Jowle Brothers
21 Aug 08
Carter, Angela. The Magic Toyshop. 1967. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1996.
When the younger one finished his tea, he tossed the cup over the hoarding with a lyrical, curving, discus-thrower swing and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He seemed to be inspecting the train, raking the length of it with a low, sweeping, lop-sided gaze. His eyes were a curious grey green. His Atlantic-coloured regard went over Melanie like a wave; she submerged in it. She would have been soaked if it had been water. He touched the other man’s arm; at once he dropped his cup and they came towards her. And if one moved like the wind in branches, the other’s motion was a tower falling, a frightening, uncoordinated progression in which he seemed to crash forward uncontrollably at each stride, jerking himself stiffly upright and swaying for a moment on his heels before the next toppling step. The boy smiled and stretched out hands of welcome; the other did not smile. Melanie knew they were coming for her and started. (34)
Posted by pzed on August 21, 2008 at 9.42am
“Toughness”
17 Jun 08
“the ability to stand at a podium to deliver pre-written bluster to a hand-picked audience.”
Posted by pzed on June 17, 2008 at 5.09pm
The Beauty of Life
5 Jun 08
‘HAVE NOTHING IN YOUR HOUSES THAT YOU DO NOT KNOW TO BE USEFUL OR BELIEVE TO BE BEAUTIFUL.’
from Chapter 3 of. . .
Morris, William. 1919. Hopes and Fears for Art. New York: Longmans, Green, and Co. <http://www.marxists.org/archive/morris/works/1882/hopes/index.htm>, 2003.
Posted by pzed on June 5, 2008 at 3.13pm
glorious
26 Sep 07
Peake, Mervyn. Titus Groan. New York: Ballantine, 1968.
“Glorious,” said Steerpike, “is a dictionary word. We are all imprisoned by the dictionary. We choose out of that vast, paper-walled prison our convicts, the little black printed words, when in truth we need fresh sounds to utter, new enfranchised noises which would produce a new effect. In dead and shackled language, my dears, you are glorious, but oh, to give vent to a brand new sound that might convince you of what I really think of you, as you sit there in your purple splendor, side by side! But no, it is impossible. Life is too fleet for onomatopoeia. Dead words defy me. I can make no sound, dear ladies, that is apt.”
“You could try,” said Clarice, “we aren’t busy.” (305)
Yes, I have read past page 300. “Life is too fleet for onomatopoeia” is the highpoint of the novel so far.
Posted by pzed on September 26, 2007 at 8.33pm
Of a Shoemaker’s Apprentice Who Preferred His Master’s House to the Workshop
21 Sep 07
A shoemaker in Arezzo had an apprentice who often left the workshop and retired into the house of his master, on the ground that he could work better and more comfortably in the quiet of the house.
This aroused the suspicions of the shoemaker, so that he came to the house one day unexpectedly and found the lad in bed with his wife.
Whereupon he said sternly to his apprentice: “You are wasting your time; for this type of work I shall certainly not pay you.” (25)
Fiorentino, Poggio. Facetia Erotica. New York: [privately printed], 1930.
Posted by pzed on September 21, 2007 at 8.09pm
portrait, or landscape?
4 Aug 07
Wharton, Edith. The Age of Innocence. 1920. Scribner’s, 1968.
The immense accretion of flesh which had descended on her in middle life like a flood of lava on a doomed city had changed her from a plump active little woman with a neatly-turned foot and ankle into something as vast and august as a natural phenomenon. She had accepted this submergence as philosophically as all her other trials, and now, in extreme old age, was rewarded by presenting to her mirror an almost unwrinkled expanse of firm pink and white flesh, in the center of which the traces of a small face survived as if awaiting excavation. A flight of smooth double chins led down to the dizzy depths of a still-snowy bosom veiled in snowy muslins that were held in place by a miniature portrait of the late Mr. Mingott; and around and below, wave after wave of black silk surged away over the edges of a capacious armchair, with two tiny white hands poised like gulls on the surface of the billows. (28)
Posted by pzed on August 4, 2007 at 9.48pm
how could I leave this behind
17 Jul 07
I’m working on a project in which my library is withdrawing a number of titles from its reference collection. The current phase of the project deals with print bibliographies, most of which were compiled in the 60s and 70s, are dusty, never used, and of almost no interest to scholarship.
I’m supposed to be giving the titles already identified (by others) for withdrawal a quick once-over, just because it’s been about three years since this project has been alive and kicking; but it’s turning out to be not so quick after all. I keep running into stuff like this. . .
Reisner, Robert George. Show Me the Good Parts: The Reader’s Guide to Sex in Literature. New York: Citadel, 1964.
. . . which includes this gem. . .
BODIN, PAUL. All Women’s Flesh. New York, Berkeley (paperback), 1957. 190 pp.
pp. 41-43: The man is mildly shocked when his wife runs off with his friend. Most of the surprise is why his friend should want her. He is comforted in his loss by many women, so he is in good shape. One source of solace is a waitress in a local restauraunt. He lavishes appreciative attentions on her slightly hypertrophied posterior. (66)
Who could withdraw such a thing? Not I.
Posted by pzed on July 17, 2007 at 3.52pm
House of Mirth follow-up
9 Jul 07
Looking back at my brief post after reading Wharton’s House of Mirth, I’m tempted to re-write it—the post, not the novel. Perhaps what I wanted to say about Lily was simply, How could she have been so stupid? Was her tragic flaw something as simple as thinking herself better than she was? Or better than those around her?
I’m at risk of going over old ground that I never had time to till properly, and has now laid fallow so long I wouldn’t know where to start working to bring things back to life (much like this increasingly painful farming analogy). I only started this post to make note of a couple Acephelous posts that discuss House of Mirth:
Argument? Check. Evidence? Check. Then What, Exactly, Is The Problem?
Posted by pzed on July 9, 2007 at 11.12am
cold mountain
5 Jul 07
Days and months slip by like water,
Time is like sparks knocked off flint.
– Snyder 17:5-6
Posted by pzed on July 5, 2007 at 9.33pm
The Fourth World War
4 May 07
Baudrillard, Jean. “The Spirit of Terrorism.” The Spirit of Terrorism and Requiem for the Two Towers. Trans. Chris Turner. London: Verso, 2002. 3-33.
The first two world wars corresponded to the classical image of war. The first ended the supremacy of Europe and the colonial era. The second put an end to Nazism. The third, which has indeed taken place, in the form of cold war and deterrence, put an end to Communism. With each succeeding war, we have moved further towards a single world order. Today that order, which has virtually reached its culmination, finds itself grappling with the antagonistic forces scattered throughout the very heartlands of the global, in all the current convulsions. A fractal war of all cells, all singularities, revolting in the form of antibodies. A confrontation so impossible to pin down that the idea of war has to be rescued from time to time by spectacular set-pieces, such as the Gulf War or the war in Afghanistan. But the Fourth World War is elsewhere. It is what haunts every world order, all hegemonic domination — if Islam dominated the world, terrorism would rise against Islam, for it is the world, the globe itself, which resists globalization. (11-12)
Posted by pzed on May 4, 2007 at 11.25am
