Wednesday, November 30, 2016
The art of incompleteness …
… Books to give you hope: The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa | Books | The Guardian. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Pessoa is a wonderful writer.
Something to think on …
Political correctness does not legislate tolerance; it only organizes hatred.
— Jacques Barzun, born on this date in 1907
Blogging note …
I have to take off in a few minutes for a dental appointment. After that, I'm heading over to The Inquirer. And after that, errands. So no blogging on my part until later, unless I can squeeze some in with my iPad.
Tuesday, November 29, 2016
But is that necessarily good?
… While we all weren't looking, poetry became cool | Metro News. (Hat tip G. E. Reutter)
A vision of the page …
… Emily Dickinson’s Singular Scrap Poetry - The New Yorker. (Hat tip, G. E. Reutter.)
It has been argued that Dickinson refused publication exactly because it was synonymous with print, whose standardizing tendencies she knew would miscarry her precision effects. When, in 1866, Dickinson’s “A narrow Fellow in the Grass” appeared in the Springfield Daily Republican (under a title likely chosen by its editors, “The Snake”), Dickinson complained to Higginson that, among other problems, she was “defeated . . . of the third line by punctuation.” Her manuscript had read, “You may have met Him—did you not / His notice sudden is—.” But, when the poem appeared, the editors had supplied a question mark: “You may have met him—did you not? / His notice instant is.”
The ongoing debate …
… Visible Republic - bookforum.com / current issue. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
And decades after the much-hyped, much-distorted advent of barbarian postmodernism at the gates of the academy, Rosen's argument is probably the more relevant one. That popular art—film and comics and hip-hop—is no less worthy of sustained intellectual engagement than literature (which is at any rate an amorphous and contested category) is fairly well established by now, despite the fulminations of Harold Bloom. It's not that pop music doesn't deserve a Nobel Prize but that pop music doesn't need it. (And, uh, guys? John Ashbery is still alive.)
Remembering …
… A “joyous sadness” for Judith Fitzgerald, one year on — Meta-Talon — Talonbooks. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Something to think on …
Reason is the natural order of truth; but imagination is the organ of meaning.
— C. S. Lewis, born on this date in 1898
Monday, November 28, 2016
A warning from Will …
… Beyond 221B Baker Street: Titus Andronicus: toxic revenge.
Revenge, born of defeat, is among the more gruesome human traits.
Revenge, born of defeat, is among the more gruesome human traits.
About time …
… PG Wodehouse secures redemption as British Library acquires priceless archive | Books | The Guardian. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
… by placing all his wartime papers in the public domain, the Wodehouse estate should lay to rest any lingering suspicions about his conduct during the dark years of 1940-46. Now, for the first time, admirers and critics alike will be able to see the exact circumstances of his incarceration after the fall of France in 1940.
Something to think on …
Words easy to be understood do often hit the mark; when high and learned ones do only pierce the air.
— John Bunyun, born on this date in 1628
Hmm …
… My Grandmother’s Glass Eye: A Look at Poetry by Craig Raine – a gripping and combative study | Books | The Guardian. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
There is much to be said for Archibald MacLeish's out-of-fashion (I suppose) view that "A poem should not mean / But be." Better that than a prose paraphrase of it.
There is much to be said for Archibald MacLeish's out-of-fashion (I suppose) view that "A poem should not mean / But be." Better that than a prose paraphrase of it.
Regional contrarian …
… The University Bookman: Sightings of an Endangered Species. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Sunday, November 27, 2016
Evelyn Waugh
I've written about Evelyn Waugh before, but it's time to sing his praises again -- because I've just finished his first novel, Decline and Fall.
To note at the start: Waugh was a natural talent, and it's hard for me to believe that his approach to narration, especially, could be so well evolved so early in his career.
In Decline and Fall we see not just hints of Waugh's signature dialogues; instead, we see it front and center, propelling the novel forward. And more: we get a sense for Waugh's conceptions both of plot and comedy.
