Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Salvation without sacrifice...
... Secret Sequel: New Age “Mind Cure” Misses the Point. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
In this corner ...
... Paul Krugman vs. George Orwell. (Hint: Orwell wins.)
Of course, it was a mismatch from the start.
Of course, it was a mismatch from the start.
Rhyme and reason ...
... `Write What You Like'.
As Kay Ryan's poem demonstrates, though, rhyme need can be employed more imaginatively than is often the case. You can even scatter it in fragments throughout the poem, giving the poem a kind of subliminal unity (I do this all the time and have come to calling it chromatic rhyme, but you can call it what you like, or call it nothing at all).
As Kay Ryan's poem demonstrates, though, rhyme need can be employed more imaginatively than is often the case. You can even scatter it in fragments throughout the poem, giving the poem a kind of subliminal unity (I do this all the time and have come to calling it chromatic rhyme, but you can call it what you like, or call it nothing at all).
Hmm ...
... healing & therapy are largely subtractive. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I think most people would be better off not worrying about their health so much.
I think most people would be better off not worrying about their health so much.
Not the greatest ...
... mob story, but pretty good: Mob Stories: Hit Man John Veasey's Life After the South Philly Mob.
Thought for the day ...
If you want to study writing, read Dickens. That's how to study writing, or Faulkner, or D.H. Lawrence, or John Keats. They can teach you everything you need to know about writing.- Shelby Foote, born on this dare in 1916
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Laurel, Hardy, and Beckett ...
... `Made Merry With the Hardy Laurel'.
For my money, no one is funnier than Laurel and Hardy, especially when they dance.For my money, too. Here they dance, and Ollie sings:
I'm not so sure ...
... Taste Will Not Make You Superior.
From Grief's article:
From Grief's article:
"The things you prefer — tastes that you like to think of as personal, unique, justified only by sensibility — correspond tightly to defining measures of social class: your profession, your highest degree and your father’s profession."
Maybe -- if you're preoccupied with defining yourself socially. I come from a pretty poor working-class background. Nobody in my family went to the orchestra or the opera or listened to either on the radio. But when I was in high school I fell in love with classical music. Why? I thought it sounded great. Same thing with painting. Sometimes a painting is just so beautiful you want to climb inside it. Works of art have an intrinsic value altogether apart from any value we may place upon them.
Good luck ...
... CEO: Inquirer to host startup incubator next year. (Hat tip, Paul Davis.)
Former Newsweek CEO, eh? Wasn't Newsweek just sold for $1?
Former Newsweek CEO, eh? Wasn't Newsweek just sold for $1?
Thought for the day ...
The famous saying 'God is love', it is generally assumed, means that God is like our immediate emotional indulgence, not that the meaning of love ought to have something of the 'otherness' and terror of God.
- Charles Williams
Monday, November 15, 2010
Academic mercenary ...
... The man who writes your students' papers tells his story.
At one point in my checkered career I edited dissertations. Not the same thing as writing them, of course -- which I would never have agreed to do, old-fashioned sort that I am -- but I was surprised to find how far along the track to a Ph.D people could get without becoming very skillful in organizing material or developing anything resembling an engaging style.
Listen in ...
... as Richard Rodriguez talks about his latest book, which will examine Islam in America. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
In the running ..
... 'Lord of Misrule' beautifully captures language of the racetrack. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
One more time ...
... for those who don't quite get it: Peace Train? The Atlantic revisits Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam, Salman Rushdie.
Indeed.
Peace is more than dreaming and singing songs. Sometimes it requires courage. In fact, it doesn’t mean much unless it does. Otherwise, it’s just the easy pacifism of the non-combatant.
Indeed.
Thought for the day ...
Poetry evokes out of words the resonance of the primordial world.- Gerhart Hauptmann, born on this date in 1862
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Art and life ...
... completely intertwined: Romain Gary: au revoir et merci.
That would be a tw0-place aircraft.
... he fled in a two-seater plane...
That would be a tw0-place aircraft.
I think I agree ...
... if only because I can't remember ever using the word: Words and Phrases that Make Me Grind My Teeth.
A day late with this ...
... but I did choose Higgins for my quote of the day: Happy Birthday to Crime Writer George V. Higgins.
Thought for the day ...
What makes old age so sad is not that our joys but our hopes cease.- Jean Paul, who died on this date in 1825
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Limousine radicals ...
... The Zealotry Of Free Thinkers. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Mr. Blom focuses on the rival salons of Paris and the often fraught personal relations of his subjects. The salons were organized by aristocratic men and women, affording the philosophes opportunities to try out their literary wares and show off their quick-wittedness. Some of these convivial occasions involved gargantuan quantities of food and wine, if Mr. Blom's sample menu offering 30 dishes is any guide. No wonder so many philosophes seem to have ended up gouty and spherical, despite the moral austerities they often enjoined on others.
Dimensions of evil ...
