“Poetry is emotion put into measure. The emotion must come by nature, but the measure can be acquired by art.” — Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) whose birthday is today.
Hardy also said, “Pessimism … is, in brief, playing the sure game. You cannot lose at it; you may gain. It is the only view of life in which you can never be disappointed. Having reckoned what to do in the worst possible circumstances, when better arise, as they may, life becomes child’s play.”
Rich Horton at Blue Crab Boulevard links to this story about a woman in Japan who sneaked into a guy’s apartment, made a living space for herself above his closet, and lived there for a year before being discovered.
If that doesn’t get made into a movie (at least for cable) somebody isn’t paying attention.
Phil linked yesterday to a list of “cult books.” When I commented, the subject of Catch-22 came up. Which led me to think about the little I’ve read of Joseph Heller’s work.
It adds up to two things—Catch-22 and his play, “We Bombed In New Haven.”
Catch-22 (as far as I recall, for those of you who’ve had better things to do with your lives than read it) is a surrealist satire on military life in World War II. The central point of the story is that when you go to war, people try to kill you. Therefore you shouldn’t go to war. It’s a pacifist argument without even the nobility of very much concern about the lives of others. The main character is primarily interested in staying alive himself. Continue reading Heller bombed in the 21st century
Fifty teachers/professors with a bit of time on their hands have decided Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey is “the science fiction film with the most realistic vision of the future of mankind.” One professor comments, “It is not beyond the realms of possibility that artificial intelligence could turn on its creators.”
Blade Runner was deemed pretty realistic as well as The Andromeda Strain, and that’s not all.
Barry DiGregorio, research Associate for the Cardiff Centre for Astrobiology, and a member of the International Committee Against Mars Sample Return, said: “I have been campaigning against NASA’s plans to bring back samples from Mars as I believe they could possibly endanger the Earth’s biosphere with microbial contamination from the planet.
“In a worst case scenario this could lead to an Andromeda Strain-type situation. My concerns are based on the Viking biology data that were conducted on Mars in 1976. NASA have always opposed the claim that their data found microbial life on Mars, however, two NASA astrobiologists have publicly stated otherwise and I have worked with them to bring attention to their finds.”
Forgive me for wasting your time posting news of authors in Atlanta, because this next story has the smell of greater importance. Mary Rigdon has cleared state hurdles for establishing her cheesemaking dairy, Decimal Place Farm, right in the city. Elizabeth Lee reports:
Rigdon makes the cheese on her and husband Ed’s 18-acre Conley farm, tucked away at the back of a subdivision. They purchased the land 13 years ago, moving from a Grant Park house on a tenth of an acre. Decimal Place Farm is a nod to that house, where she lived when she first got interested in raising dairy goats.
Next time you’re in Atlanta, perhaps you can look her up.
Reporter Jamie Gumbrecht fawns over an appearance in the Atlanta area of author Ann Martin, creator of “The Baby-Sitters Club” and “Main Street” series. Gumbrecht says the characters in the first series are the Hannah Montana of twenty-something girls. She writes:
I came to believe Martin was a literary figment created by the publishing industry to sell books, like Betty Crocker on cookbooks or Carolyn Keene on Nancy Drew mysteries. I continued to read the BSC books until way after it was cool, but I knew the truth: Ann M. Martin, fiction.
Now, she knows the author is actual. (How’s that for word choice?)
In other Atlanta-area news, father of seven Paul Weathington has taken to writing books for his own children. He says, “A lot of people never thought in a million years that I had it in me. But I’ve always had a creative bug; I just didn’t have a forum for it.” He wrote one of the books on several offeratory envelopes during a Sunday morning service. See the books here.
Dennis Ingolfsland, over at The Recliner Commentaries, has posted a web page with links to short biographies of Muhammad and Jesus. Just text, from original sources, without commentary.
Sherry is talking about book lists again. This time she points out an article on cult books, quoting a description of the difficulty in defining a cult book. I say it’s any book which quotes from, alludes to, or can be even slightly argued to have been influenced by The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Seriously, can anyone argue with that definition?
Sherry also links to a so-called essential man’s library. Probably worth checking out should you find a spare minute. Just kidding, dudes–I mean, men. That’s a good list. I love those photos.
But speaking of cults, Sherry comments freely on When Men Become Gods by Stephen Singular, a book on Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints and the raid on Yearning for Zion Ranch.
Writer Rod Bennett believes “[C.S.] Lewis was heavily influenced by his many early experiences with ‘trashy’ literature.” He calls him a pulp fiction writer and lays out his case in four posts, quoting from Lewis’ letters where he confesses his enjoyment or exposure to Amazing Stories and Astounding, both pulp sci-fi rags, and many other works considered “trashy” by critics. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, Bennett says. In fact, it was through Narnia that Bennett found interest in Mere Christianity.
[This series is no longer on Bennett’s blog. This is a recycled post from 2006].
If Bennett’s premise raises the eyebrows of any Lewis fans, I think the trouble may be in the words “pulp” and “trashy.” I don’t think Bennett thinks Lewis’ science trilogy is trashy, but influenced by mass market stories of his day which were thought to be trashy by those who claimed to know what good and bad literature should be. But calling Lewis’ stories “pulp” may be the same as calling them “trashy” for some. Pulp fiction is lurid, tantalizing material written for commercial gain or cheap entertainment–nothing of lasting value. Again, I don’t think Bennett is arguing that Narnia and The Space Trilogy are cheap little thrillers, but that may be what comes across in the word “pulp.”
“The first African-American inducted into the N.C. Journalism Hall of Fame,” Vivan Edmonds, publisher of The Carolina Times, has passed away. Her father started the paper in 1922 and continue to report the news and write his opinions even as a cross burned against him. “You took your life in your hands when you spoke out, when you challenged the power structure,” said a reporter from Raleigh-Durham, N.C. area.
NY Daily News has this feature on Terry Pratchett, whose Alzheimer’s is worsening. “I used to touch type as fast as any journalist does and my spelling was pretty good. Now I hunt and peg and my spelling is erratic,” he told The Times of London. “I can spell ‘transubstantiation’ and in the next bit I can’t spell ‘color’ because it’s as if bits of the network are switching on and off.”
He says he will to write, just “more carefully.”