http://www.goodreads.com/review/list_rss/123144 en-US Tue, 19 Aug 2008 09:50:31 -0700 60 http://www.goodreads.com/ 200 41 http://www.goodreads.com/images/layout/gr_logo.gif 30504985 Tue, 19 Aug 2008 09:50:31 -0700
The book itself is fashioned from interviews & a few short essays, & serves as a companion to a volume of St. John reprints (which I don't have). Maybe I should go hunt that down.

Somehow, I long to be there, returning from the war & writing hack stories. "When you draw the girl," I'd say to the artist, "make certain you give her cute shoes."]]>
author: John Benson
name: Kenneth
average rating: 3.00
book published: 2007
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 08/19/08
shelves: comics, cultural-studies-and-social-critics
review:
Behind the scenes of the low-budget production of forties' & fifties' romance comics. Fascinating stuff. Who knew, for example, that the romance-comic artist Matt Baker was African-American (& churning out sexy panels for white lovelorn America)? Who knew that the St. Johns' family doctor was Ernest Hemingway's father?

The book itself is fashioned from interviews & a few short essays, & serves as a companion to a volume of St. John reprints (which I don't have). Maybe I should go hunt that down.

Somehow, I long to be there, returning from the war & writing hack stories. "When you draw the girl," I'd say to the artist, "make certain you give her cute shoes."
]]> 30505191 Mon, 18 Aug 2008 19:31:33 -0700
author: Jim Woodring
name: Kenneth
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2002
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 08/18/08
shelves: art, comics, music
review:
I like to think of this as the music of Bill Frisell with pictures.
]]> 1781385 Sun, 17 Aug 2008 23:23:03 -0700
The Wapshot Scandal, by the way, is Cheever's best novel & maybe the only really masterful one among them.]]>
author: John Cheever
name: Kenneth
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2000
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 08/17/08
shelves: literature
review:
I've been sneaking behind the backs of the books on my "currently reading" list & rereading my favorite Cheever stories. Effing wonderful.

The Wapshot Scandal, by the way, is Cheever's best novel & maybe the only really masterful one among them.
]]> 18262635 Sun, 10 Aug 2008 23:25:38 -0700
author: Jane Mead
name: Kenneth
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2008
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 08/10/08
shelves: poetry-and-poetics
review:
What can I say? I love, and am a little in love with, Jane.
]]> 29158984 Sun, 03 Aug 2008 17:17:03 -0700
author: John Cohen
name: Kenneth
average rating: 4.67
book published: 1974
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 08/03/08
shelves: comics
review:

]]> 29158850 Sun, 03 Aug 2008 17:14:55 -0700
author: Julia Kasdorf
name: Kenneth
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1992
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 08/03/08
shelves: poetry-and-poetics
review:

]]> 28562772 Fri, 01 Aug 2008 08:06:00 -0700
Meanwhile, I think my downstairs neighbors are finally moving out. As I write this review, a U-Haul just pulled up in front of my apartment building. The downstairs neighbors are really very odd: stray chicken bones and Q-Tips (with yellowed ends) are often seen at the door to their apartment and they leave their garbage in the back stairwell instead of bringing it to the dumpster. When they quarrel (this is a young couple), the shouting arrives into my apartment via the vents and the arguments often tumble into the front stairwell and into the yard, but when they have sex they drown out those sounds with horrid pop music, the same cd every damn time. So I say, People of Earth, don't hide your lovemaking; be embarrassed instead by your silly, loud arguments. ]]>
author: Keith Giffen
name: Kenneth
average rating: 2.00
book published: 2008
rating: 2
read at: 08/08
date added: 08/01/08
shelves: comics
review:
A few funny re-workings, but, really, too many dumb gay jokes. It's as though a bunch of fifteen year olds put together this sophomoric attempt at satire.

