Delight at having understood a very abstract and obscure system leads most people to believe in the truth of what it demonstrates.- Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Thought for the day ...
Saturday, April 18, 2009
I thought so ...
... A word to the wise.
I thought I saw Terry there. I even thought for a nanosecond or two of introducing myself, but then figured, why intrude on his privacy?
I thought I saw Terry there. I even thought for a nanosecond or two of introducing myself, but then figured, why intrude on his privacy?
Stage poet ...
... Celebrating Yeats, Revered for Verse, but Who Aspired to a Life in the Theater. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
The spirit of place (cont'd.) ...
... How Room Designs Affect Your Work and Mood. (Hat tip, Lee Low.)
More on ...
... Sir John Maddox:
... Sir John Maddox: Editor of Nature.
... The Skeptical Prophet.
... COMPLEXITY AND CATASTROPHE: A Talk With Sir John Maddox.
... Sir John Maddox: Editor of Nature.
... The Skeptical Prophet.
... COMPLEXITY AND CATASTROPHE: A Talk With Sir John Maddox.
Thought for the day ...
Men resemble great deserted palaces: the owner occupies only a few rooms and has closed-off wings where he never ventures.- François Mauriac
Friday, April 17, 2009
It all sounds nuts ...
... to me: Theology Has Consequences. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Religion and theology are not the same thing. The great religious traditions were born, not constructed. The notion that you can arrive at one the way you might construct a political platform is ludicrous. But we live in a ludicrous age.
And the winners are ...
... Announcing the 2009 Indies Choice Book Award Winners! (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
The Miltonic model ...
... Tips for Poets Inspired by Another Dead White Male. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Quite a fellow ...
... Sir Clement Freud: journalist, broadcaster, cook and former MP.
... A liberal talent.
I remember seeing, years ago, on talk shows over here.
... A liberal talent.
Sir Clement's stock of jokes and anecdotes was inexhaustible. His mishaps offered a particularly rich seam for his humour. When adjudicating a tug-of-war at a local fête, he jovially urged one exhausted participant to get up again. The man turned out to be dead.
I remember seeing, years ago, on talk shows over here.
Attention locals ...
... Words and music. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
But for Dave I might not even know what's going on around here.
But for Dave I might not even know what's going on around here.
Henry Miller
INTERVIEWER: Didn't you say somewhere, "I am for obscenity and against pornography"?
MILLER: Well, it's very simple. The obscene would be the forthright, and pornography would be the roundabout. I believe in saying the truth, coming out with it cold, shocking if necessary, not disguising it. In other words, obscenity is a cleansing process, whereas pornography only adds to the murk.
For the full interview, see the Paris Review.
MILLER: Well, it's very simple. The obscene would be the forthright, and pornography would be the roundabout. I believe in saying the truth, coming out with it cold, shocking if necessary, not disguising it. In other words, obscenity is a cleansing process, whereas pornography only adds to the murk.
For the full interview, see the Paris Review.
This week's batch ...
... of TLS Letters: Not a Shakespeare portrait, The Lit & Phil, Flann O'Brien, and more!
It worked for Beckett ...
... Le Mot Juste. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
On the other hand: French-language bookstores dying east and west.
On the other hand: French-language bookstores dying east and west.
Mark your calendars ...
... 10th Annual LIT MAG MARATHON WEEKEND.
And it's all free. Having just been to Manhattan, I can use an excuse to go again.
And it's all free. Having just been to Manhattan, I can use an excuse to go again.
Finding myself ...
... in good company: `The Beautifullest Harmonies'.
Coincidentally, I have just written something in which Cheever figures prominently. My thanks to Patrick for the kind - and most perceptive - words.
Coincidentally, I have just written something in which Cheever figures prominently. My thanks to Patrick for the kind - and most perceptive - words.
Thought for the day ...
A bad manner spoils everything, even reason and justice; a good one supplies everything, gilds a No, sweetens a truth, and adds a touch of beauty to old age itself.- Baltasar Gracian
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Cross-pollination ...
... C. S. Lewis, Ruth Pitter, and Perelandra.
... On Ruth Pitter, poet and friend of C.S. Lewis.
(Hat tip to Dave Lull for both links.)
I wrote a piece about Perelandra last year in which, if memory serves, I quote a letter Lewis wrote to Pitter. I'll have to check when I have time.
... On Ruth Pitter, poet and friend of C.S. Lewis.
(Hat tip to Dave Lull for both links.)
I wrote a piece about Perelandra last year in which, if memory serves, I quote a letter Lewis wrote to Pitter. I'll have to check when I have time.
By the time this posts ...
... Debbie and I will be returning from Manhattan after seeing the Bonnard exhibition at the Met. Some posts have been scheduled for later, but otherwise light blogging.
Amazing grace ...
... Scottish church lady finds her voice. (Hat tip, Joseph Chovanes.)
This is the nearest I have ever come to seeing something even remotely like American Idol. This is a British version, which also features Simon Cowell, whom I had never seen before, either. It's quite a story.
Thought for the day ...
This is what is ultimate in the human knowledge of God: to know that we do not know God.- Thomas Aquinas
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Keeping in touch ...
... If Only Literature Could Be a Cellphone-Free Zone. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
But not everyone has a cell phone (I don't) and not everyone who has one has them turned on all the time.
But not everyone has a cell phone (I don't) and not everyone who has one has them turned on all the time.
Poetry and economics ...
