Monday, December 22, 2008
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Saturday's Marianne Moore
We look at imitation askance; but like the shell which the hermit-crab selects for itself, it has value -- the avowed humility, and the protection.
from The Complete Prose of Marianne Moore, p. 328
from The Complete Prose of Marianne Moore, p. 328
Friday, December 19, 2008
Friday's Marianne Moore
One would rather disguise than travesty emotion; give away a nice thing than sell it; dismember a garment of rich aesthetic construction than degrade it to the utilitarian offices of the boneyard.
from The Complete Prose of Marianne Moore, p. 328
from The Complete Prose of Marianne Moore, p. 328
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Seven random thoughts
1. They're predicting six to twelve inches of snow for metro-Boston tomorrow into Saturday morning.
2. When did people start saying "get out of Dodge"?
3. They're giving away books in Harvard Square. The little bookstand that had been selling books for $2 apiece is folding up the tent, closing shop, going out of business, so they're giving away their accumulated trove of literature. Found two books of poetry today!
4. The line in the post office was really long today.
5. I recall something Mother Angelica said long ago about December 18th having been called, "in the good old days," the Expectation of Mary. Has anyone else heard of this observance?
6. In exactly six months, I will be forty years old. Yikes!
7. How about those Celtics?
2. When did people start saying "get out of Dodge"?
3. They're giving away books in Harvard Square. The little bookstand that had been selling books for $2 apiece is folding up the tent, closing shop, going out of business, so they're giving away their accumulated trove of literature. Found two books of poetry today!
4. The line in the post office was really long today.
5. I recall something Mother Angelica said long ago about December 18th having been called, "in the good old days," the Expectation of Mary. Has anyone else heard of this observance?
6. In exactly six months, I will be forty years old. Yikes!
7. How about those Celtics?
Thursday's Marianne Moore
Nevertheless, an indebted thing does not interest us unless there is originality underneath it.
from The Complete Prose of Marianne Moore, p. 328
from The Complete Prose of Marianne Moore, p. 328
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Wednesday's Marianne Moore
It is correct and unnotorious for the race to perpetuate itself; committing adultery and disclaiming obligation is the suicide of personality, and the free spirit wearies of clarity in such matters.
from The Complete Prose of Marianne Moore, p. 298
from The Complete Prose of Marianne Moore, p. 298
December 17, 2008
Wednesday of the Third Week of Advent. Beginning of the "O" Antiphons: O Sapientia, O Wisdom.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Latin Christmas carols!
At Gaudium Mundo. Three versions of Rudolph! (Four, if you count the one in the combox.)
Hat tip: Enbrethiliel, commenting at For Keats' Sake!
Hat tip: Enbrethiliel, commenting at For Keats' Sake!
Tuesday's Marianne Moore
She was not a recluse, nor was her work, in her thought of it, something eternally sealed. Acquiescing in deferred publication she said, "My barefoot rank is better," because she valued her work too much to hurt it if greater stature for it could be ensured by delay.
From a review of Emily Dickinson's letters, from The Complete Prose of Marianne Moore, p. 291
From a review of Emily Dickinson's letters, from The Complete Prose of Marianne Moore, p. 291
Monday, December 15, 2008
Mariani's biography of Hopkins
The New York Times, in the person of reviewer Blake Bailey, gives us a glance at Paul Mariani's biography of Gerard Manley Hopkins.
Via the Poetry Foundation.
Via the Poetry Foundation.
Monday's Marianne Moore
The lurking sense of an adhered-to attitude on the part of those who regard themselves as religious, stands in the way of what they might do for one. When we get away from the mystical, however, we put ourselves under the power of nature and nature is cruel.
from The Complete Prose of Marianne Moore, pp. 284-5
from The Complete Prose of Marianne Moore, pp. 284-5
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Sunday's Marianne Moore
If one's hands are accomplished they are not one's hands but the hands of humanity.
from The Complete Prose of Marianne Moore, p. 283
from The Complete Prose of Marianne Moore, p. 283
Saturday, December 13, 2008
this is the hour when winter makes a comeback
A jotting, with pretensions toward being a poem, written some sixteen years ago.
Saturday's Marianne Moore
One can murder art by trying too hard.
from The Complete Prose of Marianne Moore, p. 281
from The Complete Prose of Marianne Moore, p. 281
Friday, December 12, 2008
Requiescat in pace
Avery Cardinal Dulles, SJ, has died at 90.
The Wikipedia page about Cardinal Dulles, which relates how a tree flowering along the Charles River played a part in his conversion.