... Naimark, Snyder and Applebaum: We need to rethink “genocide”.
Of course, as Kenneth Patchen put it, "There are no proportions in death."
Of course, as Kenneth Patchen put it, "There are no proportions in death."
Thought for the day ...
Writing is the only trade I know of in which sniveling confessions of extreme incompetence are taken as credentials probative of powers to astound the multitude.- George V. Higgins, born on this date in 1939
Friday, November 12, 2010
Chasing Sheep?
I've just finished Haruki Murakami's Wild Sheep Chase - and I must say: here's a book that starts out great, rises toward something profound, and then gradually fades away. In this sense, the novel is something of a disappointment. I suppose I felt tricked: I mean, I was willing to go along for a literary ride, but by the end, I struggled to find meaning in Murakami's unyielding attention to, well, to sheep. Were these animals (who enter the human psyche) intended as a metaphor? Or are they instead (merely) players in an artistic scavenger hunt? So opaque and disjointed had things become by the final third of this novel that I struggled to remember what I had enjoyed so much about its opening pages. Still, though, despite this criticism, I'd like to register an intense appreciation for Murakami's Norwegian Wood - not a perfect novel, but a lasting one...and one without the animals.
On second thought ...
... The Danger of Cosmic Genius.
Dave Lull brought this to my attention the other day, but I didn't post a link because I didn't think the article was very good. In particular, I found it odd that Brower, who -- as he mentions -- wrote a book in which Dyson figured prominently -- a book I reviewed and rather liked -- didn't bother to get in touch with Dyson, who is alive and well in Princeton and still quite able to explain himself.
Anyway, I post a link now because I find the bulk of the comments heart-warming.
Dave Lull brought this to my attention the other day, but I didn't post a link because I didn't think the article was very good. In particular, I found it odd that Brower, who -- as he mentions -- wrote a book in which Dyson figured prominently -- a book I reviewed and rather liked -- didn't bother to get in touch with Dyson, who is alive and well in Princeton and still quite able to explain himself.
Anyway, I post a link now because I find the bulk of the comments heart-warming.
Something I missed ...
... and shouldn't have: Can one election change a man's life?
Jack Rossi is a tad older than I, but the 1948 election is the first one I remember also.
Jack Rossi is a tad older than I, but the 1948 election is the first one I remember also.
A day late ...
... but the words are forever: “…pray you’ll never know The hell where youth and laughter go.”
Resilience ...
... The Defiant Ones. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Following the publication of "Seabiscuit," Ms. Hillenbrand wrote to Mr. Zamperini. Shortly thereafter they had the first of many long phone conversations. His tale of survival captivated her both on its merits and because she could relate to it personally. "I'm attracted," she says, "to subjects who overcome tremendous suffering and learn to cope emotionally with it."
Attention ...
... all those who complain about what technology is doing to literature: A renaissance rooted in technology: the literary magazine returns. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
You, too, can be a genius ...
... No You Can't. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
In Tycho & Kepler, Kitty Ferguson says that "to discover, as Kepler did, the true orbit of Mars using Tycho's observations ;required a level of subtlety, insight, and inventiveness . . . that arguably has not been surpassed in the history of science.' " Sounds to me as if he was a cut above the rest.
The problem with the 10,000-hour rule is that many of its most ardent proponents are political ideologues who see the existence of genius as an affront to their vision of human equality, and will do anything to explain it away. They have a lot of explaining to do, starting with the case of Mozart. As Mr. Robinson points out, Nannerl, Mozart's older sister, was a gifted pianist who received the same intensive training as her better-known brother, yet she failed to develop as a composer. What stopped her? The simplest explanation is also the most persuasive one: He had something to say and she didn't. Or, to put it even more bluntly, he was a genius and she wasn't.
In Tycho & Kepler, Kitty Ferguson says that "to discover, as Kepler did, the true orbit of Mars using Tycho's observations ;required a level of subtlety, insight, and inventiveness . . . that arguably has not been surpassed in the history of science.' " Sounds to me as if he was a cut above the rest.
Thought for the day ...
Art is contemplation. It is the pleasure of the mind which searches into nature and which there divines the spirit of which nature herself is animated.- Auguste Rodin, born on this date in 1840
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Holding up well ...
... Happy 90th Birthday, Mr. Bond.
FYI: From a Wikipedia article about Hoagy Carmichael: "Author Ian Fleming wrote in his novels Casino Royale and Moonraker that British secret agent James Bond resembled Carmichael, but with a scar down one cheek. In the book Casino Royale, James Bond compares himself unfavorably with Carmichael."
FYI: From a Wikipedia article about Hoagy Carmichael: "Author Ian Fleming wrote in his novels Casino Royale and Moonraker that British secret agent James Bond resembled Carmichael, but with a scar down one cheek. In the book Casino Royale, James Bond compares himself unfavorably with Carmichael."
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