Sunday, April 22, 2012

Most welcome...

....The third industrial revolution

Governments have always been lousy at picking winners, and they are likely to become more so, as legions of entrepreneurs and tinkerers swap designs online, turn them into products at home and market them globally from a garage. As the revolution rages, governments should stick to the basics: better schools for a skilled workforce, clear rules and a level playing field for enterprises of all kinds. Leave the rest to the revolutionaries.

Today's Inquirer reviews …

… Book review of Brad Meltzer's 'Heroes for My Daughter'.

… ‘Pretty Little Liars’ a reflection of Sara Shepard’s Philly-area upbringing.

… 'Reagan and Thatcher' examines ties between two Cold War victors.

… Collected Philip Larkin: A sobering triumph of exquisitely finished poems.

… Book review: Ruth Prawer Jhabvala's story collection 'A Lovesong for India'.

Thought for the day …

Fashion is the science of appearance, and it inspires one with the desire to seem rather than to be.

— Henry Fielding, born on this date in 1707

Making a point...

....David Starkey: 'I can be a bit harsh'

...Writings on India

Books about India are a mixed bag of success for any type of writer (Indian or phoren, home-grown or imported) because we are, as French points out, still grappling with narratives that have been been done to death. We continue to be in a transition phase where books on spices and magic sit cheek by jowl with the likes of "Five Point Someone". French credits "God of Small Things" with originality and a brash new idiom. I am not so sure. Essentially, GOST too was targeted at a foreign audience and therefore, not too out of league of that other breed of writers -- French satirises them -- whose hearts bleed for vernaculars but who jump at the chance to be published in London or New York. What we need is an Indian story where Indians are human and human alone, not burdened by the hundreds of, if I may say so, Orientalist stereotypes.

Saturday, April 21, 2012

Hear, hear...

Don't read the last rites for hardbacks just yet

Woman, breathe!

A Cowed Down Nation

Kandasamy overdoes her spiel. The cow has a sacred place in the Hindu mindspace and no amount of rationalising/quoting Foucault and Freud will change matters. Her analysis is overkill, plain and simple! The totally uncalled for correlation between beef-non-eating and vaginal fairness creams and how that segues with patriarchy is a bit much, in my opinion. This is not scholarship, it's vendetta!

Who knew …

… PJ Media — The Most Important Story of Our Time — and the Only Journalist Covering It.

Discourse disconnect …

… A Vivid Reminder of How The Climate Debate is Broken - Forbes.

The ratio of ad hominem attacks to actual thoughtful discussion of science is just amazing, and the implicit assumption that there are no people of goodwill on the other side of the debate is both wrong and dangerous. I invite you to compare the tone, content, and tenor of his articles on climate with mine on this site. There have been five: Here, here, here, hereand this one you are reading. The first two try to pin down where skeptics do and don’t agree with the theory of catastrophic man-made climate change. The other three, including this one, have been lamentations on why the discourse around climate is so unproductive.

Review …

… Paul Davis On Crime: Joseph Wambaugh's New Cop Novel 'Harbor Nocturne' Offers Street Drama And Dark Humor.

Magnifique …

… The post-Moebius upholders of a proud French comic book tradition | Books | guardian.co.uk.

Remains of the day...

...The unsinkable legacy

… it is hardly surprising that, according to a survey recently conducted by Lloyds Bank, a fifth of all people with assets of more than $640,000 are thinking of leaving the country. Personally I am surprised it is so few. Other surveys have shown that at least 50% of the population wants to leave, in the main to flee the other 50% of the population.

Well, the Brits we saw visiting Dublin Dublin a few years back were hardly advertisements for civility. But rudeness — and worse, much worse — can be found everywhere these days. A neighbor of ours was just attacked down the street from hear a few nights ago. Even I am wary now of walking the streets late at night.

Reviews and more …

… Group Pen B.A. Book Reviews.

