"Isis persecution of Iraqi Christians has become genocide, says [sic] religious leaders” in The Guardian. You mean marking homes with a “nun” sign; torturing, mutilating, raping Iraqi Christians; the destruction of 1,800-year-old churches and shrines; beheading children and crucifying adult adherents; burning homes and driving thousands of people from their homes with a warning to convert or be put to the sword – that didn’t count already?If Isis were Christian, Western media would be outraged.
Saturday, August 09, 2014
Getting our terms straight …
… When is murder genocide? Obama drops the “g” word. | The Book Haven.
So true …
… "The Impossible Exile" review: Stefan Zweig's Overdue Revival | New Republic. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Zweig's biographical essays should not only be reissued, but studied. Their subjects always come across as persons, not catalogues.
Zweig's biographical essays should not only be reissued, but studied. Their subjects always come across as persons, not catalogues.
A thought for today …
The person that loses their conscience has nothing left worth keeping.
— Izaak Walton, born on this date in 1593
Where stories emerge...
...The mystery of Sebastian Barry’s grandfather
I was in the bed with him while he told me everything about his life, except probably, the real things, because of course you couldn’t go there.”
Friday, August 08, 2014
At the movies …
Saw Calvary today, the new film out of Ireland. I could identify completely with the mood of Catholicism it depicts. The innocent is sacrificed on behalf of the guilty. In the meantime, things happen, and are sometimes heartbreaking. So virtues deserve more time in the pulpit than sins. Of the virtues, one in particular, forgiveness, tends to be under-appreciated, and not spoken of enough, let alone practiced.It has been said that there can be no Christian tragedy. But that is because the redemptive dimension of tragedy tends to be overlooked. The Oresteia ends with the Furies transformed into the Eumenides, the Happy Ones, and Oedipus, in the end, is led into heaven, redeemed through suffering.The film's epigraph is attributed to St. Augustine: "Do not despair, one of the thieves was saved. Do not presume, one of the thieves was damned." It is true, no matter who said it. Presumption and despair are the two unforgivable sins. Despair, of course, means thinking God can't forgive you. Presumption means thinking that he has to. In neither case do you think to ask for forgiveness. To be religious means to inhabit the ambiguous region in between, armed only with a hunch called faith.
Good news …
… and not only for the students: beyond eastrod: English usage and the seductive lure of the classroom . . .
Apathy?
… The Millions : A New Lease on Apathy: On Samuel Beckett’s Echo’s Bones. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Far from being apathetic, Beckett seems to have been passionately taken with death from the start, as soon as the impact of it hit him, which seems to have been at a very early age. He seems to have taken it as his route into life. After all, in the long run you can only deal with life, the experience of death being purely hypothetical until you die.
Far from being apathetic, Beckett seems to have been passionately taken with death from the start, as soon as the impact of it hit him, which seems to have been at a very early age. He seems to have taken it as his route into life. After all, in the long run you can only deal with life, the experience of death being purely hypothetical until you die.
Settlements and snobbery …
… Bryan Appleyard — ‘Burbs Versus ‘Hoods. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I live in a neighborhood, one going to the dogs — literally, as it becomes more and more gentrified. But, as Bryan notes regarding Dumbo, there are neighborhoods and then there are neighborhoods. You don't see any of the city-snobs rushing to live in Detroit, and there are neighborhood here in Philly they wouldn't dare visit in broad daylight.
Worth a thousand words …
… Bruce Charlton's Miscellany: The corruption of science en-pictured. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
A thought for today …
In history the way of annihilation is invariably prepared by inward degeneration, by decrease of life. Only then can a shock from outside put an end to the whole.
— Jakob Burckhardt, who died on this date in 1897
Thursday, August 07, 2014
The ghost of grams I …
… Historic fail? Greatest Americans missing from proposed curriculum | Fox News.
