Saturday, February 28, 2015
There's always time for love …
… Reflections on Faith and Culture: Valentine's Day — Thoughts on love. (Hat tip, Cynthia Haven.)
Enemies of civilization …
… Libraries Burning: From Sarajevo to Mosul :: Center for Islamic Pluralism. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Much effort has been expended in trying to analyze why the "Islamic State" so dedicates itself to brutal atrocities. In addition to murdering thousands of people, Muslim, Christian, and affiliated with smaller sects that have survived for millennia in the region, they raze libraries. Such fanaticism is a reflection of the metastasized form of Wahhabism the "Islamic State" has imposed, in which the diverse legacy of the Muslim world is declared to deserve annihilation, on the pretext of religious purification. In the Balkans, Serbia conducted "ethnic cleansing" -- a repellent euphemism for "ethnic purging." The "Islamic State" is bent on "theological cleansing," which amounts to the same evil impulse
Hey, I like this guy …
… Sohrab Ahmari: France’s Anti-Terror, Free-Market Socialist - WSJ.
Answering these questions requires an honest public conversation that will be especially fraught in France. “There are four to six million French citizens who are Muslims,” Mr. Valls says. “How can Islam prove that it is compatible with our values? With equality of women? With the separation of church and state? Therefore you have to put a name on things. . . . If you only say Islam has nothing to do with that, people won’t believe you.”
Something to think on …
I prefer the company of peasants because they have not been educated sufficiently to reason incorrectly.
— Michel de Montaigne, born on this date in 1533
Francoise Sagan
To think that Francoise Sagan published Bonjour Tristesse (1954) when she was eighteen is evidence that some are born to write - and write well.
What a tremendous book. I mean it. What a vibrant, knowing, sorrowful book; what an accomplishment. I found myself captivated by Bonjour Tristesse, envious of its insights, rejoicing in its simplicity. Sagan composed her story with such poise, such restraint: she captures what she knows, and the result is a portrait of youth dotted with even parts beauty, sexuality, and confusion.
And Sagan's writing: line by line, paragraph by paragraph - she's a master, and Bonjour Tristesse masterful. I can't remember the last time I read a book so in tune with its time, and yet so modest, so reserved. Sagan had me from the start: from her characterization of place, of parenthood and its complexities.
I've read a number of books this winter about childhood - novels by Edna O'Brien and Alberto Moravio to name a few - but none compares with Bonjour Tristesse. I tip my hat to Sagan: here's an author who's captured cruelty and compassion with rare readability, and who's written of youth with remarkable prescience. That's a rare combination, indeed.
Friday, February 27, 2015
The fickleness of fame …
… A Reputation More Durable Than Marble | Standpoint. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Marginalia …
God is love, we are told. But Exodus tells us that God Himself says only that "I Am Who Am." Job discovers, up close and personal, what that means.
Q&A …
… Professor Camille Dungy talks African-American nature poetry and how it relates to writers today | Rocky Mountain Collegian. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
We were brought here as livestock and we were brought here to work the land. When you actually aren’t engaged and dehumanized, that very kind of consciousness develops in awareness to the land. There is kind of this tradition to western nature poetry that is about objectification and idealization of the landscape. Kind of city boys writing about how lovely it would be to live in the country. There is a large body of African-American poetry that comes from the South. Those are country boys and they themselves or direct relatives were working the land. That mentality shifts everything. I grew up in the American west, hiking in the mountains. I was deeply engaged in the natural world around me and that was important to me. Understanding the landscape that I walked through and connecting with the landscape was really important to who I was as a human being. I do think another thing to think about when considering African-American poetry is a legacy of being pushed away from the land. There is a lot of memory with being pushed away with loss. There are major periods in African-American literature where writing is engagement in dislocation.
Appreciation …
… Falling in Love with Simenon | The Los Angeles Review of Books. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Is Simenon’s work dated? Historical? Timeless? I’d argue the second two. I personally like my Paris streets dark and narrow, with glistening cobblestones, the air thick with mist and suspicion. The Montmartre cemetery wall, the same as it was then, hulking with old, lichen-covered stone; I’ve imagined a corpse there more than once. Returning late at night from the last Métro, walking uphill from Place de Clichy, the cinéma marquees dark, the café lights fading as I cross over the cemetery, I hear the thrum of the old Citroën or Renault engine, the shift of gears, and smell the cherry tobacco. (I like to think he smoked cherry tobacco, though I don’t know that it’s ever specified; perhaps there’s a Simenon scholar out there who can tell me.) Flashlights illuminate the corpse sprawled on the damp pavement. Maigret nods to his lieutenant with a, “Take this down,” and we’re off on an investigation. An investigation that leads to the hidden life behind the walls, intrigue in the quartier, and worlds we’d never visit otherwise.
