Books read recently by J. Zimmerman

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{ March : marzo (see also books on learning Spanish) 2009 }

(3.31.2009)

• Day 1 of Poetry of the Heart Course.

Day 1 of Ancient Greek Course; part III. An Introduction to Ancient Greek: A Literary Approach by C. A. E. Luschnig.

• Tried to listen to Eckhart Tolle reading his A new earth [awakening to your life's purpose], but I kept falling asleep. His voice is monotone. The material is, as his other books I've read, Buddhist-like philosophy in a Western garb. His main goal is for the reader to become aware of the demands of the ego and one's tendency to ego repair (particularly through retaliation or defense). And to allow ego diminishment, feeling the subsequent internal spaciousness.

• Finished dipping into Mark Bittman's The minimalist Cooks at Home: Recipes that give you More Flavor from Fewer Ingredients in Less Time.

• Finished The Man Who Was Thursday, by G. K. Chesterton. An odd surreal meditation on power and anarchism; a "a metaphysical thriller".

• Reread James Tate's Shroud of the Gnome, a collection of surreal and sometimes funny poems. Appreciate them a little more than before, often because of their echoes of other poets' work, particularly:
  • "Days of Pie and Coffee".
  • "Never Again the Same".
  • "Same As You".
  • "Beautiful New Mirrors Have Arrived".
  • "Different Kinds of Embroidery".
  • "School of Paddling".
  • "I Left my Couch in Tatamagouche".

• Listened to Eyes of Prey (1991) by John Sandford (Pulitzer prize-winner John Camp), read by Richard Feronne.

  In this, one of the earlier books, Detective Lucas Davenport is a man out of control. He is coping with emotional problems and with a particularly nasty serial killer. But his own violence gives me some sympathy with a newspaper headline that dubbed Davenport as the Police's in-house serial killer. Don't read this book if your are easily nauseated by physician torture of patients or or corpse mutilation.

  Books read in this series:

  Title (alphabetic)	Series ordinal	Year
  Broken Prey	16th	2005
  Eyes of Prey	3rd	1991
  Invisible Prey	17th	2007
  Mind Prey	7th	1995
  Mortal Prey	13th	2002
  Naked Prey	14th	2003
  Night Prey	6th	1994
  Rules of Prey	1st	1989
  Secret Prey	9th	1997
  Sudden Prey	8th	1996

• The Locked Room (1986) by Paul Auster.
  Volume 3 of the New York Trilogy.

  The three novella explore the difficulty of the novel-writing process. All of them enjoy surrealism and fugue. This third one is the best of the three, perhaps because it's the richest or because it's the most clearly on-message. And perhaps while, though it is not Auster's style to tie up all the loose ends, the reappearance of characters from the other book indicates a richer set of connections that were previously suggested.

  See also Auster's:

  • City of Glass (1985).
  • Ghosts (1986); volume 2 of the New York Trilogy.
  • Man in the Dark, one of the best books read in 2009.
  • Travels in the Scriptorium (2008)

• Ghosts (1986) by Paul Auster.
  Volume 2 of the New York Trilogy.

  See also Auster's:

  • City of Glass (1985).
  • Man in the Dark, one of the best books read in 2009.
  • Travels in the Scriptorium (2008)

• City of Glass (1985) by Paul Auster.
  To become Volume 1 of the New York Trilogy.

  See also Auster's:

  • Man in the Dark, one of the best books read in 2009.
  • Travels in the Scriptorium. (2008)

Day 30 of Ancient Greek Course; part II. An Introduction to Ancient Greek: A Literary Approach by C. A. E. Luschnig.

• Hide and Seek (1990) by Ian Rankin.

  The second REBUS book: a murder of a drug-addict photographer leads John Rebus to a situation when blackmail photos might be of consequence. And Rebus uses diversionary tactics to get behind the scenes.

  A little more background on Rebus enriches the story.

  Other REBUS books include:

  • The Black Book
  • The Falls
  • Fleshmarket Ally ['Fleshmarket Close' in UK]
  • Knots and Crosses
  • Let it Bleed
  • The Naming of the Dead
  • A Question of Blood
  • Strip Jack

• Abandoned Pretty birds (2005) by Scott Simon. Read a third of this earnest book before giving up on it. The details and facts are many, and bog down the story; the book remains more like journalism than a novel.

Day 29 of Ancient Greek Course; part II. An Introduction to Ancient Greek: A Literary Approach by C. A. E. Luschnig.