How not to write …

… including the worst sentence in the book (not the one quoted below, however): The American Conservative — Gloomy Gus Goes to College. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

… Eric G. Wilson doesn’t make anybody laugh, unless it be at him. He uses Aristotle’s theory of catharsis—tragedy drains the audience of pity and terror, leaving them purified—to defend his compulsive need to view human road kill at auto accidents. Then, with dizzying speed, he applies it to violence in popular entertainment in a sentence that, so help me, I have copied correctly: “I’m a defender of the catharsis theory, at least partially, and probably more than I’d like to admit, because I hate Tipper Gore.”

Juicy and, uhm, natural...

...How do you like your meat?

Quanta …

… Zealotry of Guerin: Sunset (Paul Klee).

Tomorrow at noon …

… 16th Annual Poetry Ink: 100 Poets Reading | MOONSTONE ARTS CENTER.

Thought for the day …

The relationship between commitment and doubt is by no means an antagonistic one. Commitment is healthiest when it's not without doubt but in spite of doubt.

— Rollo May, born on this date in 1909

High praise...

...Prose by Another Name Wouldn’t Read the Same

Hitchens is a lover of English prose; he overcomes his dislike of religion when he writes a brilliant panegyric on the English Bible (the authorised King James’s version which, as Hitchens points out, was largely based on the brilliant work of Tyndale — not the grubby editions that are now popping up!).

Friday, April 20, 2012

Not to be missed …

… James A. Michener Art Museum: Offering of the Angels: Treasures from the Uffizi Gallery.

Debbie and I, who have been to the Uffiizi, will definitely be going. By the way, I would have missed this if Debbie hadn't seen it in the paper. Behind every great man is … his wife.

Lines of demarcation (cont'd.) …

… What is Given: Against Knowingly Changing the Truth — BREVITY's Nonfiction Blog.

In case you wondered …

… Why religion is good for you - Philosophy and Life. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

It will come as no surprise to believers that this something has to do with God. Positive psychology is characterised by its instrumentality. Alain de Botton puts it explicitly: “Religions are intermittently too useful, effective and intelligent to be abandoned to the religious alone.” What he misses, is that religions are good at building community and nurturing kindness because, paradoxically, they do not aim directly to do either. Rather, they aim to open adherents to that source of life, or spiritual sustenance, that is expansive of our humanity. They offer practices that, over time, transform the soul. It is variously called salvation, eternal life or enlightenment.

Take a guess …

… The Kindle Index: What City Buys the Most E-Readers? - Rohin Dhar - Business - The Atlantic. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Dante in Louisiana …

… The Millions : Modern Library Revue: #36 All the King’s Men. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

People of the other side …

… It's Not My Mountain Anymore - The Book | First hand accounts of profound experiences and mountain living.

Using a sledgehammer …

… to crush flies: Collins vs. Gnus — Shadow To Light. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

I made much the same point when I reviewed The God Delusion. The only thing Dawkins doesn't like about science is doing it.

Too many frameworks...

...cause a Communication breakdown

Mark thy calendar …

… Northeast Philadelphia Memorial for Poet/Teacher Louis McKee with Featured Poet Steve Delia and musical guests Mary and The Sun Bear Trio. — fox chase reading series.

Lines of demarcation …

… What is Given: Against Knowingly Changing the Truth — BREVITY's Nonfiction Blog.

Things as they should be …

… Gregory Wolfe: Art in a Fallen World - WSJ.com.

[Kinkade's] brother Patrick has spoken of his "Victorian Christmas" (1992), which depicts a house they knew as children. "It was a fine house with fine people living there, with big parties," Patrick says. "Tom and I would stand outside the gates and say, 'That's the kind of house I want to live in.' We were always on the outside of the gate looking in." That's the genius of Kinkade's paintings: They keep us on the outside, where we can gaze longingly at cozy, secure homes.

In case you need one …

… Your Summer Reading List — Commentary Magazine. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Acquisitions …

… Paul Davis On Crime: Amazon Publishing Has Aquired Ten-Year License For North American Rights To Ian Fleming's James Bond Thrillers.

