Decide that you like college life. In your dorm you meet many nice people. Some are smarter than you. And some, you notice, are dumber than you. You will continue, unfortunately, to view the world in exactly these terms for the rest of your life.
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READIN
READIN started out as a place for me
to keep track of what I am reading, and to learn (slowly, slowly)
how to design a web site.
There has been some mission drift
here and there, but in general that's still what it is. Some of
the main things I write about here are
reading books,
listening to (and playing) music, and
watching the movies. Also I write about the
work I do with my hands and with my head; and of course about bringing up Sylvia.
The site is a bit of a work in progress. New features will come on-line now and then; and you will occasionally get error messages in place of the blog, for the forseeable future. Cut me some slack, I'm just doing it for fun! And if you see an error message you think I should know about, please drop me a line. READIN source code is PHP and CSS, and available on request, in case you want to see how it works.
See my reading list for what I'm interested in this year.
READIN has been visited approximately 236,737 times since October, 2007.
From a presentation of Qfwfq at Teatro Bergidum, León (Autumn 2006)
That day I was running through a kind of amphitheatre of porous, spongy rocks, all pierced with arches beyond which other arches opened; a very uneven terrain where the absence of colour was streaked by distinguishable concave shadows. And among the pillars of these colourless arches I saw a kind of colourless flash running swiftly, disappearing, then reappearing further on: two flattened glows that appeared and disappeared abruptly; I still hadn't realized what they were, but I was already in love and running, in pursuit of the eyes of Ayl.
I had forgotten from my previous read of Cosmicomics, what a sweet, lovable character the narrator Qfwfq is -- my memory of him was as a pretty abstract, cold presence. I take from this that my reading a decade and a half ago was less concerned with characters, with identification, and more principally so with the language and logic games that I remember well from the previous read.
(A note on rereading Calvino -- it is a pleasure to find that in his note "Why Read the Classics?", Calvino says that "classics are the books of which we usually hear people say, “I am rereading…†and never “I am reading…â€")
posted afternoon of October first, 2011: Respond ➳ More posts about Cosmicomics
So as of this week I have given in to another one of my body's limitations: for a year or so I have been wearing progressive bifocals, and it's only really in the past couple of months that I've realized, they just don't work for me as reading glasses. I want to be looking straight ahead or slightly up when I'm reading, because my childhood nerve damage means I have double vision when I'm looking down. So: I now have separate glasses for reading. Hopefully I can get in the habit of using them, I think it will make the physical experience of reading a lot nicer.
Came Blanaid, Mac Nessa, tall Fergus who feastward of old time slunk, Cook Barach, the traitor; and warward, the spittle on his beard never dry, Dark Balor, as old as a forest, his mighty head sunk Helpless, men lifting the lids of his weary and death-making eye.
Discussing "The Wanderings of Oisin," Judith Weissman calls "this list of unforgettable and irreplaceable names... the poem's most powerful passage; the names themselves call Oisin back to what he remembers..." This statement stuck in my head last night while I was reading Cosmicomics and I was struck by the incantatory nature of the names of Qfwfq's family members...
My introduction to Calvino was 14 or so years ago, on a weekend trip -- Ellen's writing group was staying for the weekend at Joyce and Jim's place in New Paltz (or, well, possibly this was when they were living in Coxsackie -- there were a number of such weekend retreats); I found a copy of Cosmicomics in the guest bedroom and spent much of the weekend holed up in there reading. It is a difficult book to put down. I started reading it again last night and am finding the stories just delightful, all over again.
posted morning of October first, 2011: Respond ➳ More posts about Readings
To mark Raise a Reader Day yesterday, Juanita Ng of the Calgary Heraldposted pictures of the "12 coolest libraries in the world." Above is a shot of the stacks at the Trinity College library in Dublin. (Thanks for the link, Gary!)
In Washington State, KOMO News reports on the newfound freedom of the 7 chimpanzees who live at Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest in Cle Elum. The chimps have spent their lives as lab animals, and several have never been outdoors before; thanks to the volunteers who spent the past year putting up fencing, they now have a safe outdoor area to spend their remaining days in. (Thanks for the link, Rob!)
The exchange that has been taking place at The Stone over the past few weeks on the subject of naturalism takes an interesting turn today with William Egginton's assertion that "fiction itself... has played a profound role in creating the very idea of reality that naturalism seeks to describe." Egginton focuses on Cervantes' creation of a narrative reality which exists independently of his characters' subjective experiences, and sees the idea of "objective reality" developing around this same time.
posted evening of September 26th, 2011: Respond ➳ More posts about Don Quixote
Nominations are open for cleek's 2011 Reader's Poll -- what are your favorite records of all time, as of 2011? I'm interested to see what records get nominated -- the readers there are a group of good, eclectic tastes.
I've been thinking about what records I should submit for a week or so, since cleek announced the poll... A nice state to be in since it means I have songs from my favorite records running through my head. What I came up with (some Dylan, some Robyn Hitchcock, some folk music...) will generally not be too surprising for anybody that knows the inside of my head like I do. I was a little surprised to find early on that it was important to include in the list a record that I have not listened to or thought about much in years, viz.I.R.S. Greatest Hits vols. 2 & 3 -- I spent a lot of time listening to this record in high school and college and, while I never was into the New Wave very much besides this record, it seems like it shaped my musical ear in some important ways.
