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A look at great reads from the editor of the TLS. This week: the letters of British poet Louis MacNeice, a reconsideration of Elizabeth Barrett Browning as victim and symbol, and the Berkshire volume in the famous Pevsner series.

Louis MacNeice and His Friends

Selected Letters of Louis MacNeice Edited by Jonathan Allison 816 pages. Faber and Faber. £35.
“MacSpaunday” was the dismissive nickname once given to the seemingly interchangeable poets of the 1930s: Louis MacNeice, Stephen Spender, W.H. Auden, and Cecil Day-Lewis. This oft-repeated jibe becomes more misleading than ever after the publication of the letters of Louis MacNeice. “So much for MacSpaunday,” writes David Wheatley in the TLS this week, noting that there are no letters in the 768-page collection to Spender or Day-Lewis and only one from Auden.

Are we to be pleased by this? Even to those who have long rejected the idea of conglomerate British left-wing poetry, so complete an absence of key correspondents gives that section of the book “a breathless, jittery feel,” Wheatley concludes. An unusual amount of the new book is devoted to MacNeice’s schooldays, during which he shared a room with the future art critic and Soviet agent Anthony Blunt while joining in debates on whether Keats deserved to be called a poet. Later subjects included rugby, alcohol, and the emotional and political backdrops to his own poetry. In his later years, “the pace of both MacNeice’s drinking and romantic entanglements picked up considerably,” enlivening the narrative without hugely enhancing our appreciation of the poet's achievements.

A Subversive Poet

The Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning Edited by Sandra Donaldson 2976 pages. Pickering & Chatto. £450.
The one romantic entanglement of Elizabeth Barrett Browning strongly influenced the reputation of her poetry—and did so much for the worse. Joseph Phelan in the TLS this week contrasts the 19th-century obsession with her martyrdom and victimhood with “the first modern scholarly edition” of her poetry that emphasizes her role as an edgy, subversive visionary.

This clash of sensibilities, between readers who were keen to see in Elizabeth’s poetry stereotypically feminine qualities of sentiment and pathos and modern critics determined to construct an “iconoclastic” and radical poet, is played out repeatedly. She is, on the one hand, the poet of the politically explosive “Curse for a Nation,” rushing “into drawing rooms and the like” with an unsettling message of social and sexual inequality. She is also the poet of “painfulness and martyrdom,” a pious, ascetic, and often rather unattractively dogmatic writer, who found a grim satisfaction in abasing herself before a succession of real and imaginary father figures. Phelan notes a powerful fragment on the rights of women, influenced by Mary Wollstonecraft and written when she was only 16. But no modernity of approach can save her from the occasional line such as “I aspire while I expire.”

Pevsner’s Berkshire

The Buildings of England: Berkshire By Geoffrey Tyrack, Nicolaus Pevsner, and Simon Bradley 800 pages. Yale University Press. $85.
Pevsner’s The Buildings of England is a classic in the process of a complete modernization. The highlight of the new edition of the volume of that is devoted to Berkshire is a “brilliant and intricate account of Windsor Castle, the greatest inhabited castle in England or anywhere for all I know,” writes Ferdinand Mount. Berkshire is a small county with “no ancient cathedral and few great houses.” But it includes miles of Thameside made famous by the animal homes of The Wind in the Willows and a 110-foot Gothic tower, built by the composer Lord Berners at Faringdon in the “high camp” spirit of his better known pink-and-blue-painted pigeons. This latter is “perhaps the last great folly built in England,” a wonder of a sort even if it must now share the county with the post-war suburban sprawl of Reading and Bracknell.

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In Katie Roiphe's recent article “The Allure of Messy Lives” about Mad Men this past Sunday, Roiphe speaks of the current fascination and wistful awe for a world where stylish men and women think nothing of three martini lunches, smoking while pregnant, and falling into bed with strangers. She wryly notes the difference in our attitudes today:

“Try telling a group of young parents in a Draper-like milieu that you have decided to give your baby non-organic milk instead of paying $4 for organic, and see what sort of unbridled shock you can elicit.”

The transformation and institutionalization of the art world over the last few decades, to be sure, is hardly different. Many artists I know, including myself, have awoken hungover on its well-manicured lawn, littered with Murakamis and MFAs, tended and fertilized by the pre-recession boom. There we go, herded from exhibition to exhibition to museum show, onward and upward as we climb the ladder toward art world heaven.

So it is with a particular thrill that I introduce a new kind of exhibition– a game called “7 Rings”, exclusive to the Huffington Post, conjured by painter Rebecca Campbell and poet Nicole Walker. Each week the painter and the poet will create a work of art to begin the game. Each week they'll then invite 5 more artists from a variety of disciplines –writers, artists, musicians, etc.– to join the conversation by making a work in turn, just as in a game of telephone. Artists will have 24 hours to respond to a previous artist's work or “Ring”. Everyday on the arts page, you will see a new work of art branded as 7 rings.

