Cheeky, wildly digressive, but worth the read. This passage, describing a sheep roundup on North Ronaldsay in the Orkneys, will give you an idea ofCheeky, wildly digressive, but worth the read. This passage, describing a sheep roundup on North Ronaldsay in the Orkneys, will give you an idea of how far afield Warwick can roam:
Now, I have helped on farms before, I have helped with sheep before, and on the whole, when confronted with a line of people being noisy and aggressive, sheep tend to do what is required. Not this lot: like the islanders, they are a belligerent bunch of free-thinkers who paused, sized up weaknesses in the barrier and then charged straight at us, some managing to leap over by barging the human fence posts to the ground. (p. 72)
But though he may roam, Warwick brings it back to his—somewhat smelly and noisy but endearing—subject, the wild hedgehog.
There is a tendency to overestimate our understanding of the everyday and to underestimate its importance. There is much we can all gain from hedgehogs. (p. 263)
What teenager hasn't at one time felt this depth of loathing for her elders and neighbors (one hopes only fleetingly)? Mary Katherine Blackwood isWhat teenager hasn't at one time felt this depth of loathing for her elders and neighbors (one hopes only fleetingly)? Mary Katherine Blackwood is walking home with two bags of groceries:
Without looking I could see the grinning and gesturing; I wished they were all dead and I was walking on their bodies....
In front of Stella's there was a crack in the sidewalk that looked like a finger pointing; the crack had always been there.... Our mother told me once that the crack was here when she was a girl in the Rochester house, so it must have been here when she married our father and went to live on Blackwood Farm, and I suppose the crack was there, like a finger pointing, from the time when the village was first put together out of old grey wood and the ugly people with their evil faces were brought from some impossible place and set down in the houses to live. (pp. 9-11)
O to have been at the Five Spot, with Thelonius Monk at the keyboard (employed again, after the loss of his cabaret card), when Elaine de Kooning,O to have been at the Five Spot, with Thelonius Monk at the keyboard (employed again, after the loss of his cabaret card), when Elaine de Kooning, Grace Hartigan, and crew came through the door. Mary Gabriel fills in the rich background behind five women of the Abstract Expressionist movement—the poets, playwrights, musicians, composers, and choreographers who mutually influenced them; their husbands and lovers; the critics and gallerists and publishers; and the social upheavals taking place in New York and elsewhere in the 1940s and 50s. It was a time when the prevailing wisdom discouraged women from seeking careers: Benjamin Spock's prescription for a mother looking for work outside the home was to "seek psychological counseling." (p. 248) As rackety as some of their lives were, thank goodness that these five—Helen Frankenthaler, Joan Mitchell, and the rest—didn't fill that 'scrip.
You'll want to read this voluminous book with an online resource at your side, for although there are 16 color plates reproducing many of the women's most important paintings, Gabriel discusses many others along the way.
There are wonderful anecdotes and quick character sketches:
Sensing that a young John Cage was short of funds, Elaine de Kooning offered him $100 for an open-ended commission, to which he responded with the 63-page Concerto for Piano and Orchestra (1957-58) (p. 683).
Lee Krasner and Jackson Pollock, churchgoers neither of them, were married in Marble Collegiate. And then went to lunch at Schrafft's. (p. 156)
Elaine's mother, Marie Fried, was a genuine eccentric. The vignette on pp. 63-65 cries out for a movie adaptation.
The introduction of Franz Kline, "a sad clown," is very sweet. (pp. 191ff.)
Gallerist Sidney Janis got his start as a shirt manufacturer, designing a casual model with two breast pockets. (p. 114)
To be sure, Gabriel paints some of the players in this massive drama as villains: Ruth Kligman, who was with Pollock on his final drive, and inscrutable Clement Greenberg do not fare well in this narrative.
Perhaps the nut of the book is this passage from p. 461. Who was the first to drip? The first to stain? Neither Jackson Pollock nor Helen Frankenthaler.
But these discoveries do not in any way rob Jackson or Helen of their status as artistic innovators. Both pushed the boundaries beyond anything that had been done before. What made their work so unique and brilliant was that intangible element—self. Great painting, great art in general, is not about materials used or methods mastered or event talent possessed. It is a combination of all these factors, and an individual driven by a force that seems outside them, toward expression of an idea they often do not understand.
