I swear, I haven't done any Photoshop wackiness to this picture, just improved contrast. That's how the rocks looked through the water (I was standing on a pier).
People fishing at Cedar Beach, Long Island.
Through the Water (More Long Island photos)
I swear, I haven't done any Photoshop wackiness to this picture, just improved contrast. That's how the rocks looked through the water (I was standing on a pier).
People fishing at Cedar Beach, Long Island.
Theory's Empire: postcolonial theory
My post on Theory's Empire is now up at the Valve. It's kind of a draft of something that might turn into something else (publishable in a legit journal? maybe).
I'm responding to four challenges to postcolonial theory, from Erin O'Connor, Meera Nanda, Arif Dirlik, and Priya Joshi. O'Connor and Nanda are criticizing the field from 'outside.' Dirlik started outside the field (and still may consider himself opposed to it on principle, though he is now widely read by 'postcolonialists,' and is even anthologized. And Joshi is definitely within the field, though her book In Another Country challenges several of the big generalizations (or formulas) about books, publishing, and colonialism that are often bandied about in the jargon of postcolonial theory.
I'm responding to four challenges to postcolonial theory, from Erin O'Connor, Meera Nanda, Arif Dirlik, and Priya Joshi. O'Connor and Nanda are criticizing the field from 'outside.' Dirlik started outside the field (and still may consider himself opposed to it on principle, though he is now widely read by 'postcolonialists,' and is even anthologized. And Joshi is definitely within the field, though her book In Another Country challenges several of the big generalizations (or formulas) about books, publishing, and colonialism that are often bandied about in the jargon of postcolonial theory.
Ban all E.M. Forster puns immediately
I finally got around to reading Suketu Mehta's column on outsourcing. See the discussion following Abhi's post at Sepia Mutiny a couple of days ago for some good comments on the column; all I have to say right now is, can someone please tell the editors of American media outfits to think of titles for India-related stories that do not entail A Passage to India?
There are other works of literature whose titles might make eye-catching 'ledes.' For instance, this column might have been better titled:
Midnight's Outsourcing [literally midnight, because of the time zone difference...]
The Silicon in the Crown
Outsourcing an Elephant
Train to Bangalore
Others?
There are other works of literature whose titles might make eye-catching 'ledes.' For instance, this column might have been better titled:
Midnight's Outsourcing [literally midnight, because of the time zone difference...]
The Silicon in the Crown
Outsourcing an Elephant
Train to Bangalore
Others?
In case you were wondering about the fashions in India
I've been busy with writing this week, but I thought it might be worth taking a minute to make sure everyone knows what the fashions are like in India this year.
I miss the guru shirts, man. And the Dev Anand puffy hair (though arguably we have a new bad hair guru with us; his name is Shah Rukh Khan). But what is a "no side split kurti"? And how on earth did white saris (i.e., widow wear) ever become a fashion statement? Clearly I am no fashionista. (Fashionisto?)
Incidentally, here is the trademark Rani Mukherji outfit in Bunty aur Babli referred to in the article. And here is the kind of blouse from Parineeta that (I think) they are referring to.
Ok, bas/basta -- back to literary theory.
The report says that Bollywood has bigger draw on customers than any other medium. Each film is a brand in itself and with every new movie there is a fresh new brand of fashion and lifestyle products.
But film critic A C Tuli says "only those designs which can be worn daily by the masses become a fashion statement. Rest do not."
Tuli says in last decade or so, most of the new heroines are shown wearing skinny tops, skirts, gowns etc. They fail to become popular as they cannot be worn daily and by the middle class."
Agrees Ritu Sethi, a boutique owner, "we are getting lot of orders for Parineeta's blouses and Babli's fitted pathani shirts with contrast collars and cuffs." Also in demand are colourful kurtis teamed with baggy, equally colourful pyjamas and cloth bags for women and fitted sleveless shirts and denims.
"Bunty and Babli has defined hip street style this season," says Sethi.
The trend of Bollywood inspiring fashion is not new, Saystuli. In the early 50s, clothing materials were named after Suraiya and Madhubala.
Nargis, the lady in white brought to fore, white sarees -both embroidered and bordered. Raj Kapoor's trousers with folded up holes and scarf in the neck remained popular for a long time. In fact, those who did not adopt this trend were called backward.
"Dev Anand popularised full sleeves top collared shirts and puffy hair, Sadhna's fringe, leg-hugging pyjamis and no side split kurtis were a rage with college girls in 60s, even though they were very uncomfortable to wear," he says.
In 70s, as the heroes shifted from trousers to bellbottoms, so did the young crowd in cities. Rajesh Khanna's guru shirts (collarless) were popular with young men. However, he says most of these fashions last only a season or till another new hit comes.
