Books, Inq. — The Epilogue: August 2015

A new monk shows up at a monastery where the monks spend their time making copies of ancient books. The new monk goes to the basement of the monastery saying he wants to make copies of the originals rather than of others' copies so as to avoid duplicating errors they might have made. Several hours later the monks, wondering where their new friend is, find him crying in the basement. They ask him what is wrong and he says "the word is CELEBRATE, not CELIBATE!"`

Other favorite jokes of scientists

Asshole alert …

… Professors threaten bad grades for saying ‘illegal alien,’ ‘male,’ ‘female’.

Clowns like this will only back down when they are subjected to the merciless ridicule they so richly deserve. Get a mind, people (notice I didn't say "guys"). And it's time for unrelenting pushback against this bunch. Like all bullies — weaklings who push around whoever will take it — they'll back down quickly enough.

Interesting indeed

… Paul Davis On Crime: Simon Schama Reviews Anthony Horowitz's James Bond Continuation Novel, 'Trigger Mortis'.

Lectio divina …

… Beyond Eastrod -- the journey continues: Authentic reading: a meditation upon essence and accident.
Apple's damn spellchecker screwed up my original for this.

Rest in peace...

...Oliver Sacks dies in New York aged 82

Oeuvre complète …

… Zealotry of Guerin: The Zen Suite.

Varieties of atheist experience …

… BBC Radio 4 - A Point of View, Another Kind of Atheism. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Inquirer reviews …

… Dark, Dark Wood,' by Ruth Ware a promising debut.

… James Tate's 'Hidden Pavilion': matter-of-fact, surreal, small-town dreams.

… Saban': Illuminating look at a successful coach without warmth.

… Review: The twisted history of autism science.

And here's the one they missed from last week: Review: 'The Story of Alice: Lewis Carroll and the Secret History of Wonderland'.

Of course, they'r still leading with the reviews from two weeks ago. Get these people a subscription to the paper.

RIP …

… Oliver Sacks Dies at 82; Neurologist and Author Explored the Brain’s Quirks - The New York Times. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Something to think on …

Chance is the pseudonym of God when he did not want to sign.

— Thèophile Gautier, born on this date in 1811

Saturday, August 29, 2015

Haiku …

How strange he finds it,

Sitting alone in his house.

He misses his wife.

Perfect Saturday night tune …

I wonder how many people know what the reference to Martin Eden is.

Appreciation …

… Studio Incamminati Founder Nelson Shanks
leaves a legacy of art and education.

Very sad news …

… Nelson Shanks, 1937-2015.
Oh, my. The second friend to die this week. A great artist, and an absolutely delightful man. I feel chilly and grown old.

Wonderful …

… Laudator Temporis Acti: All the Things I Shall Not Do. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

I shall myself turn 74 in October.

Endgame …

… Beyond Eastrod -- the journey continues: Words, words, words . . . gazing into the sunset, and reading about dying and death.

Regarding "authenticity," this from Wikipedia is actually pretty good:

Authenticity is a technical term used in psychology as well as existentialist philosophy and aesthetics (in regards to various arts and musical genres). In existentialism, authenticity is the degree to which one is true to one's own personality, spirit, or character, despite external pressures; the conscious self is seen as coming to terms with being in a material world and with encountering external forces, pressures and influences which are very different from, and other than, itself. A lack of authenticity is considered in existentialism to be bad faith.[2]

It ain't that exciting being here....

[T]he adult entertainment industry says transgender porn has been a big seller for years—and it's getting bigger.

It's okay...now create something!

If you are a tense and moody neurotic, take heart – you could also be a creative genius, as a new study backs up the belief that neurotic misery and imagination go hand in hand.

Absolutely spot on …

… Ladies and gentlemen, let’s get ready to Trump-le! (Hat tip, Dave Lull,)

… I am American enough to recognize an American comic type. Trump is Ralph Kramden, he is Archie Bunker, he is Ted Knight, he is Foghorn Leghorn — braggarts, blowhards all. Trump is so pumped up by the media, he floats above us as gigantic as a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade balloon, and, as advertised, he is untethered.

Playlists …

… Largehearted Boy: Book Notes - Michael Dirda "Browsings". (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

The spirit of place …

… Pennsylvania Poem now Available Online | Diane Sahms-Guarnieri.

Hit man returns …

… Paul Davis On Crime: Reviving Jack Carter, London’s Toughest Pulp Hero.

Clarity …

… Zealotry of Guerin: Eagle (Kishi Ganku), Sonnet #258.

Something to think on …

We are never the same with others as when we are alone. We are different, even when we are in the dark with them.

