The study of Nature is intercourse with the Highest Mind. You should never trifle with Nature.
— Louis Agassiz, who died on this date in 1873
Monday, December 14, 2015
Something to think on …
Sunday, December 13, 2015
David Lodge
I admit, I enjoy most of the books I read. But to claim that I love a book - that's something else entirely.
And yet, that's the unusual experience I've had over the past two weeks, reading David Lodge's Nice Work. I loved this book.
This was my first experience with Lodge's novels, and I have to say: he's a fabulous stylist, so firmly in command of his medium. And he's learned, too: he knows what he wants to say, and he says it clearly, decisively. His prose are a pleasure, his reach enviable.
But more than that: Nice Work is as a novel should be. Its story unfolds patiently, its characters real and realistic. And all right, maybe the end of the book is a bit too tidy, but still: it's the journey, right? Lodge is as comfortable with post-modern theory as he is with theories of industry.
Nice Work is just that: it's really nice work. Lodge exposes contradictions implicit in both the academy as well as business; he's a master of Town and Gown, and he uses it to propel a novel that lurks in its intersections.
What I admired most about Nice Work, though, is Lodge's sense of humor, his ability to find comic qualities across a range of social and intellectual circles. Because for every jab at finance or factories, Lodge proposes an equally sensible nudge at the academic life.
As I say, if the end of the book was a bit too convenient in terms of its resolution, so be it. That doesn't discount a thing: this is a novel that forces us to reconsider our assumptions and admit - if only for a minute - that we aren't as far apart in our thinking as our politics or political leaders might suggest.
Very interesting …
My friend a former colleague Jim Remsen sends along these history opts from time to time. Thought I would share.
As you'll recall, I'm writing a book (tentatively titled Scars & Stripes) about the life and times of a dozen black Civil War soldiers, half of them escaped slaves who had found sanctuary in my little hometown of Waverly, Pa., just north of Scranton. I'm writing about the war years now, and stumbled on a poem I want to share here.
"Poetical Justice." Let me leave you with a vivid story that will appear in the book. Six Waverly recruits were posted in 1863 to a fort near Petersburg, Va., under the command of a fiery white abolitionist. A raiding party returned to camp one day with a plantation owner they'd taken captive, a fellow who was known to have whipped his slaves especially severely. An eyewitness wrote that the commander gathered his black troops for a show of "poetical justice." He had the planter tied to a tree and let one of the soldiers--a runaway from that very plantation--whip the man's back bloody. Then two runaway women, also victims of the planter, did the same "to remind him that they were no longer his, but safely housed in Abraham's bosom, and under the protection of the Star Spangled Banner."
A Parable in Verse. The Pittston Gazette published this in April 1863, just as the North was debating whether to finally allow "colored troops." The war effort had bogged down and fresh fighters were needed. Lots of Northerners still resisted the very prospect of black men in uniform, prompting the Lincoln-friendly Gazette to run this trenchant poem. Please look past the dated terminology to the underlying message.
Book Progress. I'm delighted to report that the Willary Foundation, a philanthropy administered by the Scranton family, is supporting my Scars & Stripes project through a $21,150 grant to the Center for Anti-Slavery Studies. This covers not only research expenses but also the creation of a related educational website. Many thanks for that! Other good news is that a geneaologist has helped me locate two living descendants of the Norris brothers, who were among Waverly's black soldiers, as well as a descendant of one of Waverly's principal white supporters. I've shared my findings with one of those descendants already.A fan's notes (mostly) …
… Profoundly American - The Los Angeles Review of Books. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
who happened to be carrying.
The chapters of The Givenness of Things were first given as lectures in universities, seminaries, institutes, and conferences. They do not seem to have been revised substantially before publication, and at times this is a pity. In the final chapter, “Realism,” we are told that, “Much of the language about society and culture derives from European ‘thought,’ so called, in the period leading to Europe’s great disasters, from the early nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth and after.” Then she continues: “This ‘thought’ was taken up with authenticity, rootedness, ethnic purity, all of which made people profound, as they could not be if they were transplanted, ethnically mixed, speakers of an adopted language.” I regret that, in this hasty survey of a hundred and 50 years of demanding literature, philosophy, and theology, no distinctions are drawn, and not one name or book title is given. Who actually is guilty here? The trouble is that without appropriate care one might very well condemn everything written by Fichte, Hegel, Hermann Cohen, Husserl, and Simone Weil, among others, rather than, as I imagine Robinson has in mind, passages in Schopenhauer, Gentile, and Wagner, Heidegger’s notebooks, and Frege’s diary, to name only a few of the most well-known nasty moments of ideas that rightly should be condemned. I regret too the scare quotes around the word “thought”: a sneer is not an argument.