I screen a lot of unpublished plays for festivals. If a play falls to the bottom of my rankings, often the question I want to ask the playwright is,I screen a lot of unpublished plays for festivals. If a play falls to the bottom of my rankings, often the question I want to ask the playwright is, "Why did you want to tell this story?"
There is a quick allusion to Carson McCullers in this novella, and a narrative thread around the third Duino Elegy. Nevertheless, I'm stuck on the question: Mr. Handler, why did you want to tell this story?...more
Anodyne adventure yarn, with a particularly long coda.
Kipling's rendering of the various dialects of these 19th century fishermen makes some of themAnodyne adventure yarn, with a particularly long coda.
Kipling's rendering of the various dialects of these 19th century fishermen makes some of them sound like they're from another planet. Long Jack is ostensibly from Galway by way of South Boston:
"Fwhat's the good o' boddering' fwhat they'll say?" said he....
"Look at here, Disko! Is there another packet afloat this day in this weather cud ha' met a tramp an', over an' above givin' her her reckonin',—over and above that, I say,—cud ha' discoorsed wid her quite intelligent on the management av steers an' such at sea? Forgit ut! Av coorse they will not. 'Twas the most compenjus conversation that iver accrued. Double game an' twice runnin'—all to us." (chap. VI)
A delightful, fizzy drink of a spy caper. Echenoz's cheeky narrator wants to grab you by the elbow and steer you down a Paris side street... and then,A delightful, fizzy drink of a spy caper. Echenoz's cheeky narrator wants to grab you by the elbow and steer you down a Paris side street... and then, like as not, leave you there staring at your reflection in a shop window. There are obsessive elements of the nouveau roman in the book, if only the narrator wouldn't get distracted by another plot point that needs to be set up or succumb to the urge to anthropomorphize a bit of trash on the street.
A lost playing card, for example, behind the news kiosk on Place Prosper-Goubaux. It doesn't look like much at first sight, a stray card, but all the same it ruins the career and future prospects of fifty-one others, who are mourning it or maybe cursing it, and who are no longer any use to anyone, finding themselves out of work because of that one card. The fate of those other cards saddens Pélestor. (pp. 62-63)
There's a lot of good tree lore here, some spot-on description (pawpaw is "a sheepdog of trees" [p. 115]), and some powerful mystical passages, but aThere's a lot of good tree lore here, some spot-on description (pawpaw is "a sheepdog of trees" [p. 115]), and some powerful mystical passages, but a lack of ambivalence means this novel succeeds more as manifesto than narrative. So the reader should savor evocative descriptions such as
There are... bizarre kapoks forty feet around with branches that run from spiky to shiny to smooth, all from the same trunk. Myrtles scattered throughout the forest that all flower in a single day. Bertholletia that grow piñata cannonballs filled with nuts. Trees that make rain, that tell time, that predict the weather. Seeds in obscene shapes and colors. Pods like daggers and scimitars. Stilt roots and snaking roots and buttresses like sculpture and roots that breathe air. (p. 390)
An interesting blend of memoir and literary analysis. Nafisi taught literature in Iran, before and after the 1979 revolution, with its swirl ofAn interesting blend of memoir and literary analysis. Nafisi taught literature in Iran, before and after the 1979 revolution, with its swirl of factions and counter-factions. What we have been told elsewhere is true: the new state imposed severe restrictions on what women could do in public. Nevertheless, she persisted, teaching as a university professor as long as she was permitted, and then leading a seminar in her home in 1995.
For one class session, she introduces the novel idea of putting Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby on trial, casting a hard-line anti-Western student in the role of prosecutor; alas, her attempts to lead students to fully engage with the text, rather than merely treating it as a celebration of wealth and immorality, produce mixed results.
At times, Nafisi reproduces long passages as direct discourse; one wonders how accurately she has reproduced those conversations. At other times, she recounts dialogue without punctuation, tipping us occasionally into pronoun confusion.
Perhaps the nut of this perceptive book is found on p. 144, when she interrupts her account of closing remarks to her class about Gatsby:
What we in Iran had in common with Fitzgerald was this dream that became our obsession and took over our reality, this terrible, beautiful dream, impossible in its actualization, for which any amount of violence might be justified or forgiven.
Most works of fiction are broad highways, swooping the reader from start to destination, with maybe a bump in the road or two. A story by Noy HollandMost works of fiction are broad highways, swooping the reader from start to destination, with maybe a bump in the road or two. A story by Noy Holland is a chain of mossy, slick rocks crossing a fast-rushing stream; each sentence, if your attention wanders, is a chance to lose your footing.
