Saturday, September 28, 2013
Brothers in art …
… Bryan Appleyard — The Coen Brothers: Artists for Art’s Sake. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Getting started …
… The 100 best novels: an introduction | Books | The Observer. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
It strikes me as a somewhat peculiar list.
It strikes me as a somewhat peculiar list.
Flipper. Flipper! FLIPPER!
Their social lives are complex, and they can congregate in large groups. Their heart rates increase when they notice a family member suffering. They sound the alarm when they discover food or a potential threat. And experiments have shown they even anticipate future events.
Biologist Justin Gregg is talking about chickens. Chickens, says Gregg, "are not as dim-witted as popular opinion would have us believe." He adds, "Some of these complex behaviors have also been observed in dolphins."
Really? Are chickens as smart as dolphins? Or, to put it differently: "Are dolphins really smart?" This is the question Gregg, a zoologist with the US-based Dolphin Communication Project, asks in his new book of the same name. And he isn't the only one finding fault with Flipper's brainpower.
Oh, good …
… Record Label Picks Copyright Fight — With The Wrong Guy : All Tech Considered : NPR. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Art and economics …
… Philadelphia's culture boom strains under the costs of upkeep - Philly.com. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
A thought for today …
The creation of a world view is the work of a generation rather than of an individual, but we each of us, for better or for worse, add our brick to the edifice.
— John Dos Passos, who died on this date in 1970
Friday, September 27, 2013
Recalled to service …
… Solo, by William Boyd - FT.com. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Hey, in The Man from U.N.C.L.E. — which was a kind of Bond spoof —the eponymous hero was named Napoleon Solo.
Hey, in The Man from U.N.C.L.E. — which was a kind of Bond spoof —the eponymous hero was named Napoleon Solo.
Getting her due …
The American Spectator : The Heart of the Heartland. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
WILLA CATHER’S TASTES in literature, music, food, travel were all impressively refined. She favored Balzac, Tolstoy, and Henry James, and claimed the last two as influences on her own writing. She preferred French over English novelists, because they dispensed with congeniality and their range of interests was much wider. Her love of music ran strong, and she later befriended the Menuhin family, whose son Yehudi was the great violin prodigy of his day. Food was important to her, in and for itself and for what it conveyed about civilized culture. In a scene in Death Comes for the Archbishop, the novel’s main character, Bishop Latour, is served an onion soup by his assistant Father Vaillant, about which the bishop remarks: “I am not deprecating your individual talent, Joseph, but, when one thinks of it, a soup like this is not the work of one man. It is the result of a constantly refined tradition. There are nearly a thousand years of history in this soup.”
Thursday, September 26, 2013
Openness and Sex by David Gilmour (not the Pink Floyd guy)
I’m not interested in teaching books by women. Virginia Woolf is the only writer that interests me as a woman writer, so I do teach one of her short stories. But once again, when I was given this job I said I would only teach the people that I truly, truly love. Unfortunately, none of those happen to be Chinese, or women. Except for Virginia Woolf. And when I tried to teach Virginia Woolf, she’s too sophisticated, even for a third-year class. Usually at the beginning of the semester a hand shoots up and someone asks why there aren’t any women writers in the course. I say I don’t love women writers enough to teach them, if you want women writers go down the hall. What I teach is guys. Serious heterosexual guys. F. Scott Fitzgerald, Chekhov, Tolstoy. Real guy-guys. Henry Miller. Philip Roth.
I teach Tropic of Cancer to the first-year class. They’re shocked out of their pants. No one teaches it except for me. Sometimes their parents actually question me about it, they say, Listen, this is really outrageous. I say, well, it’s a piece of literature that’s been around for 60 years. It’s got something going for it.
There’s an even dirtier one that I teach, by Philip Roth, called The Dying Animal. I save it ’til the very end of the year because by that point they’ve got fairly strong stomachs, and they’re far more sophisticated than they are in the beginning. So they can understand the differences between pornography and great literature. There are men eating menstrual pads, and by the time my students get to that they’re ready. Roth has the best understanding of middle-aged sexuality I’ve ever come across. Now where’s my copy? I took it home to read it again, and I think I might have packed it up and stuck it away in storage. That’s going to be a problem, because all my favourite parts are underlined.
