Saturday, February 18, 2012
Clarity and truth ...
... Anecdotal Evidence: `Ought Him Selfe to Bee a True Poem'. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
A flawed style is a moral failing. In the tug-of-war between beauty and truth, the former can never be permitted to trump the latter. Prettiness at the expense of truth is a form of self-seduction, like a Siren singing to a Siren. Discipline is daunting.
Undoing their forefathers' failures...
...Colm Tóibín: how I killed my mother
Reading the letters between the father and the son, and coming suddenly on the stark news from home that the father has died and that it is now up to the son alone to write the books, gives us a sense of the origins of Naipaul's extraordinary industry and seriousness as a writer, the slow, careful rhythms of his prose, the painstaking care with which he constructs his sentences. These were luxuries not allowed to those who came before him. There were ghosts in the room when he worked.
FYI ...
... 'Little evidence' that fracking leads to water contamination - Science - News - The Independent.
There's this, too.
There's this, too.
Groat, a former director of the U.S. Geological Survey, emphasized that the $380,000 report was independent from the natural gas industry and conducted only with university funds. Underlying white papers were peer-reviewed, he told ScienceNOW, and the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) was consulted on the overall scope and design of the study.
Thought for the day ...
Beauty is merciless. You do not look at it, it looks at you and does not forgive. - Nikos Kazantzakis, born on this date in 1883
Friday, February 17, 2012
On doing the right thing ...
... Book Review: Beautiful Souls - WSJ.com.
Mr. Press is initially astonished that his subjects are not the rebellious intellectuals he imagined them to be but rather quiet people leading ordinary lives. Although he calls them "nonconformists," he concludes that in important ways they epitomize tradition: Firm believers in the values that undergird a system they hold dear, whether it be a society or a code of professional ethics, they abhor the notion of crime committed in its name. In this way, he writes, they represent "the flip side of the banality of evil"—people who, through choices large or small, open up new possibilities for good.
Thinking ahead ...
... Digital Prequels for Books Like 'Rogue' and 'Life's a Witch' - WSJ.com. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Contra anxiety ...
... French Children Don’t Throw Food: Parenting Secrets from Paris | Pamela Druckerman | Review by The Spectator.
In France ‘neurotic’ isn’t a self-deprecating half-boast; it’s a clinical condition.
This culture of honouring anxiety seems to have made some anglophone parents lose their common sense. It turns out that French babies sleep through the night because their parents wait a few moments before rushing in to pick them up when they cry, to check if they really are awake. Parents talk to their children as if they are rational humans, and it turns out they are. Feeding babies vegetables and fruit helps to develop their palates; not giving them snacks means they have an appetite at lunchtime. A lot of the time it’s astonishing that this is news to anyone, but apparently it is, and if occasionally Druckerman labours the point, it’s hardly surprising when you consider the vast literature of anxiety she’s up against.
A date with Dame Dench...
...Judi Dench: 'All I ever wanted was to be employed’
There is one dialogue from Notes on a Scandal that I remember distinctly. It says: "People in relationships can never imagine what it is to design an entire Saturday afternoon around a visit to the grocer. Or how a brush against the conductor's hand on the bus can make for a daylong memory."
(This is my remembrance of the dialogue, not verbatim.) When one sees Judi Dench play the role in the movie, she brings alive the loneliness of the character. There is a scene in which her hand is shown brushing against the china of the tub she is in, and in its evocation of the chilling loneliness of the titular character, that moment is a supreme cinematic achievement.
In case you wondered ...
... Why Alleys Deserve More Attention - Design - The Atlantic Cities.
I think alleys are neat. In fact, we have one. Here's a shot of one I took in West Chester a few years ago.
Good question ...
... Did Rossetti really need to exhume his wife? | TLS.