The first ring is a painting by Rebecca Campbell, inspired by the headline “Wake Them When It's Over,” a piece about Afghanistan by Jason Linkins for the Huffington Post. Nicole will respond with a poem the next day, and the next artist will respond to the previous artist's work, and so on and so forth.

Welcome to the first of many artist experiments to raid the Huffington Post. Let's get messy, shall we?

About the Rebecca Campbell and Nicole Walker

Rebecca Campbell and Nicole Walker met in 1984 in Salt Lake City, Utah. They began a 25 year long conversation about art, poetry, politics, food and everything in between. They began collaborating together on the school art and literary magazine and expanded into experimental films, community arts festivals, and artist's books. Originally from Mormon families, their bar was the Painted Word and the Tap Room where they concocted projects railing against the dominant local culture. Recently, and amongst themselves, they started an artist's game of telephone. Nicole emailed a poem to Rebecca and she responded with a collage. The exchange continued with work ranging from homage to critique. Like most games it made sense that the more players the more fun. Creating, transmitting and reacting to ideas is the heart and soul of the Huffington Post, so it made perfect sense for them to bring it to the arts page where they will be continually be inviting other artists to play the game.

Participating Artists (So Far):

Rebecca Campbell is an internationally celebrated artist represented by LA Louver Gallery in Venice, CA and Ameringer-Mc Enery-Yohe in NYC. Her work has been included in exhibitions at Gagosion Gallery, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Cornell Fine Arts Museum, and Art Basel. Her work has been featured in publications including Art News, Los Angeles Times, Art Papers, X-TRA, Artworks Magazine, Art Ltd., the Huffington Post and Artnet, and is in the collections of The Phoenix Art Museum, Creative Artists Agency, and the Scheringa Museum of Realist Art. Along with Nicole Walker, Rebecca Campbell created the online exhibition 7 Rings, for the Huffington Post.

Nicole Walker is an American Poet. Her collection of poems, This Noisy Egg, was published this year by Barrow Street Press and was awarded a fellowship from theNational Endowment for the Arts and, along with Rebecca Campbell, created 7 Days, 7 Artists, 7 Rings, for the Huffington post.

Nancy Kienholz is an American pop installation artist, her work included in the collections of the Centre National d'art et de culture Georges Pompidou, Paris, France, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, and The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY.

Nick Flynn American writer, playwright, and poet. Alice Invents a Little Game and Alice Always Wins. Previous books include a memoir, Another Bullshit Night in Suck City, and two collections of poetry: Blind Huber, and Some Ether, which won the inaugural PEN/Joyce Osterweil Award and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize.

Kenichi Hoshine is an artist born in Japan and currently living and working in Brooklyn, New York. His work has been exhibited and collected internationally. He is represented by J. Cacciola Gallery in New York City and he will be teaching at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn starting this fall.

Ned Brower a drummer, singer, songwriter for the Los Angeles pop band Rooney, recently released his solo debut “Great to Say Hello” and 3rd full length Rooney album “Eureka!”

Antonya Nelson, Writer, short stories have appeared in Esquire, The New Yorker, Quarterly West,Redbook, Ploughshares, Harper's, and other magazines. They have been anthologized in Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards and Best American Short Stories. Notable Books: In the Land of Men (1992), Talking in Bed (1996), Nobody's Girl: A Novel (1998), Living to Tell: A Novel (2000), and Female Trouble (2002).

Kristin Calabrese is American painter. She has upcoming exhibitions with Susanne Vielmetter and Brennan and Griffin in New York and has had numerous solo exhibitions in the United States and Europe, including Gagosian Gallery, Leo Koenig NY, and Michael Janssen Cologne. Her paintings are included in the collections of the Armand Hammer Museum, Neuberger Berman and Saatchi.

Terrance Hayes is a prize-winning American poet. His most recent poetry collection is Lighthead(Penguin, 2010). His second collection, Hip Logic (2002), won the National Poetry Series and also was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award, and runner-up for the James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets

Tomory Dodge, is an American artist based in Los Angeles, California, Dodge is represented by CRG Gallery in New York, ACME Gallery in Los Angeles, and by Alison Jacques Gallery in London, UK. His work is in the collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA, The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY, and Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT.

Michael Martone, Writer: Author of five books of short fiction including Seeing Eye and Pensées: The Thoughts of Dan Quayle (Broad Ripple Press, 1994), Fort Wayne Is Seventh on Hitler's List (Indiana University Press, 1990), Safety Patrol (The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988), and Alive and Dead in Indiana (Alfred A. Knopf, 1984).

