Monday, July 31, 2017
RIP …
… The frontier in his eyes: Sam Shepard, 1943-2017 | MZS | Roger Ebert. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
More here.
More here.
One of the wise among us …
… An Interview with Richard Rodriguez. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
From boyhood, particularly my lower-middle-class childhood in Sacramento, I was transported by religion into the realm of mystery. Consider this: The Irish nun excused me from arithmetic class so that I could serve as an altar boy at a funeral mass. Along with the priest and the other altar boy, I would welcome Death at the doors of the church. We escorted Death up the main aisle. I later went with the cortege to the cemetery. There was a fresh pile of soil piled high at the edge of the grave site, discreetly, if unsuccessfully, covered by an AstroTurf rug that was as unconvincing a denial of the hardness of time as a cheap toupee. I wondered at the mourners’ faces—the melting grief, the hard stoicism. Thirty minutes from the grave, I was back within the soft green walls of Sacred Heart Parish School. It was almost lunchtime. I resumed my impersonation of an American kid.Today is Richard's 73rd birthday. May he have many years ahead of him.
More than pills and prayer are needed …
… Speaking of the devil – Mark Vernon.
When it comes to mental ill-health, medical science has dramatically failed to uncover agreed explanations for conditions from depression to anxiety, schizophrenia to psychosis. It can be shocking to learn quite how little is known. Research has revealed the causal pathways for only a handful of conditions, such as dementia, when the grey matter demonstrably decays. But stick a melancholic brain in a scanner and compare it with another that leaps out of bed in the morning, and the scan will tell you nothing. It’s a guilty secret for the science that grabs so much public attention, but it simply can’t tell the difference. When it comes to mental ill-health, the hard science can be little better than phrenology.
Hmm …
… On the Touchy Subject of Class in America. (Hat tip, Dave Lull)
One of his fundamental points is how rigid, though invisible, America’s caste system is. “We’re pretty well stuck for life,” he writes, “in the class we’re raised in.”
Well, I was raised by and among factory workers. But in grade school I was taught by the Religious of the Sacred Heart and I ended up speaking in such a way that once, in Illinois, I was asked where I was from. When I said Philadelphia, my interlocutor was surprised. He thought my wife, who was born in New Jersey, sounded like she was from Philadelphia, but he said I had no trace of the Philadelphia accent. I guess that is so. But I also don't think I am usually thought to hail from the lower orders. I probably owe that to the nuns as well, since they also encouraged us to go to the Art Museum, listen to classical music, etc. Nevertheless, I have ended up living in a working class neighborhood, where I feel quite comfortable.
Life-changing experience…
Perhaps the most interesting thing I’ve read this year is a mere 20 pages long and takes less than half an hour to read. It is “Everything Came to Me at Once,” Cynthia Haven’s account of a conversion experience undergone by René Girard, the historian, critic, and philosopher who died in 2015 at age 91. Cynthia Haven’s name will be familiar to readers of this blog, since I frequently link to posts on her blog.
In 1958, Girard was at work on his first book, Deceit, Desire, and the Novel. He was also commuting regularly on the Pennsylvania Railroad from Baltimore to Bryn Mawr College outside Philadelphia. Among Girard’s fundamental notions was that our desires are mimetic, that we learn them, just as we do language and manners.
According to Girard himself, as he was working on the final chapter of his book, “I was thinking about the analogies between religious experience and the experience of a novelist who discovers that he’s been consistently lying ….” Girard came to realize that this existential downfall of the novelist causes him “to realize that he has been the puppet of his own devil.” It is this that enables him “to describe the wickedness of the other from within himself.”
How this led to Girard himself to be, as he put it, “kicked into a change of religion” is what Haven’s booklet is about, and it is an intriguing story indeed. So I will say nothing more, except to recommend getting a copy. Here is what Cynthia had to say on her blog.In case you wondered …
… The Most Anthologized Essays of the Last 25 Years | Literary Hub. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Something to think on …
A civilization is a heritage of beliefs, customs, and knowledge slowly accumulated in the course of centuries, elements difficult at times to justify by logic, but justifying themselves as paths when they lead somewhere, since they open up for man his inner distance.
— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, who dies on this date in 1944
Sunday, July 30, 2017
The need for the right story …
This is from the article Tim links to:
As one Christian blogger writes from Germany:The link is now the correct one.
In a post-Christian society, the Biblical story that once shaped culture is no longer the narrative that gives meaning to life. The gospel is long gone. Jesus has become part of an outdated argument or distant figure haunting the past. The church has become a shadow of a once-flourishing community drawn together by the gospel. The story of God’s grace through the cross has become an echo of the past, and the remnant of the church has drifted back to the margins of culture.
Ongoing controversy …
… On the Distinction between Verse and Poetry, a Classical Solution. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
The essay follows some very fine poems.
The essay follows some very fine poems.
…if poetry and verse are categorically different things, those who like their poetry to be verse and those who do not might just as well go their separate ways.Some of us just like poetry, whether its verse is free or formal. For surely, we cannot excommunicate H.D. and Whitman.
