Monday, March 08, 2010
Thought for the day ...
After all, the best part of a holiday is perhaps not so much to be resting yourself, as to see all the other fellows busy working.- Kenneth Grahame, born on this date in 1859
Sunday, March 07, 2010
Hmm ...
... John Edgar Wideman to Self-Publish New Book via Lulu.com. (Hat tip, Roger Miller, who comments. "Now this is interesting." Indeed it is.)
Unjustly forgotten ...
... but maybe no longer: The Talk of the (Seedy Side of) Town. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Straightforward ...
... A Clockwork Doll: Dahlia Ravikovitch and the poetry of the plainspoken. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Disconnect ...
... Consent of the governed - and the lack thereof.
The political class sold its legitimacy off in drips and drabs. As "smart politics" has come over the past decades to mean not persuasion but the practice of legerdemain, the use of political deals, cover from a friendly press apparat and taking advantage of voters' rational ignorance, the governing classes have managed to achieve things that would surely have failed had the people known what was going on.
Saturday, March 06, 2010
Need an application ...
... try The Writing Specialists. (This is a shameless plug for my blogging partner Jesse Freedman, who happens to be one the brightest people I know. He's also a nice guy.)
Mean Martin (cont'd.) ...
... Book of the week: Heidegger: The Introduction of Nazism into Philosophy. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
OK. Heidegger's outlook seems to have been fundamentally simpatico with Nazism. But you can be sure that Hitler arrived at his notions independently. Hard to imagine Herr Schickelgruber making his way through Sein und Zeit. Heidegger also seems to have been a creep. None of which means he may not have had some genuine philosophical insights. And I say this as someone who has always thought he was overrated.
OK. Heidegger's outlook seems to have been fundamentally simpatico with Nazism. But you can be sure that Hitler arrived at his notions independently. Hard to imagine Herr Schickelgruber making his way through Sein und Zeit. Heidegger also seems to have been a creep. None of which means he may not have had some genuine philosophical insights. And I say this as someone who has always thought he was overrated.
Thought for the day ...
The only real happiness a ballplayer has is when he is playing a ball game and accomplishes something he didn't think he could do.- Ring Lardner, born on this date in 1885
Friday, March 05, 2010
Hmm ...
... Busting the Well-Endowed.
Please understand that just because I link to this, it doesn't necessarily follow that I agree with it. I think it is worth discussing.
Please understand that just because I link to this, it doesn't necessarily follow that I agree with it. I think it is worth discussing.
RIP ...
... Barbara Bray: Translator, critic, script editor and partner to Samuel Beckett. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Well worth preserving ...
... America's flagship headed for the scrapyard?
Saving this glorious ship is something The Inquirer should have been advocating for years. Guess it doesn't fit into their narrative.
Saving this glorious ship is something The Inquirer should have been advocating for years. Guess it doesn't fit into their narrative.
Thought for the day ...
The Christian of the future will be a mystic or he will not exist at all.- Karl Rahner, born on this date in 1904
Thursday, March 04, 2010
Lazy ...
... Debbie and I are heading out to the orchestra tonight and I've been feeling lazy. Hence, the light blogging. Things will return to normal soon.
Entwining ...
... submission and charm-making. Ron Slate on The Stranger Manual, poems by Catie Rosemurgy.
Still time to register ...
... I guess: Wallace Stevens, New York, and Modernism Conference. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Dogmatics ...
... Turning peer review into modern-day holy scripture.
The same may be said of a good many journalists. See Treason Is A Matter Of Dates.
Sadly today, there are far too many researchers for whom science has become an instrument for the realisation of a higher cause. As a result they are scientists in name, but moralisers in practice. The manipulative exploitation of peer review is underwritten by a culture where campaigners are permitted to have a cavalier attitude towards facts.
The same may be said of a good many journalists. See Treason Is A Matter Of Dates.
... reporters are supposed to be skeptics. They are supposed to be cynical, hard bitten people who trust their mothers — but cut the cards. They are supposed to think that scientists are probably too much in love with their data, that issue advocates have hidden agendas, that high-toned rhetoric is often a cover for naked self interest, that bloviating politicians have cynical motives and that heroes, even Nobel Prize laureates, have feet of clay. That is their job; it is why we respect them and why we pay attention to what they write.
Thought for the day ...
Anybody who doesn't know that politics is crime has got a few screws loose.- James Ellroy, born on this date in 1948
Wednesday, March 03, 2010
Yes, light blogging ...
.. I have been out and about and feeling very tired for some reason. Will pick up when energy does.
Growth enterprise ...
... A big step for Petrona, a small step for blogkind. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I think it's a big step for blogkind, too.
I think it's a big step for blogkind, too.
Speaking of Mark ...
... this is quite provocative: The monstrous worship of facts.
