Simply enough, you cannot suffer the illusion that you are conscious because illusions are possible only for conscious minds. This is so incandescently obvious that it is almost embarrassing to have to state it. But this confusion is entirely typical of Dennett’s position. In this book, as he has done repeatedly in previous texts, he mistakes the question of the existence of subjective experience for the entirely irrelevant question of the objective accuracy of subjective perceptions, and whether we need to appeal to third-person observers to confirm our impressions. But, of course, all that matters for this discussion is that we have impressions at all.Hart does a fine job with memes, too.
Monday, November 13, 2017
Yeoman’s work …
… The Illusionist - The New Atlantis.
Have it your way …
… Between You and I, I Didn’t Just Make a Mistake – Lingua Franca - Blogs - The Chronicle of Higher Education. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
So Pinker's specious argument takes pride of place over centuries of grammar.
So Pinker's specious argument takes pride of place over centuries of grammar.
Master of an endangered language …
… A poet of the people – who inspired a generation. (Hat tip, G. E. Reutter.)
The spirit of place …
… At home in Hawaii: Poet W.S. Merwin and the sense of place - SFGate. (Hat tip, G.E. Reutter.)
Something to think on …
Keep your eyes open to your mercies. The man who forgets to be thankful has fallen asleep in life.
— Robert Louis Stevenson, born on this date in 1850
Sunday, November 12, 2017
For the Fallen …
… One of the most famous war poems was written in Cornwall - Cornwall Live. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
A fugitive from fashion …
… “The Exceptional Man”: Rereading Richard Wilbur - Los Angeles Review of Books. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Wilbur once wrote that poems “should include every resource which can be made to work,” and in his best poems, no motion is wasted. They resemble happy athletes: the flab has been trimmed, the muscles are limber.
Conscience first then the Church
Pope Francis on Saturday reaffirmed the "primacy" of using one's conscience to navigate tough moral questions in his first comments since he was publicly accused of spreading heresy by emphasizing conscience over hard and fast Catholic rules....Primacy of conscience took primacy at Vatican II: "their faith, aroused and sustained by the Spirit of truth, the People of God, guided by the sacred teaching authority (magisterium), and obeying it, receives not the mere word of human beings, but truly the word of God." (Vatican II, The Church (1964), §12)
Something to think on …
The religious life begins when we discover that God is not a postulate of ethics, but the only adventure in which it is worth the trouble to risk ourselves.
— Don Colacho
Saturday, November 11, 2017
The bad old days …
… The Bloody History of Bible Translators - Los Angeles Review of Books. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Falling short …
… An Imperfect Portrait, Review: 'Mrs Osmond' by John Banville. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Gum Doesn't take Seven Years to Digest...
and most of your heat isn't lost by your head. Eight “Facts” about the Human Body Debunked by Science:
As legend has it, they dressed volunteers in arctic survival suits and observed how their bodies reacted to freezing-cold temperatures. The military concluded that the volunteers lost most of their heat from their heads, seeming to ignore the fact that the head was the only body part that wasn’t protected from the elements.
Two decades later, a US Army survival manual incorporated those findings, stressing the importance of covering the head when exposed to cold conditions to avoid losing “40 to 45 percent of body heat.” A myth was born.
Something to think on …
A man who lies to himself, and believes his own lies becomes unable to recognize truth, either in himself or in anyone else, and he ends up losing respect for himself and for others. When he has no respect for anyone, he can no longer love, and, in order to divert himself, having no love in him, he yields to his impulses, indulges in the lowest forms of pleasure, and behaves in the end like an animal. And it all comes from lying - lying to others and to yourself.
— Fyodor Dostoevsky, born on this date in 1821
Karl Ove Knausgaard
I'm not sure which way the reviews went, ultimately, when it comes to Karl Ove Knausgaard's most recent work, Autumn, but then, part of me doesn't care: I found Knausgaard's essays a strange and enticing mixture. Here is a celebration of the quotidian, a paean to the commonplace; here are vignettes wrapped in a protective coating; here is a shield, a voice for what we know to exist, but to which we do not always assign meaning.
