Monday, September 13, 2010
A fresh look ...
... Reconsiderations and Revivals: Ethan Frome.
For what it's worth I remember that a friend and I, when we read Ethan Frome in high school, thought it was hilarious -- after all, his romance and the accident leave him, in effect, with two shrews rather than just one. Teenage boys can be so sick.
For what it's worth I remember that a friend and I, when we read Ethan Frome in high school, thought it was hilarious -- after all, his romance and the accident leave him, in effect, with two shrews rather than just one. Teenage boys can be so sick.
Now voyager ...
.... 6 Clicks…For the Endless Voyage: Patrick Kurp. (Just saw that Dave sent me a link to this.)
Thought for the day ...
In the beginning when the world was young there were a great many thoughts but no such thing as a truth. Man made the truths himself and each truth was a composite of a great many vague thoughts.
It was the truths that made the people grotesques. The moment one of the people took one of the truths to himself, called it his truth, and tried to live his life by it, he became a grotesque and the truth he embraced became a falsehood.- Sherwood Anderson, born on this date in 1876
Sunday, September 12, 2010
The Slaughterhouse
Kurt Vonnegut: now here's an author whose reputation I can't quite grasp. On the one hand, his work has been incorporated into high school and university curricula across the country; and yet, on the other hand, he has a lot to say about, well, about aliens. Where does this man fit into the literary canon? Does he fit at all?
This week's batch ...
.. of TLS Letters: Hugh Trevor-Roper, 'Don Juan', Poplars and limes, and more!
Maxine wonders ...
... What kind of a (mystery) reader are you?
See also Maxine's review of All the Colours of the Town by Liam McIlvanney.
See also Maxine's review of All the Colours of the Town by Liam McIlvanney.
Postmodern moral reasoning ...
... To kill a fly. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I am one of the contributors to a symposium on postmodernism in the current issue of Boulevard, on sale now in bookstores.
I am one of the contributors to a symposium on postmodernism in the current issue of Boulevard, on sale now in bookstores.
Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes ....
... Hilary Mantel on winning the 2009 Man Booker prize. (Hat tip, Lee Lowe.)
We have arrived ...
Debbie and I are down the shore (as they say in these parts), spending a week with friends in Stone Harbor.
Gnat meet sledgehammer ...
... Lady Gaga and the death of sex.
I wonder how many Times readers are Lady Gaga fans, and how many Lady Gaga fans are Times readers. Anyway, this inspired me to check out Gaga on YouTube.
If that really is her singing - and I have no reason to think it isn't - she ain't bad. The Madonna connection is pretty evident, but I don't see that Gaga falls short by the comparison. But then I never discerned any depths hidden beneath Madonna's shallows. Made me think of a distaff Gary Numan and the Tube way Army. Why wouldn't kids get a kick out of it?
If that really is her singing - and I have no reason to think it isn't - she ain't bad. The Madonna connection is pretty evident, but I don't see that Gaga falls short by the comparison. But then I never discerned any depths hidden beneath Madonna's shallows. Made me think of a distaff Gary Numan and the Tube way Army. Why wouldn't kids get a kick out of it?
Thought for the day ...
Criticism is prejudice made plausible.- H. L. Mencken, born on this date in 1880
Saturday, September 11, 2010
Thought for the day ...
Do not allow to slip away from you freedoms the people who came before you won with such hard knocks.- D.H. Lawrence, born on this date in 1885
Friday, September 10, 2010
Look, Ma, no books ...
... UTSA opens nation's first bookless library on a university campus. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Good for her ...
... Woman's persistence pays off in regenerated fingertip.
I have a kind of personal interest in this story. I had my own left thumb tip reattached more than 20 years ago. I remember the young surgeon in the ER telling me that he wasn't sure he could do it. But he did. I also remember the nurses at work oohing and ahhing over it when they took out the sutures. They said was the best suturing job they had ever seen. It's still attached.
I have a kind of personal interest in this story. I had my own left thumb tip reattached more than 20 years ago. I remember the young surgeon in the ER telling me that he wasn't sure he could do it. But he did. I also remember the nurses at work oohing and ahhing over it when they took out the sutures. They said was the best suturing job they had ever seen. It's still attached.
Getting my groove back ...
... blogging here is starting to pick up again and will continue to so, even when head to the shore tomorrow. But things must be done in the meantime. Back a little later.
Hey, good lookin' ...
... Hello, Beautiful: What We Talk About When We Talk About Beauty. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Sound-bite physics ...
... Order of creation.
