“Passion” for Poetry in New York

New Yorkers love the arts. Don’t they?

And this latest effort at promotion proves it. At various city venues the Poetry Brothel convenes for readings of high quality, literary works, poetry,  by names and no-names alike.  People like you and me.

Apparently the accoutrements feature heavy velvets, feathers, gambling tables, a bar, along with The Madame and her male partner, Tennessee Pink. 

But the REAL reason patrons are there is the poetry.

The website posts the offer, “Want to be a poetry whore?” If you do, you’ll get to read your own original work to the sincerely interested literary set.  For a price. (We’re not a non-profit, Pal.) For a higher fee, visitors can get a private reading.

Poets have to make a living, too, Maybe they became addicted to poetry early on. Maybe they have no training for other lines of work, so writing and reading “high quality” poetry is all they can do. Society has forced them to choose this dubious occupation.  At least some New Yorkers care enough to give them a chance.

I wonder how many Robert Frosts and Walt Whitmans out there will have their talents recognized and thus be discovered through this new kind of outlet? What a service is being provided! What irony! Capitalism applied to poetry. Principles of marketing 101. Advertisers have always known this: Poetry sells!

American ingenuity is what it is. We know that given the right environment almost every normal person will appreciate poetry. We’ve been using faulty, inferior means — a classroom and a textbook — not to mention those sadsack English teachers.  Now wonder they hate it.

On the other hand, I fear that if the concept proliferates, other industries will follow suit. Next thing we know there’ll be “performances” of various types at baseball games, recreational parks, and concerts. 

But then again, maybe people who love  a good concert, don’t need extras to get them to go.

Has “Atlas Shrugged?”

Atlas

In Ayn Rand’s last and most defining work, Atlas Shrugged, the world’s most gifted, innovative thinkers and inventors, the great minds of the nations, literally go on strike. In a socialist, government dominated, stifling society, these men and women of brains, brawn, and business acumen prefer going underground to benefitting those who lack all of the above. Many people, no doubt, identify with these Randian heroes as they struggle to pursue and produce excellence among those who lack the ability to apprehend or appreciate their talent. They go on strike, too, abandoning such people leaving them to their own inferior devices.

Though Rand was what one writer calls a “liberatrian atheist,” her ideas, her philosophy resonate with me on a fundamental level. There is truth here. It has mostly to do with freedom and man’s Godlike ability to imagine and create and achieve glory. It shows the nasty, fallen side, too – selfishness, cowardice, and jealousy.

Rand articulates her Objectivism in mellifluous prose making all 1,168 pages entertaining reading, that and also the longest novel in a European-based language. Her characters are exquisitely drawn and the good guys, hopefully not inimitable in reality.

Not everyone is or was thrilled with the novel. The National Review has posted a somewhat negative review by Whittaker Chambers from the 1957 archives, the year of the novel’s publication. Definitely worth reading.

Not intending to provide a traditional review (they abound,) I’ll change the novel’s ubiquitous query, “Who is John Galt?” to “Has Atlas Shrugged? ” Have those whose ideas, integrity, and independent self reliance create and inspire excellence abdicated their place leaving the rest to survive on their meager wits?

No? Then where are they? In our classrooms? In our courtrooms? In our capital city?

Finally I recommend William F. Buckley’s novel Getting it Right and the d’Anconia speech on money excerpt(Capitalism Magazine.) Also read the John Galt 90-page radio broadcast, a novella in itself, and Rand’s manifesto.

While it took me nearly a year to finish this novel, I’ll never regret or forget the experience. Today I rummaged used book stores for a copy of The Fountainhead.

Our friend, Francis Coppola

He’s our friend, not because he knows us but because he loves good writing, especially short fiction. Today in serendipitous fashion, seeking a spot to submit my short shory I came across this site. Simple, artsy, and professional-looking, it would do just fine.

