The "first lady of the civil rights movement" died in her sleep during the night at an alternative medicine clinic in Mexico, her family said. Arrangements were being made to fly the body back to Atlanta.
...Former Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young, one of Martin Luther King's top aides, said Coretta Scott King's fortitude rivaled that of her husband. "She was strong if not stronger than he was," Young said.
Coretta Scott King was a supportive lieutenant to her husband during the most dangerous and tumultuous days of the civil rights movement, and after his assassination in Memphis, Tenn., on April 4, 1968, she carried on his work while also raising their four children.
"I'm more determined than ever that my husband's dream will become a reality," the young widow said soon after his slaying.
May all citizens be judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. These are prophetic words, and they will endure the ages.
I have to say that I think this is bullshit - things may work differently up in Canada, but I think that the gist is the same. I happen to know a group of quite risque playwrights and avant garde puppeteer/performers who receive public finding and the contribution that they make to the city is significant. They are absolutely brilliant artists who happen to need a leg up - and not in 10-20 years, through the education of the public, but right now.
Now, I am also keen to support the education side of things, taking the arts education of young people very seriously. Such funding has taken a hit from gov't cutbacks, as has physical education, and this needs to be reformed.
I suppose it matters what kind of leash she is referring to. There are many different kinds.
Me: This reader isn't alone in the skepticism of this Paglia quote. I told Hannah about it last night and she rather crooked her eyebrows, said "eh", basically dismissed it and returned to watching Letterman.
I do think it matters what kind of leash she was talking about—good point there. I also think it matters whether she'd find support for individual artists' training and education acceptable, instead of support for artist livelihood in lieu of a steady job.
Paglia is one-part provocateur (moreso in her past, but even still today in milder forms). This quote is from 1995, when the "NEA wars" were far hotter than they are now. She also said, in that piece, that "PBS, NEH and NEA haven’t a clue how removed they are from the populace as a whole" so I think that is the context of the opinion that funding should not go to individual artists, because they might be tied to a PC mindset that she (and I) found so repellent.
One cannot separate PC from its roots in French poststructuralists and the Frankfort school. PC is watered down totalitarianism, a kind of Marxism not of a social kind, but a cultural one. The objections to PC is that 1) it substituted dialogue and organic development of language for fiat and created a slippery slope where everything, per usual, is reduced to "power", and 2) it cemented a victim mentality as means for empowerment. Of course there are/were enormous needs for debates about discrimination based upon race, class, sexuality, ethnicity, and gender.
But debate is far different than imposition, the modus operandi of what was rightly criticized. There was no extreme form of PC—PC was extreme by nature. If you disagreed with a PC enthusiast, you risked being shunned or branded. And while we are in a post-PC era, or the beginnings of one, the lack of real debate and dialogue about controversial issues lives on, in the near impossibility of sane and civil disagreement about, for example, the Iraq war. I was called a "good German" by one reader, merely for posting an excerpt of a President Bush speech. This was a stupid name-calling, of course, but if you think it is rare in the American Left, you are kidding yourself. Recently, Andrew Sullivan rightly appauded the rise of humor where PC-attitudes once ruled.
But back to the point. The question is whether one is able to make edgy art without state/city money. Money from private agencies is another issue, and less problematic. And this is an issue that cuts close to home. I recently applied for a grant (up to $1000) from the City of Chicago. It can go to tangible things, like artist training and materials for use in the artwork. If I get some money from this grant (fingers crossed), I'm going to use it to pay for continued lessons with my composition teacher. This grant can absolutely not be used for mere livelihood. To me, money for mere artist livelihood is money I'd rather go to teachers, or to support crumbling schools.
A tangential point is that I've always wondered about issue of integrity in agit-prop arts organization (such as political puppetry, which Hannah was a part of several years ago) who criticize capitalism in one breath, then thank various city/state/private agencies or companies for the vital funding required for their continued existence—an obvious case of biting that hand that, in part, feeds you.
Obviously some of what goes on in the name of capitalism is rightly called out and examined; yet, I find it problematic to do so when it undergirds the presentation, though. This is so small artistic problem. I find that it undercuts whatever critique of capitalism suggested by the art. Frankly, I can't take it seriously. Though I will always marvel at the visual aesthetics of live puppetry. The artists and theatres in the form that I'm familiar with have done visually stunning work.
At the Harold Washington Library, Chicago. 1.30.06
The reverence for poetry has been displaced by the love of rock/hip hop song lyrics.
70s humanities teachers were untouched by the true 60s spirit. Those with the 60s spirit either never made to graduate school, or dropped out.
Act of reading poem forces you to engage with the history of words.
Dickenson's bible was the dictionary. Plath's was the thesaurus. These help you find shades of meaning. Advice to play with this and other big books, to enter the quirky history of words. The dictionary is a parallel to archeology.
Library is a temple, ancestry in Alexandria.
In recent poetry there is a lack of focus on individual words. there is slack, flaccid speech without a discernible style of writing.
The British silently applaud the witty gestures of word.
She is in love with English. Multiple strands of meaning, from its Anglo-Saxon, Norman urbanity, even Greco-Roman heritage.
Break, Blow, Burn is primarily for those people who haven't a poem since their first year of college.
There is a complacent, coterie mentality of modern poets. There is a pretentious verbosity.
Yeats is the standard of modern poetry.
There is an incestuous, insular world of poetry today. So small that people don't criticize others out of fear of injury.
Here choice with this book is not popular nor commercial, though it has become a bestseller.