Regarding the former: Decline and Fall is a book defined less by what happens and more by how events assume a comic shape. There's an absurdity to Paul Pennyfeather's story -- and no doubt, parts of it veer off into the ridiculous. But before that, Waugh leaves his imprint, exposing the inane, poking fun at the academy.
Like Lucky Jim (which came a generation later), Decline and Fall is a book to be enjoyed: true, there's social commentary here; and true, there's an autobiographical quality as well. But to focus too heavily on these aspects of the novel is, I think, to miss its magic. Waugh's contribution is the perfectly time joke, the innuendo left unsaid, the character with a name too good to be true.
Decline and Fall was the start of it all, and while it doesn't entirely hold together, it signaled the emergence of a significant new talent, one with a sense of humor -- and sense for how humor could be used to enhance a writer's literary pursuits.
In search of herself …
… Diane Arbus: a life of incest, orgies and pursuing the extremes. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
It needs to be said that this is an extraordinarily good review. Bryan's a pro, of course, but there is a formal perfection to this review that is rarely encountered.
It needs to be said that this is an extraordinarily good review. Bryan's a pro, of course, but there is a formal perfection to this review that is rarely encountered.
This is interesting …
… BBC iWonder - So what if we're all self-obsessed?
I don't consider myself a narcissist — though I did ace the narcissist quiz — but I have always thought there was something to Oscar Wilde's quip that "to fall in love with oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance."
Something to think on …
God doesn't believe in the easy way.
— James Agee, born on this date in 1909
Blogging note …
Immediately after the 8 AM Mass this morning, I am heading up to Bethlehem, OA. Won't be back until late this afternoon. In the meantime, no blogging on my part.
The new liturgical year begins …
Advent
The leaves are fallen, but the sky is clear
(Though winter’s scheduling an arctic flight).
The rumor is a rendezvous draws near.
Some say a telling sign will soon appear,
Though evidence this may be so is slight:
The leaves are fallen, but the sky is clear.
Pale skeptics may be perfectly sincere
To postulate no ground for hope, despite
The rumor that a rendezvous draws near.
More enterprising souls may shed a tear
And, looking up, behold a striking light:
The leaves are fallen, but the sky is clear.
The king, his courtiers, and priests, all fear
Arrival of a challenge to their might:
The rumor is a rendezvous draws near.
The wise in search of something all can cheer
May not rely on ordinary sight:
The leaves are fallen, but the sky is clear.
Within a common place may rest one dear
To all who yearn to see the world made right.
The leaves are fallen, but the sky is clear.
The rumor is a rendezvous draws near.
Saturday, November 26, 2016
Remembering the often overlooked …
… The Third Great American Songbook - Washington Free Beacon. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Meet and just …
… 'Outsider' Larkin finally joins the Establishment in Poets' Corner. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Something to think on …
It is a lesson we all need — to let alone the things that do not concern us. He has other ways for others to follow Him; all do not go by the same path. It is for each of us to learn the path by which He requires us to follow Him, and to follow Him in that path.
— Katharine Drexel, born on this date in 1858
Katharine Drexel is the only canonized saint I have seen in person. She visited my grade school once. I can still see her, sitting quietly on the stage. I don't remember what she said, but I believe she communicated something silently to all who were present that day.
Friday, November 25, 2016
Something to think on …
Security depends not so much upon how much you have, as upon how much you can do without.
— Joseph Wood Krutch, born on this date in 1893
Thursday, November 24, 2016
Well put …
… Maverick Philosopher: Catholicism as True Enough.
I would mention the importance of prayer. I am sustained by my prayer life.
I would mention the importance of prayer. I am sustained by my prayer life.
Something of value …
… First Known When Lost: Detachment.
I am not fond of the assumption of certainty that accompanies political discourse. So many utopian master plans! All of them based upon classes, categories, and caricatures. All of them chimerical. All of them leaving individual human beings and individual human souls out of account.Nor am I.