Iva Gueorguieva is a painter and has had solo exhibitions at Angles Gallery, Santa Monica, CA; Outline, Amsterdam, Netherlands; CA; Heriard Cimino Gallery, New Orleans, LA; and Stephen Stux, New York, NY.

Don Bachardy renowned portraitist, has had many one-man exhibitions in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Houston and New York and his works reside in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Smithsonian Institute, and the National Portrait Gallery in London, England.

Kimberly Brooks is painter represented by Taylor De Cordoba. Her recent exhibition, “The Stylist Project”, featuring portraits of style-makers styling themselves, received international recognition. Her work has been featured in numerous juried exhibitions including curators from Whitney Museum of American Art, Museum of Modern Art, and LACMA. Her work has been featured in numerous publications including Art Ltd., The LA Times, Vanity Fair, Vogue, New American Paintings and Daily Serving.

Doug Harvey is an artist, writer, Art Critic for LA Weekly, and experimental musician. His curatorial projects include the First and Third Annual LA Weekly Biennials at Track 16 Gallery in Los Angeles, and his diverse oeuvres were recently the subject of the survey exhibition Untidy: The Worlds of Doug Harvey at LA Valley College.

Natalia Fabia is an artist whose work has been featured in Angeleno, LA Weekly, Juxtapoz, and New York Arts and was featured in LA WEEKLY's best of L.A. people 2010.

Lia Halloran is a painter and photographer represented by DCKT Contemporary in New York whose work was included in a traveling group exhibition “Space is the Place” which was curated by Alex Baker and Tony Kamps for Independent Curators International

Erin Cosgrove is an artist and writer whose artwork has been exhibited at Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, and The Brooklyn Museum of Art and has received grants and fellowships from The John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, and The Creative Capital Foundation.

Susanna Coffey is an artist who has work is in the collections of The Art Institute of Chicago, The National Academy Museum, and The Weatherspoon Museum and has received awards from; The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, The American Academy of Arts and Letters, and National Endowment for the Arts.

–

*If you have a special event/performance/exhibition to share; if you wish to contribute as a blogger; if you have a story; or if you know of a great blog we should be reading, please go to this link and tell us about it. - Kimberly Brooks.

Material from:
How To Publish A Childrens Book

Tammy Lynn Michaels isn't as broke as she claims, ruled the judge overseeing her split and custody battle with Melissa Etheridge, whom just denied the singer's ex a request for $25,000 cash — immediately.

Melissa's lawyer convinced the judge she's still paying her ex's bills, including housing and their kids' school tuition, and thus Tammy — who says she wants full child custody — has no reason to claim she's destitute. But what about living in the lifestyle she was accustomed to? You know: The shadow of a lesbian singing icon.

In Katie Roiphe's recent article “The Allure of Messy Lives” about Mad Men this past Sunday, Roiphe speaks of the current fascination and wistful awe for a world where stylish men and women think nothing of three martini lunches, smoking while pregnant, and falling into bed with strangers. She wryly notes the difference in our attitudes today:

“Try telling a group of young parents in a Draper-like milieu that you have decided to give your baby non-organic milk instead of paying $4 for organic, and see what sort of unbridled shock you can elicit.”

The transformation and institutionalization of the art world over the last few decades, to be sure, is hardly different. Many artists I know, including myself, have awoken hungover on its well-manicured lawn, littered with Murakamis and MFAs, tended and fertilized by the pre-recession boom. There we go, herded from exhibition to exhibition to museum show, onward and upward as we climb the ladder toward art world heaven.

So it is with a particular thrill that I introduce a new kind of exhibition– a game called “7 Rings”, exclusive to the Huffington Post, conjured by painter Rebecca Campbell and poet Nicole Walker. Each week the painter and the poet will create a work of art to begin the game. Each week they'll then invite 5 more artists from a variety of disciplines –writers, artists, musicians, etc.– to join the conversation by making a work in turn, just as in a game of telephone. Artists will have 24 hours to respond to a previous artist's work or “Ring”. Everyday on the arts page, you will see a new work of art branded as 7 rings.

The first ring is a painting by Rebecca Campbell, inspired by the headline “Wake Them When It's Over,” a piece about Afghanistan by Jason Linkins for the Huffington Post. Nicole will respond with a poem the next day, and the next artist will respond to the previous artist's work, and so on and so forth.

Welcome to the first of many artist experiments to raid the Huffington Post. Let's get messy, shall we?

About the Rebecca Campbell and Nicole Walker

Rebecca Campbell and Nicole Walker met in 1984 in Salt Lake City, Utah. They began a 25 year long conversation about art, poetry, politics, food and everything in between. They began collaborating together on the school art and literary magazine and expanded into experimental films, community arts festivals, and artist's books. Originally from Mormon families, their bar was the Painted Word and the Tap Room where they concocted projects railing against the dominant local culture. Recently, and amongst themselves, they started an artist's game of telephone. Nicole emailed a poem to Rebecca and she responded with a collage. The exchange continued with work ranging from homage to critique. Like most games it made sense that the more players the more fun. Creating, transmitting and reacting to ideas is the heart and soul of the Huffington Post, so it made perfect sense for them to bring it to the arts page where they will be continually be inviting other artists to play the game.