• Diane Arbus: a Biography by Patricia Bosworth.

  Presents Arbus' life and methods, including comments from students in her workshops, people that she asked to help her, and people that she photographed.

  Walker Evans is quoted saying (p. 227):

  This artist is daring, extremely gifted, and a born huntress. There may be something naive about her style if there is anything naive about the devil ...

  Norman Mailer, whom she photographed clutching his crotch, is quoted saying (p. 227):

  Giving a camera to Diane Arbus is like giving a hand grenade to a baby.

  While many people are complimentary about Arbus and her work, it is clear that Arbus was:

  • Needy and demanding.
  • Invasive. Showed little remorse; insensitive to others' rights. Often questions that she would ask people and the statements that she made seem inappropriately personal, apparently to build up quickly the person revelation that she sought in people around her. E.g. (p. 290):

  After returning from London, Diane appeared to talk even more compulsively about her sexual adventures. Not just to friends but to casual acquaintances, even strangers she might meet at a party.

  Her teacher Lisette Model "believed Diane was schizophrenic" and said (p. 303), though without giving standard signs and symptoms:

  Diane could be inordinately demanding. Like all schizophrenics, she could take and take if you let her. I told Diane she must learn more about cooperation.

  Arbus' aggressiveness was summarized by photographer Frederick Eberstadt, quoted saying (p. 224):

  She'd behave like the first paparazzi. She didn't talk much, but she'd swoop like a vulture at somebody and then blaze away.

  Possibly Arbus was an Enneagram Type 3, the Motivator and Magician: see for example how Arbus originally was the one to arrange the poses and accessories of the models photographed with her husband. The life-program for an Enneagram Type 3 is achievement, which matches her ambition.

  The shadow for an Enneagram Type 3 is a rage for recognition and image (after psychologist Margaret Frings Keyes in Vollmar (p.18)). The ruling passion is Vanity; the chief feature Deception. The psychopathy of an Enneagram Type 3 tends to monomaniacal behavior in blind pursuit of success. Under stress an Enneagram Type 3 might become deceitful and fraudulent, then bitterly passive (from Vollmar's discussion of the enneagram shadows).

  An Enneagram Type 3 can release her enneagram shadows: "I now release my fear of feeling and being humiliated."

  An Enneagram Type 3 can affirm the best of herself, free of her shadow: "I now affirm that I have value regardless of my achievements." These practices could have helped Arbus survive instead of suiciding.

  Possibly Arbus' Enneagram Type 3 (the Motivator and Magician) had a wing as an Enneagram Type 4, the Artist, whose Life-program is Extraordinariness; whose Shadow is moods; whose Ruling passion of Envy; whose tendency is to fixate cognitively in Melancholy; and whose chief feature is Dissatisfaction.

(3.10.2009) Double make-up class:

Day 26 of Ancient Greek Course; part II. Also Day 27 of Ancient Greek Course; part II. An Introduction to Ancient Greek: A Literary Approach by C. A. E. Luschnig.

(3.09.2009)

Day 25 of Ancient Greek Course; part II. An Introduction to Ancient Greek: A Literary Approach by C. A. E. Luschnig.

Also:

• Insightful essay by D.T. Max: "The Unfinished: David Foster Wallace's Struggle to Surpass Infinite Jest" in the 9th March 2009 The New Yorker.

  Wallace's writing is at its best in essays, such as his introduction to The Best American Essays 2007.

  While the New Yorker article's focus is on Wallace's writing, much of it addresses Wallace's need for medication (including antidepressants).

  Properly handled, boredom can be an antidote to our national dependence on entertainment, the book [i.e., the Long Thing, a draft of Wallace's third novel, unfinished at his death] suggests. It was rather bleak, that perception.

  Quotes Wallace's comment on true freedom as meaning:

  being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from the experience. Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in your adult life, you will be totally hosed.

  Wallace liked journalism and developing essays, as there:

  He could transmit, in a more straightforward way [than in a novel] his point that America was at once both over-entertained and sad.

  In the same issue, Ian Parker's essay "Lost" considers Iceland's recent financial collapse, and quoted a historian Icelander:

  This Viking stuff in absolute myth, a post-factum way of describing reckless behavior.

• Trainsong (2009) by Bernice Rendrick.

  A deserving winner of the Celebration of the Muse Poetry Prize.

