddenly the federal police show up at my home."
Writing Is So Darn Hard ...
GLOUCESTER, MA—Admitting that he has “absolutely no idea how other authors do it,” novelist Edward Milligan, 46, told reporters Tuesday that he’s just no good at all when it comes to describing people’s hands in his writing.
“I’m fine with most details, but for some reason hands completely and utterly elude me,” said Milligan, who recently described a character’s hands as “dangling around like big, meaty spiders.” “I’ll often create an entirely fleshed-out character, and write easily and length about their face, their personality, their voice, their hopes, dreams, and desires, but then I try to describe their damn hands and it ruins the whole story.”
A confederacy of...
...India’s cocooned intellectual elite
In his book Intellectuals and Society , economist Thomas Sowell wrote that intellectuals are judged by whether their ideas “sound good to other intellectuals or resonate with the public.” Sowell has said that there is no objective test for the ideas that intellectuals offer, and “the only test for most intellectuals is whether other intellectuals go along with them. And if they all have a wrong idea, then it becomes invincible”, as the idea gets repeated and endorsed by the establishment en masse. Intellectuals have no accountability to anybody but their own community.
Where to find …
… Faith in Fiction — First Things. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Fiction is primarily about fiction. It may – and often does – engage faith, but it is not a substitute for faith. Flannery O'Connor's faith informed her life. Hence, it informed her fiction. That is how it works. If faith seems missing from contemporary fiction, perhaps that is because it is missing contemporary writers' lives. I thought Joshua Henkin's The World Without You had an undercurrent running through it that had something do with faith. The same could be said of Tan Twan Eng's two novels – The Gift of Rain and The Garden of Evening Mists.
The latest from the most transparent administration ever …
… White House urges Congress to reject moves to curb NSA surveillance | World news | guardian.co.uk. (Hat tip, Lee Lowe).
This administration is transparent all you. You can see right through it. I like it that when he was a state senator, Barack Obama sponsored a stand-your-ground bill. I have no problem with such a bill, by the way, only with his transparent hypocrisy.
This administration is transparent all you. You can see right through it. I like it that when he was a state senator, Barack Obama sponsored a stand-your-ground bill. I have no problem with such a bill, by the way, only with his transparent hypocrisy.
Science Writing Stylist (and DNA discoverer) James Watson ...
When a collection of Watson’s essays were published in A Passion for DNA the New England Journal of Medicine hailed him as the “prose laureate” of the biomedical sciences. Lewis Thomas, Loren Eiseley and Edward Wilson may have better claims to that title. But, while Wilson comes close, Watson has been a more influential writer than any of them. Friedberg’s book is a convenient reminder of the range and importance of his work, and an invitation to others to engage with it anew.
The work and the life …
… The Lives of Lorine Niedecker by Hannah Brooks-Motl. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
So how important is it to know Niedecker’s biography? Should it matter that Niedecker herself was wary of biographies, expressing dismay to Corman when an editor requested one to accompany her poems: “funny does one need a poet’s life to get at his poetry? Perhaps so, never struck me so, really.” Or should we take Niedecker’s own practice of creating portraits of historical figures such as Jefferson, Darwin, and William Morris—and her use of a citational method that drew on published biographies and correspondence—as proof that her enduring interest in the lives of others might warrant a closer look at the ways in which her own life informs, and even enhances, her work?
No More Nuns ...
You may wonder whether the global church the sisters belong to is interested in keeping the convents open. It sure seems like it isn't. By 2005, the Catholic Church had spent $1 billion on legal fees and settlements stemming from priests sexually abusing children. Yet church leaders have allocated no funds to take care of elderly sisters, and while priests’ retirement funds are covered by the church, the sisters have no such safety net. When their orders run out of money, that’s it.
“Why would you want to be a nun if the archdiocese is going to treat you like they do?” Ann Frey at the Wartburg said. “Their whole lives they’ve been obedient and done what they were asked to do, and now nobody is helping them?”
Hmm …
… The Brains Behind Spirituality : RSA blogs. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
The spiritual injunction is principally an experiential one, namely to know oneself as fully as possible.If so, it is just one more manifestation of the narcissism characteristic of this age. I do not practice my faith in order to learn more about me. I practice it to learn more about Someone far greater than I.
Tuesday, July 23, 2013
Happy Birthday, Mr. Chandler …
… Paul Davis On Crime: Raymond Chandler: Master Crime Writer.
Somehow it doesn't seem right calling him Ray.
Somehow it doesn't seem right calling him Ray.
Wisdom from a great teacher …
… What I've Learned in the Classroom - Do Your Job Better - The Chronicle of Higher Education.
Paula is also a great person.
Paula is also a great person.
A good second-rather …
… Anecdotal Evidence: `A Mystery Writer With a Touch of Magic'.