Participating Artists (So Far):

Rebecca Campbell is an internationally celebrated artist represented by LA Louver Gallery in Venice, CA and Ameringer-Mc Enery-Yohe in NYC. Her work has been included in exhibitions at Gagosion Gallery, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Cornell Fine Arts Museum, and Art Basel. Her work has been featured in publications including Art News, Los Angeles Times, Art Papers, X-TRA, Artworks Magazine, Art Ltd., the Huffington Post and Artnet, and is in the collections of The Phoenix Art Museum, Creative Artists Agency, and the Scheringa Museum of Realist Art. Along with Nicole Walker, Rebecca Campbell created the online exhibition 7 Rings, for the Huffington Post.

Nicole Walker is an American Poet. Her collection of poems, This Noisy Egg, was published this year by Barrow Street Press and was awarded a fellowship from theNational Endowment for the Arts and, along with Rebecca Campbell, created 7 Days, 7 Artists, 7 Rings, for the Huffington post.

Nancy Kienholz is an American pop installation artist, her work included in the collections of the Centre National d'art et de culture Georges Pompidou, Paris, France, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, and The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY.

Nick Flynn American writer, playwright, and poet. Alice Invents a Little Game and Alice Always Wins. Previous books include a memoir, Another Bullshit Night in Suck City, and two collections of poetry: Blind Huber, and Some Ether, which won the inaugural PEN/Joyce Osterweil Award and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize.

Kenichi Hoshine is an artist born in Japan and currently living and working in Brooklyn, New York. His work has been exhibited and collected internationally. He is represented by J. Cacciola Gallery in New York City and he will be teaching at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn starting this fall.

Ned Brower a drummer, singer, songwriter for the Los Angeles pop band Rooney, recently released his solo debut “Great to Say Hello” and 3rd full length Rooney album “Eureka!”

Antonya Nelson, Writer, short stories have appeared in Esquire, The New Yorker, Quarterly West,Redbook, Ploughshares, Harper's, and other magazines. They have been anthologized in Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards and Best American Short Stories. Notable Books: In the Land of Men (1992), Talking in Bed (1996), Nobody's Girl: A Novel (1998), Living to Tell: A Novel (2000), and Female Trouble (2002).

Kristin Calabrese is American painter. She has upcoming exhibitions with Susanne Vielmetter and Brennan and Griffin in New York and has had numerous solo exhibitions in the United States and Europe, including Gagosian Gallery, Leo Koenig NY, and Michael Janssen Cologne. Her paintings are included in the collections of the Armand Hammer Museum, Neuberger Berman and Saatchi.

Terrance Hayes is a prize-winning American poet. His most recent poetry collection is Lighthead(Penguin, 2010). His second collection, Hip Logic (2002), won the National Poetry Series and also was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award, and runner-up for the James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets

Tomory Dodge, is an American artist based in Los Angeles, California, Dodge is represented by CRG Gallery in New York, ACME Gallery in Los Angeles, and by Alison Jacques Gallery in London, UK. His work is in the collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA, The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY, and Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT.

Michael Martone, Writer: Author of five books of short fiction including Seeing Eye and Pensées: The Thoughts of Dan Quayle (Broad Ripple Press, 1994), Fort Wayne Is Seventh on Hitler's List (Indiana University Press, 1990), Safety Patrol (The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988), and Alive and Dead in Indiana (Alfred A. Knopf, 1984).

Iva Gueorguieva is a painter and has had solo exhibitions at Angles Gallery, Santa Monica, CA; Outline, Amsterdam, Netherlands; CA; Heriard Cimino Gallery, New Orleans, LA; and Stephen Stux, New York, NY.

Don Bachardy renowned portraitist, has had many one-man exhibitions in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Houston and New York and his works reside in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Smithsonian Institute, and the National Portrait Gallery in London, England.

Kimberly Brooks is painter represented by Taylor De Cordoba. Her recent exhibition, “The Stylist Project”, featuring portraits of style-makers styling themselves, received international recognition. Her work has been featured in numerous juried exhibitions including curators from Whitney Museum of American Art, Museum of Modern Art, and LACMA. Her work has been featured in numerous publications including Art Ltd., The LA Times, Vanity Fair, Vogue, New American Paintings and Daily Serving.

Doug Harvey is an artist, writer, Art Critic for LA Weekly, and experimental musician. His curatorial projects include the First and Third Annual LA Weekly Biennials at Track 16 Gallery in Los Angeles, and his diverse oeuvres were recently the subject of the survey exhibition Untidy: The Worlds of Doug Harvey at LA Valley College.