Why blog?
… Informal Inquiries: Blogging Notes and Queries.
Well, this blog was started when I the boo review editor of The iNquirer, and I just kept doing it after I retired. It keeps me out of trouble.
Well, this blog was started when I the boo review editor of The iNquirer, and I just kept doing it after I retired. It keeps me out of trouble.
Something to think on …
If I could I would always work in silence and obscurity, and let my efforts be known by their results.
— Emily Brontë, born on this date in 1818
Saturday, July 29, 2017
Sex, Religion and Society...
I recently finished an excellent book, Sex and the Constitution, by Geoffrey R. Stone, Edward H. Levi Distinguished Service Professor of Law at the University of Chicago. Professor Stone reviews Western societies' treatment of sex, under the law, beginning with the Greeks, up to present day times here. As you may know, conflicts still exist in those areas...
Poetry and faith …
… Tate Unmodern by James Matthew Wilson | Articles | First Things. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Only in the few poems written in the years before and just after his conversion does Tate’s voice take a new turn. Rather than rue the incapacity for belief, these poems plead for mercy. “Seasons of the Soul” is Tate’s most ambitious poem and depicts the cyclical, endless necessity of material history before proposing an escape made possible only through the intercession of a Dantesque (and Eliotic) “mother of silences,” into the life of Christian humility and faith.
This is utterly fascinating
McCain walks onto the Senate Floor, no one knows how he will vote but they do know his vote will decide the fate of ObamaCare. The article breaks down the live video.
Don't forget Trump dissed McCain's heroism, and this is the only major achievement of Trump's first six months...on the other hand McCain is a conservative Republican...
Don't forget Trump dissed McCain's heroism, and this is the only major achievement of Trump's first six months...on the other hand McCain is a conservative Republican...
A "Scoop" for our times …
… Waugh’s Beast is back, still satirising those who make England so febrile | Ian Jack | Opinion | The Guardian. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
A forthcoming novel, The Beast, has reminded me of those times. As the title suggests, the book makes no bones about its literary heritage and unashamedly tips its hat to the work of Michael Frayn as well as Waugh. Its comedy is darker than either, but arguably (Scoop, after all, was published in 1938) that bleakness reflects our darker age. Certainly, its subject more urgently demands our attention.Our age is dark, for sure, but in 1938 it was on the verge of a world war. That sounds maybe even darker.
Something to think on …
For all that has been, Thanks. To all that shall be, Yes.
— Dag Hammarskjöld, born on this date in 1905
Friday, July 28, 2017
The meaning of the ordinary …
… Intelligent Design: On the Poetry of Catherine Chandler – Catholic World Report. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
There is a fundamental identity between the order of geese, the patterns of the created world, and those of the poet.
A bit of wisdom …
… Informal Inquiries: John Ashberry on some words worth pondering.
Ashbery is precisely right. Poems are to be experienced, not deciphered.
In search of herself …
… The Rise and Fall of Liz Smith, Celebrity Accomplice - The New York Times.
“I am in search of Liz Smith,” she said softly, musing at the thought. “After a lifetime of fun and excitement and money and feeling important and being in the thick of it, I am just shocked every day that I’m not the same person. I think that happens to all old people. They’re searching for a glimmer of what they call their real self. They’re boring, mostly
Something to think on …
The growth of knowledge depends entirely upon disagreement.
— Karl Popper, born on this date in 1902
Thursday, July 27, 2017
God's mysterious ways …
… My uncle Siegfried: Sister Jessica Gatty on her life-changing friendship with the great war poet | Music | The Guardian. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
In her view, Sassoon’s entire output was a quest towards God. “His poetry turned into prayer,” she says. “The attention that was there as he wrote poetry became the attention that turned to the source of poetry.”
Old New York …
… The Graveyard Humor of Up in the Old Hotel | Literary Hub. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
It doesn’t take an Aristotle to explain how a book full of people and places and customs that no longer exist could make a reader as happy as Up in the Old Hotel does. Mr. Mitchell always mediates the sadness such subjects bring—the loss of time, the life slipping by, the way the old manners fail to hang on—and he lets the reader feel only the pleasure that comes from his own very personal discoveries.
Hmm …
… Literary Studies 1920 – 1970 – An Aspirational Reading List | Time's Flow Stemmed. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I confess to having read very few of them — though I did have a class given by Morse Peckham and did read his Man's Rage for Chaos.
One way of being old …
… Informal Inquiries: A poem for a summer morning in the late autumn of life.
I am still sometimes surprised to realize I am old. I guess because, in my head, I am still who I have long thought of myself as being, like an appliance that has been around so long and used so routinely one doesn't notice the scuffs and dents.
I am still sometimes surprised to realize I am old. I guess because, in my head, I am still who I have long thought of myself as being, like an appliance that has been around so long and used so routinely one doesn't notice the scuffs and dents.