Sound advice …

… E. B. White on the Role and Responsibility of the Writer | Brain Pickings. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

A writer should concern himself with whatever absorbs his fancy, stirs his heart, and unlimbers his typewriter. I feel no obligation to deal with politics. I do feel a responsibility to society because of going into print: a writer has the duty to be good, not lousy; true, not false; lively, not dull; accurate, not full of error. He should tend to lift people up, not lower them down.

Doomsday overkill...

...Apocalyptic daze

Thought for the day …

I have only the idea I have made of myself to sustain me on oceans of nothingness.

— Henry De Montherlant, born on this date in 1895

Thursday, April 19, 2012

In case you wondered …

… Paul Davis On Crime: To Russia, With Love: Why Soviet Spy Alger Hiss Chose Treason.

Sam Tanenhaus's biography of Whittaker Chambers convinced me that Hiss was guilty as charged.

Ho-hum …

… Did Humans Invent Music? — Gary Marcus and Geoffrey Miller - Entertainment - The Atlantic. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Music's got some key features of an evolved adaptation: It's universal across cultures, it's ancient in prehistory, and kids learn it early and spontaneously.

The point is not that all humans do it, but that only humans do it, at least in the way humans do it. We speak of bird songs, but birds don't exactly compose individual songs. They make sounds that we think of as songs and by which we can identify the species, since every bird in that species that sings a song(s) sings the same song(s).

Am I the only person who thinks these attempts to explain everything in terms of evolution actually only repeat, using evolutionary terminology, what we already know? "In order to protect his genitalia, man developed jockstraps."

Some real gems …

… Fascinating First Editions from the 1950s on AbeBooks.

Enter now …

… Poetry Contest: Unleash Your Inner Bard.

Another shameless plug …

… this time, for our neighbor: News from Nichole Canuso Dance Company.

If you like dance, you'll like Nichole's work

FYI …

… New Fiction by Widener Faculty Member — Widener Magazine.

Floating girls and invisible boys …

… When Falls the Coliseum — Lisa reads Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs.

Three score and ten …

… Paul Davis On Crime: Val Kilmer Performs Mark Twain's Famous 70th Birthday Speech.

Well, that's why they call it 'style' …

… AP’s approval of ‘hopefully’ symbolizes larger debate over language - The Washington Post.

…How Language Is Like Fashion: The Case of 'Hopefully'.

(Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Jesse already linked to the first of these stories, but thought I'd pair them up.
I always thought there washn't a lot to the case against hopefully. Anyone in his right mind could tell that when someone said, "Hopefully, the sun will rise again tomorrow," that the adverb referred to the speaker's (hopeful) anticipation, not the sun's. But one of the instances cited in the first article is not so trivial. Begging the question is a logical fallacy (it means using the premise of your proposition as proof of that same proposition). People who say that something "begs the question" clearly do not know this and their use of the phrase thereby comes off as both ignorant and pretentious (no mean feat).

Words, words, words …

… Confessions of a Lexicographer — The Dabbler.

… Murray, Minor and the OED.

(Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Chilling …

… Snow Leopard | Witness.

Father Anselm hanged himself when Marty was fifteen. His mother told him about it at tea, serving the news like an extra dollop of whipped cream in his hot chocolate. There were toasted bacon, rocket, and cheese sandwiches stuffed with the thick, free-range rashers they couldn’t afford. The kitchen table was laid with an embroidered cloth and their good china, and she'd even baked a chocolate fudge cake, usually reserved for birthdays. She must have gotten up early just to ice it.

Linguistic Chaos!

Hopefully, you'll read this post...

Belated …

… Princeton University - UPDATE: Princeton's Tracy K. Smith wins Pulitzer Prize for poetry.

See also: Brooklyn poet Tracy K. Smith wins Pulitzer on her birthday.

(Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)

Grace under pressure …

… Bruce Charlton's Miscellany: Oliver Hardy - the funniest man who ever lived. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Thought for the day …

All that non-fiction can do is answer questions. It's fiction's business to ask them.