Meanwhile, I think my downstairs neighbors are finally moving out. As I write this review, a U-Haul just pulled up in front of my apartment building. The downstairs neighbors are really very odd: stray chicken bones and Q-Tips (with yellowed ends) are often seen at the door to their apartment and they leave their garbage in the back stairwell instead of bringing it to the dumpster. When they quarrel (this is a young couple), the shouting arrives into my apartment via the vents and the arguments often tumble into the front stairwell and into the yard, but when they have sex they drown out those sounds with horrid pop music, the same cd every damn time. So I say, People of Earth, don't hide your lovemaking; be embarrassed instead by your silly, loud arguments.
]]> 1814316 Mon, 28 Jul 2008 09:40:46 -0700
author: Richard Yates
name: Kenneth
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2002
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 07/28/08
shelves: literature
review:

]]> 28478151 Sun, 27 Jul 2008 21:33:55 -0700
author: John Edward
name: Kenneth
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2001
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 07/27/08
shelves:
review:
Douche.
]]> 28080618 Thu, 24 Jul 2008 18:38:48 -0700
author: Tarssa Yazdani
name: Kenneth
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2006
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 07/24/08
shelves: music
review:

]]> 25522493 Wed, 23 Jul 2008 15:32:28 -0700
#81:

'Just as the river where I step
is not the same, and is,
so I am as I am not.']]>
author: Heraclitus
name: Kenneth
average rating: 4.45
book published: 2003
rating: 5
read at: 07/08
date added: 07/23/08
shelves: philosophy
review:
Wonderful. A book to carry with you for the rest of your life, to go back to and meditate and reflect upon. I'll be looking for other translations as well.

#81:

'Just as the river where I step
is not the same, and is,
so I am as I am not.'
]]> 16953947 Wed, 23 Jul 2008 15:24:05 -0700
author: Jean Valentine
name: Kenneth
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2007
rating: 3
read at: 07/08
date added: 07/23/08
shelves: poetry-and-poetics
review:
I'll need to come back to Valentine's new collection. Many of the poems struck me as so slight as to be invisible.
]]> 27095991 Fri, 18 Jul 2008 07:47:56 -0700
This is a new Vintage edition with a timely introduction by Sean Wilentz. I'm hopeful one of our many Goodreads librarians will do us a favor and combine editions, placing the book where it belongs, with the others. ]]>
author: Richard Hofstadter
name: Kenneth
average rating: 5.00
book published: 2008
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 07/18/08
shelves: cultural-studies-and-social-critics, history
review:
Especially illuminating the essays "The Paranoid Style in American Politics" and the subsequent pieces on what Hofstadter terms the "pseudo-conservative." New readers of Hofstadter may feel distanced from many of his examinations (written in the fifties and sixties) of contemporary political figures, but his insightful, creative analysis is worth the history lesson and sheds light on the present political situation.

This is a new Vintage edition with a timely introduction by Sean Wilentz. I'm hopeful one of our many Goodreads librarians will do us a favor and combine editions, placing the book where it belongs, with the others.
]]> 26623326 Sat, 12 Jul 2008 16:21:34 -0700
author: Joseph Conrad
name: Kenneth
average rating: 3.64
book published: 1900
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 07/12/08
shelves: literature
review:

]]> 26833760 Thu, 10 Jul 2008 03:46:30 -0700
author: Ben Watson
name: Kenneth
average rating: 3.33
book published: 2005
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 07/10/08
shelves: criticism, cultural-studies-and-social-critics, music
review:

]]> 2933847 Mon, 07 Jul 2008 16:53:27 -0700
author: Marilynne Robinson
name: Kenneth
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1980
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 07/07/08
shelves: literature
review:

]]> 2752797 Mon, 30 Jun 2008 16:04:14 -0700 Timaeus before tackling Hadot's history of the idea of nature and its relationship to Art and Being. There is, admittedly, a lot of Neoplatonic thought to shovel through, but Hadot's take on Nietzsche, as well as the concluding chapters, are worth the effort it takes to get there. In any case, an entire book based around Heraclitus's aphorism, "Nature loves to hide," and just what that might mean to different civilizations and ways of seeing the world at different points in history, is a fantastic example of how patient we ought to be when making critical and aesthetic judgements.]]>
author: Pierre Hadot
name: Kenneth
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2006
rating: 5
read at: 06/08
date added: 06/30/08
shelves: philosophy
review:
Gird your loins! And it would be useful to reread Plato's Timaeus before tackling Hadot's history of the idea of nature and its relationship to Art and Being. There is, admittedly, a lot of Neoplatonic thought to shovel through, but Hadot's take on Nietzsche, as well as the concluding chapters, are worth the effort it takes to get there. In any case, an entire book based around Heraclitus's aphorism, "Nature loves to hide," and just what that might mean to different civilizations and ways of seeing the world at different points in history, is a fantastic example of how patient we ought to be when making critical and aesthetic judgements.
]]> 25572715 Mon, 30 Jun 2008 12:43:23 -0700
TO THE RED FLAG

