tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-338705222024-03-12T19:48:11.650-07:00kora in hell | letterskora in hellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08726109864699114854noreply@blogger.comBlogger28125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33870522.post-29340145163153941672007-08-07T12:55:00.000-07:002007-08-07T14:28:16.194-07:00charles simic appointed poet laureate<h2 class="date"></h2><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwT8Pa0gkv448IfNRO8p-ctRQFzg0UCFrwWvN6P7lU-0_IuU_usPesh-_aW96aLVJA48BF3oS_JB7Omnxh8AXxfkMS5dtRRtboazWL-YNRHFx1uzmsahMR9Wt15hEgdmz4q6R4/s1600-h/simicRichDrewAP128.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwT8Pa0gkv448IfNRO8p-ctRQFzg0UCFrwWvN6P7lU-0_IuU_usPesh-_aW96aLVJA48BF3oS_JB7Omnxh8AXxfkMS5dtRRtboazWL-YNRHFx1uzmsahMR9Wt15hEgdmz4q6R4/s400/simicRichDrewAP128.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5096061907263084466" border="0" /></a>August 2, 2007 -- Librarian of Congress James H. Billington has announced the appointment of Charles Simic to be the Library’s 15th Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry. Simic will take up his duties in the fall, opening the Library’s annual literary series on Oct. 17 with a reading of his work. He also will be a featured speaker at the Library of Congress National Book Festival in the Poetry pavilion on Saturday, Sept. 29, on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. --<span style="font-size:85%;">LOC (Photo: Richard Drew/AP</span>) <ul> <li><a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/charlessimic/">Charles Simic : Library of Congress Resources</a></li> </ul> <ul> <li><a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/27">Charles Simic : Academy of American Poets</a></li> </ul> <blockquote>"Charles Simic was born on May 9, 1938, in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, where he had a traumatic childhood during World War II. In 1954 he emigrated from Yugoslavia with his mother and brother to join his father in the United States. They lived in and around Chicago until 1958. <p>His first poems were published in 1959, when he was twenty-one. In 1961 he was drafted into the U.S. Army, and in 1966 he earned his Bachelor's degree from New York University while working at night to cover the costs of tuition.</p> His first full-length collection of poems, <i>What the Grass Says</i>, was published the following year. Since then he has published more than sixty books in the U.S. and abroad, twenty titles of his own poetry among them.<br />. . .<br /><p>Simic was appointed the fifteenth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry in 2007. About the appointment, Librarian of Congress James H. Billington said, "The range of Charles Simic's imagination is evident in his stunning and unusual imagery. He handles language with the skill of a master craftsman, yet his poems are easily accessible, often meditative and surprising. He has given us a rich body of highly organized poetry with shades of darkness and flashes of ironic humor."</p> <p>"I am especially touched and honored to be selected because I am an immigrant boy who didn't speak English until I was 15," responded Simic after being named Poet Laureate."</p>Poems:<br /><a href="http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15255">Country Fair</a><br /><a href="http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15259">Eyes Fastened With Pins</a><br /><a href="http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/16463">Late September</a><br /><a href="http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/16876">Pigeons at Dawn</a><br /><a href="http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15257">Read Your Fate</a><br /><a href="http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15254">The Initiate</a><br /><a href="http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15258">The Something</a><br /><a href="http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15253">The White Room</a><br /><a href="http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15256">This Morning</a><br /><a href="http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15260">Watermelons</a><br />audio also available at site </blockquote><span style="font-weight: bold;">Other Resources:</span><br /><ul style="font-weight: bold;"> <li><a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poet.html?id=6290">Charles Simic : Poetry Foundation</a></li> </ul> <ul> </ul> <b></b><blockquote>Poems<br /><a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=179937">"I am the last . . ."</a><br /><a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=171695"><i>From</i> The World Doesn’t End</a><br /><a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=171697">Against Whatever It Is That’s Encroaching</a><br /><a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=30886">Autumn Sky</a><br /><a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=171701">Cameo Appearance</a><br /><a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=171685">Charon’s Cosmology</a><br /><a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=171699">Clouds Gathering</a><br /><a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=171691">Concerning My Neighbors, the Hittites</a><br /><a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=171693">Empire of Dreams</a><br /><a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=171689">Eyes Fastened with Pins</a><br /><a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=171698">Factory</a><br /><a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=171686">Fork</a><br /><a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=171684">My Shoes</a><br /><a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=171696">October Arriving</a><br /><a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=171688">Old Couple</a><br /><a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=171702">Past-Lives Therapy</a><br /><a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=171690">Prodigy</a><br /><a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=171692">Tapestry</a><br /><a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=171700">The Old World</a><br /><a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=29294">The Wooden Toy</a><br /><a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=171694">Watch Repair</a><br />audio also available at site</blockquote><ul> <li><a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Simic">Charles Simic : Wikipedia</a></li> </ul><ul> <li><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/02/books/02poet.html">Charles Simic, Surrealist With Dark View, Is Named Poet Laureate</a> (<span style="font-style: italic;">New York Times</span> 08.02.07) Includes links to additional articles, reviews, biography and poems.<br /> </li> </ul> <ul> <li><a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://www.nybooks.com/authors/133">Charles Simic at the New York Review of Books</a></li> </ul> <ul> <li><a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoet.do?poetId=5559">Charles Simic : Poetry Archive</a></li> </ul> <ul> <li><a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,,2140477,00.html">Charles Simic named US Poet Laureate</a> (<span style="font-style: italic;">The Guardian, </span><span><span style="font-size:100%;">08.02.07) Includes "Paradise Motel."</span></span></li> </ul><blockquote><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxaeX97Njm8mz0fJdn9zkTx6rel4Cf7aclqfWiC7ir11RzQXFlGdM7b-gDVHyd616YVnrA4635W34RWFMOaZMg5MuKvF69exz3wAFkTwG_kNNqC0IzX85vs57V6xuRkcY6YIoN/s1600-h/charlessimic2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxaeX97Njm8mz0fJdn9zkTx6rel4Cf7aclqfWiC7ir11RzQXFlGdM7b-gDVHyd616YVnrA4635W34RWFMOaZMg5MuKvF69exz3wAFkTwG_kNNqC0IzX85vs57V6xuRkcY6YIoN/s400/charlessimic2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5096072039090935778" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">"This is what Cornell is after, too. How to construct a vehicle of reverie, an object that would enrich the imagination of the viewer and keep him company forever. "</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">---Charles Simic "The Truth of Poetry" Dime-Store Alchemy</span><b><br /></b></blockquote> <p></p> <div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlq1d_pSwqK2dCm-aO8CxDCHZzsBbDgHZJG56G9dpO7odvQ_xuwa9ixzFDhqCkHObi-7hI00-kvToK-EvSFIROr-9s5RQzw5HwQjcoC0CBB10lSyrvGx552XDpJlW4YfyLFqwi/s1600-h/dimestorealchemysm.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlq1d_pSwqK2dCm-aO8CxDCHZzsBbDgHZJG56G9dpO7odvQ_xuwa9ixzFDhqCkHObi-7hI00-kvToK-EvSFIROr-9s5RQzw5HwQjcoC0CBB10lSyrvGx552XDpJlW4YfyLFqwi/s320/dimestorealchemysm.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5096069419160885202" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;">my signed, first paperback edition<br />of Simic's </span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-size:85%;">Dime-Store Alchemy<br /></span></span><span style="font-size:78%;">(note: it's </span><span style="font-size:78%;">rather beat up </span><span style="font-size:78%;">but its not for<br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;"> sale </span><span style="font-size:78%;">and its </span><span style="font-size:78%;">value can't be measured)</span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"> <blockquote style="font-style: italic;"><br /></blockquote></span></div>kora in hellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08726109864699114854noreply@blogger.com65tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33870522.post-63111778214769929902007-08-06T06:52:00.000-07:002007-08-07T16:46:06.599-07:00notes on a scandal<blockquote face="georgia" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,<br />Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a platter,<br />I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter;<br />I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,<br />And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,<br />And in short, I was afraid.</blockquote><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);">note: still being edited sorry for the mess<br /><br /></span></span></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:130%;" >Here's the story:</span><br /><br />A writer's wife leaves him for a billionaire.<br /><br />Sometime in June 2007 he decides the best way to tell people about this is to describe the situation in a lengthy email and he asks for the recipients' help disseminating the story of the demise of his marriage: "You can feel free to use any part or all of this email to do so." The email he sends to his students begins:<br /><blockquote><span style="font-size:85%;">"Rumors will soon be swirling around the department, so I want to tell the full and nuanced story to the five of you among the graduate students and ask that you clarify the issues for any of your fellow grad students who ask. This sort of thing can get wildly distorted pretty quickly. You can feel free to use any part or all of this email to do so. I really appreciate your help."</span></blockquote>and concludes with the statement that he and his ex-wife:<br /><blockquote><span style="font-size:85%;">"will now conduct ourselves as if this is public knowledge. So as I suggested at the outset, you need not keep this to yourself, if the occasion arises to speak of it to someone."</span><br /></blockquote>The missive informs the recipients:<span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span><ul> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">His ex-wife is a talented writer but because he won a Pulitzer she always felt like a failure around him</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">He has always supported her as a writer even though he is, of course, better than her.<br /></span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">She credits him with saving her life.</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">The new love affair blossomed in the midst of a life-threatening bowel obstruction she experienced while travelling with the billionaire in South America.</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">His ex-wife was molested as a child by her grandfather<br /></span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">Her evangelical Christian parents knew about this but did nothing.</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">She fell in love with the billionaire because he reminded her of the grandfather that abused her.</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">She will be one of a (small) number of the billionaire's stable of women lovers.</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">She will spend one week a month with the billionaire.</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">She is not doing this for the money.<br /></span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">He asks people not to think ill of his ex-wife.<br /></span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">He will keep the dogs and cats.</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">Also, he won a Pulitzer.</span></li> </ul> He sends a version of this email to students, colleagues, editors, and various people they knew around the country.<br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:130%;" >Six weeks later . . .</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:130%;" >TUE JUL 31 2007</span><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /><br />06:39 AM</span> The publishing industry blog <a href="http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat">GalleyCat</a> posts the story as a blind item and summarizes the contents of the email:<br /><br /><span style="text-decoration: underline;"></span> <div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/authors/finally_we_get_to_run_a_blind_item_64124.asp?c=rss">Finally We Get to Run a Blind Item</a><br /></div><br />Regarding the decision to run the item blind the editor later says: "If I'd known I could end the week with a Pulitzer-winner comparing me to the terrorists, damn, I would've totally skipped the blind item stage." (<span style="font-size:85%;"><a href="http://gawker.com/news/hubris/robert-olen-butler-has-always-been-like-this-285664.php#c2039004">BY RONHOGAN AT 08/03/07 12:44 PM</a></span>)<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">11:43 AM</span><a href="http://www.gawker.com/"> Gawker</a> ("daily Manhattan media news and gossip") announces: "<span style="font-weight: bold;">we've gotten what we believe is the full insane insane INSANE email</span>" and publishes the entire text:<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><a href="http://gawker.com/news/money-changes-everything/elizabeth-dewberry-left-robert-olen-butler-to-join-ted-turners-collection-284346.php">Elizabeth Dewberry Left Robert Olen Butler </a><br /><a href="http://gawker.com/news/money-changes-everything/elizabeth-dewberry-left-robert-olen-butler-to-join-ted-turners-collection-284346.php">To Join Ted Turner's Collection</a></span><br /></div> <div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size:78%;">(click on link above to read original email)</span><br /><br /></div> <span style="font-weight: bold;">11:44am</span> All hell breaks loose.<br /><br />By the end of the day there are over 40,000 viewings and 150 comments. Great for Gawker. Not so great for Butler. Here are a selection of the responses (you can go to the <a href="http://gawker.com/news/money-changes-everything/elizabeth-dewberry-left-robert-olen-butler-to-join-ted-turners-collection-284346.php">main site</a> to read all of them):<br /><a href="http://gawker.com/news/money-changes-everything/elizabeth-dewberry-left-robert-olen-butler-to-join-ted-turners-collection-284346.php#c2005895"></a><blockquote><span style="font-size:85%;"><a href="http://gawker.com/news/money-changes-everything/elizabeth-dewberry-left-robert-olen-butler-to-join-ted-turners-collection-284346.php#c2005895">BY TEDSEZ AT 07/31/07 11:53 AM</a> O.M.G. If that e-mail doesn't win a Pulitzer of its own, the prize has lost its meaning.<br /><br /><a href="http://gawker.com/news/money-changes-everything/elizabeth-dewberry-left-robert-olen-butler-to-join-ted-turners-collection-284346.php#c2005977">BY UNUTTERABLE AT 07/31/07 11:57 AM</a> I like how he claims they remain the best of friends, yet compares her new boyfriend to her abusing grandfather (and lets us know that he has other girlfriends), reminds her that she's never gotten a Pulitzer, and adds that he's done everything he could for her and she obviously is still nuts. Plus she had an intestinal blockage! Then he sews it up by saying "I ask you not to think ill of her in any way." Seriously, what would he have written if he wanted us to think ill of her?<br /><br /><a href="http://gawker.com/news/money-changes-everything/elizabeth-dewberry-left-robert-olen-butler-to-join-ted-turners-collection-284346.php#c2006018">BY MADAMEEDUCATRIX AT 07/31/07 12:00 PM </a>"I have a high regard and affection for the students in our program. I hope this will help them sort out this rather intense story in an appropriate way." Elizabeth and I love you all very, very much, and want you to know that this is not your fault. Sometimes, mommies and daddies don't love each other anymore. It doesn't mean we love you any less.<br /><br /><a href="http://gawker.com/news/money-changes-everything/elizabeth-dewberry-left-robert-olen-butler-to-join-ted-turners-collection-284346.php#c2006191">BY WHATEVER AT 07/31/07 12:13 PM</a> And they say men can't do passive-aggressive as well as women.<br /><br /><a href="http://gawker.com/news/money-changes-everything/elizabeth-dewberry-left-robert-olen-butler-to-join-ted-turners-collection-284346.php#c2006213">BY MANSLATIONS AT 07/31/07 12:14 PM</a> P.P.S. I have offered Elizabeth the rights to use this letter as a blurb for the jacket of her next book.<br /><br /><a href="http://gawker.com/news/money-changes-everything/elizabeth-dewberry-left-robert-olen-butler-to-join-ted-turners-collection-284346.php#c2006440">BY CKEAV AT 07/31/07 12:32 PM</a> Dear Professor Butler Thank you for your email. As you suggested, I have discussed your situation with some of my fellow graduate students. Nobody cares. Also, no one has heard of your wife.<br /><br /><a href="http://gawker.com/news/money-changes-everything/elizabeth-dewberry-left-robert-olen-butler-to-join-ted-turners-collection-284346.php#c2006790">BY ATOURGATES AT 07/31/07 12:55 PM</a><br />The only thing that could have made this missive more self-serving is if Mr. Butler had mentioned that while he is a tender and capable lover, Ms. Dewberry found his manhood to be too long and overly girthy, leading to difficulties in their lovemaking.</span></blockquote><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">WED AUG 1 2007</span></span><br /><blockquote face="georgia" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; font-family: georgia;">"I am not Brad Pitt, nor was meant to be . . . "</blockquote><span style="font-weight: bold;">8:00 AM</span> The <span style="font-style: italic;">New York Post</span>'s <a href="http://www.nypost.com/seven/08012007/gossip/pagesix/pagesix.htm">Page Six</a> -- the nation's best known gossip column -- leads with the story. Butler had already granted them an interview. He appears surprised and amused by all the attention. It becomes the most emailed item of the day.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.nypost.com/seven/08012007/gossip/pagesix/pagesix.htm">Writer Dumps Hubby for Ted</a><br /></div> <blockquote><span style="font-size:85%;">August 1, 2007 -- PULITZER prize-winning author Robert Olen Butler sent out an e-mail yesterday announcing that his wife had dumped him for billionaire Ted Turner. "Put down your cup of coffee or you might spill it," Butler, 62, wrote to his graduate students and fellow professors at Florida State University in Tallahassee. "Elizabeth is leaving me for Ted Turner." Elizabeth is Butler's wife of 12 years, Elizabeth Dewberry, 44, an author in her own right, who might be attracted to Turner, 68, because the media mogul resembles the grandfather who molested her as a child, Butler writes in the shocking e-mail. "She has spoken openly in her work and in her public life of the fact that she was molested by her grandfather from an early age, a molestation that was known and tacitly condoned by her radically Evangelical Christian parents," Butler wrote. "And it is very common for a woman to be drawn to men who remind them of their childhood abusers. Ted is such a man, though fortunately, he is far from being abusive." However, Turner, who has been married three times, is hardly an ideal partner. "She will not be Ted's only girlfriend. Ted is permanently and avowedly non-monogamous," Butler writes. "But though he has several girlfriends, it is a very small number, and he does not take them up lightly and he gives them his absolute support when he does." The jilted husband reveals Dewberry nearly died in March from an intestinal blockage while she was traveling with Turner in Argentina. The white-haired mogul also took Dewberry as his date to the May premiere of "Georgia Rule," which starred Turner's ex-wife, Jane Fonda. "Rumors will soon be swirling . . . so I want to tell the full and nuanced story," Butler wrote. "This sort of thing can get wildly distorted pretty quickly." Butler, whose books include "Tabloid Dreams" and "Mr. Spaceman," told Page Six he showed Dewberry his e-mail before sending it off and, "she was weepingly grateful to me for it. It's full of love and compassion." He said he was surprised one of the recipients then leaked it to several Internet "Elizabeth and I are not Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston" he told us. A rep for Turner had no comment.