I wonder how much Robinson really knows about phenomenology. By the way, it's the Rev. Boughton, not Broughton.
Hey, I'd carry openly were I allowed. And tell that to those whose lives have been saved by someoneRead too her pages in The Givenness of Things on how carrying a concealed weapon is a sign of a coward.
who happened to be carrying.
In case you wondered …
… Cli-Fi.Net (blog): ''Difficult People'' in the Climate Risk Communications Area and How to Handle Them.
Can't say I've run into many of these people. Oh, there are those who have the courage of the keyboard and write nasty emails, but who takes them seriously? In person, people tend to be a little more circumspect.
Can't say I've run into many of these people. Oh, there are those who have the courage of the keyboard and write nasty emails, but who takes them seriously? In person, people tend to be a little more circumspect.
Better than you might think, Nick …
… How Well Do You Know Religion? - The New York Times.
I got one wrong. Like I need religious instruction from a New York Times columnist. Or that anyone does.
Something to think on …
Whether a revolution succeeds or fails people of great hearts will always be sacrificed to it.
— Heinrich Heine, born on this date in 1797
Saturday, December 12, 2015
Hmm …
… What makes a Catholic writer in today's society? It's complicated - Superior Catholic Herald : Superior Catholic Herald. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I'm a Catholic. My faith informs what I write, sometimes explicitly, always implicitly. If some others don't like that, it's their problem.
Neither pickles nor a vacuum cleaner …
… Review | Christopher Buckley | The Relic Master. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Sophists …
… Groupthink in the Ivory Tower - WSJ. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
In a sense, the Frankfurt theorists did what leftist intellectuals have always done. First they collapsed European and American society’s bewildering variety of mediating institutions—churches, charitable organizations, debating societies, pubs, brass bands—into a single lifeless word, “capitalism.” Second, they set the present “capitalist” society against a future state of total equality, a state that by definition couldn’t be measured or even described.
Compare and contrast with global warming theory. (Yesterday in Philadelphia the temperature tied the record for that date. The record was first set in 1931, 84 years ago. So it has been just as warm in the past as it was yesterday. Probably, it was just as warm on that date some time even earlier. We just don't have any record of that. In other words, no grand inference can be drawn from yesterday's temperature to use in support of some Platonic view of climate.)
Something to think on …
Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamppost what it feels about dogs.
— John Osborne, born on this date in 1929
FYI …
… The Best Photography Books of the Year | Arts & Culture | Smithsonian. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
Friday, December 11, 2015
Soulmates …
… How one artist wrestling with faith tackles doubt through poetry - The Washington Post. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
This fall, DeMent released her sixth studio album, “The Trackless Woods,” an album that was inspired by the Russian poet, Anna Akhmatova.
Intellectually underprivileged …
… DiCaprio Now Officially a Joke in Canada: Confuses Chinook Wind with Climate Change.
These unprecedented weather conditions in which sudden warm gusts of winds blew away the snow: they’ve been happening year in year out in southern Alberta since the dawn of time. There’s nothing weird or abnormal about them at all. They’re seasonal hot winds called the Chinook.
Asylum …
… Far from war zone, refugee families rebuild lives in Lowell - Lowell Sun Online. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
But don't dare call ISIS Islamic terrorists, no matter what that first initial means.In 2013, Delovan said a group from ISIS stopped his cousin as he was traveling in a van from Lebanon to Syria."They said, 'Where are you from?' " he said, recalling what the sole survivor told his family. "'Are you Kurdish? Go this side. If you are Arabic, go this side.' "They gave his cousin what he thought was water to drink, but it was an acidic liquid, Delovan said. He died, leaving behind two young children.
Those elusive words …
… [Supplemental Reading] | Mission Impossible, by James Marcus | Harper's Magazine. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
For example, Levi discusses his Italian-Jewish ancestry. He concludes with a description of his boyhood visits to his grandmother, who always presented him with a decayed, inedible chocolate. Ann Goldstein, whose translation appears in the Complete Works, calls the chocolate “moth-eaten,” while Raymond Rosenthal, whose 1984 version introduced Levi to many American readers, opts for “worm-eaten.” Which is it?
Poor baby alert …
… Friends' Central drops 'Huckleberry Finn'.
My heavens, can you believe it? These people are shocked to discover that people back in the 19th century were not as sensitive as they think they are. God forbid students should learn what people actually were like decades before they were born. "You mean things weren't exactly as wonderful as they are now?"
What the hell is the point of going to school if the only thing you do is confirm that the way we are now is the only way to be because it's the best ever?
