A Momentary Taste of Being

Today he talks about Costco and Shopping and neuroscience Out of context quotation fragment to get you going: . . . [W]e try to avoid anything that makes our insula excited.

This review of the Lady Gaga phenomenon reproduces my own reaction to her, particularly in the last paragraph. I have no great antipathy toward her work, but neither do I see anything startling, new, or worthy of the tremendous accolades that have been heaped upon her.

The inaugural Ted Hughes Poetry Award recepient (via Books Inq.)--Alice Oswald, Weeds and Wildflowers And here is an interview and a sample poem from Ms. Oswald And another    The first poem required that I find more, and now I'm convinced I need to seek out Ms. Oswald, a name admittedly hitherto unknown to me.  C'est dommage ça--dommage pour moi.

Link thanks to TSO: Queen Victoria's Passion for Nudity I'm surprised that anyone is surprised.  Just because one does not wish flagrant display of naked flesh in person in public does not mean that one cannot appreciate great art depicting the nude.  There is a considerable distance between here/now/in-person and artistic representation.  We need to get over our prejudices about the Victorian Era and begin to discover what it was really about.  Rather like our prejudices about puritans in this country.  Steampunk has gone a ways toward reexamination, but not nearly far enough.

I'm not so certain one could call this a method so much as an antimethod or an idiosyncratic approach; however, it has evidently worked for a great many years, so who am I to call it into question.  This from my nearly annual reading of Dandelion Wine .  Yes, I'm aware that the book is about the coming of summer, but for some reason it breathes spring for me and so along with Morte d'Arthur and a couple of others not so frequently repeated, the reading of at least a portion of Dandelion Wine is an annual ritual. Dandelion Wine (reissue 1992) Ray Bradbury This book, like most of my books and stories, was a surprise. I began to learn the nature of such surprises, thank God, when I was fairly young as a writer. Before that, like every beginner, I though you could beat, pummel, and thrash an idea into existence. Under such treatment, of course, any decent idea folds up its paws, turns on its back, fixes its eyes on eternity, and dies. It was with great relief, then, that i...

A Review of Leviathan by Scott Westerfield I've been intrigued by this book when I've seen it in stores and tried to pawn it off on my son so I'd have a reason to buy it.  But this reviewer just gave me permission--well, not really, but now I can justify the expense to myself.

Shelf Love presents a Lord of the Rings read-along with interesting questions and commentary-- especially good for those who've wanted to give the series a try but have never made it through.

(See the last line of the article referenced below)  Or does it demand deep thinking? Where have all the Christian Writers gone?

Kim Stanley Robinson on the Man Booker Prize. Unfortunately we have to settle for this precis because the New Scientist wants us to subscribe to read the whole.  So better yet, go out to your Library (if it subscribes to the New Scientist) and find the original article.  I'm sure it is far more interesting than the sound-bites.

Jonah Lehrer explains the algebra of a short commute and greater contentment Everyone thought I was insane when I first moved to my present city and set about choosing my house.  I carefully mapped out the routes to Disney and excluded anything likely to be affected by traffic to and from.  Then I plotted work place and chose places only east of work to live (I learned from living in Columbus that living west of work is a tedious and dreadful thing in terms of commute--sun in eyes morning sun in eyes evening--assuming, of course, that Columbus was having one of its exceedingly rare days of sun.)  And finally, I didn't want to be more than 15 minutes away from work.  Walking distance (not possible) would have been better.  And now the brain scientists tell me why all of that work was worth it!

via Books Inq  Ed Byrne talks about his poetry--along with a wonderful poem And while you're there, check out the rest of the blog--this one is likely to become a permanent fixture on my blog visits.

On Epigraphs from the Guardian

From Philosophy Etc. a review of The Complete Stories of J. G. Ballard.

At Mookse and the Gripes, a wonderful review of Blood Meridian . It's one of those books I'm always meaning to get to, but never seem to quite accomplish.  Perhaps I should move it up on my list.

You will quickly notice that I am neither a professional musician nor a professional commentator on music.  But I found, as with so many other things, that the act of writing while listening made the listening more profound or the experience more intense.  What I'll place here for you are the edited jottings made while present at a piano recital during which Prokofiev's Piano Sonata in B flat major was played as the concluding work.  Keep in mind that I have little training in music and so some of the terminology may not be particularly accurate or helpful to those with a greater understanding. Most importantly, keep in mind that while the music was not programmatic, my impressions of it certainly are--a human mind trying to make story out of a stream of sensation. Called a War Sonata (sonatas 6, 7, and 8) we see Prokofiev, already a sarcastic musician at his most sarcastic (comments made by the pianist before playing).  The second movement is vulgar, sleazy, and n...

Thought that might get you-- a virtual tour of the Sistine Chapel

From Sheila yesterday--the Death of Virginia Woolf

Because I wanted a record of this on my site, I just blatantly stole it from Happy Catholic .  Thanks Julie, this is a real keeper. I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing.  ---Agatha Christie

Cannery Row reviewed at A Guy's Moleskin Notebook

I haven't read the book, but this mini-interview with David Vann makes the book sound most intriguing.