</span></blockquote><span style="font-weight: bold;">NOTE:</span> Butler told <span style="font-style: italic;">Page Six</span> that he showed Dewberry his e-mail before sending it off and he claimed that "she was “weepingly grateful to me for it. It's full of love and compassion." The claim that she was "weepingly grateful" is something that he repeats in other interviews. However <span style="font-style: italic;">Page Six</span> does not contact Dewberry to confirm whether this is an accurate description of her feelings.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">AM WED AUG 1 </span><a href="http://www.slate.com/">Slate</a> covers the story in its "hot document" section.<a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2171529/entry/0/"><br /></a><blockquote> <div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2171529/entry/0/">hot document: Primary sources exposed and explained.</a></span></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2171529/entry/0/">Ted Turner's Big Love</a> </span></span></div><span style="font-size:85%;"><br />Robert Olen Butler won the 1993 Pulitzer for fiction for A Good Scent From A Strange Mountain, but at the moment a different selection from Butler's oeuvre is attracting widespread notice within the literary community. That would be the e-mail he recently sent five graduate students (Butler is a professor of English at Florida State University) explaining in bizarrely fine-grained detail why his wife of 12 years, fellow novelist Elizabeth Dewberry, left him to be Ted Turner's part-time girlfriend. You can read the e-mail below (thanks to Gawker.com, which posted the full text, and to Mediabistro.com, which broke the story). "Elizabeth has never been able to step out of the shadow of the Pulitzer," Butler explains calmly. "The multitude of small reflections of regard that came my way inevitably threw a spotlight on the absence of those expressions of regard for her." Also, "she was molested by her grandfather from an early age," and later suffered through a "decade-long abusive marriage." Dewberry, Butler explains, "says I saved her life. But de facto therapy as the initial foundation of a marriage eventually sucks the life out of a relationship." Dewberry is drawn to Turner, Butler further explains, because Turner reminds her of her childhood abuser. Pausing one passive-aggressive beat, Butler then reports that Turner himself "is far from being abusive." To be sure, Butler writes, the man once known in yachting circles as Captain Outrageous already has "several girlfriends." But "it is a very small number, and he does not take them up lightly and he gives them his absolute support when he does. And Elizabeth's leaving me is as much about the three weeks a month she is alone as it is about the week a month she is with Ted." By Bonnie Goldstein.<br /></span></blockquote><span style="font-weight: bold;">10:40 AM </span>The penny drops. <blockquote style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">“That is not what I meant at all.<br />That is not it, at all.”</blockquote>This is where it starts to either go downhill ...or get really good. How you see this would depend on how you feel about ROB and what kind of sense of humor you possess.<br /><br />Robert Olen Butler writes an angry email to Gawker:<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><a href="http://gawker.com/news/chidings/robert-olen-butler-says-his-mass-email-was-intended-strictly-for-those-who-personally-know-elizabeth-and-me-284743.php">Robert Olen Butler Says His Mass Email </a><br /><a href="http://gawker.com/news/chidings/robert-olen-butler-says-his-mass-email-was-intended-strictly-for-those-who-personally-know-elizabeth-and-me-284743.php">Was </a><a href="http://gawker.com/news/chidings/robert-olen-butler-says-his-mass-email-was-intended-strictly-for-those-who-personally-know-elizabeth-and-me-284743.php">'Intended </a><a href="http://gawker.com/news/chidings/robert-olen-butler-says-his-mass-email-was-intended-strictly-for-those-who-personally-know-elizabeth-and-me-284743.php">Strictly For Those Who </a><br /><a href="http://gawker.com/news/chidings/robert-olen-butler-says-his-mass-email-was-intended-strictly-for-those-who-personally-know-elizabeth-and-me-284743.php">Personally Know Elizabeth And Me'</a><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">(click on link above to post at Gawker site with all comments)</span><br /></div><br />They publish this email, illustrated by an author portrait of ROB holding a bichon frise:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYpdr_cXeAAlMTaeEAbPsEqVrKKCzh0_rXdZ44MVHGh8nj5hbMPBSK91PYv14pxUSITYqVBMdlfcPtcKupxZk_8OjCGv2DyUAuV9buqTqZpGk29Pf-Iq3P0ddR-rsL6L0JFymZ/s1600-h/Robert+and+Sadie+B%26W+jpg+smaller.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYpdr_cXeAAlMTaeEAbPsEqVrKKCzh0_rXdZ44MVHGh8nj5hbMPBSK91PYv14pxUSITYqVBMdlfcPtcKupxZk_8OjCGv2DyUAuV9buqTqZpGk29Pf-Iq3P0ddR-rsL6L0JFymZ/s400/Robert+and+Sadie+B%26W+jpg+smaller.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5095972928425613218" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Gawker</span> Editor Emily Gould provides the following introduction:<br /><blockquote><span style="font-size:85%;">So! Jilted author Robert Olen Butler isn't happy that yesterday we published the email he sent to his grad students. You know, the email that began "this sort of thing can get wildly distorted pretty quickly. You can feel free to use any part or all of this email to do so," and in which he explained exactly why his wife was leaving him for Ted Turner (she was abused by her grandpa!). In his email to us, he sounded steamed!</span></blockquote>followed by Butler's text:<br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><blockquote>That email, intended strictly for those who personally know Elizabeth and me, was to explain an event that, if not explained, would be spun in ways that would unfairly make Elizabeth look bad. It had its intended effect around Tallahassee and in some other places where she and I are actual human beings. The sad thing about your sneeringly printing this in a blog is that both of us are easily dehumanized. Which, of course, is your point. Dehumanization is the essential ingredient for the daily pleasure of gossipers and gawkers. What a creepy little circle-jerk of self-righteousness you're running.</blockquote></span><span style="font-weight: bold;">NOTE:</span> The Gawker commenters are perversely delighted by his description of them as a "creepy little circle-jerk of self-righteousness." They suggest that the editors create a new Gawker t-shirt using this phrase. They also want the shirt to include the (above) photograph of ROB with the bichon frise.<br /><br />Responses to Butler's angry lashing included a set of comments on what it means to be human in Tallahassee:<br /><a href="http://gawker.com/news/chidings/robert-olen-butler-says-his-mass-email-was-intended-strictly-for-those-who-personally-know-elizabeth-and-me-284743.php#c2016023"></a><blockquote><span style="font-size:85%;"><a href="http://gawker.com/news/chidings/robert-olen-butler-says-his-mass-email-was-intended-strictly-for-those-who-personally-know-elizabeth-and-me-284743.php#c2016023">BY LUCIA TOLEDO AT 08/01/07 11:01 AM</a> For readers who don't know Florida all that well: "around Tallahassee and in other places" is a very funny line.<br /><a href="http://gawker.com/news/chidings/robert-olen-butler-says-his-mass-email-was-intended-strictly-for-those-who-personally-know-elizabeth-and-me-284743.php#c2016055"><br />BY SARGASM AT 08/01/07 11:03 AM</a> So, if they leave Tallahassee, are they no longer actual human beings? But how can that be, if we already dehumanized them? I'm confused.<br /><br /><a href="http://gawker.com/news/chidings/robert-olen-butler-says-his-mass-email-was-intended-strictly-for-those-who-personally-know-elizabeth-and-me-284743.php#c2016059">BY DAVIDWATTS 08/01/07 11:03 AM</a> I went to school in Tallahassee, and I can assure you that there are no actual people there.<br /></span></blockquote>As well as a number of withering critiques of Butler's self-righteousness, his sense of outrage and his moralizing. Some, as in this case, are even given by those who are familiar with him (and like him) as a writer:<span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><a href="http://gawker.com/news/chidings/robert-olen-butler-says-his-mass-email-was-intended-strictly-for-those-who-personally-know-elizabeth-and-me-284743.php#c2016162"></a><blockquote><a href="http://gawker.com/news/chidings/robert-olen-butler-says-his-mass-email-was-intended-strictly-for-those-who-personally-know-elizabeth-and-me-284743.php#c2016162">BY HEARTBREAKTURNIP AT 08/01/07 11:10 AM</a> I don't care if he did intend that e-mail for a select group of friends and others, or the entire world. What he had to say was the kind of thing that, perhaps -- perhaps you share with your closest of friends over coffee or a beer or something. And, probably, that close friend would say,<br /><br />“Bob, that whole grandfather theory is just weird. I'm not so sure about that. Don't you think money, travel, and so on might also have something to do with it? And anyway, if the grandfather theory is true, it doesn't say much about her own attraction to YOU, Bob, who at age 50 married her at Tavern on the Green when she was barely 30. So, I'd steer away from that whole line of reasoning for your own good. It makes it sound like she dumped you for a richer and better looking molester. You don't want to be the ugly molester, Bob.”<br /><br />Instead, Bob Butler decides he's too busy to actually have, ahem, actual <i>human</i> and <i>humanizing</i> contact with the few people who he wants to know the gory details, and so he sends out an e-mail with instructions to go forth and spread the story as he's told it. The assertion that Elizabeth Dewberry wept with gratitude about that e-mail is either a huge lie or more proof that she's got corn bread for brains, which has long been suspected. In either case he does her no favors, which puts the lie to his assertions of love and gratitude and so on.<br /><br />And if the e-mail recipients were so close, so <i>dear</i> and <i>human</i> to him, that he would share such personal details with them, how come he couldn't predict that at least one of them would forward it on to the world? Clearly, there's at least one person who needed to know about Dewberry's intestinal distress who, in fact, he did not know very well at all.<br /><br />Let's cut the bullshit: creative writing staffs are notoriously catty, backbiting groups of malingerers who love talking about each other. Robert Olen Butler was merely trying to get ahead of the spin and win the gossip battle. Bob Butler has always perceived himself as something of an otherworldly saint figure, but this latest is just so much crap.<br /><br />By the way, he's not a crap writer like some have alleged -- he's pretty damned great if you ask me. Writers like him should write more and talk less.</blockquote></span>There were even Gawker commenters who flatly defended Butler.<br /><br />One person pointed out that only a saint can resist the temptation not to hurt the person who has broken your heart. That led to the following exchange (a very typical type of Gawker reparte where things are never allowed to get serious for very long):<br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><a href="http://gawker.com/news/chidings/robert-olen-butler-says-his-mass-email-was-intended-strictly-for-those-who-personally-know-elizabeth-and-me-284743.php#c2016129"></a><blockquote><a href="http://gawker.com/news/chidings/robert-olen-butler-says-his-mass-email-was-intended-strictly-for-those-who-personally-know-elizabeth-and-me-284743.php#c2016129">BY POPE JOHN PEEPS II AT 08/01/07 11:08 AM</a> It's NOT POSSIBLE to avoid the temptation to hurt someone who has done damage to you. Of course he failed. Of course he was weak. It's what we do. Barring breaking up with the Dalai Lama ... everyone fucks it right up the wall at the end.<br /><br /><a href="http://gawker.com/news/chidings/robert-olen-butler-says-his-mass-email-was-intended-strictly-for-those-who-personally-know-elizabeth-and-me-284743.php#c2016258">BY MATHNET AT 08/01/07 11:16 AM</a> When I broke up with the Dalai Lama, he keyed my car.<br /><br /><a href="http://gawker.com/news/chidings/robert-olen-butler-says-his-mass-email-was-intended-strictly-for-those-who-personally-know-elizabeth-and-me-284743.php#c2016323">BY LOLCAIT AT 08/01/07 11:20 AM</a> Gandhi pooped in a bag, lit it on fire, and left it on my porch after I dumped him at the Harvest Dance.<br /><br /><a href="http://gawker.com/news/chidings/robert-olen-butler-says-his-mass-email-was-intended-strictly-for-those-who-personally-know-elizabeth-and-me-284743.php#c2016367">BY VENUSCLOACINA AT 08/01/07 11:23 AM</a> Mother Teresa cut the crotches out of all my underpants. She was a rattlesnake in a wimple, that one.<br /><br /><a href="http://gawker.com/news/chidings/robert-olen-butler-says-his-mass-email-was-intended-strictly-for-those-who-personally-know-elizabeth-and-me-284743.php#c2016619">BY KARENUHOH AT 08/01/07 11:42 AM</a> Joan of Arc burned my steak.</blockquote></span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">MIDDAY (AUG 1)</span><br /><br />Butler is interviewed by Alex Chadwick on NPR (<a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12421611">click here for a link to listen to the interview</a>). In the interview it becomes clear that one reason why Dewberry could not emerge from underneath the burden of Butler's Pulitzer is that he kept reminding her that would not let her forget that he had won the Pulitzer, i.e. : she was a good writer but she was not the best writer in the house.<br /><br />Alex Chadwick also informs listeners that he contacted Elizabeth Dewberry who told him that although she had seen the email she did not approve it and there were inaccuracies in it.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">NOTE:</span> Chadwick is the only journalist who contacts Dewberry and is one of the few who incorporates this caveat into the coverage of the story.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">PM AUG 1 </span><span>The widening gyre.<br /><br /></span>The story is showing up in a variety of national and international press outlets. The general take on the story is as follows:<br /><blockquote>"Pulitzer Prize winning writer sent out an email announcing that his wife left him for billionaire Ted Turner because the media mogul resembles the grandfather who molested her as a child."</blockquote>It appears that Butler is agreeing to all requests for interviews.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">4:10 PM AUG 1</span> Gawker publishes an excerpt from a story by Robert Olen Butler:<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://gawker.com/news/gawker-book-club/jealous-husband-returns-in-the-form-of-a-parrot-by-robert-olen-butler-284944.php">'Jealous Husband Returns In The Form Of A Parrot' </a><br /><a href="http://gawker.com/news/gawker-book-club/jealous-husband-returns-in-the-form-of-a-parrot-by-robert-olen-butler-284944.php">By Robert Olen Butler</a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">(click on link above to read fuller text and all comments)</span><br /></div> <span style="font-size:85%;"><blockquote>Sure, we all know that Robert Olen Butler is the Pulitzer-winning author whose author wife, Elizabeth Dewberry, just left him to become one of media mogul Ted Turner's girlfriends, prompting him to pen the nuttiest email of all time. But how familiar are we all with his award-winning work? Maybe some excerpts from this short story, which first appeared in the New Yorker in 1995, would be a good primer. It is about what you think: a man turns into a parrot, is purchased as a pet by his wife, and is forced to watch her cavort around the house with her new lover.</blockquote></span><span style="font-weight: bold;">NOTE:</span> Gawker commentators are generally (not entirely) respectful of Butler's talents as a writer. As a whole they separate the person from the writer and feel that the character of an artist should not be the basis for judging their work. Naturally, there are also some amusing comments about the excerpt's relevance to Butler's current situation.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">9:00 PM AUG 1</span> On the other hand, Elizabeth Dewberry's parents are not amused:<br /><a href="http://gawker.com/news/couples-news/ted-turner-took-elizabeth-dewberry-to-the-georgia-rule-premiere-284459.php#c2023465"></a><blockquote><span style="font-size:85%;"><a href="http://gawker.com/news/couples-news/ted-turner-took-elizabeth-dewberry-to-the-georgia-rule-premiere-284459.php#c2023465">BY HARLEYGO AT 08/01/07 08:55 PM</a><br />As Elizabeth Dewberry's parents, her Mom and I take great exception to two comments by Bob Butler reported in his email. Butler states that her parents are "radical evangelical Christians" who "knowingly and tacitly" allowed her to be molested by her grandfather.<br /><br />Not true: we would have done everything in our power to defend our child from predators, like any decent parent would do, had we known what was happening. While we are Christians from the 'classic/historical' teaching perspective, we never knew our child was being abused.<br /><br />In 1990, while Elizabeth was studying for her PhD at Emory University, she published her first book, "Many Things Have Happened Since He Died". The novel is a classic on the subject of abuse from the victim's viewpoint. Later in "Image, A Journal of Arts and Religion," November 15, 1996, Elizabeth writes "…my mother asked me how I knew so much about abuse. I answered her honestly, 'I don't know'." Elizabeth's straightforward revelation of the abuse was not made until much later. </span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br />We have fully supported all of her accusations against her grandfather. We never doubted her allegations. The Dewberry's</span></blockquote><span style="font-weight: bold;">NOTE:</span> This should give him pause. This should give everyone pause. This is not just a matter of rudeness. He has accused them of a crime. Even if Dewberry has claimed this to be true he has no right to this allegation. Ever. Certainly not in public. Definitely not in an uncontrollable and ever expanding information spreading forum. Remember, he invited recipients to share this with whomever they saw fit. Further, Butler's letter implies that there is some sort of causal relationship between her parents being evangelical Christians and their toleration of their daughter's molestation: in the same way that being a professor means that you have probably had drug-fueled orgies with your students.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">NOTE: </span>The short story excerpt <span style="font-style: italic;">Gawker</span> quoted ('Jealous Husband Returns in the Form of a Parrot') comes from <span style="font-style: italic;">Tabloid Dreams</span>, a work that demonstrates Butler's long-time fascination with tabloid media. This illustrates that he is not treading into this world as a naive cloistered old fogey writer but that he is fully aware of the hazards and benefits of mass media attention.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">NOTE: </span>"<a href="http://www.fsu.edu/%7ebutler/why.html">I'm enchanted with the internet</a>" Butler tells readers on his personal FSU home page, a site that includes a calendar of his writing schedule so that people may watch him write. This project which he calls "<a href="http://www.fsu.edu/%7ebutler/index.html">Inside Creative Writing</a>" is described as a rather exhibitionist display: "sharing of a fully elaborated, moment-to-moment act of personal intimacy formerly found only behind the veil of private life." He compares this opportunity to "what it would have been like if English students could have watched live as William Shakespeare composed <span style="font-style: italic;">Romeo and Juliet</span> on the Internet." Modesty has never been his strong suit. He expected this to provide "millions of students and would-be writers a golden opportunity to learn from every creative decision as it is happening." Millions. To watch him write. On the internet.<br /><blockquote><span style="font-size:85%;">"I will choose the card at the last minute so that I won't have a chance, even unconsciously, to pre-plan the story-I want the whole process to be visible in real-time on the Internet." (<a href="http://www.fsu.edu/%7ebutler/why.html">source</a>)<br /><br />"I tell my writing students that works of art do not come from the mind, they come from the place where you dream. I deeply believe that. And so I welcome you to my dreams." (<a href="http://www.fsu.edu/%7ebutler/why.html">source</a>)</span></blockquote><span style="font-weight: bold;">NOTE:</span> Uh... I think this is what is called a dream journal.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">NOTE: </span>I gotta say that I strongly disagree with this on both philosophical and pedagogical grounds. Art does indeed come from the mind. These are the kind of facile romantic myths that a lot of writing and art professors work very hard to dispel in their students: i.e., the idea that art is somehow more about inspiration, that there is something genius about the first ill-formed thing that comes into your head. Just because you dreamt something doesn't make it art. Just because you feel something deeply doesn't make it art. The rare works that do "come in a flash" happen because of all the work the artist has done and is always doing. Like reading. Writing <span style="font-style: italic;">is</span> about planning. It is also about revising and revising and revising. It <span style="font-style: italic;">is</span> about reading and knowing about literary history and literary writing. Art isn't easy. Art isn't ignorant. It challenges the comfortable and familiar. Imagination and intelligence are talents but what you do with them have to do with experience and education and rigor. (And then the politics of who you know and all that other crap.) I like his idea of starting with a postcard. That is just where you start.