Lilian Nattel's Blog, page 54
March 11, 2011
4 hundred vs 150 million
400 richest Americans own more than the bottom 150,000,000. – per Forbes and Michael Moore http://ow.ly/4ct3c
Filed under: Miscellany
a new book on hoarding and the meaning of things
In the riveting new read Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things, Randy O. Frost, a Smith College psychologist, and Gail Steketee, dean of the Boston University School of Social Work, reveal the world of hoarding disorders. The homes of hardcore hoarders, who represent up to 5 percent of the population, are more trash dumps than living spaces. It is only possible to navigate their interiors using "goat paths," narrow trails that wind through the mounds of books, old food, clothes, trinkets and containers
via scientificamerican.com
The good news is that this is treatable – 18 mo of therapy led to one hoarder's family living clutter free for the first time in years. Interesting review of the most pathological hoarders like the 200 cat lady, but most of us, I suspect, know people who are less extreme but still hoard enough to make their own lives more difficult than they could be.
Filed under: Interesting Tagged: the cure for hoarding
March 10, 2011
independent foreign fiction prize
Long list for best fiction translated into English, author & translator each win. http://ow.ly/4bQki
Filed under: Miscellany
the new American pessimism
How nice it would be if our President leveled with us and told us that our deficit is caused in significant part by the wars we are fighting in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the hundreds of military bases we are maintaining around the world, the huge tax breaks for the rich, and the bailout of Wall Street. As we know, we are not about to hear anything of the kind.
via nybooks.com
Charles Simic in this article goes on to talk about how the president won't go there because to do so would doom his fundraising chances for re-election. This makes me sad, and concerned, because anger like this can be too easily co-opted by fascists and the like. And it's unnecessary when telling the truth, facing it, correcting it could lead a rally and solidarity of purpose.
Filed under: Miscellany
March 9, 2011
anger leads to more rational decision making
Imagine you're in a room with four people, one is lip-snarling angry, the others are calm. Who among them would you consider the most likely to think rationally?
via bps-research-digest.blogspot.com
Surprisingly, new studies indicate that when people are angry, they are more willing to consider and review information that runs contrary to their own biases, and more willing as a result to modify their original positions. I'd have figured angry people were more close minded, but not so. However, the study doesn't seem to measure degrees of anger. I'd want to know whether there is a point where rage closes the mind down. Personal experience would say it does. Full story at the link above.
Filed under: Miscellany
is Flaubert overrated compared to other French greats
Flaubert didn't have Stendhal's cool, telescopic, analytical detachment, Balzac's sweep and insight into human destiny, nor Proust's psychological penetration and sensitive social radar. What Flaubert had was a powerful artistic vocation and an obsession with perfection of style. Do such qualities alone a great writer make?
…[Henry James] wrote that "style itself moreover, with all respect to Flaubert, never totally beguiles; since even when we are so queerly constituted as to be ninety-nine parts literary we are still a hundredth part something else." James concludes that Flaubert is best spoken of "as the novelist's novelist." And so his cultists are pleased, even proud, to have him. Yet, how much better to be the reader's novelist.
I find this article interesting because, although I admire Flaubert's impressive command of detail, I'm finding it hard to sustain my interest in Madame Bovary. Full story at the link above. What do you think?
Filed under: Literary Tagged: Madame Bovary
March 8, 2011
IWD: History of Photography
I was delighted to find Frances Benjamin Johnston's portrait of Gertrude Kasebier, both of them successful photographers in the late 19th and early 20th C. They were both conventional in some respects, unconventional in others.
Johnston, a lesbian, was published by The Ladies Home Journal. She came from a wealthy family and hob-nobbed with the notables of her time, taking portraits of great men and great architecture. As an established photographer, she advocated for other women in photography. Kasebier was a middle class woman who, despite some sweet Julia Margaret Cameron type early photos, portrayed marriage darkly, ironically. She photographed Native Americans as individuals, rather than icons. And she fought with Alfred Stieglitz over the right to earn a living with her camera.
Kasebier gave up photography at the age of 79, but Johnston tirelessly kept taking pictures right up until her death at the age of 88. Her self-portrait (here) is one of my favourite photographs.
Gertrude Kasebier, photo taken by Frances Benjamin Johnston 1907
Filed under: Interesting Tagged: women's photography
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