March 2012
22 posts
March 1, 2012
ART AND LIFE – DISTORTIONS THAT CLARIFY
In my February 6, 2012 blog post, I made a reference to Philip Larkin, saying how much I admired the poet’s work. At the time, I knew nothing about his biography, not until the February issue of “Harper’s” arrived in the mail. According to the writer, Giles Harvey, who provided a monograph on Larkin’s life, the poet was a man of easy virtue...
February 2012
21 posts
February 29, 2012
A MODERN VERSION OF THE TORTOISE AND THE HARE
I’m celebrating today. A friend who has been shopping her first novel around for a couple of years has finally been given a contract. The publisher is a small, Independent company but the terms look decent. I’m sure she’s going to sign. Yeah!
I take some small responsibility for her success because there was a time when she thought about giving...
February 28, 2012
STRAWBERRY AND VANILLA ICE CREAM – a very courageous act.
Yesterday, I found myself walking through the Barnes and Noble bookstore and as I had a little time on my hands, I talked to a young man who was promoting the $99 Nook. He was patient as he took me through some of its features and even wrote down the address for a site where I could practice at home on my PC. He invited me to come...
February 27, 2012
IRRECONCILABLE DIFFERENCES
Thomas Frank has written a new book, “Pity the Billionaire” which takes a look at the ideological divide that seems to be pulling the country apart. He admits his conclusions are observational and not derived from any study, scientific or otherwise. What he sees is a tug-of-war between those who refuse to compromise on values and the more pragmatic among...
February 24, 2012
YOU CAN LEAD A HORSE TO WATER…
I’ve returned from my weekly water fight with my 96 year-old mother. We don’t throw balloons at one another. That would be more fun than coaxing my parent to sip a few drops of the liquid to stay hydrated. Drinking water is something she’d rather not do and I’ve exhausted my bag of tricks to convince her otherwise. Why water offends her, I don’t know; but when...
February 23, 2012
WORDS, WORDS, WORDS… I’M NEVER SICK OF THEM
I came across another delicious word in my reading the other day: Coruscate. It means to give off sparkles. As it begins with a sound that reminds me of “corrosive,” “corrupt” or even “corrugated,” it struck as one least likely to provoke images of iridescence. For a time, I considered how to use the word in a proper setting: I stood gazing at...
February 22, 2012
THE AGE OF PERICLES IS UPON US
Decades ago, when I was in college, I listened to lecture in which the professor argued that enforcing some of our laws some of the time didn’t mean people wanted them enforced all of the time. Being young, I thought the idea was shocking, but he went on to explain that too much dedication to the perfect could lead to tyranny and that it was better the let a ...
February 21, 2012
WINNING AND LOSING – WHAT’S IN A WORD?
The sun was out during my walk through the park this morning but the landscape was misty and cold. Rounding a bend along the path, my gaze fell upon a witch hazel shrub that was sporting a few bright yellow blossoms. In the pale light, I wasn’t sure whether they were holdovers from the fall or an early promise of spring.
Whether the blossoms were coming...
February 20, 2012
HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT
There’s a new book out which analyzes the amount of fraud going on in the investment world. It’s “Tangle Webs: How False Statements Are Undermining America” by James B. Stewart, reviewed by Jennifer Szalai in the February 2012 edition of “Harpers.” Stewart’s thesis isn’t profound:
“Lying seems to be an inherent part of human...
February 17, 2012
IN DEFENSE OF INTOLERANCE
Recently, a woman on my Facebook page posted an article about a man in a Middle East who bludgeoned his wife to death because she gave birth to a female child. Naturally, I sat stupefied and tried to imagine how such brutality could happen, but a few moments later another women responded and reminded us that a 1000 years earlier, the same murder might have been tolerated...
February 16, 2012
THERE’S NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN – Oh Yeah?
A few weeks ago, I was stumbling around on my computer when I came upon blog with a language translator attached. With the click of a mouse, readers could access the same message in Chinese, Japanese, Hindi…you name it. I played around on the site for a few minutes and I don’t know whether or not the translations were accurate, but I can say they ...