I've written before on the blog about works that I consider too precious: among these are novels by Updike, for instance. But there's a difference, I think, between being precious and poignant, and Knausgaard's essays are the latter: meaningful, restrained, emotive. In the mundane, he locates significance; in the ordinary, he identify substance. I found these reflections -- couched, in part, as an extended dialogue with Knausgaard's unborn daughter -- to be refreshing in their originality, tender in their resolve.
Some critics have found the observations here to be cliched or sentimental; this, I think, is unfair, and is to expect of short essays something reserved for the novel. Knausgaard's goal in Autumn is not to disrupt our sense of daily routine; it is instead to celebrate that routine, and to remind us of its majesty. I found the collection supremely refreshing -- and given the weight of the world, a welcome and timely respite.
Friday, November 10, 2017
Pushback …
… Pro-life student group wins settlement after professor tries to kick away chalk messages | Fox News.
You have permission to put it down, and I have permission to get rid of it. This is our part of free speech. College campuses are not free speech areas,” Thatcher said, “Do you understand? Obviously you don’t understand.”Pretty dim bulb, for a professor.
Mounting evidence …
… New Plagiarism Accusations Against Bestselling Author Jill Bialosky — The Walrus. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Plagiarism is rarely the simple cutting and pasting of another author’s work. Most often the later author tries to conceal the source with trivial changes, cloaking the identity of the original with a synonym or two, collapsing phrases from long paragraphs into a new whole. The language and structure of the original can be very difficult, however, to keep secret. In the parallel passages that follow, the wholesale copying of previous sources is so plain they must be characterized as outright theft.
A word of caution …
… Reza Aslan doesn’t fear God. But should he fear his fellow Muslims? | The Spectator. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
He is an ambitious man who enjoys the limelight. He has already played many parts — Christian, Muslim, businessman, sociologist, lecturer, editor, presenter, producer, public intellectual, scholar, historian, creative writing tutor and performing clown. Now it looks as though he wants to become a guru.Obviously, C.S. Lewis's Aslan is no relation.
Elegy …
… Alice’s Oxford | Peter Hitchens | First Things. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
The new Oxford, with its fair share of Starbucks and burger joints, is far more convenient and easily negotiated than the old—though the flood of tourism means the college buildings are now mostly barred by day, or open only to those who wish to pay. If they were not, it would be impossible for anyone to do any work in them.
Timely reminder …
… Michael Longley on Poetry and Propaganda – Robert Sharp. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
We knew there was no point in versifying opinion and giving people what they wanted to hear.Indeed.
Hmm …
… Cli-Fi.Net -- the world's largest online 'Cli-Fi' portal for Cli-Fi: ''How artists/novelists/film directors can rewrite the climate story with powerful storytelling'' - an interview with Australian literary critic Greg Foyster.
Here's an idea: How about if they try to accurately portray it?
Here's an idea: How about if they try to accurately portray it?
Who knew?
… Unlikely Style Icons: Mr Philip Larkin | The Daily | MR PORTER. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Style either comes naturally, or it doesn't come at all. Nothing less hip than trying to be hip.
Style either comes naturally, or it doesn't come at all. Nothing less hip than trying to be hip.
And the winners are …
… 2017 September : IBPC Winning Poems for September 2017.
… The Judge's Page.
(Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
… The Judge's Page.
(Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
Something to think on …
It is difficult to discriminate the voice of truth from amid the clamor raised by heated partisans.
— Friedrich Schiller, born on this date in 1759
Thursday, November 09, 2017
Listen in …
… Episode 241 – Barry Blitt – The Virtual Memories Show.
“It was nice to have been offered this retrospective book, but I wish it had just stopped there.”
Just what we need — quotas …
… Literary publications get mixed reviews on gender parity | The Seattle Times. (Hat tip, G.E. Reutter.)