Natalia Fabia is an artist whose work has been featured in Angeleno, LA Weekly, Juxtapoz, and New York Arts and was featured in LA WEEKLY's best of L.A. people 2010.

Lia Halloran is a painter and photographer represented by DCKT Contemporary in New York whose work was included in a traveling group exhibition “Space is the Place” which was curated by Alex Baker and Tony Kamps for Independent Curators International

Erin Cosgrove is an artist and writer whose artwork has been exhibited at Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, and The Brooklyn Museum of Art and has received grants and fellowships from The John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, and The Creative Capital Foundation.

Susanna Coffey is an artist who has work is in the collections of The Art Institute of Chicago, The National Academy Museum, and The Weatherspoon Museum and has received awards from; The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, The American Academy of Arts and Letters, and National Endowment for the Arts.

–

*If you have a special event/performance/exhibition to share; if you wish to contribute as a blogger; if you have a story; or if you know of a great blog we should be reading, please go to this link and tell us about it. - Kimberly Brooks.

Material from:

How To Get A Children's Book Published

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Material from:How To Publish A Childrens Book

Today, I am joining my efforts with those of ten European writers and intellectuals who are more or less directly related to my review, La Regle du Jeu. Together, we sound a cry of alarm concerning the fate of one of Europe's great intellectuals who is presently threatened with imprisonment in his own country, Croatia, for an offense of opinion. Can this be Europe? Has European genius fallen so low that we can simply accept this imminent outrage, without any reaction whatsoever?

Predrag Matvejevitch Must Not Go to Prison!

On July 28th, at the age of 78, the Croatian writer Predrag Matvejevitch will perhaps spend his first night in prison, a singular destiny for a university professor who once taught at the Sorbonne, whose only crime is to have openly expressed clear-cut opinions.

October 3rd, 2005, marked the inauguration of negotiations for Croatia's admission to the European Union. By a coincidence of dates — but was it really that? — scarcely a month later, on November 2nd, Predrag Matvejevitch, one of Croatia's finest intellectuals, was condemned by the municipal court of Zagreb, the country's capital, to two years in prison, five months of that term without remission, for defamation. There was an aspect of bitter irony about this, for the same Predrag Matvejevitch once held the European chair at the Collège de France, in Paris, in 1997.

The international press, in particular French, English and Italian, then took up the cause of this professor, specialist of comparative literature and a man of courageous political convictions: the son of a Croatian Catholic mother and a Russian Jewish father, in 1991 he sided with predominantly Muslim Bosnia against the Serbian and Croatian nationalists who dreamed of carving up the country.

His position was by no means easy to assume at the time. He was subjected to insults and defamation of all kinds; shots were fired into his pigeonhole at the University of Zagreb, where he was director of studies of French literature. It was the beginning of an exile that led him to Paris, Rome, and then Trieste.

During all the wars that have bathed ex-Yugoslavia in blood and since then, he has unfailingly fought against nationalism, against extremism, against the hard-liners on all sides and of all origins, expressing his love for a fraternal and pacific Mediterranean in his works, the most famous of which is his Mediterranean: A Cultural Landscape (Fayard, 1992), translated into more than twenty languages and, already, a classic.

In keeping with his combat for another vision of ex-Yugoslavia, for the work of memory, and against the harm that has resulted from ethnic purification, in 2001, at the invitation of the Centre français André-Malraux, he went to Sarajevo with staff and crews of Arte television channel. His stay there inspired him to write a text which appeared in the Croatian daily Jutarnji List, entitled “Our Talibans”.

This text belongs to the literary tradition of travel narratives, but with the melancholy of one who finds himself in the setting of a tragedy he tried, with the means at his disposal, to prevent. Along the thread of his thoughts are a few lines pointing out a certain number of Croatian ultranationalist writers Predrag Matvejevitch deems responsible in part for the disasters of ex-Yugoslavia.

One of them, a poet by profession, considered the term “Christian talibans” (the title of the article as it appeared in Italy) calumnious and filed suit against the author before the municipal tribunal of Zagreb. As libel remains a misdemeanor punishable by imprisonment without a suspended sentence in Croatia today, the Croatian intellectual was condemned to serve time.
Judging the sentence iniquitous and unworthy of a State of law, pleading for freedom of opinion and speech, rebelling, in a word, against what he terms an “offense of metaphor”, Matvejevitch has refused to lodge an appeal. The Croatian Prime Minister himself, observing the rising tide of international disapproval, has declared that he is personally opposed to the execution of the sentence. The Court of Appeal took the case before the Supreme Court of Croatia and the latter rendered its verdict scarcely a month ago, confirming the sentence of the magistrate's court: on July 28th, at the age of 78, Predrag Matvejevitch will sleep in prison.
What a strange destiny for this encyclopedic, polyglot mind! What a scandal for this Croatian George Steiner (for that is the reputation he immediately earned when he came to France)! What a singular fate for this impressive European intellectual whose first published works would inspire Sartre and so many others! His combat, in the dark History of the end of the 20th century, was always that of a free and politically committed spirit, in the very same tradition as Sartre — whom, as a matter of fact, he knew well. His courage honors a European mind which is, at this very moment, so methodically dishonored. And nevertheless, on July 28th, at the age of 78, he will sleep in prison.