I miss the guru shirts, man. And the Dev Anand puffy hair (though arguably we have a new bad hair guru with us; his name is Shah Rukh Khan). But what is a "no side split kurti"? And how on earth did white saris (i.e., widow wear) ever become a fashion statement? Clearly I am no fashionista. (Fashionisto?)
Incidentally, here is the trademark Rani Mukherji outfit in Bunty aur Babli referred to in the article. And here is the kind of blouse from Parineeta that (I think) they are referring to.
Ok, bas/basta -- back to literary theory.
EXTRA! Anti-Blogging Polemic Stimulates Academic Blogging
Irritation is a stimulant.
A small sampling of responses:
Tim Burke
Professor B
Chuck Tryon
GZombie
Little Professor
Matt Kirschenbaum
Acephalous
Profgrrrl
Daniel Drezner
Planned Obsolescence
One Man's Opinion
Collin
Me? Nothing too exciting to add. As many other people have pointed out (see especially Tim Burke and Dan Drezner), some of the dangers of blogging that Ivan Tribble refers to are real ones, especially for graduate students or junior people (like me) who don't have much of a formal publication record.
But the potential advantages are real too. Without the platform of this blog, I don't think I would have been part of an NPR interview, or getting calls from Boston Globe Reporters -- both happened in the past month. I even recently got a call from the BBC Asian Network, though I had to turn them down; they wanted to do the interview in Punjabi. (I wish my Punjabi were good enough for radio. Sadly, not the case.)
I agree with many of the people linked above who have argued, contra Tribble, that academics really need to stop being afraid of expressing or hearing unorthodox and unpolished opinions. Intellectual exchange works better if it's warm. Limiting our written expression to journal publications is equivalent to a kind of intellectual cryo-freeze. Tribble is telling us to keep our brains under wraps until we're ready to show them to the world in the best possible light.
But does anyone believe in cryogenics? When you finally thaw that brain, it's highly doubtful you'll get all the components working properly. That's why so much of academic life -- as the anecdotes in Tribble's article suggest -- is dominated by the crude sensibilities of the medulla, not the spirit of rigor and reasoning that might be more characteristic of the cerebral cortex.
A small sampling of responses:
Tim Burke
Professor B
Chuck Tryon
GZombie
Little Professor
Matt Kirschenbaum
Acephalous
Profgrrrl
Daniel Drezner
Planned Obsolescence
One Man's Opinion
Collin
Me? Nothing too exciting to add. As many other people have pointed out (see especially Tim Burke and Dan Drezner), some of the dangers of blogging that Ivan Tribble refers to are real ones, especially for graduate students or junior people (like me) who don't have much of a formal publication record.
But the potential advantages are real too. Without the platform of this blog, I don't think I would have been part of an NPR interview, or getting calls from Boston Globe Reporters -- both happened in the past month. I even recently got a call from the BBC Asian Network, though I had to turn them down; they wanted to do the interview in Punjabi. (I wish my Punjabi were good enough for radio. Sadly, not the case.)
I agree with many of the people linked above who have argued, contra Tribble, that academics really need to stop being afraid of expressing or hearing unorthodox and unpolished opinions. Intellectual exchange works better if it's warm. Limiting our written expression to journal publications is equivalent to a kind of intellectual cryo-freeze. Tribble is telling us to keep our brains under wraps until we're ready to show them to the world in the best possible light.
But does anyone believe in cryogenics? When you finally thaw that brain, it's highly doubtful you'll get all the components working properly. That's why so much of academic life -- as the anecdotes in Tribble's article suggest -- is dominated by the crude sensibilities of the medulla, not the spirit of rigor and reasoning that might be more characteristic of the cerebral cortex.
Homage to London: Songs and Poems
London, the center of the universe. I was looking over Daniel Davies' (aka "dsquared") post with the lyrics to Noel Coward's "London Pride," and I thought I would run through some London songs and poems that have been in my head, from the Clash and the Mekons... to Blake and Whitman.
Songs
New York has "New York, New York," but London is lacking its iconic song. The Clash's apocalyptic "London Calling" comes close, but it is a fair bit harder to sing along with than the Sinatra. Indeed, does anyone even know all the lyrics to "London Calling"? And more importantly: does anyone know what the lyrics are all about? (the lyrics are here, if you want to review)
Then of course, there's the late great Warren Zevon's "Werewolves of London," to which I offer an honorable "Aoouuuuu" of praise. One might also mention the garage-punky Misfits' "London Dungeon," which, like most Misfits songs, sounds a little like the Ramones, and a little like a dozen other old punk bands. Rancid's "Tropical London" is better, but I think Rancid needs to stop trying to live in the gutter punk England of 1977. (Embrace the 1990s and Berkeley, lads.) Finally, The Faint's "Southern Belles of London Sing" is quite catchy, but also feels dated. Neo-electro... so 2002.
Let's stick with Warren Zevon, shall we?