• Alexander the Great: The Hunt for a New Past (2004) by Paul Cartlidge.

  Includes excellent Glossary, a section that summarizes characters, maps and battle plans, and photographs of related sculpture, mosaics, and subsequent paintings.

(3.05.2009)

• New Rules for the New Economy (1998) by Kevin Kelly.

  Well, that was then! Nonetheless, the rules include:

  • Embrace decentralized points of control.
  • Values are carried by abundance not scarcity.
  • Follow the free and take advantage of the only true scarcity: human attention.
  • Abandon the highly successful in order to escape from its eventual obsolescence.
  • "As turbulence and instability become the norm in business, the most successful survival stance is a constant but highly selective disruption that we call innovation."
  • Look for opportunities before efficiencies.

(3.03.2009)

• British Photography from the Thatcher Years by Susan Kismaric. Social-documentary photographs of six British photographers, including Paul Graham, with six from his set In Umbra Res (In the Shadow of it), taken in Northern Ireland and exploring the symbolic potential of the ordinary. Graham's photos are the most beautiful (particularly "Wire on Post") in the book and the most subtle (such as the street where town meets country and where one does not immediately notice two separate soldiers running).

• Paul Graham by Paul Graham and others. Lots of his photos and transcriptions of several conversational interviews in which he says:

Art isn't about providing answers, is it? It's more about questions — asking thought-provoking, unexpected, unarticulated questions. [p.16] It's liberating when you realize you don't have to have high production values as long as the feeling you want is there. [p. 24] Can you imagine a fate worse than being trapped into repeating your own successes? [p. 26]

(3.02.2009)

Day 22 of Ancient Greek Course; part II. An Introduction to Ancient Greek: A Literary Approach by C. A. E. Luschnig.

(3.01.2009)

• The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2008 in UK/USA; 2005 in Sweden) by Steig Larsson (Reg Keeland translated from Swedish).

  This murder mystery turns out to be a good book, and would be more interesting (and less likely for someone like me to abandon, as I almost did) if the first section had been less heavy-handed in setting up motivation and context for many of the characters. The Vanger Family tree (p. 7) is helpful for keeping track of five generations.

  Each of the four section has an epigraph that is also useful orientation:

  1. Incentive: "Eighteen percent of the women in Sweden have at one time been threatened by a man".
  2. Consequent Analyses: "Forty-six percent of the women in Sweden have been subjected to violence by a man".
  3. Mergers: "Thirteen percent of the women in Sweden have been subjected to aggravated sexual assault outside of a sexual relationship".
  4. Hostile Takeover: "Ninety-two percent of women in Sweden who have been subjected to sexual assault have not reported the most recent violent incident to the police".

  Healthy discussion on friendship, including (p. 400) Mikael Blomkvist's:

  Friendship, by my definition, is built on two things. ... Respect and trust. Both elements have to be there. And it has to be mutual. You can have respect for someone, but if you don't have trust, the friendship will crumble. ... someday you're going to have to decide whether you trust me or not. I want us to be friends, but I can't do it all by myself.

{ February : febrero (see also books on learning Spanish) 2009 }

(2.27.2009)

Day 21 of Ancient Greek Course; part II. An Introduction to Ancient Greek: A Literary Approach by C. A. E. Luschnig.

(2.25.2009)

Day 20 of Ancient Greek Course; part II. An Introduction to Ancient Greek: A Literary Approach by C. A. E. Luschnig.

(2.23.2009)

Day 19 of Ancient Greek Course; part II. An Introduction to Ancient Greek: A Literary Approach by C. A. E. Luschnig.

(2.22.2009)

• Insightful essay by Daniel Zalewski: "The Background Hum: Ian McEwan's Art of Unease" in the 23rd February 2009 The New Yorker. Quotes McEwan:

  When people take revenge, the same reward centers of the brain are activated that are associated with satisfying hunger, thirst, sexual appetite. It was rather bleak, that perception.

  Also quotes McEwan:

  I'm quite good at not writing. Some people are tied to five hundred words a day, six days a week. [But] I'm a hesitater. ... You spend the morning and suddenly there are seven or eight words in a row. They've got the twist, a little trip, that delights you. And you hope they will delight someone else. And you could not have foreseen it, that little row. They often come when you're fiddling around with something that's already there. You see that by reversing a word order or taking something out, suddenly it tightens what it was always meant to be.

• The collected poems of C.P. Cavafy : a new translation (2006) translated by Aliki Barnstone, foreword by Gerald Stern.

