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The Self I Cannot See
From whiskey river: Life continuously refuses to show us the plot. The desire to give it shape, and by shape, meaning, is so great anything will do. But Orwell would have us stand against all the “smelly little orthodoxies which are now contending for our souls.” I am struck by how difficult it is to [...]
Review: Enlightenment, by Maureen Freely
My review of this novel is now online, over at The Book Book blog. I don’t normally write reviews of books which I don’t recommend. I don’t even like to. It’s possible to have fun with a writing a bad review, yes, a sort of malicious glee. But the fun is diminished — especially in [...]
“Ye Gods — Not That Again…!”
I’m going to start this post with some music which did not bore me at all. On Saturday nights, our local public-radio station broadcasts a program originating in Chicago, called Midnight Special, whose slogan, per the program’s Web site, is “folk music with a sense of humor.” And the other night I just happened to [...]
Just Wait
[Image above from The "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks, which observes: "I guess if you don't just go grab a seat you may never get one."] From whiskey river: The swarm of words and little stories are just to loosen you from where you are stuck. (Shitou Xiqian) …and: O, how incomprehensible everything was, and [...]
Running After My Hat: The Two-Year, 30-Second Version
I’ve been trying to come up with something… different to do for this blog’s second anniversary. And then along comes Google, with its wacky “Search Stories Video Creator” for YouTube. The Video Creator’s first page gives you up to six search boxes, into which you enter search terms — presumably forming some sort of “story [...]
The Face of the Writer
Just found this at Jesse Kornbluth’s Head Butler site. The subject of the post was James Frey, author of the Million Little Pieces bogus memoir of a few years ago; I liked what it said about writers and writing, and liked the Orwell quote very much: Contrary to what Frey, his publisher, Larry King and [...]
Look Up! Look Up! (Or Is It Down?)
[Image: "Looking Up the Yosemite Valley," by Alfred Bierstadt. For more information, see the Haggin Museum site.] Note: Here for Poetry Friday (hosted today at the impossibly appealing Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast)? Never before been here on a Friday? Just plain confused by what’s going on in this post? You might want to read [...]
Stretching to Make a Point
One of my favorite RAMH regulars kindly forwarded this video to me. It’s a clip from a 1944 film called Broadway Rhythm, and the performers here were called the Ross Sisters. More information on the girls can be found (naturally) on Wikipedia. The video’s been around long enough that I should be embarrassed not to [...]
Things vs. Other Things
Dear Internet, Sorry I’ve been so… so… casual about our relationship over the last few days.
Already Elsewhere
From whiskey river’s commonplace book: Echoing Light When I was beginning to read I imagined that bridges had something to do with birds and with what seemed to be cages but I knew that they were not cages it must have been autumn with the dusty light flashing from the streetcar wires and those orange [...]