The limits of intelligence …
… Anecdotal Evidence: `Intelligence and the Grace of Blessed Temperament'.
Three thoughts: I certainly think IQ is overrated, and mine is perfectly respectable. Genuine intelligence involves more than just skill at reasoning. And facility with speech is often confused with intelligence.
Three thoughts: I certainly think IQ is overrated, and mine is perfectly respectable. Genuine intelligence involves more than just skill at reasoning. And facility with speech is often confused with intelligence.
Not holding back …
… The War of Words | Liberty Unbound. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Multitudes of people have died, in Africa and other places, because environmentalists succeeded in restricting the use of DDT, thus allowing insect-borne diseases to thrive, with devastating effects. Christians, gay people, and members of other minority groups are martyred daily in both “friendly” and “unfriendly” Islamic countries. Uncounted thousands of people have died in Syria, butchered by the government and its foes. Fifteen hundred of those people are thought to have died of a gas attack. Why is the conscience of the world aroused by the latest event and not by the earlier ones?
Strange dude …
… America’s Best Unknown Writer by Jonathan Raban | The New York Review of Books. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
A thought for today …
Half of the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm. But the harm does not interest them.
— T. S. Eliot, born on this date in 1888
Wednesday, September 25, 2013
One master appraises another …
… Ivebeenreadinglately: Westlake on Hammett and The Thin Man. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Linkage …
Bad links: ‘The modern Supreme Court opinion is increasingly built on sand’.
They need this: Perma.cc.
(Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
They need this: Perma.cc.
(Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Image of God and the echoes of Paradise …
… Is Bach The Voice Of God In Music? | Standpoint. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Yet Bach's humanity is inseparable from his faith in God's mercy. Blind, crippled by a stroke and dying, he dictated his "deathbed" chorale BWV 668a, Wenn wir in höchsten Nöten sein ("When we are in desperate straits"), which directly addresses God: "Turn not Thy gracious countenance / From me, a poor sinner." Nothing, it is safe to say, could be less congenial to the "Olympian" mentality of modern man. "It is Bach," Gardiner defiantly declares, "making music in the Castle of Heaven, who gives us the voice of God — in human form." For that reason Bach must remain a closed book to those for whom the category of divinity is meaningless, and hence deny that it is possible "to make divine things human and human things divine". Music — even Bach's music — cannot be "divine" unless God is a presence, unseen and perhaps unconscious, in our lives. We instinctively reach for theological metaphors when we experience the numinous quality of sacred art and music. But for these words to mean anything, we must have at least some confidence that the universe itself has meaning. Bach puts us back in touch with that numinous, on occasion even visceral, presence of the divine. And this involuntary response tells us that there is something transcendental within us, at the very core of our being, that recognises itself in this music. We are made in the image of God, the Bible tells us; in the same way, our music is a distant echo of Paradise.
You Darn People! You Can't Ignore the Experts!
You Can't Sow Doubt About Experts! Why We'll Show You!
That's right! Because a scientific theory like Evolution Can Predict...okay that one doesn't matter! After all, Climate Change is Settled! Okay, okay that one's an anomoly.
Just remember The Experts Have Spoken! so no comments from you little people!
Popular Science: Why We're Shutting Off Our Comments
...
A politically motivated, decades-long war on expertise has eroded the popular consensus on a wide variety of scientifically validated topics. Everything, from evolution to the origins of climate change, is mistakenly up for grabs again. Scientific certainty is just another thing for two people to "debate" on television. And because comments sections tend to be a grotesque reflection of the media culture surrounding them, the cynical work of undermining bedrock scientific doctrine is now being done beneath our own stories, within a website devoted to championing science.
That's right! Because a scientific theory like Evolution Can Predict...okay that one doesn't matter! After all, Climate Change is Settled! Okay, okay that one's an anomoly.
Just remember The Experts Have Spoken! so no comments from you little people!
