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READIN
READIN started out as a place for me
to keep track of what I am reading, and to learn (slowly, slowly)
how to design a web site.
There has been some mission drift
here and there, but in general that's still what it is. Some of
the main things I write about here are
reading books,
listening to (and playing) music, and
watching the movies. Also I write about the
work I do with my hands and with my head; and of course about bringing up Sylvia.
The site is a bit of a work in progress. New features will come on-line now and then; and you will occasionally get error messages in place of the blog, for the forseeable future. Cut me some slack, I'm just doing it for fun! And if you see an error message you think I should know about, please drop me a line. READIN source code is PHP and CSS, and available on request, in case you want to see how it works.
See my reading list for what I'm interested in this year.
READIN has been visited approximately 236,737 times since October, 2007.
Joyce Hinnefeld has a remarkable new piece at The Millions, under the title Why Rent? On Our Lost Pursuit of Property. Hinnefeld manages to interweave the patterns of her own life, of her own destiny, with the Manifest Destiny of the United States, with the poetry of Frost and of Williams, with the historic patterns of land use and conservation in the Northeast, and ultimately with the "Homeownership Society" and the foreclosure crisis. A fascinating read.
This weekend I read Josipovici's Goldberg: Variations, without knowing much more about it than that I had seen it recommended a number of times over the years in pretty glowing terms. I found it, well, pretty disappointing -- went in hoping for great literature and found a couple of flashes of genius surrounded by 200 pages of a well-crafted lack of inspiration.
What is frustrating about the book is it seems to me like the author knew his work was lacking in inspiration, in vivacity -- he almost tries to make that the book's selling point. The complex structure of the book (which is about its most interesting feature) can be simplified as: a series of frames within frames; in each enclosing frame, an author is failing to find the needed inspiration to write the story in the enclosed frame. It sort of seems like a great book could be written with that structure, if the author were, say, Joseph Heller. But here it is ultimately just the chronicle of Josipovici trying and failing to write Goldberg: Variations -- my reaction is, if you can't write the book, then don't write it, or at least don't publish it...
There are definitely moments of genius and of beauty in the book; for me, they are not enough to recommend reading it. If I were asked for a one-word description of it, my reply would be "Stultifying."
posted evening of August first, 2011: 2 responses ➳ More posts about Readings
The hiss of the cicadas in the trees behind our house is at its peak this evening -- really reverberating through our entire second floor. (It's a sound I love, for which small mercy I give thanks.) As I was listening to the buzzing just now a new approach hit me to a problem of tense that I'd been batting around a few weeks ago:
EL MAESTRO DE TARCA (â…£)
by Pablo Antonio Cuadra
Thus spoke el maestro
de Tarca:
Catch the cicada
by its wing
At least
you're holding in your hand
its song.
I believe this is both truer to the source and better sounding, more poetic, than what I had previously.
When my parents were dating, back these 40-some years ago, back at Berkeley, their song was "When I'm Sixty-Four." Well this week, my dad is 26 -- likely the last sixth power he will see, and the last power of two -- and mom is still needing him, still feeding him. Happy birthday, Dad!
The party is today in Modesto and I'm sorry I'm not there. Hope to see you guys soon!
posted afternoon of July 30th, 2011: 1 response ➳ More posts about Birthdays
In case you have not been following comments on my years-old threads (and really -- who could blame you?): Ben has convinced me to re-open the Novalis translation project that I started back in 2007 but never really got anywhere with. He has contributed some excellent suggestions regarding nearly all of the sentences in the poem's second stanza. Perhaps you started reading this blog sometime since 2007 and you would be interested in helping out with this project, if only you knew about it! -- Well, here is your chance. We're trying to improve on the various English translations of Novalis' poem Hymns to the Night, and we're trying to do it by committee. Take a look and see what you think.
Ben's working translation of the second hymn is below the fold.
Troublesome activity undermines the heavenly passage of Night.
Won’t the secret offering of love ever burn for ever?
Light’s time was measured out, but the power of the Night is timeless and
boundless.