Some editors …
… Bukowski’s poems were mangled by editors after his death. Now you can read his originals | PBS NewsHour. (Hat tips, Rus Bowden and G.E. Reutter.)
Poetry for commuters …
… Mass Poetry Releases Poems Into The Wild — On The T | The ARTery. (Hat tip, G.E. Reutter.)
Hmm …
… What Flannery O'Connor's College Journal Reveals About the 'Confidence Gap' - The Atlantic. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Methinks O'Connor would have preferred being appreciated for her insights into faith rather than as a proto-feminist. And Julian of Norwich was pretty well known in her day and looked to by her community and by others (including Margery Kempe) as an "authority" on matters of faith.
Something to think on …
A poet must be a psychologist, but a secret one: he should know and feel the roots of phenomena but present only the phenomena themselves in full bloom or as they fade away.
— Ivan Turgenev, born on this date in 1818
Wednesday, November 08, 2017
Anniversary and more …
… Informal Inquiries : Bram Stoker -- his birthday and my confession.
I never got into vampires, though I have been told that Stoker’s book is much scarier than any of the films, which didn’t even scare me when I was a kid.
I never got into vampires, though I have been told that Stoker’s book is much scarier than any of the films, which didn’t even scare me when I was a kid.
Great poet, good man …
… To Imagine Excellence by A. M. Juster | Articles | First Things. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
In addition to being one of the best poets of his generation, Wilbur was the finest translator of poetry into English ever to have lived, particularly notable for his translations of Moliere’s plays. Wilbur closely echoed the sound, form, and meaning of the original text, and yet he never lost sight of the need for his words to move an audience. His lyrics transformed Leonard Bernstein’s Candide from a churning mess into an enduring musical.
Contented …
… Donald Hall, former U.S. Poet Laureate, reflects on writing in his 89th year. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
Much of his writing these days is about loss. Hall stopped writing poetry years ago, when he “lost the taste,” but he still writes prose.
Appreciation …
… Black New Orleans and Creole Culture in Poetry | Campus | purdueexponent.org. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
The great Fats Domino was of Creole descent:
The great Fats Domino was of Creole descent:
Behind the scenes …
… Kazuo Ishiguro: 'Write What You Know' is the Stupidest Thing I've Ever Heard | Literary Hub. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Is it possible that what we think of as genre boundaries are things that have been invented fairly recently by the publishing industry? I can see there’s a case for saying there are certain patterns, and you can divide up stories according to these patterns, perhaps usefully. But I get worried when readers and writers take these boundaries too seriously, and think that something strange happens when you cross them, and that you should think very carefully before doing so . . . I would like to see things breaking down a lot more. I suppose my essential position is that I’m against any kind of imagination police, whether they’re coming from marketing reasons or from class snobbery.
Something to think on …
Between God and the soul there is no between.
— Julian of Norwich, born on this date in 1432
Tuesday, November 07, 2017
Poetry as conduit …
… Freshness of Words – George Herbert and Anna Akhmatova | Martyn Crucefix. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Drury suggests that Herbert’s evident love of language is more apparent than real because of his ceaseless drive towards a linguistic simplicity (just the kind of simplicity of expression that Akhmatova sought and is praised for). Herbert wanted words to correspond to the truths of experience – an idea that has got very obscured in our post-modern age, but one that most poets still doggedly adhere to.
Something to think on …
There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest — whether or not the world has three dimensions, whether the mind has nine or twelve categories — comes afterwards. These are games; one must first answer.
— Albert Camus, born on this date in 1913
Monday, November 06, 2017
Out of the blue …
… First Known When Lost: What Happens.