The funniest London song I know is Adam Kay and Suman Biswas's "London Underground," which is a kind of comedic cover of "Going Underground," the classic song by the Jam (lyrics). They're making fun of all the discomforts of riding the Tube, which isn't exactly appropriate the day after a horrific act of terrorism. It's a little naughty, and I shouldn't provide a link. Still, if you don't mind a few four-letter words and a lot of irreverence, the song is guaranteed to raise your spirits.
There are also some pretty insufferable London songs, like Heather Nova's "London Rain," ELO's "Last Train to London" (a bad disco song), and 3 Doors Down's "Landing in London" (not a big fan of 3 Doors Down). But let's not dwell on these too much...
Immigrants have happily claimed London. When I did a search in my computer's Itunes for "London," I came up with three songs about London in Punjabi, Apache Indian's "London tu Nachdi," Jazzy B's "London Patola," and Amar Arshi's "London." The best of the three might be the triumphant "London Patola," which you'll find in the Immortal Bhangra 3 compilation. Bhangra songs claim London as if it's a suburb of Jalandhar.
As with New York, in London people don't speak very much of "London" as a whole -- it's all about the neighborhoods. With New York, the neighborhood emphasis sometimes seems a little contrived and/or vestigial, especially in the fixed mathematical grid of Manhattan (Chelsea? how about West 23rd St.?). In London, which is a total sprawl, you need the neighborhoods. Hence, M.I.A., currently the trendiest Cockney-Lankan on the planet, describes herself in the following terms: "got brown skin/ I'm an east Londoner/ raised by refugees..." When north central London is essentially a very large outdoor mall, there isn't much cachet in calling yourself a simple Londoner if you want to be an underground rapper. East London is where it's at.
But hands down, my favorite London song -- of any period, and any genre -- is the Mekons' "City of London." It's late Mekons (Journey to the end of the Night), so not many people picked it up. Tragic, but not a huge surprise; after all, how many people still follow a band once they reach their 38th record? Still, Sally Timms breathes new life into the band, and is particularly good here.
Here are the first two verses of "City of London":
It's a song, I think, about the overwhelming weight of the past. It starts with the ghostly verses above, and eventually builds in energy, becoming less spectral and more hopeful and alive to the present as it goes. The song has a cathartic quality to it, though it doesn't necessarily end on a 'happy' note ("10 square miles of hurt"). Satisfying both to one's art-music sensibilities, but also user-friendly and melodic ("catchy").
Poetry
The Mekons' allusions to Dickens and Celine (Journey to the End of the Night is the title of a novel by Celine) might offer a convenient segue into a brief discussion of London in literature. There are innumerable novels and tracts dealing with London -- too many to even know where to begin. So perhaps let's limit it just to poetry for now...
Oddly, I'm not coming up with a great quantity of great London poems this morning. The most famous would probably have to be Blake's "London" from the "Songs of Experience" section of Songs of Innocence and Experience. (There is also a happier reference to London in Blake's "Songs of Innocence," in the poem "Holy Thursday.")
But the lines that seem most appropriate to the aftermath of this kind of event might be Whitman's, from the "Salut au Monde!" section of Leaves of Grass:
* * * * * * *
You can see some other references to "London" in English-language poetry a the Electronic Text Center at the ever-evolving UVA site here.
Cheers to you, London.
Songs
New York has "New York, New York," but London is lacking its iconic song. The Clash's apocalyptic "London Calling" comes close, but it is a fair bit harder to sing along with than the Sinatra. Indeed, does anyone even know all the lyrics to "London Calling"? And more importantly: does anyone know what the lyrics are all about? (the lyrics are here, if you want to review)
Then of course, there's the late great Warren Zevon's "Werewolves of London," to which I offer an honorable "Aoouuuuu" of praise. One might also mention the garage-punky Misfits' "London Dungeon," which, like most Misfits songs, sounds a little like the Ramones, and a little like a dozen other old punk bands. Rancid's "Tropical London" is better, but I think Rancid needs to stop trying to live in the gutter punk England of 1977. (Embrace the 1990s and Berkeley, lads.) Finally, The Faint's "Southern Belles of London Sing" is quite catchy, but also feels dated. Neo-electro... so 2002.
Let's stick with Warren Zevon, shall we?
The funniest London song I know is Adam Kay and Suman Biswas's "London Underground," which is a kind of comedic cover of "Going Underground," the classic song by the Jam (lyrics). They're making fun of all the discomforts of riding the Tube, which isn't exactly appropriate the day after a horrific act of terrorism. It's a little naughty, and I shouldn't provide a link. Still, if you don't mind a few four-letter words and a lot of irreverence, the song is guaranteed to raise your spirits.
There are also some pretty insufferable London songs, like Heather Nova's "London Rain," ELO's "Last Train to London" (a bad disco song), and 3 Doors Down's "Landing in London" (not a big fan of 3 Doors Down). But let's not dwell on these too much...