She thinks audiences have hunger for something of substance, in lieu of media flash, flash, flash.
She is heavily influenced by the Beat poetry school, where poets have a strong personal voice.
Authors live forever! (cf. death of the author) Part of artistry is developing a strong personal voice.
She sought poems one can return to, that create a legacy, that can sustain you. There is a spiritual center in poetry. Poetry is spiritual, not moral, in that art allows us to see more clearly. Art sharpens perception.
Poetry has a strong theatrical element.
She seeks the voices of real people. She listens to AM radio (politics, sports). This is how English is actually being used.
She found some very obscure poems for inclusion (Kraut, Wachtel).
Modern poems, with few exceptions, aren't talking about the proliferation of media today. How have artists processed media? Shocked at lack of understanding of media by modern poets.
The current media age requires a certain surreal humor.
Poems are objects. Not tissues of subjectivity. Like a painting on a wall. She wants there to be white space around the poem. Each poem gets its own respectful space in her book.
The layout of great poetry anthologies (Norton, et al) cram poems together too closely, killing the interest in poems. This is not an ideal way to teach poetry, to encourage a lifelong love.
Poem should be allowed to float and hover on page. As if a 'voice coming from the void'. This gives visual refreshment.
Large poetry texts are extortion and embezzelment. Poetry belongs in small, cheap books.
She has been very influenced by French culture, especially French film. Poststructuralism is the country's worst export.
A gay college friend showed her the O'Hara poem (A Mexican Guitar) and she remembered "plotz" but forgot the poem. Only to find it later, remembering that word. O'Hara's is a peotry of voluminous allusion, reference.
Ezra Pound -- poetry is adolescent showiness. Great editor, mentor for others. His poetry is paralyzed by self-consciousness.
Auden -- couldn't endorse a single poem of his.
Too many contemporary poems start with a great idea that goes nowhere. Require editing, condensing.
There is an acid bitterness in our culture, in our artists. We cannot endorse public figures, everyone is cut down. Thus we are affectless about government. There has been a slow diminution of exposure to political history.
In the younger generation, there is collegiality but too little (useful) hubris. This will negatively effect the artists. We need strong, even radical voices. These must be encouraged.
Artists suffer from a thin and strident attitude towards politics.
The media fosters a clubhouse mentality about political discourse. Language is polluted by overuse. Political TV talk shows just repeat the same stuff.
In reading poetry, one can find the kind of language that lasts. Even in Shakespeare, there is language with immediacy.
Poetry reading is a meditative exercise that encourages focusing. The intellect unites with the senses. Best to let the poem act upon you.
Beat poets were engaged physically, even with chanting and dancing. This was inspired by be-bop.
Poems is physical and organic. Not effete. Not like moving pawns on a chessboard.
McLuhan was comfortable and fluent with both new media and lyric poetry. Strong part of North American philosophical tradition. Gone for many years, then reappeared with the emergence of Wired magazine. Predicted so much.
MFA students often are missing and postponing the experience of life. This experience should be the subject of their artwork. Need to live normal life, as a means for discovery of oneself as an agent in the world. Better to use the tuition money to travel. Take regular jobs, meet regular people.
Too many modern young writers exxaggerate every possible trauma in their life.
They self-cannibalize in their writing, as a form of exhibitionism. Too much victimization. Unlike in the UK, where it is still inappropriate to reveal too much about one's private lives. Here, too much searching for the secret subject of yourself.
Plath's "Daddy". Fuses sex and politics, major poem, yet it exhausted the style that it created. No one has been able to produce a poem at its level.
New, original art won't come from writing programs. Rather, Americans who leave then return to America with a new cosmopolitanism, a new sophistication, a new drenching in experience to recharge the American arts.
On teaching arts to young children. The love alliteration, nonsensical, repetitive rhymes. Nursery rhymes are odd, weird strories often with historical meaning.
Best to expose children to great art (developmentally appropriate). This is customary in Europe. Here, art classes are too focused on art production (here's paper and watercolors, now create). Must develop habit of exposure to great works and art history.
Teachers are "custodians of culture". Culture needs to be preserved through the agents of teachers.
She has been charting the lack of understanding in students to allusions to the Bible. A majority of her current students don't recognize "Moses". It is an enormous work of art, can sustain for a lifetime. Great archtypal stories.
Education should be centered on the history of religions (including the great texts of each).
Nothing can replace direct contact with primary texts.
Advice to artists. Search history for precedents that resonate with you. Search history books for figures you like, male or female. Look backward for models. You can find a vision, then purpose, then program for your career.
Cites Emily Dickenson, Mary McCarthy and Dorothy Parker as very influential of her.
Dickenson is her role model. See the Johnson edition of her collected poems. Masterful use of syncopated rhythms, prefiguring jazz.
Women, after childbirth, tende to lose ambition. She thinks pregnancy changes a woman's chemical composition. Men can preserve rampant egotism longer. Women with children begin to care about the next generation. To them, unfettered ego is sterile, and solitary artist is seen as too neurotic. How many women really want to live like that?
She could have never written Sexual Personae if she was a mother. If she was, and still did write the book, she should have been put in jail due to child neglect.
She is now an adopted parent; her partner had a baby, She sees motherhood from the inside, and is very sympathetic with women with children who still make artwork.
On poetry slams. These are important performance art. Poetry ought go beyond the moment. Poets ought ask, "what is my legacy?" Slam poetry can vanish after the moment of expression. Does the poet want a place in history?
