Friday, January 11, 2013
Hmm …
… David Malouf's pursuit of happiness - latimes.com. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I think that the one sure way to miss happiness is to pursue it.
I think that the one sure way to miss happiness is to pursue it.
Thought for the day …
Begin to be now what you will be hereafter.
— William James, born on this date in 1842
Juan Pablo Villalobos
I've just finished Juan Pablo Villalobos's Down the Rabbit Hole. I don't want to say too much (because I'll be reviewing the book for Rain Taxi), but: wow, this is a pretty incredible first novel. It's not a perfect book, but as contemporary fiction goes, this portrait of contemporary Mexico is up there. Congratulations to Villalobos on a memorable and awakening novel. The praise he and his work have garnered is certainly justified.
Thursday, January 10, 2013
Facing a procedure …
… Anecdotal Evidence: `And Pause Awhile from Learning to Be Wise'.
Let's all keep Patrick in our prayers.
Let's all keep Patrick in our prayers.
Thought for the day …
And remember, where you have a concentration of power in a few hands, all too frequently men with the mentality of gangsters get control. History has proven that.
— Lord Acton, born on this date in 1834
Wednesday, January 09, 2013
Come on …
… Skeptic — Wednesday, January 9th, 2013. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Or take another long-term trend—the decline of violence—thoroughly documented by the Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker in his 2011 book, The Better Angels of Our Nature. This trend has been so slow and steady across so many domains (wars, revolutions, homicide, rape, crime, child abuse, spanking, animal cruelty, racism, lynchings, bigotry, homophobia, and the like) that it took Pinker over 800 pages to document it all, and throughout I cannot think of a single random, Black Swan-like event that triggered anything but a minor wrinkle in the centuries-long trend. (Italics mine.)How about World War I? Or, come to think of it, the Civil War.
Selective learning...
...The World Until Yesterday by Jared Diamond – review
In truth, as the anthropologist WEH Stanner long appreciated, the visionary realm of the Aborigines represents one of the great experiments in human thought. In place of technological wizardry, they invented a matrix of connectivity, an intricate web of social relations based on more than 100 named kin relationships. If they failed to embrace European notions of progress, it was not because they were savages, as the settlers assumed, but rather because in their intellectual universe, distilled in a devotional philosophy known as the Dreaming, there was no notion of linear progression whatsoever, no idealisation of the possibility or promise of change. There was no concept of past, present, or future. In not one of the hundreds of Aboriginal dialects and languages was there a word for time. The entire purpose of humanity was not to improve anything; it was to engage in the ritual and ceremonial activities deemed to be essential for the maintenance of the world precisely as it was at the moment of creation. Imagine if all of Western intellectual and scientific passion had focused from the beginning of time on keeping the Garden of Eden precisely as it was when Adam and Eve had their fateful conversation.
I am not sure where I stand on this. It appeals to my conservative distaste for perfectibility. Then again I am no Luddite.
Being good and kind …
… An epiphany of transgender lives reveals diversity in body of Christ | National Catholic Reporter. (Hat tip, Julie Chovanes.)
Traditional Catholic though I am (though also Jesuit-trained), I have to say that I have thought for a long time that the Church would do well to get out of the sex business (I think the same about the state). I know it is going to sound horribly sentimental — which is odd, because my wife could assure anyone that I am about as unsentimental a person as you are likely to meet (but then she is my wife). My Jesuit preceptors, and in particular Father Gannon, who exerted the greatest influence on me as to how I think and feel — an influence, by the way, that has made life hard at times for me, but has always resulted in good for others — left me with the permanent sense that what Jesus was trying to get across to us is that God wants us to be good and kind to each other. I have gay friends, dear friends. I have a transgendered friend. I cannot forsake them for doctrine. And I am willing to stand before God Himself and say that in so doing I have been doing the right thing. Oh, and by the way, I am generally not a fan of the National Catholic Reporter. Too tendentious usually. So there!
Emily Dickinson...
...Parts of her oeuvre digitized and made available online. Click here for a look.