Diversity vs. diversity …
… Anthony Esolen – Providence College Diversity Dispute | National Review.
If they're so committed to diversity, I suppose they ought to have an atheists' club, and maybe a fascist society. How about a redneck night? Don't hold your breath. We already know they can't even tolerate this professor's dissent. Fr. Shanley is pathetic.
If they're so committed to diversity, I suppose they ought to have an atheists' club, and maybe a fascist society. How about a redneck night? Don't hold your breath. We already know they can't even tolerate this professor's dissent. Fr. Shanley is pathetic.
For the holiday …
Speech Alone by Jean Follain
It happens that one pronounces
a few words just for oneself
alone on this strange earth
then the small white flower
the pebble like all those that went before
the sprig of stubble
find themselves re-united
at the foot of the gate
which one opens slowly
to enter the house of clay
while chairs, table, cupboard,
blaze in a sun of glory.
(Hat tip, Leonard Gontarek.)
It happens that one pronounces
a few words just for oneself
alone on this strange earth
then the small white flower
the pebble like all those that went before
the sprig of stubble
find themselves re-united
at the foot of the gate
which one opens slowly
to enter the house of clay
while chairs, table, cupboard,
blaze in a sun of glory.
(Hat tip, Leonard Gontarek.)
Deus absconditus …
… Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (Modern Library #89) | Reluctant Habits.
For all of the book’s concerns with divinity, or what Dillard identifies as “a divine power that exists in a particular place, or that travels about over the face of the earth as a man might wander,” explicit gods don’t enter this meditation until a little under halfway through the book, where she points out jokingly how gods are often found on mountaintops and points out that God is an igniter as well as a destroyer, one that seeks invisibility for cover. And as someone who does not believe in a god and who would rather deposit his faith in imaginative storytelling and myth rather than the superstitions of religious ritual, I could nevertheless feel and accept the spiritual idea of being emotionally vulnerable while traversing into some majestic terrain. Or as Pascal wrote in Pensées 584 (quoted in part by Dillard), “God being thus hidden, every religion which does not affirm that God is hidden, is not true, and every religion which does not give the reason of it, is not instructive.”
Hmm …
… TLSdonald-trump-supporters-humanity. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
An interesting piece, though the writer retains a few blind spots herself. "Communities that depend on the rape of natural resources are filled with people who love those communities desperately." Well, think of the people outside those communities who also depend on those natural resources. Those high-priced Manhattan apartments probably have wood floors. Something is fueling their heating system. The forests of Pennsylvania may well be the best-managed in the world, and they are managed for harvest. As for clear-cutting, some trees need to be clear-cut if you want their lumber. As an actual logger once explained to me, if you spot cut oaks, the oaks you don't cut will quickly spread their canopy of leaves and branches and not give the oaks that sprout beneath enough sun. So you clear-cut a segment and plant some new oaks. Obviously, you clear-cut judiciously. That particular logger told me that he had stopped taking out the branches of the trees he cut because they provided good fertilizer for the forest. He knew trees better than anyone I have ever met. He could just pat the bark as he walked past one and tell you what it was. He was sort of like an American Indian honoring the spirit of the deer he had to kill.
Something to think on …
The world would be happier if men had the same capacity to be silent that they have to speak.
— Baruch Spinoza, born on this date in 1632
Wednesday, November 23, 2016
Something to look forward to …
… SILENCE Gets A Trailer - EarlyWord: The Publisher | Librarian Connection. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I did not like Scorsese's adaptation of The Last Temptation of Christ or Willem Dafoe's meshuga Jesus. Hope this one is better.
Listen in …
… Episode 194 – Bob Eckstein | Virtual Memories.
“This book has three things I love: bookstores, painting and name-dropping.”
Blogging note …
I have to hit the ground running today in order to meet some obligations. In fact, it is day of obligations. So blogging on my part will resume sometime later on.