Is Simenon’s work dated? Historical? Timeless? I’d argue the second two. I personally like my Paris streets dark and narrow, with glistening cobblestones, the air thick with mist and suspicion. The Montmartre cemetery wall, the same as it was then, hulking with old, lichen-covered stone; I’ve imagined a corpse there more than once. Returning late at night from the last Métro, walking uphill from Place de Clichy, the cinéma marquees dark, the café lights fading as I cross over the cemetery, I hear the thrum of the old Citroën or Renault engine, the shift of gears, and smell the cherry tobacco. (I like to think he smoked cherry tobacco, though I don’t know that it’s ever specified; perhaps there’s a Simenon scholar out there who can tell me.) Flashlights illuminate the corpse sprawled on the damp pavement. Maigret nods to his lieutenant with a, “Take this down,” and we’re off on an investigation. An investigation that leads to the hidden life behind the walls, intrigue in the quartier, and worlds we’d never visit otherwise.
Something to think on…
I imagine, therefore I belong and am free.
— Lawrence Durrell, born on this date in 1912
Thursday, February 26, 2015
Submissions wanted …
The Poetry Foundation Welcomes Submissions to the 2015 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowships
Submissions accepted March 1–April 30
CHICAGO – Five Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowships in the amount of $25,800 each will be awarded to young U.S. poets between 21 and 31 years of age through a national competition sponsored by the Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine. Submissions will be accepted from March 1 through April 30 of this year.
The original Ruth Lilly Poetry Fellowships were established in 1989 by Indianapolis philanthropist Ruth Lilly to encourage the further study and writing of poetry. In 2013, the Poetry Foundation received a generous gift from the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Memorial Fund to create the Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowships, which increased the fellowship amount from $15,000 to $25,800.
The Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowships honor two extraordinary women and their commitment to poetry and give five young poets a more auspicious start to their careers. The awards are among the largest offered to young poets in the United States.
“From Harriet Monroe’s founding of Poetry in 1912 to our constant search for fresh new voices today, Poetry has always discovered work that enlivens our sense of what poetry is worth and what it can do,” says Don Share, editor of Poetry magazine. “The Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowships are especially inspiring because they identify emerging writers whose promising work shows how poetry helps compose our lives.”
For information on how to submit, visit poetryfoundation.org/
The 2014 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellows are Wendy Xu, Hannah Gamble, Solmaz Sharif, Danez Smith and Ocean Vuong. The Poetry Foundation’s annual awards to poets include the $100,000 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, which honors a living U.S. poet whose lifetime accomplishments warrant extraordinary recognition, and the new $7,500 Pegasus Award for Poetry Criticism, first given in 2014, which honors the best book-length works of criticism published in the prior calendar year, including biographies, essay collections and critical editions that consider the subject of poetry or poets.
About the Poetry Foundation
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine, is an independent literary organization committed to a vigorous presence for poetry in our culture. It exists to discover and celebrate the best poetry and to place it before the largest possible audience. The Poetry Foundation seeks to be a leader in shaping a receptive climate for poetry by developing new audiences, creating new avenues for delivery and encouraging new kinds of poetry through innovative literary prizes and programs. For more information, please visit poetryfoundation.org.
About Poetry MagazineFounded in Chicago by Harriet Monroe in 1912, Poetry is the oldest monthly devoted to verse in the English-speaking world. Monroe’s “Open Door” policy, set forth in Volume 1 of the magazine, remains the most succinct statement of Poetry’s mission: to print the best poetry written today, in whatever style, genre or approach. The magazine established its reputation early by publishing the first important poems of T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Marianne Moore, Wallace Stevens, H.D., William Carlos Williams, Carl Sandburg and other now-classic authors. In succeeding decades it has presented—often for the first time—works by virtually every major contemporary poet.
