Thursday, June 14, 2007
Busy Maxine ...
... has posted much of interest lately - which I am late getting around to. Just visit Petrona and keep scrolling.
Poetry and music ...
... Andrea Tierra with Edmar Castañeda. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
To know more, check out Jazz and Poetry: The Words Project.
To know more, check out Jazz and Poetry: The Words Project.
Well, yes ...
... Authority of a New Kind.
Does Gorman really believe, along with Andrew Keen, that “the most poorly educated and inarticulate among us” should not use the media to “express and realize themselves”? That they should keep quiet, learn their place, and bow to such bewigged and alienating confections as “authority” and “authenticity”? Authority, after all, flows ultimately from results, not from such hierophantic trappings as degrees, editorial mastheads, and neoclassical columns. And if the underprivileged (or under-titled) among us are supposed to keep quiet, who will enforce their silence—the government? Universities and foundations? Internet service providers and media conglomerates? Are these the authorities—or their avatars in the form of vetted, credentialed content—to whom it should be our privilege to defer?
Well, Gorman was president of the ALA when this occurred and when this letter was sent.
Here's a different take (we link, you decide): Lost in the Hive Mind.
I am surprised that so many seem unaware that authority is the weakest form of verification, that it needs to be corroborated, that something is not necessarily so because some guy with a big name says it is. The antidote to what Gorman and McHenry are compaining about is critical thinking, not submission to authority. An agrument is good or bad based on its structure and its grounding in fact, not by virtue of the letters appended to the name of the person advancing it or the title that precedes that name.
Update: Britannica Stirs the Pot.
I didn't know ...
... until just now, either Ford Maddox Ford's poem "Antwerp" or what T.S. Eliot said about it: For Fordy.
It is a great poem - language authentically encountering reality, the sort of utterance that makes all discussions of style and technique sound foolish.
It is a great poem - language authentically encountering reality, the sort of utterance that makes all discussions of style and technique sound foolish.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Honor thy stepfather ...
... To Papa Joe and the stepdads everywhere who deserve recognition on Father's Day. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Prom time ...
... frequent Books, Inq. visitor Susan Balée's daughter Alix Lundy (no relation to Walker, luckily for her) and her friend Nick Rocha get ready for their big night out.
One atheist ...
... critiques another: God-bothering.
I'm surprised more peoplehaven't noticed how often the ranting against religion leads to a deterioration of an author's writing and thinking skills. Judged by the standard of his own work, Richard Dawkins's The God Delusion is second-rate.
I'm surprised more peoplehaven't noticed how often the ranting against religion leads to a deterioration of an author's writing and thinking skills. Judged by the standard of his own work, Richard Dawkins's The God Delusion is second-rate.
Great minds ...
... Patrick Kurp on Peter Altenberg and collecting: `Outside the Sphere of One's Own Personality'.
I reviewed Telegrams of the Soul and have long been a fan of Peter Altenberg.
I reviewed Telegrams of the Soul and have long been a fan of Peter Altenberg.
The debate continues ...
... Adam Kirsch on The Scorn of the Literary Blog.
There is a lot of this that I agree with, particularly with regard to the falseness of a juridical model for book reviewing. Though I happen to think there are certain objective standards - having to do with inconsistencies, contradictions, amd just plain bad writing - I agree that "the whole point of a review is to set one mind against another, and see what sparks fly."
But I can't agree with this: 'The blog form, that miscellany of observations, opinions, and links, is not well-suited to writing about literature ..." What's this "blog form" business? There is hardly any one-size-fits-all blog format. And consider this very piece by Adam Kirsch. It's just about the right length for reading on a screen. It comes with hyperlinks. It's elegantly written and clearly - if not altogether convincingly - reasoned. In short, it's perfectly suited to a blog. I would suggest that, just for starters, Kirsch visit Anecdotal Evidence or Grumpy Old Bookman.
In the meantime, you can read another take here: Book Reviewers Out of Touch, Blogs Blamed. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I certainly agree that litbloggers are among the least of print reviewers' worries - and that alienating them is among the dumber strategies. But I guess I've gone over to the dark side.
There is a lot of this that I agree with, particularly with regard to the falseness of a juridical model for book reviewing. Though I happen to think there are certain objective standards - having to do with inconsistencies, contradictions, amd just plain bad writing - I agree that "the whole point of a review is to set one mind against another, and see what sparks fly."