In his dialogue, The Decay of Lying, Wilde celebrates the artful lie, and laments its passing. His complaint against politicians is not that they lie, but rather that they merely spin. Out of their mouths don't come real fabrications, but mere obfuscations. They misrepresent, and worse, then seek proof and evidence for their claims. The true, brilliant, life-changing lie is something entirely different.
Dialogue ...
... The Catholic good.
For some reason I couldn't manage to post a comment on Mark's blog, so I sent him an email, which I post here because in his reply Mark said it was a point worth making:
For some reason I couldn't manage to post a comment on Mark's blog, so I sent him an email, which I post here because in his reply Mark said it was a point worth making:
I am a Catholic - Jesuit trained. I attend Mass mostly every day (I am an aging man who sinned a good deal in youth and must make peace with my maker). My hero is the Abbe Mugnier, Proust's friend, who, asked if he believed in Hell, said of course he did, it is a doctrine of the Church. "Of course," he added, "I don't necessarily believe anyone is there." The Church provides a language, a vocabulary, a doctrinal and symbolical map, as it were. But practicing the faith is an art. You might write something that honored all the rules of meter and rhyme, but it would not necessarily be a poem. Indeed, it likely would not be a poem. I happen to be very fond of the current Pontiff, especially regarding his approach to liturgy. But he is only the Vicar of Christ. Jesus remains the head of the Church. This is how those of us on the inside see it.
Thought for the day ...
Every branch of human knowledge, if traced up to its source and final principles, vanishes into mystery.- Arthur Machen, born on this date in 1863
Tuesday, March 02, 2010
Interesting exchange ...
... POLIWOOD.
I was a mere 31 when I first saw Last Tango in Paris. At the time I was almost criminally hip - actually, considering the drugs I was indulging in, I actually was criminally hip. I thought the movie was boring, pretentious crap then and never found reason to change my mind.
Hey, You, up there ...
... The World Groans.
A priest, a sort of whisper in the chaos, made his rounds. One day, when Ben Steele seemed almost gone, Father Cummings "opened his Mass kit, took out a prayer book, a rosary, [and] a tin of holy oil." He anointed Steele with oil and asked you to forgive the nearly dead man's sins. Cummings always led the men in the prayer you gave your disciples on the Mount; he baptized and anointed: "He played medic as well as priest, crawling over and across men to get to the worst of the wretches." He argued with men who said that the Japanese were worthless. He said, "no one is hopeless." He planned to work for you in Japan after the war. He died in the bowels of a Japanese "hellship" en route to Japan.
More than just sound
... Soul Music.
I think it worth noting that, thanks to the internet and YouTube this article is illustrated in a way no merely printed article could be.
... it is still common to believe that styles of music, and individual works of music, have—or can have—a moral character, and that the character of a work or style of music can “rub off” in some way on its devotees. It makes perfectly good sense, and is often profoundly illuminating, to describe individual works, and also styles and idioms, in terms of the virtues and vices of people.
I think it worth noting that, thanks to the internet and YouTube this article is illustrated in a way no merely printed article could be.
A friend of ours ...
... makes the front page: From the ugliness at S. Phila. High, a hero emerges.
Debbie and I, knowing Violet, can assure you that this is not at all surprising. Go, girl!
Debbie and I, knowing Violet, can assure you that this is not at all surprising. Go, girl!
Thought for the day ...
We are always acting on what has just finished happening. It happened at least 1/30th of a second ago. We think we're in the present, but we aren't. The present we know is only a movie of the past.- Tom Wolfe, born on this date in 1931
Self-control ...
... Thank You For Not Expressing Yourself. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
... much of the abuse, even the vilest, came from university professors. Almost to a man (or woman), they said that what I had written was so outrageous, so ill-considered and ill-motivated, that it was not worth the trouble of refutation. On the other hand, they thought its author was worth insulting, if their practice was anything to go by.
Monday, March 01, 2010
Check this out ...
... it gives you a better idea of Philadelphia than the usual stuff does: shred citizen.
I am off ...
... for the day. What's the point of being retired if you can't just spend the day doing what others might take to be nothing? When you grow old - as I have improbably done - it is time to reflect and wonder who it is you might just be.
In case you wondered ...
... Remaining Unread: The Top Ten Reasons We Don’t Get to Certain Books.
An Inconvenient Truth seems more than a tad passé just now (see, for example, this), and Marley & Me is actually a charming book.
An Inconvenient Truth seems more than a tad passé just now (see, for example, this), and Marley & Me is actually a charming book.
Lively lady ...
... with a conscience: New documentary on Nobel laureate Szymborska. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Also born today ...
... was Robert Lowell: Helen Vendler, Robert Lowell, Modernism, and LIFE STUDIES.
Thought for the day ...
The end is in the beginning and lies far ahead.- Ralph Ellison, born on this date in 1914
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