The Wikipedia page about Cardinal Dulles, which relates how a tree flowering along the Charles River played a part in his conversion.
Finished the Caitlin Thomas book
She had two abortions, the first in the sixth month of pregnancy. In her own words:
[...] the baby was already well formed, and they chopped it up as they were pulling it out, and then brought it out in chunks. I suppose I was horrified, but by that time I was expecting anything -- it was like being in a butcher's shop. They gave me a local anaesthetic. They said they couldn't put me out otherwise they wouldn't have been able to perform the operation. I was fully conscious the whole time. There was a nurse holding me down, holding my head, and two men working down at the bottom, and I was in a most undignified position with my two feet strapped in those clamps they use to keep the legs apart. I kept saying (because I wanted a girl, incidentally), 'Will you just tell me whether it's a girl?' They just didn't answer. They took no notice of me at all. They simply got on with the job, working away at the bottom of the bed, with my feet held high in the air.
Caitlin Thomas with George Tremlett, Caitlin: Life with Dylan Thomas (Henry Holt and Company, 1988), p. 152
[...] the baby was already well formed, and they chopped it up as they were pulling it out, and then brought it out in chunks. I suppose I was horrified, but by that time I was expecting anything -- it was like being in a butcher's shop. They gave me a local anaesthetic. They said they couldn't put me out otherwise they wouldn't have been able to perform the operation. I was fully conscious the whole time. There was a nurse holding me down, holding my head, and two men working down at the bottom, and I was in a most undignified position with my two feet strapped in those clamps they use to keep the legs apart. I kept saying (because I wanted a girl, incidentally), 'Will you just tell me whether it's a girl?' They just didn't answer. They took no notice of me at all. They simply got on with the job, working away at the bottom of the bed, with my feet held high in the air.
Caitlin Thomas with George Tremlett, Caitlin: Life with Dylan Thomas (Henry Holt and Company, 1988), p. 152
Friday's Marianne Moore
We perceive that there has since the time of Byron and Shelley, been a change in literary manners and are forcibly persuaded by it, of the tediously ineffective dullness of published personal invective.
from The Complete Prose of Marianne Moore, p. 252
from The Complete Prose of Marianne Moore, p. 252
Thursday, December 11, 2008
René Char
Dans l'absurde chagrin de vivre sans comprendre
Écroule-moi et sois ma femme de décembre
[In the absurd chagrin of living without understanding
Tumble me down and be my December woman]
(Quoted by Thomas Merton in Learning to Love: The Journals of Thomas Merton, Volume Six, p. 116)
Écroule-moi et sois ma femme de décembre
[In the absurd chagrin of living without understanding
Tumble me down and be my December woman]
(Quoted by Thomas Merton in Learning to Love: The Journals of Thomas Merton, Volume Six, p. 116)
Caitlin: Life with Dylan Thomas
Am reading the famous widow's memoir, published in 1986, when she was in her seventies, and while it is enthralling inasmuch as it sheds some light on the personality of the poet, it reveals the widow to be a woman of a somewhat less-than-generous spirit.
An example of Mrs Thomas's prose (actually, she had a co-writer, George Tremlett, so what follows is a transcription of her spoken reminiscence):
Dylan had a great respect for N----- as a poet (although I didn't think he was half as great as Dylan made out). Although he once brought a glamorous-looking girl down to stay in Laugharne, I thought he was probably homosexual. It seemed to me that he had too much of a passion for Dylan, and that Dylan was cowed by him. One day, when I was in London as well, he invited us both to lunch at Simpsons, and then didn't say one single word to me throughout the meal. I couldn't forgive him for that.
The score-settling, fault-finding personality is presented here at its mildest. But so far, it's been a hundred pages of this sort of thing. And when someone is praised ("Nobody gives praise more than I do when it's due"), the person is usually slighted, derided, or gossiped about in the next breath.
I shudder to think how Marianne Moore would have reacted when reading this memoir.
Another example of Mrs Thomas's abrasiveness: In her youth she was the object of the unrequitable affections of a young Italian, an unfortunate man she describes as "groveling" and "a worm"; he would follow her around (not quite stalking, but still being a nuisance), and she would always "sweep past him," saying nothing. It transpired that this young Italian fellow shot himself to death, presumably because Caitlin couldn't reciprocate his affection. She admits in her memoir that her first and only thought was "thank God I've gotten rid of him!"
Being followed around like that must have been no fun; still, it causes startlement, how easily she finds herself able to speak ill of the dead!