Performance art is generally based in shock. By nature, cannot sustain beyond the first performance.
Poetry is an ongoing process. It is part of a Mighty River. It needs revival, continuity.
On the West. It is not clear that the West will survive the challenge of Islamic fundamentalism.
The West is not sure of what it is.
Radical Islam sees the West as just media, sex, violence, and soulless.
It seems like the Roman empire. Intensity of passion is exactly what overthrows empires. (cf Christianity).
It used to be that touring the ruins of the Roman empire was an important exercise for all in Europe. A contemplative exercise, considering the immensity of what once was.
She believes in an "enlightened capitalism" that is more than just economic darwinism.
Our current economic and social systems are too dependent upon technology, and too complex. Shutting down the electrical grid would paralyze us. If there was another big terrorist attack in the monts after 9/11, this country might have shut down from the fears in the populace.
Multiculturalism must transcend the ideas the everything in America is bad, everything non-American is good. It is impossible for that attitude to condemn radical Islam.
She believes there will be a large clash of civilizations.
Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues" was about wire-tapping.
The solution to wiretapping is not easy, given that terrorist cells can use cellphones. The security of this country is absolutely vital.
More exposure to history is required at every level. Political thought requires the long view, 100, 200 years, not merely the moment, the instant need.
The idea that you have to nurture creativity with money – we have to re-orient our thinking here. You will never get true original arts by funding it. Funding for the arts should come by providing arts education and training, training of young artists. No individual artist should be taking public money. Lawrence Ferlinghetti, the beat poet, made a big speech during the NEA crisis a couple of years ago and said, ‘No one should be applying for it. No truly avante garde artist should ever apply.’ He was agreeing with me. It puts you on the leash. It trivializes you and the arts."
Ms. Paglia is speaking tonight in Chicago, at the library downtown. She's on a tour for her recent book, Break, Blow, Burn, which is excellent and something you should pick up if you enjoy poetry. I think its is her statement (a manifesto, even) on the best way to interpret poetry. Through actual interpretations of seminal poems, she demonstrates "close reading" of the formal art object for its specific markings, with the perspectives of psychology and social history integrated to give the poem contexts in terms of authorship as well as social forces. She thus officially expands rigid "New Criticism" beyond its textual restraints without losing the granularity and focus upon particular word, phrase, and image that is New Criticism's strength.
Paglia's system can be extended to other artwork, in the sense that you start with the actual object (be it a play, sculpture, adornment, film, performance, composition, entree, or whatever) and appreciate its formal qualities, and then use these, as well as the work as a formal whole, as anchor subsequent investigation into psychological, sociological, and cultural perspectives upon the object. (Yes, Wilber own sketchy writings on art would be sympathetic with Paglia's.) And because Paglia's is, at heart, a classroom teacher, with 30 years of real experience with students, she has earned the right to be called, in my view, the single most important pioneer in integral art interpretation. She has walked the walk, through the problematic academy, and done so to great effect. It is for this reason that I have numerous times previously called her an integral art "midwife", a term which I do not use lightly or unscrupulously, because such a figure operates at the edge of knowledge and intuition.
Tonight is the first time I will hear her speak live. I've followed her work since the late 90s, having found her (as many did) through her columns for Salon.com, including the seminal "Ask Camille". I then picked up her tome Sexual Personae, which by its voluminous nature repels any and all intellectual poseurs. Only last year, when I reread it cover to cover for the second time, do I think I started to really grok its implications. I still need a couple more close readings.
And the excitement of that carried over as, over the course of the last sixth months, I've filled out the holes in her output that I hadn't yet read. It's been electrifying. Obviously, her illuminative work is fundamental to anything I do in art philosophy. I hope I can pass on to others the evangelical passion she brings to her own investigations and commentary on art, as well as the encyclopedic erudition. I'm going to put together the "Paglia curriculum for art education" (my own title) as can be gleaned from her numerous commentary and recommendations for art education reform over the years, through her books and essays.
Here are some questions for her that I've been thinking about. Perhaps there will be a chance to ask one of them tonight. It is appropriate, I think, to anchor my questions primarily in the subject matter of her new book, but of course I have a couple that are outside its thesis. In no particular order, and crafted open-endedly to elict long answers:
1) Is it accurate to consider Break. Blow, Burn your attempt to update "New Criticism", as a more integrated theory?
2) If so, do you have an updated name for your approach to art interpretation? (beyond 'new criticism', 'close reading', and 'explication of text')
3) In your interpretation of Shakespeare's Sonnet 29, I notice you don't give particular comment to the concluding words, "to change my state with kings". Some think Marlowe was Shakespeare, with his death faked to escape Church persecution, which would give these words a poignancy. Do you think there is anything to the "authorship" question, in general?
4) In Wordsworth's "Composed Upon Westminster Bridge", the last two lines are "Dear God! the very houses seem asleep; / And all that mighty heart is lying still!" And I can't get over my impression that "lying" is an active verb, as in the mighty heart is making something lie still, the "something" being mysteriously concealed. Am I misreading this?
5) I'm sure you get a lot of "why wasn't this poet included in your book?" so rather than ask that, can I ask if you have an opinion on the poetry of Yusef Komunyakaa?
(ed: he writes in an often jazz-, Vietnam-, sexual-, and surrealist-inspired style. My own favorite is Thanks.)
6) In analyzing Joni Mitchell's "Woodstock", you say that it is one of the few lyrics that stand up as a poem, stripped of its melody and musical setting. Yet your analysis in several places references both—is this incongruous?