Maybe this will help the frail souls get a grip:
My heavens, can you believe it? These people are shocked to discover that people back in the 19th century were not as sensitive as they think they are. God forbid students should learn what people actually were like decades before they were born. "You mean things weren't exactly as wonderful as they are now?"
What the hell is the point of going to school if the only thing you do is confirm that the way we are now is the only way to be because it's the best ever?
Maybe this will help the frail souls get a grip:
Something to think on …
It is the artist who realizes that there is a supreme force above him and works gladly away as a small apprentice under God's heaven.
— Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, born on this date in 1918
Thursday, December 10, 2015
Secret agent man …
… C.S. Lewis Was a Secret Government Agent | Christianity Today. ( Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Check this out …
… Exiled Iranian poet in Israel: This is the best place on Earth | The Times of Israel. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
Feili’s final arrest before his departure from Iran consisted of him being forced to sit in a shipping container for 44 days, according to the PEN American Center, a group working to advance free expression and defend writers.
How about a craft?
… Should Writing Be an Art or a Career? | New Republic. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
Writing is a job, for which you presumably have some talent, which you develop through experience. There's a sort of pretentiousness underlying articles like this. Writers, painters, composers are just people like everybody else.There's nothing special about them. Just imagine a world with only artists and no plumbers. If you pursue an art because you think doing so makes you better than others, find something else to do.
Hear, hear …
… Christians, Capitalism, and Culture: A Response to David Bentley Hart | Public Discourse. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
My point is not to belabor the encyclical’s inadequacies as it ventures into subjects ranging from economic history to air conditioning’s environmental impact. Rather, it is to illustrate that some of Laudato Si’s statements (1) lack coherence or (2) present certain contentions as “facts” that turn out to be claims that any faithful Christian can reasonably dispute, either because of an absence of evidence or the existence of substantive evidence to the contrary.This Pope, it seems to me, is too credulous when it comes to pronouncements by technocrats. I also don't think he has a clue to how things work in a liberal democracy.
Spoken vs. written …
… From the archive: Philip Larkin on the voices of poets. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
… The price of having the poem re-created in the element in which it was conceived (as they say) is the interposing of a new factor, the reader, between me and the poem. He will not read it with the emphases that I should use, and this will irritate me. Or he will have the kind of voice I associate with brown-eyed young men called Frank.Happily, my eyes are hazel.
Something to think on …
When you learn to read you will be born again...and you will never be quite so alone again.
— Rumer Godden, born on this date in 1907
Wednesday, December 09, 2015
Dimwit alert …
… Concerned about racial insensitivity, Penn renames 'masters'.
Over the last two weeks, Princeton and Harvard Universities also have agreed to change the titles; Yale University students and faculty are debating whether to follow suit. Supporters of the change argue that master connotes a legacy of slavery.
Well, I certainly hope that none of these oh-so-enlightened protesters will ever stoop to accept a master's degree. I also hope they never attend an exhibition of Old Masters. Heaven forfend that they encounter a masterpiece. And I trust nothing they do or say will ever be deemed masterful.
Oh, and here's another one: Students: Rename building called 'Lynch' after ex-president.
Nothing like restricting the meaning of a word to one sense only. Why have these people been admitted to college?
Oh, and here's another one: Students: Rename building called 'Lynch' after ex-president.
Nothing like restricting the meaning of a word to one sense only. Why have these people been admitted to college?
Life changer …
… Contagious Desire | Commonweal Magazine. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
At the heart of his thought are three interconnected insights. The first (and perhaps the most fundamental) is the claim that human desire is mimetic, or imitative. His second is the understanding that conflicts generated by mimetic desire are resolved by means of scapegoating either single victims or vulnerable groups. The third (and most controversial) affirms the role of the Bible in exposing scapegoating and revealing a God who takes the side of victims.
Listen in …
… Episode 146 – David Jaher | Virtual Memories.
“Like most people, I associated the Jazz Age with gaiety and decadence, but what I came to recognize was the underlying fear that, after World War I and the influenza epidemic, rather than heading toward a new enlightened era, the world was headed to a new Dark Age.”
Something to think on …
The artist must conceive with warmth yet execute with coolness.
