Reviews and News:
E.E. Cummings’s forgotten artist’s book: “Published in 1931, CIOPW includes 99 examples of Cummings’s visual art in charcoal, ink, oil, pencil, and watercolor.”
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Gerald Russello on David Jones’s accomplishment: “The language of In Parenthesis is strikingly modern, combining Arthurian legend, chanson de geste like The Song of Roland, with the speech of the Tommies and common slang. But it is also timeless. Through the Welsh soldier Dai Greatcoat we hear echoes of all the soldiers down into the forgotten past. Compared with this great work, the other war poets can seem almost superficial and saccharine.”
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The truth about owls: “Humans have always noticed owls. One of the earliest examples of Paleolithic art is an owl engraved on the wall of the Chauvet cave in France. Among the peculiarities of owl physiognomy is that owls have both eyes facing forward, unlike most birds. They can also turn their heads 270 degrees (making up for their inability to move their eyes). It has been easy to imagine that these creatures of darkness, mostly experienced as an ominous cry in the night or a disconcerting stare during the day, have personalities, and malign ones at that. Even today, the two books under review tell us, in many parts of the world owls are killed whenever they are encountered, for fear of their evil influence. The Greeks perceived owls more positively, as embodiments of wisdom… The truth about owls is less fantastical but no less interesting than what humans project onto them. Owls’ remarkable physical attributes were shaped by the imperatives of the hunt. They are impressive killing machines, capable of dispatching other birds or animals larger than themselves. Central to this are big legs and claws, wing feathers designed for silent flight, and highly sensitive eyes and ears. Owls have acute binocular vision and, contrary to legend, can see in daylight.”
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Cary Grant dropped acid 100 times. He claimed the drug saved him.
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Michael Lindgren reviews Adam Bradley’s The Poetry of Pop: “Pop lyrics are not by themselves poetry, but pop songs can be.”
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Alexander von Humboldt’s cosmogony and the Hudson River School: “Humboldt’s consuming interest in volcanoes, reflected so obsessively in Church’s paintings, originated in a theory about the earth’s creation. While some late eighteenth-century scientists had notions about oceanic vortices, Symmes’s holes, and maelströms as keys to the mystery of our planet’s formation, Humboldt theorized (rightly) that volcanoes were linked to one another and to the molten interior of the earth. He spent five months in 1802 scaling every volcano—there were dozens—reachable from his base camp in Quito… But he believed he was looking at the earth’s cosmogony, the center of everything. Church’s most strenuous attempt to convey this Humboldtian vision came in 1862 with Cotopaxi, an awesome 4 by 7 foot painting of the highest peak in the Andean cordillera (19,000 feet) in the throes of violent eruption, but seen from a great distance. Its sulphuric smoke rises darkly and billows like a pall across two-thirds of the sky, almost obliterating the fiery sun. In the foreground are rocky cliffs and a forbidding waterfall pouring through a wide crevasse in the broken earth’s crust. The whole panorama is bathed in a coppery hot glow.”
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Essay of the Day:
Does democracy die in rudeness? Steven Bullock argues it might in Aeon:
“Long before current fears about incivility in public life – before anxieties about Twitter-shaming and cable-news name-calling – politeness was very much on the minds of United States leaders. In 1808, the US president Thomas Jefferson ranked the ‘qualities of mind’ he valued. Not surprisingly, he included ‘integrity’, ‘industry’, and ‘science’. These traits were particularly important to American revolutionaries seeking a society based on independent citizens, rather than harsh rulers and inherited privilege. But at the top of his list, Jefferson chose not these familiar Enlightenment values but ‘good humour’ – or what contemporaries usually called ‘politeness’.
“Placing politeness first seems surprising. Today, the term often connotes a lesser, private virtue, reminiscent of antiquated childhood rules and required thank-you notes. At worst, politeness keeps people from revealing themselves or speaking out against injustice. One of the longest-running US reality TV shows, The Real World (1992-), suggests in its introduction that the truth about who people are comes out only when they ‘stop being polite – and start getting real’.
“However, 18th-century Britons and Americans believed that politeness was essential for a free society. Autocrats shouted, cursed and berated. But they sought only obedience. Leading a more open society required respect for other people, sensitivity to their expectations and concerns. By the time of Jefferson’s ranking, politeness had been part of the project of challenging authoritarian rule for more than a century.
“Later in 1808, Jefferson explained the importance of politeness more fully. The president’s 16-year-old grandson, Thomas Jefferson Randolph, had recently left home for further education in Philadelphia. ‘Safety’ in this situation, Jefferson suggested, required three qualities: moral virtue, ‘prudence’, and ‘good humour’ supported by ‘politeness’. He explained further that politeness was ‘artificial good humour’, the habits and discipline that filled in when good humour flagged. It was, therefore, ‘an acquisition of first-rate value’. Consideration for other people, refraining from disputes in company, and sacrificing one’s own ‘conveniences and preferences’ to please others could ‘win’ their ‘good will’.”
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Photo: Armenia
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Poem: Don Paterson, “Lacrima”
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