“It presents American history as one long story of groups in conflict,” she told FoxNews.com. “It does not focus on individuals at all. The idea seems to be that the only force in history worth considering is the group identity — and all of these groups are in constant conflict according to this particular narrative.”
Some sort of public shaming seems called for.
Image and object, with a subject in between …
… Twitter — Troubled and troubling. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Do read the article linked to. It is very good.
Do read the article linked to. It is very good.
Attention should be paid …
… A poet who spoke to the black gay experience, and a quest to make him heard — The Washington Post. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
From 1981 till his death from AIDS in 1995, Hemphill captivated the D.C. arts scene. He was a focal point for what people were calling a second Harlem Renaissance, and one of the sole writers to articulate what it meant to be both black and gay during the 1980s and early 1990s.
Hmm …
… A Savior for Christian Writing on the Web | The Common Vision. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Well, I'm a big fan of both Denise Levertov and Christian Wiman, I know a bit about phenomenology, and I agree with most of what is said here, but I have miraculously missed exposure to the god-awful Christian writing on the internet that this piece makes so much of. Most of what I have seen has been pretty good.
Well, I'm a big fan of both Denise Levertov and Christian Wiman, I know a bit about phenomenology, and I agree with most of what is said here, but I have miraculously missed exposure to the god-awful Christian writing on the internet that this piece makes so much of. Most of what I have seen has been pretty good.
Misuse alert …
From this article posted on The Hill:
Democrats have certainly been more willing to breach the topic in Washington.
Where he started from …
… Updike's home to open as museum.
"He said if he ever had a ghost, it would haunt this house," says [Maria] Mogford, an English professor at nearby Albright College.
A thought for today …
I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.
— Rabindranath Tagore, who died on this date in 1941
Risk and reward...
...Carl Phillips' 'The Art of Daring' celebrates literature as risk
“Maybe daring,” he suggests, “is akin to an abandoning of the self to something not entirely knowable. In that regard, it’s a bit like faith.”
Wednesday, August 06, 2014
Reading and writing …
… Review-a-Day — First We Read, Then We Write: Emerson on the Creative Process by Robert D. Richardson, reviewed by The Wilson Quarterly — Powell's Books. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
The author of Nature (1836) and such seminal essays as "The American Scholar" and "Self-Reliance," Emerson (1803–82) believed that reading should be a vigorous culling of facts and ideas, directly in the service of one's own intellectual production. Too often, he observed, we read as sluggards, "drugged with books." Thus, he encouraged what we would call speed-reading: Turn "page after page, keeping your writer's thought before you, but not tarrying with him, until he has brought you the thing you are in search of." Most important, don't forget that "you only read to start your own team."
Timeless stupidity …
… The case against time zones: They're impractical & outdated — Vox.
Why not jettison day, night, morning, and afternoon while we're at it? And who needs twilight or dusk? Maybe we should have just one global season, too. Why the hell should we let some big ball of exploding gases 93 millions miles away dictate how we view things here on Earth?
No wonder Jeff Bezos let Ezra Klein take a hike from the Washington Post.
A thought for today …
All that passes is raised to the dignity of expression; all that happens is raised to the dignity of meaning. Everything is either symbol or parable.
— Paul Claudel, born on this date in 1868
Vs what it can...
...What college can't do
One of the ironies of college is that the impossibility of reading your way out of the modern predicament is something you learn about, as a student, by reading. Part of the value of a humanistic education has to do with a consciousness of, and a familiarity with, the limits that you’ll spend the rest of your life talking about and pushing against. So it’s probably natural for college students to be a little ironic, a little unsettled. It’s time, meanwhile, to admit that the college years aren’t for figuring out some improvised “sense of purpose.” They’re more like a period of acclimatization—a time when realizations can dawn. If you’re feeling uneasy about life, then you’re doing the reading.