  Powerful collection of work. The best poems link the present to ancient Greek social and political events, including:

  • "The Battle of Magnesia" (pp. 80-81)
  • "In Sparta" (p. 177)
  • "In a Large Greek Colony, 200 B.C.E." (p. 179), which ends:

    Let's not rush; haste is a dangerous thing. Premature measures bring regret. Certainly and unfortunately, there is much disorder in the Colony. But is there anything human without perfection? And, anyway, look, we're moving forward.

  The 46 pages of notes on the poems are a rich and informative joy, bringing alive Cavafy's life, context, and references.

  In his foreword, Stern includes Cavafy's influences of (p. xvii):

  • "an attitude to history"
  • "a certain irony"
  • "a use of persona"
  • "a kind of passionate objectivity"

  but in particular: "a tender humanism, a humanitas supreme". As a reader of many different translations of Cavafy, Stern continues:

  In different ways, I like the three major translations that I own, Dalven, Keeley, and Theoharis, but I admire Aliki Barnstone's the most because it is, finally, a little less stiff and more lovely — and cunning — nearer to what it seems to me the original might be.

Midterm test on Day 18 of Ancient Greek Course; part II. An Introduction to Ancient Greek: A Literary Approach by C. A. E. Luschnig.

• Tales from Ovid (1997) by Ovid (43 B.C.-17 or 18 A.D.), adapted by Ted Hughes. Some good muscular writing of a time when women were women while men and gods were murderous, lying, thieving rapists.

• Cotton (2002) by Christopher P. Wilson.
  Fascinating.

• Against Love Poetry (2001) (good choice for Valentine's Day, yes?) by Eavan Boland.
  A slightly grumpy collection of poetry: a few good lines but no stunning poem; not a very impressive collection.

Day 16 of Ancient Greek Course; part II. An Introduction to Ancient Greek: A Literary Approach by C. A. E. Luschnig.

• To reach the clouds: my high wire walk between the Twin Towers (2002) by Philippe Petit.
  Ecstatic story by a wire-walker who channels his criminal streak into (unauthorized) public performance, including:
  • 7 August 1974 (originally planned for 27 May 1974): between Tower A and Tower B of the recently completed World Trade Center, NYC, USA.
  • 3 June 1973: Sydney Harbour Bridge, Sydney, Australia.
  • 26 June 1971: between the towers of Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris, France.

• Finished dipping into Down by the river : drugs, money, murder, and family (2002) Charles Bowden.

  It's not a bad collection of essays about the kind of people and activities fictionalized by Cormac McCarthy.

• Dipped into various overdue library books on Alexander the Great.

• Abandoned Sea of poppies by Amitav Ghosh.

  Although this was a short-list nominee for the 2008 Booker Prize, I found my attention slipping. Bravely I plunged through a quarter of it, read the final sections, and dipped into some intervening pages. But there was a somber and sorrowful tone to the book that was distressing. The glossary of words was helpful and interesting. But the tone was distasteful.

  Not as interesting as his The Calcutta chromosome : a novel of fevers, delirium and discovery, which was a pretty good science-fiction romp.

Day 13 of Ancient Greek Course; part II. An Introduction to Ancient Greek: A Literary Approach by C. A. E. Luschnig.

• Beautiful Evidence (2006) by Edward R. Tufte.
  His intention is yet another "self-exemplifying" book that shows "how seeing is about showing, how empirical observations turn into explanations and evidence".

  Ideas, again, are collections of other people's creativity in the communicating data by use of visuals. Include:

  1. Sparklines: "small, high-resolution graphics usually embedded in a full context of words, numbers, images. Sparklines are datawords: data-intense, data-simple, word-sized graphics".
  2. Use of color for data points to emphasize them; use of small unobtrusive data labels.
  3. Rant against "the narrow bandwidth and relentless sequencing of PP [PowerPoint] slides", where what is presented is limited by the "presentation technology".
  4. Sadly, his own steel sculptures: I find them harsh and ugly.

  See also his:

  • Envisioning Information (1990): rather pedestrian.
  • The Visual Display of Quantitative Information (2001, 2nd edition; originally 1983). Perhaps the best of his books.

Day 12 of Ancient Greek Course; part II. An Introduction to Ancient Greek: A Literary Approach by C. A. E. Luschnig.

