“Whatever its roots, Haiti’s extraordinary literature provides an occasion for this sad country to transcend its own instability, and discern possibilities beyond its current disasters. To tread a razor’s edge between poetry and disaster. To come to Haiti in search of its literature is to fall in love with the place–even if, sometimes, this passion is followed by a great deal of pain.” – Boston Review
Tag: 10.00
WRITERS – WHO OWNS YOUR WORK?
“The press would have you believe that the worst copyright infringement occurring on the Internet is by lone hackers sitting at their computers. However, corporate owned and controlled newspapers and television news organizations are hardly disinterested parties in this story. It may turn out that individual writers (which, potentially, could be anybody) have more to fear from people in suits trailing phalanxes of lawyers.” – *spark-online
WHAT PHILOSOPHY SOUNDS LIKE (NOT SO PRETTY)
“If Milton Babbitt and John Cage are to be believed, it is almost beside the point to talk about whether their music sounds good or sounds bad. For both composers would admit that their music does not ‘sound good’ in the ordinary sense: instead, they would challenge that notion, and replace it with highly philosophical views that are meant to undermine our ordinary aesthetic judgments.” – Boston Review
THE ’60s IN POETRY
An upcoming academic conference on poetry in the 1960s gives one of the first glimpses at “how the academy – or at least the progressive/experimental poetry wing of the academy – will be canonizing the period.” Accordingly of the 200 papers to be presented, “there were 151 US poets in the 1960’s who are now worthy of study. Twenty-seven are the subjects of multiple papers.” – Exquisite Corpse
SO WHAT EXPERIENCE DOES EITHER OF THE U.S. PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES HAVE IN THE ARTS?
AL GORE “favors public funding for the arts, has a passion for van Gogh—and relaxes by painting abstractions.” While GEORGE W. BUSH “takes a moderate stance on government support and has a taste for American Western art.” – ARTnews 10/00
THE CHEAPENING OF APPLAUSE
“New inductees into the world of performing arts can’t seem to differentiate between what is merely mediocre and what is truly exceptional. This is can be seen clearly at the end of every performance I have attended over the last 2 years. Every performance, good, bad, or ugly received a standing ovation from the audience. Every one. Ultimately, this cheapens the performance.” – *spark-online 10/00
SEE YOU IN THE FUNNY PAGES
A writer uses the dissemination of comic books as a model to imagine a brave new world where artistic products are distributed solely according to their merit and interest. – *spark-online 10/00
THE POST-MODERNIST WEB
“In the postmodern realm of cyberspace no ‘grand’ narratives, all-encompassing stories, or over-pervasive myths either impose their guidance or legitimate specific approaches. We do not encounter in cyberspace such good old stories as the dialectic of the Spirit, the hermeneutics of meaning, the emancipation of the rational/working subject, or the creation of wealth.” –*spark-online 10/00
WORDS AND MEANING
“Though the enterprise of literary criticism is a vast and infinitely complicated one, it all begins in a very familiar and basic experience. I read a text, perhaps Shakespeare’s Sonnet 94 (“They that have power to hurt and will do none”), find a deep pleasure in doing so, and want to explain my experience to others, sometimes enabling one of them to find the same kind of experience. I believe that I understand Shakespeare’s poem, and I want to test my understanding against other people’s views, perhaps even to enrich it as I deepen my insights in response to theirs.” – Philosophy and Literature
JOUSTING WITH GORE
Writing a biography of Gore Vidal proves to be a fight for control of the biographer’s art. “I’m also fond of you and your megalomaniacal ways,” I wrote to Gore the next day. “Alas, your fax of yesterday is mean and meretricious. And it’s filled with false statements. Also, it’s an attempt to go back on your word.” – Lingua Franca