7) I'm fascinated by your view that the "canon" of art is in large part defined as "that which has influenced other artists". Is it accurate, then, to say that you think the canon, ever-evolving to some extent, will survive beyond the assault of media, information, and new perspectives that characterizes our current age?
8) You have suggested that comparative religion, or "the history of religions", should be central to education, and art education. Does that approach support or challenge religious practice as it exists now through the various approaches around the world (Christianity, Islam, Judaism, etc.)?
9) Your essay "Cults and Cosmic Consciousness" traced the development of the American New Age movement. In your research did you come upon the work of Ken Wilber, spiritual philosopher out of Boulder, and if so, do you have an impression or opinion of his work, which he calls "integral theory"?
10) What do you think is Marshall McLuhan's most lasting insight?
11) Do you still believe that individual artists should not be accepting any public, government money, and if so, why?
If any of y'all can think of a good question for Camille, send me an email and I'll consider it. I don't know if she'll be taking questions or not. I think she's at least signing books, so maybe I can slip one in. I'll report tomorrow how her lecture went. Hannah is gonna see if she can make it (along with Twyla, of course), so maybe she'll have some reactions to post, as well.
In a surprise reversal, Oprah Winfrey apologized to her national television audience this morning for defending James Frey and said she now feels duped by the embattled author of the best-selling memoir "A Million Little Pieces."
"I made a mistake," a somber Winfrey said at the opening of the live show, "and I left the impression that the truth does not matter, and I am deeply sorry about that because that is not what I believe."
Winfrey's apology and pointed questions about incidents and people in the book appeared to take Frey by surprise as he sat across the couch from Winfrey today as they had done during a much more convivial show four months earlier.
"It is difficult for me to talk to you because I really feel duped," Winfrey told a startled-looking Frey who licked his lips often before speaking. "More importantly, I feel you betrayed millions of readers...As I sit here today, I don't know what is true, and I don't know what isn't."
Actual footage, taken by those loyal to him, is here. It was shown during his ongoing trial. Warning: very graphic, not for children, and not for the faint of heart. I cringed deeply during every scene. I link to this because it think it is important to realize the depth of medieval monstrosity that was the Saddam Hussein dictatorship, beyond words and statistics.
And now I must do something frivolous and mindless, if I hope to have any kind of workable mood the rest of today.
LET'S REVISIT LATE 18TH-CENTURY GERMANY AND CONSIDER ITS ATTITUDES TOWARDS ARTISTRY, SHALL WE?
From Hauser's The Social History of Art, p. 110:
To the enlightenment the world appeared as something thoroughly intelligible, explicable, and open to explanation, whereas the 'Storm and Stress' [MD: i.e., late 18th C in Deutschland] regarded it as something fundamentally incomprehensible, mysterious and, from the standpoint of the human reason, without meaning.
Such views are not simply the product of excogitation and are not conditioned by logical rules. The one is the result of a consciousness of being able to control or, at any rate, to conquer reality, the other is the expression of the feeling of being lost and forsaken in this reality....
Artistic creation, which was a clearly definable intellectual activity, based on explicable and learnable rules of taste, for both coutly classicism and the enlightenment, now appears as a mysterious process derived from such unfathomable sources as divine inspiration, blind intuition, and incalcuable moods.
For classicism and the enlightenment the genius was a higher intelligence bound by reason, theory, history, tradition and convention; for pre-romanticism and the 'Storm and Stress' he becomes the personification of an ideal characterized, above all, by the lack of all these ties.
The genius is rescued from the wretchedness of everyday life into a dream-world of boundless freedom of choice. Here he lives not merely free from the fetters of reason, but in possession of mystic powers which enable him to dispense with ordinary sense experience. 'The genius has presentiments, that is to say, his feelings outrun his powers of observation. The genius does not observe. He sees, he feels'—says Lavatar.
It is truly amazing what a single musician can do with just a voice and guitar, the emotional magic that is somehow found anew, then stirred and shared. Last night, Tweedy was sheer brilliance. Scraggily, but majestically, he strode upon the stage decorated with seven (seven?) acoustic guitars to chose from, at the intimate Abbey Pub here in Chicago, and proceeded to perform a 90 minute show of music so soulful, so nuanced, so engaging. I'd say without shame that this was the most satisfying evening of music for me in over 7 years, possibly ever, if that wasn't such a trite sort of thing to say.
Terms like "best" and "most" and "ever" are useful to a point with live music, but the fact is that within the last 24 hours, there were probably, I dunno, 537 concerts around the globe that offered audiences the same sort of timeless resonance that Tweedy evoked tonight. That is taking nothing away from anyone, of course, but it is rather to recognize that music belongs to everyone, no exceptions. I gladly evangelize for Tweedy's music, but I'm also wise to the reality that scarcity isn't an issue when it comes to music. It is rather something of abundance, fortunately.
I'm pretty new to the whole Tweedy/Wilco thing, I admit. I've only been a fan for two years, and only familiar with Wilco's last three albums. I find Wilco to be the most unique band on the planet. They preserve key aspects of music from folk/western, classic rock, jamband, experimental/art rock, and punk genres thru a voice that negates the wind remainder in order to broadcast on a frequency all their own. This being Tweedy's adopted hometown, in front of an packed-house audience, many of whom have obviously followed his career closely and for many years, the stage was just waiting for him to provide the connective musical tissue that bound everyone present, to re-create as extension of collective consciousness into musical form that which so luridly captivates, as well as rewards close listening with our entire bodies awake.
