Ending a cycle only to start a cycle

BOOKS BOUGHT

BOOKS READ

Simulations  by Jean Baudrillard

Classical English Rhetoric by Ward Farnsworth

Selected Poems of Thomas Hardy (Penguin Classics)

It’s not been a good reading time.  I’m going through things pretty slowly.  And I’ve given up trying to write during the day.  I’m too stressed out.  The writing bug stings at night.  After 8 p.m., a switch goes off in my head and I’m suddenly reading to the exclusion of all else or writing to the exclusion of all else.  I’m going to stop fighting it and arrange my priorities around the fact that night time is the write time.

There is a mildly Gallic flavor to my current crop of pulp.

Graduate school has really expanded my reading repertoire.  If you read my post on Barthes “The Pleasure of the Text”, then you will know my feelings on swampy translations of French philosophical prose.  However, Baudrillard’s collection of translated notes that make up Simulations has qualities that TPoTT does not, specifically, continuity, organization, essay format, and better sentence structure.  You get more out of each paragraph without a lot of apologizing about how no equivalent phrases exist in English that would do justice to French subtleties.  The down side is that the phrasing is often clunky.  The information is solid gold, but it’s raw, rough gold.

Object Lessons probably has the most subtitles of any book that I’ve ever seen. “Object Lessons” – The PARIS REVIEW Presents “The Art of The Short Story.”

Another gift from the Academia fairies is reading about rhetoric.  Those Greeks had a word for EVERYTHING!  When you overuse conjunctions, there’s a word for that.  When you leave out conjunctions, there’s a word for that.  When you repeat words, there’s a word for that.  When you repeat phrases, there’s a DIFFERENT word for that.  This pattern of repetition that I’m doing here – there’s a word for that!  So, so bitchin’ rhetoric!

I have high hopes for Stylish Academic Writing. Wisely, Sword points out in her book that “[a]ny of the ‘smart sentencing’ principles outlined in this chapter can, of course, be temporarily suspended for rhetorical effect.” (p. 59.)

My graduate thesis is on Thomas Hardy’s poetry, and I’ve been working with poems from the Penguin collection.  Hardy poetry is wonderfully easy to read, and has great depth in spite of the light lyric feel of his work.  No wonder T. S. Eliot was annoyed by him.  It was like Salieri and Mozart.

Bowerstock’s From Gibbon to Auden: Essays on the Classical Tradition.  The cover made me buy it.  Also, I like reading essays.  (…said no teacher ever! LOL!)  However, I feel like I’ve been played.  I should know better than to buy these professional collections.  I want to get published.  Maybe I should just gather a handful of essays, slap a cute title on it and declare myself a high-end scholar.  It’s such a racket.  It’s like when you buy those romance story omnibuses and one story is awesome.  One story is so-so.  The rest are crap.  But you paid for five stories and only one of them gives you your money’s worth.  I hope this book won’t be like that. 

 

Anthologies – A Good Way to Sell Crap Stories

Art & Articles of Faith: Brand and Perugino

 

It’s a good thing that I’m not a religious fanatic because I would probably not have bought this book. (You notice I never mention “borrowed” or “stole” or “never returned to the library”? Every book is mine via purchase or other form of moral acquisition. I’ve  been given books by friends, but you know how it is when you are given books by people who are not great readers of books. They end up being books that I would not write about. “The Best of Shakespeare” or “Emily Dickinson’s Greatest Hits”. Something quite vague.)

“Art The Wrong Way” has a double-entendre. Layer one involves how Brand, an attention-whore of Byzantine proportions, re-Brands Perugino’s painting of Christ and angels with himself (as the Christ figure) surrounded by some talking heads of English soccer. And Britney Spears. As if any of her fans would ever buy this book. Or read. You know, it’s a good thing that he’s a West Ham fan because if he was a Man Utd. or Liverpool or Arsenal fan, then I probably would not take him as seriously. West Ham is a good fringe team – they bounce up and down the chart all season long before ending up in the top 10-15. When you are on the fringe, you see things with a clarity not enjoyed by the popular rich kids who cannot conceive of someone not dying to be them. That said, if I ever see the original of the painting, I’ll never forget that it is a Perugino.

The other layer of entendre involves Brand’s commentary on the sport itself. If you have only ever seen Brand the “entertainer”, you will not recognize the man you see through these pages. He is a good writer. He’s not posh, but his writing is studied, careful, his tone suitably serious – and then he meets David Beckham. Then the jester is back. But the guy knows his team. He knows a goodly amount of soccer history and has seen so much change and the jingoistic bollix that the English game has become. God Bless Him because he gives me hope that I am getting it! So perhaps there is a third layer to that Perugino/prophet-on-high imagery. Reading this book confirms that I am learning what I need to learn, and that I am developing some decent instincts about the game.