— Maurice Maeterlinck, born on this date in 1862

Friday, August 28, 2015

Something to think on …

The great book for you is the book that has the most to say to you at the moment when you are reading. I do not mean the book that is most instructive, but the book that feeds your spirit. And that depends on your age, your experience, your psychological and spiritual need.

— Robertson Davies, born on this date in 1913

Worrisome …

… Study delivers bleak verdict on validity of psychology experiment results | Science | The Guardian.

An international team of experts repeated 100 experiments published in top psychology journals and found that they could reproduce only 36% of original findings.

Changing landscape...

...Val McDermid: 'I'm working class – I wouldn't be able to go to Oxford now'

Thursday, August 27, 2015

Those were the days, my friend...

Hunter S. Thompson's Daily Routine

Globes are cooler anyway

Of course you know this but a refresher course is okay too: Why maps of the world are wrong.

Virginia Woolf

"How much sex did Virginia Woolf want? How much did she have? And what was the ratio between the two? The French writer and critic Viviane Forrester poses these as political, not prurient, questions. Her book, newly translated into English by Jody Gladding, won the Prix Goncourt de la biographie in 2009, four years before her death in 2013, aged eighty-seven."

From the TLS.

Thumbs down, reluctantly …

… Review of *NeuroTribes*, by Steve Silberman. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

I hate to rain on the parade of this book because a) I love the topic, b) the author’s research is impressive, and c) the book is genuinely humane and tolerant and it will have an almost entirely positive impact on popular discourse. Still, I think that the original organizing themes in the work are mostly wrong.

In case you wondered …

… 5 Differences Between Boys and Real Men | PJ Lifestyle.

Hard times …

… A Brutal American Epic by Charles Simic | NYR Daily | The New York Review of Books. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

The crimes and vices of other countries are surely as bad, but is the violence among their citizenry as prevalent and as lethal, their brutality and sadism so commonplace, their acts of injustice as frequent as ours?

Well, when it comes to murder at least, the U.S. doesn't make the Top 25.

The hippest of the hip …

… Rifftides | Slim Gaillard (Oroony). (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

History with style …

… Article The Best Of Scribblers. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

In his essay, “Gibbon’s Historical Imagination,” Glen Bowersock notes that Gibbon “treated the raw materials of ancient and medieval history much as a novelist treated the plot line.” Gibbon was a regular reader of novels. His admiration for Henry Fielding was unbounded. In Memoirs of My Life he refers to “the romance of Tom Jones, that exquisite picture of human manners [that] will outlive the palace of the Escurial and the imperial eagle of the house of Austria.” Gibbon never thought of writing fiction himself, yet, as Bowersock notes, he “shaped his truth as if it were fiction, preserving thereby the animation of human history and the art of the novelist.” As Simon Leys noted: “The novelist is the historian of the present and the historian the novelist of the past.”

Gibbon does write wonderfully, and his history is highly entertaining, but I have always found his opinions narrow and obtrusive. But I read him so very long ago that I should perhaps give him another look while I still have time.

Something to think on …

I formed a resolution to never write a word I did not want to write; to think only of my own tastes and ideals, without a thought of those of editors or publishers.

— C. S. Forester, born on this date in 1899

Wednesday, August 26, 2015

Mark thy calendar …

A Reading by Two Writers Who Explore the Lives of Outsiders

Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia, August 21, 2015

Musehouse, a supporter of writers and the literary arts in the Philadelphia area, will host ALL BUT TRUE: THE MUSEHOUSE FICTION SERIES at 7:00 p.m. on Saturday, September 5, 2015, at the Chestnut Hill Gallery at 8117 Germantown Avenue in the Chestnut Hill section of Philadelphia. Reading from their work will be two writers of fiction who explore the life of outsider characters: Nomi Eve, who will read from her novel, Henna House, and Mark Lyons, who will read from his short story collection, Brief Eulogies at Roadside Shrines.

Nomi Eve’s vivid saga, Henna House (Scribner, 2014), begins in Yemen in 1920, when Adela Damari’s parents desperately seek a future husband for their young daughter. An evocative and stirring novel about a young woman living in the fascinating and rarely portrayed community of Yemenite Jews of the mid-twentieth century, Henna House is the enthralling story of a woman, her family, their community, and the rituals that bind them.

Nomi Eve is the author of Henna House and The Family Orchard, which was a Book-of-the-Month Club main selection and was nominated for a National Jewish Book Award. She has worked as a freelance book reviewer for The Village Voice and New York Newsday. Her stories and essays have appeared in The New York Times, Glimmer Train Stories, The Voice Literary Supplement, Conjunctions, and The International Quarterly. She teaches fiction writing at Bryn Mawr College and lives in Philadelphia with her family.