• The Visual Display of Quantitative Information (2001, 2nd edition) by Edward R. Tufte.
  Celebrates data graphics and suggests "descriptive concepts (a vocabulary for graphics) ... and principles". Thus, a more insightful book than his: Envisioning Information.

  However, these graphs are like those that were taught in British grammar schools and universities long ago.

  After giving his Princeton and Yale credentials, Edward R. Tufte writes that he: "sought to design the book so as to make it self-exemplifying — that is, the physical object itself would reflect the intellectual principles advanced in the book". He then writes that he self-published the first edition "to go all out, to make the best and most elegant and wonderful book possible, without compromise".

  Sections:

  1. Graphical Excellence. Summary (p. 51):
     • Offer "well-designed presentation of interesting data ... of substance, of statistics, and of design".
     • Communicate "complex ideas ... with clarity, precision, and efficiency".
     • Give "the viewer the greatest number of ideas in the shortest time with the least ink in the smallest space".
     • Nearly always show multivariate data.
     • Tell the truth.
  2. Graphical Integrity. Summary of principles (p. 77):
     • Represent the numbers physically on the graphic in direct proportion "to the numerical quantities displayed".
     • Give clear and detailed labels "to defeat graphical distortion and ambiguity".
     • "Show data variation, not design variation".
     • Use "deflated and standardized units of monetary measurement ... [rather than] nominal units".
     • Show no more dimensions than "the number of dimensions in the data".
     • Do not "quote data out of context".
  3. Sources of Graphical Integrity and Sophistication. Summary (p. 105), which a poet would say are merely an adaptation of the rules for writing and improving poetry.
     • "Show the data".
     • "Maximize the data-ink ratio".
     • "Erase non-data-ink".
     • "Erase redundant data-ink".
     • "Revise and edit".
  4. Data-Ink and Graphical Redesign.
  5. Chartjunk: Vibrations, Grids, and Ducks.
  6. Data-Ink Maximization and Graphical Design.
  7. Multifunctioning Graphical Elements.
  8. Data Density and Small Multiples.
     • Data Density is "number of entries in data matrix" divided by "area of data graphic". A sample (p.162-163) with "a data density of .15 numbers per square inch (.02 numbers per square centimeter) ... is thin". In contrast, the highest median for a journal is for Nature: median data density of 48 numbers per square inch.
     • Small Multiples "a series of graphics, showing the same combination of variables, indexed by changes in another variable".
  9. Aesthetics and Technique in Data Graphical Design. Encourages use of the Golden Ratio — no surprise there.

  See also his:

  • Envisioning Information (1990): rather pedestrian.

Day 11 of Ancient Greek Course; part II. An Introduction to Ancient Greek: A Literary Approach by C. A. E. Luschnig.

• Nature Girl by Carl Hiaasen.

  Just when you think that greedy, selfish, rude telephone salesmen and male gropers deserve but will never receive the Judgement of Solomon, along comes another book by Carl Hiaasen, to addressed the avaricious and the mean.

  The complexity and interleaving of plots are a delight in Hiaasen's novels: the jump-cuts and coincidences all work out, the evil are punished, the creative are on the wing, and there even appears to be true love in action.

  See also his:
  

  • Basket Case.
  • Sick Puppy,
  • Skinny Dip (2004).

{ January : enero (see also books on learning Spanish) 2009 }

(1.31.2009)

• Finished The Egyptologist by Arthur Phillips.
  A delightful and fascinating romp, told by at least three fallible narrators in Australia, Britain, the USA, and Egypt. Hilarious.

Day 10 of Ancient Greek Course; part II. An Introduction to Ancient Greek: A Literary Approach by C. A. E. Luschnig.

(1.29.2009)

• Harvest from the Emerald Orchard: An Anthology of the Emerald Street Poets (2007).

  Favorites are:

  • Len Anderson's "Fallen Crown".
  • Maggie Paul "Doors".
  • Julia Alter-Canvin's "The Night Eaters".

Day 9 of Ancient Greek Course; part II. An Introduction to Ancient Greek: A Literary Approach by C. A. E. Luschnig.

(1.27.2009)

• Read Issue 39.3 (Autumn 2008) of Modern Haiku.

  Includes Philip Rowland's essay: "From Haiku to the Short Poem: Bridging the Divide" which includes a quotation we made of Helen Vendler in our article on Jorie Graham.

  See also our comments on:

  • 39.1 of Modern Haiku.
  • 38.2 of Modern Haiku.
  • 38.1 of Modern Haiku.
  • 36.2 of Modern Haiku.