But I can't agree with this: 'The blog form, that miscellany of observations, opinions, and links, is not well-suited to writing about literature ..." What's this "blog form" business? There is hardly any one-size-fits-all blog format. And consider this very piece by Adam Kirsch. It's just about the right length for reading on a screen. It comes with hyperlinks. It's elegantly written and clearly - if not altogether convincingly - reasoned. In short, it's perfectly suited to a blog. I would suggest that, just for starters, Kirsch visit Anecdotal Evidence or Grumpy Old Bookman.
In the meantime, you can read another take here: Book Reviewers Out of Touch, Blogs Blamed. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I certainly agree that litbloggers are among the least of print reviewers' worries - and that alienating them is among the dumber strategies. But I guess I've gone over to the dark side.
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Not too Keen ...
... 'Cult of the Amateur' reviewed.
Here's Glenn reynolds's Inquirer review: A wistful look back at big media's day.
Here's Glenn reynolds's Inquirer review: A wistful look back at big media's day.
Monday, June 11, 2007
I'm late linking to this ...
... but better late: BookExpo Panel on the Influence of Blogs: Roundup.
Congratulations to me ...
... I noticed this afternoon that Statcounter has me at over 300,000 hits.
A thoughtful piece ...
... Lonely Atheists of the Global Village. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I have learned a lot about atheists and believers from Jurgen Habermas, possibly the best-known atheist in Europe. Habermas writes of believers with respect and as equal partners in an important dialogue. A respectful regard for mutual dignity is, Habermas holds, essential to the practice of rationality among human beings. Recently, I had the honor of a long series of exchanges with a very smart American atheist, Heather Mac Donald, and these were a pleasure to conduct, with mutual regard, patience, and candor on both sides.
Beyond belief ...
... Good heavens - some decent atheist drama. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
"... the complex emotional interactions between the characters seemed to be a demonstration of the fact that as long as dangerous extremes of belief are avoided, the love and understanding we show each other is more important to living a good human life than the beliefs we intellectual subscribe to."
"... the complex emotional interactions between the characters seemed to be a demonstration of the fact that as long as dangerous extremes of belief are avoided, the love and understanding we show each other is more important to living a good human life than the beliefs we intellectual subscribe to."
Sunday, June 10, 2007
Let's get out the vote ...
... for Bryan: and read what he has to say about Earl Spencer to boot: Summer Show and Diana's Brother.
Thinking out loud ...
... Bishop Huet and the Time Lag. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Don't just read the top post. Keep scrolling.
Don't just read the top post. Keep scrolling.
Today's Inquirer reviews ...
... Glenn Reynolds considers Andrew Keen's unhappiness: A wistful look back at big media's day.
... Bryan Appleyard ponders an unusual take on science and religion: He thinks physics proves Christianity.
...Edward Pettit looks at some murders in St.Petersburg: Mystery sequel concocted from 'Crime and Punishment'.
... I offer praise for Gregory Djanikian's poems: Poems of atrocity, and of joyfully Americanizing.
... Susan Balee likes some Philly tales: A collection that loves you back.
... Katie Haegele is much taken with an odd chess story: Young Adult Reader | 'Chess Set' opens up a realm of imagination and insight.
During the past week, Carlin Romano chatted with John Updike: The playful literary legend. (You can also listen to Audio: John Updike .)
... Bryan Appleyard ponders an unusual take on science and religion: He thinks physics proves Christianity.
...Edward Pettit looks at some murders in St.Petersburg: Mystery sequel concocted from 'Crime and Punishment'.
... I offer praise for Gregory Djanikian's poems: Poems of atrocity, and of joyfully Americanizing.
... Susan Balee likes some Philly tales: A collection that loves you back.
... Katie Haegele is much taken with an odd chess story: Young Adult Reader | 'Chess Set' opens up a realm of imagination and insight.
During the past week, Carlin Romano chatted with John Updike: The playful literary legend. (You can also listen to Audio: John Updike .)
Saturday, June 09, 2007
Rumors of decease ....
exaggerated: Amis is wrong about poetry's demise. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
So Derek Walcott is a Walter de la Mare fan.
So Derek Walcott is a Walter de la Mare fan.
Hold that thought ...
... Celebrating the completion of The New History of Western Philosophy. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Friday, June 08, 2007
At the conference ....
Chelsea Rathburn (left) and April Lindner after the panel discussing Kay Ryan's work that I was also on.
From left: Yours truly, Kay Ryan, April Lindner, and Chelsea Rathburn. (David Mason is a very fine poet. He is a less fine photographer.)
Conference director Mike Peich takes a much-needed break.
Participants gather for lunch.
West Chester, PA ...