For him who only knows your color, red flag,
you must really exist, so that he can exist:
he who was covered with scabs is covered with wounds,
the laborer becomes a beggar,
the Neopolitan a Calabrese, the Calabrese an African,
the illiterate a buffalo or dog.
He who hardly knows your color, red flag,
won't know you much longer, not even with his senses:
you who already boast so many bourgeois workingclass glories,
you become a rag again, and the poorest wave you.]]>
author: Pier Paolo Pasolini
name: Kenneth
average rating: 4.22
book published: 1986
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 06/30/08
shelves: film, poetry-and-poetics
review:
Many fine poems here (& translated, in part, by Ferlinghetti). Here's a sample:

TO THE RED FLAG

For him who only knows your color, red flag,
you must really exist, so that he can exist:
he who was covered with scabs is covered with wounds,
the laborer becomes a beggar,
the Neopolitan a Calabrese, the Calabrese an African,
the illiterate a buffalo or dog.
He who hardly knows your color, red flag,
won't know you much longer, not even with his senses:
you who already boast so many bourgeois workingclass glories,
you become a rag again, and the poorest wave you.
]]> 25270647 Wed, 25 Jun 2008 03:32:35 -0700 BodyWorlds2 is especially terrific & highly recommended. ]]>
author: Robert Boyers
name: Kenneth
average rating: 5.00
book published: 2008
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 06/25/08
shelves: criticism, cultural-studies-and-social-critics, literature, poetry-and-poetics
review:
Mary Cappello's critical piece on BodyWorlds2 is especially terrific & highly recommended.
]]> 25102689 Mon, 23 Jun 2008 19:50:45 -0700
author: Thomas Nagel
name: Kenneth
average rating: 3.33
book published: 1987
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 06/23/08
shelves: pedagogy, philosophy
review:
Nagel's book is a very different sort of "Introduction to Philosophy": he frames, in accessible chapters, the central questions of philosophy without referencing philosophers, past or present. A curious approach, perhaps, but one that works particularly well in the sections on morality and justice. (I may use these chapters in future classes along with Plato's allegory of the cave.)
]]> 10304405 Mon, 16 Jun 2008 20:39:14 -0700
author: Walter Benjamin
name: Kenneth
average rating: 4.47
book published: 1970
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 06/16/08
shelves: criticism, philosophy
review:
Wow!
]]> 24579834 Sun, 15 Jun 2008 19:27:27 -0700
author: Yannis Ritsos
name: Kenneth
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1990
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 06/15/08
shelves: poetry-and-poetics
review:

]]> 21082603 Sun, 15 Jun 2008 14:58:28 -0700
author: Cooper Esteban
name: Kenneth
average rating: 4.75
book published: 2007
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 06/15/08
shelves: poetry-and-poetics
review:
Why is it so few people know of Cooper Esteban's work? This is one of the real guys.
]]> 23343982 Sun, 15 Jun 2008 14:46:25 -0700
author: Fyodor Dostoevsky
name: Kenneth
average rating: 4.45
book published: 1869
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 06/15/08
shelves: literature
review:

]]> 23622426 Tue, 03 Jun 2008 20:09:32 -0700
author: William Strunk Jr.
name: Kenneth
average rating: 4.33
book published: 1979
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 06/03/08
shelves: reference
review:
I would like to note that my edition includes a blurb on the back-cover which places double quotation marks inside double quotation marks. Oops.
]]> 1814320 Fri, 30 May 2008 12:19:27 -0700 Planet of Slums serves as a prelude to he and Forrest Hylton's upcoming book about slum-based resistance to global capitalism. Here Davis provides a history and sharpens a thesis against neoliberalism, IMF/World Bank-directed economic planning forced upon emerging nations, privatization, and (ever the culprit) U.S. foreign policy. Although Davis maintains a distant and scholarly voice, the details of the realities of slum-life are harrowing and blood-boiling. If you think you know something about the lives of world's poor, think again: for example, the lack of sanitation (we see, again and again, such statistics as "two public toilets for 28,000 people") and the neoliberal response:

Indeed, one the great achievements of Washington-sponsored neoliberalism has been to turn public toilets into cash points for paying off foreign debts--pay toilets are a growth industry throughout Third World slums.

Or think of the urban slums without running water: people there pay four or five times as much for bottled water than the wealthy do for water service.

When basic human rights become corporate capital, it seems it's the poor who pay, literally and figuratively, the most. To paraphrase Gita Verma, the causes of urban slums lie in urban wealth, not poverty.


]]>
author: Mike Davis
name: Kenneth
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2006
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 05/30/08
shelves: cultural-studies-and-social-critics
review:
Davis' vivid analysis of the growth of urban slums worldwide contains little original research, but, to be fair, Planet of Slums serves as a prelude to he and Forrest Hylton's upcoming book about slum-based resistance to global capitalism. Here Davis provides a history and sharpens a thesis against neoliberalism, IMF/World Bank-directed economic planning forced upon emerging nations, privatization, and (ever the culprit) U.S. foreign policy. Although Davis maintains a distant and scholarly voice, the details of the realities of slum-life are harrowing and blood-boiling. If you think you know something about the lives of world's poor, think again: for example, the lack of sanitation (we see, again and again, such statistics as "two public toilets for 28,000 people") and the neoliberal response:

Indeed, one the great achievements of Washington-sponsored neoliberalism has been to turn public toilets into cash points for paying off foreign debts--pay toilets are a growth industry throughout Third World slums.

Or think of the urban slums without running water: people there pay four or five times as much for bottled water than the wealthy do for water service.

When basic human rights become corporate capital, it seems it's the poor who pay, literally and figuratively, the most. To paraphrase Gita Verma, the causes of urban slums lie in urban wealth, not poverty.



]]> 1815444 Thu, 29 May 2008 09:33:53 -0700 What is U.S. foreign policy all about? How are the president and his staff permitted to support a terrorist group in Central America to overthrow a government that, whatever its faults, is welcomed by its own people as a great improvement over the terrible governments the U.S. has supported there for years? What does this scandal tell us about democracy, about freedom of expression, about an open society?

Zinn's questions here, though he is referring specifically to Iran-contra, are just as pertinent today. ]]>
author: Howard Zinn
name: Kenneth
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1980
rating: 5
read at: 05/08
date added: 05/29/08
shelves: history
review:
What is U.S. foreign policy all about? How are the president and his staff permitted to support a terrorist group in Central America to overthrow a government that, whatever its faults, is welcomed by its own people as a great improvement over the terrible governments the U.S. has supported there for years? What does this scandal tell us about democracy, about freedom of expression, about an open society?

Zinn's questions here, though he is referring specifically to Iran-contra, are just as pertinent today.
]]> 21284422 Sun, 25 May 2008 10:18:29 -0700 We are about to enter a new era in which, each year, less net energy will be available to humankind, regardless of our efforts or choices. The only significant choice we will have will be how to adjust to this new regime" (italics Heinberg's). Perhaps the prognosis is simply too difficult to take or we, as a society, refuse to imagine that the life we were born into (a civilization made possible by cheap and abundant fossil fuels) simply cannot last. (As far as mainstream news is concerned, those who take Peak Oil seriously are basically portrayed as a bunch of kooks.)