Follow the Poetry Foundation and Poetry on Facebook at facebook.com/poetryfoundation
FYI …
… 6 things you didn't know about Fatima Bhutto and 'Democracy' | VOGUE India. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
Shades of Gray …
… Elegy For Gray | Standpoint. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Ah, but Harvard surely shares Gray's view of the United States.… Gray sees the United States as a diabolical force that has institutionalised “perpetual war” in the name of defending democracy. In Gray’s anatomy, the symbol of America today is not the Statue of Liberty but the jump-suited terrorists of Guantanamo: “Along with mass incarceration, torture appears to be integral to the functioning of the world's most advanced state.”We can only guess at the perversion of logic that has led Gray, who has taught at Harvard among other universities, to bite the hand that feeds him. Still, his critique is not merely wrong, but perniciously so.
Bah, humbug …
… The happiness conspiracy: against optimism and the cult of positive thinking. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
This is madness, as anybody who has been subjected to team-building or any of the other devices from the shabby book of spells that is management theory will attest. It produces palpably false statements such as this one from Marc Andreessen, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and investor: “And I can tell you, at least from the last 20 years, if you bet on the side of the optimists, generally you’re right.” In fact, once you take into account the number of optimistic failures, you’d lose every penny.
Shortly before I retired, my then-colleague Carrie Rickey was writing a piece about holiday films. The focus of the piece was those moments in such films that elicited tears. I told Carrie that, when watching A Christmas Carol, I often broke down when Scrooge abandoned his free-market principles. Carrie begged me to let her use the quote, and I readily agreed, since it would only enhance my curmudgeonly image, of which I am very protective. I like to think of myself as a realist: God maketh His rain to fall on the just and the unjust alike; get used to it. But having had the opportunity recently to witness severe depression, I can say that the power of negative thinking can prove devastating. Neither a pessimist nor an optimist be.
Comments and suggestions invited …
… Beyond Eastrod: a journey through literature: 20 best English-language novels of the 19th c. . . .
I'd probably go with Wuthering Heights because of the thrill it gave me when I first read it in my teens. The Moonstone is tempting, but my other choice is not on the list: Thomas Hardy's The Return of the Native.
I'd probably go with Wuthering Heights because of the thrill it gave me when I first read it in my teens. The Moonstone is tempting, but my other choice is not on the list: Thomas Hardy's The Return of the Native.
Something to think on …
Here's the point to be made - there are no synonyms. There are no two words that mean exactly the same thing.
— Theodore Sturgeon, born on this date in 1918
Wednesday, February 25, 2015
The roundabout way …
… First Known When Lost: "Love, What It Is".
Indeed.
I am thus tempted to fall back upon my old standby in situations of this sort: "What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence." Ludwig Wittgenstein, Proposition 7, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (translated by David Pears and Brian McGuinness) (1921). Of course, Wittgenstein is only repeating what Taoist and Buddhist philosophers stated centuries ago. And what they say is true, you know. (Contrary to what purveyors of Science would have you believe, all of this explaining we moderns engage in gets us nowhere.)
Indeed.
Hmm …
… Why all writers are vain | Books | The Guardian.
I'm not sure writers are more vain, proportionately, than the rest of mankind. I remember having lunch with David McCullough, and I don't remember him saying anything about himself. He only wanted to talk about John Adams, about whom he had just written a biography. It was as if Adams had been one of his best friends, and he wanted you to get know him as well as he did. It was one of the pleasantest afternoons of my life.
Anthony Burgess, journalist …
… Blake Morrison on Anthony Burgess the critic – ‘he aspired to know everything’ | Books | The Guardian. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
In the hierarchy of forms, literary journalism comes near the bottom. Its practitioners are hacks, whose domain is Grub Street and who produce mere copy.Well, copy must be produced, and we who can produce it often try our best to make it as good as we can. I have found being a hack one of the better ways of earning a living.
Something to think on …
If the world is to be improved it must be by the exercise of individual charity.
— Anthony Burgess, born on this date in 1917
Tuesday, February 24, 2015
A wonderful line of books …
… Defining the Classics. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
It might surprise readers to learn that the inspiration for the NYRB Classics came from a very modern idea: the digitization of the library. In the late ‘90s, Frank was working on a different project for the New York Review of Bookscalled the Reader’s Catalog, a massive virtual bookstore that he describes as “a sort of Sears catalog of books.” Its subtitle was “the 40,000 best books in print,” and Frank was involved with annotating and distinguishing which books were interesting.