Day 8 of Ancient Greek Course; part II. An Introduction to Ancient Greek: A Literary Approach by C. A. E. Luschnig.

(1.25.2009)

• Ribbons: December 2008 issue. Excellent: includes Tanka of J. Zimmerman.

• Envisioning Information (1990) by Edward R. Tufte. Sections:
  • Escaping Flatland.
  • Micro/Macro Readings
  • Layering and Separation
  • Small Multiples
  • Color and Information
  • Narratives of Space and Time

  Edward R. Tufte appears to be making a comfortable living from telling people how others have communicated pictorially rather than verbally. While he has some stunning material, such as the graphic showing the attrition of Napoleon's army as it retreated from the 1812 snows of Moscow through the freezing Russian countryside, in this book he is presenting other people's material rather than creating new material or insights.

Day 7 of Ancient Greek Course; part II. An Introduction to Ancient Greek: A Literary Approach by C. A. E. Luschnig.

(1.22.2009)

• Skimmed first-and-last chapters of the recommended Mysterious Skin (1995) by Scott Heim. A quick and painful read of the perils to young boys of a Little League Coach in combination with inattentive parents.

Day 6 of Ancient Greek Course; part II. An Introduction to Ancient Greek: A Literary Approach by C. A. E. Luschnig.

(1.20.2008)

• Hooray: watched the inauguration of the 44th president of the U.S.A., President Barack Hussein Obama.
• Dipped into and returned to library: Desierto: memories of the future by Charles Bowden.

• Finished listening to Killing Time by Linda Howard, well read by Joyce Bean.
  A time-travel thriller: good light entertainment while working on a Bavarian jigsaw puzzle.

• Travels in the Scriptorium (2008) by Paul Auster.
  What starts out as an interesting Kafka-modern story turns out to be only an author trying to figure out his plot. Disappointing.

  Also read Auster's:

  • Man in the Dark, one of the best books read in 2009.

• Finished listening to The Road by Cormac McCarthy, very well read by Tom Stechschulte. A dystopia. Some unnamed disaster has burned the earth, destroyed all fish, fowl, animals, and plants. Very few people are alive, scavenging from a few rare caches of tinned and canned foods, or cannibalizing.

  Interestingly, while the earth is blighted by fire, what the protagonist portrays as his purpose is to "carry the fire". A story of honor and luck in a time of obliteration. Looking forward to the movie (due November 2009).

  However, preferred the other recent dystopia, The Pesthouse (the best book read in 2007) by Jim Crace, who saw a North America whose population crashed and whose nationwide organization collapsed, but which was a more credible dystopia in which to set another tale of rare and valued loyalty and love.

  Have also read McCarthy's:

  • Blood Meridian or the Evening Redness in the West. Border-Noire.
  • No Country For Old Men, one of the best books read in 2008. A thriller that meditates on loyalty, love, and the collapse of society:

Day 5 of Ancient Greek Course; part II. An Introduction to Ancient Greek: A Literary Approach by C. A. E. Luschnig.

(1.15.2009)

• Knots and Crosses (1987) by Ian Rankin.

  The first REBUS book: a series of murders in Edinburgh all lead to Detective John Rebus; as always, Rebus is part of the problem as well as part of the solution to garrotings.

  This book is particularly welcome in providing considerable background on Rebus' time in the army and the training for the SAS. As such, the best one to start with if you plan to get involved with this series.

  Other REBUS books include:

  • The Black Book
  • The Falls
  • Fleshmarket Ally ['Fleshmarket Close' in UK]
  • The Naming of the Dead
  • A Question of Blood
  • Strip Jack
  • Let it Bleed

Day 4 of Ancient Greek Course; part II. An Introduction to Ancient Greek: A Literary Approach by C. A. E. Luschnig.

(1.13.2009)

• One Secret Thing (2008), poetry by Sharon Olds. Again Olds explores conflict and the behaviors it arouses. Five sections:
  1. War [about large-scale political wars rather than internal family wars]
  2. Cannery
  3. Umbilicus
  4. Cassiopeia
  5. One Secret Thing

  Many poems previously published in:

  • The American Poetry Review
  • Antioch Review
  • Brick
  • Five Points
  • Massachusetts Review
  • The Missouri Review
  • Ms.
  • The New England Review
  • The New Yorker
  • The Paris Review
  • Ploughshares
  • Poetry
  • Poetry London
  • Tin House
  • Tri-Quarterly

  While I include Sharon Olds in my list of favorite poets, her new collection repeats but mutes the tone and style of her previous collections. With her mother's death, Olds appears to have gained in acceptance of (or resignation to) how she was parented.