Heinberg's book clearly, and accessibly, details the history of industrialism and modern societies, the reality of Peak Oil, and the possibilities of alternative (and more sustainable) forms of energy. Heinberg finds among the latter little hope for something to replace oil to continue our way of life (Hydrogen, for example, requires more energy to make than it ultimately produces): societies need to redesign the human project and live locally in smaller, sustainable communities. Heinberg believes things will get much worse before they can begin to get better; that is, we are neither ready mentally nor emotionally nor are we equipped to make a smooth transition away from oil as the basis of our lives. As President George W. Bush said as recently as 2002, "We need an energy bill that encourages consumption." If our politicians are stuck in the mindset that economies can only function based on debt and infinite growth, how can we begin to face the coming collapse?

Heinberg outlines a viable plan in Chapter 3:

"[If our leaders took Peak Oil seriously], they would logically and morally be compelled to

1. adopt the ethic of 'sustainibility' in all aspects of planning, thinking ahead for many future generations;

2. institute systematic efforts to improve efficiency in the use of energy, and combine such efforts with programs to reduce the total amount of energy used by society;

3. encourage the rapid development of all varieties of renewable energy technologies throughout society;

4. systematically discourage (through taxation and other means) the consumption of nonrenewable resources; and

5. find humane ways to encourage a reduction in human fertility in all countries, so as to reduce the population over time." (p. 135)

Before any of this can be done (and one can imagine how difficult it would be to put any of these recommendations in place or how they might work given the complexity and difficult realities of civilization), societies need to address the problem intelligently and realistically. For example, hybrid cars might conserve energy and are less hard on the environment, but our behavior has not been altered: the automobile remains central and necessary to our daily lives.

Modern industrial societies are facing a major crisis, and their ultimate fate may be, indeed, their very demise. Through careful planning, we might make the transition more easily but, as a good friend urged me, the first step may be to not mourn the passing of the Age of Oil.

Anyway, read this book. Or, at the very least, rent the documentary The End of Suburbia, a film that details, impressively and sucessfully, many of these ideas.

]]>
author: Richard Heinberg
name: Kenneth
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2006
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 05/25/08
shelves: apocalypse, cultural-studies-and-social-critics, peak-oil
review:
Heinberg's cogent book on Peak Oil really is a must-read, and it's unfortunately typical that the inevitable dwindling of cheap fossil fuels has yet to make the mainstream with any force. As we watch news segments about high gas prices and outraged consumers, why are we not told that the very way of life for people living in modern industrial societies is coming to an end? In Heinberg's words, "We are about to enter a new era in which, each year, less net energy will be available to humankind, regardless of our efforts or choices. The only significant choice we will have will be how to adjust to this new regime" (italics Heinberg's). Perhaps the prognosis is simply too difficult to take or we, as a society, refuse to imagine that the life we were born into (a civilization made possible by cheap and abundant fossil fuels) simply cannot last. (As far as mainstream news is concerned, those who take Peak Oil seriously are basically portrayed as a bunch of kooks.)

Heinberg's book clearly, and accessibly, details the history of industrialism and modern societies, the reality of Peak Oil, and the possibilities of alternative (and more sustainable) forms of energy. Heinberg finds among the latter little hope for something to replace oil to continue our way of life (Hydrogen, for example, requires more energy to make than it ultimately produces): societies need to redesign the human project and live locally in smaller, sustainable communities. Heinberg believes things will get much worse before they can begin to get better; that is, we are neither ready mentally nor emotionally nor are we equipped to make a smooth transition away from oil as the basis of our lives. As President George W. Bush said as recently as 2002, "We need an energy bill that encourages consumption." If our politicians are stuck in the mindset that economies can only function based on debt and infinite growth, how can we begin to face the coming collapse?

Heinberg outlines a viable plan in Chapter 3:

"[If our leaders took Peak Oil seriously], they would logically and morally be compelled to

1. adopt the ethic of 'sustainibility' in all aspects of planning, thinking ahead for many future generations;

2. institute systematic efforts to improve efficiency in the use of energy, and combine such efforts with programs to reduce the total amount of energy used by society;

3. encourage the rapid development of all varieties of renewable energy technologies throughout society;

4. systematically discourage (through taxation and other means) the consumption of nonrenewable resources; and

5. find humane ways to encourage a reduction in human fertility in all countries, so as to reduce the population over time." (p. 135)

Before any of this can be done (and one can imagine how difficult it would be to put any of these recommendations in place or how they might work given the complexity and difficult realities of civilization), societies need to address the problem intelligently and realistically. For example, hybrid cars might conserve energy and are less hard on the environment, but our behavior has not been altered: the automobile remains central and necessary to our daily lives.