— Johann Winkelmann, born on this date in 1717
Tuesday, December 08, 2015
Mark thy calendar …
GREEN LINE CAFÉ POETRY BOOK FAIR FOR THE HOLIDAYS
This Holiday Give The Gift
Of A Signed Copy Of A Book Of Poems
A Personal And Distinctive Gift Anyone Will Love
On Tuesday Evening, December 15, 7-8:30 PM,
The Green Line Poetry Series Will Present
A Small Fair Of Poetry Books (Specially Priced For The Event)
And Poets Happy To Inscribe Books For You
There Will Be Holiday Refreshments
And Short Holiday-Inspired Readings By The Poets
HOSTED BY
LEONARD GONTAREK
THE GREEN LINE CAFE IS LOCATED
AT 45TH & LOCUST STREETS,
Philadelphia, PA
(Please note the address, there are
other Green Line Café locations.)
This Event Is Free
Mommie dearest …
… Mary-Kay Wilmers reviews ‘Holding On Upside Down’ by Linda Leavell — LRB 3 December 2015. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Mary didn’t worry that her children would one day grow up and leave her: she determined early on that there would be no growing up. In the summer of 1911, she visited Europe for the first time (London and Paris principally), accompanied by Marianne. The high point of the trip, she told Warner, was a visit to Kensington Gardens to pay homage to Peter Pan. ‘Since I am very indulgent to my childhood romances, and keep holiday with them almost religiously,’ she wrote, ‘I just bowed the knee and worshipped like the Oriental or the Romanist at the sound of prayer bells.’ It was another role she’d assigned herself in the family fairy tale. ‘Be a little child again,’ she repeatedly advised Marianne, and with that in mind did her best to ensure that neither of her children, though both by now were college students, had interests that weren’t communal, friends who weren’t ‘our kind’, likes that weren’t hers, thoughts she couldn’t share. ‘Remember how well Peter Pan flew, till he began to consider the manner of his flying,’ she wrote to Warner: ‘Oh! don’t be introspective!’ What she meant, I imagine, was ‘don’t keep anything from me.’ Warner by then was 18.
Amazing …
… Climate change: Global carbon dioxide emissions stall for second year in a row | Climate Change | Environment | The Independent.
Scientists believe however that the unprecedented decline is almost entirely due to the economic slowdown in China, now the world’s single biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, which is likely to see a rapid return to growth in carbon emissions as its energy-hungry economy picks up again.
"Scientists believe …" Who gives a damn what they believe? Their line of work is supposed to be evidentiary. Also, as several commenters point out, the "pictures that show we are killing our planet," are of steam clouds — water vapor. This tells us something of the scientific literacy of the journalists, I guess. The credulity on display here is astounding. This isn't science. It's a form of fideism.
So let's all celebrate with a song:
Something to think on …
I wonder is happiness only an essence of good looking vying, that you shall taste only once or twice while you love ve, and then go on living with the taste in your mouth, and wishing you had the fullness of it solide between your teeth, like a good meal that you have tasted and cherished and look back in your mind to eat again.
— Richard Llewellyn, born on this date in 1906
Monday, December 07, 2015
Speaking of God …
… No, Atheist Scientists Are Incompetent | PJ Media.
So now that we know that God is the cosmological singularity, the question of God’s existence is now a question of physics: Does the cosmological singularity exist?
If we accept the laws of physics, the answer is yes.
Through a glass, darkly …
… The End of Atheism: a review of Everybody is Wrong About God.
Nothing here is very clear at all except that Ryan Bell felt uplifted by the book. He tells us that James Lindsay, author of the book under review, writes that "the central contention of this book is that theism, being a kind of mythology, isn’t technical or interesting," though he does not indicate what Lindsay's reasoning is for thinking such. Perhaps Lindsay doesn't give any reasons, since Bell tells us later that "the author does not spend time trying to prove his claim that theism is dead."
One would like to know what he means by "mythology." And I suppose we're just supposed to take his word that theism is dead. Obviously, churchgoers remain unaware of this. I am unaware of it myself. Richard Dawkins certainly didn't kill it, since his philosophical skills are practically non-existent. I do think the term "God" is frequently misused. The notion of God advanced by intelligent design advocates often seems to be of some everlasting Edison puttering about in his celestial laboratory pondering what to do about the wombats. I find this notion risible.
But I suspect that neither Bell nor Lindsay has any clear idea of what exactly they are talking about when they use the term. If they did, they would probably start by telling us what it is. Oh, and if everybody is wrong about God, I presume that includes Lindsay and Bell.
What to make of this …
… These six tragic revelations from Carly Simon’s memoir will make you ashamed to be a man (if you are a man) — The Washington Post.
Like most of the commenters, I am not given to feeling ashamed over things I didn't do. I do feel sorry for Carly Simon, though. Obviously, no one ever taught her how to say no. What is revealed is not tragic. It's pathetic, as is Edgers's sanctimony.
Interesting list …
… BBC - Culture - The 100 greatest British novels.