Music, when authentic and good, renews the spirit (the breath-force), vibrates the body, and allows the intellect to flow unencumbered in a curious mystery as if in a focused meditation. That is a general statement that can be applied to any kind of music performed by anyone from anywhere. Music is the animated edge between time and timelessness, between our Original Tone, struck before we were born, and the tones-over-rhythm that is our everyday life in the world.
Yet it rings so true as I wind down from this show, at the intimate Abbey Pub (capacity maybe 300), just a short walk from my Logan Square house, just as my brother took off to drive up to our father's house in Milwaukee where he's staying for the next several days before returning to LA. Neither of us could stop talking about just how amazing of a solo performer Tweedy is. We knew only about 25% of the songs; Tweedy pulled from a catalog I'm not entirely familiar with (perhaps old Wilco or even Uncle Tupelo).
But he is such a crafty storyteller, during as well as inbetween songs, with lyrical sentiments I think are pretty easily accessed. There just isn't any bullshit. And, man, that cat knows how to play the guitar with restraint, without needless flourishes except when appropriate to support the lyrics. It is clear that Tweedy first crafts the lyrics, and only then the musical accompaniment, which is exactly how it ought be done.
Wilco is getting more and more popular, and a quick check of their website shows that many of Tweedy's solo shows are already sold out. It was something to hear the entire crowd, more than a few times, sing along with Tweedy through entire songs. During a stripped down "Heavy Metal Drummer", the crowd even supplied the high-pitched "ooh-ah" background vocals during the chorus. Several times during the show, he asked what songs we'd all like to sing along to. He is wise to recognize the collaboration between performer and audience that is fundamental to any renewal via live music.
Given that I no longer do the big rock shows (arena or ampitheatre) like I did in my teens and twenties, and that my energy or free time is at such a premium being a daddy, husband, and composer/artist with a full-time day job at an ad agency, the whole evening was just the perfect speed, at the right time in my life, when I would be most intrigued by the prospect of live Tweedy, given that he fronts my favorite rock band.
How often do ya get to absorb an evening of live music in that sort of situation? It is happened a couple times here in Chicago, I'll say (seeing Califone, Ambulance Ltd., Matt Heimovitz, all at Shubas). And it happened again tonight with Tweedy. Lucky me, I suppose.
Music, when it is right, leaves a permanent imprint that forever ties tones to a moment, as a memory, always yours, always there to renew your breath, your spirit, when you remember and then re-create it. No other art, I think, quite penetrates to the soul of the moment as music can. Music stitches time with space and soul. It is a celebration of communal vibration. It is people. Together. Deeply. Vulnurably. And joyously.
time music is deep hum rode open, ravished as multiphony—a fabric of tones concentric in orgasm. Silent birds can sacrifice their wings to whims of wind. Rather to live & to die & to still again guide breath thru its ornament like a corpse that howls thru its ambulance. An open throat, shaped as love shapes a full-tenored embrace with nothing discreet to remain, so expands as bare sonority: what in the kosmos electric am I not ?
The poems and plays attributed to William Shakespeare demonstrate a powerful intellect, backed up by extraordinary learning and a wide exposure to what goes on at the very top of political, scientific, philosophical and artistic society. There is, however, no evidence at all of the man from Stratford having had any such ability, contacts or experience. We know nothing of his schooling, nothing of any source for his reading, and we know that he did not go to University. We have no evidence at all of any familiarity with the aristocracy, with high level statesmen, or with the top thinkers, artists, scientists, explorers, poets or musicians of the time. With Marlowe we certainly do, in every case.
The above is from a useful, if somewhat detailed, online book that attempts to recreate the events and questions surrounding the death of Marlowe, the Elizabethan playwright who some (including me) believe was the real author of the works of Shakespeare (which, it follows, was co-opted, complictly or not, from the land owner and minor actor of the day who traditionally gets authorship credit).
Making the case that Marlowe wrote the plays and sonnets is, of course, an uphill battle. No one account is going to prove anything conclusively. How could it? One first must be able to show that Marlowe did in fact not die when common history says he did, and that the stabbing of him didn't happen. And then there is the ultimatly impossible task (assuming Marlowe did not die as history says) of proving that Marlowe actually authored those plays and sonnets. So this will always be controversial.
But the first issue, and that which is most important and overriding for me, is the issue of "fitting the profile". Marlowe (the aristocratic polymath, multilingual poet and playwright, renown translator, spy for the queen, carousing provocateur) to me fits the profile, better than anyone else (and certainly the landowner) that you'd expect from the creator of this mammouth canon of literature, universally acknowledged to be among the most profound ever produced in any culture. I've written about this twice before (here, and here). I first considered "Marlowe as Shakespeare", it bears note, after reading this provocative Salon.com article.
It has been enlightening, as I've re-read various Shakespeare works over the last two years, to at least ponder the possibility that this literature is the terrible, beautiful, awe-inspiring call from a man without a real social identity, constantly hiding who he really is, on the run or in costume, robbed of his reputation, privy to the many of the power/political merchants of his day, and an acknowledged genius with no real home. For me, only a person possessive of deep, internal conflict and paradox (such as both relishing and cursing one's lot in life) can craft works with the brilliance of the Shakespearian canon, which captures so many aspects—joys, suffering, confusion, humor, and salvation—of the human person, with such nuance, mystery, and depth. To me, this canon must in some way be an intuitive response to the life lived by its author.