Modern industrial societies are facing a major crisis, and their ultimate fate may be, indeed, their very demise. Through careful planning, we might make the transition more easily but, as a good friend urged me, the first step may be to not mourn the passing of the Age of Oil.

Anyway, read this book. Or, at the very least, rent the documentary The End of Suburbia, a film that details, impressively and sucessfully, many of these ideas.


]]> 22094150 Tue, 20 May 2008 08:29:53 -0700
author: Peter Gay
name: Kenneth
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2001
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 05/20/08
shelves: history
review:
Peter Gay's invaluable overview of the brief life of the Weimar Republic reads at times like a wild annotated bibliography: Gay's scholarship is impressive and inspiring. There are a few instances where his objectivity takes flight (for example, his sudden vitriolic dismissal of Fritz Lang), but on the whole his critical treatments remain tempered and insightful. Also includes a political history and timeline of Weimar and a wonderfully exhausting bibliography.
]]> 22093778 Sun, 18 May 2008 21:02:00 -0700 Coyotes, Newjack) but, somehow, this matters little. In the end, Rolling Nowhere chronicles not only the American hobo's last days (in his 2001 foreword, Conover tells us the "corporate consolidation" of the railroads has made riding the rails near-impossible for the tramp; they are very rarely tolerated) but also presages Conover's social-anthropological approach to his subjects, forged here before he'd even finished college. "We are no richer than the poorest among us," Conover writes. "If we are not going to make room for tramps inside society, we can at least make allowances for their presence outside it." Conover begins his book, much like the reader, with a romantic notion of the lives of tramps, but ultimately brings to his subject a thoughtful humanity and complexity, awakening in us the sight necessary to engage those people who, for one reason or another, cannot make it in our society. ]]>
author: Ted Conover
name: Kenneth
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2001
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 05/18/08
shelves: cultural-studies-and-social-critics
review:
Conover's first book, published while he was in his early twenties, is not as well-written as his books to come (Coyotes, Newjack) but, somehow, this matters little. In the end, Rolling Nowhere chronicles not only the American hobo's last days (in his 2001 foreword, Conover tells us the "corporate consolidation" of the railroads has made riding the rails near-impossible for the tramp; they are very rarely tolerated) but also presages Conover's social-anthropological approach to his subjects, forged here before he'd even finished college. "We are no richer than the poorest among us," Conover writes. "If we are not going to make room for tramps inside society, we can at least make allowances for their presence outside it." Conover begins his book, much like the reader, with a romantic notion of the lives of tramps, but ultimately brings to his subject a thoughtful humanity and complexity, awakening in us the sight necessary to engage those people who, for one reason or another, cannot make it in our society.
]]> 21643062 Sun, 18 May 2008 08:39:43 -0700
author: Joseph Brodsky
name: Kenneth
average rating: 4.18
book published: 1993
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 05/18/08
shelves: literature, poetry-and-poetics
review:

]]> 19528169 Wed, 14 May 2008 13:02:28 -0700
author: Francois Marie Arouet Voltaire
name: Kenneth
average rating: 0.00
book published: 1990
rating: 0
read at: 05/08
date added: 05/14/08
shelves: philosophy
review:

]]> 3690650 Wed, 14 May 2008 13:02:11 -0700
author: Paul Celan
name: Kenneth
average rating: 4.51
book published: 2005
rating: 5
read at: 05/08
date added: 05/14/08
shelves: poetry-and-poetics
review:

]]> 22093660 Tue, 13 May 2008 08:09:28 -0700
author: Barbara Freese
name: Kenneth
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2007
rating: 3
read at: 05/08
date added: 05/13/08
shelves: history
review:

]]> 21643247 Sat, 10 May 2008 07:51:49 -0700 We are now threatened with the prospect of our being only consumers, able to consume anything from any point in the world and from any culture, but of losing all originality." [italics mine]]]>
author: Claude Levi-Strauss
name: Kenneth
average rating: 3.70
book published: 1995
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 05/10/08
shelves: cultural-studies-and-social-critics, philosophy
review:
"It is only through difference that progress can be made. What threatens us right now is probably what we may call over-communication--that is, the tendency to know exactly in one point of the world what is going on in all other parts of the world. In order for a culture to be really itself and to produce something, the culture and its members must be convinced of their originality and even, to some extent, of their superiority over the others; it is only under conditions of under-communication that it can produce anything. We are now threatened with the prospect of our being only consumers, able to consume anything from any point in the world and from any culture, but of losing all originality." [italics mine]
]]> 21898514 Thu, 08 May 2008 19:29:33 -0700
author: Larry Levis
name: Kenneth
average rating: 4.69
book published: 1985
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 05/08/08
shelves: poetry-and-poetics
review:

]]> 20925803 Thu, 08 May 2008 18:54:54 -0700
author: John S. Hall
name: Kenneth
average rating: 3.67
book published: 1997
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 05/08/08
shelves: music, poetry-and-poetics
review:

]]> 21083334 Tue, 06 May 2008 12:17:55 -0700
author: Wallace Shawn
name: Kenneth
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2004
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 05/06/08
shelves: cultural-studies-and-social-critics
review:
A wonderful little one-shot: an essay by Jonathan Schell, an interview of Chomsky by Wallace Shawn, excerpts from Shawn's notebooks before the last election, a poem by Mark Strand, and a story, "Twilight of the Superheroes," by Deborah Eisenberg. The issue addresses 9/11, the War on Terror, the invasion and occupation of Iraq, the horrors of Abu Ghraib, and our joke of a democracy. Have a nice day.
]]> 21578418 Sun, 04 May 2008 18:00:31 -0700
I read this straight off in one afternoon, in a couple of long and delicious sittings, Satie playing in the background, cat in my lap. These scenes of Coetzee's formative years will interest writers and artists alike, but I'm especially taken with Coetzee's willingness to tell on himself as he recounts his trying to find his way in the world, a way into art, and a way to be a decent freaking human being.

One of my favorite passages comes when the young Coetzee considers quitting his job at IBM in London:

"He cannot go on like this. He cannot sacrifice any more of his life to the principle that human beings should have to labour in misery for their bread, a principle he seems to adhere to though he has no idea where he picked it up."

& earlier:

"Art cannot be fed on deprivation alone, on longing, loneliness. There must be intimacy, passion, love as well."]]>
author: J.M. Coetzee
name: Kenneth
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2003
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 05/04/08
shelves: literature
review:
Part 2 of Coetzee's "fictionalized" memoirs, also written in the third-person.

I read this straight off in one afternoon, in a couple of long and delicious sittings, Satie playing in the background, cat in my lap. These scenes of Coetzee's formative years will interest writers and artists alike, but I'm especially taken with Coetzee's willingness to tell on himself as he recounts his trying to find his way in the world, a way into art, and a way to be a decent freaking human being.

One of my favorite passages comes when the young Coetzee considers quitting his job at IBM in London:

"He cannot go on like this. He cannot sacrifice any more of his life to the principle that human beings should have to labour in misery for their bread, a principle he seems to adhere to though he has no idea where he picked it up."

& earlier:

"Art cannot be fed on deprivation alone, on longing, loneliness. There must be intimacy, passion, love as well."
]]> 20251509 Sun, 04 May 2008 12:03:15 -0700
author: Frank O'Hara
name: Kenneth
average rating: 5.08
book published: 2008
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 05/04/08
shelves: poetry-and-poetics
review:
New edition from Knopf, edited by Mark Ford: delicious!
]]> 21337747 Wed, 30 Apr 2008 19:21:12 -0700
author: Cooper Esteban
name: Kenneth
average rating: 3.00
book published: 1994
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 04/30/08
shelves: poetry-and-poetics
review:

]]> 1814648 Sun, 27 Apr 2008 04:22:27 -0700 Four Plays. I'll let you know.