I could come up with other examples, but more than any incident, it's the overall tone that is really, really off-putting. A friend of her mother's is "odious"; her own father is described as a "dirty old man" -- and if some of these charges are true, it's still disheartening to read what is relentlessly negative.
The People magazine blurb speaks approvingly of Mrs Thomas's "unabashed honesty" and "almost savage personality." A little too unabashed, as when she describes her marital relations with Dylan in rather clinical detail. And the adjective "savage" may need no qualifier.
An example of Mrs Thomas's prose (actually, she had a co-writer, George Tremlett, so what follows is a transcription of her spoken reminiscence):
Dylan had a great respect for N----- as a poet (although I didn't think he was half as great as Dylan made out). Although he once brought a glamorous-looking girl down to stay in Laugharne, I thought he was probably homosexual. It seemed to me that he had too much of a passion for Dylan, and that Dylan was cowed by him. One day, when I was in London as well, he invited us both to lunch at Simpsons, and then didn't say one single word to me throughout the meal. I couldn't forgive him for that.
The score-settling, fault-finding personality is presented here at its mildest. But so far, it's been a hundred pages of this sort of thing. And when someone is praised ("Nobody gives praise more than I do when it's due"), the person is usually slighted, derided, or gossiped about in the next breath.
I shudder to think how Marianne Moore would have reacted when reading this memoir.
Another example of Mrs Thomas's abrasiveness: In her youth she was the object of the unrequitable affections of a young Italian, an unfortunate man she describes as "groveling" and "a worm"; he would follow her around (not quite stalking, but still being a nuisance), and she would always "sweep past him," saying nothing. It transpired that this young Italian fellow shot himself to death, presumably because Caitlin couldn't reciprocate his affection. She admits in her memoir that her first and only thought was "thank God I've gotten rid of him!"
Being followed around like that must have been no fun; still, it causes startlement, how easily she finds herself able to speak ill of the dead!
I could come up with other examples, but more than any incident, it's the overall tone that is really, really off-putting. A friend of her mother's is "odious"; her own father is described as a "dirty old man" -- and if some of these charges are true, it's still disheartening to read what is relentlessly negative.
The People magazine blurb speaks approvingly of Mrs Thomas's "unabashed honesty" and "almost savage personality." A little too unabashed, as when she describes her marital relations with Dylan in rather clinical detail. And the adjective "savage" may need no qualifier.
Thursday's Marianne Moore
Vividness is not, however, invariably synonymous with good taste
from The Complete Prose of Marianne Moore, p. 253
from The Complete Prose of Marianne Moore, p. 253
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Elegy for a Trappist
by Thomas Merton (1915-68)
Maybe the martyrology until today
Has found no fitting word to describe you
Confessor of exotic roses
Martyr of unbelievable gardens
Whom we will always remember
As a tender-hearted careworn
Generous unsteady cliff
Lurching in the cloister
Like a friendly freight train
To some uncertain station
Master of the sudden enthusiastic gift
In an avalanche
Of flower catalogues
And boundless love
Sometimes a little dangerous at corners
Vainly trying to smuggle
Some enormous and perfect bouquet
To a side altar
In the sleeves of your cowl
In the dark before dawn
On the day of your burial
A big truck with lights
Moved like a battle cruiser
Toward the gate
Past your abandoned and silent garden
The brief glare
Lit up the grottos, pyramids and presences
One by one
Then the gate swung red
And clattered shut in the giant lights
And everything was gone
As if Leviathan
Hot on the scent of some other blood
Had passed you by
And never saw you hiding in the flowers.
:: :: ::
(Today is the 40th anniversary of Thomas Merton's death.)
Maybe the martyrology until today
Has found no fitting word to describe you
Confessor of exotic roses
Martyr of unbelievable gardens
Whom we will always remember
As a tender-hearted careworn
Generous unsteady cliff
Lurching in the cloister
Like a friendly freight train
To some uncertain station
Master of the sudden enthusiastic gift
In an avalanche
Of flower catalogues
And boundless love
Sometimes a little dangerous at corners
Vainly trying to smuggle
Some enormous and perfect bouquet
To a side altar
In the sleeves of your cowl
In the dark before dawn
On the day of your burial
A big truck with lights
Moved like a battle cruiser
Toward the gate
Past your abandoned and silent garden
The brief glare
Lit up the grottos, pyramids and presences
One by one
Then the gate swung red
And clattered shut in the giant lights
And everything was gone
As if Leviathan
Hot on the scent of some other blood
Had passed you by
And never saw you hiding in the flowers.