No, not coincidence. Perhaps what the Greeks called kairos, a time appointed. Something ordained.Two lovely trout arriving within days of each other. The World often provides us with beneficences of this sort. In my seventh decade above ground, approaching an inevitable return to dust, I am not entirely surprised when these gifts are bestowed from out of the blue. But I never take them for granted, and I am always grateful.Mere coincidence, some might say. Not I. We place ourselves in the way of serendipity, or serendipity finds us, or perhaps both. Ah, but where does serendipity come from? I am content to let the inquiry end with that question. I have no need for an explanation. Time will tell. Or it will not.
Comic actor …
… Jack Benny’s Comic Program | commentary. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
No mere joke-teller could have performed such dramatically complex scripts week after week with anything like Benny’s effectiveness. The secret of The Jack Benny Program was that its star, fully aware that he was not “being himself” but playing a part, did so with an actor’s skill. This was what led Ernst Lubitsch to cast him in To Be or Not to Be, in which he plays a mediocre Shakespearean tragedian, a character broadly related to but still quite different from the one who appeared on his own radio show. As Lubitsch explained to Benny, who was skeptical about his ability to carry off the part:A clown—he is a performer what is doing funny things. A comedian—he is a performer what is saying funny things. But you, Jack, you are an actor, you are an actor playing the part of a comedian and this you are doing very well.
Faith and theater …
… Informal Inquiries : Thomas Kyd's baptism and a very personal postscript.
Regarding the affairs of the world, I am on the side of Candide: "Let us cultivate our garden."
Regarding the affairs of the world, I am on the side of Candide: "Let us cultivate our garden."
Lovely …
… Rambling Shambling Brian Doyle | Matthew Hennessey | First Things. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Here is His Last Game.
Here is His Last Game.
Something to think on …
All still lifes are actually paintings of the world on the sixth day of creation, when God and the world were alone together, without man!
— Robert Musil, born on this date in 1880
Sunday, November 05, 2017
Good intentions …
… Keynes Unable | The Weekly Standard. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
… Thomas Hoerber’s little book … has the feel of a think-tank white paper stretched beyond its natural limits. Rather than bring the debate of yesterday to bear on our own time, as the dust jacket promises, he merely retells yesterday’s debate in today’s clichés, in order to support his arguments for greater economic regulation by the state and, especially, the European Union.
In case you wondered …
… Why You Hate Contemporary Architecture | Current Affairs. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
The fact is, contemporary architecture gives most regular humans the heebie-jeebies. Try telling that to architects and their acolytes, though, and you’ll get an earful about why your feeling is misguided, the product of some embarrassing misconception about architectural principles. One defense, typically, is that these eyesores are, in reality, incredible feats of engineering. After all, “blobitecture”—which, we regret to say, is a real school of contemporary architecture—is created using complicated computer-driven algorithms! You may think the ensuing blob-structure looks like a tentacled turd, or a crumpled kleenex, but that’s because you don’t have an architect’s trained eye.
Not from South Philly …
… ENGLAND'S FAVORITE PHILADELPHIANS - NYTimes.com. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Logan Pearsall Smith was a writer who could afford to take his time, and his output was fairly small - a life of the Jacobean scholar-diplomat Sir Henry Wotton, a trickle of essays and studies, a volume of memoirs, some excellent anthologies. His best-known book, the collection of aphorisms and vignettes called ''All Trivia,'' did not appear until 1933, when he was nearly 70, but it had been built up layer by layer from the original ''Trivia'' that he had had privately printed over 30 years before. Not for nothing did he rejoice in the reputation of being a perfectionist, a tireless searcher-out of the happy cadence and the fastidious phrase.
Inquirer reviews …
… 'Hidden City': Finding the Philly of the past.
… 'The Fearless Benjamin Lay': A Pennsylvania Quaker dwarf who was a giant in abolitionism.
… Matt Taibbi's 'I Can't Breathe': The brutality of our racist law.
… Grisham gets it right about lawyers and law in his latest novel.
See also: Meet the incredible woman who helped the U.S. win two wars by cracking codes.
… 'The Fearless Benjamin Lay': A Pennsylvania Quaker dwarf who was a giant in abolitionism.