All of this gets to how we conceive of creativity, the creative process, and the impact of psychology and sociology upon artwork (both have crucial influence). And it gets to how we read these plays and sonnets. If Marlowe was Shakespeare, then doesn't this excerpt from Sonnet 29 ring all the more painful, and real?
When, in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state, And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries, And look upon myself, and curse my fate...
Jonah Goldberg's new column is interesting insofar as it is a glimpse of sorts (especially if you are reading this and consider yourself a liberal).
...I'm recommending books that I personally found interesting or useful, which explain the history of liberalism or aspects of it from non-hostile perspectives. I don't pretend to have an encyclopedic knowledge of the genre, and every day I discover another book I should have read. Despite the caricatures of liberalism perpetrated by many on the right, there's a great deal of realism and sober analysis to be found on the liberal side of the aisle. Obviously, their conclusions and preferences will elicit disagreement from thoughtful conservatives, but thoughtful conservatives should still appreciate that serious criticism of liberalism requires that we make some good faith effort to understand liberalism as it understands itself.
He also links, in the article, to his recommendations of the "conservative canon". I haven't read any of the liberal books he recommends, and only one from the conservative list, which makes me feel stupid. But all in good time. Anyway, I'm wondering if my long-held dissatisfaction with modern liberalism, both the Democratic and Republican parties, and many strains of conservatism means that "libertarianism" is closer to my own disposition. Dunno, thinking aloud.
LIFE IN HOLLAND BEFORE AND AFTER THE THEO VAN GOGH MURDER
"...[T]here is a fierce debate about the limits of multiculturalism, free speech, and the long-cherished culture of tolerance."—from an informative 2002 interview in The American Prospect of Dutch journalist Marc Chavannes. And the interview reminds me of the 2003 assassination of politician Pim Fortuyn, the charismatic gay man who, too, was leading a public critique of multiculturalism, and who was poised to win big at the polls before he was killed. Said Chavannes:
...we certainly have had a couple of moments when people were speaking out against multiculturalism. However, no one did this with great punch and charisma until Pim Fortuyn emerged as a political force. He came from nowhere politically to create a party that may have been the second largest in Parliament if not for his assassination in May 2003. This proved that there was a huge reservoir of popular unease with the taboo against criticizing how Muslims conduct their business.
My view is of course that we preserve certain impulses of multiculturalism (i.e., curiousity and respect for people from other cultures, as well those cultures' histories) yet negate what stifles debate and growth, such as the impulse to be non-critical about the warts of other cultures, or people from those cultures. Multiculturalism is still somewhat young a movement, so we can reasonably insist that it "grows up". That is what should happen—that it get more mature, more discerning, more skeptical, more realistic, and more limited in its aims. And this overall perspective should never categorically assign "bad" to one's own culture, or history of that culture. To do so is a tell-tale sign of the kind of immature, adolescent multiculturalism that we must negate.
In his The Developmental Psychology of Music, David Hargreaves summarizes Piaget's formulation of the role of "play" in cognitive development (p. 35).
Play and imitation are explained in terms of the balance between assimilation and accommodation; play behavior is defined as that which is characterized by a predominance of assimilation, in the sense that new toys, people, situations and so on are incorporated into existing schemes. Imitation, on the other hand, is characterized by a predominance of accommodation in the sense that the child's thinking is subordinated to models provided by the outside world.
I find this interesting because in the clear distinction between play and imitation here, what jumps out is how one can also integrate these two approaches into one that adopts both. Namely, a "playful imitation", where in learning, for example, some of the formal features of Hitchcock's film directing style, the artist incrementally adopts these into his or her own developing style, and thus does so in a playful way. Rather than learning a large chunk of Hitchcock's methods, smaller chunks are bitten off, and then digested. As this happens, a natural reckoning between the artist's existing style and that which is formal to Hitchcocks can occur. And the artist, through the course of many short films, can experiment with different applications of this Hitchcockian stuff, and thus follow the analogy of folding it into the existing style as one kneads raisins into dough to form raisin bread. In this way, both "play" and "imitation" occur in the learning process for the budding filmmaker.
BALTIMORE -- A judge on Friday struck down a 33-year-old Maryland law against same-sex marriage, agreeing with 19 gay men and women that it violates the state constitution's guarantee of equal rights.
The ruling by Judge M. Brooke Murdock rejected a state argument that the government had a legitimate interest in protecting the traditional family unit of heterosexual parents.
"Although tradition and societal values are important, they cannot be given so much weight that they alone will justify a discriminatory" law, she wrote.
The judge immediately stayed her order to give the state time to file an expected appeal in Maryland's highest court, the Court of Appeals.
"This is such an exciting moment," said Lisa Polyak, a plaintiff with partner Gita Deane.
"Our participation in this lawsuit has always been about family protections for our children. Tonight, we will rest a little easier knowing that those protections are within reach," Polyak said.
LONDON (Reuters) - A small whale swam up the River Thames to central London on Friday, a rare event which drew large crowds of sightseers and brought traffic to a standstill.
But as the whale twice tried to ground itself before eventually finding slightly deeper water as the tide came in, concerns grew that it might not survive.
As the Northern Bottle-nosed Whale beached next to Chelsea Bridge, three men waded into the river hitting the water and then punching the air in celebration as it swam off.
But it soon beached again, prompting more people to jump into the water to move it on.
"I am very concerned for the safety of this animal at the moment, particularly if boat traffic increases in the river," said Laila Sadler, scientific officer at animal protection charity, the RSPCA.