:: :: ::
(Today is the 40th anniversary of Thomas Merton's death.)
Wednesday's Marianne Moore
When an artist is willing that the expressiveness of his work be overlooked by any but those who are interested enough to find it, he has freedom in which to realize without interference, conceptions which he personally values.
from The Complete Prose of Marianne Moore, p. 214
from The Complete Prose of Marianne Moore, p. 214
Tuesday, December 09, 2008
I've been tagged for a meme
... by Ellyn of Oblique House: the ten most fascinating Catholics of 2008. Here goes:
10. My friend S., and the others who gather for coffee after the weekday Mass at St P's (a Mass which I'm able to attend perhaps twice a week) ... what makes S. so fascinating? You'd have to know him to fully appreciate why.
9. The bishops with spine who stand up for pre-born life, esp. Abp. Chaput, who deserves a red hat.
8. Fr. C., formerly of Boston, now out west somewhere, my erstwhile confessor. Very much missed.
7. Fr. D., a parochial vicar where I attend Sunday Mass, who actually has the temerity to condemn abortion and contraception in his homilies.
6. The Holy Father.
5. His immediate predecessor, of happy memory.
4. Again, more than one here: Catholic bloggers, all and sundry. A great variety of dynamic personalities!
3. Fr. Benedict J. Groeschel, CFR.
2. Nuns who serve the poor in anonymity, and who are invariably the happiest souls on the face of the earth.
1. The saints in heaven. All right, they're the most fascinating, compelling, inspiring, challenging, celebrated Catholics not only of 2008, but of all time.
Sorry I couldn't come up with a better list! I may revise if a thought of someone else occurs to me later ...
10. My friend S., and the others who gather for coffee after the weekday Mass at St P's (a Mass which I'm able to attend perhaps twice a week) ... what makes S. so fascinating? You'd have to know him to fully appreciate why.
9. The bishops with spine who stand up for pre-born life, esp. Abp. Chaput, who deserves a red hat.
8. Fr. C., formerly of Boston, now out west somewhere, my erstwhile confessor. Very much missed.
7. Fr. D., a parochial vicar where I attend Sunday Mass, who actually has the temerity to condemn abortion and contraception in his homilies.
6. The Holy Father.
5. His immediate predecessor, of happy memory.
4. Again, more than one here: Catholic bloggers, all and sundry. A great variety of dynamic personalities!
3. Fr. Benedict J. Groeschel, CFR.
2. Nuns who serve the poor in anonymity, and who are invariably the happiest souls on the face of the earth.
1. The saints in heaven. All right, they're the most fascinating, compelling, inspiring, challenging, celebrated Catholics not only of 2008, but of all time.
Sorry I couldn't come up with a better list! I may revise if a thought of someone else occurs to me later ...
Straight No Chaser
The a cappella group was featured on ABC's World News last night. Here's the story on the ABC website.
And here is the YouTube of Straight No Chaser performing their memorable version of "The Twelve Days of Christmas":
And here is the YouTube of Straight No Chaser performing their memorable version of "The Twelve Days of Christmas":
Tuesday's Marianne Moore
If criticism is "the effect of the subjection of the product of one mind to the processes of another," is not the reviewer's own mind disparaged by him in resorting to an inconsequent and disrespectful ruade?
from The Complete Prose of Marianne Moore, p. 192
from The Complete Prose of Marianne Moore, p. 192
Monday, December 08, 2008
Monday's Marianne Moore
As is observed by a writer upon St. Francis in a recent article in The Spectator, humility is a quality which attracts us -- though not to imitation.
from The Complete Prose of Marianne Moore, p. 177
from The Complete Prose of Marianne Moore, p. 177
Sunday, December 07, 2008
Sunday's Marianne Moore
In making works of art, the only legitimate warfare is the inevitable warfare between imagination and medium and one finds it impossible to convince oneself that the part of the artist's nature which is "rash and combustible" has not been tamed by the imagination, in those instances in which the result achieved is especially harmonious.
from The Complete Prose of Marianne Moore, p. 177
from The Complete Prose of Marianne Moore, p. 177
Saturday, December 06, 2008
Saturday's Marianne Moore
In blindly disparaging another, one shows merely that one envies him his realness and wishes that he were what one says he is.
from The Complete Prose of Marianne Moore, p. 177
from The Complete Prose of Marianne Moore, p. 177
Friday, December 05, 2008
Blog hiatus
From this afternoon until Monday afternoon. But I've programmed some posts to appear on Saturday and Sunday (liturgical calendar, Marianne Moore).
