[photo by Bikkhu]
Finished Book 9 (Scylla and Charybdis) of Ulysses. I found Book 9 fiendishly difficult, not because the writing style was impenetrable, but because I found it continually difficult to get a good grasp of the two main points of the section (as I read it): Stephen’s argument w/r/t Shakespeare and the relationship [...]

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[photo by Eva the Weaver]
Some facts in lieu of a post:

I believe a significant part of the next 25 years of new music was prefigured by E.L.O.’s concept album Time
Grating the frozen butter into the flour with a cheese grater makes perfect biscuits and pie crusts every time
Baking Illustrated is [...]

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[image by S. Casey] 
David Foster Wallace’s passing has spurred a lot of conversations that in one way or another invoke the idea of irony and his work’s relationship to it. Some of the arguments to be found in and around those discussions– and some of the hostility that DFW’s work drew [...]

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[image by maxf]
Just finished Episode 8, The Laestrygonians. Random, likely incoherent thoughts that’ve crossed my mind over the last 60 pages or so:

There’s something interesting and tricky going on with the voice and perspective of Bloom’s monologue… a multitude of tiny moments where the text notes things said and seen [...]

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Ulysses Annotated is a great resource when tackling Joyce’s densely allusive novel, but in some ways it is almost as unwieldy as Ulysses itself! If you make it through the lengthy, but immensely useful introduction– which is generally concerned with providing adequate context of Ireland in general and Dublin in particular in 1904 but [...]

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A little bit of typographical knowledge can be a dangerous thing…
 

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Some segments from Chapter 1 with a musicality that particularly appealed to my ear, even if they are sometimes unpleasant:
 
If I were suddenly naked here as I sit? I am not. Across the sands of all the world, followed by the sun’s flaming sword, to the west, trekking to evening lands. She trudges, schlepps, trains, [...]

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Ulysses– at least through the first chapter– has more humor than I remembered. Perhaps because I was overwhelmed the first time around, I didn’t put catch it as often as I should. And Joyce tends to immediately follow the funniest bits with something of real import. For instance, the Jewish Haines and Stephen discussing Buck [...]

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[photo by editor_tupp]
Reading the first section of Ulysses, I was– like Scott– struck by the sound of the words tumbling around inside Stephen Dedalus’ head. There are many passages which read like (deeply allusive and heavily referential) prose poems. For instance:
Alo! Bonjour. Welcome as the flowers in May. Under [...]

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Monday morning I Twittered that I was digging into Ulysses, a book I read once and too-quickly many years ago, and before I knew it a few friends were joining in. We have formed some kind of rule-free, schedule-less reading group I’ve dubbed The Club of Uncertain Genius. I’m excited to have company and plan [...]

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I was wondering why my more-than-two-year-old post on Jill Greenberg’s children and monkey photos was suddenly getting comments again and then I heard about the controversy surrounding her photos of John McCain, one of which was featured on the cover of The Atlantic. Before everyone gets their knickers in a knot, though, I have [...]

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I can’t even begin to explain who dfw is- was- to me. The deep humanity that powered his writing that so many missed. Reading Infinite Jest was the discovery of a new element two empty columns over and two empty rows down. It was finding something so new and alien but somehow thoroughly human that [...]

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For thirty-three years, Lamb sat on a high stool, identical to those occupied by thirty other clerks; dipped his goose quill into two inkwells, one containing black ink and the other red (he called the latter Clerk’s Blood); and recorded the price of tea, indigo, and piece goods. Not only did he hate his work; [...]

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Via an entertaining article on writing about poetry and the admitted awesomeness of Keats comes this breathless and little-deathless blurb:
“Only rarely do lay readers experience poems as a cross between an orgasm and a heart attack.” —David Orr, the New York Times
I’m not only happy not to be a mere lay reader, but proud of [...]

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I’m no fan of Sarah Palin, but I’ve received numerous messages this morning purporting to contain a list of books Palin attempted to have banned from the Wasilla city library when she was elected mayor. This is clearly a myth.
First, this list has been circulating, in various incarnations, for ages and is just one [...]

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A single that might be on Ben Folds’ new album, due out at the end of the month: “You Don’t Know Me At All”

While not necessarily a track I’d recommend as representative to someone who’s never heard Ben Folds before (he is one of the few artists who can, in the space of a [...]

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“Breughel’s Two Monkeys”
This is what I see in my dreams about final exams:
two monkeys, chained to the floor, sit on the windowsill,
the sky behind them flutters,
the sea is taking a bath.
The exam is History of Mankind.
I stammer and hedge.
One monkey stares and listens with mocking disdain,
the other seems to be dreaming away–
but when it’s clear [...]

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A favorite author of mine has some sage advice for bloggers and people participating in social networks and why it can be a valuable activity:
[An account of a trivial event] would be rather pointless were it not for the instruction that I derived from it for myself [...] Now as Pliny says, each man is [...]

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I no longer plan to write. So, for the time being, I have no further reason to maintain this site.
Whatever I once had as a writer appears irretrievably lost. Maybe it was all an illusion. Regardless, everyone I grew up with and everyone I met when I was younger and first considering what it [...]

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No one will ever talk me out of my love for the Big American triad of Faulkner, Fitzgerald and (yes) Hemingway. By now I’ve probably heard all the criticisms and they are irrelevant in the face of the work itself.
Anyway, anyone who has spent much time with either of the latter two will have [...]

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