Poet in black …
… Johnny Cash: Inside the Country Legend's Forgotten Poetry - Rolling Stone. (Hat tip, G. E. Reutter.)
News you can use …
… 11 Poetry Collections That Will Allow You To Heal Right Now. (Hat tip, G. E. Reutter.)
It seems that, these days, everybody's looking to be healed.
And here's more: MEISEL | Poetry in a Time of Crisis. (Hat tip, G. E. Reutter.)
It seems that, these days, everybody's looking to be healed.
And here's more: MEISEL | Poetry in a Time of Crisis. (Hat tip, G. E. Reutter.)
And the winner is …
… Rachel Landers' Who Bombed the Hilton? wins literary prize. (Hat tip, G. E. Reutter.)
Another look …
… Revisiting Ron Hansen’s “Mariette in Ecstasy” 25 Years Later. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Good Catholic storytelling has always been corporal: messy, strange, steeped in the sins of real people. I’m not talking about church thrift-store fare, devotional tales with covers of sunrises over mountains. Consider the profane piety of the whiskey priest in Graham Greene’s The Power and the Glory. The lust of Obadiah Elihue Parker in Flannery O’Connor’s “Parker’s Back.” The scarred and scorned bodies searching for grace in the novels of Toni Morrison. Catholics go for crucifixes over crosses. They want their Mass wine in a chalice, not Solo cups. The Eucharist is not a symbol; it is substance.
Tuesday, November 22, 2016
FYI …
… The Irony Everyone’s Missing in the Hamilton-Pence Controversy | Foundation for Economic Education. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
All of this pales in comparison to the supreme irony everyone is missing in this whole overblown controversy. Here we have the cast of a musical that holds Alexander Hamilton in an admiring light expressing deep anxiety about a president who just won a stunning upset victory after running his campaign largely based on the political ideas of – wait for it – Alexander Hamilton.
Well, irony depends on its auditor being informed.
Blogging note …
As usual, on Tuesday, I will be at The Inquirer. In the meantime, my blogging will be spotty.
Together …
… Poem of the week: Meeting Point by Louis MacNeice | Books | The Guardian. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
And the winner is …
… Aaron Poochigian - Winner, Able Muse Book Award, 2016 | Able Muse Press. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Something to think on …
It is never too late to be what you might have been.
— George Eliot, born on this date in 1819
Monday, November 21, 2016
The New Order changeth …
… The iron law of oligarchy. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
In some ways the new world we have entered is not as novel as it looks. In reducing its global role, the US is returning to the more historically normal position it held in the 19th century as one of several great powers.
Way to go, Lionel …
… Lionel Shriver Is Out of Line | commentary. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
As Shriver was suggesting, the cultural-appropriation police seem not to understand the dead end represented by their racialist essentialism—or how easily it might be turned around against them. By their logic, black actors should not be allowed to play Lear, Macbeth, Julius Caesar, or other “white” roles in Shakespeare, and nonwhite performers should be completely excluded from taking part in any opera or classical ballet given that both are “white” European art forms, in the same way that jazz or blues music could be said to belong exclusively to black people.
Listen in …
… Kay Ryan on Robert Frost - Poetry Off the Shelf | Poetry Foundation. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Mark thy calendar …
Come Over To The Window, My Little
Darling, I’d Like To Try To Read Your Palm
A Celebration Of LEONARD COHEN
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 20, 2016, 7 PM
Presented by
THE GREEN LINE CAFE POETRY SERIES
Hosted By
LEONARD GONTAREK
If You Would Like To Participate, Contact:
gontarek9@earthlink.net
THE GREEN LINE CAFE
45TH & LOCUST STREETS,
Philadelphia, PA
http://greenlinecafe.com/
This Event Is Free
Darling, I’d Like To Try To Read Your Palm
A Celebration Of LEONARD COHEN
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 20, 2016, 7 PM
Presented by
THE GREEN LINE CAFE POETRY SERIES
Hosted By
LEONARD GONTAREK
If You Would Like To Participate, Contact:
gontarek9@earthlink.net
THE GREEN LINE CAFE
45TH & LOCUST STREETS,
Philadelphia, PA
http://greenlinecafe.com/
This Event Is Free
Those were the days …
… Who Are the Literary Brat Pack - Meet Authors Donna Tartt, Jay McInerney, and Bret Easton Ellis. (Hat tip, G.E. Reutter.)