Today, Rossetti is best known as a painter, but at his death in 1882 his poetic reputation stood higher, thanks to the volume, Poems (1870), that was published after the exhumation. From his youth, he had precocious and parallel talents. His first published verses, My Sister’s Sleep, antedated his exhibition debut with “The Girlhood of Mary Virgin”, while in 1850 his well-known poem “The Blessed Damozel” roughly coincided with his second painting, “Ecce Ancilla Domini”. The formation of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood at the end of 1848 was followed by the establishment of the PRB magazine The Germ, with comparable ambitions to challenge existing standards; both came about thanks to Rossetti’s energy.
Staying home ...
... There is no such thing as a God-forsaken town: Poetry Friday: Consolation. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
Something special happens ...
... The Meaning of Old Age – Fr. Romano Guardini .
Old age is that period of existence which life has been dreading all along — death spread out over years. That sense of the whole which more and more weighs upon us becomes the pitifulness of collective existence — the indifference of nature which kills as mercilessly as it gives life; the lack of consideration on the part of the persons around one who are put out by the presence of old people; the cruelty of the young who press ahead into life demanding space for themselves.
Thought for the day ...
Truth is power, but only when one has patience and requires of it no immediate effect. And one must have no specific aims. Somehow, lack of an agenda is the greatest power. Sometimes it is better not to think in terms of plans; here months may mean nothing, and also years. Truth must be sought for its own sake, its holy, divine greatness.
- Romano Guardini, born on this date in 1885
Thursday, February 16, 2012
The roots of discontent...
In France, as she sees it, the institutionalization of secularism and the prevalence of political correctness have weakened the value systems in society and left people without any strong sense of tradition. "Loving your homeland, loving your country, having values— whether religious or other—has been put aside by the politically bien-pensant, and that has helped to break up families that no longer have points of reference, especially those that are underprivileged." Islam, says Teboul, offers a structure to the lives of many people who feel they are adrift. "I'm convinced of that," she says.
In Bombay...
...I have been in Bombay all this week tying up an accommodation for April onwards when I move to this great city to begin work. Why should you be interested? Because yesterday, I picked up two new books on Bombay, Katherine Boo's Behind the Beautiful Forevers (a study about, again, a Mumbai slum) and Jeet Thayil's Narcopolis (fiction on the Bombay drug scene). Both books have received positive reviews here. Boo's book is already out in the US while Thayil's will be in April.
You will hear more from me on them as I start reading.
History and metaphysics ...
... Tracking Marilynne Robinson's intellectual pilgrimage.
When I Was a Child, by far Robinson's most political work to date, turns her old questions to the problems now directly confronting us. The book is a defense of what she considers the grand traditions of American democracy—generosity, hope, and a radical openness to new experience—waged against a society that seems to believe itself in irreversible decline. At the same time, Robinson registers a profound note of disappointment at feeling, "on the darkest nights, and sometimes in the clear light of day, that we are now losing the ethos that has sustained what is most to be valued in our civilization."
On Germany and Europe
From Jan-Werner Muller's recent piece in the LRB:
"Yet the problem that gave rise to the German Question in the 19th century hasn’t gone away: too small to play a global role on its own, but far more powerful than any other European country, though not as powerful as all of them put together, Germany still hasn’t found its place."
Q & A ...
... An Interview with Richard Rodriguez : Booth Journal. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I was an accidental writer at the start. I was in graduate school, preparing to become a teacher of English—probably at the college level—when I found myself the uneasy beneficiary of affirmative action. Ultimately, I left the university (and abandoned my teaching plans) in protest against affirmative action. And it was only then—within the loneliness of my life outside the academy—that I felt impelled to write about what education had done to and for me (how it had changed my life) and living within the illogic of “the minority student” that I turned to write an intellectual memoir. My first book, Hunger of Memory, gave birth to the idea that I was a writer.
A rock-hard reading experience ...
... A Bend in the River (Modern Library #83).
(When I first read Bend, I had this image of Wolf Blitzer shouting aloud passages on CNN, demanding reader responses from Romney and Santorum. I did my best to shake off this terrifying vision of the dreaded bearded bloviator. But my imagination revolted. Because not long after this, I had a weird dream where Blitzer kidnapped me and ordered me to burn all books aside from Naipaul. Blitzer then set himself on fire and began laughing like a psychotic, refusing to let me extinguish the conflagration. And I woke up. This may explain, in part, why it’s taken me many weeks to get to this essay.)