Brief Eulogies at Roadside Shrines (Wild River Books, 2014) is the debut story collection by Mark Lyons, who builds “story shrines” along U.S. highways and depicts the struggles, insights, and encounters of undocumented Mexican immigrants, hospital “lifers,” returning veterans, and highway philosophers, among other unforgettable characters. Many of the tales focus on descansos, the intimate shrines seen on roadsides and street corners.

Pushcart Prize nominee Mark Lyons is the Director of the Philadelphia Storytelling Project (PSP), where he uses digital storytelling in his work with teens and the immigrant community. Lyons’s past literary work includes writing, translating, and co-editing Espejos y Ventanas / Mirrors and Windows: Oral Histories of Mexican Farmworkers and Their Families. He was the director of the Farmworkers Health and Safety Institute and serves as the editor of Open Borders, the Wild River Review series of immigrant stories.

See the ALL BUT TRUE Facebook page for this event at https://www.facebook.com/events/511267032361083/

The event is free and open to the public and will include complimentary refreshments.

About Musehouse. Founded in 2011 as a nonprofit center for the literary arts, Musehouse offers classes and workshops in poetry, prose, memoir, fiction, and nonfiction for aspiring and accomplished writers, as well as readings, panels, and open mic nights. Classes and other literary events are offered at various venues throughout the greater Philadelphia area. For further information, contact Founding Executive Director Kathleen Sheeder Bonanno at musehousecenter@gmail.com, by phone at 484-432-1792, or at Musehouse, P.O. Box 27268, Philadelphia, PA 19118. Visit Musehouse online at www.musehousecenter.com.

RIP …

… Bristol University | News | August: Charles Tomlinson. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Haiku …

He's one of them now,

One of the old guys, sitting

In the park, idling.

But try it once...

...ON THE TOTAL WEIRDNESS OF THE BOOK TOUR

Recommended …

… 46 Books to Read This Fall -- Vulture.

In case you wondered …

… How Jonathan Franzen Became Our Leading Moralist -- Vulture.

It has been weird watching Franzen become the heir to Mailer and Roth, a role that was never sought by DeLillo. His new phase is marked by his conviction that novels be animated by causes, and oddest of all might be his choice of crusades: against the cats that prey on migratory birds, for example, or the irresistible intrusions and distractions of the internet, which has come to obsess him. His political causes come with a whiff of connoisseurship (and of futility); he rarely raises his voice too loudly in the liberal chorus against outrages like torture or drone killings. His “I’m not a Luddite, but …” statements, on the other hand, are distinguished by their generic (and also futile) technophobia, mitigated only by his nostalgia for obsolete hardware and software: Whither WordPerfect 5.0? Whenever he surfaces as a critic of the internet, it’s hard to tell whether he’s stumbled into the fight blindly — or whether he’s just trolling. But his complaints are so commonplace they must be from the heart, which isn’t to say he doesn’t take a perverse pleasure in trolling.

The neverending adventure …

… Beyond Eastrod -- the journey continues: God's Grace: there are very good reasons why I am now listening and responding to "the voice of God".

The Corleones and metaphysics …

… The Claremont Institute | Recovering the American Idea | Conservative public policy think tank | Conservative Magazine. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

… Cartesian dualism was by no means a desperate rearguard action against the scientific revolution; on the contrary, it was the logical outcome of the scientific revolution. Matter, on the scientific conception, is comprised of colorless, soundless, odorless, tasteless, meaningless particles in fields of force, governed by mathematical laws which describe how these particles happen to behave, but no purposes for the sake of which they behave. To be sure, we might, when doing physics, redefine certain qualitative features in terms of some quantifiable doppelgänger. Color, for example, can be redefined in terms of a surface’s reflection of light of certain wavelengths. Sound can be redefined in terms of compression waves in the air. But these redefinitions, which even a blind or deaf person can understand, do not capture the way red looks, the way an explosion sounds, and so forth. Color, sound, odor, and taste as we perceive them can—given the scientist’s essentially Cartesian conception of matter—exist only in the conscious experiences of an immaterial mind or res cogitans. Meaning can exist only in this immaterial mind’s thoughts. Purpose can exist only in its volitions.

Revealed …

… The Great Bob Dylan Conspiracy - Hit & Run : Reason.com. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Appreciation …

… Don LaFontaine | Zenith City Online. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

And the nominees are …

… Thurber Prize for American Humor Announces First All-Female Trio of Finalists - Speakeasy - WSJ. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

She'll be missed …

… Pat Banks, 61, editorial assistant at The Inquirer.

Pat was a dear colleague of mine, one of the sweetest, funniest people I've ever known. Eternal rest grant unto her O Lord and may perpetual light shine upon her.

