. . . at the New York Public Library.
Here's also something nice by Max Ernst.
Sunday, May 28, 2006
Monday, May 22, 2006
22 May 1859
Today is Arthur Conan Doyle's birthday.
It might also, therefore, be considered the birthday of the inimitable Sherlock Holmes himself.
I first read him when I saw a book at the library whose spine said, The Essential Boy's Sherlock Holmes (or something like that).
I read the title and said, "Aha! You sexists, I'll show YOU!" So I read the whole thing. And then I read the rest of the books in the Teen Section. Then I ventured into ADULT FICTION, stood on a chair, and day by week by month read all of the big dusty books off of that top shelf.
The Sign of the Four is one of my favorites. Ahhh, scratch that--they're all really good.
These people like him just as much as I do.
It might also, therefore, be considered the birthday of the inimitable Sherlock Holmes himself.
I first read him when I saw a book at the library whose spine said, The Essential Boy's Sherlock Holmes (or something like that).
I read the title and said, "Aha! You sexists, I'll show YOU!" So I read the whole thing. And then I read the rest of the books in the Teen Section. Then I ventured into ADULT FICTION, stood on a chair, and day by week by month read all of the big dusty books off of that top shelf.
The Sign of the Four is one of my favorites. Ahhh, scratch that--they're all really good.
These people like him just as much as I do.
Saturday, May 20, 2006
Hello, Boris.
The Reading of the Manifest.
The Fair.
Boris Kustodiev (Kustodiyev) painted these things.
He was part of the Mir Iskusstva (look here too).
This is a page of more images of his work.
Monday, May 15, 2006
Poetreeeeeee
I like these.
By Michael Drayton (1563-1631).
By Robert Browning (1812-1889). I was actually only given a cutting of this one at first, but I like the whole thing (even if I don't understand it).
By Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979). Trivia! Some of her unpublished poems were recently collected and published by Alice Quinn (look!). It's caused something of an uproar--if a poet had the chance to publish some of her work, and didn't, should people root through her things after she's dead and shove them in the public's face? The Denver Post had a nifty article about the problem. And here's something from The Atlantic Monthly (sigh) published in January.
By Michael Drayton (1563-1631).
By Robert Browning (1812-1889). I was actually only given a cutting of this one at first, but I like the whole thing (even if I don't understand it).
By Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979). Trivia! Some of her unpublished poems were recently collected and published by Alice Quinn (look!). It's caused something of an uproar--if a poet had the chance to publish some of her work, and didn't, should people root through her things after she's dead and shove them in the public's face? The Denver Post had a nifty article about the problem. And here's something from The Atlantic Monthly (sigh) published in January.
Heaven help me.
This is what people actually do at the school I'm going to. And I hope that what he's wearing isn't an informal uniform.
Saturday, May 13, 2006
I learned something new!
(Remember that bhajan that was called "Aiso Ko Udaar Jag Maahi"? Turns out that that line, which is the sthai, or primary theme, means "The Lord is all merciful.")
The story of Mira Bai feels similar to the stories of the Catholic saints--you know, we can visit Saint Catherine's house, but we don't know if she really loved God when she was three, or what exactly she was like. Historical facts get all mixed up with oral tradition, and literary tradition, and the beautiful ideas painters have long after the people are dead.
But we do know some things almost certainly--Mira Bai (Meera Bai) was a nobel woman in Rajasthan, an area in India. She was married to the king-to-be at thirteen, but the family didn't take to her and made trouble. And here's the good part, the not-necessarily-factual part: she said she couldn't really be a wife to the king, because she had already dedicated her whole heart to Lord Krishna. Her husband died, and she did not commit satti (also sati, suttee) but instead wandered Rajasthan, preaching and writing poetry and music. She is credited with at least 200 bhajans, though some attribute more than 1300 to her. Her writing is called a whole bunch of things--"mystical love poetry" or "love poetry" seem to be repeated the most. In any case, she had an overwhelming love for Krishna, to whom she devoted her life.
To learn more (IT'S SO INTERESTING!):
Here is a basic summary.
