Experientia docet ...

... Time and Possibilities. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Let me confess that when I finally understood what Kugel was up to in this somewhat rambling memoir-meditation, I gave a little adolescent fist-pump. I was glad to see him point out that the recent debates about religion — is it a force for good or for evil, intrinsically violent or intrinsically peaceful? — have on the whole been a bit “narrow.” Too many pundits, anthropologists and evolutionary biologists fail to imagine their way into the rich, elusive mental condition called “believing in God” or “being religious.”

VIDA (cont'd.)

... Poetry, Gender, and VPR: An Update.

Ozick on Bellow ...

... Lasting Man. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

The writer’s last brief words in this bountiful volume of letters, set down fourteen months before his death, should all at once break open the hidden-in-plain-sight code that reveals why Bellow stays:

[My parents] needed all the help they could get. They were forever asking, “What does the man say?” and I would translate for them into heavy-footed English. That didn’t help much either. The old people were as ignorant of English as they were of Canadian French. We often stopped before a display of children’s shoes. My mother coveted for me a pair of patent-leather sandals with an elegantissimo strap. I finally got them—I rubbed them with butter to preserve the leather. This is when I was six or seven years old.... Amazing how it all boils down to a pair of patent-leather sandals.

Good points indeed ...

... courtesy of Lee Lowe, who correctly observes that "it only works if you're already fairly well known."

Very thoughtful ...

... Henry Hitchings – The Language Wars… and Blogging. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

For me blogging has always been related to one of the words it is made up of: log, as in "captain's log." Of course, I don't tend to write long posts. I link to something of interest, and may append a comment thereunto. This blog quickly became a record of things I thought of interest while "covering the beat," as they say in the news business.

Art-inspired art ...

... Pascale Petit was inspired to write poems in response to the life and work of flamboyant Mexican artist Frida Kahlo.

See also: What the Water Gave Me.

(Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)

Here's an idea ...

... WHAT IF THERE WERE BOOK CONCIERGES? (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

For the occasion ...

... Top ten favorite lines for a Valentine’s Day poem.

Thought for the day ...

Criticism is the windows and chandeliers of art: it illuminates the enveloping darkness in which art might otherwise rest only vaguely discernible, and perhaps altogether unseen.

- George Jean Nathan, born on this date in 1882

Talking point ...

... differences and similarities. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Who knew?

... We Are Jack Kerouac. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)

Unstable truth ...

... 31 Books in 31 Days: Mark Athitakis on Ander Monson’s “Vanishing Point”. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Truth is so unstable for Monson, in fact, that Vanishing Point is not only not a memoir but not a book as well––or, rather, not just a printed, permanent one. Monson’s website, www.otherelectricities.com, is an essential part of the experience of reading the book: Footnoted words are expanded upon online, to move the book beyond its status as an artifact and to reflect “flux, motion, synapses connecting and reconnecting and thinking exploding everywhere.” Even so, the old-fashioned text explodes in its own way. In “Exteriority” he pushes the text to the very edge of the page, removing the margins to show just how much they frame stories on paper. “Solipsism”––the essay that opens with those two pages of “Me”s––sprays out into sidebars, footnotes, and marginal digressions, the better to expose the performative act of writing.

Aubrey, Maturin and music ...

... Lazy Sunday Afternoon – Thankee, Killick.

Cheer up ...

... Hey writers, you’re one in a million! Literally!

You are not alone ...

... A Dreadful Confession. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

I can think of some novels I would not have finished if I had not been paid to write about them. Cormac McCarthy's The Road. Paul Theroux's Blinding Light. Just to name two. When reading for pleasure, I let the pleasure principle be my guide.

No mean feat ...

... Crafting a National Epic.

Risking the wrath of Google ...

... The Dirty Little Secrets of Search. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Dig in ...

... Reading recommendations.

Hmm ...

... Classical Music Linked to High Intelligence.