Friday's Marianne Moore
The aesthetic malcontent is out of court, for wherever there is art there is equilibrium --
from The Complete Prose of Marianne Moore, p. 176
from The Complete Prose of Marianne Moore, p. 176
Thursday, December 04, 2008
Cool memory meme
Stolen from Clairity Daily. (I wasn't tagged!)
Place the ones that are true for you in boldface.
Apparently, I don't have too many cool memories.
1. Started your own blog
2. Slept under the stars
3. Played in a band
4. Visited Hawaii
5. Watched a meteor shower
6. Given more than you can afford to charity
7. Been to Disneyland (DisneyWorld)
8. Climbed a mountain
9. Held a praying mantis
10. Sang a solo
11. Bungee jumped
12. Visited Paris
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea
14. Taught yourself an art from scratch
15. Adopted a child
16. Had food poisoning
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
18. Grown your own vegetables
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. Slept on an overnight train
21. Had a pillow fight
22. Hitch hiked
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill
24. Built a snow fort
25. Held a lamb
26. Gone skinny dipping
27. Run a Marathon
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice
29. Seen a total eclipse
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset
31. Hit a home run
32. Been on a cruise
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person
34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors
35. Seen an Amish community
36. Taught yourself a new language
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied (in general)
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing
40. Seen Michelangelo's David
41. Sung karaoke
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant
44. Visited Africa
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight
46. Been transported in an ambulance
47. Had your portrait painted
48. Gone deep sea fishing
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling
52. Kissed in the rain
53. Played in the mud
54. Gone to a drive-in theater
55. Been in a movie
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business
58. Taken a martial arts class
59. Visited Russia
60. Served at a soup kitchen
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies
62. Gone whale watching
63. Got flowers for no reason
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma
65. Gone sky diving
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp
67. Bounced a check
68. Flown in a helicopter
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. Eaten Caviar
72. Pieced a quilt
73. Stood in Times Square
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
77. Broken a bone
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. Published a book
81. Visited the Vatican
82. Bought a brand new car
83. Walked in Jerusalem
84. Had your picture in the newspaper
85. Read the entire Bible
86. Visited the White House
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
88. Had chickenpox
89. Saved someone’s life
90. Sat on a jury
91. Met someone famous
92. Joined a book club
93. Lost a loved one
94. Had a baby
95. Seen the Alamo in person
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake
97. Been involved in a law suit
98. Owned a cell phone
99. Been stung by a bee
100. Read an entire book in one day
The book was Love in the Ruins by Walker Percy. Twelve hours or so, stopping only for a meal.
The first famous person that comes to mind is Seamus Heaney, ten years before his having been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.
As for singing karaoke, not for the last five years, but my favorite song to inflict upon an audience was always Van Morrison's "Moondance." I have a limited vocal range, and "Moondance" is within its limits.
Place the ones that are true for you in boldface.
Apparently, I don't have too many cool memories.
1. Started your own blog
2. Slept under the stars
3. Played in a band
4. Visited Hawaii
5. Watched a meteor shower
6. Given more than you can afford to charity
7. Been to Disneyland (DisneyWorld)
8. Climbed a mountain
9. Held a praying mantis
10. Sang a solo
11. Bungee jumped
12. Visited Paris
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea
14. Taught yourself an art from scratch
15. Adopted a child
16. Had food poisoning
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
18. Grown your own vegetables
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. Slept on an overnight train
21. Had a pillow fight
22. Hitch hiked
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill
24. Built a snow fort
25. Held a lamb
26. Gone skinny dipping
27. Run a Marathon
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice
29. Seen a total eclipse
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset
31. Hit a home run
32. Been on a cruise
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person
34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors
35. Seen an Amish community
36. Taught yourself a new language
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied (in general)
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing
40. Seen Michelangelo's David
41. Sung karaoke
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant
44. Visited Africa
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight
46. Been transported in an ambulance
47. Had your portrait painted
48. Gone deep sea fishing
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling
52. Kissed in the rain
53. Played in the mud
54. Gone to a drive-in theater
55. Been in a movie
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business
58. Taken a martial arts class
59. Visited Russia
60. Served at a soup kitchen
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies
62. Gone whale watching
63. Got flowers for no reason
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma
65. Gone sky diving
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp
67. Bounced a check
68. Flown in a helicopter
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. Eaten Caviar
72. Pieced a quilt
73. Stood in Times Square
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
77. Broken a bone
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. Published a book
81. Visited the Vatican
82. Bought a brand new car
83. Walked in Jerusalem
84. Had your picture in the newspaper
85. Read the entire Bible
86. Visited the White House
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
88. Had chickenpox
89. Saved someone’s life
90. Sat on a jury
91. Met someone famous
92. Joined a book club
93. Lost a loved one
94. Had a baby
95. Seen the Alamo in person
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake
97. Been involved in a law suit
98. Owned a cell phone
99. Been stung by a bee
100. Read an entire book in one day
The book was Love in the Ruins by Walker Percy. Twelve hours or so, stopping only for a meal.