The two editors (there are just the two of them) suggested giving the magazine a read either online or buying a copy. I went through the table of contents for one issue and clicked on the Spring 2008 issue and began reading a story. Wow. He’s good. I’m in over my head. Another one! I can’t stop.

Proceding down the page for another read, I read an introduction to Love. Amazing. From there I perused the authors’ names, bylined by their story’s links. No way. Here are Ethan Coen (O, Brother Where Art Thou?), Wes Anderson, Margaret Atwood,  Tim Roth, and Woody Allen!

And the publisher? Francis Ford Coppola. No less.

This is big. I read Coppola’s mission statement. Inspiring. Various essays and reprints from well-known writers (Vonnegut, Dick) are there, too, along with impressive cover design. But it’s not another anthology of college text collections. Plenty of unknowns are published here, too.

Writers can enter the contest, submit a story, or join the virtual studio where “thousands” of writers critique each other. Or just read. The publication is Zoetrope: All Story.

I love stories, having been introduced to fairy tales and myth as a child. In the fourth grade I read A Midsummer Night’s Dream from an old yellowed copy, some relative’s school Signet Edition.  In third grade my teacher read us Bible stories, and I fell in love with Moses and David. (I never liked ghost stories, however; still don’t.)

After getting a master’s in English, I knew I was forever tied to the story, whatever its form. Talk to me, Do it well. Tell me a story. Use your imagination and we’ll be friends forever. You, me, Francis.

Christian leaders not shacking up with novel

William Young’s The Shack is a best-seller for BN and has topped the NYT list. It’s a Christian genre book and that’s what makes its success surprising — and controversial. Albert Mohler, in a full-length radio program,  has called it “heresy,” and Lifeway has apparently pulled it. But in addition to sales, customer reviews say the book is enriching and renewing.

For me and other would -be writers the most interesting thing here is the book’s publishing history. Young, recently bankrupt and having lost a home of 19 years, wrote the book for his children and a few friends. They loved it, word of mouth marketing kicked in, and a best seller was born.

“Dear Mr. Young, we regret to inform you . . .”  Yes, the book, like so many other successes, was rejected by both Christian and secular publishing houses. Undeterred Young formed Windblown expressly for publishing his own novel. Then came a webpage. Barnes and Noble bought a few copies and when sales soared, ordered more. Many more.

Issues? Christian leaders say the book may be harmful. Fans say it’s the best Christian book they’re read. By the way, in the book God is a black woman.  A quick read will tell. I’m waiting for it to hit the used bookstores or be available at the library.

Young’s website gives the front matter and chapter one for readers. NYT Books has another review. And of course, blogs are weighing in on both sides.

Seems logical to me

The caption epigraph beside my site photo is from Andrew Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress,” an often cited, frequently anthologized 17th century poem. In the style of the day, the verse features rhymed couplets and a logical argument.

Marvell was a Cambridge-educated, Puritan supporter (recall the English Civil War – (Cromwell, Charles I) who assisted John Milton and later served as an M.P. until his death. His fairly large inheritance allowed him the leisure to travel the continent and to write. During his lifetime he was more acclaimed for political satire than his love poetry.

The poem’s structure sets up the logical argument that the speaker attempts:

• stanza #1 begins with a desired state “Had we . . .”
• stanza #2 negates stanza 1 “But . . .” (we don’t)
• stanza #3 is the speaker’s logical conclusion “Now therefore . . .”

The subject? The seduction of the “coy” mistress or girlfriend.  First, using shameless exaggerration, he insists that if only they had time, he would spend centuries admiring her many lovely features. And smart man that he is he adds that the most important of these is, OF COURSE, her heart. Sweet. Good Job.

“But” he begins as the tone shifts to a more somber one. Sparing nothing he helps the lady to see that while she wastes time refusing his advances, she’s not getting any younger or any more beautiful. That if not he, the “worms” will violate her sooner or later. And then if she can deal with that, he declares the grave a “fine and private place” but not a fun one if you’re interested in romance. Eternity is a “desert” vast and lonely.