In a story like "Rooster Pollard Cricket Goose" or "What Begins with Bird" or "Love's Thousand Bees," chronology is shredded, the POV skitters from one character to another like a water strider, the realism dances on the edge of magic.
It's a little easier to get a grip on one of the one-page miniatures, gleaming tesserae like "Not So the Donkeys" or "Instructions for Xu Yuan Flying Or the Lifting Force Let Go."...more
A very well-done summary of what we know about a rather enigmatic chunk of bronze, and why we know it. TIL linear tomography was a predecessorA very well-done summary of what we know about a rather enigmatic chunk of bronze, and why we know it. TIL linear tomography was a predecessor technology to CAT scans (p. 39) and that he Akkadians called the five planets, wandering through the fixed stars bibbu, "wild sheep." (p. 162)...more
With great expanse comes great ecological challenges. North America's Great Lakes truly are great: they store 20% of the planet's surface freshwater.With great expanse comes great ecological challenges. North America's Great Lakes truly are great: they store 20% of the planet's surface freshwater. Dan Egan provides the backstory to some of the most troubling threats to the integrity and health of this watershed that comprises parts of one province and eight states.
From unintentional introduction of alien species (Zebra and Quagga Mussels, Asian carps), to deliberate planting of species for sport fishing (salmon), to unwitting manipulation of the nutrient regime (phosphate runoff from multiple sources) that promotes algal blooms, to connecting the lakes watershed with the Mississippi River system at Chicago, humans have blundered into nearly every way possible to damage this ecosystem.
Along the way, Egan takes some side roads, telling the story of Henning Brand's isolation of the element phosphorus, and that of tyrannical religious leader James Strang of the 1850s, who described the species of lake trout to be found around Lake Michigan's Beaver Island. And perhaps no natural history is complete without a brief discussion of tardigrades.
Egan reserves his closing chapter for some evidence of good things to come. What remains of the population of native whitefish appears to be adapting to a diet of the non-native mussels, for instance. But, in a time when the Aral Sea is effectively gone, it's difficult to be optimistic about the long term prospects of the Great Lakes....more
The history of America's lighthouses is intertwined with the history of American shipwrecks and other nautical disasters, as we read in Dolin'sThe history of America's lighthouses is intertwined with the history of American shipwrecks and other nautical disasters, as we read in Dolin's commendable, comprehensive compendium. TIL there was such a thing as lighthouse cigarette cards (p. 244) (squee!); and TIL the source of Gay Head's name (colorful bands of clay in the cliffs, p. 64)....more
A lurid memoir of the demise of a family business: not a good book, but the makings of a good film in the hands of someone like Errol Morris.
AndrewA lurid memoir of the demise of a family business: not a good book, but the makings of a good film in the hands of someone like Errol Morris.
Andrew Gifford, heir to the family's chain of ice cream parlors beloved by many in the D.C. metro, spins a tale of Shakespearean abandonments, obsessive paranoiac schizophrenia, and the down-home skulduggery of cash in duffel bags. Unfortunately, when the key events to which he was witness unfolded (ca. 1980), he was a child, and he will be the first to tell you that much of his story is pieced together from newspaper reports, local business magazines, and TV news (p. 63). And, alas, his untidy references are not specifically cited in his narrative, which could use a tighter edit.
Gifford does not establish himself as an altogether reliable narrator, which makes the serious accusations about a thinly-disguised Audubon Naturalist Society (p. 126 and elsewhere) a little easier to take. When he relates events in the life of the younger Andrew, it's never clear whether a subjective observation (a legal team at a probate hearing likened to "Ken dolls," for instance) is a view that the older Andrew still shares.
And then, in an interlude, it gets really weird: neurosurgeon and future presidential candidate Ben Carson shows up. ...more
Picaro Billy Twillig meets nearly everyone: he must have just missed Wittgenstein and Aldous Huxley in the corridors of Field Experiment Number One.Picaro Billy Twillig meets nearly everyone: he must have just missed Wittgenstein and Aldous Huxley in the corridors of Field Experiment Number One. Moholes are not the same thing as black holes -- honest! Desilu Espy (p. 120) is my new favorite character name....more
Many questions and interesting possible connections and perhapses. If there were no development of the St. Louis metropolis, what more might have weMany questions and interesting possible connections and perhapses. If there were no development of the St. Louis metropolis, what more might have we discovered?...more
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