It is hard to evaluate their case against recent philosophy, because the only subsequent mention of it, after the announcement of its death, is, rather oddly, an approving reference to a philosopher’s analysis of the concept of a law of nature, which, they say, “is a more subtle question than one may at first think.” There are actually rather a lot of questions that are more subtle than the authors think. It soon becomes evident that Professor Hawking and Mr Mlodinow regard a philosophical problem as something you knock off over a quick cup of tea after you have run out of Sudoku puzzles.
Well, well ...
... Wall Street Journal To Launch A Book Review Section. (Hat tip, Paul Davis.)
If other papers had kept theirs and eliminated much of the other crap they think people want to read they would probably be flourishing. Of course, you have to know that people want to read about more than politics and sports.
If other papers had kept theirs and eliminated much of the other crap they think people want to read they would probably be flourishing. Of course, you have to know that people want to read about more than politics and sports.
Thought for the day ...
... if you do not even understand what words say,
how can you expect to pass judgement
on what words conceal?
- H. D., born on this date 1886
Reading H.D.'s "Pear Tree" in the Holmesburg library when I was about 16 is what made me want to write poetry. It was a true epiphany.
Thursday, September 09, 2010
We can only hope ...
... Bloggers May Not be Charged $300 For Their Thoughts. (Hat tip, Paul Davis.)
One-man band of pain ...
That was how Alphonse Daudet described himself The Land of Pain. My plight today was nowhere near as desperate as Daudet's, but his comment did come to mind.
I have been accumulating change and putting it in jars in my home office. When I restored order to the office this past weekend I decided to start getting rid of the change, which was taking up too much space. So this morning I putting what turned out to be $400 worth of quarters into my flimsiest backpack and haul it 23 blocks to a credit union that would exchange the coins for cash.
That many quarters doesn't actually weigh all that much -- something on the order of 12 pounds, and I've certainly carried more than 12 pounds in that backpack. But it is an unusually concentrated 12 pounds, and when I was free of the weight I noticed that I was aching quite a bit. By the time I left the Inquirer this afternoon I could hardly walk. My back, my knees, and my legs all ached. When I got home, I popped a couple of extra-strength aspiring and lay down for a couple of hours . I feel better now, but still not all that great. So I am going to take a hot bath and go to bed early.
I have been accumulating change and putting it in jars in my home office. When I restored order to the office this past weekend I decided to start getting rid of the change, which was taking up too much space. So this morning I putting what turned out to be $400 worth of quarters into my flimsiest backpack and haul it 23 blocks to a credit union that would exchange the coins for cash.
That many quarters doesn't actually weigh all that much -- something on the order of 12 pounds, and I've certainly carried more than 12 pounds in that backpack. But it is an unusually concentrated 12 pounds, and when I was free of the weight I noticed that I was aching quite a bit. By the time I left the Inquirer this afternoon I could hardly walk. My back, my knees, and my legs all ached. When I got home, I popped a couple of extra-strength aspiring and lay down for a couple of hours . I feel better now, but still not all that great. So I am going to take a hot bath and go to bed early.
Birdwatching ...
.. from Christopher Guerin: STARLINGS.
I wrote a poem about starlings myself some years ago. In fact, it got published in Boulevard. So here it is:
I wrote a poem about starlings myself some years ago. In fact, it got published in Boulevard. So here it is:
Starlings
Something like a flock of sixteenth notes
Takes flight from telephonic staves
Into the tarnished silver sky
And carries me back to the factories
That seemed even bigger when I was six
Near the vacant lots by the railroad tracks
Thick with blackberries and thorns.
Wednesday, September 08, 2010
Uneasy relationship ...
... “1952 Vincent Black Lightning”: Lyrics That Tell Us What We’re Not.
Can't comment on this. Richard Thompson is one those people everybody was always telling was a genius, but I never got around to listening -- and I remember when he was performing with then-wife Linda. Probably had something to do with my associating him the the folk-music scene to which I am unusually averse. All that peace, love and understanding causes me to break out in hives.
Tech problems ...
Over the weekend, my desktop became infected by a virus called Security Suite. The computer was effectively paralyzed, since I could do nothing -- no program would start -- without allowing the virus to have its way. My tech guy Kevin just spent a good part of the afternoon cleaning things, which is why I have done little blogging. I also have assignments to finidh, so I don't expect to be up to be blogging speed for a few days.
For someone many insist ...
... doesn't exist, God sure remains a topic of heated discussion:
... It's Not God Who Needs Saving - It's Us.