Poet as prophet …
… An Awkward Sod for God | An Assessment of R.S. Thomas on the 13th Anniversary of His Death | Doubt & Belief. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
He speaks as a poet-prophet between two groups eager to be rid of him as a turbulent poet-priest. On the one side are unbelievers who refuse to hear him because he believes in God; on the other are believers who refuse to hear him because he often expresses doubts about God.
I think many people fail to realize that the life of faith is not without its lovers' quarrels.
A thought for today …
The greatest weakness of all weaknesses is to fear too much to appear weak.
— Jacques Bossuet, born on this date in 1627
Tuesday, September 24, 2013
Well worth noting …
… and watching: The Hollow Crown: Shakespeare’s History Plays ~ About the Series | Great Performances | PBS.
Also worth noting is that Philly's public TV station, WHYY, didn't broadcast Part I. They were doing another of their endless and tedious fund raisers.
Also worth noting is that Philly's public TV station, WHYY, didn't broadcast Part I. They were doing another of their endless and tedious fund raisers.
Most unfortunate …
… Response to the Cancellation of my Providence College Lecture - John Corvino - The Gay Moralist. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I don't have any problem with a Catholic college inviting someone to lay out views that are not in accord with Church so long as — and that would seem to be what was intended here — someone also lays out what the Church's teachings are and the reasons underpinning those teachings. That's the best way for students to really understand things. Just to provide a forum to present a contrary viewpoint would be something else altogether.
Class TV …
… The American Scholar: Talking Television - Paula Marantz Cohen.
The appearance of realism that TV generates can make the melodramatic scenario seem like the everyday one, creating unwarranted skepticism about institutions and social systems. I wonder how the representation of politics and government in shows like House of Cards, Boss, and Homelandmay affect some viewers.In my view, the more doubt they sow across party lines the better. But then, about the only thing I watch on TV is the ball game.
Sui generis …
… “Knight, Poet, Anarchist,” by Eliot Weinberger | Harper's Magazine. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Ford Madox Ford had told Read, in 1920, to get out of cultural journalism and become a novelist: “You may not like novel writing but it would be a good thing to stick to it as to avoid turning your soul into a squirrel in a revolving cage.” Though he had often imagined himself as a novelist in the manner of Henry James or his friend Edith Wharton, it was not until the summer of 1934 that he spent six weeks in a tiny, six-by- four-foot wooden hut he had built in his garden, writing his one, short novel.
It was queer how the book wrote itself; I had nothing much to invent — only the local color. The details of the myth were waiting in my mind. And it was only afterwards that I began to see their significance.
It was originally called Inland Far, from Wordsworth’s “Intimations of Immortality” (“Though inland far we be, / Our Souls have sight of that immortal sea / Which brought us hither.”) Luckily this was quickly changed to The Green Child. (The abstraction Read favored in the visual arts often had a way of undermining his own writing, particularly in the poetry.) The surviving manuscript has a mysterious and completely misleading epigraph from Kierkegaard: “Reminiscence” — “Self” is crossed out, then “The power of reflection” is crossed out — “is the condition of all productivity.”
One individual's conscience and conflicts …
… The Anti-Alinsky | The American Conservative. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
The question of Chapman’s sanity is complicated. Throughout his life, he was weighed down by mental afflictions of one kind or another. A nervous breakdown in 1899, when he was 37, confined him to a dark room for 18 months. A few years later, he suffered another collapse, and after half a year of bed rest in which he was spoonfed by a nurse he hobbled about on crutches for six months more. He contemplated suicide “but somehow thought it wasn’t of much importance.”
A thought for today …
Either you think, or else others have to think for you and take power from you, pervert and discipline your natural tastes, civilize and sterilize you.
— F. Scott Fitzgerald, born on this date in 1896
Electric Literature's Recommended Reading ...
Godzilla Versus the Smog Monster
Godzilla Versus the Smog Monster
Monday, September 23, 2013
Or not …
… Getting Naked in the Public Square | Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
… is it possible that the Church has succeeded in making it abundantly clear what the moral consequences of the encounter with the Risen Christ are, while failing miserably in leading the faithful to that encounter? And that, in doing so, the Church—especially in the United States—has unwittingly helped create a counter-religion, based on Her own moral teachings?It is the difference between faith that is lived and faith that it merely an intellectual position.
