The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.
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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.
Here is something that has been puzzling me about David Copperfield (which I've been reading, and lazily enjoying, for the past week or so): When David travels from his mother's home in Suffolk (northeast of London) to the school Murdstone sends him to, which I'm pretty sure was described as being near London though I can't find that now, he travels by way of Yarmouth, which is southwest of London (assuming Google Maps is not misleading me) -- and similarly, I believe, when he travels to work at Murdstone and Grinby. This doesn't make any sense to me. It is certainly possible I got mixed up about the location of the school; but in any case why would the carriage from Suffolk to Yarmouth not stop over in London? Never mind all that -- Google Maps is indeed misleading me. The Yarmouth referenced here is Great Yarmouth in Norfolk, fairly close to where David and his mother lived. (It is still farther away from London than is Suffolk, but I can easily imagine it to lie on a main road which bypasses David's mother's house.)
Also -- I wonder what age David is when he goes to work for Murdstone and Grinby. I've been thinking it is roughly in the range of ten to twelve, but I don't think that was stated in the text, it is just a guess. (The first time in the book that David mentions his age is when he is fallen in love with the eldest Miss Larkins, near the end of his time at Dr. Strong's school, and he is 17 -- I think that could fit with him being about 11 at the time he's working in London.)
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!
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
"Amphoræ were long-necked pottery storage jars with tapered bases, used for centuries by the Greeks and Romans to transport cereals, olives, oil and wine." Keith Houston continues his analysis of the @ sign -- snabel-a, kukac, grisehale -- by looking up Giorgio Stabile's research.
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 
dibuja