Tuesday, August 05, 2014
One liberal thinks …
… Liberals Are Killing Art by Insisting That It's Always Political | New Republic. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Are the liberal-spirited people who support a rational public policy—a social safety net, consistency and efficiency in foreign affairs, steps to reverse global warming—reluctant to embrace art’s celebration of unfettered metaphor and mystery and magic?
But it is the failure to embrace metaphor and mystery and magic that prevents such people from discerning the flaws in those things that they support. A rational public policy is a menu of abstractions. The validity of an abstraction derives from the degree to which it apprehends reality, but the rough-and-tumble of reality does not derive its validity from any abstraction. An abstraction is like an index card, to be referred to, perhaps, from time to time.
Well, not really …
… John Updike the Blogger | Stephen H. Webb | First Things. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
The net impact of this rather cheerful form of Christianity on his reception as a writer was decidedly negative, and he knew it. “As to critics, it seems to be my fate to disappoint my theological friends by being not Christian enough, while I’m too Christian for Harold Bloom’s blessing. So be it.” Updike was not a martyr for his faith, but he was not above treating mainline Protestantism as the cross he was meant to carry.
Exalted reading …
… Christopher Ricks on Keats and Embarrassment � The Dabbler. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Burying the lead …
… The Man In the Mirror | Big Trial | Philadelphia Trial Blog.
My suggestion: revive the book section. Make it competitive withe New York Times's, because that's one reason why people in Philly are buying the Sunday Times, even though the Times's book section is hardly what it used to be. Bear in mind, if someone reads books, there's a high probability said person likes to read, period. Such a person might even want to read your newspaper.
Reality and perception …
… The Scandal of Calvary | Lauren Ely | First Things. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Every hackneyed anti-Church saying one can think of is used by the townspeople as a taunt against Fr. James: that the Church is only out for money, that priests are control freaks, that Catholicism has no good answer for the problem of evil. By contrast we see Fr. James doing the hard, daily work of the priest with dogged fidelity as he counsels prisoners, administers last rites in the middle of the night, and comforts a young widow. The film paints very clearly the life of the priest in stark relief to the world’s perception of what a priest is, all while allowing Fr. James to retain his spirited, gruff, flawed humanity.Of course, perception partakes of reality, and provides access to it.
A thought for today …
It is the lives we encounter that make life worth living.
— Guy de Maupassant, born on this date in 1850
From the archives...
...Passion plays
Albee, in other words, is not only protective of the unconscious as the source of his livelihood; he defers to it, and respects its territory. An unconscious has its own ways and moods and thoughts, he feels, and they should be respected by its host. Albee is a union man. The unconscious does work; therefore the unconscious has rights.
More power to them...
...Emerging Muslim movement embraces gay and interfaith marriages, female imams and mixed prayers
In Los Angeles, a religious group called Muslims for Progressive Values has been pushing the boundaries with a female imam who performs same-sex and interfaith marriages, support groups for gay Muslims and a worship style that includes women giving sermons and men and women praying together. The group has chapters in half a dozen major U.S. cities and at least six foreign countries and last year was recognized by the United Nations as an official non-governmental organization.
Monday, August 04, 2014
Sad, but true …
… Roger L. Simon � Welcome to the 1930s.
Roger probably does not remember, but when I was still The Inquirer's book review editor, he and I exchanged emails on just this subject.
Roger probably does not remember, but when I was still The Inquirer's book review editor, he and I exchanged emails on just this subject.
A thought for today …
In old age we are like a batch of letters that someone has sent. We are no longer in the past, we have arrived.
— Knut Hamsun, born on this date in 1859
Faithful to principle …
… Book Review: 'Seeking the North Star' by John R. Silber — WSJ. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Silber was often labeled "conservative." In fact, and as he always insisted, he was a liberal of the old school. He believed in advancement according to merit, not quotas; colorblind justice; the disinterested pursuit of truth; and open debate, not ideological conformity. This commitment to what we might call classical liberalism—the liberalism of an Edmund Burke or John Stuart Mill —forms an important leitmotif of "Seeking the North Star." It also explains why Silber was from the beginning on a collision course with the faux-liberalism, the illiberal liberalism, of contemporary academic culture. "No institution," he writes sadly, "has contributed so extensively to the deracination and diminishment of our humanity as university faculties."
