Below is the address to a website I've just discovered. Grammar Girl has one of the few interesting discussions about this otherwise unmemorable event.
http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/GrammarGirl/grammar-verbification.aspx
Friday, September 28, 2007
Monday, September 24, 2007
Taliesin Talk
I've just learned how to set up a feed and am enjoying the New York Times book reviews. I've attached a review of Nancy Horan's most recent book about Frank Lloyd Wright and thought you might enjoy hearing about it. Happy Reading!
Notes on a Scandal
Notes on a Scandal
Friday, September 14, 2007
Pride and Prejudice
You may have noticed that I have a few graphic novels on my bedside table these days, and they look an awful lot like comic books. To learn to appreciate what these texts have in them, I've just started Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics, and it's fascinating. In a diagram detailing the range of abstraction in both visual and textual symbols, he places Kandinsky at the top... as far as you can get from both visual realism and textual symbolism. Given the recent knee-jerk reactions I've been hearing recently about a number of unorthodox textual types, I thought it might be fun to quote a little bit from a lecture Wassily Kandinsky gave in Cologne in 1914:
There were three distinct periods in my development:
1. The dilettantism of my childhood and youth, a time of confused and for the most part tormented feelings, and, at least to me, obscure longings.
2. The time after leaving school, when my feelings assumed a more distinct and, to me, clearer character. I tried to express them through external forms of all kinds borrowed from external nature, through objects.
3. The time of conscious utilization of the pictorial elements, when I became aware that, for me, real form was superfluous, when, step by painful step, I became more able to find within myself not only the content but the form appropriate to it--a time therefore of transition to pure painting, also known as absolute painting and the achievement of the abstract form necessary to me.
On this long road, which I had no alternative but to go down, I wasted a great deal of energy in my struggle with traditional art. One prejudice crumbled after another, but infinitely slowly. Apart from all my experiments, I devoted a lot of time to thinking, hoping to find the answers to many things through logic. But what was logically so simple was impossible to achieve in practice. As a general rule it is easy enough to draw the right conclusions, and for the most part it is an enjoyable task. We know what we want rather more often than we know how to bring it about. The how is never truly right unless it presents itself spontaneously, so that the hand benefits from a happy inspiration--not only independent of reason, but often against all reason--and itself achieves what is needed. Only a form arrived at in this way brings satisfaction, and a joy that is beyond all comparison.
There were three distinct periods in my development:
1. The dilettantism of my childhood and youth, a time of confused and for the most part tormented feelings, and, at least to me, obscure longings.
2. The time after leaving school, when my feelings assumed a more distinct and, to me, clearer character. I tried to express them through external forms of all kinds borrowed from external nature, through objects.
3. The time of conscious utilization of the pictorial elements, when I became aware that, for me, real form was superfluous, when, step by painful step, I became more able to find within myself not only the content but the form appropriate to it--a time therefore of transition to pure painting, also known as absolute painting and the achievement of the abstract form necessary to me.
On this long road, which I had no alternative but to go down, I wasted a great deal of energy in my struggle with traditional art. One prejudice crumbled after another, but infinitely slowly. Apart from all my experiments, I devoted a lot of time to thinking, hoping to find the answers to many things through logic. But what was logically so simple was impossible to achieve in practice. As a general rule it is easy enough to draw the right conclusions, and for the most part it is an enjoyable task. We know what we want rather more often than we know how to bring it about. The how is never truly right unless it presents itself spontaneously, so that the hand benefits from a happy inspiration--not only independent of reason, but often against all reason--and itself achieves what is needed. Only a form arrived at in this way brings satisfaction, and a joy that is beyond all comparison.
Saturday, September 8, 2007
Alternative literacies
Just wanted to note the addition of a website below the description of my not-so-secret vice. Yes, video games encourage literacy, both reading and writing, and I am sometimes amazed at the detailed advice and strategies you'll find at this website. Enjoy!
Traveling in Style
For you armchair travelers, the website below is terrific! Teachers have put together maps and itineraries related to various books... The Grapes of Wrath, The Odyssey, Candide. Hope you enjoy it!
http://www.googlelittrips.org/
http://www.googlelittrips.org/
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
Macaronic verse
Thanks so much for the information about Thomas Merton. I just ran across his name yesterday regarding macaronic literature and will look him up. For those of you who don't know what macaronic verse is, here is the wikipedia link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macaronic_Latin
I'm finding lots of journal articles about macaronic literature in languages other than Latin... Ukrainian, Kenyan writers, Latin combined with German. I think I may need to narrow it down to just Latin and English, although there are some interesting articles about macaronic literature in terms of "codeswitching." http://www.arts.gla.ac.uk/SESLL/EngLang/LILT/code-switch.htm
Send more informazione as you find it!
I'm finding lots of journal articles about macaronic literature in languages other than Latin... Ukrainian, Kenyan writers, Latin combined with German. I think I may need to narrow it down to just Latin and English, although there are some interesting articles about macaronic literature in terms of "codeswitching." http://www.arts.gla.ac.uk/SESLL/EngLang/LILT/code-switch.htm
Send more informazione as you find it!
Monday, September 3, 2007
Happy Labor Day
Hi, everyone. I've been reading Calvino's Why Should We Read the Classics?, and it's been really interesting. Unlike many books on literary criticism, which actually seem to criticize rather than analyze text (my own thesis was called "mean-spirited," I'm ashamed to admit), Calvino shows a true love of books. It's really a collection of essays that border on book reviews, all enthusiastically telling you why you should read the books he mentions. That's where I first read about Gadda's writing recently. Last night before going to sleep I was reading about Borges and Queneau, and I'm eager to hunt down some old copies on my bookshelves.
If you look at my list of favorite books, you'll notice The Vicar of Wakefield on the list. Honestly, I don't remember having read it... I may have purchased it and never finished it in the mountains of reading I had to finish in my undergraduate years. However, recently I heard someone pooh-poohing this as a "classic" and pointing to the mid-20th century reading requirement of Vicar for Harvard students. "Has anyone actually ever read this?," she asked disparagingly... kind of throwing the literary gauntlet. Well, it sounds like a hoot when you read the back of the cover, and it'll be showing up on my bedside table soon. Everything old is new again, and don't throw the baby out with the bathwater, and all that.
Write back and let me know what you're reading.
If you look at my list of favorite books, you'll notice The Vicar of Wakefield on the list. Honestly, I don't remember having read it... I may have purchased it and never finished it in the mountains of reading I had to finish in my undergraduate years. However, recently I heard someone pooh-poohing this as a "classic" and pointing to the mid-20th century reading requirement of Vicar for Harvard students. "Has anyone actually ever read this?," she asked disparagingly... kind of throwing the literary gauntlet. Well, it sounds like a hoot when you read the back of the cover, and it'll be showing up on my bedside table soon. Everything old is new again, and don't throw the baby out with the bathwater, and all that.
Write back and let me know what you're reading.
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