Something to think on …

Prayer opens the heart to God, and it is the means by which the soul, though empty, is filled by God.

— John Buchan, born on this date in 1875

Back to nursery...

...Freshmen skipping ‘Fun Home’ for moral reasons

See also: Call It the ‘Bechdel-Wallace Test’

Tuesday, August 25, 2015

Not knowing what you don't know...

...Taking My Parents to College

Who knew?

… How an Atomic Fart Saved the World.

RIP …

… William Jay Smith, former U.S. poet laureate, dies at 97 - The Washington Post. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)

Listen in …

… Episode 131 – Ever After | Virtual Memories.

John Clute, winner of multiple Hugo Awards and World Fantasy Awards, joins the show to talk about the history of science fiction, its market-based ghettoization and eventual superseding of realist fiction, the advantages of reaching one’s 70s and what it means to live after one’s time, his bar-coding model of identity and interaction and the loss of prestige, why the loss of streetcars explains so much about our time, and more!

RIP …

… Helmuth Filipowitsch.

Here is one of his poems: Yellowknife.

And here is a link to his blog: North of Reality.

Sent by his friend (and mine) Rus Bowden.

Anniversary …

… 50 years ago today the word “hypertext” was introduced | Gigaom. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Brief encounter …

… Ivebeenreadinglately: Powell and Fitzgerald. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Indeed …

… Paul Davis On Crime: Happy 85th Birthday To Sean Connery.

Sugar and flowers …

… Extraordinary Geraniums | Prac Crit. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Hmm …

… What Science Can Tell Us About Bad Science — The Atlantic. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

A study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reviewed 2,047 retractions of biomedical and life-sciences articles and found that just 21.3 percent stemmed from straightforward error,while 67.4 percent resulted from misconduct, including fraud or suspected fraud (43.4 percent) and plagiarism (9.8 percent) [3].

See also: Deceptive temperature record claims.

No wonder Norbert Wiener warned scientists against taking government funding.

Cooking data...

...A Scientific Look at Bad Science

Something to think on …

We float onward: but the stream that has once flowed, returns no more to its source.

— Johann Gottfried Herder, born on this date in 1744

Monday, August 24, 2015

Fanatics given purpose

Hitler, Orwell writes, "knows that human beings don’t only want comfort, safety, short working-hours, hygiene... they also, at least intermittently, want struggle and self-sacrifice, not to mention drums, flags and loyalty-parades."
For good reason, the Atlantic's Graeme Wood quoted this same piece in his lengthy meditation on the worldview of the militants of the Islamic State. The militarist pageantry of fascism, and the sense of purpose it gives its adherents, echoes in the messianic call of the jihadists.Wood cites this passage in Orwell's review: "Whereas Socialism, and even capitalism in a more grudging way, have said to people 'I offer you a good time,' Hitler has said to them, 'I offer you struggle, danger, and death,' and as a result a whole nation flings itself at his feet."

Any ideas?

… "Crimes in the Library": The Origin of Species: where did it all begin?

Encounter …

… A Review of Leslie Jamison’s The Empathy Exams: Essays | BREVITY's Nonfiction Blog.

The latest on the nitwit front

… Ten Racist Things You May Not Have Thought Of | National Review Online.

The perils of...

...Reporting on Silicon Valley when it is (or could be) your boss

To the newspaper industry's most coveted crown...

...The Heirs

Begging to differ …

… The War over Hayek’s Intellectual Legacy: A Response to John Gray | Foundation for Economic Education. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Gray’s claim that we know of speculative market bubbles from before the dawn of central banking is false. The earliest speculative bubbles are “tulip mania” in 17th-century Holland and the South Sea Company and Mississippi Company bubbles in the early 18th. All three conform to Hayek’s theory.

Practicing philosophy without knowing any …

… Faith, Fact, and False Dichotomies — The New Atlantis. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Coyne further announces a commitment to philosophical naturalism and determinism, although his definition of “naturalism” is far from clear. He evidently means something like what is ordinarily meant by “materialism,” but he chooses to avoid the latter term because he argues that we may someday discover in the universe some “stuff” that is neither matter nor energy as we currently understand them. Yet Coyne nowhere admits that both naturalism and determinism are metaphysical commitments for which there is no evidence and which could not conceivably be tested empirically. Coyne criticizes “religion” for doing the very thing he does himself — clinging to a belief system in the absence of any evidence that it is true.

Dave also sends along: Resisting Delusions.

With a guest appearance …

… by Richard Dawkins: A. E. Housman on Editorship | manwithoutqualities. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Professor Dawkins does read very well.

Something to think on …

Good sense about trivialities is better than nonsense about things that matter.