The music and form of experience …
… The Poetry of Anne Stevenson. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I suspect that she is more self-revelatory in her work than she perhaps realizes. In ‘The Marriage’ she revisits her parents, long dead, recalling a time when her mother was diagnosed with the cancer, of which she died. “The house is still there,” she tells us, “the elms and the people, not.”
Something to think on …
Statistics are the triumph of the quantitative method, and the quantitative method is the victory of sterility and death.
— Hilaire Belloc, born on this date in 1870
Wednesday, July 26, 2017
Our betters …
… Informal Inquiries: Review Redux: American Bloomsbury — by Susan Cheever.
I have the book on my Kindle, but have got around to reading it. Cheever's biography of E E. Cummings was outstanding.
I have the book on my Kindle, but have got around to reading it. Cheever's biography of E E. Cummings was outstanding.
Speaking of photos …
… check these out: 2017 National Geographic Travel Photographer of the Year | National Geographic. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
Back to the future …
… Informal Inquiries: Brave new world and radical surgery.
Time is right: Brave New World is sounding more and more contemporary and less and less futuristic.
Time is right: Brave New World is sounding more and more contemporary and less and less futuristic.
Pissing contest …
… People Are Sh**ting All Over A Famous Author For The Way He Thinks Women Pee. | Someecards Women. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Is it the way the author thinks, or the way the character at just that moment happens to be thinking? It is a novel, not a treatise on urology.
Is it the way the author thinks, or the way the character at just that moment happens to be thinking? It is a novel, not a treatise on urology.
Something to think on …
Thinking is difficult, that’s why most people judge.
— Carl Gustav Jung, born on this date in 1875
Tuesday, July 25, 2017
Blogging post …
I am off to have the stitches taken out of my mouth, and I have other things to do as well. So blogging will resume sometime later on.
Maybe …
… Can Poetry Change Your Life? (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
But how are poems and pop songs “equipment for life”? Here the balance pole begins to wobble. “There is no limit to what a poem can’t do,” Robbins writes on one page; “poetry makes all sorts of things happen,” he says on the next. Which is it? He doesn’t want to give in to the fantasy that poems taught to and songs bought by millions of people are also subversive of the established order. But his own politics are Occupy-era politics, and he naturally wants to put his views together with his tastes. The teen-ager’s enthusiasm for Def Leppard must in some way belong with the mature man’s concerns about income inequality.From time to time, I will listen to a favorite pop song from long ago, much the way I will look at an old photograph. It's a bittersweet experience. But I am not inclined to exaggerate the importance of pop songs. Poems, though, have had a powerful effect on me I can still remember reading Eliot's "Preludes" on a rainy fall afternoon on the El many years ago. I saw the poetry of the city as I never had before.
Minority report …
… Dunkirk Considered at Length - Mail Online - Peter Hitchens blog. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I was thinking of seeing it. Now I'm not so sure. I don't especially like war movies.
I was thinking of seeing it. Now I'm not so sure. I don't especially like war movies.
Something to think on …
The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings.
— Eric Hoffer, born on this date in 1902
Monday, July 24, 2017
Hmmm...
A Wisconsin company is about to become the first in the U.S. to offer microchip implants to its employees.
In case you wondered …
… The Most Anthologized Poems of the Last 25 Years | Literary Hub. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Mind and heart …
… Tom Stoppard’s heartfelt high jinks | Prospect Magazine. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
It is sometimes said of Stoppard’s work that it is all head and no heart; that his fascination with verbal high jinks and conceptual fireworks doesn’t mine the deepest truths about human existence. Yet few writers have engaged so passionately with the big issues of our time—faith, politics, revolution—or pushed the boundaries of theatre so far. And in a period of nervy global uncertainty, perhaps a few high jinks are what we need.
Hard times …
… ‘Cultural Climate Change’ | The American Conservative.
… The Rav addresses not atheists, but modern religious believers who construe religion in self-serving terms — the kind of people I would call the Moralistic Therapeutic Deists. In the final two chapters of his book, the Rav says that all Adam the Second can do is to present the truth to Adam the First. But — and this is crucial — Adam the First has become so alienated from his religious self that he only wants to hear about God in terms of a religion that suits his interests and need to control. He thinks of religion as something man-made, something that can be changed to suit perceived needs, not as something given to man by God. If this faith is cut loose from its “absolute moorings,” says Soloveitchik, then it will lose all of its redemptive power.
Thoreau the scientist …
… Nature’s design | The New Criterion. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
What “The Dispersion of Seeds” establishes is that Thoreau was inventing the study we now call ecology—how nature keeps house. In France at the same time that Thoreau was plotting how individual trees have their seeds distributed by squirrels, birds, wind, snow, rain, and a free ride on human trousers and skirts, Louis Pasteur was disproving the age-old belief in spontaneous generation.
Something to think on …
To be a poet is a condition rather than a profession.