Like Jim, I don't think rap amounts to much in the way of music, but I think those who like symphonic music do so simply because they've become sufficiently acquainted with it. I think that most people, if they heard, say, Beethoven's eighth symphony once a day over a period of maybe three days, would come to like it. A symphony is a code, a more complex one than a song, but once you get to know the code, the rewards are great. Also, a really smart person knows when to listen to ragtime instead of Brahms.

Fact and fiction ...

... Kaputt: The Mice.

Re-reading ...

... Ring around Wagner.

Emptyspeak ...

... What Happens in Vagueness Stays in Vagueness. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

By autumn 1987, the job interviews revealed that “like” was no longer a mere slang usage. It had mutated from hip preposition into the verbal milfoil that still clogs spoken English today. Vagueness was on the march. Double-clutching (“What I said was, I said . . .”) sprang into the arena. Playbacks, in which a speaker re-creates past events by narrating both sides of a conversation (“So I’m like, ‘Want to, like, see a movie?’ And he goes, ‘No way.’ And I go . . .”), made their entrance.

Today's Inquirer reviews ...

... once again, I could not figure out how to link to any of The Inquirer's reviews. Guess they don't want anybody to link to their stuff. So be it.

Thought for the day ...

Writing is not a profession but a vocation of unhappiness.

- Georges Simenon, born on this date in 1903

Nice to know ...

... The Weather Isn't Getting Weirder.

Tinsel lives ...

... Remarkable Hollywood Lives.

Debbie and I recently watched Paul Muni in The Life of Emile Zola. What a wonderful actor. And I was bothered to learn recently how few of his great films -- Juarez, for instance -- are not easily available.

My favorite atheist ...

... courtesy Dave Lull.

I'm with Peter on this ...

... Women and men in the TLS.

You find the best reviewers that happen to come your way. You don't think about gender or race or whatever.

More comments. So I bumped the post.

Voices ...

... FOSSILS.

Eudaimonia ...

... and more: For a Little Room Behind the Shop. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

I think what is most contemporary about this piece is Brunskill's own assumption regarding "the blogger’s fear of silence or the desperate modern need to connect and communicate."

The last time I checked checked -- which was quite some time ago -- there were some 40 million column for the the same reason.blogs. Do either Bill Vallicella or Nige -- mon semblable, mon frère -- give any indication that they fear silence? Some of us blog for the same reason Montaigne wrote essays. I even write a column for that reason.

Seeing deeply ...

... Consider an Apple, Consider the World. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

In case you wondered ...

... Why Edgar Allan Poe crossed borders.

The talented Mr. Assange ...

... Julian Assange helped crack Victorian kid porn ring. (Hat tip, Lee Lowe.)

After the beginning ...

... Beautiful, Terrible Free Fall.

Ah, here we go ...

... Peter has posted the remarks he sent me yesterday: Vida and the pie charts. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Want to see a great artist?

... bear in mind. this is a studio recording: Jacques Brel La Quete.

This is the passion we all strive for. He is my favorite artist, period. I simply find him more authentic than any other. I would love to have known him.

Thought for the day ...

Ah, what a dusty answer gets the soul when hot for certainties in this our life!

- George Meredith, born on this date in 1828

The watcher at the parapet ...

... Unnature.

A useful gathering ...

... Links: Across the Pond.

'Twas ever thus ...

... Green’s Dictionary of Slang: Nagging wives and henpecked husbands.

The wise Montaigne says somewhere that the ideal marriage is one between a blind wife and a deaf husband.

Belated inquest ...

... Key’s Cupboard : An Inquiry Into The Death Of Virginia Woolf.

Very touching ...

... Happy V-Day. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Sell books ...

... not a pastime: Borders on the edge.

Unusual trinity ...

... `All Interweavingly Working Together'.

"... chance—aye, chance, free will, and necessity—no wise incompatible ..."

This would not appear to be Ahab's view, however.

Grisly, ghastly, gory, gruesome ...

... and more: The Reapers Are the Angels--Alden Bell.

RIP ...