And it ain't now either...
Beware [a software package available to police departments] can send an officer basic information about who lives there, their cell phone numbers, whether they have past convictions and the cars registered to the address. Police have had access to this information before, but Beware makes it available immediately.
Yet it does far more — scanning the residents’ online comments, social media and recent purchases for warning signs. Commercial, criminal and social media information, including, as Intrado vice president Steve Reed said in an interview with urgentcomm.com, “any comments that could be construed as offensive,” all contribute to the threat score.
Beer, William Blake, and some intriguing questions …
… Beyond Eastrod: Rising from the Ashes: Dreaming of Jerusalem -- an epiphany and a mission.
My own dreams — the few I remember — tend to be appallingly banal, but I have always thought there was something to the ancient belief that they can convey knowledge from, say, another sphere of being. As for Blake, he certainly seems to have thought of himself as a prophet.
The value of small things …
… The Ideology of the Trivial | Time's Flow Stemmed. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Something to think on …
Everybody sets out to do something, and everybody does something, but no one does what he sets out to do.
— George Moore, born on this date in 1852
Monday, February 23, 2015
Anchors and insects …
… If Ever, Oh Ever, a Wiz There Was | Liberty Unbound. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Williams’ talent, such as it was, consisted merely of being a news anchor who did things that are usually not associated with being a news anchor. Lots of people are celebrities for reasons like that. Preachers and politicians get loud laughs when they tell a joke, but only because people think it’s amusing that someone with such a dull job can tell any joke at all. The animals on YouTube are considered amusing for doing things that any dull, ordinary person does every day; their talent is merely being animals that are trying to do those things. But if you found out that the dog wasn’t really a dog, or the cat wasn’t really a cat, or the news anchor wasn’t anchoring much of anything, no one would want to watch any of the supposedly amusing antics. And being a news anchor requires a lot less than being a dog or cat.
So much for pursuing happiness …
… The University Bookman: On Merriment. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Aristotle implied that a pleasure is intrinsic to knowing. But it is not the knowing itself. The pleasure only comes indirectly. It only comes when we seek and find the truth of things. It is indeed a “by-product.” While it is the “truth that makes us free,” it is its surprise that makes us glad. The passage from not knowing to knowing is often a long one. But the passage from knowing the truth to being elated by it is instantaneous, again as Aristotle implied.
Mark thy calendar …
What Is Philly Poetry Day?
People say you can attend a poetry reading
almost every day in the Philadelphia area.
There is a lot of poetry in Philadelphia.
Philly Poetry Day is a chance for all poets
to show their stuff – to demonstrate how much
poetry there is in Philadelphia.
It is also an attempt to bring poetry
to a larger and not typical audience.
The idea is that on Saturday, April 18, 2015,
from 12 AM to12 PM, poetry will be everywhere.
How can you participate?
If you are a poetry organization that normally programs
readings, we are inviting you to create an event for that day.
We are also inviting any poets, anyone really,
to create a poetry reading for that day: at your school,
community center, local library or bookstore, cafes,
living room, etcetera.
We also strongly recommend creating a
reading in a space where poetry readings
are not normally held (with permission). Any space
with a built-in audience. In this way, poetry will
pop-up all over the Philadelphia area. Drugstores,
parks, street corners, porches, any place you can think of.
We have had poetry readings on railroad bridges,
pizza parlors, subways, etcetera.
All ideas and events are welcome.
What do you have to do?
Create an event.
List name of organization,
names of participating poets.
2-line description of event,
time and location of event
(remember the date is
April 18, 2015).
Email information to:
Leonard Gontarek,
gontarek9@earthlink.net
Everyone is welcome
and we need everyone to participate.
Last year there were 36 events,
we hope to reach 72+ events this year.
A few highlights from last year:
http://apiarymagazine.com/
Hmm …
… Literature and the moral question - LA Times.