Here are some shots of West Chester. The brick house (below) is where composer Samuel Barber (1910-1981) grew up.
A very good look ...
... at the WCU Poetry Conference, off The Inquirer's front page: For serious poets, the lines form here. (The Deborah McCaffrey-Wilson in the photo is my wife.)
Bryan gets caught ...
... Harvard Unearths My Racism.
I took, I believe, the same test Bryan did, with this result: "Your data suggest little to no automatic preference between Light Skin and Dark Skin." Which tells me nothing I didn't know already. I lived for 20 years in a neighborhood where I and my family were in the racial minority. People, it turns out, are people.
Thursday, June 07, 2007
A demonstration of style ...
... I had the pleasure of meeting Kay Ryan this morning after a panel in which April Lindner, Chelsea Rathburn and I discussed "The Achievement of Kay Ryan" (I'll see what I can do about posting my remarks online when I get back to the office).
Kay turns out to be pretty much the person you encounter in the poems - sly, wry and unpretentious. There is nothing phony about her. She was genuinely appreciative of what we had to say - and it was surprising at how similar what we had to say was, though Chelsea's comments were especially powerful because she very courageously related her reading the poems to a very bad passage in her own life. If anyone in the audience had doubts that poetry has serious practical uses would have had those doubts dispeled by what Chelsea had to say.
So what was it we had to say? Well, we all felt that Kay was one of those poets that you feel especially close to in a very personal way after you read her work. Reading her is more than just a literary experience. Kay was appreciative because, as she told me, that's the thing- the personal connection - that she is often unsure of about her poetry. She knows now she needn't worry.
I took some pictures of downtown West Chester, including a shot of the house where composer Samuel Barber grew up. I'll be posting them - and others - when I get back.
As must be obvious, I have been too busy to do much blogging. Tomorrow morning I'm conducting a workshop on reviewing poetry.
Quite an evening ...
... is what was had by all at the WCU Poetry Conference last night. At dinner I sat next to Rhina Espaillat, who was absolutely delightful, who promised to send me copies of the translations she is working on of poems by St. John of the Cross. She told me father used to walk around the house recciting them aloud - even though he was an atheist.
Kay Ryan proved to be every bit as wry and wonderful as her poems. She was funny, pointing out that she made up one detail in a poem - about eighty coats of lacquer - because she needed eighty for the rhyme, adding that, while she likes facts, she doen't let them get in her way.
Her poems, I gather - as I suspected - are through-composed. She doesn't work with a longer text that she pares down. She works her way patiently to the end - and sometimes, later on, has to add a bit - "put some more flesh on the bones," I think is how she put it.
In a couple of hours I am going to be on a panel discussing Kay Ryan's work. Problem is, Dana Gioia in his introduction, and Kay herself in her remarks, sort of stole my thunder. We'll see how it goes. Later.
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
I'm off ...
... to the WCU Poetry Conference. I hope to do some blogging, take some pictures, and maybe some video. Later.
A sorrowful legacy ...
... Polish girl's Holocaust diary unveiled after 60 years. (Hat tip, Vikram Johri.)
A heart-to-heart talk ...
... sort of: An Open Letter from Erica Jong to Jane Smiley (On the ghettoization of female writers). (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Time for a good laugh ...
... I saw this when it appeared in the TLS. Good that it's now online: Clouseau Investigates Auden. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
If this be heresy ...
... well, just remember - it's in the New York Times: Fateful Voice of a Generation Still Drowns Out Real Science. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
For whatever reason, apocalypse sells.
For whatever reason, apocalypse sells.
And speaking of meaning ...
... or its lack or its distortion, what about Charity stunts.
So much for this:
1: Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them ....
2: ... when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do ... that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.
3: ... let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth ...
So much for this:
1: Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them ....
2: ... when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do ... that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.
3: ... let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth ...
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
A very good Auden piece ...
... Rumors of Glory.
You can "Under Sirius" here, though you have to scroll down a bit.
You can "Under Sirius" here, though you have to scroll down a bit.
Meaningless phrase alert ...
... I just saw an ad on the Guardian's Web site that employed the phrase "combating climate change."
What can this possibly mean? That the aim is to arrest climate change? That it is bad for climate to change? Climate not only does change. It is in a condition of continuous change. That is its nature. The only way to combat climate change, it seems to me, would be to abolish climate altogether. It also seems to me that weasel terms like this are what people use when they want to put something over on someone.
Hmm ...