... “Karma, I guess”: The American lama who saved Tibetan literature — memorial on Feb. 12 for Gene Smith.

Too proud to love ...

... O'Neill Staged on an Intimate Scale. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Debbie and I already have plans to see this.

Most interesting ...

... StratBlog.

This will explain: An Introduction and a Welcome.

Debbie's son, Kevin, is a Bard graduate. Before it became Bard, it was St. Stephen's. One noted graduate of St. Stephen's was Albert Jay Nock.

Unexpected perspectives ...

... Art's Web. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Radicalism in the arts, with its search for root causes, can be more closely aligned with conservatism than many people imagine. Harris opens Romantic Moderns with a crisis within England’s visual arts avant-garde, when the painter John Piper rejected a nonobjective vision in favor of a growing enthusiasm for earlier strains in English art, ranging from Romanesque sculpture to the picturesque landscape.

We, the Jesuit- trained, are smiling ...

... Forget Mandarin. Latin is the key to success.

Why, only yesterday, I was reacquainting myself with Virgil's Georgics. Really. There's a new Penguin edition out with Latin and English on facing pages. I was actually surprised at how much I remembered.

Thought for the day ...

The whole is simpler than the sum of its parts.

- J. Willard Gibbs, born on this date in 1839

OK ...

... What I was, am, and will be reading.

Eyewitness report ...

... Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld Kicks Off Book Tour At National Constitution Center In Philadelphia.

When Paul says the questions were softball, you can rest assured that's what they were.

Uh-oh ...

... Mixed Messages: Tantrums of an Angry Sun.

Should you be near Baltimore ...

... you might want to check this out: February 26 at Windup Space: The New Mercury Return.

Susan McCallum-Smith reviewed for me -- oh my, another woman! -- and her collection of short stories, Slipping the Moorings, is excellent.

Lawrence (of Arabia) times 2 ...

... T. E. Lawrence and The minor T. E. Lawrence.

Recognition at last ...

... The Architect of the City. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

No mention is made here of a Philadelphia he worked with and spoke well in his Autobiography of and Idea: Frank Furness.

Simply gorgeous ...

... Anenome-Time.

Best at her minimalist ...

... Fighting The New Yorker Over Extra Commas and Steaming Cowflops. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

This week's batch ...

... of TLS Letters: Mycenaeans and Hittites, Chinese archives, Misology, and more!

Something else ...

... from the dark, dank '50s, when television was a vast wasteland: DVD Review: The Adventures of Robin Hood.

Well, he is a politician ...

... Not Far Enough. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

More and more Western politicians, alas, have turned themselves into Islamic theologians, taking it upon themselves to assert that the jihadists have misunderstood their religion. The sobering truth is that jihad—the effort, in whatever form it may take, to bring the “House of War” (that is, the non-Muslim world) under sharia—is consistent with the teachings of the Koran and the example of Mohammed.

Well, yes. But a certain reading of the Bible could lead one to advocate policies frighteningly similar to those of the paleo-Muslims. Most Christians have moved beyond, that and I see no reason why Muslims could not as well.

Checking in

I wanted to provide a quick update as it's been a few weeks since I posted a response (as I like to do) on the books that I'm enjoying. The reason for this delay owes not to a lack of reading, but to the fact that I've written formal reviews for Rain Taxi covering two of the most recent books that I've completed. These reviews - which address the collected South American letters of Stefan and Lotte Zweig as well as a short anthology of Hemingway's dispatches as a young journalist in Paris - are slated to appear online, and in print, later this winter. When they do, I'll post a link. In the meanwhile, it's back to Thomas Cromwell in Mantel's Wolf Hall. It's long, but man can she wield a semi-colon!

Thought for the day ...

Clap an extinguisher upon your irony if you are unhappily blessed with a vein of it.

- Charles Lamb, born on this date in 1775

Watch out ...

... for the karma gods: On Accentuating the Negative in Bad Reviews.

Got me ...

... How Ya Like Me Now.