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:130%;" >THUR AUG 2, 2007</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">AM </span>The story (expanded from Wednesday) is in the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/">Washington Post</a> :<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/01/AR2007080102502.html?hpid=sec-artsliving">The Affair Of an E-mail Gone Wild:</a><br /><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/01/AR2007080102502.html?hpid=sec-artsliving">Novelist Tells All Of His Wife's Fling With Ted Turner</a><br /></div><br />By Thursday the chair of the Creative Writing Department, David Kirby, is brought into interviews to defend his colleague:<br /><blockquote><span style="font-size:85%;">"Experts are deconstructing (the original e-mail) on the World Wide Web," said FSU English professor David Kirby, a good friend of Butler's. "(But) if you take what is said at face value, it is a very nuanced and compassionate explanation of a very sad situation."</span></blockquote>Gawker posters are (tongue in cheek) honored tickled by being called "experts" while the literati amongst them mock Kirby's expertise:<br /><a href="http://gawker.com/news/hubris/robert-olen-butler-has-always-been-like-this-285664.php#c2040555"></a><blockquote><span style="font-size:85%;"><a href="http://gawker.com/news/hubris/robert-olen-butler-has-always-been-like-this-285664.php#c2040555">BY SHESAIDWHAT AT 08/03/07 02:39 PM</a> I wonder if we can get college credit for this? As expert as our interpretive skills may be, one does not have to employ deconstructive methodology to determine that Butler's email was less than "gentlemanly" as he claims in the Tallahassee newspaper (where we can find more of his increasingly delusional self-serving twaddle -- although with this latest terrorist material he is starting to sound a bit barking mad). Nonetheless, Professor Kirby claims "if you take what is said at face value, it is a very nuanced and compassionate explanation of a very sad situation." I guess you don't have to have very strong interpretive skills to be on the English faculty at FSU.<br /><br /><a href="http://gawker.com/news/hubris/robert-olen-butler-has-always-been-like-this-285664.php#c2040594">BY VENUSCLOACINA AT 08/03/07 02:42 PM</a> Yes, well, if you take what is said at face value, Jonathan Swift was a cannibal, and Nabokov's Kinbote was the King of Zembla. As you suggest, anybody who takes "what is said at face value" probably shouldn't be teaching English.</span></blockquote><span style="font-weight: bold;">NOTES:</span><br /><ul><li>Haven't these people ever heard of the phrase "No Comment"??!! </li> <li>The old boys will stand by each other no matter what they do: that is one tried and true fact of academia. </li><li>Raise your hands ladies if you've heard this one: "I'm sure he didn't mean it that way."?</li><li>Honestly, if Kirby is truly a good friend of Butler's then instead of making moronic statements to the press he should:<br /></li> </ul><ol><blockquote><li>disconnect his computer;</li> <li>disable his online account;</li><li>get him a mental health medical leave for at least the fall semester;</li> <li>tell him to get as far away from Tallahassee Florida as he possibly can and;</li> <li>to not write another friggin' email until at least 2008 and then to use it only for business purposes;</li><li>and make him get some serious help -- he's out of control.</li></blockquote></ol> The funny thing is that amidst the various jokes and insults on Gawker various comments say the same thing, with varying degrees of empathy.<br /><br />There are always various disagreements among the Gawker commenters:<br /><blockquote><span style="font-size:85%;"><a href="http://gawker.com/news/hubris/robert-olen-butler-has-always-been-like-this-285664.php#c2037911">BY STEVERINO AT 08/03/07 11:26 AM</a> I still think that people are being bitches to Butler. The guy wrote a nutty email and then was naive enough to challenge a gossip site. I bet people in gang fights have the decency to push away the random old man that wonders into the mosh pit.</span></blockquote><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><span style="font-weight: bold;">10:40 AM THU AUG 2</span><br /><blockquote style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;<br />At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—<br />Almost, at times, the Fool.</blockquote>Butler contacts Gawker again, this time he tries to educate the editors and readers on the mysteries of love. It doesn't go over well.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><a href="http://gawker.com/news/we-get-letters/a-close-reading-of-robert-olen-butlers-latest-email-285187.php">A Close Reading Of </a><br /><a href="http://gawker.com/news/we-get-letters/a-close-reading-of-robert-olen-butlers-latest-email-285187.php">Robert Olen Butler's Latest Email</a></span><br /></div> <div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size:78%;">(click on link above to read full post at Gawker site with all comments)<br /><br /></span> </div> Below, some excerpts from Butler's email and Gawker editor Emily Gould's running commentary. Keep in mind that the editor, Emily Gould, is in her 20s and Bob Butler is in his 60s.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" ></span><blockquote><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" >EG:</span><span style="font-size:85%;"> "Can you please give voice to this at your site?" reads the subject line of Pulitzer-winning author Robert Olen Butler's latest email to us. We certainly can. If you recall, Robert's wife of twelve years, author Elizabeth Dewberry recently left him to become one of Ted Turner's girlfriends, which prompted him to send an email to five of his grad students explaining the circumstances in vivid—novelistic!—detail. Today, he writes,<br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" >ROB:</span><span style="font-size:85%;"> "I am sure there are a number of your followers who actually might want to understand this intense letter which was written in an extreme emotional circumstance. They encountered the email with no knowledge of two of the three principal players in the drama. They have only a sound-bite-and-media-spun understanding of the third. I can well see how a first reaction to the email by someone for whom it was not intended might be that it is only a bizarre and inappropriate document worthy of scorn."<br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" >EG:</span><span style="font-size:85%;"> Let's allow him the space he needs in order to attempt to convince us that it is otherwise. Before we continue, though: "your followers?" This is a just a website. Not a cult! ...<br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" >ROB:</span><span style="font-size:85%;"> "My drama of love and loss was particularly intense and had some strikingly unique characteristics."</span></blockquote><span style="font-weight: bold;">NOTE: </span>This makes me cringe as much as anything else. I am astonished that a 62 year old man would say such a thing. And a writer as well: i.e., someone who would presumably would have some emotional maturity above that of a twelve year old.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" >EG:</span><span style="font-size:85%;"> Newsflash: we all feel that way! Everyone thinks their heartbreak is special and unique! But no one's feeeeeeeelings are more important or special than anyone else's, no matter how good they are at writing about them!<br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" >ROB:</span><span style="font-size:85%;"> "And it presented only a small range of choices, none of them good. In terms of the inevitable news of all this, my primary concern, of course, was with the community she and I lived in. If I had said nothing, the naked facts of the events would have meant that Elizabeth would be savaged by the rumor mill."<br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" >EG:</span><span style="font-size:85%;"> Oh, way to dodge that bullet. We would like to take this opportunity to recommend that Robert immediately purchase a copy of the instructive book Send, which is a guide to email etiquette that also details the history of the medium of email, and explains why, if there is ever any sensitive information that you'd like to communicate to a select few people, you must communicate that information in person.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" >ROB:</span><span style="font-size:85%;"> "And the email was never a mass email. I chose five trusted grad students who know us both the best. I chose half a dozen faculty members who know us both the best. And they were asked, when the rumors reached them, to tell the appropriately nuanced story. Or to tell the fuller story on their own initiative--because everyone would soon know anyway...Without that sanction to use the email, the explanation vacuum would have continued to form and be filled with lies."<br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" >EG:</span><span style="font-size:85%;"> Any email has the potential to become a "mass email." That is the nature of the medium of email.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" >ROB:</span><span style="font-size:85%;"> "Now as to the intimate nature of the email, this is crucial to understand: there is not a single fact of Elizabeth's or Ted's or my personal lives that the intended audience could not easily have already known. Elizabeth has spoken and written openly, publicly, about everything in her childhood. Ted's persona and the details of the pattern of his love life are widely known (just read Jane Fonda's memoir).<br /></span></blockquote><span style="font-weight: bold;">NOTE:</span> Here's the thing I find curious: Is Jane Fonda's memoir that popular of a read amongst the members of the FSU English Department? Of all books he could be recommending to an audience this large, this is the one he tells people to read? How about a reading list of Southern Gothic literature? Or (my choice) perhaps <a href="http://209.10.134.179/198/1.html">Prufrock</a>?<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" >ROB: </span><span style="font-size:85%;">We all of us often--some psychologists would say pretty much always--form adult relationships as an acting out of the basic love patterns of childhood relationships. There is nothing unseemly or wrong about this. It is the human condition."<br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" >EG:</span><span style="font-size:85%;"> Oh my god, THERE IS SUCH A THING AS TOO MUCH THERAPY.<br />...<br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" >ROB: </span><span style="font-size:85%;">"In spite of my previous chiding of you and your readers, I wish that happiness for all of you, as well. It's dangerous to live too deeply in a world of glib judgmentalism. And man, there is some truly legitimate short-burst writing talent among you all."<br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" >EG:</span><span style="font-size:85%;"> Whee! Clip and paste permanently! "There is some truly legitimate short-burst writing talent among you all" -- Robert Olen Butler. We are all so excited to use this as a blurb someday for our novels.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" >ROB: </span><span style="font-size:85%;">"But I hope at least some of you come to realize that vituperation, no matter how funny or elegantly expressed, is not an art form."<br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" >EG: </span><span style="font-size:85%;">Wrong! We'll give you this—some of our commenters are really mean.</span></blockquote>As if to prove the point this post receives one of the most cutthroat (and astute) responses of all:<br /><a href="http://gawker.com/news/we-get-letters/a-close-reading-of-robert-olen-butlers-latest-email-285187.php#c2033402"></a><blockquote><span style="font-size:85%;"><a href="http://gawker.com/news/we-get-letters/a-close-reading-of-robert-olen-butlers-latest-email-285187.php#c2033402">BY CLICKABLE AT 08/02/07 07:00 PM</a><br />Mr. Butler? Put the pen down and step away from the desk slowly. Seriously, dude. You aren't doing yourself any favors at this point. And stop talking to gossip columnists, you idiot. What the hell were you thinking? Who the hell talks to a gossip columnist about their marriage? What kind of people reared you? Were you raised in a barn? Don't you have any self-respect?<br /><br />Leave your wife out of this. You got yourself into this mess. All we did was point out how you completely abandoned the boundary between public and private. I see you as all too human, and that is why this bothers me. If this were about Paris Hilton, I wouldn't have gone past the headline.<br /><br />I think you are regular folk, Mr. Butler, but why would regular folk do something like this? Whom can that email possibly benefit? What purpose can it serve other than to fuel idle gossip? NONE. No purpose, Mr. Butler.<br /><br />Having opened the floodgates of gossip - and you held those gates wide open yourself, sir - you compound the grotesquerie by eagerly jumping onto the most public stage offered you. From bellyaching at Gawker one minute to comparing yourself to Brad Pitt on Page Six the next, are you starting to see why we think you're an attention whore?<br /><br />This is no accident. Regular folk do not suddenly find their private affairs gracing the front pages. Regular folk use the sense of propriety instilled by their parents (as I'm sure your parents instilled in you) to know when it's time to go home, shut the door, and shield their families from scrutiny.<br /><br />You seem to think that you are entitled - no, compelled, and by your wife, even! - to expose your wife's fragile psyche to your graduate students. Bullshit. She may tell her narrative if she wishes, but you may not. Even with her permission. Remember the old aphorism about how discretion is the better part of valor? And remember what we learned yesterday, about what happens when someone insists on being an attention whore in these trying times, when there's a sneering, self-righteous circle jerk happening just around the cybercorner, eagerly waiting to call you on your hypocrisy? You urged the recipients of the email to share its contents if the occasion arose, and to use any and all of it to tell the full and nuanced story. They did, and we are. Hope you're appreciating so far.<br /><br />You seem to think, too, that you owe your graduate students an explanation of why, in your view (or at least how your view sounds in that email) your wife's many and varied sins of omission and sins of commission, together with her general inadequacy compared with your general awesomeness (did we mention your Pulitzer?) and her failure to adapt to your exalted status (did we mention your Pulitzer?), caused your marriage to fail. Apparently you were a paragon of husbandly perfection, bordering on saintliness, yes? Because nothing in that email would lead me to think you bear any responsibility for the current state of affairs. I'm just saying. And please please please please please don't see this as an invitation to spill any more of your guts.<br /><br />That's exactly what your email sounds like, only worse. A petty attempt at character assassination, coated in sugar syrup. It's been done, but seldom masked in such grace and subtlety.<br /><br />You didn't miss even a single mark, and maybe that's why you sound so hollow now when you cry foul. Each sentence, and then each paragraph, and then the whole, was so perfectly balanced, containing equal parts venom and honey. At first I thought it was unbelievable. Now I just think you're unbelievably fucked up. I believe you are being mendacious when you say you are shocked and dismayed to be in the spotlight. The only thing you are shocked and dismayed about is that you can't control its glare.<br /><br />I don't feel sorry for you because you are old enough and sophisticated enough about the ways of the world to know better. You steered your way from the backwaters of Tallahassee to <span style="font-style: italic;">Page Six</span> and to the portal of <span style="font-style: italic;">Slate</span> at the speed of lightning, and I think the avalanche has not even gained full momentum.</span></blockquote><span style="font-weight: bold;">PM THU AUG 2</span><br />The <span style="font-style: italic;">Associated Press</span> picks up the story. Someone actually talks to the editors at <span style="font-style: italic;">Gawker</span>.<br /><blockquote><span style="font-size:85%;">Butler said in a phone interview Thursday he never intended for the e-mail to go public, but that he was afraid that might happen after finding out that it had circulated among book editors in New York. Butler said he heard that Turner's editor told him about the e-mail. He said “he suspects Gawker has a mole in a New York publishing house.”<br /><br />"It was a stolen e-mail by somebody in the New York publishing world," Butler said. "It's nobody's fault but the prurience of our pop culture."<br /><br />Emily Gould, a Gawker editor, denied anyone stole the e-mail. She said there's no telling how many times it had been forward until eventually someone sent it to Gawker. She said Butler's allegation indicates he doesn't understand the hazards of putting personal or sensitive information in an e-mail.<br /><br />"I think it's a cautionary tale for all of us," Gould said. She said e-mail "lends itself to impulsive decisions, which is what makes it so dangerous." [BILL KACZOR Associated Press Writer]</span></blockquote><span style="font-weight: bold;">NOTE:</span> In an interview with the <a href="http://www.tallahassee.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070803/NEWS01/708030351/1010">local Tallahassee paper</a> Butler compares Gawker to al-Qaida.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">NOTE: </span>In an interview with the <a href="http://www.sptimes.com/">St Petersberg Times</a> Butler continue to assert that he is protecting Dewberry and that he is outraged that the story has spread. At the same time that he is clearly enjoying the media attention as well as the additional sales. He repeats his line about Brad Pitt.<br /><a href="http://www.sptimes.com/2007/08/02/news_pf/State/FSU_professor__She_s_.shtml"><br /></a> <div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.sptimes.com/2007/08/02/news_pf/State/FSU_professor__She_s_.shtml">FSU professor: She's leaving me for Ted Turner</a><br /></div><blockquote><span style="font-size:85%;">He said he doesn't regret the response or the original e-mail. "I wrote it to protect Elizabeth. I guess I was a little naive. After all, it's Ted Turner."<br /><br />Butler said the media response has been astonishing. "Good grief, I've talked to People magazine today. You'd think we were Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston." Gawker isn't Butler's first experience with the tabloid mentality; his 1996 story collection Tabloid Dreams was based on outlandish headlines. This experience could someday prove to be grist for the fictional mill, he said.<br /><br />While on the phone, Butler said, "I'm getting e-mail from strangers."<br /><br />He clicked, then began to laugh. "The subject line on this one is, 'You may not be Brad Pitt, but...,' " a reference to some of the Gawker posts critiquing his appearance. "The rest of the message is, 'I did buy two of your books today.'"</span></blockquote><span style="font-weight: bold;">NOTE: </span>while some <span style="font-style: italic;">Gawker</span> commenters are not above such a thing, the reference to Brad Pitt is not to <span style="font-style: italic;">Gawker</span> critiques of his appearance but to Butler's own repeated comparisons of himself to Brad Pitt.<br /><br />1<span style="font-weight: bold;">2:16 PM THURS AUG 02</span><br /><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat">GalleyCat</a> points out that Bob Butler has been fudging the numbers:<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/authors/shes_run_away_with_the_yachting_type_64335.asp">She's Run Away With the Yachting Type</a><br /></div><blockquote><span style="font-size:85%;">Not that we want to dwell too long on the spectacular flameout of Robert Olen Butler's marriage, but remember how he told off Gawker, insisting his detailed explanation of why his wife left him for Ted Turner was "intended strictly for those who personally know Elizabeth and me" and "had its intended effect around Tallahassee and in some other places where she and I are actual human beings"? Well, it turns out those "other places" stretch way past Florida, as we hear through the grapevine that some version of that email worked its way north to the complete opposite end of the country, to people who spend significantly less quality personal time with Butler than his creative writing students. Little enough time, in fact, that the recipients thought the bulletin was creepy. Although, let's face it, you could be Robert Olen Butler's best friend ever and be creeped out by that letter.</span></blockquote><span style="font-weight: bold;">NOTE: </span>Newspaper reports continue to stick to the story that the email was originally sent to just a few close friends. By Friday this is proven to be false and yet no "real" journalism outlet has corrected its story.