... A Farewell to the Philosophy of Religion? Why not a Farewell to Philosophy? (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I have been reading Peter Stothard's extraordinary Spartacus Road. I can't say much about it, since I have to write a review of it tomorrow, but one lesson to be drawn from it is that latter-day secularists ought to be boning up on their classics. Horace, for instance, was typical of the educated class of his time in subscribing to Epicureanism, which held that gods may exist, but that they pay us no mind, and we ought to pay them none. It isn't exactly atheism, but it comes to much the same thing. It gives one a nice idea of what a purely secular society might be like: plenty of people still believed in and honored the gods, but they were mostly unsophisticated types, I gather (that alone sounds very contemporary). But there is a bleakness to the "sophisticated" outlook of the day that leads me to think that is one reason Christianity spread so quickly throughout the Roman world. I say this as someone for whom that Epicurean viewpoint has always held some appeal.
... It's Not God Who Needs Saving - It's Us.
... A Farewell to the Philosophy of Religion? Why not a Farewell to Philosophy? (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I have been reading Peter Stothard's extraordinary Spartacus Road. I can't say much about it, since I have to write a review of it tomorrow, but one lesson to be drawn from it is that latter-day secularists ought to be boning up on their classics. Horace, for instance, was typical of the educated class of his time in subscribing to Epicureanism, which held that gods may exist, but that they pay us no mind, and we ought to pay them none. It isn't exactly atheism, but it comes to much the same thing. It gives one a nice idea of what a purely secular society might be like: plenty of people still believed in and honored the gods, but they were mostly unsophisticated types, I gather (that alone sounds very contemporary). But there is a bleakness to the "sophisticated" outlook of the day that leads me to think that is one reason Christianity spread so quickly throughout the Roman world. I say this as someone for whom that Epicurean viewpoint has always held some appeal.
Thought for the day ...
We soon believe the things we would believe.- Ludovico Ariosto, born on this date in 1474
Tuesday, September 07, 2010
Thought for the day ...
The poet speaks to all men of that other life of theirs that they have smothered and forgotten.- Edith Sitwell, born on this date in 1887
Monday, September 06, 2010
The Vicar ...
... otherwise known as The Pope. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
First, let me link to this post from some years back, in which I take the Church to task rather sternly.
This a characteristically fine Bryan Appleyard piece. My only quibble would be to the use of the term conservative. I am often thought to be conservative, but my socio-political thinking is very much the product of that Catholic social teaching Bryan refers to. The foundations of that teaching are the principle of subsidiarity and what Chesterton and Belloc called Distributism. Together these address two main problems of society: the concentration of wealth and the concentration of power by suggestion that both wealth and power should be as widely dispersed as possible -- and not by a top-down redistribution of wealth (which would merely amount to the sole concentration of wealth and power in the state.
I would also demur regarding the references to liturgy. The English vernacular Mass has been a disgrace from the start: willfully mistranslated, hopelessly tin-eared, and doctrinally obtuse. The Tridentine Mass represents the culmination of a liviing tradition; the Novus Ordo is a jerry-built monstrosity. And Pope Benedict knows this: He studied with Romano Guardini, a pioneer in liturgical reform, a clear thinker and fine writer as well as a good priest. You want a religious service that makes you sense that you are part of a vital 2,000-year-old tradition? Attend the sung traditional Mass at my parish some Sunday at noon.
First, let me link to this post from some years back, in which I take the Church to task rather sternly.
This a characteristically fine Bryan Appleyard piece. My only quibble would be to the use of the term conservative. I am often thought to be conservative, but my socio-political thinking is very much the product of that Catholic social teaching Bryan refers to. The foundations of that teaching are the principle of subsidiarity and what Chesterton and Belloc called Distributism. Together these address two main problems of society: the concentration of wealth and the concentration of power by suggestion that both wealth and power should be as widely dispersed as possible -- and not by a top-down redistribution of wealth (which would merely amount to the sole concentration of wealth and power in the state.
I would also demur regarding the references to liturgy. The English vernacular Mass has been a disgrace from the start: willfully mistranslated, hopelessly tin-eared, and doctrinally obtuse. The Tridentine Mass represents the culmination of a liviing tradition; the Novus Ordo is a jerry-built monstrosity. And Pope Benedict knows this: He studied with Romano Guardini, a pioneer in liturgical reform, a clear thinker and fine writer as well as a good priest. You want a religious service that makes you sense that you are part of a vital 2,000-year-old tradition? Attend the sung traditional Mass at my parish some Sunday at noon.
Thought for the day ...
The secret is to write just anything, to dare to write just anything, because when you write just anything, you begin to say what is important.- Julien Green, born on this date in 1900
Sunday, September 05, 2010
Always thoughtful ...
... that would be Richard Rodriguez: The 'Great Wall of America' and the threat from within.
