Sunday, August 14, 2016
A look at a classic …
… The Art of Writing Well > Matthew Walther. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Interesting that Eliot praised Lucas's edition of John Webster, since Lucas wrote a notoriously savage review of The Waste Land. I agree with Walther, by the way, that Rasselas is better than Candide.
Interesting that Eliot praised Lucas's edition of John Webster, since Lucas wrote a notoriously savage review of The Waste Land. I agree with Walther, by the way, that Rasselas is better than Candide.
This sounds like overstatement to me …
… ''Climate Fictions'': The most important literary essay of the 21st century titled ''Six proposals for the reform of literature in the age of climate change'' by Nick Admussen (Cornell professor): line by line analysis.
Given that climate is a condition of continuous change, every age is an age of climate change, presuming that it has a climate.
Given that climate is a condition of continuous change, every age is an age of climate change, presuming that it has a climate.
Hmm …
… Paul Davis On Crime: Political Correctness? Elementary, My Dear Watson: Is Celebrated Sherlock Holmes Actor Jeremy Brett Too White For An English Heritage Blue Plaque?
I grew up with Rathbone's Holmes, which I still like, but Brett's Holmes is definitive. And Stephen Spender's poetry is better than fashion at present grants. He was also a nice guy.
I grew up with Rathbone's Holmes, which I still like, but Brett's Holmes is definitive. And Stephen Spender's poetry is better than fashion at present grants. He was also a nice guy.
Something to think on …
Idealism increases in direct proportion to one's distance from the problem.
— John Galsworthy, born on this date in 1867
Saturday, August 13, 2016
And precision …
… Science And Poetry Both Depend On Metaphors | Big Think. (Hat tip, G. E. Reutter.)
E. O. Wilson is quoted as saying that "scientists should think like poets and work like accountants." He should take his own advice. If he thought more like a poet, he'd understand religion better.
E. O. Wilson is quoted as saying that "scientists should think like poets and work like accountants." He should take his own advice. If he thought more like a poet, he'd understand religion better.
Amusing gaffe …
… Broads, bruises and booze: an all-female Ocean's 11 is the perfect riposte to the Rat Pack's violent, womanising ways.
The photo purporting to be of Dean Martin is, of course, Eddie Fisher.
The photo purporting to be of Dean Martin is, of course, Eddie Fisher.
Something to think on …
A religion without mystery must be a religion without God.
— Jeremy Taylor, who died on this date in 1667
Friday, August 12, 2016
Hmm …
… Scientists reveal the secret to a coffee without the spillage: the claw grip.
All this proves is that the "scientific" solution to a problem may have little bearing on reality. I have been drinking coffee for 70 years, and have rarely spilled any, and I use the handle on my cup. Gripping it from above may prevent spilling — until you try to drink it, which was the reason you picked it up in the first place.
All this proves is that the "scientific" solution to a problem may have little bearing on reality. I have been drinking coffee for 70 years, and have rarely spilled any, and I use the handle on my cup. Gripping it from above may prevent spilling — until you try to drink it, which was the reason you picked it up in the first place.
Yet another reason …
… Why I Hate Economists - Washington Free Beacon. (Ht tip, Dave Lull)
Homo economicus is as much a fiction as "capitalism" is. People engage in commerce, and have done so for untold generations. Karl Marx comes along and calls this practice "capitalism," as if people first had to subscribe to some theory behind it before engaging in its practice. An intellectual's typical bassackwards approach. Aquinas defined truth as the conformity of the mind to the nature of thing itself. For intellectuals, truth is the conformity of the thing itself to their ideas about it.
I like ideas as much as anybody. They can be very useful in discourse. But they are derived from reality. They do not determine reality.
Something to think on …
Faith is not belief. Belief is passive. Faith is active.
— Edith Hamilton, born on this date in 1867
Thursday, August 11, 2016
Sadly true …
… Pope Francis and the Decline of the West | RealClearPolitics.
The Church has not always been graced with great Popes.
Hmm …
… More Old Than Young: A Demographic Spreads Around the Globe - Bloomberg.
Our distant ancestors — inventors of such things as language, writing, agriculture, and religion — also knew a thing or two about preserving a species.
Our distant ancestors — inventors of such things as language, writing, agriculture, and religion — also knew a thing or two about preserving a species.
Ahead of her time …
… The First Trans Woman in Western Fiction — The Awl. (Via LitHub.)