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">FRI AUG 3 2007</span><br />Chickens, home, roosts, etc.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">AM</span><br />In an amazing story Roger Friedman, gossip columnist for <span style="font-style: italic;">Fox News</span>, announces: "I must tell you that it’s in great part thanks to yours truly that Butler even exists in the literary world."<br /><br />In a piece that seems written from bizarro world Friedman asserts that he could no longer tolerate Butler because he was too much of a fraud, egomaniac and sleaze...for Friedman! The mind reels.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">Excerpts: <span style="font-weight: bold;">Ted Turner: Pulitzer Tempest in a Small Teapot</span><br /></div> <blockquote><span style="font-size:85%;">When I met him in 1983, he was on his second marriage — Dewberry is his fourth — and living in a salt box cottage in Sea Cliff, Long Island in New York. He was writing novels while traveling round trip on the railroad to Manhattan, where he was working for a trade magazine.<br /><br />The late and legendary Anatole Broyard discovered him in a writing class. He gave Butler’s first novel, “The Alleys of Eden,” published by the tiny Horizon Press, a rave in the Times. In 1984, after the amazingly talented editor Bob Wyatt brought “Alleys” to Ballantine Books —where I was a publicist — it was yours truly who took him to Robert Gottlieb at Knopf. I still recall sitting in Gottlieb’s office, in a plastic chair in the shape of a hand, as he showed me all his famous triumphs like "Catch-22." I also brought Butler to the late, great agent Candida Donadio , who couldn’t wait to represent him along with her associate Eric Ashworth (also deceased, sadly). The pair immediately snatched him up, and result was a pair of fine novel: “On Distant Ground,” published in 1985, and “Wabash” a couple of years later.<br /><br />That novel did Bob a lot of good, but we could never have anticipated the response to "A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain," a collection of short stories he wrote after moving to Lake Charles, La., divorcing wife No. 2 and marrying wife No. 3, a lovely local girl who was a great stepmother to his then 13-year-old son. "Good Scent" was a throwaway, a book Bob thought was beneath him. He was a novelist, after all.<br /><br />Wife No. 2, a charismatic Catholic with a history of sexual abuse and mental infelicity, by then was long gone. Bob, having dealt with her baggage, was a porter looking for more people to save.<br /><br />When the Pulitzer came in 1993, it couldn’t have been at a worse time. His ego was already on “explode.” I tried to explain to him what winning an award like this could do to your life. He didn’t listen. Affairs began, in lockstep with readings around the country. He became a stereotype.<br /><br />In one week, he announced that he was leaving No. 3 for a married woman he’d met at a conference. Before that plan even took hold, he’d met Dewberry, pronounced her a “great writer,” and saw his future at last. What he had been thinking, married to a civilian? And No. 3 was over, and No. 4 began.<br /><br />But it was also the end of our friendship. The Bob Butler I’d met a decade earlier was completely gone, replaced by an unrecognizable "star."<br /></span></blockquote><span style="font-weight: bold;">10:35 AM</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">Gawker</span> is now receiving various anecdotes about Butler's behavior as a visitor, teacher, etc. The one they post is an anecdote told by Ann Beattie:<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://gawker.com/news/hubris/robert-olen-butler-has-always-been-like-this-285664.php">Robert Olen Butler Has Always Been Like This</a><br /></div> <div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size:78%;">(click on link above to post at Gawker site with all comments)<br /><br /></span> </div> <span style="font-weight: bold;">NOTE: </span>If you've spent any time around English Departments, Creative Writing departments or writers conferences, you are going to have a few stories of your own. When that a-hole has their public comeuppance you too can step forward and testify. There is something profoundly unsavory and puritannical about this form of punishment. It is the modern day version of putting someone in the public stocks and throwing rotten food at them. It is an unchecked sphere where people can say pretty much whatever they want without consequences... kind of like what tenured faculty have all the time, except that they have real power over their students (administrators, junior faculty) and what they do and say can't be dismissed as just the rantings of crazy bloggers.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">AM FRI AUG 3 </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat">GalleyCat</a> shares news about the split couple's appearance at an upcoming writer's conference and the increasing paranoid fantasies of Bob Butler.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/authors/best_literary_retreat_drama_ever_64383.asp">Best Literary Retreat Drama Ever</a><br /></div><blockquote><span style="font-size:85%;">I'm almost sorry that I've already spent my way through the entire GalleyCat conference travel budget for 2007, because the director of the Sanibel Island Writer's Conference has confirmed to his local southwest Florida newspaper that Robert Olen Butler and Elizabeth Dewberry are still scheduled to appear at the four-day conference in early October. Tom DeMarchi also tells The News-Press that Butler, who's scheduled to give the keynote address, informed him about the breakup over a month ago. "All I had to say in response was how sorry I was, and asked if there was anything they needed from me," he told the reporter, and as far as he knew last week, the two of them were getting along fine. Of course, that was before Butler made the mistake of using an email to tell at least a dozen people his theories about why his wife would rather be Ted Turner's part-time lover—an email he's now telling reporters he thinks "somebody in the New York publishing world" stole and passed on to Gawker. Sure, Bob: Some underpaid publishing apparatchik took the time to hack an FSU grad student's computer on the off chance there might be some juicy Robert Olen Butler dirt stashed on it. That makes sense. Maybe you should try to get together with <a href="http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/publishing/romantic_times_ceo_it_probably_is_me_unless_someone_hacks_into_my_computer_58442.asp"><span style="font-style: italic;">Romantic Times</span> CEO Kathryn Falk</a> and see where your imaginations take you. Actually, now that I think about it, I might be more inclined to read the results of that hypothetical collaboration than the collection of severed head stories he published last year...</span></blockquote><span style="font-weight: bold;">Robert Olen Butler and Wikipedia</span><br />One amusing side show could be found at the online encyclopedia Wikipedia updated the scandal on the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Olen_Butler">Robert Olen Butler</a> entry in practically real time -- so that his entry ultimately included an hilarious amount of scandalous detail. This lead to an unusually testy confrontation between wikipedia editors about the proper contents of the online encyclopedia. The resulting compromise was a beefed up literary career entry that far exceeded the amount that is generally devoted to a writer of his rather limited stature and reputation. He won the Pulitzer prize, yes, but that was fourteen years ago.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">What have we learned?</span><br /><a href="http://gawker.com/news/hubris/robert-olen-butler-has-always-been-like-this-285664.php#c2037802"></a><blockquote><span style="font-size:85%;"><a href="http://gawker.com/news/hubris/robert-olen-butler-has-always-been-like-this-285664.php#c2037802">BY LOLCAIT AT 08/03/07 11:19 AM</a><br /><span>Things I Have Learned This Week</span><br /><span>by Robert Olen Butler:</span><br />- Email, apparently, has something to do with the Internet, which is a network of shared information and accessible country, and possibly even world, wide.<br />- Joey P, my bouffanted dog, does not appreciate media attention and will take to sulking under the stairs if I try to call him "Elizabeth" when I am drunk and wearing her old housecoat.<br />- The Parrot was not me/was me/was not me/was very much me.<br />- NPR cares, in some small fraction, about me.<br />- It's best to breathe deep and maybe swallow your pride a little bit before writing down how you feel when you picture her and him, bronzed by Georgian sun, zooming on jet skis toward Cumberland Island, her face pressed up against his back, eyes closed tight against the wind, her heart racing, mind dreaming because, more than likely, you'll end up sending raving letters into the cyber world and sit, waiting all night, a bottle of bourbon propped up between your legs, waiting for the dim whisper of a sympathetic response.</span></blockquote><span style="font-weight: bold;">NOTE:</span> I assumed the bichon was named "Fluffy".<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">NOTE:</span> The lesson learned is not that you can't send anything private by email but that if you don't want something shared with the public then you shouldn't send a group email and invite the recipients to share the information. DUH. The key is that the messages are sent between two people exclusively who are close and trustworthy friends who have no interest in sharing the contents with anyone else. This is why students/professors employees/bosses and colleagues and ex-wives are never truly your friends. They are always in a relationship with you that different from that of a friend.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">NOTE:</span> If you lie (e.g. the email was only sent to a "few" close friends, my ex-wife was "weepingly grateful" to me for sending it) they will be discovered via the web. However, mainstream journalism is unlikely to correct their mistakes so your lies will stand in the general media. This is something Butler may have learned from Karl Rove.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">PM FRI AUG 3</span> One <span style="font-style: italic;">Gawker</span> commenter is fed up with the topic. The attack elicits this response:<a href="http://gawker.com/news/gold-star-motel/dude-better-take-those-spring-break-pics-off-his-facebook-285847.php#c2043684"><br /></a> <blockquote><span style="font-size:85%;"><a href="http://gawker.com/news/gold-star-motel/dude-better-take-those-spring-break-pics-off-his-facebook-285847.php#c2043684">MADAMEEDUCATRIX AT 08/03/07 07:14 PM</a> Is this a breakup? That's it...I'm writing a letter to our colleagues, acquaintances, and the population at large. </span></blockquote> ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~<br /><blockquote style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">"Till human voices wake us, and we drown."</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">(this and other quotes above from:)</span></span><br /><a href="http://209.10.134.179/198/1.html">"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"<br />by T. S. Eliot</a></blockquote><a href="http://209.10.134.179/198/1.html"></a>kora in hellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08726109864699114854noreply@blogger.com30tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33870522.post-27727550812303136222007-07-10T13:28:00.000-07:002007-07-25T16:22:32.531-07:00fight club : irving and hitch throw it downWho knew the New York Times Book Review could be so waggish?<br /><br /><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/pages/books/review/index.html">The New York Times Sunday Book Review 2007/07/08 </a><br /><br />From<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/08/books/review/Irving.html?ref=books"> 'Peeling the Onion' By GÜNTER GRASS Reviewed by JOHN IRVING </a><br /><br />Irving writes:<br /><blockquote> "Imagine this: Grass still feels guilty for being drafted into the Waffen SS at 17 while some of his older fellow soldiers from the Frundsberg tank division are attending reunions! Yet Grass's most egregious critic — Christopher Hitchens, in Slate — calls him "something of a bigmouth and a fraud, and also something of a hypocrite." It is Grass's craven critics — the fatuous Hitchens among them — who should feel ashamed."</blockquote><br />If we need proof that God does not exist then there we have it. There was no bolt of lightening sent down from above and Hitchens, who knows something about being a bigmouth and a fraud, and also something of a hypocrite, is still standing, completely unsinged.<br /><br />Should we need proof of Irving's charge that Hitchens is fatuous, assistance is close at hand: we only need to turn a few more pages in the Book Review.<br /><br />The helpful editors have provided supplementary material for Irving's readers in the form of another one of Hitch's slap-dash self-amusements that pass for book reviews:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/08/books/review/Hitchens.html">On Royalty By JEREMY PAXMAN Reviewed by CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS </a><br /><br />I thought this was rather amusing.<br /><br />Hitch uses his usual modus operandi, i.e., he takes the subject of the book under review as a starting point from which to launch into his favorite subject: himself and his opinions. For his fans this is the reason for reading Hitchens. Anyone interested in a topic other than Hitchens, say, for example, the book that is allegedly under review, is SOL.<br /><br />Of course no Hitchens piece is complete without some sort of whinging about the Middle East: "mark my words" he says. (Oy. Do we have a choice?) He is very desperate about this matter nowadays. He gets into his high preacher mode, pointing out some evil in Islam or the Middle East and then using it to argue that those who disagree with him are supporting terrorism and tyranny.<br /><br /><br />He's a clever man. Less so now than he used to be. He can no longer argue very effectively -- at least not at a serious academic level. From a <a href="http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB118247644823044329.html?mod=blog">WSJ article regarding a panel Hitch was on in Miami</a>:<br /><br /><blockquote style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;" class="gmail_quote">"I now wish I hadn't participated," says Nathan Katz, a professor of religious studies at Florida International University. "He was utterly abusive. It had the intellectual level of the Jerry Springer Show."</blockquote> <p>I saw this on CSPAN. Hitch really is aiming for the Jerry Springer audience. Hitchens' behavior was typical: monopolizing, mugging and playing to the crowd. He was appallingly rude to the scholars like Katz, speaking to them like they were idiots even though they clearly knew more and had sharper arguments (that he was unable to counter). Attempts to raise the level of the conversation were constantly undone by Hitchens' antics. He likes to prattle on about little factoids, parading them as evidence of his learnedness. But intellectually he actually does not have much to offer in the way of a serious argument -- above what you'd hear from a college sophomore -- and in the end he resorts to anecdotal whinging. It is rather sad. His faculties truly have declined. </p> He has developed strategies, however. He does alright if it is a media event designed so that he can turn it into a circus or a shouting match. He will quickly resort to bullying. He talks -- loudly -- over his interlocutors. He knows how to put on a show.He has a store of arcane knowledge and bon mots and rhetorical tics. The problem is that they are really more for show than anything else. He doesn't use them to engage in a discussion with another person with a different point of view. He actually uses them in order to get the discussion away from a point that he can't counter.<br /><br />If he senses too much disagreement from the audience he becomes very emotionally volatile and takes great moral offense. He will switch into his school marm/preacher stance, chastising those whose immorality has insulted his sensibilities. It is a bit surprising given that he's an admitted contrarian. You would think that he'd be able to reap what he sows.<br /><br />After all, his joining up with the neocons was freely chosen. It's not like he was a 17-year old boy under conscription to a fascist regime in the midst of a brutal world war. What a pickle he's in.<br /><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-size:85%;">NOTE: One reason for my intense criticism of Hitchens is that, like a lot of his former fans, I would have expected better. It is rather sad to read his writings or watch him give talks now. I also see a decline in his intellectual capabilities and I suspect we are watching early onset dementia from chronic alcoholism. Chronic alcohol dependence can damage alcoholics' brains, particularly the frontal lobes, which are critically involved in higher-order cognitive functions such as problem solving, reasoning, abstraction, as well as short-term memory, and emotional regulation. (<a href="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/12/041220004610.htm">Recent studies suggest that chronic smoking acerbates these conditions.</a>)<br /><br />Further reading:<br /></span> <ul> <li><a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200707u/christopher-hitchens"><span class="artsans">Atlantic Unbound | July 12, 2007 Interviews. Transcending God: Christopher Hitchens.</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;"> (Hitchens on Al Sharpton: "</span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" ><span class="arttype">what a clown the guy is—a vulgar clown.")</span></span></li> </ul> <ul> <li><a href="http://chronicle.com/temp/reprint.php?id=n6r9fjc076nx1zx7qmcx98f82shcp3vc">Secularism in the Elimination Round. By JACQUES BERLINERBLAU. The Chronicle Review. Volume 53, Issue 39, Page B6.</a></li> </ul><br /><a href="http://chronicle.com/temp/reprint.php?id=n6r9fjc076nx1zx7qmcx98f82shcp3vc"> </a>kora in hellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08726109864699114854noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33870522.post-5482751382398974242007-04-01T08:58:00.000-07:002007-04-02T12:21:20.403-07:00fire and ice<span style="font-weight: bold;">Robert Frost (1874–1963) </span><br /><br /> Some say the world will end in fire,<br />Some say in ice.<br />From what I've tasted of desire<br />I hold with those who favor fire.<br />But if it had to perish twice,<br />I think I know enough of hate<br />To say that for destruction ice<br />Is also great<br />And would suffice<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Miscellaneous Poems to 1920</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Harper’s Magazine</span>, December 1920<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2lR4sb3DZpciUQGfZFQrw6fEV_CGn6WQZH1Ysx4ehKwQWz__EM2v61F_qI7xtV4n0Zjgv1qq-IF5gg1lspp2GlJjnvCHEQ3Gs8GyH3ewJS64bPalyj1aoP4UKySCZEhPBECc9/s1600-h/fire-and-ice-2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2lR4sb3DZpciUQGfZFQrw6fEV_CGn6WQZH1Ysx4ehKwQWz__EM2v61F_qI7xtV4n0Zjgv1qq-IF5gg1lspp2GlJjnvCHEQ3Gs8GyH3ewJS64bPalyj1aoP4UKySCZEhPBECc9/s200/fire-and-ice-2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5048489268146480930" border="0" /></a><br />Resources:<br /><a href="http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/a_f/frost/frost.htm"></a><ul><li><a href="http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/a_f/frost/frost.htm">Modern American Poetry</a> </li><li><a href="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/192">Academy of American Poets</a></li><li><a href="http://www.learner.org/catalog/extras/vvspot/Frost.html">Voices and Visions</a></li><li><a href="http://www.lib.virginia.edu/small/exhibits/frost/home.html">A Frost Bouquet</a></li></ul>kora in hellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08726109864699114854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33870522.post-12793991800532899242007-03-31T08:57:00.000-07:002007-03-31T09:11:10.039-07:00Wallace Stevens<span style="font-weight: bold;">2 poems with the word </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">ice</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> in them </span><span style="font-style: italic;">in which the image for the poet and/or artist is the snow man and the emperor of ice cream, which, aside from the fact that they both refer to things that are cold, are actually very different, although not necessarily contradictory. </span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Snow Man<br /><br /></span>One must have a mind of winter<br />To regard the frost and the boughs<br />Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;<br /><br />And have been cold a long time<br />To behold the junipers shagged with ice,<br />The spruces rough in the distant glitter<br /><br />Of the January sun; and not to think<br />Of any misery in the sound of the wind,<br />In the sound of a few leaves,<br /><br />Which is the sound of the land<br />Full of the same wind<br />That is blowing in the same bare place<br /><br />For the listener, who listens in the snow,<br />And, nothing himself, beholds<br />Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Emperor of Ice-Cream</span><br /><br /> Call the roller of big cigars,<br /> The muscular one, and bid him whip<br /> In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.<br /> Let the wenches dawdle in such dress<br /> As they are used to wear, and let the boys<br /> Bring flowers in last month's newspapers.