Reviews and News:
Benjamin Franklin’s guide to making friends: “When he was 21, Ben Franklin started a ‘mutual improvement society’ that he called the ‘Junto’ (pronounced June-Toe), derived from the Latin for ‘to join.’ Franklin’s group of twelve Philadelphians met Friday nights at a local tavern they called the ‘merchant’s Every-night club,’ where they discussed business, morality, politics, philosophy, and whatever else interested them. The membership was vocationally diverse, with businessmen, a clerk, a mathematician, a shoemaker, a surveyor, and a mechanic. The underlying agenda was to help one another become successful in their careers and good citizens. They discussed the role that virtues play in building a successful life. The Junto also took on civic and charitable causes, such as establishing a public library by asking members to donate some of their own books. Might establishing this kind of mutual improvement society be possible today? In our world of distrust across cultural and political groups and increasing social isolation, such a community seems more needed now than ever.”
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Walt Whitman’s paleo diet.
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Should grammar be descriptive or prescriptive? For Bryan Garner in Modern English Usage, “questions about usage are largely a matter of prudence. We write to communicate, to tell people things. ‘To the writer or speaker for whom credibility is important,’ he tells us, ‘it’s a good idea to avoid distracting any readers or listeners.’ Rank sloppiness distracts; so does snobbery.”
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Ferruccio Busoni is a “lost titan of European civilisation.” “Transnational to a fault, he sought identity in creative unity. Busoni worked towards a style that was beyond Italian and German, neither retrograde nor experimental but, as he termed it, ‘young classical’.”
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In Case You Missed It:
The urban renewal debacle: “What is happening in the Tech Triangle, in Austin, in Seattle, is that affluent people are creating the lifestyles that appeal to them. In our generation, there is a trend towards upscale street life, superficial diversity, and feel-good consumerism. It’s a great quality of life for those who participate in it. And cities should encourage this activity, because affluent people pay taxes. But if a city makes it their entire growth strategy, they will end up neglecting core services, and subsidizing activities that cause displacement. I think we’re going to look back on the creative class urbanist movement and see elements of the urban renewal debacle.”
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Euthanasia’s slippery slope.
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Edward Rothstein reviews a stunning performance of Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night.
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Efforts to “translate” Shakespeare into modern English are “doomed from inception; it’s not that in translation one loses the ‘gist’ of Shakespeare. It’s that one loses Shakespeare himself.”
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Classic Essay: Leon R. Kass, “Ageless Bodies, Happy Souls”
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Interview: Bill Kristol talks with Russian chess Grandmaster Garry Kasparov about chess and life in Russia
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