Immigrants have happily claimed London. When I did a search in my computer's Itunes for "London," I came up with three songs about London in Punjabi, Apache Indian's "London tu Nachdi," Jazzy B's "London Patola," and Amar Arshi's "London." The best of the three might be the triumphant "London Patola," which you'll find in the Immortal Bhangra 3 compilation. Bhangra songs claim London as if it's a suburb of Jalandhar.
As with New York, in London people don't speak very much of "London" as a whole -- it's all about the neighborhoods. With New York, the neighborhood emphasis sometimes seems a little contrived and/or vestigial, especially in the fixed mathematical grid of Manhattan (Chelsea? how about West 23rd St.?). In London, which is a total sprawl, you need the neighborhoods. Hence, M.I.A., currently the trendiest Cockney-Lankan on the planet, describes herself in the following terms: "got brown skin/ I'm an east Londoner/ raised by refugees..." When north central London is essentially a very large outdoor mall, there isn't much cachet in calling yourself a simple Londoner if you want to be an underground rapper. East London is where it's at.
But hands down, my favorite London song -- of any period, and any genre -- is the Mekons' "City of London." It's late Mekons (Journey to the end of the Night), so not many people picked it up. Tragic, but not a huge surprise; after all, how many people still follow a band once they reach their 38th record? Still, Sally Timms breathes new life into the band, and is particularly good here.
Here are the first two verses of "City of London":
I had no idea where I was going
How I lived or what I did here
the yawning gulf between
Hangs like a rope from a wooden beam
Breathing life into these stone-cold lips
Putting gas in this battered old stretch limousine
City of London
Above this unquiet grave
I smell the smell of decay
And stumble through the streets of grey
It never rains but it sometimes does
Please, sir, can I have some more?
How long can you carry on?
Till the empire's built and die empire's gone
City of London (full lyrics here)
It's a song, I think, about the overwhelming weight of the past. It starts with the ghostly verses above, and eventually builds in energy, becoming less spectral and more hopeful and alive to the present as it goes. The song has a cathartic quality to it, though it doesn't necessarily end on a 'happy' note ("10 square miles of hurt"). Satisfying both to one's art-music sensibilities, but also user-friendly and melodic ("catchy").
Poetry
The Mekons' allusions to Dickens and Celine (Journey to the End of the Night is the title of a novel by Celine) might offer a convenient segue into a brief discussion of London in literature. There are innumerable novels and tracts dealing with London -- too many to even know where to begin. So perhaps let's limit it just to poetry for now...
Oddly, I'm not coming up with a great quantity of great London poems this morning. The most famous would probably have to be Blake's "London" from the "Songs of Experience" section of Songs of Innocence and Experience. (There is also a happier reference to London in Blake's "Songs of Innocence," in the poem "Holy Thursday.")
But the lines that seem most appropriate to the aftermath of this kind of event might be Whitman's, from the "Salut au Monde!" section of Leaves of Grass:
I see the cities of the earth, and make myself a
part of them,
I am a real Londoner, Parisian, Viennese,
I am a habitan of St. Petersburgh, Berlin, Constantinople,
I am of Adelaide, Sidney, Melbourne,
I am of Manchester, Bristol, Edinburgh, Limerick,
I am of Madrid, Cadiz, Barcelona, Oporto, Lyons,
Brussels, Berne, Frankfort, Stuttgart, Turin,
Florence,
I belong in Moscow, Cracow, Warsaw -- or north-
ward in Christiana or Stockholm -- or in
some street in Iceland,
I descend upon all those cities, and rise from them
again.
* * * * * * *
You can see some other references to "London" in English-language poetry a the Electronic Text Center at the ever-evolving UVA site here.
Cheers to you, London.
'Life, friends, is boring': A little on John Berryman
I picked up Adam Kirsch’s The Wounded Surgeon: Confession and Transformation in Six American Poets after reading Michiko Kakutani’s review of it in the Times, and thus far I’ve been happy I did. I’ve read several chapters, but the one that I’ve found most interesting is on John Berryman. (The other poets Kirsch discusses are Lowell, Bishop, Jarrell, Schwarts, and Plath.)
Kirsch’s approach to Berryman begins with literary biography, and ends with a hefty section of close reading, focused mainly on the 77 Dream Songs. The strength of Kirsch’s 'generalist' approach is the way it inspires one to go out and read the writer named, if one hasn’t already (this is one of the overlooked functions of good criticism). I’d actually never read Berryman, and now I have—-all to the good.