Holy Sleep, gladden not too seldom the Night’s servant in everyday work.
The span of sleep is endless.
Only fools misunderstand you and know of no sleep except that shadow that
in the half-light of genuine sleep you softly throw over us.
They aren’t aware of you in the nectar of the golden grape, in the almond
tree’s marvelous oil, and in the brown juice of the poppy.
They don’t know you are that which lingers around the bosom of the tender
maiden and makes a heaven in her lap; they have no idea that you open
a path to Heaven from the Old Stories, and that you carry the key to the
dwellings of the blessed,
One of my very favorite qualities of the Nielsen Hayden blog Making Light, is the way commenters there freely rewrite classic poetry in new voices and on new subjects. It is a highly literate crowd over there -- today they have been (spinning off of an exchange between Chris Clarke and Abi Sutherland at Google+) rewriting the greats to have reference to the world of blogging and newsgroups and social networks. Thomas speaks through Henry Reed:
Today we have naming of trolls. Yesterday
we had spam deletion. And tomorrow morning
We shall have what to do after banning. But today
Today we have naming of trolls. Economies
Totter world-wide toward bankruptcy
But today we have naming of trolls.
(And on the subject of Making Light: at the bottom of a week-old thread, a troll has inspired commenters to translate old favorites into Chinese via Google, with some fun results.)
Here are two concerts Ellen and I are planning to go to:
The Shirts will be playing at Cha Chas on the Coney Island boardwalk on Saturday the 13th. There will be three bands, The Shirts are leading off at 8pm. Should be a great show.
Robyn Hitchcock is playing Eye at The Bell House on November 19th. Also on the bill are John Wesley Harding and the Minus Five.
Meet up with us! It will be fun.
posted evening of July 29th, 2011: Respond ➳ More posts about Music
Timothy Burke's blog dropped off my radar a couple of years ago... Today I happened back onto it by way of Russell Arben Fox -- I'm making it a regular stop on my politics reading list from now on, based just on the two topmost posts at the moment -- one of the most scathing bits of criticism of President Obama I've read yet, one that really articulates the disappointment I feel at his term in office; and a bedtime story for the Republicans in congress who are hell-bent on destroying our nation in service of an incomplete, ill-considered analogy of the national economy to a family's budget.
posted evening of July 26th, 2011: Respond ➳ More posts about Politics
Last week, Sylvia finished up a bicycle repair class she's been taking at summer camp. Today, Tom Reingold, who taught the class, invited her over for a lesson in wheel-truing -- the last step to getting her new bike ridable. It is a blue Jamis Ranger of recent vintage which Tom found in his ramblings in need of lubrication and tuning-up, and a new seat. And it's all done! Sylvia took her first ride on it this evening.
I'm impressed -- I must have been 14 or 15 before I did a full tune-up on a bike. Click through for more pictures of the bike repair.
posted evening of July 26th, 2011: 3 responses ➳ More posts about Sylvia
At The Hooded Utilitarian, the first posts have gone up in the new Illustrated Wallace Stevens roundtable, which will be ongoing over the next few weeks. Up first is Mahendra Singh's take on the totally seasonally appropriate Cuban Doctor. (Singh styles himself "An illustrator busily fitting Lewis Carroll into a protosurrealist straitjacket with matching dada cufflinks.")
posted morning of July 24th, 2011: Respond ➳ More posts about Comix
This weekend I read Josipovici's Goldberg: Variations, without knowing much more about it than that I had seen it recommended a number of times over the years in pretty glowing terms. I found it, well, pretty disappointing -- went in hoping for great literature and found a couple of flashes of genius surrounded by 200 pages of a well-crafted lack of inspiration.
When my parents were dating, back these 40-some years ago, back at Berkeley, their song was "When I'm Sixty-Four." Well this week, my dad is 26 -- likely the last sixth power he will see, and the last power of two -- and mom is still needing him, still feeding him. Happy birthday, Dad!
In case you have not been following comments on my years-old threads (and really -- who could blame you?): Ben has 