... The Legacy of Aldo Leopold. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I wonder about this:
I wonder about this:
We reached the old wolf in time to watch a fierce green fire dying in her eyes. . . . I was young then, and full of trigger-itch; I thought that because fewer wolves meant more deer, no wolves would mean hunters’ paradise. But after seeing the green fire die, I sensed that neither the wolf nor the mountain agreed with such a view. . . . The cowman who cleans his range of wolves does not realize that he is taking over the wolf’s job of trimming the herd to fit the range. He has not learned to think like a mountain. Hence we have dustbowls, and rivers washing the future into the sea.
I hold no brief for the indiscriminate killing of wolves or anything else in the wild, but this business about the mountain disagreeing strikes me as nonsense. It isn't just literal-mindedness that leads me to point out that mountains can't agree or disagree with anything. You can't learn to think like a mountain, because mountains don't think. This really is the pathetic fallacy.
Deep in the heart ...
... Why do the archives of so many great writers end up in Texas? (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
More about happiness ...
... Brave New World at 75.
Lamenting the death of metaphysics, [Joseph] Needham wrote that science, which was born of philosophy, had overtaken its parent to become “the only substratum for Reason” and “nothing more nor less than the Mythology accompanying a Technique.”
Now I understand ...
... why Bryan and I are so simpatico: Man Matters: The Waistcoat/Vest.
I have some waistcoats myself and I usually forget to button the last button for some reason, so ...
I might add that young men all over the world are actually succeeding in their "earnest attempt to look as dumb and deformed as possible" by wearing huge, creased baggy cargo shorts.
I have some waistcoats myself and I usually forget to button the last button for some reason, so ...
I might add that young men all over the world are actually succeeding in their "earnest attempt to look as dumb and deformed as possible" by wearing huge, creased baggy cargo shorts.
Not to our taste ...
... as we've made plain, but you may feel differently: Cormac joins Oprah's club. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
Monday, June 04, 2007
Something had to give ...
... and today it's been blogging. I simply have been too busy to do it. And I haven't much now to do any, either. Maybe a post or two. Otherwise, we 'll try to get back on track tomorrow.
You could also move ...
... to my neighborhood: A Shopper Writes...
Bryan links to this story, in which this peculiar phrase appears: "... organic farming is better for tackling climate change ..." What does "tackling climate change" mean? Is the aim to stop the climate from changing? Climate stasis in other words - which of course is oxymoronic, since climate is a process, continuously changing. How do we know how best climate should change? Or what the best climate is?
Sunday, June 03, 2007
Later this week ...
... I will be at the West Chester University Poetry Conference.
Conference director Michael Peich filled Inquirer readers in on it today: Free Readings at Poetry Conference.
I you can get there, you should.
Conference director Michael Peich filled Inquirer readers in on it today: Free Readings at Poetry Conference.
I you can get there, you should.
Belle and Sebastian ...
... the band, not the book: Lazy Line Painter Jane.
As Rob says, "A great antidote to boring MTV slickness."
As Rob says, "A great antidote to boring MTV slickness."
My kind of thinker ...
... one who can't be easily categorized: James Q. Wilson: The power of his written word. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
It's that "blend of historical analysis and openness to disagreement" that I like.
It's that "blend of historical analysis and openness to disagreement" that I like.
I am green with envy ...
... Garden. (Hat tip, Lee Lowe.)
Oh, to have that much space to garden in. Mine is tiny patio garden. Maybe when I retire.
Oh, to have that much space to garden in. Mine is tiny patio garden. Maybe when I retire.
Yet again ...
... Critics Vs. Bloggers. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Say this for Richard Schickel - whose reviews, by the way, I tend to like: He got people's attention.
Say this for Richard Schickel - whose reviews, by the way, I tend to like: He got people's attention.
Einstein the mensch ...
... in an altogether different vein, Bryan looks at Walter Isaacson's biography of Einstein.
One slight demurrer: "Next to the Himalayas of Newton and Einstein everyone else looks as flat as Norfolk." Eveyone except, perhaps, J. Willard Gibbs. As the Encyclopedia Britannica points out: Gibbs's "application of thermodynamics to physical processes led him to develop the science of statistical-mechanics; his treatment of it was so general that it was later found to apply as well to quantum mechanics as to the classical physics from which it had been derived."
One slight demurrer: "Next to the Himalayas of Newton and Einstein everyone else looks as flat as Norfolk." Eveyone except, perhaps, J. Willard Gibbs. As the Encyclopedia Britannica points out: Gibbs's "application of thermodynamics to physical processes led him to develop the science of statistical-mechanics; his treatment of it was so general that it was later found to apply as well to quantum mechanics as to the classical physics from which it had been derived."
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