— Robert Graves, born on this date in 1895
Sunday, July 23, 2017
The cost of war …
… The Second World Waugh - some thoughts on 'Put Out More Flags' and 'The 'Sword of Honour' trilogy - Mail Online - Peter Hitchens blog. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
They’re all connected, linked partly by the war and partly by Waugh’s melancholy version of Roman Catholicism. I’m not in a position to know, but I believe more conventional RCs often find Waugh’s approach to the faith eccentric. Personally, I find it interesting and illuminating.I don't find Waugh's version of Catholicism at all eccentric, probably because my own version, like his, is melancholy.
The cottage life …
… First Known When Lost: A Dream. Or Not.
Is the cottage dream nothing more than a "fond dream," "a lie, . . . a kindly meant lie"? Modern ironists would think so, and would add what they consider to be the killing epithet: "a sentimental dream." However, the poets think otherwise, from the epigrammatists of The Greek Anthology to T'ao Ch'ien and Wang Wei, from the Japanese haiku poets to William Wordsworth and John Clare, from Horace to Norman MacCaig and George Mackay Brown. I attend to the poets.Me, too.
Bob everlasting …
… Bob Dylan, the musical? | Culture | The Times & The Sunday Times. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
… forgive me, the times they are a-changin’. He is now 76, and the work is being understood as a whole. This is the beginning of a pre-postmortem period in which, as Auden said after the death of Yeats, he becomes his admirers. His genius is out of his control and that of his fans. In fact, there is no such thing as a Dylan fan base, any more than there’s a Matisse fan base or a Dickens fan base. He’s just out there, untouchable by the changing times.
Containing much you likely didn't know …
… How Capitalism Saved the Bees - Reason.com.
Modern commercial beekeeping practices create real stresses on beekeepers and honeybees alike. But we shouldn't exaggerate their plight or overlook how successfully they've adapted to a changing world. In the words of Hannah Nordhaus, author of the 2011 book The Beekeeper's Lament, the scare stories surrounding colony collapse disorder "should serve as a cautionary tale to environmental journalists eager to write the next blockbuster story of environmental decline."Indeed, our obsession with honeybees may have distracted us from other, more important environmental concerns. Wild pollinators such as bumblebees, butterflies, and other native insects really do appear to be in decline, thanks to habitat loss and agricultural development. After all, unlike honeybees, there is no commercially minded beekeeper to look after them.
Inquirer reviews …
Something to think on …
Liberty of thought means liberty to communicate one's thought.
— Salvador de Madariaga, born on this date in 1886.
Saturday, July 22, 2017
Young John …
… The Songs We Know Best: John Ashbery’s Early Life by Karin Roffman – review | Books | The Guardian. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
Although Ashbery is the least confessional of poets, the upstate New York landscapes and lake vistas of his early years are often filtered into his poems in obliquely revealing ways. His longest poem, Flow Chart (1991), was begun in the wake of his mother’s death, and features numerous passages that evoke his life on the farm, or at his grandparents’ houses in Rochester and then Pultneyville (where Ashbery spent a series of idyllic summers), as well as elliptical characterisations of the tedium and excitements of childhood and adolescence. As Roffman demonstrates in close readings of poems such as the very early “Lost Cove”, Ashbery’s need to make his works present generic or “one-size-fits-all” transcriptions of experience, applicable to anyone, never wholly obscures their origins in the personal.
In case you wondered …
… What happens when an A.I. program tries to write poetry? (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
Seems like it has a way to go.
Hmm …
… Informal Inquiries: Emily Dickinson challenges me, you, and orthodoxy.
This sounds like Meister Eckhart, who said that God is nearer to you than you are to yourself.
Something to think on …
Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance.
— Carl Sandburg, who died on this date in 1967
Friday, July 21, 2017
A peculiar symbiosis …
… A Prisoner’s Only Writing Machine | The New Yorker. (Hat tip, Virginia Kerr.)
In case you wondered …
… Why W.S. Merwin endures, and other best poetry to read this month. (Hat tip, G.E. Reutter.)
Yes, it is …
… Understanding Poetry Is More Straightforward Than You Think. (Hat tip, G.E. Reutter.)
… in his introduction to “The Best Poems of the English Language,” Harold Bloom writes, “The art of reading poetry begins with mastering allusiveness in particular poems, from the simple to the very complex.” This sounds completely reasonable, but is totally wrong. The art of reading poetry doesn’t begin with thinking about historical moments or great philosophies. It begins with reading the words of the poems themselves.Just read the poem. Let it settle in. Live with it a bit.
The charms of a language …
… Poetry Prize Winner Found Beauty in Urdu Poetic Tradition - NBC News. (Hat tip, G. E Reutter.)
It was not until Talukder was in a high school class that she began to realize that embracing Urdu and her love of writing were not incompatible. “I was asked to translate a poem for class just as an exercise, and it was the first time that I realized that Urdu poetic culture was a culture of its own,” she said. “It was the first time that I realized that Urdu was capable of beauty.”
Something to think on …
Man works when he is partially involved. When he is totally involved he is at play or leisure.
— Marshall McLuhan, born on this date in 1911
Thursday, July 20, 2017
Blogging note …
I have spent most o the day at the Archdiocesan archives, for reasons I will get around to sometime later. I am tired.