“Now therefore” they must, he pleads closing in, enjoy each other while they can. He paints a fairly graphic  picture (for 17th century Puritan England) of their potential lovemaking — wild (like “birds of prey) and rough. The tone is urgent. 

The final couplet is my epigraph:

Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.

So even though we can’t stop the progress or ravages of time, we can ironically speed it up. Time flies when you’re having fun.

Finally, on the surface the subject may be seduction, but that, I believe, is just a vehicle for his real theme, one typical for the period: carpe diem,  in love and beyond.

Perfectly sensible.

For a feminist reading (how would a feminist read this?) check out this essay.

Online readers aren’t “lazy” necessarily

There is value, thrift in the various decoding skills one brings to the web as he begins to read. Michael Agger has written an excellent article for Slate on how we read (or don’t) online. He calls us lazy because of research trends that indicate that we “informavores” only scan and seek out certain identifiers. We like short sentences and fragments, bold fonts, links, lists, bullets, and single-idea paragraphs — very short.

Agger’s piece models all of the features of “good” Internet writing. There are also tips for making reading easier on the eyes and more.  It’s witty and informative even though the researcher doesn’t value blogs — he does approve single-topic sites of expertise since it saves a researcher time.

Interview with a vampire reader

Chastened for criticizing a novel I had not read, I set out to read said novel, Rice’s Interview with a Vampire, and thus be able to discuss it from an informed point of view. ((See my post s on must reads and/or what constitutes a literary classic along with the comments.)

I’ll start with a positive. Rice is a good raconteur. Her narrative style is the right blend of dialogue, narration, and description. The disturbed, repellent characters are depicted in great detail and carefully drawn. Places, too, are vividly portrayed.

I’m forcing myself to finish the book. The subject matter is lurid and objectionable, dark and macabre. But this isn’t just a ghost story. Its insidious side is evinced in that the vampires are attractive, naturally, and the act of sucking blood is depicted as highly sensual — the ultimate experience.  That’s disgusting and for me offensive. Descriptive tales of how a person is tracked down and drained of his life blood, often with great pleasure in a spirit of fun, is reprehensible and appeals, as does such prurient literature to the basest nature. 

I’ve read 200 pages and I can’t find anything to take away from the book, nothing here enriches, elevates, informs, or pleases. It’s like falling deeper and deeper into a dark bottomless hole. What is Rice’s purpose?

I’m waiting to read any criticism until after I’ve finished, sometime Monday maybe. I’ve been told that there is heavy-duty philosophy here and perhaps I’ll find it in those remaining 150 pages.

“1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die”

Or else what? Objectionable use of the word “must” it seems. Of course the editor, Peter Boxall, wants to raise our literary antennae because he knows we haven’t read these books, not most of them, and so with the implied inferiority of cretins like us, the challenge to our education, we read his list. We are weighed and found wanting. Score one.

A vampire book, Mr. Boxall?

According to William Grimes in the Books section of the NYT, (RSS to right)  Boxall wants to critique “canonicity.” Academics subscribe to a long-standing list of must reads of their own: what an educated person should have read to be considered well-read, having encountered significant ideas well expressed that are life and possibly world changing. The classics.  They are under scrutiny if not attack. Interview With a Vampire is on par with Nineteen Eighty Four these days.

And the point can be made:  So if I haven’t read Macbeth, I don’t understand overweaning pride and ambition? Minus Huck Finn I won’t ever comprehend racial injustice or the painful initiation into adulthood and self reliance? 

No one “must read” anything. And I suspect that good common sense, humanity, pathos and social conscience may be bred without any reading, especially fiction, which comprises most of the 1001.

Having said that, I’m a Canon-ite. I believe in the value of certain agreed -upon fictions in providing illumination, clarity, appreciation, and joy regarding the human condition, all areas.