Somerset Maugham thought that his place in literary history would be in the very front row of the second-rate. But, he noted, the second-rate are among some best writers ever. The first-rate are the gods of literature – Homer, Shakespeare, Dante, etc.
Practical reasoning …
… 7 Habits of a Highly Effective Philosopher — Killing the Buddha. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Why Do Writers Drink?
Fiction may look like the right form for alcoholics, as their dependency teaches them to be good at lying. But holding a novel in your head becomes more difficult when you're holding a glass in your hand as well. "A short story can be written on a bottle," Fitzgerald told his editor Max Perkins, "but for a novel you need the mental speed that enables you to keep the whole pattern in your head and ruthlessly sacrifice the sideshows." Many poets have written a line or two when pissed, but few of those lines stand up next day. Even poetry readings can be ruined by woozy timing and slurred pronunciation.
A thought for today …
A good story cannot be devised; it has to be distilled.
— Raymond Chandler, born on this date in 1888
Monday, July 22, 2013
More than just opining …
… Nicholas Lezard: putting the case for professional critics | Books | The Guardian. (Hat tip,, Dave Lull.)
A really good book review is an exceedingly minor but genuine work of art. To tell enough of the plotline without giving away anything, to provide snapshots of the key characters, then tack on some pertinent analysis, all the while keeping your own readers' attention, leaving them with a sense of what your experience of reading the book under review was – that's not as easy as some – perhaps many – may think. It is certainly a good deal more than telling everybody what precious you felt about the book.
Hmm …
… The Party of Wilson, Wiretaps, and War, by John R. MacArthur | Harper's Magazine.
I don't think that either Rand or Ron Paul think of themselves as "right-wingers." Ron Paul ran for President as the Libertarian Party candidate in 1988. People have to get over using these cheap-shot labels. The do nothing for rational discourse. If you think you have something to say, dispense with the boiler-plate.
As former senator Jim Webb (D., Va.) wrote in March in The National Interest, “Under the objectively un-definable rubric of ‘humanitarian intervention,’ President Obama has arguably established the authority of the president to intervene militarily almost anywhere without the consent or the approval of Congress.” This signifies “a breakdown of our constitutional process,” according to Webb, but I believe that it also affords an opportunity to spur our “complacent” Congress into doing its duty.
I don't think that either Rand or Ron Paul think of themselves as "right-wingers." Ron Paul ran for President as the Libertarian Party candidate in 1988. People have to get over using these cheap-shot labels. The do nothing for rational discourse. If you think you have something to say, dispense with the boiler-plate.
Totally Self Indulgent Post ...
Here is a blog I have been working on. Frank was kind enough to post it before but the blog format was a little confusing. So I recast it and it is here now.
The conceit is the postings are from a CEO/Scientist, expert in nano technology, who decides to clone himself using nano...
The postings are from his journals. I am serializing it, the oldest post is at the bottom, and I have the first week of journals up. I will continue to add weeks as time progresses.
I would love to get feedback here from Frank's incredibly well read audience. Thanks!
The conceit is the postings are from a CEO/Scientist, expert in nano technology, who decides to clone himself using nano...
The postings are from his journals. I am serializing it, the oldest post is at the bottom, and I have the first week of journals up. I will continue to add weeks as time progresses.
I would love to get feedback here from Frank's incredibly well read audience. Thanks!
A thought for today …
Life is not lost by dying; life is lost minute by minute, day by dragging day, in all the thousand small uncaring.
— Stephen Vincent Benét, born on this date in 1898
Sunday, July 21, 2013
Dabbling with chickens …
… The Man Who Stood Behind The Door And Said “Boo!” To T.S. Eliot � Hooting Yard. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Religion without God …
… Peter Sloterdijk's Philosophy Gives Reasons for Living | New Republic. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I think the problem here is that, while religion works for those who practice it, merely practicing what the truly faithful practice, minus the reason they practice it, is likely to be a blind alley, unless it leads to what the practice is grounded in.
Stevens, Basho, and more …
… Edmund de Waal on Inspiration for Writing and Art | Five Books | Five Books. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
The Solution to Bad Speech ...
Teller and I had just gotten back from doing shows in Egypt, China and India. When I traveled overseas I just found myself more of an American than I’ve ever been before. And I came back and Teller and I wanted to do something really patriotic. We wanted to just celebrate living in the USA. And our way to do that was to burn the flag and restore it and talk about freedom of speech.
True innovation …
… No Names, No Jackets. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
No Names, No Jackets is a blind taste test for books, backed by a StumbleUpon-style lucky dip system and a total and deliberate lack of star ratings, likes and reviews. Whether it’s your first book or you’ve written dozens, whether they’ve sold thousands or none at all, whether your cover copy is woeful or superb, whether your jacket design is jaw-droppingly awesome or looks like it was made by a child using MS Paint, all that matters here is the writing. If writing’s good, it’ll hook readers who might never have given the book a second glance. Browse, dip in at random, follow updates by RSS, and encounter stories in their purest form, free of preconceptions. ‘Discovery’ is the main hurdle in publishing success these days, and 3NJ offers a new approach to the issue.