The weakness might be in Kirsch’s need to make a neat picture out of Berryman’s progress, which follows an only slightly tweaked ‘anxiety of influence’ shape. Here the dominant literary model is Yeats, whose impersonal grandiloquence Berryman had to eschew in order to find his own voice. I still haven’t read the early, Yeatsian Berryman, and I don’t contest Kirsch’s general claim that the 77 Dream Songs (1965) represent a breakthrough for Berryman personally, and perhaps for American poetry as a whole. But what complicates the idea of the Dream Songs as Berryman’s discovery of poetic Voice is the radical heterogeneity of the styles and personae to be found in the poems themselves. This doesn’t seem like Berryman’s (or anyone’s) authentic voice, so much as a good mix of voices, tones, and topics. There are poems about Ike, about the taxman, about doing lectures in India, and even one about the MLA (people have apparently been making fun of it for a long, long time). There is plenty of wry wit and satire alongside the more serious, ‘confessional’ verses that gesture at the poet’s father’s suicide.
It’s not that Kirsch is wrong; nearly everything he says in general about The Dream Songs is verifiable. But what he doesn’t say—what doesn’t fit his narrative—is how incredibly messy and uneven the book really is.
I’ll leave off on extended analysis, and instead simply offer Dream Song #14:
Get it? The speaking ‘I’ in the poem ("Henry," who populates all these poems—a close proxy for Berryman himself) is himself the ‘wag,’ as in, the moving tail of the dog, and the happy wit who laughs at everything and everyone. The Dog has escaped, transcending us. We are the Left Behind, with the mocking ghost of its moving tail.
I also like "literature bores me, especially great literature." It’s a nice way of disavowing literary ambition. It certainly helps to inoculate Berryman against the charge of hubris. But dosn’t he also, with such a self-consciously ‘light’ topic, literally end up not achieving it (greatness)? If this is American confessionalism, it aint a whole heckofalot.
Incidentally, you can hear Paul Muldoon reading this poem of Berryman’s here. Click on "Paul Muldoon."
[Cross-posted at The Valve]
Kirsch’s approach to Berryman begins with literary biography, and ends with a hefty section of close reading, focused mainly on the 77 Dream Songs. The strength of Kirsch’s 'generalist' approach is the way it inspires one to go out and read the writer named, if one hasn’t already (this is one of the overlooked functions of good criticism). I’d actually never read Berryman, and now I have—-all to the good.
The weakness might be in Kirsch’s need to make a neat picture out of Berryman’s progress, which follows an only slightly tweaked ‘anxiety of influence’ shape. Here the dominant literary model is Yeats, whose impersonal grandiloquence Berryman had to eschew in order to find his own voice. I still haven’t read the early, Yeatsian Berryman, and I don’t contest Kirsch’s general claim that the 77 Dream Songs (1965) represent a breakthrough for Berryman personally, and perhaps for American poetry as a whole. But what complicates the idea of the Dream Songs as Berryman’s discovery of poetic Voice is the radical heterogeneity of the styles and personae to be found in the poems themselves. This doesn’t seem like Berryman’s (or anyone’s) authentic voice, so much as a good mix of voices, tones, and topics. There are poems about Ike, about the taxman, about doing lectures in India, and even one about the MLA (people have apparently been making fun of it for a long, long time). There is plenty of wry wit and satire alongside the more serious, ‘confessional’ verses that gesture at the poet’s father’s suicide.
It’s not that Kirsch is wrong; nearly everything he says in general about The Dream Songs is verifiable. But what he doesn’t say—what doesn’t fit his narrative—is how incredibly messy and uneven the book really is.
I’ll leave off on extended analysis, and instead simply offer Dream Song #14:
Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so.
After all, the sky flashes, the great sea yearns,
we ourselves flash and yearn,
and moreover my mother told me as a boy
(repeatedly) ‘Ever to confess you’re bored
means you have no
Inner Resources.’ I conclude now I have no
inner resources, because I am heavy bored.
Peoples bore me,
literature bores me, especially great literature,
Henry bores me, with his plights & gripes
as bad as achilles,
who loves people and valiant art, which bores me.
And the tranquil hills, & gin, look like a drag
and somehow a dog
has taken itself & its tail considerably away
into mountains or sea or sky, leaving
behind: me, wag.
Get it? The speaking ‘I’ in the poem ("Henry," who populates all these poems—a close proxy for Berryman himself) is himself the ‘wag,’ as in, the moving tail of the dog, and the happy wit who laughs at everything and everyone. The Dog has escaped, transcending us. We are the Left Behind, with the mocking ghost of its moving tail.
I also like "literature bores me, especially great literature." It’s a nice way of disavowing literary ambition. It certainly helps to inoculate Berryman against the charge of hubris. But dosn’t he also, with such a self-consciously ‘light’ topic, literally end up not achieving it (greatness)? If this is American confessionalism, it aint a whole heckofalot.
Incidentally, you can hear Paul Muldoon reading this poem of Berryman’s here. Click on "Paul Muldoon."