— Richard Hughes, born on this date in 1900

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

A shameless plug …

… for my friend and former colleague Steve Rea: Hollywood Rides A Bike from Angel City Press.

See also: Rides a Bike. (The site is addicting.)

Twilight zone …

… Border Crossings: Fiction and the Literature of Fact — BREVITY's Nonfiction Blog.

We know what an autobiographical novel is. It's fiction. So I suppose the question is: What is the "nonfiction" counterpart of same?

And the nominees are …

… Your Weekend Reading: The 2012 Short Story Hugo Nominees – Whatever. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Unique, influential, and flawed …

… When Falls the Coliseum —Alan Moore is right about “Before Watchmen,” alas.

Hah!

… The Next Time Someone Says the Internet Killed Reading Books, Show Them This Chart - Alexis Madrigal - Technology - The Atlantic. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Anniversary …

… The Book That Drove Them Crazy | The Weekly Standard. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

The course that Bloom’s classic took on its way from the higher mental life to boffo box office is notable even among the endless eruptions and craterings of the American book business. Bloom adapted his proposal for Closing from an article he’d written in National Review. At Simon & Schuster the proposal was bought by one editor and midwifed into print by another, with no more than modest expectations. The original title, Souls Without Longing, was lovely, everyone agreed, but also uncommercial, so it was changed and outfitted with one of those clanky, hyper-explanatory subtitles that were soon to be essential for nonfiction books. The first print run, in February 1987, numbered 10,000 copies.

By late spring it was selling 25,000 copies a week. It hit the bestseller list in April, reached number one by summertime, and stayed there for two and a half months. You saw people lugging it around on vacation, bumping in the bottom of the beach bag against the tanning oil and the extra pair of flipflops and the latest waterlogged paperback from Ken Follett.

Olympians …

… Poetry Parnassus to gather poets from every Olympic nation | Books | guardian.co.uk. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)

Excellent idea …

… The Millions : LA Review of Books Launches Standalone Site. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Saving time …

… Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea, animated | Drexel Publishing Group.

Busier than you might think …

… Making a Space for Aphorism: Exploring the Intersection between Aphorism and Poetry- Poets.org - Poetry, Poems, Bios and More. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Untypically typical …

… Scholar challenges popular ideas about Emily Dickinson - UB Reporter. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)

… Dickinson’s forms and topics were typical of her era, and quite accessible and acceptable to the readers of her time.

What actually makes Dickinson's work so different from that of her contemporaries, Miller says, is “an electrifying sensibility; conciseness, especially syntactic; crisp and colloquial diction that lacks poeticisms or archaisms, and a greater disjunctiveness, marked by many dashes as well as by quick logical turns that challenge the reader to figure out the transitions.”

The problem of absence …

… #fictionpulitzergate | Mark Athitakis’ American Fiction Notes.

And the winers are …

… IBPC Winning Poems for February 2012.

… The Judge's Page.

Thought for the day …

"Wisdom is grey." Life on the other hand and religion are full of color.

— Ludwig Wittgenstein

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Communion and gift …

… The Face of God. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

For me the Christian view of the matter is the one that gives the greatest insight into our situation. The Christian God is agape, and even in a world that has launched itself on the path of desecration, he can show himself in the sacrificial acts of individual people, when they set aside the call of self-interest and act for others' sake. Acts of self-sacrifice appear in the world of objects and causes as revelations: the I that gives itself opens a window in the scheme of things through which we glimpse the light beyond — the I AM that spoke to
Moses.

Hello …

… Rise in Scientific Journal Retractions Prompts Calls for Reform - NYTimes.com.

Of course, don't expect the Times to apply any of this anytime soon to climate science.

Uh-oh …

… Maybe the Pulitzers Ran Out of Writers — Commentary Magazine. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Hmm …

… The Millions : Dream a Little Dream of Me: John Berryman. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

My take on Berryman is different. He is less a confessional poet than an examination-of-conscience poet. He was raised a Catholic and attended a Catholic boarding school. I aways found his poems suffused with Catholic thought and feeling. Here is something else in which he figures: 'He Resigns' by John Berryman and 'The Widow's Lament in Springtime' by William Carlos Williams. (You can see and hear Berryman read. He is evidently quite drunk.)