I'm not sure it was a good idea to include living novelists, and I would have included Brideshead Revisited. But the British don't seem to get Brideshead. They seem to think it's about class, when it's really about penitence.
I'm not sure it was a good idea to include living novelists, and I would have included Brideshead Revisited. But the British don't seem to get Brideshead. They seem to think it's about class, when it's really about penitence.
Here's Waldo …
… Beyond Eastrod: Thought for the Day (from Ralph Waldo Emerson).
I believe Emerson was usually addressed as Waldo, not Ralph.
I believe Emerson was usually addressed as Waldo, not Ralph.
Hmm …
… ‘Based on a true story’: the fine line between fact and fiction | Books | The Guardian. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
One reads historical novels (or at least I do) for the story, not as a substitute for learning the history.
In my defence I would argue that the contrivances in my nonfiction are so factually trivial that their inclusion takes no skin off even the most inquisitorial nose. The Missing of the Somme begins with mention of a visit to the Natural History Museum with my grandfather – who never set foot in a museum in his life.Well, what exactly was the point of suggesting that he did?
One reads historical novels (or at least I do) for the story, not as a substitute for learning the history.
Something to think on …
The dynamic element in my philosophy, taken as a whole, can be seen as an obstinate and untiring battle against the spirit of abstraction.
— Gabriel Marcel, born on this date in 1889
Sunday, December 06, 2015
Hmm …
… Overcoming Bias : Engagement As Respect. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
As for generic funeral comments, here are some that are anything but generic:
It saddens me to think of someone putting in all the effort it takes to write a book, but then even when their book seems to get a lot of attention, reviews mostly just rephrase the book jacket summary, or give generic praise like “must read” and “interesting”. It makes one suspect that most book reviewers haven’t actually read the book.Well, if a review were submitted to me and it gave me the impression the reviewer had not really read the book, I would not run it. A review needs to engage the book and that means more than summarizing it. There have to be key quotes, and other details that suggest real familiarity with the text. That is the downside of reviewing: having to actually slog your way, page by through, through something you think is awful.
As for generic funeral comments, here are some that are anything but generic:
Hmm …
… Shoe Leather: On “Spotlight” - The Los Angeles Review of Books. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
The problem I have with this review is that what the reviewer knows about the subject seems to be only what he learned from watching this movie. That said, I certainly hold no brief for the way Church authorities handled this matter. Here is something I wrote on the subject some years ago: Stop the bell, close the book, quench the candle ...
Larkin on stage — again …
… Dead poet's society | Stage | The Guardian. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
As counsel for the defence, it's obviously incumbent to offer a few morsels of evidence, mostly anecdotal - that being the only sort I trust. On the subject of racism, for instance, I can now report that in the 1970s, I was on a selection panel with Larkin and a man from the Arts Council, given the task of selecting a poet-in-residence for a college in Hull. One of the applicants was black. After the interviews the man from the Arts Council said: "What did we think of our coloured cousin?" To which Larkin and I replied, in synch: "We give him the job." Which we did, to the splendid Archie Markham.
Something to think on …
A novel should be an experience and convey an emotional truth rather than arguments.
— Joyce Cary, born on this date in 1888
Saturday, December 05, 2015
Erotic Literature
Some of these genuinely are 'great works': click here (Hat tip, B. K. Goodman, PhD)
Hear, hear …
… End the Islamist Epidemic in America | Ricochet.
… new gun legislation does not matter to the dead in California, nor did it in Chattanooga, Boston, Garland, Fort Hood, New York City and far too many other places. The attention and anger of Americans should also be directed at the elected leaders whose job is to keep us safe but who place a higher premium on platitudes and political correctness, excusing an ideology dedicated to the unfettered spread of ever more deadly terror attacks.
Oh, those dull '50s …
… Kukla Fran and Ollie: The gentle puppets that bewitched America in the 1950s. (Hat tip, dave Lull.)
Today, we watch television not as curious viewers dipping into a creative and experimental new form of entertainment, but as audiences conditioned by genres, formulas, and network mandates. Without these limitations, Kukla, Fran and Ollie created a new, gentle intimacy with its audience, one shaped by routine but not bound by formula, in which it was always possible to be delighted or moved.
Not such a bad guy after all …
… Robert Frost, Family Man - Washington Free Beacon. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Something to think on …
Writing fiction is... an endless and always defeated effort to capture some quality of life without killing it.
— Rose Wilder Lane, born on this date in 1886
Friday, December 04, 2015
Always a good suggestion …
… Gay Talese's Advice to Young Writers: “Get Off Your Ass” | Vanity Fair. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
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