It is the soul’s first habitat, the original self ambushed—cross-sectioned—in its state of nature, before it has been stirred to make a plan, to direct itself toward something. We open our eyes in the morning and for an instant—more if we indulge ourselves—we are completely idle, ourselves. And then we launch toward purpose; and once we get under way, many of us have little truck with that first unmustered self, unless in occasional dreamy asides as we look away from our tasks, let the mind slip from its rails to indulge a reverie or a memory. All such thoughts to the past, to childhood, are a truancy from productivity. But there is an undeniable pull at times, as if to a truth neglected. William Wordsworth’s “Ode: Intimations of Immortality” suggests as much: “But for those first affections,/Those shadowy recollections,/Which, be they what they may,/Are yet the fountain light of all our day,/Are yet a master light of all our seeing.
Gallery Girl
Is a dirty mind a sharper mind?
It’s as if committing to his own story would have been too obvious, and maybe too honest, for Wallace — he wants to make sure we know that on some level, he doesn’t really mean it. But Wallace didn’t have the grand Pynchonian playfulness he would have needed to pull off this kind of bet-hedging performance, and the narrative of Infinite Jest can’t support the riches Wallace lavishes on it. It lies hopelessly pinned to the ground beneath them, twitching limply, like Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree crushed beneath its own ornaments. The result is a book that’s brilliant, funny, heart- and brain-rending and borderline unreadable. It’s great, but its greatness runs but north by northwest.
Heavy-handed enforcement of copyright is not the answer when your real goal is to persuade people to buy digital goods and services. To encourage people to part with their money, you have to demonstrate that you have a service worth paying for – as Spotify, Lovefilm or iTunes already do.
(via Website blocking will not solve copyright concerns | Jim Killock | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk)
In my book I mention soldiers in Iraq who can sense if there is a land mine on a street. They have a sensation of coldness but they can’t tell you why. That is one example of the way the mind is much more impressive than we are aware of.
And by the time the Barnes completes its move, all will have been remade into slick, corporate artistic institutions of a sort that their founders no doubt would have deplored.
Making art and appreciating art seems to be universal in the human species.
A mistress of metaphor and sparking detail, and with more punch than Proust, Colette’s descriptions are often laugh out loud funny, at once cruel and compassionate, but usually followed swiftly by a warm, reflective melancholy. (via Colette has more punch than Proust | Books | guardian.co.uk
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Michael Billington: “In some quarters, he is still seen as either a steamy, sexual sensationalist or as a tragic poet of frustration and loss. I’ve always seen Williams in rather a different light: as a robust social commentator and a comic writer acutely aware of the absurdity of the human predicament.”
is it worth the money?
The culture wars are back,” said Storr, speaking to 100 people. The critics are insatiable and clever, he said. “We have to be cleverer.
We care more about the parts and less about the entire. We are into snippets and smidgens and clips and tweets. We are not only a fragmented society, but a fragment society. And the result: What we gain is the knowledge — or the illusion of knowledge — of many new, different and variegated aspects of life. What we lose is still being understood.
History suggests we should not panic nor be too sanguine about cool new gizmos
Before the unfolding devastation in Japan, it was the roiling conflicts in north Africa and the Persian Gulf states that held sway on the 24-hour news cycle. So much so that the images seemed to give American viewers the usual paltry options that come when witnessing history from afar: Watch. Get anxious. Ignore. Get anxious. Repeat.
BS: We live in a state of fear. Some dear old duck had a beastly picture, of which she was intensely proud, and left it to the National Gallery in 1893. It is still there, and it has no business to be there. We respect her generosity and cannot go against her will – but we should. We should refuse things. When the great crisis came up over the Three Graces [the Antonio Canova sculpture which came up for sale], I was wandering around Buckingham Palace, thinking, why doesn’t the Queen step forward? She could sell [some of her paintings] and buy the Three Graces – that’s what collections should do. Her collection is full of rubbish!
