January 2008
42 posts
Another reason to see The Lives of Others
“If you did not see The Lives of Others in a movie theater, by all means view it on DVD, and even if you did catch it at the theater, you now have a chance to study it and deepen your appreciation of its artistry. The movie works well on a television screen. Many of the shots seem carefully composed and framed to suggest the way people became trapped in and by the East German regime. Indeed,...
Needing a Hail Mary, Fans Find a Monastery →
(via viz)
Nabokov wanted his last work destroyed
Dmitri’s (Nabokov’s son) predicament goes beyond Laura. It’s one that raises the difficult issue of who “owns” a work of art, particularly an unfinished work of art by a dead author who did not want anything but his finished work to become public. Who controls its fate? The dead hand from the grave? Or the eager, perhaps overeager, readers, scholars, and biographers...
the announcement we've all been waiting for
ayjay: CHARLESTON, SC — After spending two months accompanying his wife, Hillary, on the campaign trail, former president Bill Clinton announced Monday that he is joining the 2008 presidential race, saying he “could no longer resist the urge.” “My fellow Americans, I am sick and tired of not being president,” said Clinton, introducing his wife at a “Hillary...
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“… the study of verbal art can and must overcome the divorce between an...”
– Mikhail Bakhtin, from “Discourse in the Novel” in The Dialogic Imagination
“Just call me Gina.”
– -my Russian Lit. professor, Dr. Kovarsky. I just can’t do it.
1 tag
“The Velvet Rut” by Paul Curreri
Underfunded Schools Forced To Cut Past Tense From... →
5 The voice of the Lord breaketh the cedars; yea, the Lord breaketh the cedars of Lebanon. 6 He maketh them also to skip like a caf; Lebanon and Sirion like a young unicorn. 7 The voice of the Lord divideth the flames of fire. 8 The voice of the Lord shaketh the wilderness; the Lord shaketh the wilderness of Kadesh. 9 The voice of the Lord maketh the hinds to calve, and discovereth the...
Makoto Fujimura: the epistle of van Gogh →
What is going on in Richmond?? →
— viz I have seen these “phony testicles” on the road. I concur with Lionell: “When they first came out, they were real small,” he said, pointing to a picture from an Internet store. “Now they’re huge.”
1 tag
“Being a Scientologist, when you drive past an accident, it’s not like...”
– Tom Cruise
The Library of Congress has a Flickr account. →
via J. Blankenship
In season: +escarole +grapefruit +kale +leeks +lemons +oranges and tangerines!
Dante's Inferno - A Virtual Tour of Hell →
— viz
"This is Just to Say"
I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox and which you were probably saving for breakfast Forgive me they were delicious so sweet and so cold - William Carlos Williams
on On Eloquence
“Eloquence does not vex its own creation. Delighting in difference, it opposes—but without argument—the otherwise omnivorous culture of the same. We value it as a sign of such freedom as we are likely to enjoy . . . The most forceful rejection of eloquence I am aware of is Christ’s: ‘Get thee behind me, Satan,’ an admonition extended in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 4...
“I don’t have any interest in telling stories about happy, well adjusted...”
– Wes Anderson, on Fresh Air
from Dostoevksy
I shall be told, perhaps, that Alyosha was stupid, undeveloped, had not finished his studies, and so on. That he did not finish his studies is true, but to say that he was stupid or dull would be a great injustice. I’ll simply repeat what I have said above. He entered upon this path only because, at that time, it alone struck his imagination and presented itself to him as offering an ideal means...
Before the countenance of the hero finally takes shape as a stable and necessary whole, the hero is going to exhibit a great many grimaces, random masks, wrong gestures, and unexpected actions, depending on all those emotional-volitional reactions and personal whims of the author, through the chaos of which he is compelled to work his way in order to reach an authentic valuational attitude. In...
#780
The Truth-is stirless- Other force-may be presumed to move- This-then-is best for confidence- When oldest Ceders swerve- And Oaks untwist their fists- And Mountains-feeble-lean- How excellent a Body, that Stands without a Bone- How vigorious a Force That holds without a Prop- Truth stays Herself-and every man That trusts Her-boldy up —Emily Dickinson
Man, 75, Hurt While Riding Pet Buffalo →
Potentially the best news article of the new year.
Michael Pollan's Twelve Commandments for Serious...
1. Don’t eat anything your grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food. 2. Avoid foods containing ingredients you can’t pronounce. 3. Don’t eat anything that won’t eventually rot. 4. Avoid food products that carry health claims. 5. Shop the peripheries of the supermarket; stay out of the middle. 6. Better yet, buy food somewhere else: the farmers’ market or CSA. 7....
“For as much as I have experienced and understood in art, I must answer with my...”
– -Mikhail Bakhtin, from Art and Answerability
Note to self: Although “Greek coffee” looks like a nice cup of espresso, it really tastes like gritty mud.