So anyways, I'm listening to it right now for like I say, the first time in years, and the songs sure hold up. Recommended. (It was never released on CD; but if you search for it you'll find torrents that people have ripped from vinyl.) I'm putting the track listing and YouTube playlist below the fold -- Seriously every track is giving me the "great song" response, where as I listen to the first couple of bars I get an ecstatic wave of recognition and melt into the song. (Well I don't love "Uranium Rock" like I love every other song -- but it is not out of place either. Sort of interesting bit of punk rock rockabilly.)
Ellen's birthday was a couple of weeks ago now; tonight we're getting together with some of our friends for a belated celebration. I made her a birthday mix tape to spin for the occasion:
The WS Walcott Medicine Show -- The Band
Heaven -- Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians
Our Swingin' Pad -- Jonathan Richman
Take Me Higher -- Al Green
Up on Cripple Creek -- The Band
The Arms of Love -- r.e.m.
The Ballad of John and Yoko -- The Beatles
Dancing Barefoot -- Mountain Station
I Feel Beautiful -- Robyn Hitchcock
Go on with your bad self -- Eddie Kendricks
Strawberry Fields Forever -- The Beatles
I want to sing that rock and roll -- Gillian Welch
When the Earth Moves Again -- Jefferson Airplane
Big Yellow Taxi -- Joni Mitchell
The Way it Will Be -- Gillian Welch
Ophelia -- The Band
Stop Breakin Down -- Lucinda Williams
Fortune Teller -- Robert Plant and Alison Krauss
Electrolite -- r.e.m.
Pretty as You Feel -- Jefferson Airplane
If I am understanding correctly how to use Spotify, this should be a link to Ellen's birthday playlist (approximately -- I substituted publicly-available tracks for some of the ones on this list).
posted morning of September 24th, 2011: Respond ➳ More posts about Birthdays
Mighty King! Here is a story, a nest of stories, with cabinets and cupboards, about Trurl the constructor and his wonderfully nonlinear adventures!
A friend loaned me a copy of Lem's Cyberiad the other day, and I have been devouring it. Not too much of substance to say about it other than that it is a feast of words, a playful cornucopia of language. It is going on my must-read list for people who love language.
Reading it has reminded me so strongly of Calvino's Cosmicomics that today I ordered a copy of that -- it has been such a long time, it will be great to reread, and also I will have something with which to return the favor of this loaner. (Another author Cyberiad is reminding me of, which came as a bit of a surprise, is Kipling; the story "Trurl's Prescription" in particular, is almost a pastiche of "How the Camel Got His Hump".)
Juan gave me a hug. It looked like he was about to cry.
Lourdes gave me her hand; I squeezed it firmly.
I climbed on to the boat that was waiting.
A man fired the engine, and the boat started moving.
I saw Lourdes petting one of the dogs; Juan was in the water up to his knees, signaling to me with his hands.
The island grew smaller as we got farther away.
The sky was clear.
I never heard anything more of my father, nor of Lourdes, nor of Juan. I never went back to the island.
When I first read Juan Pablo Roncone's story Geese, it struck me as a highly original story, as not quite like anything I had read before. Which is funny, because as I go back and reread it and look at the structure, parts of it seem highly formulaic -- the young author running away from his frustrated life in the city and learning in the wilderness how to express himself via a symbolic confrontation with his father; the Œdipal attraction to Lourdes and the confrontation with her ex-husband who is again a stand-in for the narrator's father; bonding with Juan and that making him want to be a father... Simplifying the plot elements, they seem, well, formulaic. Like I've read many other stories with similar elements. I'm interested in figuring out what makes "Geese" stand out as a distinct, original story of its own.
Part of it of course is the skill with which Roncone executes the storytelling; he imagines his characters clearly enough (at least the narrator and Juan) that I was able to put myself in their shoes. Any story where that happens is certain to feel fresh, this experience of identifying with a new character is stimulating almost no matter how old and tired the plot the character is moving through may be. But another key element of this story is minimalism. The narrator's attraction for Lourdes is almost entirely unstated, is never acted upon. The narrator's confrontation with his father occurs only in his head. The narrator leaves the island without any resolution to the events of the story -- the fight with Lourdes' ex was pretty meaningless in the long view -- but with a commitment to return to his girlfriend in Santiago. Roncone's refusal to follow through in the conflicts that make up his plot makes the story not be "about" the conflicts, but "about" the characters.
(One issue that is bugging me: in the final two sentences I want to render the verbs as "would never hear" and "would never go" -- but Roncone seems to be saying clearly, "never heard" and "never went".)
posted evening of September 20th, 2011: Respond ➳ More posts about Translation
The polls are open over at cleek's place -- sort of a randomized round-robin election for the title of best record album evar. Go vote for your favorites!
So as of this week I have given in to another one of my body's limitations: for a year or so I have been wearing progressive bifocals, and it's only really in the past couple of months that I've realized, they just don't work for me as reading glasses. I want to be looking straight ahead or slightly up when I'm reading, because my childhood nerve damage means I have double vision when I'm looking down. So: I now have separate glasses for reading. Hopefully I can get in the habit of using them, I think it will make the physical experience of reading a lot nicer.
-- the readers there are a group of good, eclectic tastes.