[Cross-posted at The Valve]
A brazen attack, and flooded plains
6 terrorists attacked a part of the disputed temple complex at Ayodhya, where 13 years ago the Babri Masjid was demolished. They were going after the makeshift Hindu temple on the site, and were killed without causing much damage. One bystander, a woman, was killed in the crossfire.
It's taken over the Indian papers today, but unless there are bad follow-up riots or protests, it might be just another dumb, desperate, and pointless Lashkar-e-Taiba event.
The bigger, 'real' concern of the moment might be the flooding in Gujurat. The livelihood of millions of people is affected. It elicits less interest, because it lacks dramatic symbolism or the element of surprise (there is flooding virtually every year somewhere in India).
It's taken over the Indian papers today, but unless there are bad follow-up riots or protests, it might be just another dumb, desperate, and pointless Lashkar-e-Taiba event.
The bigger, 'real' concern of the moment might be the flooding in Gujurat. The livelihood of millions of people is affected. It elicits less interest, because it lacks dramatic symbolism or the element of surprise (there is flooding virtually every year somewhere in India).
The Opening and Closing of The War of the Worlds (the novel)
(Note: Spoiler alert; don't read this post if you haven't read the novel, and are planning to go see this movie)
Steven Spielberg only uses two direct quotes from H.G. Wells' novel, one from the opening and one from the closing. I was surprised to see that he kept the story in the movie pretty much consistent with that of the novel; it suggests that the scientific paradigm dominant in H.G. Wells' day (the novel was first published in 1898) is still pretty much intact, at least with regards to biology.
Here the opening paragraph of H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds:
And here is the paragraph quoted from the end of the novel:
Judging from Spielberg's approach to the ending of the movie, evolution and antibodies are still generally interesting biological concepts.
Then again, I overheard a number of people walking out of the theater confused about what exactly killed the aliens -- so maybe many people still don't really get the idea of resistance to bacteria. And quite a number of other people seem to think the ending to the film "sucks." So maybe Wells' concepts are either so obvious that they're no longer interesting... or people still don't get the basic concepts of biology.
The full text of The War of the Worlds is available as an etext at Project Gutenberg here.
Steven Spielberg only uses two direct quotes from H.G. Wells' novel, one from the opening and one from the closing. I was surprised to see that he kept the story in the movie pretty much consistent with that of the novel; it suggests that the scientific paradigm dominant in H.G. Wells' day (the novel was first published in 1898) is still pretty much intact, at least with regards to biology.
Here the opening paragraph of H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds:
No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. With infinite complacency men went to and fro over this globe about their little affairs, serene in their assurance of their empire over matter. It is possible that the infusoria under the microscope do the same. No one gave a thought to the older worlds of space as sources of human danger, or thought of them only to dismiss the idea of life upon them as impossible or improbable. It is curious to recall some of the mental habits of those departed days. At most terrestrial men fancied there might be other men upon Mars, perhaps inferior to themselves and ready to welcome a missionary enterprise. Yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us. And early in the twentieth century came the great disillusionment.
And here is the paragraph quoted from the end of the novel:
For so it had come about, as indeed I and many men might have foreseen had not terror and disaster blinded our minds. These germs of disease have taken toll of humanity since the beginning of things--taken toll of our prehuman ancestors since life began here. But by virtue of this natural selection of our kind we have developed resisting power; to no germs do we succumb without a struggle, and to many--those that cause putrefaction in dead matter, for instance--our living frames are altogether immune. But there are no bacteria in Mars, and directly these invaders arrived, directly they drank and fed, our microscopic allies began to work their overthrow. Already when I watched them they were irrevocably doomed, dying and rotting even as they went to and fro. It was inevitable. By the toll of a billion deaths man has bought his birthright of the earth, and it is his against all comers; it would still be his were the Martians ten times as mighty as they are. For neither do men live nor die in vain.
Judging from Spielberg's approach to the ending of the movie, evolution and antibodies are still generally interesting biological concepts.
Then again, I overheard a number of people walking out of the theater confused about what exactly killed the aliens -- so maybe many people still don't really get the idea of resistance to bacteria. And quite a number of other people seem to think the ending to the film "sucks." So maybe Wells' concepts are either so obvious that they're no longer interesting... or people still don't get the basic concepts of biology.
The full text of The War of the Worlds is available as an etext at Project Gutenberg here.
A July 4th poem by John Berryman
This is a poem by John Berryman, from his groundbreaking collection Dream Songs, first published in 1965:
Just one quick note: "Henry" and "Henry Puzzy-cat" are variations on the poetic persona in the Dream Songs -- a cynical, lechy, middle aged white man, similar (one gathers) to Berryman himself.
Here I like the first two stanzas. They're mostly the poetic equivalent of one-liner jokes, but as well done as it gets in that vein. The third stanza is more puzzling to me.