… Matt Taibbi's 'I Can't Breathe': The brutality of our racist law.
… Grisham gets it right about lawyers and law in his latest novel.
See also: Meet the incredible woman who helped the U.S. win two wars by cracking codes.
Hmm …
…Cli-Fi.Net -- the world's largest online 'Cli-Fi' portal for Cli-Fi: When Bill McKibben writes a debut comic cli-fi caper novel with a "resistance" theme, the knives comes out from the rightwing climate denialist attack dogs who will say the novel is a waste of paper and the that the cross-country book promotion PR tour in November will be just another example of an elitist VIP.
Well, gee. I happen to be skeptical of global warming (as was the late Michael Crichton, who certainly had the science chops). But I am hardly a “climate denier.” I certainly think that there is something called climate, and that planet earth has a few climates and the weather that accompanies same. The very use of such a term as “climate denial” should signal that those using the term are engaged in propaganda, not science. Which I think is true of Bill McKibben.
Footlights and more …
… Informal Inquiries : Sam Shepard, Theater, and Me.
I guess the Shakespeare play that I know best is Much Ado About Nothing, because I was the prompter for a college production. Pretty much read it through every night.
Something to think on …
If we have never been amazed by the very fact that we exist, we are squandering the greatest fact of all.
— Will Durant, born on this date in 1885
Saturday, November 04, 2017
The new puritans …
… When did fiction become so dangerous? | The Spectator. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
The ‘own voices’ policy conveys to reviewers that their primary job is not to assess a book’s storytelling, but to rate its adherence to a left-wing catechism (the fairness of whose tenets is presumably self-evident), to identify authorial heretics, and to stick the apostates’ heads on spikes along the digital public highway. Reviewing for Kirkus is now a cross between penning literary criticism and joining a shooting party, a sufficiently athletic undertaking that it really should pay better.
About time …
… The First Woman to Translate the ‘Odyssey’ Into English - The New York Times. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Since the “Odyssey” first appeared in English, around 1615, in George Chapman’s translation, the story of the Greek warrior-king Odysseus’s ill-fated 10-year attempt to return home from the war in Troy to Ithaca and his wife, Penelope, has prompted some 60 English translations, at an accelerating pace, half of them in the last 100 years and a dozen in the last two decades. Wilson, whose own translation appears this week, has produced the first English rendering of the poem by a woman.
Smooth operator …
… The Sins of Leon Wieseltier | The Weekly Standard.
After his years at Harvard, a school useful above all for making connections, Leon had acquired a job at the New Republic, a liberal weekly that had not long before been bought by a man named Martin Peretz, a wealthy, part-time instructor at Harvard. During his early days on the magazine, Leon published a longish piece there on, of all things, nuclear war. Nothing very distinguished about it, either, the thought of taking him seriously on such a large subject was in fact slightly gigglesome, but it suggested to me that young Leon, with all the possibilities open to him, the good student with superior tuchus-lecking skills, was considering that of becoming our next Henry Kissinger. I subsequently learned he was aiming higher.
Something to think on …
A dark poem is meant to redeem the dark part.
— C. K. Williams, born on this date in 1936
Friday, November 03, 2017
Burning coal …
… The Air Smelled Dirty by Marge Piercy : American Life in Poetry. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
I, too, remember shoveling coal into the furnace and carrying out the ashes on trash day. And I spent the first eight years of my life in the shadow of factories, across the street from a scrap iron yard and rail yards. I have nothing but the fondest memories of those days. Factories at night still seem beautiful to me. I didn't even mind the smell.
Nice guy …
… John Updike revealed as a prolific letter writer to readers and strangers | Books | The Guardian. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
“While it is hardly surprising that he carried on a correspondence with editors, translators, publicists, critics, journalists and fellow writers, what is remarkable is how often and generously he responded to letters from readers, fans and complete strangers,” Schiff says.
In case you wondered …
… Why English is such a great language for puns - The quip and the dread. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
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