“People don’t want moral complexity,” Franzen argues. “Moral complexity is a luxury. You might be forced to read it in school, but a lot of people have hard lives. They come home at the end of the day, they feel they’ve been jerked around by the world yet again for another day. The last thing they want to do is read Alice Munro, who is always pointing toward the possibility that you’re not the heroic figure you think of yourself as, that you might be the very dubious figure that other people think of you as. That’s the last thing you’d want if you’ve had a hard day. You want to be told good people are good, bad people are bad, and love conquers all. And love is more important than money. You know, all these schmaltzy tropes. That’s exactly what you want if you’re having a hard life. Who am I to tell people that they need to have their noses rubbed in moral complexity?”The problem with this is that, sometimes, complexity doesn't enter into morality. There is no complexity involved in not taking what is not yours. The moral dimension of literature derives from its fidelity to being. If you accurately and precisely portray things and persons as they are, a mix of the simple, the complex, and all that is in between should become manifest. And you can avoid preaching.
In conclusion …
… I’m Sorry You Scare Me | BREVITY's Nonfiction Blog.
… an unfinished version of this post went out yesterday, our fault, not the author’s! Please enjoy the full version.
Sad to say …
… The Song Is Ended | The Weekly Standard. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
… the old-fashioned school of Oklahoma! family musical appears to be all but gone for good, killed off by the disintegration of the common culture that made it possible in the first place. Now that Broadway-minded songwriters no longer have a universal musical language on which to draw, it isn’t possible to write a show with genuine broad-gauge audience appeal. It says everything about the desperate state of the American musical that the last theatrical song to become an enduringly popular hit, Stephen Sondheim’s “Send in the Clowns,” was written in 1973.
Something to think on …
Philosophic meditation is an accomplishment by which I attain Being and my own self, not impartial thinking which studies a subject with indifference.
— Karl Jaspers, born on this date in 1883
Sunday, February 22, 2015
A must-read for sure …
… Bryan Appleyard — The Epic Fail of the Tech Elites. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
This is an excellent piece, a real work of journalistic art. I think Keen misses his own point in thinking there is a political solution to the problem he has identified. Politics is about power. Contemporary governance is far behind in knowing what is going on precisely because its operatives think almost exclusively in terms of threadbare categories. Hence, it can offer no creative response to any of this, just the usual tax and regulate nostrums. The revision of the food recommendations in this country recently demonstrates how well that has worked out. In short, governments are as much entrapped by all this as we are individually.
History is the chronicle of people forming groups and jockeying for power. They always advertise themselves as having the best interests of most people at heart. Most at heart they have their own best interests. The left and right dichotomy is a false disjunction. Communism and fascism were socialist variants. What is important to note about the denizens of the Battery Club is that they may well be changing the rules of political engagement. Government as currently manifested is about as suited for meeting that challenge as a Model T would be in a NASCAR race.
Suggestions invited …
… Beyond Eastrod: Rising from the Ashes: The Final Chapter: Pondering Death (Updated and Revised).
In a bizarre way, Anthony Burgess's Earthly Powers seems pertinent, since it is about the miracle that may prove decisive in a late Pope canonization, and its strange unintended consequences.
In a bizarre way, Anthony Burgess's Earthly Powers seems pertinent, since it is about the miracle that may prove decisive in a late Pope canonization, and its strange unintended consequences.
Something to think on …
A man ceases to be a beginner in any given science and becomes a master in that science when he has learned that he is going to be a beginner all his life.
— R. G. Collingwood, born on this date in 1889
Saturday, February 21, 2015
More nuanced than some notice …
… The Elusive Politics of American Sniper - Hit & Run : Reason.com. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Rumor and gossip …
… Harper Lee and the Mysteries of Monroeville - The New Yorker. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Something to think on …
Nothing is more common than for men to think that because they are familiar with words they understand the ideas they stand for.
— John Henry Newman, born on this date in 1801
Raymond Chandler
The Big Sleep? I'm not convinced.
Maybe it's because mystery's not my thing. But I think there's more to it than that.
For one, Raymond Chandler's style is almost Baroque. His sentences are overflowing with adjectives, most of them unnecessary. And my sense is he's written this way to fill the space: because without all that superfluous description, The Big Sleep would be a novella, a short story, even. But really, what's wrong with that? The Big Sleep would have been better had it been constructed as a novella: it would have packed a bigger (and more sustained) punch. As a novel, the story drags, and that's largely because of all the meaningless description: of cars, of rain, of women's stockings, of guns. In the end, it all fades away.