— Max Beerbohm, born on this date in 1872

Here comes the marksheet...

...Malala goes to school

Sunday, August 23, 2015

I can understand …

… Paul Davis On Crime: Ed Burn's Real-Life Cop Father Inspired His New Police Drama, 'Public Morals'.
My own Dad was a cop.

Writers Who Think they Know Everything ARE BAD WRITERS

says Steven Pinker.

Google and Craigslist and...Extinction?

[I]n the first years of the 21st century, accelerating technological transformation has undermined the business models that kept American news media afloat, raising the possibility that the great institutions on which we have depended for news of the world around us may not survive.
These are painful words to write for someone who spent 50 years as a reporter and editor at The Washington Post.

Persist or desist...

...How Changeable Is Gender?

Extra indeed …

… Rifftides | Weekend Extra: The MJQ And “Django”. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Multicenter and virtual …

… Musehouse goes from brick and mortar to many places — and online.

Inquirer reviews …

… Ann Beattie's 'State We're In': Shrewd grasp of contemporary life.

… yours truly reviews Leslie Shinn's 'Inside Spiders': Seeing things as they are.

… Rebecca Makkai's 'Music for Wartime': Irresistible, wide-ranging tales.

There's another excellent review that, predictably enough, I can't find online. Will update when it appears.

Something to think on …

Essayists, like poets, are born and not made, and for one worth remembering, the world is confronted with a hundred not worth reading. Your true essayist is, in a literary sense, the friend of everybody.

— William Ernest Henley, born on this date in 1849

Saturday, August 22, 2015

Just a thought …

The classically educated are probably the only people around nowadays who are not surprised at the headlines and debates regarding immigration. Being experienced in history, and clued into language, they remember that migrations have been a common characteristic of human society. Genghis Khan, Attila the Hun, the German invaders of the Late Roman Empire, we're all migrations. The Empire itself, like all empires, was a mode of migration. Circumstances bring these things about. There isn't even anything unusual about the inept way the powers that be are dealing with the phenomenon now. Populations tend to slip and slide during times when the powers that be are mostly unimaginative careerists.

In case you wondered...

...Is There a ‘Gay Aesthetic’ to Pop Music?

Q&A …

… Paul Davis On Crime: The Outsider: Thriller Writer Frederick Forsyth's Interview With The Bookseller.

RIP …

… William L. Rowe (1931-2015) — The Prosblogion. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Don't Forget!

FREE JUNKY SUMMER READING-- for a limited time - ONLY two MORE days - Fluff for the summer -- FREE.. For a limited time you can read my first Kindle short book for FREE.

IT's ONE OF THE 100 Top Best Sellers (#30) in One-Hour Science Fiction & Fantasy Short Reads - Kindle Free!!

Shades of blue …

… First Known When Lost: Blue.

Review …

… ‘The Murderer’s Daughter,’ by Jonathan Kellerman | Brandywine Books.

Foresight …

…Dostoevsky’s 6 Nightmare Prophecies That Came True in the 20th Century, Part One | PJ Lifestyle.

Nobody gets out of here alive …

… A Review of Joni Tevis’ The World is On Fire | BREVITY's Nonfiction Blog.

FYI …

… Iowa’s New Annual Prize for Literary Nonfiction | BREVITY's Nonfiction Blog.

Readying the sea legs …

… Beyond Eastrod -- the journey continues: Back on terra firma but ready to leave the shoreline in pursuit of the white whale aboard the Pequod with Ishmael, Queequeg, and Ahab.

Waves and rivulets …

… Zealotry of Guerin: Two Water Sonnets, Nos. 256 and 257.

Authorial voice …

… A Novel Whose Narrator Is Never Seen but Wholly Present - WSJ. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Dickens’s novels have proved endlessly adaptable to both the big screen and television. At this point in your life you’ve probably spent more hours watching him than reading him. In the hands of capable actors and directors his material never fails, whereas “Vanity Fair” has always failed on film—from “Becky Sharp” (1935), starring Miriam Hopkins, to the nicely decorated but tame version, with Reese Witherspoon, from 2004. Every attempt at the book’s adaptation has to fail, because there is no satisfying way to include the actual main character, which is Thackeray’s narrative voice. Once one realizes this, watching an onscreen “Vanity Fair” becomes like watching “The Last Days of Pompeii” without the volcano.

Something to think on …

Don't think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. It's self-conscious, and anything self-conscious is lousy. You can't try to do things. You simply must do things.

— Ray Bradbury, born on this date in 1920

Friday, August 21, 2015

A man of many parts …

… McSweeney’s Internet Tendency: Donald Trump, Through the Ages.