Something to think on …
The very essence of literature is the war between emotion and intellect, between life and death. When literature becomes too intellectual — when it begins to ignore the passions, the emotions — it becomes sterile, silly, and actually without substance.
—Isaac Bashevis Singer, born on this date in 1902
Sunday, November 20, 2016
Remembering …
… It Is Easy To Be Dead is a haunting tribute to a remarkable forgotten war poet - review. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
So you don't like poetry …
… 8 Poetry Collections For People Who Don't Like Poetry. (Hat tip, G.E. Reutter.)
Something to think on …
The ways of Providence cannot be reasoned out by the finite mind ... I cannot fathom them, yet seeking to know them is the most satisfying thing in all the world.
— Selma Lagerlöf, born on this date in 1858
Saturday, November 19, 2016
Hmm …
… What Is Great Art? - The Atlantic. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
Gee, I grew up looking at paintings by Mary Cassatt, Berthe Morisot, and Rosa Bonheur. Guess the question never crossed my insensitive mind. I also once spent part of an evening pleasantly chatting with Grace Hartigan.
Kindred spirits …
… Friendship’s Garland | City Journal. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Joyce and Svevo, though far apart in age, had much in common. They were both genuine artists, willing to suffer any setback rather than displease their importunate muses. They were both masterly at making the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune serve their fiction. They were both fond of the ridiculous, even in the most tragic of circumstances. When Joyce fled Paris in 1940 ahead of the invading Nazis, the Swiss border authorities mistook him for a Jew, doubtless confusing him with his hero, Bloom, which caused Joyce to respond: “Je ne suis pas juif de Judée mais aryen d’Erin (I am not Jewish from Judea but Aryan from Erin).” As Price remarks, “Even in this surreal predicament, Joyce was still able to pun bilingually.”
The craft of reviewing …
… How to Write a Review - Washington Free Beacon.
While always fair—she more often damns writers with faint praise than condemns them outright—, Bowen is not afraid to drag the occasional soul over hell’s coals when needed. In a review of Upton Sinclair’s Between Two Worlds, her opening remark that Sinclair is “a prolific writer, and obviously a very impassioned one” is not intended as a compliment. Sinclair once bragged about his writing that “all I have to do is turn the spigot and the water flows,” to which Bowen responds: “It certainly does … Mr. Sinclair has no time for style: his narrative method reminds one of an incoherent person talking in a train. But one must honor his important intention—which is to save the world.”
… On Reviewing.
(Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Something to think on …
If Darwin had seen in life what Dostoevsky saw, he would not have talked of the law of the preservation of species, but of its destruction.
— Lev Shestov, who died on this date in 1938
Friday, November 18, 2016
Technocrats at work …
… Instapundit — LIZ SHELD: Are Men Bothering You at Work? Call 1-800-MANSPLAIN. “Are you a lady who is tired of me…
The feminist snowplowing is the key item here. What kind of mind thinks this way?
The feminist snowplowing is the key item here. What kind of mind thinks this way?
Something to think on …
God does not ask for 'religious' art or 'Catholic' art. The art he wants for himself is Art, with all its teeth.
— Jacques Maritain, born on this date in 1882
Thursday, November 17, 2016
FYI …
… The Play That Explains Trump’s Win - WSJ. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Ms. Nottage’s open-eared reporting is part of what makes “Sweat” so good. But most of what makes it good is that it’s an impeccably solid piece of theatrical work—tightly structured, free of wordy sermonizing, full of surprises. The drama is personal, a story of real people pushed into a corner, and broader implications are left unspoken.