<br /> Let be be finale of seem.<br /> The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.<br /><br /> Take from the dresser of deal,<br /> Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet<br /> On which she embroidered fantails once<br /> And spread it so as to cover her face.<br /> If her horny feet protrude, they come<br /> To show how cold she is, and dumb.<br /> Let the lamp affix its beam.<br /> The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream<br /><br /><br />-- Wallace Stevens<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">further info to come . . . </span>kora in hellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08726109864699114854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33870522.post-50521779103412540582007-03-12T08:46:00.001-07:002007-03-13T12:14:39.508-07:00james joyce<div style="text-align: center;"> <div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:85%;">N<span style="font-size:78%;">OTE</span>: this is part of my series on alternative ways of celebrating the Irish on Saint Patrick's Day: check archives or <a href="http://kora-in-hell-letters.blogspot.com/2007/03/irish-writers.html">click here for more information</a>.<br /><br /></span></div> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDIeiKRI9YYlvEpzS-K6ORzmiMYbu3m3oy0qB7_v7bBeNtnHpvfnKzLK137Qbs8xdDlIg49i2hCdCj4Mr8cZXllM8pOU3pTfbnlZsl_2Bs-ImPdvlwjzSZG_cmt6CASWf9QRoT/s1600-h/james_joyce2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDIeiKRI9YYlvEpzS-K6ORzmiMYbu3m3oy0qB7_v7bBeNtnHpvfnKzLK137Qbs8xdDlIg49i2hCdCj4Mr8cZXllM8pOU3pTfbnlZsl_2Bs-ImPdvlwjzSZG_cmt6CASWf9QRoT/s400/james_joyce2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5041483938579187762" border="0" /></a><br /></div> <div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 102, 0); font-weight: bold;font-size:130%;" >James Augustine Aloysius Joyce<br />2 February 1882 -- 13 January 1941</span><br /></div><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">A F<span style="font-size:85%;">EW</span> R<span style="font-size:85%;">ESOURCES</span></span> :<br /><br /><a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://www.themodernword.com/joyce/">the brazen head</a><br />The Brazen Head is the Web's largest and most comprehensive general resource site for James Joyce.<br /><br /><a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://www.jamesjoyce.ie/">James Joyce Centre</a><br />Run by the Joyce family, this elegant Georgian building in North Great George's Street is the centre of activity on Bloomsday.<br /><br /><a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://www.joycefoundation.ch/">Zurich James Joyce Foundation</a><br />Includes articles from their newsletter and information on events, workshops, and scholarships.<br /><br /><a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://english.osu.edu/research/organizations/ijjf/default.cfm.">International James Joyce Foundation</a><br /><br /><a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://www.trentu.ca/faculty/jjoyce/">Finnegans Wake and Ulysses</a><br />HTML and other electronic versions of James Joyce two major novels<br /><br /><a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://www.nytimes.com/books/00/01/09/specials/joyce.html">New York Times Featured Author</a><br />In addition to reviews and interviews this resource includes information on the censorship trials of <span style="font-style: italic;">Ulysses.</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(0, 102, 0); font-weight: bold;"></span><br /><a style="color: rgb(0, 102, 0); font-weight: bold;" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI0jd9pnZLw-SNdtHxv7U0EHFhjiQeR8wzmiG-poLH6XpvxxryddBQvwOW4mPMqRa0cUlhstD08yb-8SvDyYex9HgMIalmvfdnciEQwO1HPcl9Z1Hyf_87Fhe8IV8WvN9MeRLY/s1600-h/joyce.gif"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI0jd9pnZLw-SNdtHxv7U0EHFhjiQeR8wzmiG-poLH6XpvxxryddBQvwOW4mPMqRa0cUlhstD08yb-8SvDyYex9HgMIalmvfdnciEQwO1HPcl9Z1Hyf_87Fhe8IV8WvN9MeRLY/s400/joyce.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5041480700173846562" border="0" /></a><br /><blockquote style="color: rgb(0, 102, 0); font-weight: bold;">"A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are the portals to discovery." — <span style="font-style: italic;">Ulysses<br /><br /></span>"Writing in English is the most ingenious torture ever devised for sins committed in previous lives. "<br /><br />— James Joyce</blockquote>kora in hellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08726109864699114854noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33870522.post-68508861437861505302007-03-11T20:03:00.000-07:002007-03-13T12:14:03.262-07:00samuel beckett<div style="text-align: center;"> <div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:85%;">N<span style="font-size:78%;">OTE</span>: this is part of my series on alternative ways of celebrating the Irish on Saint Patrick's Day: check archives or <a href="http://kora-in-hell-letters.blogspot.com/2007/03/irish-writers.html">click here for more information</a>. </span><br /></div><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.a-e-m-gmbh.com/wessely/beckett.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxfdgSzTZJEST3QVcxQ1P0kIbY_bbmHJlKpBh7lknHFZc8rxN_FnwgwVFz4nq65QoySt3SsMnpT6vpyu7vTUAxkq2smAxpRwYKRn9Gc8eBWmJNZem4IWsrS8o8fbJehIwMuZbK/s400/beckettwessely.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5040915040096061202" border="0" /></a><br />[click on image to go to source]<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><b style="color: rgb(0, 102, 0); font-weight: bold;">Samuel Barclay Beckett</b></span><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 102, 0); font-weight: bold;">April 13, 1906–December 22, 1989</span></span><br /></div><br /><i>Yeats is the great poet, Wilde and Shaw are the great wits, Joyce is the brilliant literary stylist: the greatest shapeshifter of the English language. </i><i> Joyce's writing is lush. Beckett's work is hungry. </i><i> </i><i>Beckett is the philosopher--or anti-philosopher. He is the most profound. He is the most intellectually challenging. He is challenging not only in his style and content but in the darkness of his vision. He is also the greatest comic writer of them all. Like all great Irish writers he is capable of all types of humor from wordplay and punning to the bawdy and utterly scatalogical. </i><i>But no other writer than perhaps Kafka sees the comic so intimately tied to despair. He is not despairing but he is pitiless. </i><i>Beckett refuses to provide the kind of sustenance </i><i>we often want from literature but </i><i>he gives us something in that refusal. I don't know how I'd survive without him.<br /></i><br /><a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://www.samuel-beckett.net/">Samuel Beckett On-Line Resources</a><br />This site has most thorough list of online links to resources including writings by Beckett available online : <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 168);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:85%;" ><span style="font-size:85%;"><b><a href="http://www.samuel-beckett.net/#x4">Links to on-line texts by Samuel Beckett</a></b></span></span><br /><br /><a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://www.themodernword.com/beckett/">Apmonia</a><br />Maintained by collaborators Tim Conley and Allen Ruch Apmonia is the Web's largest and most comprehensive general resource site for Samuel Beckett.<span style=""></span><br /><br /><span id="_ctl9_Label1"><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></span><a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://www.ua.ac.be/main.aspx?c=*SBECKETT">The Samuel Beckett Endpage</a><br />The official page of the The Samuel Beckett Society.<span id="_ctl9_Label1"><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></span><br /><br /><a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://www.beckettfoundation.org.uk/">The Samuel Beckett Foundation</a><span style="font-weight: bold;" id="_ctl9_Label1"><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span><br />Originated in the University of Reading Samuel Beckett Exhibition of 1971 and grew rapidly, through material donated by Beckett himself as well as his friends. It is now the most extensive collection of Beckett materials in the world.<br /><br /><a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1969/index.html">Samuel Beckett Nobel Laureate Page</a><br />Prize for Literature Awarded in 1969 "<span style="font-style: italic;">for his writing, which - in new forms for the novel and drama - in the destitution of modern man acquires its elevation</span>."<br /><br /><a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/exhibitions/online/beckett/intro/">Fathoms from Anywhere </a><br />Samuel Beckett Centenary Exhibition at Univerity of Texas<br /><br /><a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://www.theonion.com/content/node/47722">the onion.com</a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Scholars Discover 23 Blank Pages That May As Well Be Lost Samuel Beckett Play<br /><br /></span><a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://kora-in-hell.blogspot.com/">kora in hell</a><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;"> | </span><a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://kora-in-hell-beatrix.blogspot.com/">beatrix</a><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;"> | </span><a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://kora-in-hell-beatrix.blogspot.com/2007/03/kerry-blues-and-beckett.html">kerry blues and beckett</a><span style="font-style: italic;"> <br />Fun facts about Samuel Beckett's favorite dog: a Kerry Blue Terrier.</span><span style="font-style: italic;"><br /><br /></span> <div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6GFZjmdOgkVpY-Kz8FVzHOcJNNtdINMh_hZTT4CbHWnKvNT_maZ72HN7yHm5dHNfVsIzTeOdq7wKYK1T0tk8jGPCfWnf4XALvXvCUShg04PVMcxakk3IKIOKWVjD-oxL-BPET/s1600-h/sbhcb64.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6GFZjmdOgkVpY-Kz8FVzHOcJNNtdINMh_hZTT4CbHWnKvNT_maZ72HN7yHm5dHNfVsIzTeOdq7wKYK1T0tk8jGPCfWnf4XALvXvCUShg04PVMcxakk3IKIOKWVjD-oxL-BPET/s400/sbhcb64.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5040915044391028530" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:78%;">Henri Cartier-Bresson, 1964</span></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"> <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">"Words were my only love and not many."</span></span></div> <i><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />A few famous quotes (others are available on the general Beckett sites):</span><br /></i><i><br /></i><i style="color: rgb(0, 102, 0);"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Waiting for Godot </span></i><span style="color: rgb(0, 102, 0);"><span style="font-weight: bold;">(1952)</span></span><br /><blockquote> We are all born mad. Some remain so.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span><i><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span></i><br />E<span style="font-size:85%;">STRAGON</span>: Well, shall we go?<br />V<span style="font-size:85%;">LADIMIR</span>: Yes, let's go. (They do not move.)<i><br /><br /></i>E<span style="font-size:85%;">STRAGON</span>: I can't go on like this.<br />V<span style="font-size:85%;">LADIMIR</span>: That's what you think.</blockquote><br /><i style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 102, 0);">Endgame </i><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 102, 0);">(1957)</span><i style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></i><blockquote>N<span style="font-size:85%;">ELL</span>: Nothing is funnier than unhappiness, I grant you that. But– [...] Yes, yes, it’s the most comic thing in the world. And we laugh, we laugh, with a will, in the beginning. But it’s always the same thing. Yes, it’s like the funny story we have heard too often, we still find it funny, but we don’t laugh any more.</blockquote><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Kora's selected Samuel Beckett Quotes to </span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Inspire (i.e., Words To Live By), most of which are also funny as all hell: </span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 102, 0);"><span style="font-style: italic;">Molloy</span> (1951)</span><br /><blockquote>... you would do better, at least no worse, to obliterate texts than to blacken margins, to fill in the holes of words till all is blank and flat and the whole ghastly business looks like what it is, senseless, speechless, issueless misery.<br /><br />Oh the stories I could tell you if I were easy. What a rabble in my head, what a gallery of moribunds. Murphy, Watt, Yerk, Mercier and all the others. I would never have believed that – yes, I believe it willingly. Stories, stories. I have not yet been able to tell them. I shall not be able to tell this one.<br /><br />But the idea of ageing was not exactly the one that offered itself to me. And what I saw was more like a crumbling, a frenzied collapsing of all that had always protected me from all I was condemned to be. Or it was like a kind of clawing towards a light and countenance I could not name, that I had once known and long denied.<br /><br />To restore silence is the role of objects.<br /><br />All the things you would do gladly, oh without enthusiasm, but gladly, all the things there seems no reason for your not doing, and that you do not do! Can it be we are not free? It might be worth looking into.<br /><br />In me there have always been two fools, among others, one asking nothing better than to stay where he is and the other imagining that life might be slightly less horrible a little further on.<br /><br />Yes, there were times when I forgot not only who I was, but that I was, forgot to be.<br /><br />Tears and laughter, they are so much Gaelic to me.</blockquote><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 102, 0);"><span style="font-style: italic;">Malone Dies</span> (1951)</span><br /><blockquote>Decidedly it will never have been given to me to finish anything, except perhaps breathing. One must not be greedy.<br /><br />Decidedly the night is long and poor in counsel.<br /><br />I pause to record that I feel in extraordinary form. Delirium perhaps.<br /><br />I must be happy, he said, it is less pleasant than I should have thought.</blockquote><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 102, 0);"><span style="font-style: italic;">The Unnamable</span> (1953)</span><br /><blockquote>And all these questions I ask myself. It is not in a spirit of curiosity. I cannot be silent. About myself I need know nothing. Here all is clear. No, all is not clear. But the discourse must go on. So one invents obscurities. Rhetoric.<br /><br />That the impossible should be asked of me, good, what else could be asked of me? But the absurd! Of me whom they have reduced to reason.<br /><br />If I have said anything to the contrary I was mistaken. If I say anything to the contrary again I shall be mistaken again. Unless I am mistaken now. Into the dossier with it in any case, in support of whatever thesis you fancy.<br /><br />Is not a uniform suffering preferable to one which, by its ups and downs, is liable at certain moments to encourage the view that perhaps after all it is not eternal?<br /><br />The tears stream down my cheeks from my unblinking eyes. What makes me weep so ? From time to time. There is nothing saddening here. Perhaps it is liquefied brain.<br /><br />Deplorable mania, when something happens, to inquire what.<br /><br />What can it matter to me, that I succeed or fail ? The undertaking is none of mine, if they want me to succeed I’ll fail, and vise versa, so as not to be rid of my tormentors.<br /><br />Bah, the latest news, the latest news is not the last.<br /><br />. . . perhaps they have carried me to the threshold of my story, before the door that opens on my story, that would surprise me, if it opens, it will be I, it will be the silence, where I am, I don't know, I'll never know, in the silence you don't know, you must go on, I can't go on, I'll go on.</blockquote><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 102, 0);"><span style="font-style: italic;">How It Is</span> (1961)</span><br /><blockquote>My mistakes are my life.</blockquote><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 102, 0);"><span style="font-style: italic;">Worstward Ho</span> (1983)</span><br /><blockquote>Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.</blockquote>kora in hellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08726109864699114854noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33870522.post-60035870082144756672007-03-10T09:07:00.000-08:002007-03-11T23:56:13.560-07:00oscar wilde<span style="font-size:85%;">NOTE: This is part of my series on alternative ways of thinking about the Irish for Saint Patrick's Day. That is, the Irish are the storytellers, poets and wits of the English language and yet for some reason on the day that we celebrate the Irish we don trucker hats and t-shirts with moronic slogans like: "Drink Til Yer Green"; "Irish Drinking Team"; "Irish I was Drunk"; "Kiss/Spank/Fight/Bite/Blow Me I'm Irish" or any other variation on that theme including the (I kid you not) historically idiotic "Kiss Me I'm English." [fyi: my <a href="http://www.cafepress.com/korainhell">shop</a> has items with book of kells images if you feel like getting festive for St P Day you only have the weekend to order something from my shop (it takes several days for them to print the items plus delivery).]<br /><br /></span><span style="color: rgb(0, 102, 0); font-weight: bold;" class="text"><span style="font-size:130%;">Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wilde </span><br />October 16, 1854 - </span><span class="text"><span style="color: rgb(0, 102, 0); font-weight: bold;">November 30, 1900</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 102, 0);">R<span style="font-size:85%;">ESOURCES</span></span><br /></span><span class="text"><br /></span><a href="http://www.cmgworldwide.com/historic/wilde/">The official site of Oscar Wilde</a><br />This is a great resource but if we know anything about oscar wilde it is that one will not have the whole picture of him from anything that has the word "official" in its title.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtdBqDlb1oFg7YAaU8yhkw8ilK7tEhBFcBxg0KDp6UpjcHJVknFq3Jryj3mR-v1OAzYPL2bo-L3V1AAEW66vEEohJVHnLNbLTMNcMgM2pCidVwYSuay7BmNaodbz3iJhX6oEfO/s1600-h/oscar-wilde2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtdBqDlb1oFg7YAaU8yhkw8ilK7tEhBFcBxg0KDp6UpjcHJVknFq3Jryj3mR-v1OAzYPL2bo-L3V1AAEW66vEEohJVHnLNbLTMNcMgM2pCidVwYSuay7BmNaodbz3iJhX6oEfO/s400/oscar-wilde2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5040373384590493330" border="0" /></a><br /><a href="http://www.ucc.ie/celt/wilde.html"><span style="font-size:85%;">CELT</span> chronology and links to Wilde's writings</a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.hoboes.com/html/FireBlade/Wilde/">Fireblade Coffeehouse resources</a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/FTrials/wilde/wilde.htm">The Trials of Oscar Wilde</a><br />By Douglas O. Linder at the UMKC School of Law. Documents from Wilde's trial and imprisonment with links to the larger issues of homosexuality and the law. These resources are part of Linder's fantastic <a href="http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/ftrials.htm">Famous Trials</a> project. Warning: you could spend a lot of time there at that site.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.humnet.ucla.edu/humnet/clarklib/wildphot/default.html">Wilde and His Circle</a> : Photographs of Oscar Wilde and His Circle at the Clark Library.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.mcphee.com/items/11449.html">Oscar Wilde action figure</a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuqbLjjxNSYJgHGeKcVgiEmB86SP-1-O2NbkPr9nmFaj-L5Fhk4IBYXqAvx-YDX-PKLM4APugDJRGWajY3vGvrO4gxx9g5Dde0OE6dYIWLpmd3kO7RqUau5iTwe_ig5OMVSx9P/s1600-h/owaf.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuqbLjjxNSYJgHGeKcVgiEmB86SP-1-O2NbkPr9nmFaj-L5Fhk4IBYXqAvx-YDX-PKLM4APugDJRGWajY3vGvrO4gxx9g5Dde0OE6dYIWLpmd3kO7RqUau5iTwe_ig5OMVSx9P/s400/owaf.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5040373388885460642" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 102, 0);">Wilde Quotes</span><br />Oscar Wilde is one of the greatest wits that ever lived (Mark Twain and Groucho Marx!) There are a myriad of quotation sites for perusing Wilde's wonderful quips. However, be wary of sites that do not list the sources for the quotes. The best place I have found for Wilde quotations is <a href="http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Oscar_Wilde">Wikiquote's Oscar Wilde page</a>. Also, since many of Wilde's writings are on line (at <a href="http://www.ucc.ie/celt/wilde.html"><span style="font-size:85%;">CELT</span></a>) it is easy to confirm the quotations.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 102, 0);">from <span style="font-style: italic;">Lady Windermere's Fan</span></span><br /><blockquote>We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.<br /><br />I can resist everything except temptation.<br /><br />In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.<br /><br />Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes.<br /><br />What a pity that in life we only get our lessons when they are of no use to us.</blockquote><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 102, 0);"> from <span style="font-style: italic;">Phrases and Philosophies for the use of the Young</span></span><br /><blockquote> Ambition is the last refuge of failure.<br /><br />Religions die when they are proved to be true. Science is the record of dead religions.