In the 16 years since we moved here, a lot of Mexicans have moved here as well. I like them. They work hard. And they make visits to Taco Bell completely unnecessary. (You want authentic Mexican food? Come here.)
Also, this country has always been a nation of immigrants. Not that we've always accepted them at first or made things easy for them. But most previous immigrants came from overseas and were legally processed on arrival.
There are laws in place. Those who are charged with enforcing those laws should enforce them. Those who break such laws should pay the penalty. After all, the Mexican who comes here legally deserves to be distinguished from Mexicans who didn't.
And laws can be changed. We can start with identifying what the problem is:
First, a lot of people evidently can't have a good life in Mexico and want to come here for a fresh start. We ought to be able to accommodate them.
Second, there are a lot of people in this country who want illegal drugs. Now I have never understood why an individual does not have the right to put into his body whatever he wants. Somebody wants to shoot heroin, let him. As for any unsocial behavior that might result, well we already have drunk and disorderly laws. You kill somebody while drunk, you get charged with murder. Remember, too, that these drugs attract criminals precisely because, by being illegal, they command high prices. Those prices would drop once the legal proscription was lifted, and they would drop a lot. Unless there is a reasonable profit to be made, nobody is going to make the stuff.
Third, if so many Mexicans want to be Americans, why doesn't Mexico apply for statehood?
In the 16 years since we moved here, a lot of Mexicans have moved here as well. I like them. They work hard. And they make visits to Taco Bell completely unnecessary. (You want authentic Mexican food? Come here.)
Also, this country has always been a nation of immigrants. Not that we've always accepted them at first or made things easy for them. But most previous immigrants came from overseas and were legally processed on arrival.
There are laws in place. Those who are charged with enforcing those laws should enforce them. Those who break such laws should pay the penalty. After all, the Mexican who comes here legally deserves to be distinguished from Mexicans who didn't.
And laws can be changed. We can start with identifying what the problem is:
First, a lot of people evidently can't have a good life in Mexico and want to come here for a fresh start. We ought to be able to accommodate them.
Second, there are a lot of people in this country who want illegal drugs. Now I have never understood why an individual does not have the right to put into his body whatever he wants. Somebody wants to shoot heroin, let him. As for any unsocial behavior that might result, well we already have drunk and disorderly laws. You kill somebody while drunk, you get charged with murder. Remember, too, that these drugs attract criminals precisely because, by being illegal, they command high prices. Those prices would drop once the legal proscription was lifted, and they would drop a lot. Unless there is a reasonable profit to be made, nobody is going to make the stuff.
Third, if so many Mexicans want to be Americans, why doesn't Mexico apply for statehood?
Holiday blogging ...
It's a holiday weekend, Debbie's in Brooklyn visiting her grandkids, and I am trying to restore order to my home office. So blogging will be spotty for a while.
Thought for the day ...
The world is a living image of God.- Tommaso Campanella, born on this date in 1568
Saturday, September 04, 2010
To the point ...
... A conversation with Stephen Hawking, aged five years old. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Unpersuasive ...
... Why God Did Not Create the Universe. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
The headline overstates the case, but that is not the authors' fault. Still:
"Spontaneous creation" hardly gets us anywhere beyond "we're here because we're here because we're here." Everything just happens to be and is governed by these law thingies. I thought the question had to do with exactly how something can be created out of nothing. If these "advances" simply tell us that something can come from nothing, they hardly tell us anything we haven't been pondering forever. Where did the universe come from? Oh, that's easy: It appeared spontaneously out of nothing! Awesome!
The headline overstates the case, but that is not the authors' fault. Still:
As recent advances in cosmology suggest, the laws of gravity and quantum theory allow universes to appear spontaneously from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going.
"Spontaneous creation" hardly gets us anywhere beyond "we're here because we're here because we're here." Everything just happens to be and is governed by these law thingies. I thought the question had to do with exactly how something can be created out of nothing. If these "advances" simply tell us that something can come from nothing, they hardly tell us anything we haven't been pondering forever. Where did the universe come from? Oh, that's easy: It appeared spontaneously out of nothing! Awesome!
Am I missing something ...
... I've read this a couple of times, and I really can't figure out what the hell his point is, or at least how his point connects with his evidence and what there is of an argument: Take the Evolution Challenge.
Thought for the day ...
Go with your fate, but not beyond. Beyond leads to dark places.- Mary Renault, born on this date in 1905
Friday, September 03, 2010
This week's batch ...
... of TLS Letters: Greek past and Andean future, Newman's research, Mrs Potiphar, and more!
One way of seeing it ...