Something to think on …
The main objection to killing people as a punishment ... is that killing people is wrong.
— Auberon Waugh, born on this date in 1939
Faith and writing...
“But I’m not interested in the scientists’ approach, the Dawkins thing — that if there is no creator god, then the whole thing is not valid — because that would mean that so many people of the past must be not worth reading. Were they all idiots? To me the various faiths are a series of philosophical systems. The principle of Islam — submission — is a fundamental of human life. And as I see it, the reality of sin is another fundamental. A tenet of the mild Anglicanism most people grew up with in England, that you search for the sin inside first, is a defining factor of our moral lives. So I use these structures, and I’ve benefited from them. If you dismiss it all, you dismiss what we’re doing here. And the possibility of a creating source — I don’t say consciousness, I don’t say god — seems to me isn’t provable or disprovable one way or another. That goodness does exist, that’s my god, it’s enough."
Wednesday, November 16, 2016
Appreciation …
… A Haunting Evening at Eton - Mail Online - Peter Hitchens blog. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
James is to ghost stories what Conan Doyle is to detective stories. He has one or two rivals – ‘The Lost Stradivarius’ , a short novel by J Meade Falkner – is comparable in power and the evocation of genuine fear, but nobody else has managed to hit the mark so many times in such a small collection of work.
So what?
… The Unoriginality of Orwell’s Critique of Language – Lingua Franca - Blogs - The Chronicle of Higher Education. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Originality is overrated. In fact, it is rather rare. J. S. Bach is among the least original composers. He is also perhaps the very greatest. Actually, Pullum provides only one example to prove his point. What about the rest of the essay?
Originality is overrated. In fact, it is rather rare. J. S. Bach is among the least original composers. He is also perhaps the very greatest. Actually, Pullum provides only one example to prove his point. What about the rest of the essay?
Sound diagnosis …
… Newspaper publishers face very different and much more immediate threats than book publishers - The Shatzkin Files The Shatzkin Files.
Of course, newspapers might want to increase their book coverage, too.
Of course, newspapers might want to increase their book coverage, too.
But he still has to lecture …
… Bob Dylan confirms non-attendance at Nobel Prize ceremony - BBC News. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Something to think on …
Religion is not a department of life; it is something that enters into the whole of it.
— Alan Watts, who died on this date in 1973
Tuesday, November 15, 2016
Blogging note …
It is Tuesday and I must be off to The Inquirer. I will resume blogging when I have the chance.
Obituary …
… Death of the hatchet job. (Hat tips. Dave Lull and Rus Bowden.)
A review I wrote many years ago of Susan Sontag's I, Etcetera was so harsh the editor at first hesitated to run it. It was later picked by some group as among the best reviews of the year.The problem with writing negative reviews is that you have to read an entire book you don't like. Now that I am old, I prefer to write about books that I do like.
Something to think on …
You're not free until you've been made captive by supreme belief.
— Marianne Moore, born on this date in 1887
Monday, November 14, 2016
History nuggets …
Hello, history mate.
As rancorous as last week's big election was, let me tell you about a truly ugly election that happened 150 years ago in my home state of Pennsylvania. I cover it in Embattled Freedom, my forthcoming book about the Underground Railroad and 19th century race relations in Northeastern Pennsylvania.
Cheers …
… New York Poet Ron Padgett Wows Audience at the Lisbon & Estoril Film Festival | The Huffington Post. (Hat tip, G.E. Reutter.)
Funeral sermon …
… PN Review Literary Magazine, Poetry Magazine, Online Poetry Resource - Sir Geoffrey Hill - Rowan Williams - PN Review 232. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Geoffrey believed that the Christian narrative of guilt (true not self-dramatising guilt, the weight of the stresses born out of one’s own failure), of the clarification of our being by grace, of the continuous tension between love and betrayal and of the inexhaustible resource of patience underpinning all things was a narrative that was worth committing to, and it is this that gives us our words today for redirecting pain towards paean, turning things, making our bereavement a little more precise – that is, doing justice to where we find ourselves.