“One does not imprison Voltaire,” General de Gaulle said, once again in reference to Jean-Paul Sartre. Of course. But can one, in all conscience, allow Predrag Matvejevitch, a man inspired by the heritage of Voltaire and of Sartre, to be imprisoned? Is Croatian law and the manner in which it is applied compatible with the demands of contemporary law and freedom of expression that are the distinctive features of democracies?

Is it acceptable that, in a country so close to adhering to the European Union, a person guilty of the simple offense of having taken a stand publicly against a poet of civil society (whose ultranationalist positions are known to all) can be treated as a delinquent? And this Croatian left-over of Yugoslavia's authoritarian past, can it be soluble in Europe?

In the meantime, as we search for an answer to these questions, on July 28th, at the age of 78, Predrag Matvejevitch will sleep in prison.

~
Umberto Eco, writer, philosopher, professor emeritus at the University of Bologna
Michaël Foessel, philosopher, editorial consultant at «Esprit»
Donatien Grau, critic
Nedim Gürsel, writer, research director at the CNRS ;
Gilles Hertzog, writer, publication director of “La Règle du jeu”
Bernard-Henri Lévy, writer, philosopher, director of “La Règle du jeu”
Claudio Magris, writer, professor emeritus at the University of Trieste and member of the editorial committee of «La Règle du jeu»
Olivier Py, writer, director, director of the Odéon-Théâtre de l'Europe
Salman Rushdie, writer and member of the editorial committee of «La Règle du jeu»
Peter Sloterdijk, philosopher, rector of the Staatliche Hochschule für Gestaltung de Karlsruh, professor at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts
Pierre Zaoui, philosopher, lecturer at the Université de Paris-Diderot, programme director at the Collège international de philosophie

Well, I haven't seen him mentioned in the comments yet, so I'll put in a plug for Joe Haldeman. He was a student at the Iowa Writer's Workshop, then also taught at U of I for a while. Currently he teaches at MIT.

If you're not into science fiction, you probably wouldn't recognize the name. But he's highly respected in the field, having won several Hugo and Nebula awards.

–jrd

Material from:laksy.ru

In my years back home in the American South, I have
grown increasingly unsurprised at the tendency of evangelicals,
nativists, and "true patriots," to read Frost in an unserious manner.
 We need not make a conclusion if the poem is definitely of the opinion
that walls separate neighbors or instead create useful boundaries.  At
the very least, it is a poem that begs us to question the premise —
something which Palin et al. clearly don't understand.  Much like a
kitschy framed needlepoint "I took the one less traveled by, / And that
has made all the difference," a superficial reading of Frost may seem
nice — but it is still kitschy.  Nothing in "The Road Not Taken"
actually allows us to determine which road is, in fact, the one less
traveled by, or whether the difference made was a positive one or not.
 It simply says that we make choices not knowing the future, must make
our own decisions, and we cannot know what the alternate future could
have been.  It is a short poem, easily read as a statement of
individuality and independence, but it is fraught with doubt and
possible regret.

A 20-year-old Tibetan named Sitar Doje is garnering attention for being the youngest known performer of the world's longest poem: a thousand-year-old and one-million-line Tibetan epic known as the “King Gesar” poem. How could such a young man possibly remember a million line poem? Would you believe that he ate it? Symbolically, of course.

Doje says that when he was just 11, he was summoned by King Gesar himself in a dream: “I dreamed I was taken to the tent of King Gesar, on a grassland I'd never been to. Someone said, in Tibetan, 'Yes, he's the person we're looking for' and forced a huge pile of books into my mouth.”

The next morning, Doje felt like he was choking on the books that he'd “eaten,” and that day, in the middle of class, he began singing uncontrollably. He continued for hours. His classmates, he says, “were all stunned and said I was crazy.” Doje's teacher recognized the song as the King Gesar epic and recorded it, and Tibet's cultural bureau has since published 30 recordings of him singing. Doje, from a poor village in Tibet, claims that before the dream he had never heard of King Gesar.