T.S. Eliot said that Barnes was a writer of undeniable genius but questionable talent, while Barnes herself said she was the most famous unknown of the twentieth century. When Barnes began writing the novel she was already a notorious American expatriate living in Paris, and the novel portrays real queer women from the time, including Barnes. Nightwood was born out of the Left Bank literary scene: Paris in the twenties, the Lost Generation. The novel has been called a “cult guide to the homosexual underground night world of Paris that Barnes shared with her lover, Thelma Wood,” depicted in the novel as the barbaric Robin Vote.
Meritocracies...history and theory
We would do well to leave room for the Lincolns among us—especially if they are as raw and uncredentialed as the man who would become our sixteenth president was. Think of his great speech at the dedication of the cemetery in Gettysburg in November 1863. As many know, there were two notable speeches that day. The first, and the longest and most learned and most florid, was given by the supremely well-pedigreed Edward Everett, former president of Harvard—and the first American to receive a German PhD. But it was the self-educated frontiersman president who gave the speech whose accents ring down through the ages. Perhaps there is a pattern here to learn from.
A poem by Mark Doty …
… who turned 63 yesterday: Charlie Howard’s Descent by Mark Doty - Poetry Foundation. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
Something to think on …
We can believe what we choose. We are answerable for what we choose to believe.
— John Henry Newman, who died on this date in 1890
Wednesday, August 10, 2016
The hound of heaven on the prowl …
… Solitary Praxis: The Puritan Legacy: contemplation and question.
For me, even though I am a Catholic, what I have taken from the Puritan legacy is the sense that life can be serious business.
RIP …
… Temple Painter, 83, 'Mr. Harpsichord of Philadelphia'.
I knew Temple for 45 years. A wonderful person and a great musician.
I knew Temple for 45 years. A wonderful person and a great musician.
A most interesting Q&A …
… Trump, Dilbert, Wizards, Fear, and Testosterone — The Ringer. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Now, listen. Listen to your own question. Listen to your own question and then tell me if you are an objective observer. I’ll just repeat it back to you as closely as I can.
Sure.
“Trump has created a situation in which it seems plausible he would pick a fight with a baby.” [Laughs.] Really? Does that sound reasonable to you? When you hear it played back?
It doesn’t sound reasonable, no, but you have to say it does sound plausible.
Plausible?
Something to think on …
Writers of historical fiction are not under the same obligation as historians to find evidence for the statements they make. For us it is sufficient if what we say can't be disproved or shown to be false.
— Barry Unsworth, born on this date in 1930
Tuesday, August 09, 2016
Is anything not sexist …
… Civilization Causes 'The Patriarchy'? Fire, Alphabets Called Sexist | PJ Media.I wonder if the omnipresence of sexism has anything to do with sex being a natural differentiation decreed by Almighty Evolution.
Hmm …
… Are Religious People More Moral Because They Fear God's Punishment? | RealClearScience.
The attempt to uncover this reason has led a small number of psychologists to focus on two intertwining ideas, the "supernatural monitoring hypothesis" and the "supernatural punishment hypothesis". Taken together, the notions suggest that religious people behave more prosocially because they feel they are being watched by divine entities and that their actions will be punished or rewarded by those entities.It is unclear to me from the examples how they arrived at these categories and whether these categories were cited by the subjects as characteristic of their religious outlook. The most plausible to me was the Canadian one, in which 'participants who viewed God as "forgiving" and "gentle" were more likely to cheat on a math test than subjects who viewed God as "vengeful" and "terrifying".' If you view God as an indulgent parent, you might be inclined to give yourself moral breaks from time to time. I don't happen to know any person of faith whose focus is on judgment and punishment. Judgment is a given, but forgiveness seems the default mode. I try to do God's will because I figure it is in my best interest, as the way I can make the most of being.
Following the money …
… Instapundit — THE LAW OF UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES HITS BIOFUELS: “This should be a shock to nobody but the Greens…
Things become clearer once you distinguish between conservationists and environmentalists.
Things become clearer once you distinguish between conservationists and environmentalists.
E.T.?
An interview with Frank Drake, creator of the Drake equation, designed to calculate the number of extraterrestrial civilizations in the Milky Way.
My crowd …
… The Despair of Poor White Americans - The Atlantic. (Via LitHub.)
Two new books—one a provocative, deeply researched history and the other an affecting memoir—are well timed to help make better sense of the plight of struggling whites in the United States. Both accounts converge on an important insight: The gloomy state of affairs in the lower reaches of white America should not have caught the rest of the country as off guard as it has—and mobilizing solutions for the crisis will depend partly on closing the gaps that allowed for such obliviousness.My brother and I were raised by our mother and her mother, both factory workers.
