The Dull New Global Novel |
Kazuo Ishiguro has spoken of the importance of avoiding word play and allusion to make things easy for the translator. Scandinavian writers I know tell me they avoid character names that would be difficult for an English reader.
If culture-specific clutter and linguistic virtuosity have become impediments, other strategies are seen positively: the deployment of highly visible tropes immediately recognizable as “literary” and “imaginative,” analogous to the wearisome lingua franca of special effects in contemporary cinema, and the foregrounding of a political sensibility that places the author among those “working for world peace.” So the overstated fantasy devices of a Rushdie or a Pamuk always go hand in hand with a certain liberal position |
| What seems doomed to disappear, or at least to risk neglect, is the kind of work that revels in the subtle nuances of its own language and literary cultureRead more at blogs.nybooks.com |
Hecht reflects on the suicide of her friend and colleague, poet Rachael Wetzsteon. On Suicide [by Jennifer Michael Hecht] |
| So I want to say this, and forgive me the strangeness of it. Don’t kill yourself. Life has always been almost too hard to bear, for a lot of the people, a lot of the time. It’s awful. But it isn’t too hard to bear, it’s only almost too hard to bear. |
| I’m issuing a rule. You are not allowed to kill yourself. |
| When a person kills himself, he does wrenching damage to the community. One of the best predictors of suicide is knowing a suicide. That means that every suicide is also a delayed homicide. You have to stay. |
| Sobbing and useless is great! Sobbing and useless is a million times better than dead. A billion times. Thank you for choosing sobbing and useless over dead. |
Good Night and Tough Luck |
Getting a good night’s sleep is actually a lot more complicated than one would think. |
Usually the trouble starts with my having to use the bathroom. Even though I am 38 years old, I still find myself hoping the urge will just pass. Which it doesn’t.
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Next up: a visitor from the kids’ room. They start all sweet and cuddly, but their little bodies become more brazen by the minute.
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To make things worse, our kids always insist on sleeping ON TOP of our blanket, creating a whole new set of problems.
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| The one thing I haven’t really figured out is where the person in the back is supposed to put that bottom arm. |
To summarize what we’ve learned so far: |
From blossoms comes
this brown paper bag of peaches
we bought from the joy
at the bend in the road where we turned toward
signs painted Peaches.
From laden boughs, from hands,
from sweet fellowship in the bins,
comes nectar at the roadside, succulent
peaches we devour, dusty skin and all,
comes the familiar dust of summer, dust we eat. |
O, to take what we love inside,
to carry within us an orchard, to eat
not only the skin, but the shade,
not only the sugar, but the days, to hold
the fruit in our hands, adore it, then bite into
the round jubilance of peach. |
There are days we live
as if death were nowhere
in the background; from joy
to joy to joy, from wing to wing,
from blossom to blossom to
impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom. |
Jean Pucelle (active ca. 1320–1324)
Saint Louis Feeding the Sick from The Book of Hours of Jeanne d’Evreux
Paris, France; 1324–28
3 1/2 x 2 5/8 in. (8.9 x 6.2 cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Cloisters Collection, 1954 (54.1.2) |
This exquisite and lavishly illustrated book contains not even a hint of gold, and color appears in it only in a limited way. Its figures, rather, are predominately rendered in grisaille and set within monochrome, penwork frames, with color selectively employed to provide accents or as a backdrop against which figures are placed. Its drawing-like effects made much of an artist’s skills, highlighting his ability to create mesmerizing, illusionistic effects. Read more at blog.metmuseum.org |
Unfortunately only a few of these are viewable online. But they’re gorgeous. Maruti
(Hanuman)
Artist: Unknown
Publisher: Hem Chander Bargava & Co., Delhi
9″ X 6 1/16″
H. Daniel Smith Poster Archive, Department of Special Collections,
Syracuse University Library, no. 0328ARead more at www.maxwell.syr.edu |
Kamadhenu
Artist: H.R. Raja
Publisher: S.S. Brijbasi & Sons, Bombay and Delhi
12 3/4″ X 9 1/8″
H. Daniel Smith Poster Archive, Department of Special Collections,
Syracuse University Library, no 0724Read more at www.maxwell.syr.edu |
Beedi
Advertisement with Mohini
Artist: S.M. Pandit
Publisher: Unknown
17″ X 17 3/8″
H. Daniel Smith Poster Archive, Department of Special Collections,
Syracuse University Library, no 1588Read more at www.maxwell.syr.edu |
 Santoshi
Ma |
Artist: S. Sitaram
Publisher: Shree Lakshmi Agencies, Sivakasi
12 9/16″ X 9 1/8″
H. Daniel Smith Poster Archive, Department of Special Collections,
Syracuse University Library, no 0539A Read more at www.maxwell.syr.edu |
A gorgeous poem that reflects, I think, a lot of my own feelings about my adopted home, a struggling but lively former steel town in southeastern Pennsylvania. SONG FOR EL CERRITO
tess taylor
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I used to hate its working-class bungalows, grid planning,
power-lines sawing hillsides. It shamed me |
the way my parents did for not making more money.
Now it looks like a Diebenkorn. |
Now I want even the bad wood siding
in our living room, my mother’s aging |
books on modern Indian thought. Her tanpura
in sunlight. I want fox-weed in railroad trestles, |
the endangered frogs in our gully.
I want a lemon tree. |
On San Pablo, polyester collectibles, a folk-song store,
the “All-Button Emporium: Open 10-4 Saturday’s.” |
How did love lodge in these?
It might be how marigold light |
forgives even the traffic islands.
December only yellows the gingkoes and reddens the maples. |
A stream smells rich under our house.
For Christmas, my sister and I steal |
persimmons from neighbors’ yards.
Ten years on, I discover |
how I keep falling in love here
among pickups and blackberry brambles. |
One of TV’s most popular shows is also one of the most spiritual. So why aren’t the Jews getting any love?
Lilit Marcus
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| One reason that Lost resonates with so many viewers is that it incorporates elements from many world religions. The show frequently refers to a mysterious string of numbers that add up to 108, a sacred number in Buddhism that represents the number of beads on a mala, or prayer necklace. A secretive group that might be behind the mysterious happenings on the island is called the Dharma Initiative. Lost boasts one of the most diverse casts on TV, with the survivors of Oceanic Flight 815 coming from a variety of backgrounds (Nigerian, Korean, Iraqi, etc.) However, religious diversity is where the program fails. Because the majority of the passengers are from the United States, the show assumes them all to be Christian or nonreligious. The Iraqi soldier, Sayid, is Muslim, and has been shown praying on several occasions. See more at www.beliefnet.com |
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Come take a walk down Memory Lane and experience the only public sign museum in America. Click through our website, and find a treasure
trove of information relative to the rich tradition of sign fabrication and design. You can also find news of sign preservation efforts
throughout the country and even visit the Museum’s permanent collection.
But better yet, arrange to visit the American Sign Museum: You’ll get a one and a half hour personal tour of more than 150 vintage
signs guided by the museum’s founder himself-Tod Swormstedt. Swormstedt is the former editor and publisher of Signs of the Times
magazine, a trade journal which celebrated its 100th anniversary of continuous publication in May, 2006.
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Click here for a video tour with museum founder Tod Swormstedt
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Website Design by BrianTheBrush.com
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See more at www.signmuseum.com |
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“Lost” (the TV show) and religion
Bookmarking this mostly to read later.