Incidentally, notice the rhyme scheme. Many (but apparently not all) of the Dream Songs have one or another scheme. The emphasis on form is what separates Berryman from many of his less-disciplined contemporaries. Thematically he has much in common with people like Ferlinghetti or Ginsberg.
Of 1826
I am the little man who smokes & smokes.
I am the girl who does know better but.
I am the king of the pool.
I am so wise I had my mouth sewn shut.
I am a government official & a goddamned fool.
I am a lady who takes jokes.
I am the enemy of the mind.
I am the auto salesman and love you.
I am a teenager cancer, with a plan.
I am the blackt-out man.
I am the woman powerful as a zoo.
I am two eyes screwed to my set, whose blind--
It is the Fourth of July.
Collect: while the dying man,
forgone by you creator, who forgives,
is gasping 'Thomas Jefferson still lives'
in vain, in vain, in vain.
I am Henry Pussy-cat! My whiskers fly.
Just one quick note: "Henry" and "Henry Puzzy-cat" are variations on the poetic persona in the Dream Songs -- a cynical, lechy, middle aged white man, similar (one gathers) to Berryman himself.
Here I like the first two stanzas. They're mostly the poetic equivalent of one-liner jokes, but as well done as it gets in that vein. The third stanza is more puzzling to me.
Incidentally, notice the rhyme scheme. Many (but apparently not all) of the Dream Songs have one or another scheme. The emphasis on form is what separates Berryman from many of his less-disciplined contemporaries. Thematically he has much in common with people like Ferlinghetti or Ginsberg.
Political Composition, Blogging, and a little about Iraq
I've been following the Rhetoric Carnival a bit through Clancy, and thinking about my own approach to teaching writing. I don't teach composition that often -- generally once a year -- but I always struggle when it comes to deciding how to do it. I haven't thought much about my method since leaving graduate school, partly because everyone assumes literature professors must know how best to teach comp. But it's not really a correct assumption; in my view, we could all benefit from continuing to think about how and what we teach.
They are discussing an article by Richard Fulkerson in the journal College Composition and Communication that doesn't appear online (CCC stopped updating their website in 2003, and have also discontinued their JSTOR archive). I haven't read the full article yet, so my ability to comment is somewhat limited.
The main debate is between 'expressivists,' who believe composition should aim to teach students how to write their personal thoughts and ideas, and the 'procedural rhetoric' people, who prefer a more traditional, 'objective' approach. One of the primary names associated with the expressivist school is Maxine Hairston, though there are many others who articulate their own variations of the idea (a good bibliography of much of this criticism is at the bottom of this article).
Intellectually, I prefer the more objective -- one might even say conservative -- approach these days. I want to help my students get prepared for future careers, not simply help them find their own voices. Most college freshman need a great deal of direction with regard to the fundamentals of sentence structure and the forms of argument. On the other hand, if you don't give students opportunities to develop their skills with content that seems relevant to themselves, you are in a world of really bored students, and a dead class. So I'm a little torn (and I haven't even decided how I'm going to approach the class I'm teaching this coming fall... ulp).
There's some other issues here. One of them is the growing digitalization of writing, partly through the Internet, but also in most professional contexts. People increasingly communicate by email, and even send each other formal documents that way. In the old days, those documents were printed out, and the print forms were the ones that were read. But now people read more and more on the computer itself; the experience has become pretty naturalized.
The internet in itself doesn't mean much; if you have to convince the boss to adopt your proposal, you still have to use every persuasive tool at your disposal to do it. The forms and functions of public writing have not changed at all. The changes in the way people write have probably been more secondary, stylistic changes. One of these might be the growing informality of what is considered public rhetorical style. At first, the change was mainly visible in the blogosphere, where the conventions of argument are somewhat different (even in the 'serious,' Crooked Timbery blogosphere) from the conventional print-media. But more and more, the conventions of writing acceptable in blogging are coming to influence conventional journalism. Along these lines, I was struck by a paragraph in George Packer's recent essay on the parent of a soldier who was killed in Iraq:
Packer's characterization of blogging as having acclerated the polarization of political debate in the U.S. seems right to me, especially regarding the Iraq war specifically. Blogging is no longer a subcultural activity. It is mainstream, and it is changing not just the way people argue about politics and war, but the way people argue in public, tout court. Perhaps that's something we should be talking about in comp. classes as well -- though I'm not exactly sure how I would take it on.
(Incidentally, Packer mentions a rather shady involvement in the pro-war campaign by Christopher Hitchens in the article. Hitchens -- always the pugilist -- came back with this piece in Slate. Naturally, in his critique of Packer, he doesn't mention the fact that Packer criticized him in the New Yorker article that he (Hitchens) is now attacking in Slate. Ugh.)
They are discussing an article by Richard Fulkerson in the journal College Composition and Communication that doesn't appear online (CCC stopped updating their website in 2003, and have also discontinued their JSTOR archive). I haven't read the full article yet, so my ability to comment is somewhat limited.