"The Mother of All Disruptions"
Warning: don’t read too much about the future of jobs in an era of Artificial Intelligence if you are—psychologically speaking—in a dark place. If you’re a lover of the arts and humanities, for example, you should probably go full hermit in the basement of a university library with plenty of provisions (but no WiFi). If you greet all technological advances with gee-whiz enthusiasm, you’d best avoid long conversations with people who make a living driving trucks or reading X-rays. If you’re an antiglobalization protectionist, get ready to look with longing on a time when the biggest threats to jobs were NAFTA and an ascendant China. And even if you believe in the long-term benefits of what economist Joseph Schumpeter called creative destruction—as I do—prepare to have your convictions tested.I think this is only part of what is coming actually...Not to be an alarmist, and I am generally an optimist, but the increasing tendency of Man to create a distancing from each other, from those stupid new credit card chip checkout machines which obviate the ability to actually talk to the checkout person, to social media, smart phones, the Internet and good old TV, is another revolutionary "thing" too. People have a seductive screen world to focus on to the detriment of the real world. Even more interestingly, there are studies that show all this input is leading to speeded up brains and people, which helps cause everything from the extremely rapid editing needed in tv, movies, etc. to sustain interest, to the anxiety and other emotional, mental and even possibly physical difficulties caused by the passive contact with screen world, and the rapid and unceasing flow of information, not to mention the effect on other revolutionary aspects of society, like the coming change in the racial and cultural make up of this country (whites losing their majority in about 20 years) as well as the culture wars around civil rights, race, religion, income inequality and other areas. And I personally think the younger generation, many of whom have formed their brain through screens, think in an almost fundamentally different way.
In the past, such combinations led to revolution. But there is also the prospect of a permanent underclass, sustained just enough by modern types of bread and circuses, and then like Rome, a decline because a society cannot work with a disconnected populace. However, unlike Rome, our automated society is controllable, because of the increased power the new channels and things give their makers and sellers. For example, you can be tracked constantly though internet use, cell phone signals, and even video cameras on stop lights, in cities, and other places, etc. Your opinion can be manipulated through selective presentation of "news." Your car and everyone else's can be controlled -- imagine a scenario where China, who is a major car seller (and car parts seller) in the US -- embeds code in those millions of units to centrally control the vehicles. Then China could, theoretically, central control all the vehicles, which is a pretty powerful economic and wartime power. And code is embedded everywhere in everything, especially with the new Internet of Things.
Of course, Man could end up doing well through all this. On the other hand, or not. sigh.
Something to think on …
The advantage of the incomprehensible is that it never loses its freshness.
— Paul Valéry, who died on this date in 1945
Unwise complaint …
… as the comments demonstrate: The Millions : A Bookseller’s Elegy - The Millions.
I don't think any bookstore customer cares if the bookstore clerk approves of the book said customer is buying.
I don't think any bookstore customer cares if the bookstore clerk approves of the book said customer is buying.
Wednesday, July 19, 2017
A new kind of slavery …
… Articles: Charlie Gard Is the Face of Single-Payer.
I should note that I promised myself in my college ethics class one day that I would not take any extraordinary means to preserve my life (catholic ethics does not require that I do so). But that's my choice. Not the state's. But unlike many people, I'm not a worshiper of the state.Even at this late date, with doctors and world leaders lining up to volunteer help for Charlie, the NHS still acts on the basis that it owns the child. His parents were not allowed to appeal. Only the hospital had that right.
This conceit is at the center of the single-payer controversy, but no one is willing to actually argue it. If it were debated, it would show that the "payment" idea is a diversion. Instead, single-payer advocates have taken the position that the State owns its citizens.Right now, I have been forced into Medicare. I don't like it, and I would happily take an alternative, but legally, I cannot. Further, if Medicare declares that I can't have a particular treatment, I can't even buy it for myself. That's exactly the same situation Charlie Gard's parents are in. The federal government owns me through Medicare.
Very good sense …
… The Philosophy of Book Buying - Crisis Magazine. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I have plenty of books I have never read. Some of them I am sure I will get to in whatever time is left to me.
I have plenty of books I have never read. Some of them I am sure I will get to in whatever time is left to me.
Something to think on …
Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow, but only saps today of its strength.
— A.J. Cronin, born on this date in 1896
Tuesday, July 18, 2017
Not me …
… We’re All Guinea Pigs in a Failed Decades-Long Diet Experiment - Tonic.
But then, I don't eat processed foods. I don't eat fast food. And I still walk a lot, even with my gimpy knees. I may not be svelte exactly. But I'm far from obese.
But for a clause …
… Review: Excellent 'Dunkirk' explores heroism in innovative fashion.
The clause in question is this: "… the fact that there are only a couple of women and no lead actors of color may rub some the wrong way."
The clause in question is this: "… the fact that there are only a couple of women and no lead actors of color may rub some the wrong way."
I'm not sure if bringing this up tells us more about the reviewer or the times we live in. Either way, it's worth remembering that this was 1940, in a Europe rather different from today's. Hard to imagine who a lead actor of color (which sounds off-putting to me) would play. I also guess that but that for shortcoming the film would have been give four stars.