Mankind was her business …
… A Good Woman Is Hard to Figure — Crisis Magazine. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
The Catholic writer who sees Christ in everything, who is concerned with truth, and who does not avoid getting a little dirt on her hands writing about the world as it is, this writer will see sin as sin, will write it true, and will draw unattractive characters because they are unattractive. A teenage girl calling a good Christian woman a warthog from hell, a wife who beats the image of Christ tattooed on her husband’s back, a woman who watches in silence while her hired man—her savior—is crushed by a tractor—these are human figures wrenched out of the shape God formed them to take. Sin is ugly, there is no getting around that, and a character whose habit is sin will be rightly painted ugly, twisted, grotesque. It is a difficult task to tell the truth about ugliness without being preachy, and only the most accomplished imagination, one that breathes through the goodness of art, could do it. Flannery O’Connor’s was this kind of imagination.
Sunday, August 03, 2014
In case you wondered …
… How Did Bob Dylan Get So Weird? — Vulture. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
For someone who seems to be in such plain sight, he remains hidden, present but opaque, an open book written in cipher. Normal questions don’t seem to do him justice. You want to ask: What is Bob Dylan? Why is Bob Dylan? After listening to him since I was a kid and seeing him live for—gulp—nearly 40 years, I think I’m beginning to figure it out.
A thought for today …
Cities, like cats, will reveal themselves at night.
— Rupert Brooke, born on this date in 1887
A very nice phrase, that, by a writer who, thanks to contemporaries who loved him, and though 137 years ago, in the collective conscious remains a beautiful youth.
Saturday, August 02, 2014
A thought for today …
The genuine artist is never 'true to life.' He sees what is real, but not as we are normally aware of it. We do not go storming through life like actors in a play. Art is never real life.
— Wallace Stevens, who died on this date in 1955
Privileged Marxist …
… Alexander Cockburn's "A Colossal Wreck" Reviewed by Paul Berman | New Republic. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Yet other readers began to worry, after a while, that his several mischievous traits pointed in a single direction, which was antipathy for the Jews. This, too, could have been acceptable, so long as he knew when to give it a rest. He enjoyed goading his public, though, and was never any good at calculating the reaction. Even in A Colossal Wreck he can’t help writing, “So now it’s anti-Semitic to attack banks and bond houses?”There are plenty like him around today.
Friday, August 01, 2014
Q&A…
… World War I Poets: An Interview With Alfred Corn — Jonathan Hobratsch. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Actually, poems about what is sometimes called "the Great War" continued to be written for decades after the fact, by poets who were not contemporaries of the event. The best-known example is Philip Larkin's "MCMXIV," with the famous lines "Never such innocence,/Never before or since."
An email of interest to writers …
.+Although+professor+Fitger+is%E2%80%94despite+his+correct+opinions+on+the+current+state+of...&p[ref]=sl_live&p[images][0]=http://www.slate.com/content/dam/slate/articles/arts/books/2014/08/140805_books_illo.jpg/_jcr_content/renditions/cq5dam.web.1280.1280.jpeg&p[url]=http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/books/2014/08/julie_schumacher_s_novel_dear_committee_members_reviewed.html?wpsrc=sh_all_dt_tw_top){kind=link}
… posted with permission.
WRITING TUTORIAL DEADLINE APPROACHES
July 29th, 2014
Dear Friends,
Beginning August 12th, I will work with select participants on an individual, private basis for 10 weeks.
There are 8 slots available!
We’ll begin your tutorial with a phone or Skype interview, after which I’ll create a course-long agenda just for you.
This will include weekly email check-ins consisting of an email of 500 words or less from you, and a response of corresponding length from me. You’ll also share your ongoing work with me, and I will discuss, critique and edit it.
