John Crowley's Blog, page 46

Best headline of the week

 Actually a sub-head or picture tab head (I don't know what the reduced headlines attached to clickable pictures leading to full stories are called):

"Remade Potato Has Some Swedes Frowning"

NY Times today.

Nother request/query

I am sure I have spoken here about my project to create a new version of The Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosencreutz. (I can't call it a new translation becuase I can't read 17th c. German, though I have help from some one who can.) The project has taken a couple of steps forward and publication at some date TBA is all but certain. More to come when papers are inked.

Meanwhile, I have to annotate and introduce this book . The introduction is going to annoy many, as I do not treat it as a d...

Not reading the news (well...)

"What we are seeing around the flotilla incident is just an extension of something which has been there for some time," says Danny Gillerman, former Israeli ambassador to the UN. "It is an outrageous hypocrisy and double standard to revile Israel for these actions, when other countries in the same situation would do exactly the same, if not worse." -- Guardian

This really can't be denied -- other nations certainly are capable of the same irrational brutality. What it fails to note is that on...

No arguments here...

 

...except for those I haven't read (the Sterling and M.J. Engh.)  That they're all sorta New Wave doesn't bother me a bit (why would it?)

nymag.com/arts/books/features/66294/index2.html

Plane crash, parlor-maid, fireworks, Middle Ages, and supermarket.

 

How nice and open is your favorite author?  Studies show (ah that lovely door opens into wisdom and knoweldge) that you are probably right in how you understand him or her.  Here are the test results:

www.onfiction.ca/2010/05/research-bulletin-words-reveal.html 

I'd think, though, that random persons asked to write fiction may not be as skilled as we long-time pros are in creating the semblance of Agreeableness and Openness in what has been termed (by reading-response theorists, not psychologi...

Lost and me

Since I didn't follow the series, or rather only chased after it for a while my daughter (a devotee) was laid up with a ACL repair and took me through some middle seasons, I don't know if this is just or misguided or kooky: 

latimesblogs.latimes.com/showtracker/2010/05/one-lost-tuesday-all-of-this-matters.html 

It would be nice if someone with media power saw an opportunity here for a multi-season series. 

Gloomth

 
In describing the Strawberry Hill Gothic mansion of Horace Walpole, begun in 1745, the TLS characterizes Walpole's Gothic impulse:  "The dead, the creatures of dreams, of nightmares and of fiction all played a part in creating what Walpole called 'gloomth' in the house where , just over a decade later, he was to write The Castle of Otranto, the first Gothic novel."

Gloomth is a big topic.  I can imagine more than one panel at Readercon engaging with it.  "Gloomth: Blight or Blessing?"  "Whith...

Human Beings: Blight or Blessing?

 

The older I get the more the balance tips in the direction of the former.  It may be that oldsters are natural curmudgeons, and people have always been irrational, panicky, loud, stupid, greedy, mendacious and unable to focus; but it does seem that the end of the world as we know it would be enough to concentrate their minds.  I clasp my brow in amazement each morning.  I should give up reading the news.

I say "they" with the privilege of age, as the day approaches when I will not be one of t...

Too perfect

 

Friend  al_zorra  will have more pointed comment than I can deliver anent the big Louisiana Shrimp and Petroleum Festival, about to open.  This is not a joke but a longstanding popular public event celebrating Louisiana's great products.  We know of course how well they go together, though it may not be cause for celebration.  There was apparently no thought of canceling this year.  

Out in the Midwest

 

...to see my daughter graduate from a small college.  Very moving, naturally.  She graduated in English and Classics.  At the Classics Department reception we talked to her favorite teacher, still in cap and gown.  Memories of Latin class and those screamingly funny Latin jokes.  When I took Latin in Catholic school 1956-1960, the New Classical pronunciation was known, and used by some teachers, but not all; several used the Italianate Church Latin pronunciation.  In one class we declined th...