Yes, he is …
… Glen Campbell is the most underappreciated musician in America. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
But the most salient fact about Campbell and his career is that he was always very consciously making music for adults. If there is anything that could do with a revival in 2017, it's well-crafted, lushly produced records of men and women singing recognizable songs accompanied by traditional instruments.There is, however, this: Interview: Glen Campbell’s Wife and Daughter Discuss His Final Album, ‘Adios’.
Timely, indeed …
… Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Beat Column: The War On Cops: My Q&A With Heather Mac Donald, Author of ‘The War On Cops: How The New Attack On Law And Order Makes Everyone Less Safe'.
I make a point, when I encounter policemen, to thank them for their service, as I did yesterday at my nearby precinct HQ. My father was a cop, and so is my nephew. So you know where my loyalties lie.
I make a point, when I encounter policemen, to thank them for their service, as I did yesterday at my nearby precinct HQ. My father was a cop, and so is my nephew. So you know where my loyalties lie.
Coming up short …
… Augustine gets a makeover in new translation. He hardly needed it. | America Magazine. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
… Ruden’s Augustine is a dreamer, an artist, a poet. “I maintain that the Augustine of the Confessions was a feeling man more than a thinking one,” she writes ….It is possible to think and feel. In fact, most people do both. Augustine was passionate, to be sure, but he was also quite an intellectual.
Something to think on …
Fiction reveals truths that reality obscures.
— Jessamyn West, born on this date in 1902
Monday, July 17, 2017
Heartening …
… Pope Benedict’s SOS | The American Conservative.
Recognizing the toxins of modern secularism, as well as the fragmentation caused by relativism, Benedict Option Christians look to Scripture and to Benedict’s Rule for ways to cultivate practices and communities. Rather than panicking or remaining complacent, they recognize that the new order is not a problem to be solved but a reality to be lived with. It will be those who learn how to endure with faith and creativity, to deepen their own prayer lives and adopting practices, focusing on families and communities instead of on partisan politics, and building churches, schools, and other institutions within which the orthodox Christian faith, can survive and prosper through the flood. … If we are going to be for the world as Christ meant for us to be, we are going to have to spend more time away from the world, in deep prayer and substantial spiritual training—just as Jesus retreated to the desert to pray before ministering to the people.This sounds about right to me. The contemporary world seems increasingly alien to me. I am not going to waste whatever time remains to me bothering about it.
In search of purpose
… Beyond Velvet Nihilism | R. R. Reno | First Things.
… Trump’s speech clearly conveys the opinion of his administration. Some have compared it to Reagan’s “Tear down this wall” address in Berlin in 1987. This is mistake. Reagan wished to break the will of the Soviet Union. His rhetoric was post-war: We need to overthrow authoritarian controls, to open and loosen things up. What Trump said in Warsaw was keyed to a very different threat, that of a velvet nihilism, a disposition of cultural and moral disarmament that cannot rouse itself to affirm or defend much of anything. In such circumstances—our circumstances—what’s needed are consolidating motifs, to rally people to causes that are worthy of their loyalty, even to the point of self-sacrifice.See also this, from Snopes: The Lies of Donald Trump’s Critics, and How They Shape His Many Personas.
I intend this to be the last post I shall put up having to do with politics. See the post that follows for an explanation.
July Poetry at North of Oxford …
… 2 Poems by Tony Rickaby.
… Age of Discovery by Frank Wilson.
… 2 poems by Adrian Manning.
… 2 Poems by Judy Kronenfeld.
Submissions are now open for book reviews, commentary, essays and poetry. Guidelines.
I should have drawn attention to the photos accompanying these. I very much like the shot of the stairway illustrating mine. But the others are great, too..
Post bumped.
… Age of Discovery by Frank Wilson.
… 2 poems by Adrian Manning.
… 2 Poems by Judy Kronenfeld.
Submissions are now open for book reviews, commentary, essays and poetry. Guidelines.
I should have drawn attention to the photos accompanying these. I very much like the shot of the stairway illustrating mine. But the others are great, too..
Post bumped.
It is if you believe there's a human race …
… Is Cultural Appropriation Ever Appropriate? - Los Angeles Review of Books. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
The more salient point is that Nat Turner was allowed to tell his story before he died, whereas Tom Molineaux’s story consists only in what British journalists said about him; and in both cases, a certain skepticism is advisable. Molineaux’s story, however, begs for amplification, and I, for one, believe I can speak for him as well as I could for a Jew who lived in Spain around 1600 AD or in Italy in 1935. No doubt there are any number of people who know more about the Regency than I do, and a smaller number who know more about the free black community in London around 1810, and a smaller number still who are familiar with the London Prize Ring, but I’m pretty sure that none of them knows as much as I do about all three subjects. Does this make me qualified to write about Molineaux? In a word, yes. Whether I do a good job, of course, remains to be seen.