"It is already clearly disorientated," she told Reuters.
An article from 2002, written by Camille Paglia after watching a televised debate among open gays about gay ideology. Besides the usual fireworks you'd expect from her, riveting as always, I find this kwote particlarly interesting:
Serious problems arise when scientific inquiry is obstructed, as in the inflated myth of the "gay gene", by an excessive concern for gay sensitivities. The self-policing by the indulgent major media on these matters has come perilously close to censorship. True gay intellectuals should encourage open discussion of the genesis of homosexuality, a complex subject that has been in limbo, a political blackout, for 20 years. We must demand equality before the law, but that does not excuse us from the philosophic obligation of self-knowledge. Heterosexuality and homosexuality need to be objectively studied by psychologists and historians as interrelated dynamic systems that change from culture to culture.
That, I believe, is the practical implication from this post by Andrew Sullivan:
The fiance and I were watching the DVD version of Steve Carell's charming comedy, "The 40 Year-Old Virgin," the other night. There's a couple of classic scenes in it - one where two black guys try to out-negro each other; and one where two straight guys playing video games try and out-straight each other. Both scenes rested on ethnic or sexual stereotypes, both were un-PC, but both were also completely inoffensive in today's cultural climate. The scenes weren't regurgitating the warmed over prejudices of the past, like a Jay Leno monologue or Adam Sandler's appalling "The Longest Yard." They were playing with them. The writers and actors trusted the audience to be in on the joke, and to realize that the fun they were poking was sharp but not designed to wound. I'd put "South Park" firmly in the post-PC category, as well as Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert and Dan Savage. When Colbert asked me in all seriousness on his show last Tuesday, "When did you choose to be gay?" no one believed for a second that he was anti-gay. Everyone in the twenty-something audience laughed. This is all a great development, and a generational one - a sign that the humor-free PC '90s have melted into something much funnier, much more honest, and yet also inclusive. The other key figure, I think, is Dave Chapelle, a comic genius who has somehow managed to create comedy that is ferociously close to the edge politically and in clumsier hands could be discounted as bigoted or dealing in the crudest of stereotypes. And yet, we're all in on the joke - black and white, male and female, straight and gay, stoner or crackhead. To my mind, it's just a sign of how vibrant American popular culture still is, how the doom-mongers are often wrong, and how a multicultural society can indeed find a way to talk about its internal differences without cloying sensitivity or crude prejudice.
And irony, rather than being an end, or goal (cf. Seinfeld) is now merely one of many tools in communication and the arts. Rather than being "irony for irony's sake", irony is a vehicle for meaning. When Colbert asked "When did you choose to be gay?", there is real meaning behind the humor, exposing how obnoxious and even silly it is to think that gay folks choose their sexual orientation. But he doesn't have to get that explicitly moralistic, or sound like a preacher. He goes artful rather than blunt or direct. "When did you choose to be gay?" says it all, full of irony and full of meaning.
Sullivan is right to say that we are entering a post-PC America. Meaning-anchored irony, as one of many tools in our communicative toolboxes, is an entrance ticket. The millitant seriousness of the PC police is confronted with their own well-meaning shallowness, exposed through piercing honesty under the mask of irony—restrained, scrupulous, and wise. And comedy, once again, shows itself to be perhaps the best discipline in which to publically evoke the plain truths about society and human frailty and silliness, which includes the truth that political correctness was and always will be useless, reactionary, misplaced guilt, no matter how good the intentions behind it.
The City of Milwaukee gave itself a high-tech boost Wednesday, with Common Council approval of a deal with a local firm that will build a $20 million citywide wireless computer network.
Officials hope Milwaukee will be the first major city in the nation to go wireless.
The network is expected to be completed in about 18 months, with a "demonstration" area west of downtown completed in about four months.
The 14-year agreement, with an option for six additional years, is with Midwest Fiber Networks, a Milwaukee-based business that is working with other companies, including Internet giant EarthLink, to create the system.
Here are the highlights of the deal:
Construction time: 18 months until completion, with demonstration area west of downtown done in four months.
Cost: $20 million, none coming from city taxpayers.
Usage charges: Expected monthly fee of about $20, for full access. Access to sixty government or non-profit Web sites available free to anyone.
Benefits to city: 400 free accounts, a job-training program and a share of income in future years.
VAN GOGH'S SUBMISSION AT THE AMERICAN FILM RENAISSANCE
It is a film festival in Hollywood. On the Mondo Hollywood blog, you can watch their video coverage of the event that includes relatively brief commentary on Theo Van Gogh's infamous short film Submission.
Watch a clip of Submissionhere. It, and Van Gogh's violent murder, are both watershed moments in contemporary art, and will permanently alter artists' perception of their work in the world. The stakes are raised, the danger of artistic license is revealed, and the lines of acceptable provocation are thus demarcated.
Throughout history and across cultures, the arts of homo sapiens have demonstrated universal features. These aesthetic inclinations and patterns have evolved as part of our hardwired psychological nature, ingrained in the human species over the 80,000 generations lived out by our ancestors in the 1.6 million years of the Pleistocene.
The existence of a universal aesthetic psychology has been suggested, not only experimentally, but by the fact that the arts travel outside their local contexts so easily: Beethoven is loved in Japan, Aboriginal art in Paris, Korean ceramics in Brazil, and Hollywood movies all over the globe.
