-
Recent Posts
Archives
Categories
Meta
Twitter
Error: Twitter did not respond. Please wait a few minutes and refresh this page.
Monthly Archives: December 2018
*Affectedly Quaint
Following Dr. [Donald] Knuth’s doctrine helps to ward off moronry. He is known for introducing the notion of “literate programming,” emphasizing the importance of writing code that is readable by humans as well as computers — a notion that nowadays … Continue reading
Adrienne Rich
http://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/11/books/review/adrienne-rich-essential-essays-selected-poems-1950-2012.html I don’t mean to claim some instant, magic woke-ness upon reading these books. But Rich offers me a powerful and necessary reminder of the continuous self-reflection required to fight ignorance — one’s own and others’. We need to reread … Continue reading
Unsung Heroes, Sung Villains
Hannah Arendt lamented the damage done by translators to some of her favorite German poems. (“Remembering W. H. Auden,” The New Yorker, Jan. 20, 1975 — recently reprinted). As best I recall, she as good as said that trying to … Continue reading
“Something Like America”
http://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/10/books/review/political-poetry.html Wordsworth’s description of “emotion recollected in tranquillity” is sometimes cited as shorthand for what poets refer to as the lyric “I,” the poet’s vehicle for private, meditative reflection. So what becomes of the lyric “I” if poems are not … Continue reading
Truth in Fiction
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/dec/08/nicola-sturgeon-rachel-kushner-in-conversation-fiction-politics-prison My job, fundamentally, is all about people and it’s the individual stories that give me a sense of the issues I need to use my position to influence or change. That’s why I see reading fiction as an indispensable … Continue reading
Profound Word Funk Unlocked
http://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/dec/07/earl-sweatshirt-some-rap-songs-review Beats-wise, it’s a little like one of Madlib’s Medicine Show mixes, where grainy, sample-driven productions blurt like a haunted radio searching for a frequency in the past. Soul, funk and disco samples are cut up with blunt safety scissors, … Continue reading
There’ll Always Be an England
Persons from the UK had a bit of fun with the NYTimes in responding to a query concerning “crimes” to which they had been victim in their native land. The following tweet, among others, appeared in The Guardian in mid-December: … Continue reading →