Featuring the author himself …

…Paul Davis On Crime: Anthony Horowitz Adopts Ian Fleming's Voice For James Bond Continuation Novel, 'Trigger Mortis'.

The overlooked …

… Beyond Eastrod -- the journey continues: Oh, Pooh! -- I admit that I have never read Winnie-the-Pooh, The House at Pooh Corner, and hundreds of other "great books".

Let him count the ways …

… A Dozen Things 'The New Yorker' Gets Wrong about Free Speech (And Why It Matters) | Greg Lukianoff.

More on those temperature claims …

… Hottest July in 4000 years? Not even the hottest July since *2014* according to satellites — JoNova.

Haiku …

Smoke stacks without smoke,

Warehouses empty of wares:

His native city.

And the winner is …

… nobody: Thoughts on the AWP Book Prize: “No Winning Manuscript” | BREVITY's Nonfiction Blog.

Cognitive dissonance …

… July was Earth's hottest month on record.

… NOAA July 2015 – USA – Below Normal For 3rd Year in a Row.

So it was cooler in the US, but hot as hell everywhere else?

Something to think on …

Never be in a hurry; do everything quietly and in a calm spirit. Do not lose your inner peace for anything whatsoever, even if your whole world seems upset.

— St. Francis de Sales, born on this date in 1567

Good as ever …

… TO IRONY AND BEYOND | More Intelligent Life. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Plenty of people look blank when you say Randy Newman’s name, or confuse him with Randy Crawford, who is a woman. But they too know his work, from when he puts his other hat on, as a prolific composer of music for films. Twenty years ago this November, Pixar Animation Studios released its first full-length movie—“Toy Story”. It rapidly became a classic, a fixture in the faithful world of family entertainment. It opened with Newman yelping his way through “You’ve Got a Friend in Me”, which became a classic too, returning in each of the sequels. If you live in the Western world, and have either been a child or had one in the past 20 years, you know that tune.

Much kookier than the Bible …

… Physicists have stranger ideas than the most preposterous Old Testament preacher — The Spectator. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

The Shakespeare Project

In a continued effort to patch the holes in my (still incomplete) reading of Shakespeare, I've just finished All's Well That Ends Well, an odd comedy about deception, sexuality, and revenge. It wasn't my favorite of the plays I've read over the past couple of years (that's probably still Twelfth Night or The Merchant of Venice), but I did enjoy it, and found the experience of reading Shakespeare a refreshing one. For me, tackling his plays - especially in this age of noise and distraction - is a great pleasure: it requires the sort of attention to which we rarely commit ourselves. And yet, it's exactly that attention which allows us to be transported, both to another time (early modern England) and to another state (one of reading, one of true, uninterrupted reading). I thank Shakespeare for that gift: the gift of peering through the distraction - and of relishing in a work of art well approaching perfection.

Thursday, August 20, 2015

now here's a list …

…six words for a hat: The 82 best books.

They are Brilliant, yet not so much

The dumbness which we explore here in this essay is not that kind of Einsteinian absent-mindedness. It is a much different thing. It is the kind of mental inanity that causes the average fan of professional wrestling to sit up and observe: “My, but that is dumb.”Hawking utilizing an Israeli-designed chip to tell people that they should not deal with Israel represents that kind of dumbness. Noam Chomsky, the MIT professor who lobbied Hawking to support BDS, exhibits more of the same.

The power of words

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) issued a regulation on Thursday to stop referring to midget raisins as “midget” after an activist group called the term offensive.

Don't know …

… if I've ever linked to this before, but it is an extraordinary performance. Something unforgettable.

FYI …

… 5 Ways to Celebrate H.P. Lovecraft’s 125th Birthday - Speakeasy - WSJ.

Anniversary celebration …

… Detachable Collars and Cab Chases: How Whit Stillman’s Metropolitan Defends Tradition | Intercollegiate Review. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

I keep hearing about Whit Stillman, but I've never seen any of his films. Guess I should check this one out.

Preserving a legacy …

… Gene Kelly as jazz icon: Widow’s program celebrates his art - SFGate. (Hat tip, Dave Lull)

Rather funny, this …

… Andy Warhol Silently Eating A Whopper Is His Greatest Work Of Art | Internet Action Force.

Pushback …

… Take That, Censorship — Annoyed Librarian. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

The headline should have been “Republicans and the lesser educated are more comfortable banning books in schools than other Americans,” since that’s mostly what the data show.

Great article, except for this, where the writer displays kneejerk (and unexamined) partisanship. I don't think it's Republicans who have tried to ban Huckleberry Finn. The urge to censor crosses party lines. I may have mentioned being at a board meeting once when the question of book-banning came up. Also in attendance was William F. Buckley, Jr., who reminded his conservative colleagues that the cornerstone of the conservatism he advocated was individual freedom, including the freedom to read what you wanted without interference from censors.