Day 3 of Ancient Greek Course; part II. An Introduction to Ancient Greek: A Literary Approach by C. A. E. Luschnig.

(1.11.2009)

• Abandoned the boring (talky, self-indulgent, repetitive) Ten days in the hills by Jane Smiley.

• The Naming of the Dead (2006) by Ian Rankin.

  An unabridged recording, narrated clearly by Tom Cocher.

  A fascinating and wide-ranging story, that involves many over-world and under-world people, and many issues of family loyalty and friendship and love. The connection to current politics, particularly the G8 summit at Glenn Eagles and the London bombings at that time, embed the story in Scottish and British culture.

  Others include:

  • The Black Book
  • The Falls
  • Fleshmarket Ally ['Fleshmarket Close' in UK]
  • A Question of Blood
  • Strip Jack
  • Let it Bleed

Day 2 of Ancient Greek Course; part II. An Introduction to Ancient Greek: A Literary Approach by C. A. E. Luschnig.

(1.8.2009)

• Man in the Dark (2008) [first book this year to earn a space in the Best books read in 2009] by Paul Auster.

Day 1 of Ancient Greek Course; part II. An Introduction to Ancient Greek: A Literary Approach by C. A. E. Luschnig.

(1.6.2009)

• Diane Arbus Revelations (1975) includes 200 full-page duotones of Diane Arbus' photographs, a 104-page chronology of Arbus' life and work, and an essay on Arbus' technique by Neil Selkirk (the only person authorized to print her photographs since her death). The contact sheets are particularly helpful for putting into context some of her more startling pictures; in particular Contact Sheet #1341 (p. 164 of the book) shows 11 images of a young boy posing in a park; the sheet's image Number 10 becomes "Child with a Toy Hand Grenade in Central Park, N.Y.C." (1962); notice how hammy was the boy, how he does not appear to have the grenade in the first six shots, and how he is probably incited to pose.

  Despite being fascinated by some of these shots, I am reminded of Susan Sontag's Regarding the Pain of Others, where she wrote "To photograph is to appropriate the thing photographed" and "There is an aggression implicit in every use of the camera." In this light, Arbus seems particularly acquisitive and aggressive.

• Watched the middle two episodes of Series 7 of Red Dwarf by Grant Naylor, which (given 6 episodes each in Series 1-5 and 8 in this) are:
  40. Duct Soup.
  41. Blue. The best episode ever: Lister truly misses Rimmer. Lister gets the kiss of his life. And Rimmer gives song to his essence.

  'Red Dwarf' -- the complete 18-DVD collection by Grant Naylor and others.

• The Story of Measurement (2007) by Andrew Robinson.

  Fascinating book with 334 illustrations, half in color. Sections:

  1. The Meaning of Measuring.
     • Going Metric.
     • Number and Mathematics.
     • Customary Units.
     • Instruments and Techniques.
  2. Measuring Nature.
     • Atoms.
     • Earth.
     • Universe.
  3. Measuring Man.
     • Mind.
     • Body.
     • Society.

  For example, (pp. 121-122) graphs the Geological eras, showing that:

  • First half of 19th century was when scientists used info in the rocks (order of bedding as well as fossil contents) to establish "the fundamental geological column".
  • During 20th century, radiometric dating let scientists quantify the ages of the rocks.

  Problems include:

  • Strata in one place are not seen in strata of another place.
  • Radiometric dates vary with different rocks and techniques: the end of the Jurassic was 131 mya in 1987: K-Ar dating of glauconite ... but argon seeps out! Currently Jurassic believed to end 146 mya based on K-Ar dating of basalt.

  As British geologist Patrick Jackson writes: "The geological column continues to evolve".

• Strip Jack (1992) by Ian Rankin.

• Let it Bleed (1995) by Ian Rankin.

• HAPPY NEW YEAR!
• Reread Beyond Within (1997), the world's first collection of the linked-verse poetry form, the rengay.
• Participated in a 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle completion team.

Related pages: Books on Buddhism. Books on Learning Spanish. Poetry - Learn How to Write Your Own. Forests of California and Trees of the World.

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