Oh dear. I meant to mention this earlier, and it slipped my Teflon mind: I met a reader of this blog at church last Sunday. A lady who was visiting with one of our families introduced herself, and said she was a reader. She also mentioned that her daughter also read it—in Ankara, Turkey. Nice to meet you, Reader, and I hope I wasn’t too distant and avoidant with you.

Man, do I love saying “I told you so.” I am, at bottom (and at top), a petty and vindictive sort, as you’ve doubtless gathered by now.

Via Townhall.com, there’s this article from The London Daily Mail, in which Rebecca Walker (no relation) tells the story of her unhappy relationship with her mother, feminist author Alice Walker (also no relation. To me. Obviously a relation to her daughter). She tells of being raised by a woman who considered her a bother, a burden, and an interruption in her important work.

You see, my mum taught me that children enslave women. I grew up believing that children are millstones around your neck, and the idea that motherhood can make you blissfully happy is a complete fairytale.

In fact, having a child has been the most rewarding experience of my life. Far from ‘enslaving’ me, three-and-a-half-year-old Tenzin has opened my world. My only regret is that I discovered the joys of motherhood so late – I have been trying for a second child for two years, but so far with no luck.

Rebecca Walker doesn’t appear to be a Christian, and you’ll find some statements in the article that you probably won’t agree with if you are one. But the basic argument is one a lot of us have been trying to make for years: That radical feminism has done far more harm to women (and to everybody around those women) than any good it’s done.

Have a wonderful Memorial Day holiday!

The MetaxuCafe is discussing and reporting on the PEN World Voices Festival 2008 with some good photos too. A couple notes from the top post: “[Salman] Rushdie is a Harry Potter fan.”

“Rushdie, Eco and Vargas Llosa now began batting The Count of Monte Cristo back and forth, debating whether or not such ‘bad writing’ as this can also be great writing. All three seemed to agree that bad writing could be great writing and that this often happens.”

Well, yesterday was Shakespeare’s 444th. Several blogs have related lists and links. Semicolon has a long list, with a nice meme from a while back.

Let me pass on a recommendation from Terry Teachout on strong biographies. He says Park Honan’s Shakespeare: A Life is one of the best on the bard.

Do you think a Manga version of Shakespeare’s plays would inspire your young man or woman? CliffsNotes has four plays available for your perusal.

Earlier this month, I posted a few quotation quizzes asking if the phrase came from Shakespeare or the KJV Bible. If you missed it then, you can find it here.

And from our Science desk, we may have found an avid Shakespeare fan among the other primates.

Pop-song writer Jean-Loup Dabadie, 69, has been admitted into “The Académie Française, France’s oldest and grandest cultural institution,” according to this TimesOnline aricle.

“For four centuries only literary stars and distinguished elders of the Establishment have been elevated to the status of ‘immortal,'” which is what the chosen are called. Allow this pop culture dude in is supposed to be keeping up with modern life. Keeping up with anything may be a problem for the Immortals.

“Seven members have died in two years and the surviving immortals, whose average age is 79, have rejected a string of literary contenders as unworthy. Six of the numbered chairs remain empty and there are not enough volunteers to attend the Thursday meetings to edit the dictionary. Work on the latest one began in 1935 and they have reached the letter R. The Second World War is blamed for the slow pace.”

Perhaps the surviving immortals should take a gander–or the French equivalent–at Bryan Appleyard’s book on living forever. It might read better than the dictionary project.

Tags: culture, pop culture, France