The Guardian features much ignorant commentary on America.

Time for some chuckles …

… A.E. Stallings: Terence Hearsay at the AWP | Light. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Something to think on …

Loneliness expresses the pain of being alone and solitude expresses the glory of being alone.

— Paul Tillich, born on this date in 1886

Wednesday, August 19, 2015

haiku

Oh God it is hot

Blazingly searingly hot

You and you and you

Religion of peace strikes again …

… ISIS beheads 82-year-old archaeologist in Palmyra, Syrian official says | Fox News.

Singing about endgame …

… Beyond Eastrod -- the journey continues: Rage, rage against the dying of the light . . .

As a Catholic, I have, of course, been raised to believe in an afterlife. And now that I am old, death's eventuality is often on my mind. I have always instinctively felt that nothing, once it is, ever quite goes out of being. But my settled view regarding myself has for quite some time focused on life as an undeserved gift from the start. God has been kind enough to grant me life. For however long and in whatever manner I leave up to Him.

Pathways to dreams …

… A Review of Riley Hanick’s Three Kinds of Motion: Kerouac, Pollock, and the Making of the American Highways | BREVITY's Nonfiction Blog.

Something else to listen to …

… Episode 76: Iranian Implications and a Civil War Reflection - The American Interest.

Worth noting …

… 64 more papers retracted for fake reviews, this time from Springer journals - Retraction Watch at Retraction Watch.

Listen in …

… Episode 130 – Elizabeth Samet: The Cult of Experience and the Tyranny of Relevance | Virtual Memories.

The anti-humanist …

… on Robinson Jeffers: Poet and Prophet by James Karman (Stanford) & The Wild That Attracts Us, ed. ShaunAnne Tangney (New Mexico) | On the Seawall: A Literary Website by Ron Slate (GD). (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Counterpunching …

… Flowers of Evil — Partisan. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Lehman eventually unearths the Moriarity behind this crisis, a critic named William Logan, and spends three pages totting up his crimes. Much though I’m bewildered by Lehman’s judgment elsewhere, by all evidence this William Logan is a thorough ruffian who may singlehandedly be responsible for the decline and fall of American poetry. An anathema (and a fatwa, for good measure) should long ago have been pronounced against this assassin, as Lehman calls him. Stop this villain, and American poetry will be hunky-dory

Centenary …

… The 100th Anniversary of Robert Frost's Poem, "The Road Not Taken" - The Diane Rehm Show. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Vintage commentary …

… Yeats revisited by C.H. Sisson - The New Criterion. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

… at the age of seventeen I had encountered the work of Eliot, and shortly afterward that of Pound, and all that had immediately preceded them was swept away. It was only after this radical re-education, and indeed after indoctrination by New Verse, that I came to the Collected Poems of Yeats—well instructed enough, therefore, to know that I should start reading from The Winding Stair and The Tower. I looked once or twice without effect, and then the magic began. However fashionable my theoretical literary dogmatisms may have been at the time, the poems worked. The clarity and the emphasis of the language were such that the words went home to my memory, and what used to be called the heart, so that I have never since been able to return to Yeats without being threatened by a recrudescence—at times sharply resisted—of that early enthusiasm. The impressions of youth are indelible, and when I open the book now the words rise less from the page than from within me.

Something to think on …

Every scholar, I presume, is not, necessarily, a man of sense.

— Samuel Richardson, born on this date in 1689

Q&A...

...A Conversation With James Wood

Given the power of right-wing religiosity in this country it’s not surprising that there should be a very fierce atheist and rationalist countermovement. I am actually one of these people who really likes watching those YouTube videos with titles like, “Christopher Hitchens owns idiotic Texan religionist” or whatever. I actually watch that stuff and enjoy it. But when I drift down to the comments section, I’m always amazed anew that there are quite so many atheists in this country, and that they are quite so completely fanatical. That is to say, if you are unwise enough, as I have been, to write a sort of plague on both their houses type of piece, in which you are mildly critical of certain elements of the new atheism as well as being fairly obviously critical of religiosity, you get no quarter from the atheistic camp. That always sort of surprises me. There really is no space for any—I won’t say middle position because it isn’t a middle position. I’m a nonbeliever. But that there is no tolerance for the remotest whisper of rational discourse about the fact of religious practice, about the existence of religious practice, is dismaying to me.

Tuesday, August 18, 2015

Have you got a...

...Half-read book?

SHAMELESS SELF PROMOTION

For a limited time, starting tomorrow, you can read my first Kindle book for free at Amazon.

Out and about …

… for most of the day today. Back later on.