(Update: There seem to be additions but, then again, whenever I reread something I notice things I missed before or see the text in a new way, so I might well be mistaken.)]]>
author: Wallace Shawn
name: Kenneth
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2004
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 04/27/08
shelves: literature
review:
Wondering if this edition is revised or altered at all from the version appearing in Four Plays. I'll let you know.

(Update: There seem to be additions but, then again, whenever I reread something I notice things I missed before or see the text in a new way, so I might well be mistaken.)
]]> 17333260 Fri, 25 Apr 2008 03:34:24 -0700 Memoir of the Hawk, this collection probably won't change your mind. But consider that Tate is doing things no one else is: these poems are so wildly original, so sui generis, that it may take another generation to fully assess their impact and contribution to Literature. Meanwhile, I am wonderfully dizzied and dazzled, even giddy.]]>
author: James Tate
name: Kenneth
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2008
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 04/25/08
shelves: poetry-and-poetics
review:
If you haven't cared for what James Tate's been up to since Memoir of the Hawk, this collection probably won't change your mind. But consider that Tate is doing things no one else is: these poems are so wildly original, so sui generis, that it may take another generation to fully assess their impact and contribution to Literature. Meanwhile, I am wonderfully dizzied and dazzled, even giddy.
]]> 20527030 Mon, 21 Apr 2008 03:20:39 -0700
author: J.M. Coetzee
name: Kenneth
average rating: 3.76
book published: 1998
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 04/21/08
shelves: literature
review:

]]> 1814650 Sat, 19 Apr 2008 06:38:38 -0700 The Fever is simply an extraordinary play. And to quote Ed Minus in The Sewanee Review, "The subject [of The Fever] is nothing less than the maintenance of personal moral responsibility in an age and a world whose assorted horrors diminish and destablize the individual of conscience far more than Darwin or Marx ever did." Others have dismissed the play as mere "liberal guilt," but such dismissals strike me as cowardly, even dishonest: to not confront social injustice, poverty, and suffering is, in effect, denial of the worst kind. Mr. Shawn's play is an attempt to wrestle with the important, often unanswerable questions injustice gives rise to.

There is a recent film of the play by Franco Nero's son (Wallace Shawn wrote the screenplay along with Nero); it's now available on dvd and stars Vanessa Redgrave. While no great shakes cinematically, and not as successful as Shawn's monologue, the film nevertheless retains the spirit of the play and is one I recommend.]]>
author: Wallace Shawn
name: Kenneth
average rating: 4.29
book published: 1998
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 04/19/08
shelves: literature
review:
The Fever is simply an extraordinary play. And to quote Ed Minus in The Sewanee Review, "The subject [of The Fever] is nothing less than the maintenance of personal moral responsibility in an age and a world whose assorted horrors diminish and destablize the individual of conscience far more than Darwin or Marx ever did." Others have dismissed the play as mere "liberal guilt," but such dismissals strike me as cowardly, even dishonest: to not confront social injustice, poverty, and suffering is, in effect, denial of the worst kind. Mr. Shawn's play is an attempt to wrestle with the important, often unanswerable questions injustice gives rise to.

There is a recent film of the play by Franco Nero's son (Wallace Shawn wrote the screenplay along with Nero); it's now available on dvd and stars Vanessa Redgrave. While no great shakes cinematically, and not as successful as Shawn's monologue, the film nevertheless retains the spirit of the play and is one I recommend.
]]> 2933829 Sat, 19 Apr 2008 05:52:33 -0700
author: David Burak
name: Kenneth
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2005
rating: 5
read at: 04/08
date added: 04/19/08
shelves: criticism, poetry-and-poetics
review:
I've been rereading Ammons' poetry (and with much deeper appreciation) and, subsequently, rereading this terrific collection of thoughtful, critical essays.
]]> 15196220 Wed, 16 Apr 2008 13:14:46 -0700
author: Charles Wright
name: Kenneth
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2007
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 04/16/08
shelves: poetry-and-poetics
review:

]]> 20031034 Tue, 15 Apr 2008 16:15:20 -0700