The criminal imagination ...

... After Patricia. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

I am just finishing The Patricia Highsmith Reader, which Schenkar edited, and I am also halfway through her superb biography of the writer -- biography at its absolute best. I think she is half in love with Highsmith -- maybe even more than half. I know I am. Which is saying something. There is something contagious about Highsmith adn her work -- and I do mean contagious.

A contest ...

... YOUR STORY ON SELECTED SHORTS.

Problematic locutions ...

... Words and Phrases that Make Me Feel Stupid.

Filthy lucre ...

... The Huffington Post: New-media equivalent of an antebellum plantation?

Most of the writing I have done in my life has been for money (as Dr. Johnson said, "no man but a blockhead ..."). But the idea of writing for other reasons is not entirely alien to me. I write my WFTC column because I have wanted to explore Montaigne's method of introspection. My choice. What disturbs about the Huffington Post is that Ariana Huffington is about to cash a very large check -- worth some $18 million -- because HuffPo aggregated and published lots of other people's work for free. If those who contributed of their own free will are OK with that, well, who am I to complain? And I suppose the people who wrote the stuff HuffPo "condensed" got paid by whoever they wrote for in the first place. But there remains something about all this that gives off a bad odor. I wonder how much those who do the condensing get paid. And I wonder if they will get anything out of the sale.

More here: Arianna Huffington's ideological transformation.

My own take on Ariana Huffington is that she is herself her ideology.

What we need, though ...

... is plumbers: Everyone Wants to be A Writer.

The tricky t ...

... A BRIEF ­­HISTORY OF THE WORDS AGAIN AND AGAINST,
WITH AMIDST, ACROSSED, AND WHILST BEING THROWN IN FOR GOOD MEASURE.

Critics and dentists ...

... Another Extract(ion).

Kindred spirits ...

... Duncan's Divagations: On Robert Duncan and H.D. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)

The Duncan family’s enthusiasm for the Theosophist Madame Blavatsky was contemporaneous with her association with Yeats when he was in his early 20s. Yeats is a touchstone for Duncan. Through his friendship with Pound, Yeats became part of an Imagist circle where his Helen—the offspring of “Leda and the Swan”—mingled with H.D.’s Helen, and his membership in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, a group of occultists active in turn-of-the-century Britain, paralleled her obsession with the ancient temple complex at Karnak, Egypt. Blavatsky’s counterculturalism was of a kind with the poets’: Yeats believed that poetry had “a secret tradition and doctrine”; H.D. believed “we are the keepers of the secret.”

Good question ...

... Poet D.A. Powell: “Why not celebrate?”

FYI ...

... Greg Bem Reviews Wild Life Rifle Fire by Paul Siegell.

We link ...

... you decide. Dueling letters.

... Letter No. 1.

... Letter No. 2.

(Hat tips to Dave Lull and Paul Davis.)

Holy apps!

... Bless me iPhone for I have sinned. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Hypermodern successor ...

... A Symbol for the New Egypt. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

A selection ...

... Five Books of Reagan.

I would one more, one that I reviewed: Ronald Reagan: A Life in Letters.

And it is a problem ...

... Science and the Is/Ought Problem. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Thought for the day ...

After being Turned Down by numerous Publishers, he had decided to write for Posterity.

- George Ade, born on this date in 1866

Links, links, links ...

... “So I’ll sing you a new song…”

Sentiment is one thing ...

... sentimentality is another: Don’t fear the weeper: Emotional art vs. sentimentality.

Why can’t we ever, for instance, leave happy from a horror film? Can’t the hero succeed and not have his success bloodily ripped away, along with his entrails, in the last six seconds?

Actually, Roman Polanski has been leaving happy out of his pictures for years. It makes for a kind of inverse sentimentality. When I first saw Rosemary's Baby, I wondered if they were going to next take the little Devil and have him christened.

The triumph of evil, I submit, is aesthetically dissatisfying. That doesn't mean a Polyanna ending. You can defeat evil in a particular instance without suggesting that all is going to be wonderful forever and ever. For there will be further conflicts.

