Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Mega-shark vs. SuperCrazyRoboMega-Shark
I'm a sucker for these kinds of stories--whether in the news, in a paperback, or on Sci-Fi.
Kinda sad...
... when your area is so economically depressed that a university wins business of the year. A state university, no less. Talk about defining business down.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Wallace Stevens
I had not read any Stevens until I read the article you posted, Nick. One of the things I love about the New Criterion is that I always get to read about some decent writers I haven't heard of or I have only a mere recognition. It helps me expand my literary education which would otherwise tend to stagnate because of my laziness.
I briefly perused some Stevens and tried to find the poems mentioned in the article. I can see in the few poems I read how both you and the author came to your conclusions. There was a lot of nonsense in the poems I read. I also enjoyed the line you quoted from the article. The New Criterion finds some decent critics and writers. I especially like Terry Teachout. From Wallace, I did enjoy The Man Whose Pharynx Was Bad and The Snow Man. Especially The Man Whose Pharynx Was Bad. I thought this a very nice stanza:
The time of year has grown indifferent.
Mildew of summer and the deepening snow
Are both alike in the routine i know.
I am too dumbly in my being pent.
Whitman I might revisit some day, but I remember having to wade through quite a bit of sillyness there as well to find anything I liked. It makes me wonder what a writer does with his bad or lesser material. I'd be inclined to toss it or at least not publish it, but I suppose it must be shared for the sake of improving yourself through someone else's criticism. Of couse some writers may not think they have lesser material. When I write I'm inclined to think the opposite and am loath to share.
I briefly perused some Stevens and tried to find the poems mentioned in the article. I can see in the few poems I read how both you and the author came to your conclusions. There was a lot of nonsense in the poems I read. I also enjoyed the line you quoted from the article. The New Criterion finds some decent critics and writers. I especially like Terry Teachout. From Wallace, I did enjoy The Man Whose Pharynx Was Bad and The Snow Man. Especially The Man Whose Pharynx Was Bad. I thought this a very nice stanza:
The time of year has grown indifferent.
Mildew of summer and the deepening snow
Are both alike in the routine i know.
I am too dumbly in my being pent.
Whitman I might revisit some day, but I remember having to wade through quite a bit of sillyness there as well to find anything I liked. It makes me wonder what a writer does with his bad or lesser material. I'd be inclined to toss it or at least not publish it, but I suppose it must be shared for the sake of improving yourself through someone else's criticism. Of couse some writers may not think they have lesser material. When I write I'm inclined to think the opposite and am loath to share.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Friday, October 16, 2009
Re: famous philosophers
The question is almost always a trap, and I think GWB opted out of that by choosing Jesus (i.e. the safe bet). Say you choose Aristotle, and you can see how that might cause problems; same with Plato. You can't really go past the reformation for fear of stepping in the muck of a Protestant-Catholic divide--just about the safest person to pick would be Thomas Aquinas (and there are even ways that choice could be turned against you politically; and no way in hell could you pick Augustine).
But anyone who is asked that question should recognize that there are a few obvious ones that you absolutely do not pick... and Mao is definitely on that list. There is maddening segment of leftist thought that hasn't yet understood the reality of the body count.
But anyone who is asked that question should recognize that there are a few obvious ones that you absolutely do not pick... and Mao is definitely on that list. There is maddening segment of leftist thought that hasn't yet understood the reality of the body count.
Wallace Stevens
Read this great article about him in the New Criterion. I have to confess I've never really got Stevens, and have had a hard time getting into his work. Logan claims that Stevens' rare stretches of magnificent lines "justify the acres of dull philosophizing lacking the odor of a necessary world," but I'm not sure that they do. Such moments come quicker and with more depth in Yeats and Frost, and even when they don't, you can settle for a different sort of greatness by taking the words slowly and allowing your imagine to fill in the landscape behind them. Stevens, not so much.
I think Logan gets Stevens, Whitman, and probably much of modern poetry in general, perfectly with this line:
"The magnificence of Stevens comes at a cost, the same cost we pay for Whitman: logorrhea of an uncharming and embarrassing sort, absurd notions, passages too private with their own pleasure, tone-deafness, lofty ambitions insufficiently grounded, and gouts of gimcrack philosophy."
With Whitman, it's a price I'll gladly pay for the times when that expansiveness happens to capture something great. With Frost and Yeats, I'd say there really is no price at all (maybe with Frost you pay it in enduring the minutiae of a New England winter, but he's such a cantankerous old crank for details you can't help but love him). But for Wallace Stevens, meh... pass.
I think Logan gets Stevens, Whitman, and probably much of modern poetry in general, perfectly with this line:
"The magnificence of Stevens comes at a cost, the same cost we pay for Whitman: logorrhea of an uncharming and embarrassing sort, absurd notions, passages too private with their own pleasure, tone-deafness, lofty ambitions insufficiently grounded, and gouts of gimcrack philosophy."
With Whitman, it's a price I'll gladly pay for the times when that expansiveness happens to capture something great. With Frost and Yeats, I'd say there really is no price at all (maybe with Frost you pay it in enduring the minutiae of a New England winter, but he's such a cantankerous old crank for details you can't help but love him). But for Wallace Stevens, meh... pass.
two of my favorite political philosophers
So maybe it was a little goofy for GWB to name Jesus as his favorite political philosopher, but Anita Dunn, Obama's communications director, has outdone the right-wing slanders about Obama's people being leftists. Apparently Ms. Dunn's favorite political philosophers are Mother Teresa and Mao. One not a political philosopher and the other obviously that wonderful red-book-writing defender of liberty and constitutional government. It would be funny if, you know, these people weren't running two branches of the federal government.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Monday, October 12, 2009
Friday, October 09, 2009
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