Thought for the day ...
Man is an imperceptible atom always trying to become one with God.
- Henry Adams, born on this date in 1838
Also born today:
People of small caliber are always carping. They are bent on showing their own superiority, their knowledge or prowess or good breeding.
- Van Wyck Brooks, born on this date in 1886
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Sounds wonderful ...
... Review: The Last and Final Way of Loving - Commentary Magazine. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Finally, I am an anti-imperialist ...
... Sean Penn should return his Malibu estate to the Mexicans – Telegraph Blogs.
To be fair, Penn is a very good actor. Why he thinks that makes him intelligent is beyond me.
To be fair, Penn is a very good actor. Why he thinks that makes him intelligent is beyond me.
Composite being ...
Reclaiming a Sense of the Sacred - The Chronicle Review - The Chronicle of Higher Education.
As Thomas Aquinas observed, we exist as a composite of body and soul. The body is a part of the soul's perfection.
Religious experience is said to be associated with activity in a particular part of the brain. For some reason this is supposed to imply that it is delusional. But all thought and experience can be located in some part of the brain, that brain more replete than the starry heaven God showed to Abraham, and we are not in the habit of assuming that it is all delusional on these grounds. Nothing could justify this reasoning, which many religious people take as seriously as any atheist could do, except the idea that the physical and the spiritual cannot abide together, that they cannot be one dispensation.
As Thomas Aquinas observed, we exist as a composite of body and soul. The body is a part of the soul's perfection.
But, but ...
... shouldn't it be on the Food Channel? Bryan Fuller's 'Hannibal' gets NBC series order | Inside TV | EW.com.
Thought for the day ...
But you can catch yourself entertaining habitually certain ideas and setting others aside; and that, I think, is where our personal destinies are largely decided.
- Alfred North Whitehead, born on this date in 1861
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Tantalisingly cliched...
...There are certain phrases that catch on in journalism and then are used to death so that they lose all meaning and novelty. One of my (un)favorites is "tantalisingly out of reach". Recently, an article in Economist said: "China remains tantalisingly out of Facebook's reach." Well no. It remains determinedly so, blockheadedly so, but not tantalisingly so.
What are some of your linguistic grouses?
A music video ...
... worth studying.
The crudeness of the translation is an advantage. You have to do the refining yourself. But how different from any American video.
The crudeness of the translation is an advantage. You have to do the refining yourself. But how different from any American video.
I think maybe ...
... everybody should think a little less about all of it: The Wooden Spoon: A-Maze-ing: The Ben Mazer Debate. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I mean, can you imagine Balzac spending a nanosecond doing any of this?
And why not ...
... Not Covering Up: Embracing Romance Novels on AbeBooks.
I wouldn't swear to this, but I believe I wrote the first piece about a romance novel for The Inquirer. It was about a verity entertaining and funny novel by Amanda Quick (Jayne Ann Krentz, who proved to be a wonderful interview subject). It was easy to see why the books were popular. They were fast-paced, funny, and surprisingly accurate historically.
Jane Austen
Apologies for the light blogging of late. I'm in the midst of Jane Austen's Emma - and is the case with most early nineteenth century novels, it's slow going. Still, I'm enjoying the book - far more than I thought I might. Speaking of Austen: here's an interesting link.
On a more serious note ...
... no matter, never mind: It's time for science to move on from materialism - Philosophy and Life.
Grubby work...
...Troubled halls
Universities will always feel the tension between the intellectual purity
that Mr Collini demands and the grubby business of picking and preparing the
future middle class. Reconciling these two roles is the mark of a great
university.
Nifty parlor game ...
... A Commonplace Blog: Every “best” list is now a “personal inventory”.
“There are some works of literature that every civilized American should be familiar with, although no one will ever agree on what they are.”