Here's a thought …
… Science must be seen to bridge the political divide : Nature News and Comment.
Journalists might want to try this, too.
The US scientific community must decide if it wants to be a Democratic interest group or if it wants to reassert its value as an independent national asset. If scientists want to claim that their recommendations are independent of their political beliefs, they ought to be able to show that those recommendations have the support of scientists with conflicting beliefs. Expert panels advising the government on politically divisive issues could strengthen their authority by demonstrating political diversity. The National Academies, as well as many government agencies, already try to balance representation from the academic, non-governmental and private sectors on many science advisory panels; it would be only a small step to be equally explicit about ideological or political diversity. Such information could be given voluntarily.
Journalists might want to try this, too.
Centenary …
… On Nixon’s 100th Birthday: Charisma Had Nothing To Do With It | Town Topics. (Hat tip, Virgina Kerr.)
Really? Barack Obama, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi seem to me at least as partisan as any other politicians I've observed throughout my life.
His centenary comes at a time of vicious political endgamesmanship, the worst of it fueled and fired by the Far Right with a blind fury that makes the Nixon era look like a bipartisan holiday.
Really? Barack Obama, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi seem to me at least as partisan as any other politicians I've observed throughout my life.
Hmm …
… The Blessings of Atheism - NYTimes.com. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I think very few people of faith presume that those who do not have faith are neither good nor kind, anymore than they presume that those who profess faith are necessarily either good or kind.
And just what consolation might that be? If you're going congratulate yourself over your tough-mindedness in dismissing the idea of God, then go the whole way and admit that in a world without God there is no consolation; the dead are dead for good, gone forever.
I might add, by the way, that while the faith I profess assures me that my soul is immortal, I could easily thank God just for being in the first place. As John Hall Wheelock put it (and yes, I know, I have cited this often enough): “to have lived / Even if once only, once and no more, / Will have been – oh, how truly — worth it.”
I think very few people of faith presume that those who do not have faith are neither good nor kind, anymore than they presume that those who profess faith are necessarily either good or kind.
Human “free will” is Western monotheism’s answer to the question of why God does not use his power to prevent the slaughter of innocents, and many people throughout history (some murdered as heretics) have not been able to let God off the hook in that fashion.Jacoby's dismissal of theodicy (which, by her own account, she hasn't reconsidered since she was 9) strikes me as rather cavalier, because the problem is real: If there is a God and he does create us to be free, then he has to let us act freely, with all the consequences therein implied.
Finally, we need to show up at gravesides, as Ingersoll did, to offer whatever consolation we can.
And just what consolation might that be? If you're going congratulate yourself over your tough-mindedness in dismissing the idea of God, then go the whole way and admit that in a world without God there is no consolation; the dead are dead for good, gone forever.
I might add, by the way, that while the faith I profess assures me that my soul is immortal, I could easily thank God just for being in the first place. As John Hall Wheelock put it (and yes, I know, I have cited this often enough): “to have lived / Even if once only, once and no more, / Will have been – oh, how truly — worth it.”
That old contest...
...Man Asian literary prize shortlist stages Booker re-match
This is interesting. Frank roots for one; I for the other.
This is interesting. Frank roots for one; I for the other.
Worth knowing …
… Why the late Richard Ben Cramer was such a good writer | Poynter.. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
For the hell of it …
Much is said about Beethoven's Missa Solemnis, a work I find to be rather crabbed. Much better, to my ears, is his earlier Mass in C. What follows is actually a pretty damn good performance.
Tuesday, January 08, 2013
Worrisome …
… American Un-Exceptionalism. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
In practice, we are carrying out the Greek cycle of regimes that lead from oligarchy to democracy to tyranny, all of a most genteel nature. In our concern with exceptionalism and un-exceptionalism, we failed to notice that human nature is going pretty much along the paths that were sketched out for us particularly by Aristotle and Plato.
Hmm …
… Maverick Philosopher: The Stove 'Dilemma' and the Lewis 'Trilemma'.
If memory serves, Lewis's trilemma refers more precisely to Jesus' claim to be the Son of God.