And there's more: Chandler can weave a story - OK, I'll give him that. But his characters become so painfully cliched: his women are scandalous and provocative, his detectives tough and hard drinking. Maybe they were deliberately two-dimensional, and maybe that was one of Chandler's goals: to invent these types. And so maybe I'm being a little hard. That said, I couldn't relate: to all the names, to all the intricacies, to all the adverbs. This was a vision of American about which Chandler could not, in the end, convience me to care. Sure, maybe the Sternwood daughters: maybe they interested me because of their brazen sexuality (a sexuality that reminded me, actually, of characters developed years later by the Coen brothers). Otherwise, I found the book predictable, which was an odd sensation given its pretense of complexity.
Still, there's one great line in this book, and I'll tip my hat to Chandler for it: "..It seemed a little too pat. It had the austere simplicity of fiction rather than the tangled woof of fact." Tangled woof of fact: that's tremendous!
Friday, February 20, 2015
Hmm …
… Looking for (Mrs) Laura (Riding) Jackson, the anti-social people’s poet, from Jamaica (Queens) to Woodruff Avenue (Brooklyn) | The Brooklyn Rail. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
I'm not sure I follow this, but this is certainly to the point:
I'm not sure I follow this, but this is certainly to the point:
Riding’s judgment that craft was “suffused with a light drab of poetic secularity” suggested that it had replaced the religious truth telling activity of poetry. I wonder if she could have envisioned what would be “systematically going on” when teacher-poets came to institutionalize “craft-individualism” within the M.F.A. orbit. As Eric Bennett has recently written in “How Iowa Flattened Literature”:
Within today’s M.F.A. culture, the worst thing an aspiring writer can do is bring to the table a certain ambitiousness of preconception. All the handbooks say so. “If your central motive as a writer is to put across ideas,” the writer Steve Almond says, “write an essay.” The novelist and critic Stephen Koch warns that writers should not be too intellectual. “The intellect can understand a story—but only the imagination can tell it. Always prefer the concrete to the abstract. At this stage it is better to see the story, to hear and to feel it, than to think it.”Further proof that there is nothing that can't be effectively embalmed in the academy.
Mark thy calendar …
… World Cafe Live Philadelphia — Minas presents SYMPHONY IN BOSSA with Big Band and Strings – Tickets – World Cafe Live Philadelphia – Philadelphia, PA – March 14th, 2015.
Debbie and I know Orlando and Patricia. This is good music.
Debbie and I know Orlando and Patricia. This is good music.
Hmm …
… A Small Problem | TimeOne.
A century ago theory explained almost everything that was observable. A few details didn’t fit. These discrepancies unleashed a wave of fundamental physics on the world. Well, today’s theories fit both better and far worse with what we observe. Let’s not bury the discrepancies. They are an opportunity we should not miss. Why should we care? It’s ‘the economy stupid!’
Here we go again …
… Book Review: ‘Words Onscreen’ by Naomi S. Baron - WSJ. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I presume reading by means of cuneiform tablets is different from reading by means of papyrus scrolls (to say nothing of heavier). And reading an illuminated manuscript is certainly different from reading a printed book. But can it be all that different? I bounce back and forth between printed text and electronic text and really don't notice much of a difference.
I presume reading by means of cuneiform tablets is different from reading by means of papyrus scrolls (to say nothing of heavier). And reading an illuminated manuscript is certainly different from reading a printed book. But can it be all that different? I bounce back and forth between printed text and electronic text and really don't notice much of a difference.
Two views …
… What Is the Best Portrayal of a Marriage in Literature? - NYTimes.com. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
Something to think on …
The wish to pray is a prayer in itself. God can ask no more than that of us.
— Georges Bernanos, born on this date in 1888
Thursday, February 19, 2015
More music for today …
… just found this sample of work by my friend Harold Boatrite: Capstone Records:Harold Boatrite - SONATAS & SUITES.
Something to think on …
The theme is the theme of humiliation, which is the square root of sin, as opposed to the freedom from humiliation, and love, which is the square root of wonderful.
— Carson McCullers, born on this date in 1917
Wednesday, February 18, 2015
There's a Seuss on the Loose!
Random House Children's Books said Wednesday it will publish a recently discovered manuscript with Dr. Seuss sketches, called What Pet Should I Get, on July 28.The publisher plans at least two more books based on materials found in 2013 by his widow, Audrey Geisel, and his secretary in the author's home in the ritzy seaside neighborhood of La Jolla in San Diego.