“Who the hell takes soccer advice from Russell Oh-What-Daft-Hair-I’ve-Got Brand?” you might say to yourself. Well, who takes advice on politics from a bunch of arrogant, clueless actors? People do have layers. Apparently.

 

 

West Ham dodgy business practices re: Carlos Tevez

West Ham Home Page

Pietro Perugino

Making Hay While the Sun Shines: Little Britain

At the www.amazon.com page for this book, one of the pull-quotes states that the reader read it cover to cover in one day. Bull! Shit! Even doing a “David Walliams-swim-the-the-channel-marathon” of reading, it would not be possible without skipping over a lot of stuff. Maybe skipping the stuff that’s in sans serif type.  I read it while I was sick at home and it took me the better part of three days. 

What I do agree with and that is not a total lie is that you really have to be a serious fan of the show and the duo to stick to reading this book.  It’s a good account of their 2005-2006 tour, but I’m reading this in 2013.  And I bought it in 2009.  So they have pretty much come and gone.  I saw David Walliams in A League of Their Own with James Corden. Haven’t seen Matt Lucas in anything other than Graham Norton.  So I don’t know if they are still at it.  (According to IMDB, they are doing a lot of stuff, just not LB stuff.)

The book is very intimate and yet glosses over a lot of negative stuff.  But the negative stuff was never the point.  It’s not meant to be an expose.  (I don’t know how to do the accent over the e.)  You do get a sense of how the media are total scums. They are basically in the business of lying through their teeth to sell papers or magazines or whatever. 

My favorite stuff about the book is its hidden wisdom on handling the vagaries of fame.  The truly successful famous are business-minded.  They get involved in all the decision-making; they broker deals; get involved with information technology.  They know how to honor engagements and be diplomatic.  Doesn’t sound like your average stoner/doper/drinker celebrity.  Not just them. Their families have to deal with a lot of crap from truly crap people. I especially love how Matt Lucas is a total Gooner! Then David goes and swims the freaking English Channel! In a record 10 1/2 hours!

So, it’s a damn long book. It has its tedious bits and its riveting bits.  Boyd Hilton has done a good job of assembling an ass-load of information and distilling it to something quite wonderfully atmospheric.  I would love to see a book about behind-the-scenes at The IT Crowd.  Did anybody take notes?

 

Ellora’s Cave Author Links

This is a list of links to Ellora’s Cave authors that I like. (Well, except for Jan Springer.  The one book of hers that I read was awful – full of typos and a plot like Swiss cheese.)

AUTHORS

Gail Faulkner

Lora Leigh

Jaid Black

Lisa Marie Rice

Jan Springer

Rhyannon Byrd

 

http://www.ellorascave.com/

Changes to Ellora’s Cave Links

 

Dear Ellora’s Cave Fans,

Ellora’s Cave has redesigned their website and it looks like the old links might not work. They will just take you to the main page.  From there, it’s not that hard to look up what you’re looking for.  I’m going to work on re-posting links, so keep an eye on this site.

Thank you,

Swetergrl

 

http://www.ellorascave.com/

Laudare Metuam. I Fear Not Praise Nor Colors.

Satirists would probably prefer that you understand more than you laugh.  But laughing is what happens first.  Given time, the understanding might come.  Just not in time to suit the satirist.  The satires of Juvenal, a Latin writer from roughly 120 years into the common era, have a lot in common with some of the more political and angry stand-up comics of today.  Lewis Black comes to mind.  He and Juvenal share a deep frustration and disgust for the behavior of the rich and powerful and the parasites that feed off their “event-glamor”.  They despise stupidity and have little tolerance for foolishness.  Unfortunately for them, (fortunately for their genre)  it abounds. 

Juvenal has the vision of an artist, able to see the components of things as well as the whole.  Satire 1 is a criticism of poetry.  Poetry, he complains, is too namby-pamby because the society that creates it and provides an audience for it is namby-pamby.  Hello!  Such an argument could be used down through history, specifically for academic art.  The Pre-Raphaelites may have made use of this vein of thought.  When society sucks, their art will suck.  If the Academy members are jaded and old-fashioned, guess which type of art will be celebrated. 

Juvenal is cutting in his expressiveness.  He could have been a writer for BLACKADDER!  His sarcasm and disdain are so thick, you could cut them with a …a … disdain-cutting device.

 

Excuses, Like Nooses

 

Excuses like nooses are squeezing your neck

Choking off honesty ‘till there’s no speck

They squeeze while you wheeze, keeping truth in check

Excuses are nooses; they’re all spewing dreck.

 

Excuses are lies that swirl behind your eyes

Inhibiting honor with intel from spies

They prise reality’s impassioned cries

Excuses are lies that swirl behind your eyes.

 

Excuses induce this brackish green bile

Burning your throat, there’s no acid denial

They gargle and warble their ceaseless cruel guile

Excuses induce this enraging lie-style.

(An original poem by Blanca Donovan)