Covering -- Not Reviewing -- Books For Fun and Profit!
It seems as if sixty-five per cent of all novels’ jackets feature an item of female apparel and/or part of the female anatomy and the name of some foodstuff in the title—the book-cover equivalent of the generic tough-guy-with-gun movie poster with title like “2 HARD & 2 FAST.” There’s clearly some brutally efficient Darwinian process at work here, because certain images—half-faces, napes, piers stretching into the water—spread like successful evolutionary adaptations and quickly become ubiquitous.
A thought for today …
We read five words on the first page of a really good novel and we begin to forget that we are reading printed words on a page; we begin to see images.
— John Gardner, born on this date in 1933
Saturday, July 20, 2013
Too Many Saintly Popes?
Francis has an opportunity to put a stop to a practice – the canonisation of recent popes – that is doing the Catholic Church’s reputation no good. Having given something to each side by canonising the rival heroes, John XXIII and John Paul II, he could – and should – order the suspension of the canonisation causes of the other three for a century or two. Otherwise, they can look like an unedifying exercise in papal self-congratulation.
Be very sacred …
… Undernews: Could your savings account be seized to bail out your bank? (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
The current political class – starting at the top – is among the worst imaginable.
The current political class – starting at the top – is among the worst imaginable.
City of memory …
… Lawrence Durrell's 'Justine': Missing Alexandria, Egypt | By Lucette Lagnado - WSJ.com. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Like Durrell's heroine, I am from Egypt, born into a Jewish family with roots in Syria. As I have pondered my own propensity for melancholy and melodrama—two of the traits that define Justine—I have often thought, "Justine, c'est moi." Unlike her, though, I am from Cairo. Each city had its distinctive personality. Yet once upon a time the two had much in common—a European culture and thriving night life, with hedonistic types who wandered through every nightclub and dined in the wee hours. Despite strict moral codes in the different cultures and religions, men and women found ways to come together, and somehow these liaisons seem far more enticing than the ready hookups of our "Sex and the City" culture.
A thought for today …
Love is the crowning grace of humanity, the holiest right of the soul, the golden link which binds us to duty and truth, the redeeming principle that chiefly reconciles the heart to life, and is prophetic of eternal good.
— Petrarch, born on this date in 1304
Friday, July 19, 2013
A Separate Peace
It's a shame that A Separate Peace has come to be associated with high school syllabi - because this book deserves the attention, I think, of more adults.
I wasn't sure what to expect from Knowles' classic. Certainly its title always felt a little intimidating. But it's very well done: the writing is clear and crisp, and story fits nicely into the larger contexts of private education and the war.
A graduate of Andover, Knowles knew what he was talking about when it came to the world of boarding schools. And a veteran, he knew, too, what it was like to sacrifice the pastoral for something far more violent and immediate.
A Separate Piece moves forward at all moments toward its awful resolution. And while it's not a resolution that's entirely unexpected, it does serve its purpose: to show the fragility of life, both on and off the battle field.
This is a book about generations, despite its pronouncement that wars are about more than generational conflict; they're about "some ignorant in the human heart." That ignorance is deeply felt in Knowles' novel, one that deconstructs youth with understanding, sorrow, and sympathy.
Faithful portrait …
… Alyn Shipton's 'Nilsson' Is a Perfect Portrait of an Imperfect Man | PopMatters.
I talked to Harry a couple of times on the phone. He had sent me a letter in response to a long story I had done about his music for a now-defunct Philly weekly. He included his phone number and asked me to call. This was all "long ago, far away."
FISA is Everywhere ...
And so whatever protections progressive States like California have been able to secure to protect reader privacy, it is not at all clear they would work against FISA orders on the national level. With our books in the hands of a few very large internet application hosts, and even assuming the best efforts by those companies to protect their users, we can not purchase ebooks, much less read them, with any sense of privacy or confidentiality.
A thought for today …
Life is no straight and easy corridor along which we travel free and unhampered, but a maze of passages, through which we must seek our way, lost and confused, now and again checked in a blind alley.But always, if we have faith, a door will open for us, not perhaps one that we ourselves would ever have thought of, but one that will ultimately prove good for us.
— A. J. Cronin, born on this date in 1896
Downward spiral …
… The Savage Grace in John O'Hara's Classic, 'Appointment in Samarra' | PopMatters. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Q&A …
Jaswinder Bolina: Avoiding the Obvious - Guernica / A Magazine of Art and Politics. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
I’ve read—and probably written—far too many poems that are convinced of their own epiphanies. The alleged insights in such works are generally arrived at after a prolonged meditation on some personal experience, but when studied more closely, the epiphany is a too tidy solution to a problem the poem hyperbolized in order to achieve its effect. This doesn’t make the problem any less real. It just makes me wonder whether the epiphanies are.