The joke in my family is that we're Heinzes — 57 different varieties. I suspect, if I had one of those genetic tests done, I'd find a healthy racial mix. So a guy spends time abroad and decides to write a novel set in a foreign country. This will require that citizens of that country appear in said novel. Because of "cultural appropriation," I guess he can't write that novel. The only logical conclusion that those complaining of cultural appropriation can arrive at, it seems to me, is that people can only write novels in which all the characters are of the same race, ethnicity, social status, etc., as the author. Sounds pretty dull. Come to think of it, what right do young writers have to create characters who are old? What right do female authors have to create male characters? What right did Tolstoy have to create Anna Karenina?
Something to think on …
The evolution of the world can be compared to a display of fireworks that has just ended: some few red wisps, ashes, and smoke. Standing on a cooled cinder, we see the slow fading of the suns, and we try to recall the vanished brilliance of the origin of the world.
— Georges Lemaître, born on this date in 1894
Sunday, July 16, 2017
This stuff is really neat …
… The Novelty and Excess of American Design During the Jazz Age. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
The cycle of life …
… Informal Inquiries: Sailing to Byzantium.
I find Yeats a dubious figure. He was hardly as accepting of old age as this poem suggests, having had a "rejuvenating" Steinach operation performed in 1934. That said, the guy wrote some great poems.
I find Yeats a dubious figure. He was hardly as accepting of old age as this poem suggests, having had a "rejuvenating" Steinach operation performed in 1934. That said, the guy wrote some great poems.
Inquirer reviews …
… Jim Remsen's 'Embattled Freedom': A Pennsylvania hamlet's role in the Underground Railroad and the Civil War.
… Matthew Quick's 'Reason You're Alive': A feel-good sociopath's story.
… No apologies from John McEnroe in 'But Seriously'.
… 'Social Life of Books': When reading was a group thing.
See also: Swarthmore native Zinzi Clemmons on her debut novel about 'sex and death'.
… Matthew Quick's 'Reason You're Alive': A feel-good sociopath's story.
… No apologies from John McEnroe in 'But Seriously'.
… 'Social Life of Books': When reading was a group thing.
See also: Swarthmore native Zinzi Clemmons on her debut novel about 'sex and death'.
Something to think on …
Rome was a poem pressed into service as a city.
— Anatole Broyard, born on this date in 1920
Tom Robbins
Many years ago, a friend suggested Even Cowgirls Get the Blues. I'd not read Tom Robbins before, and so filed his name away for sake keeping. Now, all these years later, I finished Cowgirls. Here are some thoughts:
No doubt, the novel is a reflection of its time. Published in 1976, its themes hold a mirror to the era: environmentalism, women's liberation, protest, the list goes on. In some ways, this was refreshing: Robbins knew just what he wanted to say, and he leveraged popular tropes to deliver the message. But on the other hand, I found this somewhat tiresome: the theme of spiritual enlightenment, for instance, was rather cumbersome (mostly because it was so familiar).
If I had my way, Cowgirls would have been shorter -- and a lot less zany. Because there's actually something going on here: there's a premise that's interesting, there are characters who are compelling. Sissy Hankshaw, especially, emerges as an alluring protagonist, as a compelling case study in the fractured notion of freedom. Ultimately, I wish there'd been more Sissy, and less prognostication from Robbins.
Robbins had some fun writing Cowgirls, and there are moments when he veers a bit too heavily in that direction. But as I say, there are passages where his writing pops, and where Sissy's adventures take on a three-dimensional quality. It's when Robbins packs these adventures too tightly with themes of the day that the narrative takes a turn toward the predictable, and that Sissy, however alluring, however vulnerable, is reduced (regrettably) to a side story.
If you've read the novel you'll know how much I'd like to give it two thumbs up, but it would have taken more focus on those thumbs for me to willingly grant that acclaim.
Saturday, July 15, 2017
Misunderstood …
… The Judgment of Rebecca West - Los Angeles Review of Books. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Despite its regional focus, West’s book appears to be an essentially English literary phenomenon. A complete Serbian translation, by Ana Selić, only appeared in 2004, and the book is not widely read in the Balkans. Yet it continues to describe these countries and peoples in precise and compelling ways. During my own travels, I was delighted to see that West’s poetic description of the River Drin in Struga, Macedonia — “as much brighter than water as crystal is than glass” — remains perfectly apt. In Belgrade, I walked through Kalemegdan Park, lined by the carved “busts of the departed nearly great” enumerated in West’s tome. In Sarajevo, the dress of my Bosnian friend had already been described for me: a “silk overall striped in lilac and purple and dull blue.”
Takedown …
… NY Times Goes Mac & Cheesy with Science | American Council on Science and Health.
Ms. Rabin's article cannot have simply been a result of a journalist simply misunderstanding science. From the misleading and manipulative title - "The Chemicals in Your Mac and Cheese" - to the content itself, this was designed to promote fear of chemicals.
Something to think on …
Happiness is a matter of one's most ordinary and everyday mode of consciousness being busy and lively and unconcerned with self.