Hmm …
Today the North West Passage just got found,
Three penguins and a bear got drowned,
The ice they lived on disappeared,
Seems things are worse than some had feared.
Someone should tell Mr. Sumner that penguins live in Antarctica, not the Northwest Passage. (Hat tip, Dan Bloom.)
Something to think on …
No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem.
— Booker T. Washington, who died on this date in 1915
Sunday, November 13, 2016
By Stephen L. Carter …
… Trump and the Fall of Liberalism - Bloomberg View.
Yes, Trump ran an often ugly campaign. Yes, I am among those worried about his unpredictability. But the left has work to do, not only on policy and organization but also on attitude. Too many of my progressive friends seem to have forgotten how to make actual arguments, and have become expert instead at condemnation, derision and mockery. On issue after issue, they’re very good at explaining why no one could oppose their policy positions except for the basest of motives. As to those positions themselves, they are too often announced with a zealous solemnity suggesting that their views are Holy Writ -- and those who disagree are cast into the outer political darkness. In short, the left has lately been dripping with hubris, which in classic literature always portends a fall.
Harsh analysis …
… Commentary: The unbearable smugness of the press - CBS News.
This is all a “whitelash,” you see. Trump voters are racist and sexist, so there must be more racists and sexists than we realized. Tuesday night’s outcome was not a logic-driven rejection of a deeply flawed candidate named Clinton; no, it was a primal scream against fairness, equality, and progress. Let the new tantrums commence!
Headline of the year …
… Aberdeenshire business owner wins presidential election - Buchan Observer.
Mr Trump is half Scottish - his mother Mary MacLeod being from Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis. She grew up in a simple croft until she landed in Manhattan at the age of 20 and her first language was Gaelic.
Something to think on …
What does love look like? It has the hands to help others. It has the feet to hasten to the poor and needy. It has eyes to see misery and want. It has the ears to hear the sighs and sorrows of men. That is what love looks like.
— Augustine of Hippo, born on this date in 354
Saturday, November 12, 2016
Recommended …
… Best poetry of the month: Philip Levine, Christian Wiman, Paul Muldoon - The Washington Post. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
Seeing a lot just by observing …
… Here’s to the return of the journalist as malcontent - Columbia Journalism Review. (Hat tip, Paul Davis.)
… journalism’s fundamental failure in this election, its original sin, is much more basic to who we are and what we are supposed to be. Simply put, it is rooted in a failure of reporting.
Something Konrad Lorenz said has bearing on this: "It is a good morning exercise for a research scientist to discard a pet hypothesis every day before breakfast. It keeps him young." Take some time, from time to time, to question your own presumptions. And get out more. Above all, avoid categorical thinking.
The mystery of Housman …
… Paul Keegan reviews ‘Housman Country’ by Peter Parker — LRB 17 November 2016. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
The book became ubiquitous but it also travelled incognito, slipping neatly into heterosexual breast pockets or, at a later date, tunic pockets. In a 1910 lecture on Swinburne, Housman recollected being told by Hardy that when he was a young man in London ‘there was a whole army of young men like himself, not mutually acquainted, who nevertheless, as they met in the streets, could recognise one another as spiritual brethren by a certain outward sign. This sign was an oblong projection at the breast-pocket of the coat.’ He is referring to the 1866 edition of Swinburne’s Poems and Ballads, worn just over the heart by what Housman, in his obscurely provoking way, calls ‘the sons of fire’. But the passage also describes a dress rehearsal for A Shropshire Lad, and its double lives in the world.