Stories of the half man/half god Gesar from the 11th century are common throughout Tibet and parts of China. He is remembered as a great warrior for the weak against the powerful, and as a unifier of tribes. His stories, as was long the case with the ancient Greek epics, are recounted orally, and they play a key cultural role for many Tibetans. For a thousand years, the Gesar poem has taught listeners about Tibet's history, morality, religion and traditions. Here's an excerpt from a written translation by Douglas J Penick:

There, descending on this perfumed bridge of smoke and longing,
Swirling and roaring in the smoke clouds, as in a gathering storm,
Surrounded by a host of mounted Drala and Werma warriors,
Whose golden armor and steel sword blades glitter like lightning,
Ride the great and ever-youthful conqueror
Gesar, King of Ling, Lord of the four kinds of warrior,
Destroyer of the four great demons who enslave men's minds.
He rules over the high snow mountains and the rolling plains.
He conquers fear, doubt, corruption and deceit in the hearts of men,
And is the great friend and protector of the life of all.

His reddish-brown face is implacable and his dark eyes fathomless.
His ferocious tiger smile is enticing.
His crystal helmet blazes like the sun.
His silver shield shines like the moon.
His chain-mail armor glitters like the stars.
He wears a tiger-skin quiver and his arrows are lightning itself.
His leopard-skin bow case holds the black bow of the north wind.
His sharp crystal sword is the invincible wisdom of spontaneous liberation.
With his right hand, he raises a terrifying whip that slashes through
all deceptions,
And with his left, he raises a victorious banner the color of the dawn.
With saddle and bridle of pure white jade, he rides the miracle horse,
Kyang Go Karkar, who is the power of confidence, the wind of winds.

There are an estimated 150 Gesar storytellers alive today. Some use bronze mirrors, sound effects and facial expressions, while others use instruments and improvised singing. Many of the storytellers were illiterate when they were inspired to begin singing the poem.

Now that he's begun, Doje claims that he could sing the epic endlessly.

You can watch clips of Tibetans singing about Gesar below.

WATCH:

–Nor the comet that came unannounced out of the north, flaring in heaven;
Nor the strange huge meteor procession, dazzling and clear, shooting over our heads,
(A moment, a moment long, it sail'd its balls of unearthly light over our heads,
Then departed, dropt in the night, and was gone;)

The origin of the above lines from Walt Whitman's poem “Year of Meteors, 1859 '60″ had always mystified scholars. In a poem memorializing real-life events it seemed an odd moment of exaggeration or fantasy. But a physics professor named Donald Olson has discovered that a rare scientific phenomenon occurring in New York that year almost certainly inspired the lines.

The catalyst for Olson's discovery was an 1860 painting by the artist Frederic Church that he realized “matched Whitman's descriptions perfectly” (You can judge here for yourself.) And Church and Whitman, Olson discovered, were both residents of New York state.

Olson and his colleagues then pored through local papers from the period and found that a strangely dramatic meteor event did in fact light up the night sky on July 20, 1860. Scientific American called it “the largest meteor that has ever been seen.”

What made the meteor so dramatic? Olson determined from descriptions that the phenomenon was what's known as an earth-grazing meteor procession, which occurs when a meteor hits the atmosphere at a very low angle and moves slowly and stunningly across the sky. It was known to have occurred only twice in the last 220 years. Whitman's meteor makes three.

Olson reasoned that the meteor must have broken apart upon entering the atmosphere (confirmed by the Church painting) which resulted in Whitman's “balls of unearthly light.” He's published his full findings in this month's Sky and Telescope magazine, wherein he gets all scientific about it:

“From all the observations in towns up and down the Hudson River Valley, we're able to determine the meteor's appearance down to the hour and minute. Church observed it at 9:49 p.m. when the meteor passed overhead, and Walt Whitman would've seen it at the same time, give or take one minute.”

It's hard to argue with that. Despite the rarity of the earth-grazing event, the 1861 meteor event was essentially forgotten. Whitman's poem will not be. And thanks to one sleuthy physicist, we know a good deal more about it.

The full text of “Year of Meteors, 1859 '60″ is below.

Year of meteors! brooding year!
I would bind in words retrospective, some of your deeds and signs;
I would sing your contest for the 19th Presidentiad;
I would sing how an old man, tall, with white hair, mounted the scaffold in Virginia; (I was at hand–silent I stood, with teeth shut close–I watch'd;
I stood very near you, old man, when cool and indifferent, but trembling with age and your unheal'd wounds, you mounted the scaffold;)
–I would sing in my copious song your census returns of The States,
The tables of population and products–I would sing of your ships and their cargoes,
The proud black ships of Manhattan, arriving, some fill'd with immigrants, some from the isthmus with cargoes of gold;
Songs thereof would I sing–to all that hitherward comes would I welcome give;
And you would I sing, fair stripling! welcome to you from me, sweet boy of England! Remember you surging Manhattan's crowds, as you pass'd with your cortege of nobles?
There in the crowds stood I, and singled you out with attachment;
I know not why, but I loved you… (and so go forth little song,
Far over sea speed like an arrow, carrying my love all folded
And find in his palace the youth I love, and drop these lines at his feet;)
–Nor forget I to sing of the wonder, the ship as she swam up my bay,
Well-shaped and stately the Great Eastern swam up my bay, she was 600 feet long, Her, moving swiftly, surrounded by myriads of small craft, I forget not to sing;
–Nor the comet that came unannounced out of the north, flaring in heaven;
Nor the strange huge meteor procession, dazzling and clear, shooting over our heads,
(A moment, a moment long, it sail'd its balls of unearthly light over our heads,
Then departed, dropt in the night, and was gone;)
–Of such, and fitful as they, I sing–with gleams from them would I gleam and patch these chants;
Your chants, O year all mottled with evil and good! year of forebodings! year of the youth I love!
Year of comets and meteors transient and strange!–lo! even here, one equally transient and strange!
As I flit through you hastily, soon to fall and be gone, what is this book,
What am I myself but one of your meteors?