— Iris Murdoch, born on this date in 1919
Friday, July 14, 2017
Hmm …
… This eight-legged creature could be Earth's sole survivor -- and help search for aliens | Fox News.
According to Wikipedia, "evolution by means of natural selection is the process by which traits that enhance survival and reproduction become more common in successive generations of a population." Tardigrades have been around for 530 million years. Their survival skills are obviously impressive. But it seems that as species become more complex, their survival capacity declines. Now, I think it pretty obvious that species have evolved over time. But I wonder if the survival of the fittest dimension of Darwin's theory perhaps needs some refinement. I suspect that Teilhard de Chardin's notion of complexification may be nearer the truth.
Q&A …
… A Guardian of Good Usage and Grammar - Los Angeles Review of Books. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Well, I’m very Fowlerian in my turn of mind, but the big change I’ve added to the literature on English usage is an overlay of empiricism — that is, I’ve placed a greater emphasis on how the language is actually used. Fowler, Partridge, Bernstein, and Follett had to guess about what they thought was the predominant usage for a given linguistic problem. But I’m able to use big data to buttress the judgments — and to really tie linguistic prescriptions to how edited English actually appears in print. So that’s something new in English usage.
What faith is like …
… "On The Avenue" by Rhina P. Espaillat - E-Verse RadioE-Verse Radio. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
And sad …
… Tru Life | Humanities. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
The summer after I finished college, I had a job that kept me on the campus, and one day I borrowed from the library Capote's first novel, Other Voices, Other Rooms. I started reading it on my way home — a long ride on two buses and the subway-elevated. By the time I got home I had nearly finished it. It is wondrously written. As the quotes in this article demonstrate, Capote wrote extremely well. And that is what he should be remembered for.
The summer after I finished college, I had a job that kept me on the campus, and one day I borrowed from the library Capote's first novel, Other Voices, Other Rooms. I started reading it on my way home — a long ride on two buses and the subway-elevated. By the time I got home I had nearly finished it. It is wondrously written. As the quotes in this article demonstrate, Capote wrote extremely well. And that is what he should be remembered for.
Well, yes, unfortunately …
… 'Climate change angst' is a global anxiety, and borderless | Danny Bloom | The Blogs | The Times of Israel.
God knows, enough effort has been put into stirring up the anxiety, though the solution always appears to be to raise taxes and to give tax revenue to alternative energy enterprises that end up achieving far less than advertised. (Following the money works for this, too.)
If you cannot reflexively name the geologic epoch Earth is currently in, you really have no right to an opinion in this matter. And, by the way, I am quite convinced that human activity has been a driving factor in the longevity of Earth's current geologic epoch. And I am grateful for that, though I do not believe it will prove enough in the long run.
Those who stir up the anxiety should forgo riding in private jets and should live in modest dwellings. They should support fracking for natural gas, which produces 50 to 60 percent less CO2 and they may want to revisit nuclear power.
God knows, enough effort has been put into stirring up the anxiety, though the solution always appears to be to raise taxes and to give tax revenue to alternative energy enterprises that end up achieving far less than advertised. (Following the money works for this, too.)
If you cannot reflexively name the geologic epoch Earth is currently in, you really have no right to an opinion in this matter. And, by the way, I am quite convinced that human activity has been a driving factor in the longevity of Earth's current geologic epoch. And I am grateful for that, though I do not believe it will prove enough in the long run.
Those who stir up the anxiety should forgo riding in private jets and should live in modest dwellings. They should support fracking for natural gas, which produces 50 to 60 percent less CO2 and they may want to revisit nuclear power.
Something to think on …
There is only one way to degrade mankind permanently and that is to destroy language.
— Northrop Frye, born on this date in 1912
Thursday, July 13, 2017
Blogging …
I am the canine stage of my recovery from surgery — sleeping away like an old dog. I have some things to do, but will be posting again shortly. But tonight Debbie and I are going to watch Lost Horizon on the tube.
Definitive …
… May Sinclair: Poems of H.D. —The Fortnightly Review. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Talents have died before now of their own growth for lack of a form that allows expansion. I don’t want to raise again the question whether good verse is, as Mr. Flint and Wordsworth maintain, nothing but good prose. Only whereas with the writer of good prose, however uninspired, language and meaning go evenly together, the purely lyric poet who rhymes and metres is apt to be overtaken by a dark rush of winged words before he is aware of his meaning. For he is at the mercy of rhyme and metre. Not so the vers librist. He is free to follow his thoughts in their own movement. Instead of twisting themselves in unnatural inversions or halting for the cadence and the rhyme, his thoughts are free. Before the dangerous inspiration is upon her, “H.D.” has clarified her thought to its last transparency, and her future work should stand as high or higher than her past.These are fighting words nowadays, but they remind that thought is fundamental to great verse. This review is the most comprehensive and spot-on treatment of H.D.'s work that I have read. I have lved her poetry since I discovered it in the Holmesburg Library many decades ago. I was in my early teens. I felt, reading her poems, that poetry was the way to truth. I owe her much.
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