You will have the additional option of checking in with me by phone or Skype during the 10-week intensive.
This is a perfect opportunity to advance your writing projects and spark your creativity by working one-on-one with an empathic writer, mentor, editor, publisher and speaker.
Enrollment is limited to 8 participants. If you wish to sign up, email me a description of your current project(s) and your short-term and long-term goals. Let’s work together to tell the stories only you can tell!
Please email me at rmcdowell@mind.net with any questions. The cost of this 10-week private workshop is $949.00, payable with check or via PayPal.
If you know of anyone you think would benefit from this workshop, please share this information.
Biography of Robert McDowell
Robert McDowell is a poet, storyteller, speaker, educator and author of sixteen books including Poetry as Spiritual Practice (Free Press/Simon and Schuster). His latest book of poems, The World Next to This One was published in 2014 by Salmon Press, Ireland. He is also the co-author of two volumes of literary theory, co-translator of a collection of stories by Ota Pavel, in the Eastern European Penguin Classics Series, and the editor of three anthologies. His poems, stories, essays, and reviews have appeared in hundreds of anthologies and periodicals, including Best American Poetry, Poetry, London Magazine, The New Criterion, Sewanee Review, and The Hudson Review.
He co-founded Story Line Press, serving as its publisher/editor , where he created the Rural Readers Project and selected and guided into print 300 books by Pulitzer Prize winners, A Nobel Laureate, five U.S. Poet Laureates, and intermediate and beginning writers. As a lifelong mentor of emerging poets, he has particularly championed women in print, literacy and women’s rights.
A two-year Woolrich Fellow at Columbia University, a Walter E. Dakin Fellow at the Sewanee Writers Conference, and a finalist for the Oregon Book Award, Robert has taught at Bennington College’s M.F.A. Program, the University of Southern Indiana, and the University of California at Santa Cruz. He’s led writing retreats at Esalen, Kripalu, Pine Manor, the Taos Writers Conference, Sewanee Writers Conference, Mendocino Coast Writers Conference, Killybegs Festival in Ireland, and elsewhere. He is a dynamic keynote speaker and workshop leader, and recently performed at the United Nations in Geneva with Dr. Rama Mani.
*
Poetry as Spiritual Practice: Reading, Writing, and Using Poetry in Your Daily Rituals, Aspirations, and Intentions and The More We Get Together: The Sexual and Spiritual Language of Love and other collections are available at my website, atwww.IndieBound.org, www.amazon.com, and www.b&n.com or by request at your local bookstore.
Follow me on Twitter @mcdowellrobert
But is it?
… Is Poetry Dead? Not if 45 Official Laureates Are Any Indication — NYTimes.com. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
A final work …
… An epic, posthumous novel from Oscar Hijuelos to be published — LA Times. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
In search of meaning …
… Paris Review – The Vale of Soul-Making, Jeffrey C. Johnson. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
… what Keats could not, or refused to, see is that the irrationality he perceived in religious salvation is present in his own system, too. There’s no ultimate purpose to the suffering that he, his family, and his patients have had to endure; it’s not as if the fever of tuberculosis consciously, benevolently struck Keats’s mother and brother to help them shape their souls. But Keats went to great lengths to convince himself of just that
A thought for today …
To know how to grow old is the master work of wisdom, and one of the most difficult chapters in the great art of living.
— Herman Melville, born on this date in 1819
It has plenty to do …
…Good philosophy answering bad. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
But if a necessary truth does not depend on the material universe, where is it if the material universe does not exist? In a mind, since it is an abstract object and abstract objects require minds.I have been re-reading Sir Arthur Eddington's The Nature of the Physical World. Eddington's view seems in accord with this.
Times, you know...
...Just William by Richmal Crompton - review
It's very old-fashioned. I am quite surprised how children are allowed to play outside with each other whenever they want without asking.
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