No mean feat …
… Anecdotal Evidence: `A Matter of Saying Things in the Right Order'.
Like James, I have no bitterness about the years I spent working for newspapers. That’s where I learned to write, and where a naïve, under-educated young man learned something about the world. It was my graduate school.
Celebrating Larkin …
… A True Poet by Christopher Ricks | The New York Review of Books. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
In Larkin’s poems a person speaks in his own voice, “the true voice of feeling,” without subterfuge and yet also without hot intrusiveness. The best of his poems have all the warm immediacy of a letter or a conversation, but they inflict on us none of the unease which we feel with some confessional poetry, the feeling that we are snooping or eavesdropping with the author’s connivance.
Larkin's 94th …
… Nigeness: Celebrating with the Birthday Boy.
If James Booth's recent biography of Larkin is right — and Booth was a colleague of Larkin's for 17 years — despite his verbal transgressiveness, Larkin was no racist and was unfailingly kind to all.
Something to think on …
I can't understand these chaps who go round American universities explaining how they write poems: It's like going round explaining how you sleep with your wife.
— Philip Larkin, born on this date in 1922
Monday, August 08, 2016
The triumph of kindness …
… Zbigniew Herbert, Vasily Grossman, and “a small kernel of human kindness” | The Book Haven.
“Human history is not the battle of good struggling to overcome evil. It is a battle fought by a great evil struggling to crush a small kernel of human kindness. But if what is human in human beings has not been destroyed even now, then evil will never conquer.”
Whither the Economy?
In January 2005, as it does every year, the Congressional Budget Office released its forecast for the United States’ budget and economic outlook over the decade to come. If the C.B.O.’s projections had come true, the United States would have had $3.1 trillion more economic output in 2015 than it actually did — 17 percent more. Even if the steep contraction of 2008-2009 hadn’t happened, the shortfall would have been $1.7 trillion.
We’re in a Low-Growth World. How Did We Get Here?
Tyranny alert …
… NPR Writer Having a Meltdown Because YOUR Children Might Learn About Noah's Ark | PJ Media.
Controlling the education of children is one of the front lines in the battle of worldviews. Barbara King realizes that for her religion of scientism to flourish, children's education has to be devoid of competing ideas.
Words and the Word …
… The Millions : Still Searching: Poets on God - The Millions. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I have never had any trouble believing the story of Stevens's conversion. To me, for years, the theme of the Collected Poems has seemed to be the quest for faith.
Mythology and realism …
… A Sort of Adam Infant Dropped: True Myths by R. Scott Yarbrough.
The entire book, A Sort of Adam Infant Dropped: True Myths, is centered on his own “Personal Myths” (Section I) and his“Teaching Universal Myths”(Section II), all the while searching to make sense of a senseless world and answers to the unanswerable. Hence, this may be why man/poet is driven to create myths/poems – to sustain him and us through life’s on-going inexplicable moments.
Back to beginnings …
… “Return of the Kogarah Kid”: a new poem by Clive James. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Art lover …
… Bryan Appleyard — Gabriele Finaldi: The Catford Catholic Connoisseur. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
As we walk round the galleries, one thing is clear: Finaldi genuinely loves this place. He doesn’t so much tell stories, as Penny did, about the works he picks out; rather, he rhapsodises. Peering at the great 14th-century Wilton Diptych, he is plainly entranced. “That theme of the beautifully tooled goldwork carried into the robes of the kings, these beautiful open-winged and then white harts, surrounded by emblems of the Plantagenets in the gold robe of the young Richard II… It’s the whole universe, bringing it all together into this tiny, concentrated image of extraordinary power and beauty.”
Something to think on …
Neither in the life of the individual nor in that of mankind is it desirable to know the future.
— Jacob Burckhardt, who died on this date in 1887
Sunday, August 07, 2016
Well, isn't this nice?
… American Authorities Fear Terror Networks Already in US.
The director of the VOA is Amanda Bennett, who was executive editor of The Inquirer during most of the time I was book editor. I admire her immensely.
The director of the VOA is Amanda Bennett, who was executive editor of The Inquirer during most of the time I was book editor. I admire her immensely.
Guesswork …
… First Known When Lost: Opinion.