Here is a very comprehensive website, with good links to other respectable sites, where you can read her writing or listen to some of the bhajans.
Here is more, and here, and here is Wikipedia's take.
And here is an interesting one by a believer (like reading about St Catherine from a Catholic traditionalist).
The story of Mira Bai feels similar to the stories of the Catholic saints--you know, we can visit Saint Catherine's house, but we don't know if she really loved God when she was three, or what exactly she was like. Historical facts get all mixed up with oral tradition, and literary tradition, and the beautiful ideas painters have long after the people are dead.
But we do know some things almost certainly--Mira Bai (Meera Bai) was a nobel woman in Rajasthan, an area in India. She was married to the king-to-be at thirteen, but the family didn't take to her and made trouble. And here's the good part, the not-necessarily-factual part: she said she couldn't really be a wife to the king, because she had already dedicated her whole heart to Lord Krishna. Her husband died, and she did not commit satti (also sati, suttee) but instead wandered Rajasthan, preaching and writing poetry and music. She is credited with at least 200 bhajans, though some attribute more than 1300 to her. Her writing is called a whole bunch of things--"mystical love poetry" or "love poetry" seem to be repeated the most. In any case, she had an overwhelming love for Krishna, to whom she devoted her life.
To learn more (IT'S SO INTERESTING!):
Here is a basic summary.
Here is a very comprehensive website, with good links to other respectable sites, where you can read her writing or listen to some of the bhajans.
Here is more, and here, and here is Wikipedia's take.
And here is an interesting one by a believer (like reading about St Catherine from a Catholic traditionalist).
Monday, May 08, 2006
Friday, April 28, 2006
I sure do love this man--
--Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
Bear with me here, on behalf of this GENIUS:
Tom Faulkner writes about Garcia Marquez's short story "A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings":
"The problem García Márquez presents us is not just What if angels were real? but What if they were real, and nothing like we expect them to be? He creates a tension between the old man's magical and human qualities, leaving us unable to fit the character into a comfortable mental category. The old man is far too human and decrepit to match our cultural image of angels: perfect, powerful, majestic, immortal. Nor does he appear to be a heavenly messenger, sent by God as a sign of momentous changes; his presence seems to be purely an accident of the weather, without purpose or meaning. Nonetheless, he certainly has his magical qualities, and is even credited with miracles (though, like everything else about him, they are disturbing, and fail to satisfy expectations). However miraculous his nature, origins, or abilities may be, he is stranded here, and relatively powerlessan exile from his former life, at the mercy of strangers. The villagers must somehow account for him, and because no one understands his language, he is unable (and apparently unwilling) to explain himself. Several possible interpretations arise, but most of them are clearly absurd, telling us more about the villagers' superstitions and beliefs than about the old man's true nature. They are rendered with playful humor, ensuring that the reader will appreciate the irrational and illusory basis of such folk wisdom. Yet our superior, conventional methods of logic and reason don't seem any more useful in reaching a secure explanation. The old man remains a stubborn, intriguing mystery, both magical and ordinary, impossible to decipher but undeniably there."
and,
"By combining factual and imaginative descriptions, and seeming to treat them with equal credibility, the author suggests that both ways of knowing are valid, perhaps even necessary to achieving a balanced understanding."
and,
"Works of magic realism are both praised and criticized for their childlike wonder, their depiction of a world of almost-infinite possibilities, where the supernatural and the everyday take on the same vivid intensity. But they are not fairy tales or two-dimensional fantasies; they offer no clear lessons, simple events, or sharp distinctions between reality and magic. Wondering includes both delight and confusion, the struggle to comprehend experiences that challenge our understanding, and don't fit our accustomed map of reality. Far more things are possible in the world of magic realism, including miracles, contradictions, and logical impossibilities but this also means that more meanings are possible, and that all meanings will be elusive and uncertain."
I know that's a lot of text, but c'mon!! Have you read One Hundred Years of Solitude?