Thus begins an article in The Australian by Denis Dutton. Here he offers an overview of sorts for his work on "Darwinian aesthetics", or "evolutionary aesthetic theory", or how humans' love of art is hard-wired into our brain through patterns common to all people, no matter the culture. His is an important perspective to consider, and it is clearly sympathetic with the psychological aspect of integral art philosophy.
Geoffrey Falk has posted a useful summary of this many points of critique of Ken Wilber's work. He includes several links to both his more specific analysis as well as those of others. I have said before, many times, that I consider Falk to be a performance artist, who artfully mixes analytical rigor with ad hominem. The latter offends or annoys many in the integral community, and stretches the patience of the rest.
I rather take the latter with several grains of humorous salt given the former, which is substantial, measured, and intellectually honest. It may be that I'm relatively alone on this, but that is my perspective. His open secret is that I believe he cares deeply about a truly legitimate integral worldview (whether it is named as such or not), one not easily poked-through by skeptical invesigation of original sources, and one not based upon hyperbole or unearned assertions of truth for the sake of p.r. or legacy-building. For this, Falk ought be applauded for doing the work that few are willing to do. He may error here, there, or even everywhere (I don't believe he does, but it is possible), but his efforts are noble nonetheless, as are Wilber's efforts to foster some kind of planet-centric philosophy anchored in human psychology.
The jury is still out on whether Falk's criticisms function "intrinsically"—that is, to what extent the heart of Wilber's philosophy is injured or punctured. To assess Falk's work in that way requires a certain sobriety, careful consideration, and willingness to suspend disbelief. By that I mean that it requires a confidence that an integral worldview will still stand and live organically, even if Wilber's own particular writings falter, are diminished, or even in certain points, collapse. I sincerely doubt that will happen with 100% of his work; I also sincerely doubt that it won't happen with at least some of it.
As this article in the Telegraph reminds us, Virginia Woolf said that when she wrote her book reviews, she'd read the book twice. The first time she'd surrender to everything the author offered; the second time, she wouldn't give the author a single sentence if it wasn't earned. Some in the integral community have done the first stage and now are in the second in some form or another. I count myself in that group, though I have also pushed further because the world of art/aesthetic philosophy is far broader than Wilber's main focus, which centers on psychology (including mysticism).
In any event, this second stage is far tougher than the first, in two ways. The reader is required, in this case, to go to original sources and consider how Wilber's interpretations/characterizations of Gilligan, Gardner, Loevinger, Piaget, Baldwin, Housen, and others are or are not faithful and accurate. The second reading is also much harder on the author — more critical of Wilber. For by his own account, he has told stories of many thinkers' ideas, and attempted to make a meta-story, based upon the stories as well as his own subjective insights. Thus his meta-story stands or falls in large part on his success in getting the original stories right. If he gets things wrong, we have to assess to what extent his error or errors are "intrinsic" to the heart of his model, as well as "instrinsic" to the intellectual/academic integrity anyone needs to make distinct one's philosophic voice from mere hot air. For if Wilber's is ultimately mere fanciful story, then surely claims that his work is "scholarly" cease to be meaningful. In any event, finding that out will provide solid ground from which to accurately assess the value of Wilber's oeuvre.
TOKYO (AP) -- Gohan and Aochan make strange bedfellows: one's a 3.5-inch dwarf hamster; the other is a four-foot rat snake. Zookeepers at Tokyo's Mutsugoro Okoku zoo presented the hamster - whose name means "meal" in Japanese - to Aochan as a tasty morsel in October, after the snake refused to eat frozen mice.
But instead of indulging, Aochan decided to make friends with the furry rodent, according to keeper Kazuya Yamamoto. The pair have shared a cage since.
"I've never seen anything like it. Gohan sometimes even climbs onto Aochan to take a nap on his back," Yamamoto said.
because the blog is a discipline of art, with roots in theatre and the more contemporary performance art as well as of course moveable type; with the bells and whistles provided by the world wide web, html, and audio/video technology more available and malleable than ever before;
because as a professional composer, the blog provides a creative release and outlet based upon improvisation with the elements of word + tone + image;
because the blog is primarily a visual medium that transcends and includes the sequential explication of the phonetic alphabet, and its attendant worldview based upon linear order and mono-perspectivity, and provides an artistic portal into a total experience suggested by the immediacy of electricity that is supported by collaboration, planet-centric compassion, a seasoned point of view, restraint, artful amplification of multiple perspectives and personae, contemplation, and context-based narrative;
because the blog allows for intuitive polysemy of a depth and breadth never before witnessed;
because the blog can entertain, educate, and enlighten, to satisfy and heal audiences, other artists, as well as the author artist;
because, most of all, the blog supports the emergence of informed, transdisciplinary intuition in both individuals and communities, intuition which if recognized and nurtured, can undergird a stable worldview yet to emerge consciously in any large manner save for the mysterious and semi-conscious glimpses touched on by the most curious and talented of our blog-artists;
If Senate confirmation hearings of Supreme Court nominees are expected to open with Stirring Tales of Humble Upbringings, then we should be honest, and move the venue to Oprah’s couch. Apparently the citizenry who fear that Samuel Alito will repeal the eleventy-second Amendment - you know, the one with the right to privacy and Canadian prescription drugs – are supposed to be mollified by a tale of hard-scrabble determination. Well, it won’t work, and this biography-is-destiny approach is misguided. Let us imagine two fictional nominees whose “life stories” have informed their attitudes towards the Constitution, and see which one you’d prefer.
Thus begineth the new screed from Lileks. You'll have to click over to his site to read his two fictional characters and their life stories.