The art of placement …
… Confessions of a Comma Queen - The New Yorker. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
This former copy editor wonders why the writer chose to refer to Aldo Manuzio, since he is better known — and, presumably, preferred to be known — by the Latinized version of his name: Aldus Manutius.
This former copy editor wonders why the writer chose to refer to Aldo Manuzio, since he is better known — and, presumably, preferred to be known — by the Latinized version of his name: Aldus Manutius.
Hmm …
… "To Celebrate the Best Parts of His Nature:" Fiction and the Discourse of Man – By Nick Ripatrazone - The Marginalia Review of Books. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Seems to me the crisis of man is ongoing. It's what man is about.
Seems to me the crisis of man is ongoing. It's what man is about.
Something to think on …
Writers are frequently asked why they wrote their first book. A more interesting answer might come from asking them why they wrote their second one.
— Len Deighton, born on this date in 1929
Tuesday, February 17, 2015
In case you wondered …
… Why 'To Kill a Mockingbird' Won't Die - Bloomberg View. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Bravely unfashionable …
… The Gay Catholic Writer Who Changed My Life | Christianity Today. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
At its heart this book, Gay and Catholic: Accepting My Sexuality, Finding Community, Living My Faith, is an extended effort to assure gay and lesbian people that entering the church will not mean the suppression of their longings and loves. It will, Tushnet promises, mean that those loves will be changed, reshaped, or reconfigured. But it won’t mean that they’ll simply be erased. Borrowing the historic language of vocations, she speaks of “figuring out how God is calling me to love and then pouring myself out into that love.” If gay people fear that becoming a Christian equals a one-way ticket to lifelong loneliness, Tushnet’s book is one long argument to the contrary.
Monoglot of English …
… The Genius and Excess of John Berryman — The Atlantic. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Patrick Kurp wrote insightfully about Berryman in this post of some years back: Gratitude and Despair.
Patrick Kurp wrote insightfully about Berryman in this post of some years back: Gratitude and Despair.
A Doctor of The Church
It is 500 years since the birth of St Teresa of Avila. Her birthday is March 28, but the whole of 2015 is full of commemorative events.
There’s no doubting her influence. The previous Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, wrote a book about her. He had read her autobiography as a teenager. Edith Stein, too, had read the autobiography, all one night in 1921. “When I had finished the book, I said to myself: This is the truth.” She was murdered by the Nazis in 1942 and is recognised as a martyr...
[Teresa] took from [Francisco de Osuna] the idea that anyone can undertake mental prayer, contemplative prayer, not just saying prayers verbally. Specifically, Francisco explains that the teacher of prayer is Jesus Christ. No earthly teachers can really tell another how to pray. All they can advise is to be constant in devoting a given time to prayer.
...I had forgotten, till I came across it again while writing this, that the Catechism of the Catholic Church, in discussing prayer, quotes St Teresa: “Contemplative prayer (oración mental) in my opinion is nothing else than a close sharing between friends; it means taking time frequently to be alone with him who we know loves us.” So it is a two-way process.
FYI …
“ESCRIBE AQUI” – Miami’s First Literary Cultural Festival of Iberoamerican Authors Presented by The Writers Room at The Betsy-South Beach
in Partnership with SubUrbano Ediciones, Books & Books
Miami, Florida – February 16, 2015 -- Miami’s Hispanic/Latino population exceeds 65%, yet no Iberoamerican literary and cultural festival exists to celebrate the diversity and contributions of Spanish-speaking/Spanish-
Eight world-class authors will be in Miami to present their Spanish-language works at panels, readings, dance performances and more, for guests and the community to experience bi-lingual events in one place at one time.