This reminds me of something Somerset Maugham said: "There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are."
The new normal...
...Stories of consenting adults
...One of the best-kmown gay fims of recent years was "Brokebak Mountain",
from the story by the thrice-married Annie Proulx. What will gay writers write about in future?
Thought for the day ...
Relativism is the solution of a man who is incapable of putting things in order.
- Don Colacho
Monday, February 13, 2012
Enter now ...
... Bryan Appleyard - Caption Contest 1. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Nassim Nicholas Taleb looks on impassively as (from left) John Gray, Bryan Appleyard, and Alain de Botton smile as the Dow drops 800 points.
Just hand over the painting ...
... and nobody will get hurt: zmkc: Confessions of a Visual Illiterate II (or Why I Want to Be the Queen of England).
And not just that ...
... Nassim Taleb: Ban Tesco bonuses | The Spectator. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I still think that the great implication of Taleb's work is to underscore how important it is to determine, to whatever degree and if at all possible, what people in earlier times in general did not know -- e.g., that World War I wasn't going to be short and sweet, but long and devastating.
Diffident master ...
... The New World of William Carlos Williams by Adam Kirsch | The New York Review of Books.
This diffidence never left him: when he was preparing his last book for the press, Leibowitz writes, Williams grew so anguished that he “tore the manuscript to pieces and dumped them in the trash.” His wife had to fish out the fragments and mail them to his publisher, James Laughlin of New Directions, “who put them together like a jigsaw puzzle.”
Sounds reasonable ...
... Why scientists are boycotting a publisher - Boston.com. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
For tomorrow ...
... The best love poems: writers choose their favourites – interactive | Books | guardian.co.uk. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I'd probably choose e.e. cummings's "Somewhere I Have Never Traveled."
I'd probably choose e.e. cummings's "Somewhere I Have Never Traveled."
Thought for the day ...
Writing is not a profession but a vocation of unhappiness.
- Georges Simenon, born on this date in 1903
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Back from Brooklyn ...
We're back, and this aging man is tired. Probably no more blogging today. Debbie and I are both going to chill out. She will watch Downton Abbey, and I'm going to watch the new film version of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Back tomorrow.
RIP ...
... Edward Feser: John Hick (1922-2012). (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Odd. I I never thought of Hick as theologically left, whatever that means, though I did grasp that he was unorthodox. Nevertheless I was impressed by his Who or What is God? Of course, I am a cradle Catholic and, if not exactly unorthodox, at least Jesuit-trained. That involves, as I see it, bringing some imagination to the religious life. I went to Mass today at Our Lady Queen of Peace in Brooklyn, a Franciscan parish around the corner from where we usually stay. I slept poorly last night, but dragged myself up to go. There were only about 10 people there at the 8 a.m. Mass, but I found it strangely moving. This happens often when I attend Mass there. And throughout this day God has been very nice to me. Which makes me suspicious. Because, in the long run, faith into;yes suffering, something I have spent my life trying to avoid. I always worry that God may put me in the position of having to make an actual sacrifice. Faith, one must always bear in mind, is not principally a set of doctrines. It is a pledge of loyalty.
Banville on Larkin ...
... The Complete Poems by Philip Larkin, edited by Archie Burnett - review | Books | The Guardian. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Burnett, professor of English at Boston University and the editor of AE Housman's poems and letters, is a scholar to his pencil-tips; one suspects he was born with the word "definitive" stamped on his brow. A poet once Burnetted will stay Burnetted. In his introduction here he writes, managing to sound both defensive and well pleased with himself: "A major justification for a new edition is to provide, for the first time, a commentary on the poems. It covers: Larkin's many comments on his work; closely relevant historical contexts; persons and places; echoes and allusions; and linguistic usage."
I take a look ...
... at a look at heartland America: Novel offers nuanced view of those in the hinterlands.
Though for the day ...
Ah, what a dusty answer gets the soul when hot for certainties in this our life!
- George Meredith, born on this date in 1828
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