... The poetry, and wisdom, of Seamus Heaney. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
In a recent interview, Heaney said he was often asked what the value of poetry was during times of economic recession. The answer, he explained, is that it is at just such moments of crisis that people realize that they do not live by economics alone. "If poetry and the arts do anything, they can fortify your inner life, your inwardness," Heaney said.Sort of the way some people turn to God in times of trouble. Foul-weather friends. Of course, some people see religion - and poetry - not as a means of improving the self but of escaping it, getting beyond it to something less small. As for silence, I manage to find time for it every day. It can be most disconcerting.
But are we sure ...
... about this? The virtues of uncertainty. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Faith, properly understood, does not offer certainty, but a means of coping with doubt, which is ever-present.
Faith, properly understood, does not offer certainty, but a means of coping with doubt, which is ever-present.
Crox rocks ...
... On The Road Again, Again. (Hat tip, Maxine Clarke. No word on whether Maxine will be boogieing there as well.)
Hear ye, hear ye ....
... Amazon and Penguin Group (USA) Announce 100 Semifinalists for Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award.
Three of them are from Pennsylvania.
Three of them are from Pennsylvania.
Hmm ...
... Break Journalism Rules When You Blog? (Hat tip, Paul Davis.)
It's called breaking news.
Tell only part of the story because "the beauty of a blog is you can update immediately as more details become apparent or earlier reports are disputed."
It's called breaking news.
Vaudeville of despair ...
... From Venice to Varanasi. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Not my idea of a fun read.... every possibility is shadowed by its negation, and nothing can ever be completed, because it is always being ceaselessly re-started.
Remembering Mr. Maugham ...
... Posterity makes its choice. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Maugham's The Painted Veil is also rather good, and art critic John Canaday thought The Moon and Sixpence was a better take on Gauguin than many more serious biographies. We went to see The Constant Wife a couple of years ago and it was great theater (it was also a hit), but I think Maugham's best work is his short stories.
Thought for the day ...
Poetry proceeds from the totality of man, sense, imagination, intellect, love, desire, instinct, blood and spirit together.- Jacques Maritain
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
More than that ...
... actually: Enameled Lady: How Katherine Anne Porter perfected herself. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I think Katherine Anne Porter is consistently better than this piece would suggest. I rather suspect Capote ended his days wishing he had managed to become a perfected presence himself. But Porter was a lot tougher than he was, a lot tougher than most of us, probably.
Most interesting indeed ...
... The gods cannot be proved.
I tend largely to agree with what both David and Elberry say, if only because the notion of God as the terminus ad quem of a reasoning process has long struck me as dumb, as does the preoccupation with the "historical Jesus." Only a moron like Bill Maher would still assert that Jesus did not exist. The peculiar thing about Jesus is that more seems to have been written about him by contemporaries and near contempraries than any other figure from that time. I also think that what David and Elberry are demonstrating here is what an authentic religious response looks like.
One thing that Elberry says, though, struck me: "If an absolute meaning is to be communicated to the world it must do so within the world; and so it cannot be absolute, or it would destroy the world—that is, it would not be apprehendable in worldly terms; the world would end where it began." The difficulty he raises is valid, but it would seem to be precisely what the Incarnation is meant to address. I have just come from morning Mass (though this post won't appear until this afternoon) and the Gospel today was of Mary Magdalene encountering Jesus after the Resurrection and being told by her Noli me tangere. It's the sort of detail no one would make up, it seems to me. But it brought to my mind Eliot's line about the intersection of the timeless with time, which is also what I think Elberry is addressing.
One thing that Elberry says, though, struck me: "If an absolute meaning is to be communicated to the world it must do so within the world; and so it cannot be absolute, or it would destroy the world—that is, it would not be apprehendable in worldly terms; the world would end where it began." The difficulty he raises is valid, but it would seem to be precisely what the Incarnation is meant to address. I have just come from morning Mass (though this post won't appear until this afternoon) and the Gospel today was of Mary Magdalene encountering Jesus after the Resurrection and being told by her Noli me tangere. It's the sort of detail no one would make up, it seems to me. But it brought to my mind Eliot's line about the intersection of the timeless with time, which is also what I think Elberry is addressing.
Are your ready, now?
... Now read this! James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake.
I once saw Tommy Makem and Liam Clancy do a show. At one point Tommy announced that Liam would next recite James Joyce's Finnegans Wake. He did in fact recite something like the first four pages. It was unforgettable, music made of words.
Economics and life ...
... Benoit Mandelbrot and the wildness of financial markets. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Thought for the day ...
Here is the Golden Rule of sound citizenship, the first and greatest lesson in the study of politics: You get the same order of criminality from any State to which you give power to exercise it; and whatever power you give the State to do things FOR you carries with it the equivalent power to do things TO you.- Albert Jay Nock
Monday, April 13, 2009
Birthday boy ...
... Beckett: A Birthday Thought. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Where I am, I don't know, I'll never know, in the silence you don't know, you must go on, I can't go on, I'll go on.- Samuel Beckett
Light blogging today ...
...I have a large article to finish writing. But here are a few links, courtesy of Dave Lull:
... `What We Know Not to Be Possible'.
... The Christian Poet in an Age of Anxiety. (You have to scroll down; it's on the right.)
... When the Flock Changed, A Novel Excerpt by Maud Newton.
... `What We Know Not to Be Possible'.
... The Christian Poet in an Age of Anxiety. (You have to scroll down; it's on the right.)
... When the Flock Changed, A Novel Excerpt by Maud Newton.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
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