The first famous person that comes to mind is Seamus Heaney, ten years before his having been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.
As for singing karaoke, not for the last five years, but my favorite song to inflict upon an audience was always Van Morrison's "Moondance." I have a limited vocal range, and "Moondance" is within its limits.
Debut of an online journal
We note the birth of The Christendom Review, an online journal of literature and the arts -- edited by Messrs Rick Barnett and William Luse. The editors hope that their endeavor will be "a place of rest, a point of insight or exhilaration, a sign of hope and grace."
Thursday's Marianne Moore
There cannot be too much excellence. Wilhelm Meister, Phineas Phinn, The Golden Bowl, The Lost Girl, Dubliners, Esther Waters, we may admire, and the shock of admiration may serve us as an incentive to writing, quite as may that which has been experienced by us; but like the impelling emotion of actual experience, literary excitement must be assimilated before it can be reproduced. Experiences recorded verbatim are not fiction and verbiage is not eloquence. Much may be learned by consciously noting the merits of other writers. Apperception is, however, quite different from a speedy exchange of one's individuality for that of another.
from The Complete Prose of Marianne Moore, p. 162
from The Complete Prose of Marianne Moore, p. 162
Wednesday, December 03, 2008
Wednesday's Marianne Moore
Romance is said to be inseparable from that which is sinister, and perhaps it is.
from The Complete Prose of Marianne Moore, p. 133
from The Complete Prose of Marianne Moore, p. 133
Tuesday, December 02, 2008
Tuesday's Marianne Moore
an attitude of being surprising in matters of personal freedom seems needless. The iron hand of unconvention can be heavier than the iron hand of convention; and heresy in respect to this or that orthodoxy is perhaps a greater compliment to it than one sets out to pay, amounting really in the vehemence of protest, to subjection
from The Complete Prose of Marianne Moore, p. 147
from The Complete Prose of Marianne Moore, p. 147
Monday, December 01, 2008
Monday's Marianne Moore
Themes calculated to "persuade" one, are usually aesthetically disaffecting.
from The Complete Prose of Marianne Moore, p. 131
from The Complete Prose of Marianne Moore, p. 131
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Acknowledgment
Thanks to the Curt Jester, Jeff Miller, for providing the code that enables his fellow bloggers to have a countdown to Christmas, and an Advent wreath!
I like the song ...
in this commercial:
Addendum, 12:35 pm : Snow! This morning! Walking home from church! It has since switched over to freezing rain ...
Addendum, 12:35 pm : Snow! This morning! Walking home from church! It has since switched over to freezing rain ...
Sunday's Marianne Moore
In "Ego Dominus Tuus," the beautiful poetic dialogue which appeared first in Poetry and is reprinted here and in his latest prose volume, the poet [W. B. Yeats] would have us believe that great poems are the result of the poet's "opposite" image -- an expression of what the poet is not. I think this opposite, and not his little everyday thoughts and actions, is the poet; Dowson's drunkenness, and Dante's lecherous life, are somewhat beside the mark, as their effects on the poet's soul are mainly those of health and sickness. They are ethical and civil sins, but hardly poetic sins. Their scars on the poet are not of the same character as Turner's miserliness, or as malice, envy, etc. But even these, when present, are hardly more than masks of the poet's soul -- perhaps hardly more than masks of any soul; it is in his poems that the real soul can be seen.
from The Complete Prose of Marianne Moore, p. 40
from The Complete Prose of Marianne Moore, p. 40
Saturday, November 29, 2008
GKC quotation
No kind of good art exists unless it grows out of the ideas of the average man.
(Bibliographical data unknown.)
===============
Do we agree with Chesterton? Discuss.
(Bibliographical data unknown.)
===============
Do we agree with Chesterton? Discuss.
