Archive for the ‘All’ Category
The Doubleday Fart
I am fascinated to learn (via Brainiac, "Fact of the Day", who heard it from the NYTimes, "The Time of Their Lives: The Golden Age of Great American Book Publishers, Their Editors and Authors" by Al Silverman): Doubleday, a proudly "middlebrow" company, was founded by Frank N. Doubleday, who suffered from flatulence. As a result, […]
In: All, Curious Stuff, Old Fartdom
On Reading Wood's How Fiction Works
I recently read How Fiction Works, by James Wood (Ferrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008, 265 pages). It was a surprisingly rewarding book to have read, so I wanted to tell you about it and quote a few passages. Like, I suspect, many writers of fiction do, I occasionally succumb to reading yet another book about […]
Let's Section-8 'Em
I'm getting the idea that "to section-8" will, at some future time, become a popular political buzz-phrase. Probably not right away, because there's too much hysteria, too much raw emotion, too much manufactured urgency, and too much political pressure. But later, when cooler investigations have had time to do their work and we can look […]
In: All, Current Events, Feeling Peevish
Beard of the Week L: Portrait of the Artist
self-portrait copyright © 2008 by Bill Pusztai (source), used with permission. This week's beard belongs to Bill Pusztai, a photographer and artist living in Toronto. In this photograph he seems to be doing some yoga but, for our purposes, he is displaying his magnificent beard as well as drawing attention to the gorgeous tattoo on […]
In: All, Beard of the Week, Faaabulosity, Music & Art
Black Holes and Physicists' Jokes
A couple of weeks ago, when the world did not end by getting sucked into a black hole newly created by the just-energized Large Hadron Collider (at CERN), it seemed that journalists were casting their lines very widely to find any related story about physicists and CERN and human- or hadron-interest that they could write […]
In: All, It's Only Rocket Science, Laughing Matters
How's that Deregulation Working Out for You?
I've been thinking recently about deregulation, the great "free-market" panacea that has been so strongly touted in recent decades. You do remember how deregulation is always always said first and foremost to benefit the American public–more competition, more choice, cheaper prices, something along those lines is always uttered as hands wave about dismissively. Frankly, I […]
In: All, Current Events, Reflections
Mouthwateringly Beautiful
"Blackcurrant Leaf Sorbet & Blackcurrant Jelly", photograph by Sara Taylor from 100 Great Desserts, by Mandy Wagstaff, p. 66. Some few years ago I bought a cookbook called In & Out of the Kitchen in Fifteen Minutes or Less, by Anne Willan, photography by Sara Taylor (New York : Rizzoli, 1995, 128 pages). I like […]
In: All, Food Stuff, Music & Art
Tooth & Neck
I'm sure it says something deep and revealing about me that as financial markets crumble about my head I listen to how people talk. Perhaps it's just the result of my long years of aching to be recruited for the grammar police, or perhaps my few years in the crucible of the usenet group "soc.motss", […]
In: All, Curious Stuff, Such Language!
Beard of the Week XLIX: Wild & Gay Things
This week's beard belongs to Maurice Sendak, the famed artist noted for his book illustration, particularly the celebrated Where the Wild Things Are (from 1963). I write "artist noted for his book illustration" because of the piece in the New York Times ("Concerns Beyond Just Where the Wild Things Are", by Patricia Cohen, 2 September […]
In: All, Beard of the Week, Faaabulosity, Music & Art
Celebrity & Politics
We liberals seem to have a difficult time at politics because we like to talk about ideas and problems and solutions to those problems, even though we know that the electorate doesn't particularly care to talk about ideas and solutions to problems. Instead, what gets the candidate elected is celebrity, that elusive and vacuous quality […]
In: All, Current Events, Wanderings
Blue Ribbons
Our friend Gerry Stacey, more years ago than I care to remember, complimented my thread crochet by suggesting that I should enter something in the Maryland State Fair because I was sure to win. What a nice thing to say, I thought, and even a good idea. As you know, though, I never get around […]
Beard of the Week XLVIII: Father of the Composer
The week's beard belongs to Pierre Joseph Ravel* (1832-1908), father of the composer Maurice Ravel. As I started this entry I was listening to the concluding movement of Ravel's "Trio for Piano, Violin, and Violoncello", surely one of the most sumptuous sounding pieces I can think of–it's amazing the sound that these three instruments can […]
In: All, Beard of the Week, Music & Art
Park Validates Ars Hermeneutica's Mission
Here is one item from this week's "What's New", by Bob Park (5 September 2008 issue). I take it as validation of Ars Hermeneutica's view that increasing science literacy in America is vitally needed and will help enfranchise voters who find themselves at a loss to judge the words or deeds of politicians when it […]
In: All, Briefly Noted, It's Only Rocket Science, Snake Oil--Cheap!
Beard of the Week XLVII: The Maxim Gun
This handsome beard (photo source), a very stylish and modern schnauzer,* belongs to American/British inventor Sir Hiram Stevens Maxim (1840–1916). The hedge on nationality comes about because Maxim was born in Sangerville, Maine and lived in a number of east-coast cities, but in 1881 he took up living in London and evidently adopted British citizenship […]
What Would It Have Looked Like?
Spending a bit of time online with Richard Dawkins (I was spending time with him whereas he spent no time with me–the net works that way), I listened to a reasonably interesting TED talk in which Dawkins talked about how our perceptions of reality are shaped by the evolution of our brains to help us […]
In: All, Common-Place Book, It's Only Rocket Science
Beard of the Week XLVI: Far from Kansas
The week's BoW entry is a special treat and a BoW first: a guest entry written by Mel, The Indextrious Reader and friend of this blog. Thanks Mel! This week's beard belongs to artist Virgil Burnett (born in Kansas in 1928). A real Renaissance man, he began his career as a student at Columbia University […]
In: All, Beard of the Week, Books
Nonexistent Lifestyles
Andy Towle, in reference to the recent story (see, for example, here) about Hallmark's introducing greeting cards that celebrate same-sex marriage, quotes a reactionary "family values" group promoting their own boycott of Hallmark as saying Let them know you do not appreciate Hallmark promoting a lifestyle which is illegal in 48 states. Now, aside from […]
In: All, Faaabulosity, Such Language!
"Waking Up Bear"
A couple of days ago in the mail I got my two contributors' copies of the new anthology Bears, edited by Richard Labonté (Cleis Press, August 2008). Before you order your copy I'll remind you that this anthology is a collection of gay erotica, and the subject is bearish men, about whom I like to […]
In: All, Personal Notebook, Writing
Ennuyeuse
Matthew Guerrieri was writing about the reasons for the relative popularity of avant-garde painting over avant-garde music. It seems an interesting essay that I'll finish later because that's not the point right now. Near the beginning he quotes fellow art critic Charles Baudelaire (i.e., the Baudelaire) on the superiority of painting to sculpture. Again, it's […]
In: All, Briefly Noted, Such Language!
Loud, but Honest
From the National Portrait Gallery, "Amy Henderson, a historian at the National Portrait Gallery, discusses Ethel Merman, and her 1971 portrait by artist Rosemarie Sloat. The portrait is currently on view at NPG, in the 'Bravo!' exhibition, on the museum’s third floor mezzanine." It's an iconic portrait of Merman as Annie Oakley in Annie Get […]
In: All, Common-Place Book, Music & Art