<br /><br />If one tells the truth, one is sure, sooner or later, to be found out.<br /><br />Only the shallow know themselves.</blockquote><br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 102, 0); font-weight: bold;"> On Art & Fashion</span><br /><blockquote> And, after all, what is a fashion? From the artistic point of view, it is usually a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.<br />from <span style="font-style: italic;">Literary and Other Notes</span><br /><br />Art never expresses anything but itself.<br />from <span style="font-style: italic;">The Decay of Lying</span><br /><br /> The difference between literature and journalism is that journalism is unreadable and literature is not read.<br />from <span style="font-style: italic;">The Critic as Artist</span></blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><span style="color: rgb(0, 102, 0); font-weight: bold;">On War</span><br /><blockquote> As long as war is regarded as wicked, it will always have its fascination. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be popular.<br />from <span style="font-style: italic;">The Critic as Artist</span><br /><br />A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.<br />from <span style="font-style: italic;">The Portrait of Mr. W. H</span>.<br /></blockquote><br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 102, 0); font-weight: bold;">Famous Last Words: </span><br /><blockquote>My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or the other of us has to go.<br /><span style="font-size:85%;"> [Wilde reportedly said this in the Paris hotel room where he died on November 30, 1900.]</span></blockquote><span style="font-size:85%;"></span> <blockquote> </blockquote><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguzV8d6LYQZvX2216aDAwXJRLnHe8zqCUZaY9WZNae8q_rbbh2LOKFYY0ZMF3gRnQzUTQzvy9MVUSeMKh5CKjpGZCdVGFIAYLg_YUbQgf4BSZ4_Rch-KO7gGNFPOr5u61DCpyz/s1600-h/Oscar-Wilde.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguzV8d6LYQZvX2216aDAwXJRLnHe8zqCUZaY9WZNae8q_rbbh2LOKFYY0ZMF3gRnQzUTQzvy9MVUSeMKh5CKjpGZCdVGFIAYLg_YUbQgf4BSZ4_Rch-KO7gGNFPOr5u61DCpyz/s400/Oscar-Wilde.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5040373380295526018" border="0" /></a>This is my favorite image of him. He was the apex of the dandy. Everything before was a prelude; everything after, homage. <span style="font-style: italic;">*Coming soon: related information on the history of the dandy. Keep checking the "fresh hell" postings on the home page for updates.</span><br /><br />Tomorrow's writer: <span style="color: rgb(0, 51, 0); font-weight: bold;">Samuel Beckett</span>. He is one of my greatest inspirations.<br /><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">Fail better. </span> </blockquote>kora in hellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08726109864699114854noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33870522.post-34171703522983338592007-03-07T15:04:00.000-08:002007-03-11T23:54:04.276-07:00irish writers<span style="font-size: 85%;">NOTE: This is part of my series on alternative ways of thinking about the Irish for Saint Patrick's Day. That is, the Irish are the storytellers, poets and wits of the English language and yet for some reason on the day that we celebrate the Irish we don trucker hats and t-shirts with moronic slogans like: "Drink Til Yer Green"; "Irish Drinking Team"; "Irish I was Drunk"; "Kiss/Spank/Fight/Bite/Blow Me I'm Irish" or any other variation on that theme including the (I kid you not) historically idiotic "Kiss Me I'm English." [fyi: my <a href="http://www.cafepress.com/korainhell">shop</a> has items with<span style="font-style: italic;"> book of kells</span> images if you feel like getting festive for St P Day you have through the weekend to order something from my shop (it takes several days for them to print the items plus delivery).]<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 102, 0);">a few resources on irish writers:</span></span><br /><br /><a style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 102, 0);" href="http://www.irishwriters-online.com/">philip casey's <span style="font-size:85%;">IWO</span> [irish writer's online] : a concise dictionary of irish writers</a><br /><br /><a style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 102, 0);" href="http://www.ucc.ie/celt/"><span style="font-size:85%;">CELT</span> : corpus of electronic texts</a><br /><br /><a style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 102, 0);" href="http://vos.ucsb.edu/browse.asp?id=1437">Voice of the Shuttle Ireland links:</a><br /><blockquote><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);"><img src="http://vos.ucsb.edu/images/bullet-cat.gif" height="12" width="12" /></span> <a href="http://vos.ucsb.edu/browse.asp?id=1098"><b>General Resources in Irish Lit.</b></a><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);"><img src="http://vos.ucsb.edu/images/bullet-cat.gif" height="12" width="12" /></span> <a href="http://vos.ucsb.edu/browse.asp?id=2258"><b>Samuel Beckett</b></a><br /><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);"><img src="http://vos.ucsb.edu/images/bullet-cat.gif" height="12" width="12" /></span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span></span><a href="http://vos.ucsb.edu/browse.asp?id=1473"><b>James Joyce</b></a><br /><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);"><img src="http://vos.ucsb.edu/images/bullet-cat.gif" height="12" width="12" /></span> <a href="http://vos.ucsb.edu/browse.asp?id=1214"><b>George Bernard Shaw</b></a><br /><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);"><img src="http://vos.ucsb.edu/images/bullet-cat.gif" height="12" width="12" /></span> <a href="http://vos.ucsb.edu/browse.asp?id=2790"><b>William Butler Yeats</b></a></blockquote><a href="http://vos.ucsb.edu/browse.asp?id=2790"><b></b></a><blockquote style="color: rgb(0, 102, 0); font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">missing: Oscar Wilde (inexcusable) and Arthur Synge<br /></blockquote><a style="color: rgb(0, 102, 0); font-weight: bold;" href="http://www.iasil.org/">International Association for the Study of Irish Literatures</a><span style="color: rgb(0, 102, 0); font-weight: bold;"> </span><br /> <p style="color: rgb(0, 102, 0); font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.islandireland.com/Pages/lit.html" target="_top">Island Ireland: Irish Literature</a><br /></p> <p style="color: rgb(0, 102, 0); font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.luminarium.org/mythology/ireland/">Luminarium Irish Links</a><br /></p><p><a style="color: rgb(0, 102, 0); font-weight: bold;" href="http://members.fortunecity.com/celticquill/index.htm">The Celtic Quill</a><span style="color: rgb(0, 102, 0); font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></p> <p>I will be posting individual blogs on individual modernist Irish writers in the following days, starting with Oscar Wilde. <span style="color: rgb(0, 102, 0); font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></p>kora in hellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08726109864699114854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33870522.post-52332520881902554062007-03-05T11:52:00.000-08:002007-03-07T14:30:19.828-08:00book of kellsEven though Saint Patrick's Day is kind of a bogus holiday, I have some items at the<span style="color: rgb(0, 51, 0); font-weight: bold;"> <a href="http://www.cafepress.com/korainhell">Kora in Hell Shop</a></span> because I do think there are reasons to celebrate Ireland and Irish culture, like the Book of Kells.<br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.cafepress.com/korainhell.113669621"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGA-jW6plP7VYRHAJ50bbsBhlAwt-Gxrw8cvbrOZzCOe6Ny7DitgCX2gqVuvjd0_bocqJoDEnIl9mbgtoPQgjYnD-YtCp5p2o5nrG0eSuhkOhcZpFoMpiT3J_zXae9VKSqxpyA/s400/eiresticker.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5038541477972528850" border="0" /></a><span style="color: rgb(0, 51, 0); font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" >click on the image to go to the shop p</span><span style="color: rgb(0, 51, 0); font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" >age for the item </span><br /></div><br />I don't really care about the historical reality of St. Patrick's Day. I mean it isn't like Christmas is on solid ground in that regard. I also think it is interesting that there are cultural traditions that are celebrated in America that are far more important here than they are in the home countries -- like St. Patrick's Day or Cinco de Mayo.<br /><br />What gets me is that for most dunderheads the way one celebrates the Irish is by getting drunk. Now, don't get me wrong. The Irish themselves have a long tradition of celebrating drinking. Fair enough. If you can drink and rattle off a good story or song and carry on with the poetry and wit of the Irish then you are indeed celebrating the spirit of the olde country. But just going out and getting blasted until you barf is, among other things, not about how the Irish drink but about how drunks drink.<br /><br />I'm not the first to point out that this is the one cultural stereotype for which there is no cultural taboo -- indeed it is celebrated and encouraged by "Irish Americans" themselves. As to who is Irish-American, that is another matter. The largest and most ethnically cohesive group are the Irish Americans whose ancestors went through Ellis Island and who continue to live in the generally Irish neighborhoods of New York, Boston and Chicago. They are also connected to the older Irish Americans who came over during the famine as well as those who came over later, after Ellis Island closed. Those groups have also dispersed and how much someone continues to identify with being "Irish American" depends upon a variety of factors including, family, job, and where one lives.<br /><br />On St. Patrick's Day everyone with an Irish name is Irish. I don't know the percentage of Americans with Irish surnames but it is certainly a very high percentage. My own name is Irish, from an ancestor who came over during the famine. The fact is, I am an American mongrel from half a dozen different nations and technically I am as much Cherokee as I am Irish (one sixteenth for what it's worth) but that is another topic.<br /><br />On St. Patrick's Day everyone who is drinking is Irish. It was my Irish (and English) grandfather who was the alcoholic. You don't have to be Irish to be an alcoholic, but it helps, so the joke goes. (There are other ethnicities for which this could be said but we wouldn't consider the joke very funny, would we?)<br /><br />There is so much more to the Irish, of course. Oh, like, Beckett, Joyce, Wilde, Shaw, Yeats, Synge, just to start with the modernists . . . which is where I tend to start and then I never really leave.<br /><br />However, I'll start today with the <span style="color: rgb(0, 51, 0);">Book of Kells</span> because of the rather profane reason that I have some items in my <a href="http://www.cafepress.com/korainhell">shop</a> with images from it. Here are a couple of places for sources of information. Frankly the web is a little thin on resources for the BoK. That said, I think the history of printing link is quite nice. I will add a reading list later. <ul style="font-family:lucida grande;"> <li><span style="font-size:130%;"><a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://www.tcd.ie/info/trinity/bookofkells/">Trinity College : Information on the Book of Kells</a></span></li> <li><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://communication.ucsd.edu/bjones/Books/four.html">The Book of Kells and the History of Printing</a></span></span></li> </ul>A couple of brief descriptions of the <span style="color: rgb(0, 51, 0);">Book of Kells</span> are provided below and at the bottom I have added a few images of items for sale at my shop.<br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.cafepress.com/korainhell.94009217"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSr22Sss-so2n2ji2hAq8xLCS_Wp7Lk6XfDK7yuSxawlfuliveKxPjKSx_BB3vnzzGtTNDoR8hA8wnoBTsepzPnN7gVl_2V2gCEtmWW_Dtz6xSvrppZvj-wwf4IpZWh1HwQhsF/s400/ToteFront.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5038539708446002834" border="0" /></a><span style="color: rgb(0, 51, 0); font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" >click on the image to go to the shop page for the item</span></div> <div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.cafepress.com/korainhell.94009217"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnT9FiIPmsjbkjO_TOosK8JjP1njVr-H49MrCOBtxa4PBP6h66asIn6Ie8UwO-cclAefvUHZGKk6UvdSXcD-trMJunEF6qPCE7PtjbpqCDpgZ1iS7C6eNNAV_nD2gr6JdMHbth/s400/ToteBack.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5038539704151035522" border="0" /></a><span style="color: rgb(0, 51, 0); font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" >the tote bag is double sided:<br />cat on one side, dog/wolf/woflhound on the other<br /></span></div> <span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Times New Roman,Times;" ><br /></span></span><span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Times New Roman,Times;" >Created around 800A.D., the Book of Kells has been in the possession of Trinity College since 1661.<br /></span></span><span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Times New Roman,Times;" ><br />In the Middle Ages, it was the Church that carried the torch of learning as well as the propagation of the faith. Irish monastics, living disciplined lives of obedience, work, and frugality, were also missionaries whose influence was felt throughout western Europe. They carried pocket books of the gospel for use in their work. But the Book of Kells was not a work for day-to-day use; it is thought to have been altar furniture used for special occasions. Scribes (who held high status within the ranks of the monks) painstakingly copied, in Latin, the four gospels of the life of Christ, with quill pens on vellum - stretched calfskin. (It is estimated that 185 calves' skins were used for the Book of Kells.) Beyond the handsome calligraphy, though, it is the embellishment and illustration of the book in brilliant colors that transforms it into a masterpiece of medieval art. The glowing colors were achieved with an astonishing range of pigments, from crushed oak apples to lapis lazuli to beetles' wings. Complex imagery with multiple symbolic meanings includes peacocks, snakes, animals, spirals and triskeles, and, of course, crosses of various styles. Images of saints are used, some rendered with great style and draftsmanship. Together these elements achieve both an immediacy and a sense of mystery; scholarly research will doubtlessly continue to interpret and reinterpret the work endlessly. Source: <a href="http://www.tcd.ie/info/trinity/bookofkells/">Trinity College Library</a><br /><br /></span></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Mystical Testimony to Early Irish Christendom </span><br />Irish monks, once the storms of the mass migrations had quietened down, took to spread the Christian faith all over Europe by their dedicated mission during the 5th, 6th and 7th centuries. The age-old Irish-Celtic culture began to fuse with the impressions gathered by the monks during their extended dangerous travels. At that time, also called The Time of Scholars and Saints, the Irish monasteries were influential cultural and spiritual centres of Europe. At the height of Irish monasticism its most precious work was created, the Book of Kells.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">A Masterpiece Created 1200 Years Ago </span><br />The Book of Kells is thought to be the work of a number of unknown genius-artists living in the monastery Iona around the year 800. It is first mentioned in an account of the theft in a church in 1007 which describes it as "the great gospel of Columcille, the holiest relic in the Western world". Soon after that the manuscript was found buried at Kells. And it would remain there until, during the reign of Cromwell, it was brought to Dublin for safety reasons. Around 1661 Henry Jones, bishop of Meath, donated it to the library of Trinity College where it is kept to this day.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Pinnacle of Early Medieval Bookmaking </span><br />There are very few other works which express a similar symbolic power and magical radiation as this magnificent Gospel Book. Its mysticism lies in its rich and complex decoration. The impression of the holiness of the text is enhanced by its decorative apparatus which seems truly supernatural. Analysts examining the style of the decorative elements used in the Book of Kells have come to ascribe it to an artistic tradition which is also found in other works of art of the same period. However, too little information survives to exactly localise and date the manuscript according to its geographical or historical background.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Letters Evolve into Pictures and Pictures into Letters </span><br />The Book of Kells contains mainly the Four Gospels. However, other texts were also included in the book; at the beginning of the book, the canonical tables which contain the concordance compiled by Eusebius of Caesarea, and a number of property deeds relating to the monastery of Kells. The Latin text is written in proud insular semi-uncial, which like its magnificent illuminations, marks a highlight of Irish art creation. The Book of Kells must have been made in a scriptorium which knew even the most sophisticated tricks of the trade in manuscript production, as only the most profound technical know-how combined with excellent knowledge on contemporary and historic art could create such a wealth of symbolic and mystical illustrations.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Unique Wealth of Ornaments and Colour </span><br />The Book of Kells contains diverse miniatures of the Early Middle Ages which count among the most beautiful ever made. All, except two, pages of the manuscript are decorated with a truly unbelievable wealth of symbolic and mystical paintings. The manuscript fascinates not only by the great number but also by the sheer size of its vellum pages, measuring 33 x 25 cm on average. It was neither intended for daily use nor for study purposes but rather considered as a sacred work to represent the Word of God on the altar on high holidays of the Christian year. The book contains the Four Gospels as the most sacred texts of Christendom, and</span><span style="font-size:85%;"> also a number of amusing quotes. One of them shows a mouse, having stolen a consecrated wafer, which is chased by a cat across the page (fol. 48r). In the Bible verse "No one can serve two masters", the initial letter of the Latin word N(emo) (no one) is composed of two male figures pulling each other's beard. Source: <a href="http://www.finns-books.com/kells.htm">Finn's Books</a></span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 51, 0); font-weight: bold;">shameless commerce: more items from the <a href="http://www.cafepress.com/korainhell">kora in hell shop:</a></span><br /><br /><a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://www.cafepress.com/korainhell">There are t-shirts, a beer stein, buttons, magnets, sweatshirts, & more. Check the </a><a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://www.cafepress.com/korainhell">main shop to see what else is there.</a><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.cafepress.com/korainhell.94009216"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3TX5npM7ydaQzdRCzbXhkzvoyMVo8IKsTNa7hq9d50f-wyQT2r6rlkBgTV4_bjcXC2Y9_2SGx9hxzS7GvIQB6b2eaI3q2qXyxigURCGoE0C5bl7CZlThoFPMNOA3l2wIiHfRn/s400/messengerFront.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5038539708446002850" border="0" /></a><span style="color: rgb(0, 51, 0); font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" >click on the image to go to the shop page for the item</span></div> <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.cafepress.com/korainhell.108611910"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1CZqobQODxSjrsm6xH-mSik_MZRpWNnGix1bsEjnRwlIMdy1mNoBzPcr2aJWFn42npdAYfcLQv9TN5ebIqwFB2ksqMw0zj9vQ38VP3WXse8BY10kvs2oBgri3VwabU0kyb23_/s400/eirebutton.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5039310312858102082" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 51, 0); font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" >click on the image to go to the shop page for the item<br /><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.cafepress.com/korainhell.114329916"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVZ-ep3SzaR-3rs37qwjij-RqYA5M30K81oWVK4jCUAmVM4L502eLVp7nnsqZOV8wALP7Znj_xqqk3zolj2YPdT8z3Pizs3vfr6g5WZW6DZ4xYQ1vlKtYwqUKrtTMxaGIdjJap/s400/eirecap.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5039312121039333778" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 51, 0); font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" >click on the image to go to the shop page for the item</span><br /><a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://www.cafepress.com/korainhell"></a><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.cafepress.com/korainhell.113921995"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmA73h7LbSetni0z28U46PKmtiq_HcxxCUaT4DvJ-WZEqlIuWk0UuOtQPRMa6bUwZM3FRAdMz_JTSZcsInG38j0zkSexdBDHpjyekhRm0_TfEzJaZbKhdx9uuIWCvlsUE19MFC/s400/eireringertee.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5039311326470383986" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.cafepress.com/korainhell.113921995"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhbawHmiXady2x-fl6OMosYFri9ZfWKzCEFF1T2hzMqEu4aYAB7hGbOZoLRVGETy08Dv9HFcMvqHjOUP9wH9gmgcV9WW8koMdrjJJpyuOMvpbMcqzbOd2XY-4KL6m8T5RdLW60/s400/eirringerteeback.