A tale of two poets
Yvor Winters (1900-67) and Hart Crane (1899-1932), rationalist and romantic, are examined in this essay at poets.org by Timothy Donnelly.
I remember reading a reminiscence of Yvor Winters by Donald Hall (possibly in Their Ancient Glittering Eyes), in which Hall records his finding Winters perusing some poems by Hart Crane and grumbling about the "pantheism" and "irrationality" he found there. Hall asked Winters, "So why do you read [Crane's] poems?"
The sober, often acerbic, critic Winters answered, "Because they're beautiful."
I remember reading a reminiscence of Yvor Winters by Donald Hall (possibly in Their Ancient Glittering Eyes), in which Hall records his finding Winters perusing some poems by Hart Crane and grumbling about the "pantheism" and "irrationality" he found there. Hall asked Winters, "So why do you read [Crane's] poems?"
The sober, often acerbic, critic Winters answered, "Because they're beautiful."
Civics quiz
This quiz is making the rounds (again? I seem to remember it from about five years ago ...). I scored 87.88%, missing four questions pertaining to the dismal science, economics.
"The history of my stupidity would fill many volumes"
Above, the somewhat arresting first line of "Account" by Czeslaw Miłosz. (Does anyone know how to make the Polish L-with-a-line-through-it in html? I got it here by copying-and-pasting.)
Speculation
Is Hades hot? A bad surmise!
The flames are there to tantalize.
The icy soul that fain would melt
Seems close to warmth that is not felt.
1995 or 6
The flames are there to tantalize.
The icy soul that fain would melt
Seems close to warmth that is not felt.
1995 or 6
Saturday's Marianne Moore
Must a man be good to write good poems? The villains in Shakespeare are not illiterate, are they? But rectitude has a ring that is implicative, I would say. And with no integrity, a man is not likely to write the kind of book I read.
from an interview with Donald Hall published in The Paris Review, 1960
from an interview with Donald Hall published in The Paris Review, 1960
November 29, 2008
Saturday of the last week in Ordinary Time. Old calendar: St Saturninus, martyr. The details of his torture bring to mind lines from the Dylan Thomas poem: 'Twisting on racks when sinews give way ... And death shall have no dominion.'
Friday, November 28, 2008
In No Strange Land
by Francis Thompson (1859-1907)
'The Kingdom of God is within you'
O WORLD invisible, we view thee,
O world intangible, we touch thee,
O world unknowable, we know thee,
Inapprehensible, we clutch thee!
Does the fish soar to find the ocean,
The eagle plunge to find the air—
That we ask of the stars in motion
If they have rumour of thee there?
Not where the wheeling systems darken,
And our benumbed conceiving soars!—
The drift of pinions, would we hearken,
Beats at our own clay-shuttered doors.
The angels keep their ancient places;—
Turn but a stone, and start a wing!
‘Tis ye, ‘tis your estrangèd faces,
That miss the many-splendoured thing.
But (when so sad thou canst not sadder)
Cry;—and upon thy so sore loss
Shall shine the traffic of Jacob’s ladder
Pitched betwixt Heaven and Charing Cross.
Yea, in the night, my Soul, my daughter,
Cry,—clinging Heaven by the hems;
And lo, Christ walking on the water
Not of Gennesareth, but Thames!
'The Kingdom of God is within you'
O WORLD invisible, we view thee,
O world intangible, we touch thee,
O world unknowable, we know thee,
Inapprehensible, we clutch thee!
Does the fish soar to find the ocean,
The eagle plunge to find the air—
That we ask of the stars in motion
If they have rumour of thee there?
Not where the wheeling systems darken,
And our benumbed conceiving soars!—
The drift of pinions, would we hearken,
Beats at our own clay-shuttered doors.
The angels keep their ancient places;—
Turn but a stone, and start a wing!
‘Tis ye, ‘tis your estrangèd faces,
That miss the many-splendoured thing.
But (when so sad thou canst not sadder)
Cry;—and upon thy so sore loss
Shall shine the traffic of Jacob’s ladder
Pitched betwixt Heaven and Charing Cross.
Yea, in the night, my Soul, my daughter,
Cry,—clinging Heaven by the hems;
And lo, Christ walking on the water
Not of Gennesareth, but Thames!