Centenary lady ...

... my friend John Timpane, a fine poet himself, wrote about Elizabeth Bishop on Sunday, but I couldn't link to his piece. I can now (though you will have to put up with the ads -- another brilliant Inquirer innovation: Centenary celebration for poet Elizabeth Bishop.

In with the in crowd ...

... here's some more about what's below: Should We Be Surprised at Political Bias in Academia?

It is interesting — and sobering — that two fields, psychology and economics, that we rely upon to describe and amend bias in the world are themselves so susceptible to bias within the ranks of their practitioners.

I would add that bias is bias, whatever the reason.

Post bumped.

... Social Scientist Sees Bias Within.

“Anywhere in the world that social psychologists see women or minorities underrepresented by a factor of two or three, our minds jump to discrimination as the explanation,” said Dr. Haidt, who called himself a longtime liberal turned centrist. “But when we find out that conservatives are underrepresented among us by a factor of more than 100, suddenly everyone finds it quite easy to generate alternate explanations.”

As Yeats put it:

All shuffle there, all cough in ink;

All wear the carpet with their shoes;

All think what other people think;

All know the man their neighbour knows.

Alternate Nobels ...

... SHOCKING REVELATION! NOBEL LIT PRIZE HAS BEEN PICKED BY A ROBOT SINCE 1994!

I don't agree with all the alternatives. Pär Lagerkvist and François Mauriac are very good writers (which is not to say anything against Dorothy Parker Giuseppe Tomaso di Lampedusa).

Together at last ...

... Karl Popper and George Eliot: Seems vaguely Popperian.

Check this out ...

... A Year in the Country.

Jesse is my co-blogger Jesse Freedman.

Join the fun ...

... Time to Choose Another Book!

Perchance to dream ...

... THE ROLE OF DREAMS IN CREATIVITY, PROPHECY AND CONSCIOUSNESS TO BE EXPLORED IN A SERIES OF DIALOGUES AT THE RUBIN MUSEUM.

The Rubin Museum is a great place to visit, period.

Ye olde ASCII art!

The question of ...

... Genre.

Words fail ...

... Make this call in the wild: Should Oregon shoot barred owls to save spotted owls?

We shouldn't interfere with Nature -- unless Nature doesn't do what we want it to. So much for Almighty Evolution.

Armed with metaphor ...

... Beyond Compare. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

... a raft of modern brain scientists are pursuing the theory that metaphor matches the ways in which we organize our thinking. Mr. Geary's book is an effort to popularize their work, and he succeeds in making the case that metaphor is the meat of language and not a sauce.

See also: Author James Geary Gets Metaphorical On Us. (Also from Dave.)

In the comment below, Dave quotes Neil Ward: I try to use metaphors--cliches or other types--as rarely as possible, although occasionally offering a well thought-out and complex metaphor in an explicit context, such that it surprises the reader into confronting its implications, seems useful.

This seems to conflate metaphors with clichés. But properly employed, metaphor is anything but clichés. It is an alchemy of language and perception. "Nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands," E.E. Cummings wrote. Nothing clichéd about that.

Post bumped.

So much resonates ...

... Death is the Road to Awe.

More than a story ...

... Julio Cortazar "The Winners" (And I'm moving).

This week ...

... at Five Chapters: Vicious Good.

A wide horizon ...

... Uncertainty's promise. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Plus ça change ...

... Bakunin with a MacBook.

Assange has expressed indifference to the harm that might be done to innocents in Afghanistan and Iraq as a result of his unredacted disclosures. When Amnesty International warned him of the likelihood that the Taliban would kill named informants and human rights activists, he flippantly dismissed such criticism by saying, “I’m very busy and have no time to deal with people who prefer to do nothing but cover their asses.” (The Taliban, meanwhile, have set up a commission to compare a list of 1,800 Afghan informants with the names that appeared in WikiLeaks.)