Earlier this year I revealed the title of Glenn Beck's coming thriller and now the long-awaited publication of The Overton Window is upon us, with the publisher pulling out all the stops. There's an already much-talked-about prologue now online, and they've even released something you don't normally see for a book — a video trailer.

The screen is filled with poetry, and with words that are alternately jarring or literary — for the most part words that long-time listeners would not expect to come from the self-proclaimed “rodeo clown” of a right-wing media phenomenon. One exception does sound very Beck-ian, however — the part where “the dog returns to its vomit.”

But the words are very much not written by Glenn Beck. They are from the poem “The Gods of the Copybook Headings,” by Britain's iconic Rudyard Kipling. Most viewers of the trailer — based on the comments that I've read in a couple of online postings — have no idea that this is a Kipling poem, nor would they, since the famed bard of the turn of the 20th Century is never credited.

Kipling's words are no longer under copyright, of course, and you can argue whether it's a form of plagiarism, since it's probably unlikely that many viewers would think that Beck himself actually wrote the poem (again, except for the part about the dog vomit). Still, if I were fortunate enough to get a slickly produced trailer for a book, I'd want it to include words that I'd actually written — but that's just me.

By the way, the choice of the poem does say something about Beck, who is borne ceaselessly back into 1919, the year that “The Gods of the Copybook Headings,” around the time that — in Beck's also-fictionalized history of America — Woodrow Wilson and the progressive movement were destroying everything good and decent about America (like, um, rancid meat-packing factories…). Written by Kipling as he grieved over the loss of a son in World War I — an event that makes Beck look sane in comparison — it is a favorite of conservatives who see it as a warning against the totalitarianism rising in Russia and elsewhere.

Of course, the real problem comes when you try to wrap those 91-year-old concerns around the actual issues that America faces in 2010, which have nothing to do with Lenin and Trotsky, but that is the slight of hand that Beck and his ilk do not want you to see.

Also note there's one section of the poem not in the trailer — in which Kipling writes: “That All is not Gold that Glitters.” Wonder why that wasn't included.

Disney has created a new Facebook app that will let users buy tickets to see Toy Story 3 right on the site, while also inviting their friends along. The application is called Disney Tickets Together and is a brilliant example of social media synergy.

The app, which works in partnership with ticket-buying websites like Fandango.com, lets users pre-order tickets for the show and then invite others to join them. Users can also post what showing they are going to on their Facebook news feed.

This is the type of campaign that is a perfect fit for social media. Not only does the ability to buy tickets without leaving Facebook make impulse ticket buys more likely, but the social aspect makes group planning that much easier.

The nice thing about the Facebook app is that you can view what types of theaters are showing the film in your area (meaning 3D, stadium seating, IMAX 3D, etc.) and you can also invite along non-Facebook friends by entering in their e-mail address.

Tickets aren’t available for pre-order at all theaters but many more will be added next week.

As we noted yesterday, movie studios are increasingly using social media — and especially Facebook — in the promotional campaigns for feature films.

Toy Story 3 has already used social media, setting up a college tour using Facebook and uploading faux-vintage toy commercials to YouTubeYouTube. What is different about this campaign is that it has a direct monetary link. This is a way that the studios can use social media to directly increase and promote ticket sales.

We hope that Disney employs this app for more of its films and that other studios take notice. What do you think about how Disney is using Facebook to sell movie tickets? Let us know!

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New podcast story: “The Jammie Dodgers and the Adventure of the Leicester Square Screening”

Cory Doctorow at 9:56 PM Tuesday, Jun 8, 2010

After a long hiatus, I'm back to my podcast. I've just posted part one of “The Jammie Dodgers and the Adventure of the Leicester Square Screening”, originally published on Shareable.net.

MP3 Link

Podcast feed

(Image: Tilt and shift - Leicester Square at night, a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No-Derivative-Works (2.0) image from rthakrar's photostream)