The main debate is between 'expressivists,' who believe composition should aim to teach students how to write their personal thoughts and ideas, and the 'procedural rhetoric' people, who prefer a more traditional, 'objective' approach. One of the primary names associated with the expressivist school is Maxine Hairston, though there are many others who articulate their own variations of the idea (a good bibliography of much of this criticism is at the bottom of this article).
Intellectually, I prefer the more objective -- one might even say conservative -- approach these days. I want to help my students get prepared for future careers, not simply help them find their own voices. Most college freshman need a great deal of direction with regard to the fundamentals of sentence structure and the forms of argument. On the other hand, if you don't give students opportunities to develop their skills with content that seems relevant to themselves, you are in a world of really bored students, and a dead class. So I'm a little torn (and I haven't even decided how I'm going to approach the class I'm teaching this coming fall... ulp).
There's some other issues here. One of them is the growing digitalization of writing, partly through the Internet, but also in most professional contexts. People increasingly communicate by email, and even send each other formal documents that way. In the old days, those documents were printed out, and the print forms were the ones that were read. But now people read more and more on the computer itself; the experience has become pretty naturalized.
The internet in itself doesn't mean much; if you have to convince the boss to adopt your proposal, you still have to use every persuasive tool at your disposal to do it. The forms and functions of public writing have not changed at all. The changes in the way people write have probably been more secondary, stylistic changes. One of these might be the growing informality of what is considered public rhetorical style. At first, the change was mainly visible in the blogosphere, where the conventions of argument are somewhat different (even in the 'serious,' Crooked Timbery blogosphere) from the conventional print-media. But more and more, the conventions of writing acceptable in blogging are coming to influence conventional journalism. Along these lines, I was struck by a paragraph in George Packer's recent essay on the parent of a soldier who was killed in Iraq:
It was the first blogged war, and the characteristic features of the form--instant response, ad-hominem attack, remoteness from life, the echo chamber of friends and enemies--helped define the tone of the debate about Iraq. One of the leading bloggers, Andrew Sullivan, responded to the news of Saddam's capture, in December 2003, by writing, 'It was a day of joy. Nothing remains to be said right now. Joy.' He had just handed out eleven mock awards to leftists who expressed insufficient happiness or open unhappiness at the news. . . . Sullivan's joy was, in fact vindictive and narcissistic glee. (He has since had second thoughts about the Administration's conduct of the war.) Similarly, as the insurgency sent Iraq into tumult most antiwar pundits and politicians, in spite of the enormous stakes and the awful alternatives, showed no interest in helping Iraq become a stable democracy. When Iraqis risked their lives to vote, Arianna Huffington dismissed the elections as a 'Kodak moment.' It was Bush's war, and, if it failed, it would be Bush's failure.
Packer's characterization of blogging as having acclerated the polarization of political debate in the U.S. seems right to me, especially regarding the Iraq war specifically. Blogging is no longer a subcultural activity. It is mainstream, and it is changing not just the way people argue about politics and war, but the way people argue in public, tout court. Perhaps that's something we should be talking about in comp. classes as well -- though I'm not exactly sure how I would take it on.
(Incidentally, Packer mentions a rather shady involvement in the pro-war campaign by Christopher Hitchens in the article. Hitchens -- always the pugilist -- came back with this piece in Slate. Naturally, in his critique of Packer, he doesn't mention the fact that Packer criticized him in the New Yorker article that he (Hitchens) is now attacking in Slate. Ugh.)
A Quote from Dan Kennedy, on the Writing Life
Recently I got some review books from Basic Books. (Yay, free stuff.) One of them is Bookmark Now: Writing in Unreaderly Times, a collection of essays by mostly-young, relatively unknown writers on writing. Flipping through, I came across a diary entry from Dan Kennedy (one of those McSweeney's dudes) that I liked:
April 11, 2004
I don't believe in writer's bloc--I'm not working up to a big analysis of why one can go for so long without writing. I don't go in for that whole think of like (Spinal Tap accent in place) 'Look man . . . it's impossible to [insert any for mof creative work] write now. I can't do it, and I don't know when . . . [dramatic pause] or if . . . I'll be able to do it again, man.' I mean it ain't backbreaking work, writing. And there's no sense in making a precious and larger-than-life practice of it. I think that things like music, writing, filmmaking are all blue-collar jobs, and I think that it just gets worse and worse the more people try to position themselves or their craft as anything more lofty than what basically amounts to a job in the service of others. One of my all-time favorite quotes about the creative process of writing comes from Neal Pollack: 'I don't see writing as some sort of holy act. When the phone rings, I answer it.' Having said all of that, it has taken me a month to sit back down in front of this page. Maybe you can't control when inspiration will strike, but there is something to be said for the discipline of showing up so that when it comes around you'll be there waiting.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)