"He Resigns" has always struck me as utterly heartbreaking. I first read it, if memory serves, not long after Love Fame came out in 1970. Berryman's suicide two years later made it seem all the more pertinent. Once, on a visit to Minneapolis, I went out of my to see the spot where he had jumped from the Washington Avenue Bridge. So, for me, Berryman's poems, have little to do with the mess he made of his life and everything to do with his guilt over that mess, which was not the sort of guilt we associate with psychoanalysis, but the guilt we feel when we know are sinners. A sense of this, it seems to me, is missing from Akey's piece.

Who knew?

… How Poetry Can Kill... | Facebook. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Pornography of despair …

… Apocalyptic Daze by Pascal Bruckner, City Journal Spring 2012.

Around the turn of the twenty-first century, a paradigm shift in our thinking took place: we decided that the era of revolutions was over and that the era of catastrophes had begun. The former had involved expectation, the hope that the human race would proceed toward some goal. But once the end of history was announced, the Communist enemy vanquished, and, more recently, the War on Terror all but won, the idea of progress lay moribund. What replaced the world’s human future was the future of the world as a material entity. The long list of emblematic victims—Jews, blacks, slaves, proletarians, colonized peoples—was likewise replaced, little by little, with the Planet, the new paragon of all misery. No longer were we summoned to participate in a particular community; rather, we were invited to identify ourselves with the spatial vessel that carried us, groaning.

But one thing remains constant: The savior is always a great, powerful central government and its dedicated bureaucrats.

Part Deux …

… The American University of Paris | Center for Writers and Translators | That Other Word.

Who would have thought?

Arab Spring Tensions at the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair

What a pumpkin …

… Vegetables: A Biography | Books and Culture.

While we are aware that Mexican cuisine handles tomatoes differently from Italian—that vegetables differ across cultures in their preparation—we are frequently less aware of the histories that have brought vegetables to us. Bloch-Dano begins with the artichoke, domesticated in Roman times from wild thistles.

Thoroughly faux …

… Poison Pen — Jewish Ideas Daily. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Not only did the poem disappear from the controversy, but it almost never appeared under its own guise. Even to call the monologue a "poem" is to offer charity that "What Must Be Said" does not earn for itself. Manfred Lahnstein, a former German Federal Minister of Finance, said it well for Yediot Ahronot: Grass's text is a "pamphlet beefed up by some technical tricks to make it look like a 'poem.'" It is poetry if and only if poetry is the abandonment of literary form, logical argument, and even basic grammar for the sake of delivering pronouncements ex cathedra.

God made the world round so we would never be able to see too far down the road.

— Isak Dinesen, born on this date in 1885

Public service: The Philadelphia Inquirer for its exploration of pervasive violence in the city's schools, using powerful print narratives and videos to illuminate crimes committed by children against children and to stir reforms to improve safety for teachers and students.

Congratulations to all. More here: Inquirer wins Pulitzer Prize for school violence series.

… the masculine psyche is a central Tyler concern and one that is not examined, as in the work of many women writers, from the perspective of a female character. Ever since her debut novel, If Morning Ever Comes (1964), a large proportion of her protagonists have been men, including the bereaved travel writer Macon Leary in The Accidental Tourist and the guilt-haunted Ian Bedloe in Saint Maybe (1991). Even the first-person narrative, the toughest test for the cross-dressing novelist, doesn't frighten her off. "I am a man you can trust," begins A Patchwork Planet (1998), in the voice of Barnaby Gaitlin, a troubled adolescent whose troubles return in middle-age.

Thought for the day …

Sex is a momentary itch, love never lets you go.

— Kingsley Amis, born on this date in 1922

Sunday, April 22, 2012

Saturday, April 21, 2012

Friday, April 20, 2012

Thursday, April 19, 2012

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Monday, April 16, 2012

Sunday, April 15, 2012