Opinions on political issues are beliefs, not statements of reality. In the wake of the so-called "Age of Enlightenment," belief in utopian political schemes has in large part replaced religious belief. Political believers can be every bit as fervent as religious believers. This is not a criticism of fervency. Everyone is entitled to hold their own opinions. But it is important to recognize the critical role that utopian political beliefs play in the lives of a large number of people.My own experience has been that political fervor tends to encourage much greater intolerance than religious fervor.
Something to think on …
In a sense, the first (if not necessarily the prime) function of a novelist, of ANY artist, is to entertain. If the poem, painting, play or novel does not immediately engage one's surface interest then it has failed. Whatever else it may or may not be, art is also entertainment. Bad art fails to entertain. Good art does something in addition.
— Brigid Brophy who died on this date in 1995
Saturday, August 06, 2016
RIP …
… Pete Fountain, New Orleans' clarinet-playing musical ambassador, dies at 86 | NOLA.com. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Blogging note …
Just learned that a dear friend passed away this morning. Don't much feel like blogging right now. Later.
Something to think on …
Do not fear lest you should meditate too much upon Him and speak of Him in an unworthy way, providing you are led by faith. Do not fear lest you should entertain false opinions of Him so long as they are in conformity with the notion of the infinitely perfect Being.
— Nicolas Malebranche, born on this date in 1638
Who knew?
… Feminist Declares The Invention Of The Alphabet The Root Of Sexism, Misogyny And Patriarchy… | Weasel Zippers.
If you go to the link, you may wonder, as I did, why the piece is so uncritical. This is a review of a book — actually, it is more of a book report — something that can only exist by virtue of writing, a practice that necessarily involves the use of the alphabet. If the alphabet is the root of all this evil, why not eschew its use altogether? Remember that business about practicing what you preach?
If you go to the link, you may wonder, as I did, why the piece is so uncritical. This is a review of a book — actually, it is more of a book report — something that can only exist by virtue of writing, a practice that necessarily involves the use of the alphabet. If the alphabet is the root of all this evil, why not eschew its use altogether? Remember that business about practicing what you preach?
Friday, August 05, 2016
Credentialed idiots …
… Hamilton College Caught Lying About 'Heartfelt Student Demand' for New 'Diversity' Requirement | PJ Media.
Starting in the 2017/2018 academic year, students must complete an entire course within their concentration (for example, math professors must teach a “math diversity” course) that would -- to quote the guidelines -- educate them about:
What the hell any of that has to do with math is anybody's guess.… structural and institutional hierarchies based on one or more of the social categories of race, class, gender, ethnicity, nationality, religion, sexuality, age, and abilities/disabilities.
Very much worth reading …
… Concerns about National Academy of Sciences and Scientific Dissent | National Association of Scholars. (Hat tip, John Droz.)
As it happens, Dr. McNutt did become president of the NAS.
As it happens, Dr. McNutt did become president of the NAS.
In praise of the flâneuse …
… A tribute to female flâneurs: the women who reclaimed our city streets | Cities | The Guardian. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
The very first words spoken by Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway say it all: “‘I love walking in London,’ said Mrs Dalloway. ‘Really, it’s better than walking in the country.’” Mrs Dalloway is the flâneuse incarnate, as indicated by her surname: “a woman who likes to dally along the way,” as Rachel Bowlby pointed out. Woolf used the streets as research. What she saw there prompted her to wonder about people and their lives. The trick of capturing what they feel pushed her forward in her literary project – how to represent “life itself” on the page.
Slap-happy …
… Diagnosed With Liberalism - Taki's Magazine. (Hat tip, John Knox.)
I spoke to Amier Carmel, a psychoanalyst here in New York who works with severe mental illness. “If someone walks into my office and immediately presents me with trauma,” he says, “it usually means there is some underlying toxic dynamic behind this trauma.” He describes the cry-bullies as people with “an intense need to control” and says that “the resentment associated with this need to correct is often an induced feeling used to fix another problem.” This makes perfect sense. Whenever I argue with liberals and they preach to me about immigration, education, or women’s rights, their lack of knowledge on the subject makes it clear they’ve never looked it up. “It’s never about what it’s about,” as Derb would say. Ask them how many illegals are in the country and they’ll rarely get within 10 million of the number. Ask them how much we spend per student per year and they’ll say, “Not enough.” Ask them how much young women without kids make compared with men and they’ll say, “Women need a choice.” They’re not in it for the truth. They’re in it for the platitudes of the crusade and the power it evokes. We all know that by know. The question is why.
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