The big question

… Beyond Eastrod -- the journey continues: Who is God? -- reading and thinking about the Creation while waiting for and dreading more tests and consultations at MD Anderson in Houston TX.

A clutch of poems …

… courtesy of Rus Bowden:

… Throwing Away the Alarm Clock by Charles Bukowski.

… Telescope by Louise Glück.

… The Old Gross Place by Patricia Ranzoni.

… Tom Waits's new poem to Keith Richards.

… Poem of the week: Casualty by Miroslav Holub.

Something to think on …

The world is neither meaningful, nor absurd. it quite simply is, and that, in any case, is what is so remarkable about it.

— Alain Robbe-Grillet, born on this date in 1922

Monday, August 17, 2015

I'VE BEEN KICKED OUT OF CHURCH BY ARCHBISHOP CHAPUT!!!

"Organizers of the alternative events planned for St. John's were told last week by its pastor that the Archdiocese of Philadelphia disapproved of their gender identity program, and that they would no longer be allowed to use space at St. John's for any events that weeks, DeBernardo said.

...

"Julie Chovanes, a transgender woman and lawyer based in Chestnut Hill, was slated to speak at the workshop on Saturday...

"So, they literally kicked trans people out of the church? It's an amazing thing, especially if you're trying to show families we are a part of the human family," said Chovanes who was raised Catholic.

"I still consider myself Catholic," she added. "But apparently the church doesn't."

… Beginning with his thorough account of Eliot’s childhood in St. Louis, Crawford attends to the ways in which the life and culture of that city—including the sounds and songs Eliot probably heard—lingered in the poet’s mind, as if he were silently kneading them for years, before finding expression in this or that brief phrase in the poems. Without derailing a well-told story, Crawford records the uncanny echoes of words from Eliot’s life in his poems.

… A Literary Bloodhound Tracks Eliot.

Crawford is absolutely remarkable in his portrait of Vivienne. He is fair-minded and sympathetic without being false. He summons the ghosts of Bloomsbury, and they come. The book re-creates their dense, competitive, gossipy, incestuous milieu with astonishing success. Crawford conveys the pressure of their personalities, and the forces driving them. We see Tom and Vivienne through their eyes, and hear the voices of censure and approval. Yet, by sticking to facts, Crawford refuses to write pap or to dress up his own emotions in self-indulgent scribbling. His Scots common sense serves him well. He is a kind of great literary bloodhound who has found the right trail.

(Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Benign local eccentric …

… and first-rate poet: Judith Fitzgerald. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

News you can use …

… Glenn Reynolds: Fast moving bad news builds prosperity. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

… markets deliver the bad news whether you want to hear it or not, but delivering the bad news is not a sign of failure, it is a characteristic of systems that work. When you stub your toe, the neurons in between your foot and your head don’t try to figure out ways not to send the news to your brain. If they did, you’d trip a lot more often. Likewise, in a market, bad decisions show up pretty rapidly: Build a car that nobody wants, and you’re stuck with a bunch of expensive unsold cars; invest in new technologies that don’t work, and you lose a lot of money and have nothing to show for it. These painful consequences mean that people are pretty careful in their investments, at least so long as they’re investing their own money.

Volumes and volumes …

… Ivebeenreadinglately: On the books, read and unread, on my shelves. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

… then there are those days when by chance I turn away from the stacks of new books and walk my shelves. On those days, after I inevitably discover a forgotten volume that, on its initial entry into my life, brought a shiver of excitement, I resolve, however weakly, to curb my pathology and cut back on new books for a time.

Deservedly so …

… Bill Buckley Gets Bigger Over Time - The Daily Beast. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Buckley gets bigger and bigger over time as his uniqueness becomes more apparent. People who remember him—even if they didn’t like him back in the day—who were piqued by him for one reason or another, now remember him nostalgically. It happens to all these great figures, especially conservatives. People hated Barry Goldwater until there was no Barry Goldwater left and they became Goldwater idolaters.

"Arriviste" vs. "charlatan" …

… My Dear BB… : The Letters of Bernard Berenson and Kenneth Clark review | Books | The Guardian. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Berenson, now “my dear BB” to his ambitious new assistant, found himself working with a young man who was, if possible, a snootier and more autocratic perfectionist than himself. Clark, who had to earn his living as an art historian in London, and was often away from I Tatti, certainly initiated and sustained their correspondence as the junior partner. But Berenson, reluctantly at first, and then with a slightly awkward warmth, joins in. When, in 1933, the 30-year-old Clark was appointed to run the National Gallery, it must have looked to Berenson as if his wager had paid off in spades. Intriguingly, both sides of this strange alliance kept a meticulous record of their exchanges.