Anthologies of Science ...
It is otiose to quibble with individual items in a 500-page anthology.Otiose - "serving no practical purpose or result." (just throwing it out there -- not that our readers aren't acquainted with the word.)
Q & A …
… Bruce Schneier Discusses the NSA Documents | MIT Technology Review. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
The NSA’s actions are making us all less safe. They’re not just spying on the bad guys, they’re deliberately weakening Internet security for everyone—including the good guys. It’s sheer folly to believe that only the NSA can exploit the vulnerabilities they create. Additionally, by eavesdropping on all Americans, they’re building the technical infrastructure for a police state.
Maybe …
… A Commonplace Blog: Magical thinking about death. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
One of the characteristics of humans from the start seems to have been reverence for the dead grounded in the belief (or hope) that death was not the end. I have watched one person die — over a period of some hours. That would have been my first wife. My stepdaughter Jen and I held her hand for the duration. Not much actually happened. She was comatose and, eventually, had a coronary episode that proved fatal. We were there to make sure she was not revived. I like to think that at some level she knew we were there.
RIP …
… The face of a massacre: eminent poet, diplomat Kofi Awoonor is killed | The Book Haven.
The media hasn't exactly been all over this story.
The media hasn't exactly been all over this story.
A thought for today …
If an ordinary person is silent, it may be a tactical maneuver. If a writer is silent, he is lying.
— Jaroslav Seifert, born on this date in 1901
Sunday, September 22, 2013
Hmm …
… Why It’s Good To Be Wrong - Issue 2: Uncertainty - Nautilus. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Ascribing a sphere of infallibility to a parent or expert has the same logic as the Roman Catholic Church’s doctrine about the pope: It likewise considers him infallible only under certain narrowly-defined circumstances, called ex cathedra (metaphorically “from the throne”). So, consider this thought experiment: You seriously believe in papal infallibility. One day, an atheist friend gleefully tells you that the pope has said something which, after due consideration, you decide must be false: “There is no force of gravity.” Immediately, it becomes vital for you to know whether the pope declared this ex cathedra. For if he did, you would have to accept that you are mistaken about gravity, and act accordingly, even if you never managed to understand the mechanics of how that might be so. Because for you, ideas are about something—important precisely because they have consequences for how you think, feel, and act. And so you would have to drop some assumptions that you hitherto considered true incontrovertibly—or even infallibly.Not exactly. The Pope is infallible only as regards faith and morals. In other words, he is the final arbiter when it comes to the rules and traditions of the faith. He has no authority whatever by virtue his office to announce on matters of physics.
I like this guy …
… Listening to the Pope | America Magazine. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Pope Francis is comfortable with gray. In the interview, he speaks out against what he calls a “doctrinal security” and offers a gentle critique of those who “stubbornly try to recover a past that no longer exists.” Pope Francis asks Catholics to move away from a church that “locked itself up in small things, in small-minded rules.” Instead he invites Catholics, and invites the church, into the world of uncertainty, which is where most of us live anyway.
RIP...
...Ann Wordsworth obituary
Respected in the faculty, she felt a particular affiliation with her academic peers at Yale, the most notable being Harold Bloom, professor of English at Yale University, who visited Ann after reading an article she had written on his work. On hearing of her death, he wrote of her "extraordinary appreciation for the entire Romantic tradition in British and American poetry" and the "very high quality" of her essays and reviews. He continued: "I always felt that she understood my work better than I did."
Why read what …
… Winning the Distraction War, Losing the Distraction Peace � Helen Rittelmeyer | A First Things Blog. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I think there are plenty of blogs that are more worth reading just about any newspaper.
I think there are plenty of blogs that are more worth reading just about any newspaper.
A thought for today …
There is only one trait that marks the writer. He is always watching. It's a kind of trick of the mind and he is born with it.
— Morley Callaghan, born on this date in 1903
Maybe …
The ten best jazz guitarists of all time. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Seems some ought to have been made of Eddie Lang. And Pat Martino.
Seems some ought to have been made of Eddie Lang. And Pat Martino.
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