February 15, 2012
A PLACE WHERE MONEY DOESN’T TALK
Despite my advanced age I find that I can still be surprised. Just when I think I know everything about politics, human ingenuity surprises me. For example, I’ve been sitting around wondering where the Occupy Wall Streeters are intending to go with their movement. As of now, I haven’t a clue. What do they want and when do they want it puzzles me. Or is this...
February 14, 2012
A KIDNEY IS A KIDNEY IS A KIDNEY
I came across a profile of a female attorney, Lori Andrews, in the February issue of “More” magazine, a woman about to argue the question, “Who Owns Your Body?” before the US Supreme court. But don’t be misled. This isn’t a debate about a women’s right to choose. It’s about DNA — who can claim it; who can use it to make a profit, and who owns...
February 13, 2012
TOO BIG TO FAIL?
We talk about free markets as the mother of competition but the endgame of competition is monopoly. Barry Lynn, director of the New American Foundation makes this point in February’s issue of “Harper’s.” We may think consumers are protected by laws against monopoly, but Lynn warns that of greater concern is the rise of conglomerates — corporations that...
February 10, 2012
LET ME BE WISE – A GIFT FOR MY MOTHER
I picked up another book from the Dollar Store which proved to be a treasure: Mitch Albom’s “For One More Day.” Albom is a decorated sports columnist and the author of two better known works, “The Five People You Meet in Heaven” and “Tuesday’s with Morrie.” This third novel is the story of a man who fails at his attempted...
February 9, 2012
ONE FOR THE CUCKOO’S NEST
When my original publisher for “Trompe l’Oeil”* closed, I sent my manuscript to another small press in the hope they would pick it up. Soon after, however, I found a local publisher who accepted not only the new manuscript but agreed to reprint “Gothic Spring” — which will again be available within the next two weeks. The good news wiped...
February 8, 2012
A FRAGILE LIFELINE
In the February edition of “Town&Country” Patti Davis, daughter of Ronald Regan, writes an essay about friendship. In it she explores the razor’s edge of that difficult interface where too much truth may break a trust and too little may seem like betrayal. The problem holds for any relationship, of course, but friendships, being an informal arrangement...
February 7, 2012
THE FIRST WORD WONT BE THE LAST
Once in a while, I get a request from someone on Facebook asking me to click one button or another to protect their internet privacy. I don’t put much faith in these strategies and have stopped complying with these requests. Interaction on the web means going public. As Lars Nelson of the “New York Daily News” rightfully described it, the Internet is “a...
February 6, 2012
A LONGING IN THE BLENT* AIR
Recently, I rented a DVD entitled “The 4 Horsemen,” a conversation by four prominent atheist writers: Richard Dawkins, Sam Harrison, Daniel Dennett and Christopher Hitchens. The topics were varied, the observations thoughtful; but the conversation almost came to a standstill when Hitchens confessed that he hoped religion would never be stamped out entirely....
February 3, 2012
THOUGHTS ON THE WAY TO THE ENDGAME
I received a belated New Year’s message from a former student I taught in what is now called Zimbabwe. Today she runs a small travel agency in South Africa called Rufaro. She’s been in the business for several years and I’ve watched her struggle for her little company through political upheavals, social unrest and economic downturns. Despite the challenges she...
February 2, 2012
LIFE LIVED AS A BEER BELCH
Not long ago, (1/12/12) I wrote about the trend toward mediocrity in American society as decried by Bernard Berenson and Philip Roth, among others. Apparently the cry is growing louder than I realized and the threat more real than I imagined. The columnist Harry Eyres revives the warning as he contemplates the country’s direction. Having recently finished...
February 1, 2012
WHAT DREAMS MAY COME
A friend recently sent me the January 7 edition of the “Financial Times” which contained a book review of “The Science of Delusion” by Rupert Sheldrake. Sheldrake is a biochemist whose field is morphogenesis – the study of how organisms get their shape. Sheldrake’s uses his knowledge of anatomical structure to challenge bedrock scientific premises and...