March 1: ESCRIBE AQUI festival kick-off and preview salon with Edmundo Paz Soldan
March 28: 7 p.m. opening reception with music and words, B-Bar at The Betsy
March 29: 1 p.m. to 11 p.m.: Series of panels, readings, a Spanish poetry slam, a special dance presentation by one of Miami’s premier dance companies, all culminating in a Betsy rooftop Paella Party to celebrate Iberoamerican literature and authors (all free/open to the public), including:
· ANJANETTE DELGADO (Puerto Rico)- Affiliation: Florida Literacy Arts Center
· BRENDA LOZANO (México)
· CAMILO PINO (Venezuela) Affiliation: Telemundo
· CARLOS GÁMEZ PÉREZ (España) University Affiliation: University of Miami
· EDMUNDO PAZ SOLDAN (Bolivia) University Affiliation: Cornell University
· GIOVANNA RIVERO (Bolivia) University Affiliation: University of Florida
· HERNÁN VERA ÁLVAREZ (Argentina)
· MARINA PEREZAGUA (España) University Affiliation: NYU
· RODOLFO PÉREZ VALERO (Cuba)
· SALVADOR LUIS (Perú) University Affiliation: University of Minnesota
· TERESA DOVALPAGE (Cuba) University Affiliation: University of New Mexico, Taos
Also:
Peter London (choreographer and former principal dancer with the Martha Graham Dance Company will premiere a new work (with the Peter London Dance Company) as part of this festival. He has contemporary choreography and music (some traditional) from Spain, Cuba, Peru, Mexico and Argentina and is adding Puerto Rico, organizing costumes and beginning rehearsals now in preparation for the festival. Exciting stuff!
in Partnership with SubUrbano Ediciones, Books & Books
Miami, Florida – February 16, 2015 -- Miami’s Hispanic/Latino population exceeds 65%, yet no Iberoamerican literary and cultural festival exists to celebrate the diversity and contributions of Spanish-speaking/Spanish-
Eight world-class authors will be in Miami to present their Spanish-language works at panels, readings, dance performances and more, for guests and the community to experience bi-lingual events in one place at one time.
March 1: ESCRIBE AQUI festival kick-off and preview salon with Edmundo Paz Soldan
March 28: 7 p.m. opening reception with music and words, B-Bar at The Betsy
March 29: 1 p.m. to 11 p.m.: Series of panels, readings, a Spanish poetry slam, a special dance presentation by one of Miami’s premier dance companies, all culminating in a Betsy rooftop Paella Party to celebrate Iberoamerican literature and authors (all free/open to the public), including:
· ANJANETTE DELGADO (Puerto Rico)- Affiliation: Florida Literacy Arts Center
· BRENDA LOZANO (México)
· CAMILO PINO (Venezuela) Affiliation: Telemundo
· CARLOS GÁMEZ PÉREZ (España) University Affiliation: University of Miami
· EDMUNDO PAZ SOLDAN (Bolivia) University Affiliation: Cornell University
· GIOVANNA RIVERO (Bolivia) University Affiliation: University of Florida
· HERNÁN VERA ÁLVAREZ (Argentina)
· MARINA PEREZAGUA (España) University Affiliation: NYU
· RODOLFO PÉREZ VALERO (Cuba)
· SALVADOR LUIS (Perú) University Affiliation: University of Minnesota
· TERESA DOVALPAGE (Cuba) University Affiliation: University of New Mexico, Taos
Also:
Peter London (choreographer and former principal dancer with the Martha Graham Dance Company will premiere a new work (with the Peter London Dance Company) as part of this festival. He has contemporary choreography and music (some traditional) from Spain, Cuba, Peru, Mexico and Argentina and is adding Puerto Rico, organizing costumes and beginning rehearsals now in preparation for the festival. Exciting stuff!
Back later …
Must go out for a bit. And still alive after shoveling the sidewalk of snow. Now must do a little shopping.
Impressive selection …
… The Millions : Forty for 40: A Literary Reader for Lent. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Something to think on …
The word is a thing of mystery, so volatile that it vanishes almost on the lip, yet so powerful that it decides fates and determines the meaning of existence. A frail structure shaped by fleeting sound, it yet contains the eternal: truth. Words come from within, rising as sounds fashioned by the organs of a man's body, as expressions of his heart and spirit. He utters them, yet he does not create them, for they already existed independently of him. One word is related to another; together they form the great unity of language, that empire of truth-forms in which a man lives.
— Romano Guardini, born on this date in 1885
On the other hand...
...Life Writing
I realize I don’t want any record of my days. I have the kind of brain that erases everything that passes, almost immediately, like that dustpan-and-brush dog in Disney’s Alice in Wonderland sweeping up the path as he progresses along it. I never know what I was doing on what date, or how old I was when this or that happened—and I like it that way. I feel when I am very old and my brain “goes” it won’t feel so very different from the life I live now, in this miasma of non-memory, which, though it infuriates my nearest and dearest, must suit me somehow, as I can’t seem, even by acts of will, to change it.