... Digested read: Spoilt rotten: The Toxic Cult of Sentimentality by Theodore Dalrymple. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
A put-down for sure. But not much in the way of a rebuttal.
A put-down for sure. But not much in the way of a rebuttal.
Tracking a writer ...
... Following in Graham Greene's footsteps in Liberia and Sierra Leone. (Hat tip, Paul Davis.)
Thought for the day ...
The thing that teases the mind over and over for years, and at last gets itself put down rightly on paper - whether little or great, it belongs to Literature.- Sarah Orne Jewett, born on this date in 1849
Thursday, September 02, 2010
Poem ...
Encounter
White-bearded guy
Who looks younger
Than he is casts
A lustful glance
At a woman older
Than she looks. Both
Are wearing shades. But
She knows he knows
She enjoys his glance.
Both feel better
About themselves
And the day.
Exactly what does this mean?
... Stephen Hawking: God was not needed to create the Universe.
The laws of science are statistical formulations. I honestly don't know what the hell is he talking about, and doubt if he does either. His grasp of metaphysics seems rudimentary at best.
"The question is: is the way the universe began chosen by God for reasons we can't understand, or was it determined by a law of science? I believe the second. If you like, you can call the laws of science 'God', but it wouldn't be a personal God that you could meet, and ask questions."
The laws of science are statistical formulations. I honestly don't know what the hell is he talking about, and doubt if he does either. His grasp of metaphysics seems rudimentary at best.
Travel ...
... An invitation to participate in another world.
Also, while it is common to cite entropy, is it not fair to point out that it seems to apply principally to the inorganic world? As I understand it, the chemistry of the carbon compounds follows an opposite trajectory, toward states of increasing molecular complexity.
... Nicholas Humphrey's account of beauty, in Prospect, won't do. Trapped in an instrumental world - of utility, not violins - he explains it like the peacock's tail: a matter of sexual display. But this is surely a case of evolution explaining away what it purports to explain. If you don't like the aesthetic insights of Scruton and Tallis on music, which challenge this reductionism, then how about the hard observation of the physicist, that the beauty of equations is a key test of their explanatory power. Humphrey would say that the perception of beauty in the physicist's equations arises because they represent stable forms, and we are attracted to stable forms because stability is desirable in a sexual partner. Is it just me, or are you thinking, 'shaggy dog story'?
Also, while it is common to cite entropy, is it not fair to point out that it seems to apply principally to the inorganic world? As I understand it, the chemistry of the carbon compounds follows an opposite trajectory, toward states of increasing molecular complexity.
Exigetical differences ...
... to say the least: Author denies Discovery gunman James Lee's interpretation of 'My Ishmael'. (Hat tip, Scott Stein.)
Paul Auster
Paul Auster. Who is this man? And exactly what is his reputation?
I ask because I've just finished one of his more recent novels, the mournful tale of August Brill, Man in the Dark. About this book, let me record a few observations:
1. To the extent that the novel is basically divided into two stories, it is safe, I think, to say that while the second is moving, it is far less complex, far less compelling, than the first. Also, it must be noted that the connections between the first and second stories are somewhat distant, and thus the novel is not - what I, at least, would consider - balanced.
2. My feelings, my response, to Man in the Dark mirror those which accompanied my completion of City of Glass: that is, I just can't get into Auster's prose. I find them unremarkable, simple, sometimes careless. Sentence by sentence, as a lyricist, there's not much to get excited about, I don't think, when it comes to Auster...
3. And yet, when he gets going, especially in Man in the Dark, Auster probes that labyrinthine quality of our lives - and he does so in a manner reminiscent (yes, you got it) of Borges. High praise, I know, but he's (sometimes) worthy...
4. Ultimately: Despite the incongruities of this novel, its first one hundred pages do expose something profound - and while I lament Auster's use of language, his syntax, his style, I do reserve the final word for him:
"The story is about a man who must kill the person who created him, and why pretend that I am not that person? By putting myself into the story, the story becomes real. Or else I become unreal, yet one more figment of my own imagination..." (Picador ed., 102)
All downhill ...
... after the title: Lisa reads: Angels, Vampires and Douche Bags by Carla Collins.
Thought for the day ...
The march of invention has clothed mankind with powers of which a century ago the boldest imagination could not have dreamt.- Henry George, born on this date in 1839
Wednesday, September 01, 2010
Mentors ...
... From Jane Austen To Henry James: A Writer's Journey.
I've read What Alice Knew, Paula's forthcoming novel. So had Debbie. We both loved it.
I've read What Alice Knew, Paula's forthcoming novel. So had Debbie. We both loved it.
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