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5039311360830122370" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /></div> </div>kora in hellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08726109864699114854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33870522.post-8419236488656677772007-03-01T16:02:00.000-08:002007-03-01T16:21:27.182-08:00the collar<span style="font-weight: bold;">George Herbert (1593-1633)</span><br /><br /><div id="poemText"><pre>I struck the board, and cried “No more!<br /> I will abroad.<br />What, shall I ever sigh and pine?<br />My lines and life are free; free as the road,<br /> Loose as the wind, as large as store.<br /> Shall I be still in suit?<br /> Have I no harvest but a thorn<br /> To let me blood, and not restore<br />What I have lost with cordial fruit?<br /> Sure there was wine<br /> Before my sighs did dry it; there was corn<br /> Before my tears did drown it.<br /> Is the year only lost to me?<br /> Have I no bays to crown it?<br />No flowers, no garlands gay? all blasted?<br /> All wasted?<br /> Not so, my heart: but there is fruit,<br /> And thou hast hands.<br /> Recover all thy sigh-blown age<br />On double pleasures: leave thy cold dispute<br />Of what is fit, and not. Forsake thy cage,<br /> Thy rope of sands,<br />Which petty thoughts have made, and made to thee<br /> Good cable, to enforce and draw,<br /> And be thy law,<br /> While thou didst wink and wouldst not see.<br /> Away; take heed:<br /> I will abroad.<br />Call in thy death’s head there: tie up thy fears.<br /> He that forbears<br /> To suit and serve his need,<br /> Deserves his load.”<br />But as I raved and grew more fierce and wild<br /> At every word,<br />Methoughts I heard one calling “Child!”<br /> And I replied “My Lord”.<br /></pre> </div> <!-- end poemText -->"The Collar" from <em>The Temple: Sacred Poems And Private Ejaculations</em> | 1633<br /><a href="http://www.geocities.com/magdamun/herbertcollar.html"></a><br /><a href="http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/herbert/herbbio.htm">Biography</a><br /><a href="http://www.ccel.org/h/herbert/temple/TTArchive.html">Scanned pages from <span style="font-style: italic;">The Temple</span></a><br /><a href="http://www.ccel.org/h/herbert/temple/Collar.html">Annotated version</a><br /> <a href="http://www.geocities.com/magdamun/herbertcollar.html">Technical analysis of rhyme scheme</a>kora in hellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08726109864699114854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33870522.post-91423460762078764962007-02-22T09:10:00.000-08:002007-02-22T10:04:33.129-08:00n+1 + gawker = lol<a href="http://gawker.com/">Gawker</a>, one of my favorite web sites, has been filling in where the <span style="font-style: italic;">NYT Book Review</span> and the <span style="font-style: italic;">NYRB</span> fail, offering reviews of small literary magazines. Well, of <span style="font-style: italic;">one</span> small literary magazine: the new issue of N+1, the lit journal to end all lit-journals:<br /><blockquote>"The Intellectual Situation is back, and it's the most generally accessible one to date--that is, it's less about literary culture and more about day-to-day life and technology (in other words, email, cell phones, blogs, and porn). It kind of opens out from those things into a general condemnation of everything on the planet.<br /> <div style="text-align: left;">. . .<br /> </div> The name of the issue is Decivilizing Process. That's where we're at."</blockquote>That's how n+1 describe themselves. Like shooting fish in a barrel, it is. But somebody has to step up and do it and nobody can do it better than Gawker:<br /><ul> <li>31 JAN 2007 — <a href="http://gawker.com/news/n%2B1/the-new-n1-its-coming-omg-cant--breathe--232914.php">The New 'n+1'! It's Coming! OMG! Can't ... Breathe ...</a></li> <li>08 FEB 2007 — <a href="http://gawker.com/news/n%2B1/spend-your-unvalentines-day-with-the-n1-crowd-or-maybe-not-235058.php">Spend Your Un-Valentine's Day with the 'n+1' Crowd. Or, Maybe Not.</a></li> <li>16 FEB 2007 — <a href="http://gawker.com/news/n%2B1/knowing-n1-by-its-table-of-contents-237147.php"><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span>Knowing 'n+1' By Its Table of Contents</a></li> <li>20 FEB 2007 — <a href="http://gawker.com/news/n%2B1/the-first-three-pages-of-the-new-n1-238118.php">The First Three Pages Of The New 'n+1'</a></li> <li>21 FEB 2007 — <a href="http://gawker.com/news/n%2B1/reading-letters-from-famous-people-in-the-new-n1-238584.php" rel="bookmark" title="Reading Letters From Famous People In The New 'n+1'">Reading Letters From Famous People In The New 'n+1'</a></li> </ul> <a href="http://gawker.com/news/n%2B1/n1-makes-us-nostalgic-for-college-caring-about-stuff-229900.php"></a>kora in hellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08726109864699114854noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33870522.post-48601970075270126262007-02-17T16:52:00.000-08:002007-02-17T17:16:58.432-08:00introducing the book<span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0"><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRjVeRbhtRU">Norwegians</a></span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRjVeRbhtRU">, who knew they could be funny?</a><br /><br />I kid. I kid.<br /><br />They're always such a hoot.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBLTe1m5cQN9MgCTgeVwBqyvcMegj5TcMZ2EwjhLs0Nf-6k9NYlRwXap8UqyXBi1HpnE3xiRLGFDSsCgp-LXSrY08a5m6T6pZzKRKGBEYXmMhs_wdKUqeFQXstZJQ0-lm1iXFI/s1600-h/munch.death-sickroom.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBLTe1m5cQN9MgCTgeVwBqyvcMegj5TcMZ2EwjhLs0Nf-6k9NYlRwXap8UqyXBi1HpnE3xiRLGFDSsCgp-LXSrY08a5m6T6pZzKRKGBEYXmMhs_wdKUqeFQXstZJQ0-lm1iXFI/s200/munch.death-sickroom.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5032674965781391234" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRjVeRbhtRU"></a>kora in hellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08726109864699114854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33870522.post-13869580564932736282007-02-10T22:07:00.000-08:002007-02-10T22:20:22.213-08:00moore smart catsThere are great poems about dogs. I don't mean of the sentimental variety. I'm against sentimental poems about dogs on principle (it is too easy) but I can be willing to make an exception. However the domestic cat is a less common subject for literary inspiration. T.S. Eliot's<span style="font-style: italic;"> Old Possums Book of Practical Cats </span>is terrific fun. Sadly, I don't think that is will recover from being Andrew Lloyd Webber-ized, at least not during my lifetime.<br /><br />Cats have lagged behind their canine domesticated companions lacking in solidity or depth or complexity or nuance or whatever property is needed to carry the burden of being poetic subjects. We have been drawn instead to its wild ancestors -- tigers and panthers. Cats have been more useful as figures -- metaphors, images -- than as objects in and of themselves and I suspect that this has something to do with the nature of cats.<br /><br />There are two great poems about the domesticated cat: Marianne Moore's "Peter" and the unparalleled section of Christopher Smart's <span style="font-style: italic;">Jubilate Agno,</span> "For I Will Consider My Cat Jeoffry." It is unfair to put them side by side because I don't want to diminish the pleasures of Moore's poem and there is really nothing that compares with Smart.<br /><br />I would recommend reading them on separate occasions. Also Moore demands more of her reader, at least at first reading the Moore appears more difficult. Smart is more complex than it seems, but it depends on how you want to read it. It is, also, quite frankly, madness. Moore does not give you choice. I find that is part of the pleasure in reading Moore, that she is so exacting.<br /><br /><a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://kora-in-hell-letters.blogspot.com/2007/02/peter.html">"Peter" by Marianne Moore</a><br /><br /><a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://kora-in-hell-letters.blogspot.com/2007/02/jeoffry.html"><span style="font-size: 130%;"></span>"For I Will Consider My Cat Jeoffry" by Christopher Smart</a>kora in hellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08726109864699114854noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33870522.post-7454232265692529122007-02-10T21:51:00.000-08:002007-02-10T22:26:17.187-08:00peter<span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:130%;" ><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">Peter</span></span><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: times new roman;font-size:100%;" ></span><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: times new roman; font-weight: bold;">Marianne Moore</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">Strong and slippery, built for the midnight grass-party confronted by four cats,</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">he sleeps his time away -- the detached first claw on his foreleg which corresponds</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">to the thumb, retracted to its tip; the small tuft of fronds</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">or katydid legs above each eye, still numbering the units in each group;</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">the shadbones regularly set about his mouth, to droop or rise</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">in unison like the porcupine's quills -- motionless. He lets himself be flat–</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">tened out by gravity, as it were a piece of seaweed tamed and weakened by</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">exposure to the sun; compelled when extended, to lie</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">stationary. Sleep is the result of his delusion that one must do as</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">well as one can for oneself; sleep -- epitome of what is to</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">him as to the average person, the end of life. Demonstrate on him how</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">the lady caught the dangerous southern snake, placing a forked stick on either</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">side of its innocuous neck; one need not try to stir</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">him up; his prune shaped head and alligator eyes are not a party to the</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">joke. Lifted and handled, he may be dangled like an eel or set</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">up on the forearm like a mouse; his eyes bisected by pupils of a pin's</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">width, are flickeringly exhibited, then covered up. May be? I should say,</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">might have been; when he has been got the better of in a</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">dream -- as in a fight with nature or with cats -- we all know it. Profound sleep is</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">not with him, a fixed illusion. Springing about with froglike ac–</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">curacy, emitting jerky cries when taken in the hand, he is himself</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">again; to sit caged by the rungs of a domestic chair would be unprofit–</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">able -- human. What is the good of hypocrisy? It</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">is permissible to choose one's employment, to abandon the wire nail, the</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">roly-poly, when it shows signs of being no longer a pleas–</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">ure, to score the adjacent magazine with a double line of strokes. He can</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">talk, but insolently says nothing. What of it? When one is frank, one's very</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">presence is a compliment. It is clear that he can see</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">the virtue of naturalness, that he is one of those who do not regard</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">the published fact as a surrender. As for the disposition</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">invariably to affront, an animal with claws wants to have to use</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">them; that eel-like extension of trunk into tail is not an accident. To</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">leap, to lengthen out, divide the air -- to purloin, to pursue.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">to tell the hen: fly over the fence, go in the wrong way -- in your perturba–</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">tion -- this is life; to do less would be nothing but dishonesty.</span>kora in hellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08726109864699114854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33870522.post-34705552341557637242007-02-10T21:45:00.000-08:002007-02-10T22:24:27.249-08:00jeoffry<span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;font-size:100%;" >For I Will Consider My Cat Jeoffry </span></span><br /><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: times new roman;">(excerpt from Jubilate Agno)</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">Christopher Smart</span></span><br /> <br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">For he is the servant of the Living God duly and daily serving him.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">For at the first glance of the glory of God in the East he worships in his way.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">For this is done by wreathing his body seven times round with elegant quickness.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">For then he leaps up to catch the musk, which is the blessing of God upon his prayer.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">For he rolls upon prank to work it in.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">For having done duty and received blessing he begins to consider himself.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">For this he performs in ten degrees.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">For first he looks upon his forepaws to see if they are clean.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">For secondly he kicks up behind to clear away there.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">For thirdly he works it upon stretch with the forepaws extended.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">For fourthly he sharpens his paws by wood.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">For fifthly he washes himself.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">For sixthly he rolls upon wash.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">For seventhly he fleas himself, that he may not be interrupted upon the beat.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">For eighthly he rubs himself against a post.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">For ninthly he looks up for his instructions.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">For tenthly he goes in quest of food.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">For having consider'd God and himself he will consider his neighbour.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">For if he meets another cat he will kiss her in kindness.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">For when he takes his prey he plays with it to give it a chance.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">For one mouse in seven escapes by his dallying.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">For when his day's work is done his business more properly begins.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">For he keeps the Lord's watch in the night against the adversary.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">For he counteracts the powers of darkness by his electrical skin and glaring eyes.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">For he counteracts the Devil, who is death, by brisking about the life.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">For in his morning orisons he loves the sun and the sun loves him.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">For he is of the tribe of Tiger.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">For the Cherub Cat is a term of the Angel Tiger.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">For he has the subtlety and hissing of a serpent, which in goodness he suppresses.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">For he will not do destruction, if he is well-fed, neither will he spit without provocation.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">For he purrs in thankfulness, when God tells him he's a good Cat.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">For he is an instrument for the children to learn benevolence upon.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">For every house is incomplete without him and a blessing is lacking in the spirit.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">For the Lord commanded Moses concerning the cats at the departure of the Children of Israel from Egypt.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">For every family had one cat at least in the bag.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">For the English Cats are the best in Europe.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">For he is the cleanest in the use of his forepaws of any quadruped.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">For the dexterity of his defence is an instance of the love of God to him exceedingly.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">For he is the quickest to his mark of any creature.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">For he is tenacious of his point.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">For he is a mixture of gravity and waggery.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">For he knows that God is his Saviour.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">For there is nothing sweeter than his peace when at rest.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">For there is nothing brisker than his life when in motion.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">For he is of the Lord's poor and so indeed is he called by benevolence perpetually--Poor Jeoffry! poor Jeoffry! the rat has bit thy throat.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">For I bless the name of the Lord Jesus that Jeoffry is better.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">For the divine spirit comes about his body to sustain it in complete cat.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">For his tongue is exceeding pure so that it has in purity what it wants in music.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">For he is docile and can learn certain things.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">For he can set up with gravity which is patience upon approbation.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">For he can fetch and carry, which is patience in employment.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">For he can jump over a stick which is patience upon proof positive.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">For he can spraggle upon waggle at the word of command.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">For he can jump from an eminence into his master's bosom.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">For he can catch the cork and toss it again.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">For he is hated by the hypocrite and miser.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">For the former is afraid of detection.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">For the latter refuses the charge.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">For he camels his back to bear the first notion of business.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">For he is good to think on, if a man would express himself neatly.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">For he made a great figure in Egypt for his signal services.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">For he killed the Ichneumon-rat very pernicious by land.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">For his ears are so acute that they sting again.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">For from this proceeds the passing quickness of his attention.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">For by stroking of him I have found out electricity.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">For I perceived God's light about him both wax and fire.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">For the Electrical fire is the spiritual substance, which God sends from heaven to sustain the bodies both of man and beast.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">For God has blessed him in the variety of his movements.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">For, tho he cannot fly, he is an excellent clamberer.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">For his motions upon the face of the earth are more than any other quadruped.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">For he can tread to all the measures upon the music.