Growing up with Comics ...
An era of change and rancor, of assassinations (In one famous issue, Superman trusted John F. Kennedy with his secret identity, reasoning that “If you can’t trust the President, who can you trust?” Sadly, the issue shipped and had just hit stands in November, 1963.)
Vintage commentary …
… E.M. Forster and Virginia Woolf Review Jane Austen Edition | New Republic. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Thursday, July 18, 2013
Hard to assay …
… The short happy life of Robert Louis Stevenson by Joseph Epstein — The New Criterion. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
No decent man could ever renounce an author who had been so dear a friend in childhood.
No decent man could ever renounce an author who had been so dear a friend in childhood.
Much ado all around …
… Literature Is Dead (According to Straight, White Guys, At Least) - Joel Breuklander - The Atlantic. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I don't know which is sillier, the "literature is dead" mantra or this peculiar take on it. After all, you can't say something is not so just because only straight white males say it is.
I don't know which is sillier, the "literature is dead" mantra or this peculiar take on it. After all, you can't say something is not so just because only straight white males say it is.
Nice to know …
… A Philadelphia School's Big Bet on Nonviolence - Jeff Deeney - The Atlantic. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Like the wen in Grandma's nose …
… you can take your eyes off The heroic absurdity of Dan Brown. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
The less he can write, of course, the more admirable his achievement. As well as the heroism of Robert Langdon, we must think of the heroism of Dan Brown. This is a man who started out with such a shaky grasp of the English language that he still thinks “foreboding” is an adjective meaning “ominous.” I also relished “Sienna changed tacks.” Read aloud, these three words would suggest that the pretty, young woman had altered her arrangement with the Internal Revenue Service. But Dan Brown has never read one of his own sentences aloud in all his life; and why, now, would he need to? He can buy and sell all the pedants in the world.
To be fair, she could have changed from a carpet tack to a thumb tack.
And on the Left ...
In an impressive new biography, the historian Jonathan Sperber focuses on Marx as a 19th-century thinker, a man of his time and place; and one of Sperber’s concerns is necessarily Marx’s Jewishness.It would somehow seem internally contradictory for Marx to have collected royalties on Das Kapital but according to this link he not only collected them but expected to be made rich:
Strictly speaking, of course, Marx was not a Jew: His parents were converts to Protestantism, and he declared his atheism from an early age. In the infamous essay he wrote when he was 25, “On the Jewish Question,” Marx declared that society must be freed from Judaism, which he identified with capitalism: a huckstering entrepreneurial worship of the false god, money. At the same time, Marx advocated that Jews be granted civil rights—so that they could then be divested of their Jewishness and become fully assimilated. Marx’s letters are strewn with derogatory references to Jews; though Sperber tries to make the case that Marx “took a certain perverse pride” in his Jewish ancestry, he can’t muster much supporting evidence. What we see instead are a series of slurs that today would certainly be called anti-Semitic.
He had thought that the writing of Das Kapital might make him rich, but the first volume sold only about 1000 copies. He wittily stated that the royalties from the book did not amount to enough to pay for all the cigars he smoked during its composition.That sure was a witty statement. From a man whose ideas were used to develop the greatest kiling machine the world has seen. Hahaha.
Mein Kampf's Royalties...
Mein Kampf, Hitler’s mix of autobiography and anti-Semitic rant, was one of the bestsellers of the first half of the twentieth century, and it continues to sell almost twenty thousand copies in English each year.
And see:
SPIEGEL: Do you think it's essential for Germans to read this now, 67 years after the end of the war?(Both links are from http://www.realclearhistory.com)
Hartmann: We want to set an intellectual debate in motion. In doing so, we're not simply confronting society with the raw material, as some do. We point out where Hitler's ideas came from, how much truth they do or don't contain, and what significance they had for the Nazis' ideologies and policies. It's revealing, for example, to contrast Hitler's racial theories with scientific findings on human genetics.
Last laugh …
… Gone but Now Appreciated by Jonathan Leaf - City Journal. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Once scorned by museums and collectors, the work of these illustrators has recently gained enormously in cachet and value. Indeed, the shift has been so profound that even that perpetual promoter of modernism, New Yorker art critic Peter Schjeldahl, concedes that Rockwell is “terrific,” adding “it’s become too tedious to pretend that he isn’t.”
A thought for today …
The two most engaging powers of an author are to make new things familiar, familiar things new.
— William Makepeace Thackeray, born on this date in 1811
Wednesday, July 17, 2013
What can we do bout the political class?
… TriCities.com : Parenting columnist targeted by Ky. board sues.
Who the hell do these people think they are?
Who the hell do these people think they are?