What I object to is the cocktail party game of one-up everybody with what we’ve read. Using classic literature for snobbery and denigration is ironically unfortunate. Somebody missed the lesson in all those pages.

Meet Andy Borowitz

I “met” Andy Borowitz years ago because I read The New Yorker, but just recently (earlier today) I learned that he is “really big.” Andy got the first ever National Press Club’s award for humor. The WSJ gave him a page-one piece, and it helped get him half a million subscribers to his site “The Borowitz Report.”

He worked on “All in the Family” for crying out loud not to mention movies, plays, and books. He’s an actor. He went to Harvard. AND graduated! (Link to helpful Borowitz piece for Harvard wanna-be’s at graduation time!)

And I just thought he was a funny guy who managed to get submissions “like magic” into The New Yorker! But seriously, Andy’s writing makes me laugh out loud. His “Report” offers a daily 250-word satire piece, usually based on politics or the news.  Just read through the headlines and slugs and you’ll see what I mean!

My favorites are the more social writings like “Hot or Not,” which my students always loved and a faculty member threw into my waste basket. Or the historic work on trailblazers like Pavlov’s brother.

The “Report” is archived fully, but older New Yorker essays, mostly from “Shouts and Murmurs” are published as abstracts and are available for a price.  Below I’ve linked a few more COMPLETE ones to get you started so I can create more fans for somebody else!

Remember all that stuff you were going to quit doing after January 1? Well it’s May 20, and I bet you are saying, “Resolutions? What resolutions?”

Tired of political “pundits?” Well, the “Father of our Country”  was also the Father of Punditry!

What profession is the smartest? Well, it’s not “rocket scientists!”

Like “up-close” interviews? Here’s “Ask the Jihadist.”

 

First attempts by Ayn Rand

  I picked up an old, yellowed copy of The Early Rand (Signet, ed. Leonard Peikoff, 1984) and have thoroughly enjoyed reading from her early unpublished fiction. Peikoff and Rand were friends. In fact, she was influential in his move from studying medicine to philosophy.  He was one of those invited into the salon circle of disciples where Rand discussed her views.

For one thing, what the unpublished writings offer is her early struggle with the English language. She had emigrated to America from Russia in 1926 at 21 and had to learn everything from scratch. But the stories show the maturing of a great writer. In “The Husband I Bought” the language usage is rough, and the diction is imprecise.  The plotting is immature with more telling than showing. But the men and women, her characters, are predictive of the giants of fiction that Dagny Taggart and Hank Rearden are today — people of strength and integrity and self reliance.

Having read Buckley’s Getting it Right, an enjoyable and fairly accurate fictional account of the formation of the conservative movement, I know that Rand didn’t support Buckley or The National Review. She thought it “the most dangerous” publlication in America since she felt that Buckley wanted to merge conservatism with religion. He didn’t favor some of her views, which were conservative, but Godless. The novel is just plain good reading.

I reject Rand’s views of religion and some of her views on man. I thoroughly relish her postulations that show man as heroic, purposeful, determined, the ruler of the world, capable of anything for his own self interest and thereby the good of others. It’s a vision that lauds man’s creativity and ability to produce and to derive from his efforts a deeply abiding satisfaction, confidence, and love of life — capitalism. (Some of the works in this anthology are vehemently anti-Communist.)

In her fiction, the evil characters are the lazy, inferior men who resent and envy those who do produce and are successful. Her fictional situations show people who are despised for their want of vision and talent — characters who function best in at atmosphere of regulation and bureacracy enforcing status quo operations and considering anyone who is not content with that and cannot abide mediocrity a threat. The bad guy is a jealous, petty man.

Peikoff recommends reading the novels first and then trying the early work. I agree that this makes a fascinating study.

You might enjoy these articles:

From The Atlasphere, bio and some good articles on social and political topics, mostly conservative

On Rand  — http://txpayervoice.blogspot.com/2008/01/ayn-rands-birthday.html

Manybooks.net has only Anthem available free online and as an audiobook here.