Now some would argue that He made no such claim. But if he did, then it seems Lewis's alternatives pretty much sums up the case: He's either who he claims to be, or he's nuts, or he's a liar, maybe even the Father of Lies himself.
Oddly contemporary …
… The American Scholar: Returning to Matthew Arnold - Paula Marantz Cohen. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Though not without his blind spots and inconsistencies, he has an astonishing breadth of vision and depth of insight. My early dismissal of his work reflects how often we reject things that we might otherwise like, based solely on accidents of timing. I had simply read Arnold at the wrong moment—wrong for me and wrong for the times.
RIP …
… Ada Louise Huxtable, Doyenne of Architecture Criticism, Dies at 91 - CultureGrrl. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Appropriate appropriation …
… The Catholics who embrace T S Eliot - Telegraph. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Thought for the day …
Attempt easy tasks as if they were difficult, and difficult as if they were easy; in the one case that confidence may not fall asleep, in the other that it may not be dismayed.
— Baltasar Gracián, born on this date in 1601
Monday, January 07, 2013
Pest terror...
...Bedbugs No Reason to Skip Library Books
"Place the book in a Ziploc bag of the appropriate size and put it aside or return the item to the library and have the librarian put it aside," she said. "Eventually, and by that I mean within one to two weeks or sooner, bed bugs hiding in the book will start wandering around the bag looking for a way out. The eggs would have hatched. Keeping the item in a warm, sunny area -- as opposed to a cool, dark area -- will speed up their death from dehydration."
Fess up …
… Gina Ryder: What Poem Changed Your Life? (Hat tip, John Timpane.)
One that gad a deep effect on me was T/S/ Eliot's "Preludes," which helped me realize that there is poetry in the city.
One that gad a deep effect on me was T/S/ Eliot's "Preludes," which helped me realize that there is poetry in the city.
We link, you decide …
… Is this the world's "most awesome library"? — MobyLives. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
FYI …
… Swann Auction Galleries 20th Century Illustration Sale.
Coinciding with Bibliography Week in New York, this sale includes an extensive selection of original 20th-century illustration art and books. There are illustrations by Charles Addams, Ludwig Bemelmans, Al Hirschfeld, Beatrix Potter, Dr. Seuss and others.
War and suicide …
… The “scale of appraisal”: Woolf, Tsvetaeva, and Inspector Javert | The Book Haven.
Although my memory of Victor Hugo‘s book has faded over the years, I don’t recall any representation that has linked Javert’s suicide with these useless and unnecessary deaths, in addition to the inspector’s confusion at Jean Valjean’s unexpected act of mercy. But the connection with warfare is an obvious one – someone should have thought of it – and it brought me back to my post of a few days ago, discussing Virginia Woolf‘s last letter, before her own suicide. I had never connected her death with the German bombing of Britain, but her husband had.
Likable, but unconvincing …
… Bryan Appleyard — Jared Diamond: Ancient and Modern. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Sad anniversary …
… The Suicide of John Berryman - The Barnes and Noble Review. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I remember the day, if only because I was reading a good bit of Berryman at the time. Some years later, while on a visit to Minneapolis, a friend of mine and I drove by the site where it happened.
Majority of one …
… Pop Goes the Culture | The Weekly Standard. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Which is bad enough, except that we the taxpayers still have to pay for it. I sure in hell don't listen to it.
Imagine NPR as it once was, from its founding in the early seventies into the early eighties, when the fateful decision was made to transform an eclectic and discursive ragbag of cultural programming into the fabulously wealthy, grimly professional all-news-almost-all-the-time media colossus we know today. Myers worked at NPR off and on for nearly a decade, spending several years as arts editor for Morning Edition before layoffs from the new regime gutted arts coverage in 1983.
Which is bad enough, except that we the taxpayers still have to pay for it. I sure in hell don't listen to it.
Also born on this date …
… in 1899, Francis Poulenc. (After you click it on, click the YouTube link.)
Thought for the day …
The devout have laid out gardens in the desert.
— Robert Duncan, born on this date in 1919
Sunday, January 06, 2013
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