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">For he can swim for life.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">For he can creep.</span>kora in hellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08726109864699114854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33870522.post-28258019206242462692007-01-03T13:54:00.000-08:002007-01-03T13:55:28.700-08:00happy new year<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbvJm1le4LHKaOp2AnHJSgabG9DArYbNRfUoAr33Qa1fiZ0yWadNiqrLokopc5Y5rbRudRJQW9l-wtySyWx73QlDWmFzPs06C_C1X1OkMaFkKjIX8VWmxc2rwaLUGEiBQVFZVf/s1600-h/newyear.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbvJm1le4LHKaOp2AnHJSgabG9DArYbNRfUoAr33Qa1fiZ0yWadNiqrLokopc5Y5rbRudRJQW9l-wtySyWx73QlDWmFzPs06C_C1X1OkMaFkKjIX8VWmxc2rwaLUGEiBQVFZVf/s200/newyear.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5015926086199296178" border="0" /></a>kora in hellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08726109864699114854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33870522.post-64044601902147787092006-12-23T17:30:00.001-08:002006-12-23T17:33:08.447-08:00happy holidays<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg68P_xhuoeQYSbB96_B7e2wgSR5LTAuje-snBmobiK44-mtxHX27uPwrvo9kjuTs05a1bRnGPsTPkX0-OeNEzfbkcE-7jLI9kew0CsSOexx4X3GhQR0d_belXUKzNwXTXRwhlidA/s1600-h/hohoho.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjk71pICEAGxkHIVQg-1yw7fmv6LTS834IUTDsJznket_UIdgPcxuoCvbXwJjO8b7wLhLnuZH7qfiqyoxwlknXiWJGsXImhep9TgA22lJd4fJTH3VTcLBsmFYnzjCJVTPj6KAMD/s400/felixsanta.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5011899756576994754" border="0" /></a>kora in hellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08726109864699114854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33870522.post-73616280376521729152006-12-11T13:01:00.000-08:002006-12-12T17:24:44.845-08:00mcewan, pynchon, and gentian violetRegarding the dust up over charges that Ian McEwan "plagiarized" a book that he acknowledged using as a reference for his historical novel <span style="font-style: italic;">Atonement</span> (<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/12/05/nwriters105.xml">read summary article here</a>):<br /><br />My first thought was that this was just another pathetic example of celebrity litigation. It is a baseless charge that can still be settled for a sum in order to avoid the nuisance. The necessary companion to this bottom feeder is, of course, tabloid journalism.<br /><br />It is a desperate paper that will stoop to the level of besmirching the reputation of a superb writer -- one of the best contemporary English novelists -- in order to sell papers and everyone who has had a hand in this affair should be ashamed of themselves. Sadly the capacity for shame and the profession of journalism are sometimes mutually exclusive categories.<br /><br />This is the problem with the way that so much of journalism is practiced today: not everything is news and not every news story has the same truth value. Indeed, the news media has a responsibility to not report every accusation, launching it into a wider public sphere and validating the claim.<br /><br />- - - - - - - -<br /><br />In fact, the story behind this accusation is rather sad. It turns out that the late Lucilla Andrews (who wrote the autobiography from which he pilfered some number of details and some lovely passages it must be said) felt slighted by Ian McEwen. She felt that he didn't acknowledge the importance of her book enough. Also, he never attempted to contact her or meet her.<br /><br /> In the giddy world of the London literati one is too busy having one's ego buffed and polished to make time for having a cup of tea with an octogenarian writer of romantic novels -- even though her autobiography was a key resource for his award winning novel. My heart does go out to her.<br /><br />It is sad that McEwan could not find it in him to share a little bit of his acclaim with her -- as a gesture of generosity if not gratitude.<br /><br />But there is a difference between being a narcissist and being a plagiarist.<br /><br />Furthermore, I have little sympathy towards the individuals who are behind this action. It can hardly be a coincidence that this is occurring shortly after Lucilla Andrews' death -- the point in an author's career when the various leeches start attaching themselves the author's reputation -- and more importantly -- to the estate.<br /><br />Even less of a coincidence is the fact that there is a Hollywood film being made of the novel. Andrews's brother has said that he is keen to make sure that his sister be given "proper credit." Indeed. Naturally that would also include the proper payment that goes with her credit.<br /><br />- - - - - - - -<br /><br />This charge against McEwan also illustrates the how little understanding there is about literature and the art of writing. Everyone knows that charges of plagiarism can are the way to create a scandal for a writer, but there appears to be a general confusion about what actually constitutes plagiarism. If this incident proves anything it is that there is also tremendous ignorance about literary writing and the genre of fiction.<br /><br />Perhaps because literature has so much more value in England -- and writers therefore have a much higher status -- the voices of those who review books are also more significant than their counterparts in the United States, where the entire endeavor of literature is basically culturally irrelevant. Perhaps because of this additional level of importance, the British reviewers – particularly in fiction and poetry – can demonstrate a level of viciousness – even pettiness – that is rare in American criticism. Literature in this country is so invisible it doesn't need to be eviscerated in the press.<br /><br />In the manner of "not saying what they mean or meaning what they say" British reviewers often undermine their subject by simply pointing out how much smarter they are than the writer under review. This method of illustrating the failings of the writer by demonstrating his or her own cleverness is a stylistic technique that would be less appreciated in the U.S. If we even understood what was being said (often it turns on some obscure word usage or some arcane knowledge that marks one as taking a certain course of study at a specific college at Oxbridge) we would be more likely to think that the reviewer was just being a pompous ass.<br /><br />- - - - - - - -<br /><br />This brings me to Thomas Pynchon's letter.<br /><br />And what rollicking good fun that is. Starting off with his devastating first sentence:<br /><br />Given the British genius for coded utterance, this could all be about something else entirely, impossible on this side of the ocean to appreciate in any nuanced way – but assuming that it really is about who owns the right to describe using gentian violet for ringworm, for heaven’s sake, allow me a gentle suggestion.<br /><br />I have been rereading that sentence every now and then just because it is such a giggle. In a way he hardly needed to go any further. (To read the entire letter click here.)<br /><br />I don't think of writers in terms of nations but except in the ways that nation and language are connected. And sometimes it is nice to be reminded of what the best of American writers offer, not just to the general American reading public (all twelve of them) but to the English literary world.<br /><br />There are many ways that George Bush is the shame of this nation, one being that he is the preeminent speaker of a particular American idiom that utterly decimates the English language. Notwithstanding our semiliterate president, Americans tend to feel secondary to Brits with regard to the English language. Thomas Pynchon is the example of why the American idiom prevents its ossification. Or, to put it in a more vulgar way: Pynchon takes the piss out of it, Bush just pisses on it.<br /><br />- - - - - - - -<br /><br />Pynchon’s comparison, further in the paragraph, of the writer to the chimpanzee that is drawn to the more “vivid and tuneful” words reminded me of Flaubert’s notion of the writer creating “tunes for bears to dance to.”<br /><br />Which brings me back to my point about the way that this debate illustrates an ignorance about literature. Not just how it is written but how it is read.<br /><br />It is true, as Pynchon says, that no literary writer could resist “gentian violet for ringworm."<br /><br />Take a look at how it works: The trochaic foot slows the reader down as the consonant sounds of shhs to rrrrs move back and under the tongue. The words themselves (gentian violet for ringworm) as well as the internal wordplay (gent, gentle, genital, inviolate, vile, violate, violent, ring, war, worm, word) create a nexus of associations between sex and marriage and rape and violence. Voila. It becomes a trope for McEwan's Atonement.<br /><br />It would have been wrong for him to have left it untouched and not re-introduced the phrase to the reader again, in a new context, enriching it further. That is an example of original, creative, literary writing. (And reading).kora in hellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08726109864699114854noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33870522.post-46566569399574441182006-12-11T10:11:00.000-08:002006-12-11T17:56:39.382-08:00thomas pynchon & brit crit<div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6WptwgvVRwvlZQGvdxcHum9SNcpgWTmlGyBapeBvvSnPyK2JYY_eeoarpa8Dojc5sJn-pZWJT3VAB7hQSIokqH_1FvtM94McUJKrZ4tVFmdhmC-d2Js2ScG1t742HMEGxXq68/s1600-h/nwriter06big.gif"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6WptwgvVRwvlZQGvdxcHum9SNcpgWTmlGyBapeBvvSnPyK2JYY_eeoarpa8Dojc5sJn-pZWJT3VAB7hQSIokqH_1FvtM94McUJKrZ4tVFmdhmC-d2Js2ScG1t742HMEGxXq68/s400/nwriter06big.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5007384024163864130" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;">click on the letter above to see a larger image</span><br /><br /></div> <div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/12/05/nwriters105.xml">Click here to go to the original publication source (London Telegraph).<br /></a></span></div>kora in hellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08726109864699114854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33870522.post-45498531721137420962006-12-07T15:51:00.000-08:002007-01-06T18:00:06.972-08:00pomegranates & persephone<div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi06eyniY1H7BH8nkd7PH4suDH8xqjErlH72Lj7Jv9tIhkOuroeQKkOOQVwL6aGMD_mLTR4qD4pq5MA04HHTZZslHbRvtpG_LB-TBTdy2j-bgE-AM2dnooPUl06D8L6rr0d4gMy/s1600-h/rospersephone.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi06eyniY1H7BH8nkd7PH4suDH8xqjErlH72Lj7Jv9tIhkOuroeQKkOOQVwL6aGMD_mLTR4qD4pq5MA04HHTZZslHbRvtpG_LB-TBTdy2j-bgE-AM2dnooPUl06D8L6rr0d4gMy/s400/rospersephone.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5005938213617978818" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Proserpina (Persephone) by Dante Gabriel Rosetti (Tate Gallery, London)</span></span><br /></div><br />Pomegranates are associated with the winter because of the story of Persephone. This is the myth that explains the change of the seasons and hence the passing of time and the concepts of repetition, return and of memory and loss. And sex, naturally. It is not surprising when you look at the fruit that there is a myth in which eating a pomegranate is a metaphor for sexual experience. Indeed, because Persephone eats the seeds of a pomegranate while she is in the underworld she is not allowed to leave. The story continues from there but you can find out what happens for yourself.<br /><br />There are a number of places on the web where you can read the various versions of the myth. Quick little summaries are nice but keep in mind that the story is far from simple. The original version of the story is a complex poetic work written in Homeric Greek. While the changing of the seasons seems like a basic literary trope, there is little about story that is obvious in its meaning.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.theoi.com/Khthonios/HaidesPersephone1.html">The Rape of Persephone</a> -- Homeric Hymn version with links to other translations.<br /><a href="http://www.pantheon.org/articles/p/persephone.html">Encyclopaedia Mythica Version</a> -- A shorter summarykora in hellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08726109864699114854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33870522.post-46213372883068045492006-12-03T11:33:00.000-08:002006-12-03T12:42:21.154-08:00gifts for writer<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://http://www.cafepress.com/korainhell"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu61wSvFhiEAmv03ZIIaBracaDvzBhP5BQlHsdWy-ddIJRx4CW1-TfgRj3BkBeSwh0TA03Z4nTiZhiTiUFVvYfW8J15A-YWAlsVfkcv0THgbbwF2Y7sZg7OvnaM_kjhtNujC0nzQ/s400/kihshopad2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5004133722256983954" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.cafepress.com/korainhell.89605410"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhskpEO_OYZTGewosov3f7ASYV61gvAq9GnpFewwndT2l0OiOO7jbweHW68EeSZ7dig-9yKsuT7UUGV7c2ZjeSIYLw2cdIkg4X2uuYBrNWebxYpvAjv3hXR39hH5BP-TVkmz1uaFA/s400/writersjournal.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5004133713667049298" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="p://www.cafepress.com/korainhell.91146213"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPyQqQQzj8KBnNljqCISa_4LO54hzLhkQ-bt2O_20lAvtl5VnIiY7y9PTnTUjQSRaBfb66ExLMZxFvAmU4gv53i4miuTdsYvZxnlo-GosDmcfW1Yin9aVfDNeR1D4kZs1X9bNhyphenhyphenw/s400/writesbox.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5004133717962016610" border="0" /></a>kora in hellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08726109864699114854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33870522.post-24162480986930717302006-12-03T11:09:00.000-08:002006-12-03T11:25:21.710-08:00gifts for terrible angelsA bit of literary irony from <span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-weight: bold;">Rilke's</span><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-weight: bold;"> Duino Elegies</span>: a melancholy angel is the perfect gift for poets, buzzkills and drama queens. Fans of <span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-weight: bold;">Coco Rosie</span> will get the joke. The wry gothic sensibility will appeal to <span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-weight: bold;">Tim Burton</span> and/or <span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-weight: bold;">Edward Gorey</span> afficianados. Great for that sullen teenager on everybody's holiday shopping list. Men's and women's designs. In black. Of course.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.cafepress.com/korainhell"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnK0d7wWCwCiY9L-CNiv3M9nIEA8uSkzGrMkjKfLG2braBbIPhmjaAKs4npfFa0oVeqMfgvqR36bXwdiN_1TTPEODTEUGQmycOd6DBZ5KtCfbzgsiRlKapPeqQbSv_2rYa9hfVbw/s400/terribleangletshirts.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5004133722256983922" border="0" /></a>kora in hellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08726109864699114854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33870522.post-1158290901463296952006-09-14T19:30:00.000-07:002007-07-26T12:29:06.591-07:00the french department<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5847/3711/1600/monty-python.1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5847/3711/200/monty-python.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;">"I'm French! Why do you think I have this outrrrhageous accent?"</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">kih presents:</span><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">pretend to speak french</span></span><span class="down" style="display: block;" id="formatbar_CreateLink" title="Link" onmouseover="ButtonHoverOn(this);" onmouseout="ButtonHoverOff(this);" onmouseup="" onmousedown="CheckFormatting(event);FormatbarButton('richeditorframe', this, 8);ButtonMouseDown(this);"></span><br />a list of resources for those who want to mock the french language but can't be bothered to actually learn it.<br /><br /><ul> <li><a href="http://www.mwscomp.com/movies/grail/grail-08.htm">fetchez la vache</a> - start with this essential text</li> <li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_French_phrases">a list of french phrases</a> - would wikipedia lead you astray?</li> <li><a href="http://yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au/%7Emongoose/french/phrases.html">some useful french phrases</a> & <a href="http://yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au/%7Emongoose/french/pronunciation.html">pronunciation tips</a> - provides a special section for commenting on fashion</li> <li><a href="http://www.notam02.no/%7Ehcholm/altlang/ht/French.html">alternative french dictionary</a> - advanced: for those who want to make the move from irritating to obnoxious</li> <li><a href="http://babelfish.altavista.com/">babelfish online translator</a> - what could go wrong? </li> <li><a href="http://www.lingolex.com/french.htm">learn french</a> - free online resources </li> <li><a href="http://www.superfrenchie.com/">superfrenchie's blog</a> - cheese-eating surrender monkey sightings and the status of french fries</li> </ul><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);"></span>These resources are all highly recommended by Insouciance & Apéritif, lovely french models and commentators for the <a href="http://kora-in-hell-pr.blogspot.com/">kih project runway blog</a>:<span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);"></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5847/3711/1600/pinkmodelssm.png"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5847/3711/200/pinkmodelssm.png" alt="" border="0" /></a></span><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(51, 0, 51);"> - comme ci, comme ça.</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(51, 0, 51);">- chacun a son goût.</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(51, 0, 51);">- je m'ennuie.</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(51, 0, 51);">- moi aussi.</span>kora in hellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08726109864699114854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33870522.post-1158166251039080482006-09-13T09:49:00.000-07:002006-09-13T09:50:51.053-07:00who in hell is kora in hell?<span style="font-weight: bold;">1. the book<br /><br /></span>My blog's name,<span style="font-style: italic;"> Kora in Hell,</span> has a number of allusions but the most prominant one is a book by the American poet William Carlos Williams. <span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;">Kora in Hell</span> was written in 1918 and published in 1920. It is a unique text written in a form that defies categorization. Subtitled "Improvisations" the closest way to describing the text in familiar genre terms is as a prose poem. Specifically it is a series of paragraph entries comprised of two types of writings: (1) spontaneous writings that he composed over the course of a year -- a kind of poetic diary; and (2) italicized critical commentaries on the "diary" passages. The fragmentary form is an attempt to demonstrate the process of the imagination as it moves "from one thing to another." In doing so Williams is tracing the discovery -- and the movement towards understanding -- that the opposite of a perception can also true. In this way <span style="font-style: italic;">Kora in Hell</span> juxtaposes the tension between -- and interdependence of -- the imagination and the objective facts--the hard objects--of the world.<br /><br />The "Prologue" to <span style="font-style: italic;">Kora in Hell</span> is considered one of the most significant statements on modern poetic form. At the time Williams was interested in Dada and the ideas of the artist Marcel Duchamp. <span style="font-style: italic;">Kora in Hell</span> was written at the peak of this intense and significant but short-lived avant-garde movement and it is the most fully realized work of Dada poetics. It bears the hallmarks of the movement's in its absurdity, irony, chance, and the need to create art that challenges conventional ideas about art itself. It is profoundly unsentimental and scoffs at exalted conceptions of art: <blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">There is nothing sacred about literature, it is damned from one end to the other.</span> </blockquote> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5847/3711/1600/Williams_Kora.1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5847/3711/320/Williams_Kora.1.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>As befitting a work that evokes the myth of Kora's descent into hell (Kora is a figure for Percephone -- although Williams also connects the theme to Euridice), the work is often deeply pessimistic and despairing about the human condition. It is important to note that the book (and the Dada movement) were created during the time of World War I.<br /><br />In keeping with the Percephone myth rebirth is a recurring motif in the work, as is the theme of returning: the flip side of the coin of renewal. This is the necessary journey of the artist who must create a break from the past in order to see the world anew. Indeed, <span style="font-style: italic;">Kora in Hell</span> marks a major transition in Williams as a modern poet.<br /><br />There is so much more to say about this book but for now let this stand as a brief "advertisement" for you to go read it for yourself.<br /><br />To cite this passage please contact me <a href="mailto:korainhell@gmail.com">here</a>.kora in hellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08726109864699114854noreply@blogger.com4