And empty, too …
… Safe Spaces - Washington Free Beacon. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Safe spaces, microaggressions, and trigger warnings are outward and visible signs of an inward weakness that barely holds back a bubbling, psychotic violence. Students are told to have neither thick skins nor self-restraint. In fact, they are rewarded for thin skins and uninhibited anger, ready to lash out at anything that they can imagine disturbing them. “Fragility and vulnerability are the defining characteristics” that colleges believe their students to have, and any criticism of their ideas becomes “an unacceptable challenge to their personas.”
Hear, hear …
… First Known When Lost: Perspective.
"Being politicized leads to evaluating and judging the world and other human beings in terms of classes, categories, and clichés. Never underestimate the allure of a priori conclusions. For the politicized, everything appears to be simple and subject to explanation. Us and them. The enlightened versus the benighted."All of this has nothing whatsoever to do with the individual human being or with the individual human soul."
Something to think on …
Public political discussion is not intellectually adult in any country.
—Don Colacho
Friday, November 11, 2016
Hmm …
… Maybe stop calling Trump supporters dumb | Washington Examiner.
Let's be honest. I have a college degree, and I did some time in grad school. The people I went to college and grad school with were certainly not dumb. But they weren't all Einsteins, either. Ray Nocella, my roofing contractor, has as sharp a mind as anyone I know. I love talking philosophy with him. Abstract knowledge is not the only kind there is. Nor is it always the right kind.
Analysis …
… A ‘Dewey Defeats Truman’ Lesson for the Digital Age - The New York Times. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
… the problem that surfaced on Tuesday night was much bigger than polling. It was clear that something was fundamentally broken in journalism, which has been unable to keep up with the anti-establishment mood that is turning the world upside down.
Something to think on …
The cleverest of all, in my opinion, is the man who calls himself a fool at least once a month.
— Fyodor Dostoevsky, born on this date in 1821
Thursday, November 10, 2016
Something to think on …
No doubt the artist is the child of his time; but woe to him if he is also its disciple, or even its favorite.
— Friedrich Schiller, born on this date in 1759
Wednesday, November 09, 2016
Another sign of decline …
… Swiss Army Librarian — Book Reviews in the Age of Email Leaks :: Brian Herzog. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Something to think on …
A poet must be a psychologist, but a secret one: he should know and feel the roots of phenomena but present only the phenomena themselves in full bloom or as they fade away.
— Ivan Turgenev, born on this date in 1818
Tuesday, November 08, 2016
Wednesday, November 9, 2016
A Poetry Reading +
A Short Non-Lecture On Poetry
By Leonard Gontarek
Wednesday, November 9, 7 PM
Fergie’s Pub
1214 Sansom Street
Philadelphia PA
Hosted by Charles Carr
& Moonstone Arts Center
As I say in a poem: I want you to choose between beauty & light. This line
speaks on behalf of my poetry. I like that two choices are offered, both good.
– Leonard Gontarek
Leonard Gontarek is the author of St. Genevieve Watching Over Paris, Van Morrison Can’t Find His Feet, Zen For Beginners, Deja Vu Diner, He Looked Beyond My Faults And Saw My Needs, and most recently, Take Your Hand Out Of My Pocket, Shiva.
His poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, Poet Lore, Verse,
Blackbird, The Awl, Spinning Jenny, and The Best American Poetry,
among others. He teaches poetry workshops throughout the Philadelphia area,
including the Philadelphia Arts in Education Partnership,
and a weekly Saturday workshop from his home in West Philadelphia.
He has been Mad Poet-in-Residence since 2008. He coordinates Peace/Works,
Philly Poetry Day, The Philadelphia Poetry Festival, and hosts The Green Line
Reading & Interview Series. Gontarek has received Poetry fellowships from the
Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, the Philadelphia Writers Conference Community Service Award, and was a Literary Death Match Champion. His poem, 37 Photos
From The Bridge, was a Poetry winner for the Big Bridges MotionPoems project
and the basis for the award-winning film by Lori Ersolmaz sponsored by the