Anaphora
If I could perpetrate lucidity, I would be joyful beyond my ability to calculate. I would consent to be interviewed by the stars of the midnight sky. I would compose immortal odes to Cynthia. I would recover the losses of eighteen years ago. I would be embarrassingly precise, especially about birthdays. I would make the mystics blush. I would find the perpendicular bisector of the segment connecting contemplation and distraction. I would search for my favorite season. Nameless angels would impinge upon my terrible hours of leisure. I would be thankful for three nights of imprisonment. I would grab the nearest Muse and wrestle her to ecstasy. I would broadcast several episodes of wonder. I would praise the braids of an arcane temptress. Sleep would bring dreams of a distant dormitory, the perfect emporium of bliss.
Friday's Marianne Moore
It is for himself that the writer writes, charmed or exasperated to participate; eluded, arrested, enticed by felicities. The result? Consolation, rapture, to be achieving a likeness of the thing visualized.
from The Complete Prose of Marianne Moore, p. 506
from The Complete Prose of Marianne Moore, p. 506
November 28, 2008
Friday of the 34th Week of Ordinary Time. The catholicculture website counsels: Get your Advent wreath ready!
Can anyone identify the young female saint depicted in the upper left corner of the page?
Can anyone identify the young female saint depicted in the upper left corner of the page?
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Aphorism
A poem is not a thought, but a grace.
José Garcia Villa in Doveglion: Collected Poems, p. 250
José Garcia Villa in Doveglion: Collected Poems, p. 250
Thursday's Marianne Moore
One should above all, learn to be silent, to listen; to make possible promptings from on high. Suppose you "don't believe in God." Talk to someone very wise who believed in God, did not, and then found that he did. The cure for loneliness is solitude. [...] And lastly ponder Solomon's wish: when God appeared to him in a dream and asked, "What wouldst thou that I give unto thee?" Solomon did not say fame, power, riches, but an understanding mind, and the rest was added.
from "If I Were Sixteen Today," in The Complete Prose of Marianne Moore, p. 504
from "If I Were Sixteen Today," in The Complete Prose of Marianne Moore, p. 504
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Happy Thanksgiving
... to all who visit here!
That is to say, Happy Thanksgiving to all visitors from the United States, which is, I think, the only country that celebrates a Thanksgiving holiday in late November ...
To the rest of you, have a great day (today and tomorrow)!
That is to say, Happy Thanksgiving to all visitors from the United States, which is, I think, the only country that celebrates a Thanksgiving holiday in late November ...
To the rest of you, have a great day (today and tomorrow)!
Wednesday's Marianne Moore
To use the temptations in the wilderness or the Christian symbols, blood or cross, as handy apparatus of trade, is soul-diminishing.
from The Complete Prose of Marianne Moore, p. 366
*
(Some poets I greatly admire, do this from time to time. Dylan Thomas. José García Villa.)
from The Complete Prose of Marianne Moore, p. 366
*
(Some poets I greatly admire, do this from time to time. Dylan Thomas. José García Villa.)
November 26, 2008
Wednesday of the 34th Week in Ordinary Time. Old calendar: St Sylvester and a few others.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Alberto de Lacerda
The tiger that walks in her gestures
Has the insolent grace of the ships
(Lines by Alberto de Lacerda quoted by Marianne Moore in her essay, "Subject, Predicate, Object," in Complete Prose, p. 505)
Has the insolent grace of the ships
(Lines by Alberto de Lacerda quoted by Marianne Moore in her essay, "Subject, Predicate, Object," in Complete Prose, p. 505)
Tuesday's Marianne Moore
[...] the testament to emotion is not volubility.
from The Complete Prose of Marianne Moore, p. 349
from The Complete Prose of Marianne Moore, p. 349
Monday, November 24, 2008
Metablogging? (I'm never sure if I'm using that word correctly)
A brief hiatus is soon to come hereabouts, from this afternoon until tomorrow afternoon, or possibly later.
Also, the Marianne Moore selections might not be a daily occurrence after today. Apologies to the legions of readers who wait each day for these excerpts with bated breath and limitless anticipation!
Also, the Marianne Moore selections might not be a daily occurrence after today. Apologies to the legions of readers who wait each day for these excerpts with bated breath and limitless anticipation!
Monday's Marianne Moore
I believe verbal felicity is the fruit of ardor, of diligence, and of refusing to be false.
from The Complete Prose of Marianne Moore, p. 437
from The Complete Prose of Marianne Moore, p. 437
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Sunday's Marianne Moore
I have a very special fondness for writing that is obscure, that does not quite succeed, because of the author's intuitive restraint. All that I can say is that one must be as clear as one's natural reticence allows one to be.
from The Complete Prose of Marianne Moore, p. 435
from The Complete Prose of Marianne Moore, p. 435
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