Patrick Kanouse's Blog, page 57

The NOOK Book for Sale!

Just sending word out that The NOOK Book is now available for sale at Barnes & Noble (and Amazon).

That Quote Is From.... #3

That Shakespearen insult "A fusty nut with no kernel" is from Troilus and Cressida, Act II, Scene 1. Here's a larger context:

  ACHILLES. Your last service was suff'rance; 'twas not voluntary. No
    man is beaten voluntary. Ajax was here the voluntary, and you as
    under an impress.
  THERSITES. E'en so; a great deal of your wit too lies in your
    sinews, or else there be liars. Hector shall have a great catch
    an he knock out either of your brains: 'a were as good crack a
    fusty nut with no kernel.
  ACHILLES. What, with me too, Thersites?
  THERSITES. There's Ulysses and old Nestor-whose wit was mouldy ere
    your grandsires had nails on their toes-yoke you like draught
    oxen, and make you plough up the wars.

Shakespeare Insult: #3

Source: FDA
Here is the third Shakespearean insult in my ongoing series:

      A fusty nut with no kernel.

Can you name the play, act, scene, and speaker?

Rooting Your NOOKcolor

Having you been wanting to root your NOOKcolor? (Root basically means hack but without any criminal connotations.) It's super easy, and by doing it you can install apps from the Android Market, including:
Amazon KindleDropboxAngry BirdsSlackerFacebookFandangoEvernoteeReaderNY TimesPulseAdobe Readerand more You can read my article on how to do this at Que Publishing, publisher of my two NOOK books.

The Difference in Poems We Admire from Those We Love

Was reading  Stepping Stones: Interviews with Seamus Heaney , which is a quite interesting book. Ran across this:

"Put it this way: some poets and poetry you admire in the way you admire produce in a market. Natural, beautiful stuff, delightfully there in front of you, thickening your sense of being alive. But you're still looking at it. You're savoring it but you can move on to the next display. Then there are poets and poetry that turn out to be more like plants and growths inside you. It's not so much a case of inspecting the produce as feeling a life coming into you and through you. You're Jack and at the same time you're the beanstalk. You're the ground and the growth all at once. There's no critical distance, as yet."

Portrait of a Woman Brushing Her Hair and Other Poems Available for Kindle

My small book of poems, Portrait of a Woman Brushing Her Hair and Other Poems, is now available for the Kindle for $.99.

The NOOK Book

So a print version of my ebook is now available for pre-order from BN.com and Amazon (links below). This print book has the addition of how to root your NOOKcolor (among other updates), which is handy to have in print form while you actually do the rooting.

Barnes & Noble

Amazon

That Quote Is From.... #2

The Shakespearean insult "quintessence of dust" is from Hamlet Act II, Scene 2. The larger context of this quote is:

GUILDENSTERN

My lord, we were sent for.

HAMLET

I will tell you why; so shall my anticipation

prevent your discovery, and your secrecy to the king

and queen moult no feather. I have of late--but

wherefore I know not--lost all my mirth, forgone all

custom of exercises; and indeed it goes so heavily

with my disposition that this goodly frame, the

earth, seems to me a sterile promontory, this most

excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave

o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted

with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to

me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours.

What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason!

how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how

express and admirable! in action how like an angel!

in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the

world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me,

what is this quintessence of dust? man delights not

me: no, nor woman neither, though by your smiling

you seem to say so.

ROSENCRANTZ

My lord, there was no such stuff in my thoughts.

Accounting for Christopher Logue's THE ILIAD

Several years ago I discovered Christopher Logue's  War Music: An Account of Books 1-4 and 16-19 of Homer's Iliad . Very quickly, I went on to find  All Day Permanent Red: An Account of the First Battle Scenes of Homer's Iliad . Slate's article had the tag line correct: "Is Christopher Logue a Genius or a Madman?" I've been opting on the genius side for a while.

The subtitle to the books says "account," which is about as apt as I think Logue can describe his project. This is not a translation of The Iliad. I wouldn't even call it an imitation in the way Robert Lowell's Imitations  are. It's looser and more organic. Logue is not, I don't think, very concerned about being faithful to the words of Homer. Rather, he's more interested in being faithful to the spirit of Homer. In modern TV/cinema parlance Logue's version of The Iliad is a re-imagining on the scale of Battlestar Galactica. The essence is there. Many of the same characters are there. The same general plot is there. But it is borderline unrecognizable.

Now, The Iliad (as I know it translated by Robert Fitzgerald or Richard Lattimore or Alexander Pope, etc.) is not comparable to the 1970s Battlestar Galactica--for The Iliad holds up--but Logue's "accounts" are as good as the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica series. Genius, I tell you.

Also, check out Logue's interview with The Paris Review .

Shakespeare Insult: #2

Image from
http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/science/... is the second Shakespearean insult in a series:

Quintessence of dust

Can you name the play, act, scene, and speaker?