Bear with me here, on behalf of this GENIUS:
Tom Faulkner writes about Garcia Marquez's short story "A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings":
"The problem García Márquez presents us is not just What if angels were real? but What if they were real, and nothing like we expect them to be? He creates a tension between the old man's magical and human qualities, leaving us unable to fit the character into a comfortable mental category. The old man is far too human and decrepit to match our cultural image of angels: perfect, powerful, majestic, immortal. Nor does he appear to be a heavenly messenger, sent by God as a sign of momentous changes; his presence seems to be purely an accident of the weather, without purpose or meaning. Nonetheless, he certainly has his magical qualities, and is even credited with miracles (though, like everything else about him, they are disturbing, and fail to satisfy expectations). However miraculous his nature, origins, or abilities may be, he is stranded here, and relatively powerlessan exile from his former life, at the mercy of strangers. The villagers must somehow account for him, and because no one understands his language, he is unable (and apparently unwilling) to explain himself. Several possible interpretations arise, but most of them are clearly absurd, telling us more about the villagers' superstitions and beliefs than about the old man's true nature. They are rendered with playful humor, ensuring that the reader will appreciate the irrational and illusory basis of such folk wisdom. Yet our superior, conventional methods of logic and reason don't seem any more useful in reaching a secure explanation. The old man remains a stubborn, intriguing mystery, both magical and ordinary, impossible to decipher but undeniably there."
and,
"By combining factual and imaginative descriptions, and seeming to treat them with equal credibility, the author suggests that both ways of knowing are valid, perhaps even necessary to achieving a balanced understanding."
and,
"Works of magic realism are both praised and criticized for their childlike wonder, their depiction of a world of almost-infinite possibilities, where the supernatural and the everyday take on the same vivid intensity. But they are not fairy tales or two-dimensional fantasies; they offer no clear lessons, simple events, or sharp distinctions between reality and magic. Wondering includes both delight and confusion, the struggle to comprehend experiences that challenge our understanding, and don't fit our accustomed map of reality. Far more things are possible in the world of magic realism, including miracles, contradictions, and logical impossibilities but this also means that more meanings are possible, and that all meanings will be elusive and uncertain."
I know that's a lot of text, but c'mon!! Have you read One Hundred Years of Solitude?
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
I was reading, and I learned something new.
The bhajan is a traditional Hindu devotional song.
Most were written between the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries as a result of the Bhakti revivalist movement.
This movement's center was the idea that to attain spiritual salvation a person had only to attain a pure and selfless love of God.
For some interesting discussion, see Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger, and Deuteronomy 6:4-9.
For more on the Bhakti movement:
from Answers.com
from Wikipedia
To listen: Here (with RealPlayer) (I like the one labeled "Aiso ko udaar")
Most were written between the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries as a result of the Bhakti revivalist movement.
This movement's center was the idea that to attain spiritual salvation a person had only to attain a pure and selfless love of God.
For some interesting discussion, see Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger, and Deuteronomy 6:4-9.
For more on the Bhakti movement:
from Answers.com
from Wikipedia
To listen: Here (with RealPlayer) (I like the one labeled "Aiso ko udaar")
Sunday, April 23, 2006
Monday, March 20, 2006
Article
Last summer, my teacher at the Iowa Young Writers' Studio was Kevin Moffett. This is an article he wrote in The Believer (a magazine related to McSweeney's)--the most important part is the list. Just take a quick look, okay? Here.
(In case you love Kevin's writing and want more, he was also published in McSweeney's Issue 16, and 40 Stories Quarterly, and The Chicago Tribune, and plenty of other places. He's working on a novel right now, though says his little son is such a distraction it's taking him longer than he thought.)
(In case you love Kevin's writing and want more, he was also published in McSweeney's Issue 16, and 40 Stories Quarterly, and The Chicago Tribune, and plenty of other places. He's working on a novel right now, though says his little son is such a distraction it's taking him longer than he thought.)
Sunday, March 19, 2006
Agree or Disagree?
When desire, having rejected reason and overpowered judgment which leads to right, is set in the direction of the pleasure which beauty can inspire, and when again under the influence of its kindred desires it is moved with violent motion towards the beauty of corporeal forms, it acquires a surname from this very violent motion, and is called love. (Socrates, quoted by Plato)
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
Saturday, March 04, 2006
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