Original Face

Proof I am not a geek

    Arthur C. Clarke died today.  I feel nothing special.  I never got the point of science fiction.  It bored me.  Maybe I am or have been imaginationally impaired but I never enjoyed sci fi.  Or Star Wars. Or Star Trek  (Q: What is the difference between a Star Trek and a MENSA convention?  A: The ears.)  I guess that means I am not nor have I ever been a geek or a nerd.  The wonders of hours of D&D role playing, discussions about the meanings of Doug Adams' books and the owning of dozens of imprinted tee-shirts (other than with sports or college logos) are lost on me.
    Oh well. I've still had a pretty full life.  Even without a pocket protector.

Preparation for Tenebrae

 It is a special thing to read the work of a poet with whom you have shared more than one glass of whiskey and with whom you have laughed and cried.  I have known David Slavitt for all of my adult life; he is the father of my best friend.  He is also a poet of great sensitivity, grace and, as contradictory as it may appear, power.  A number of years ago he tackled translating 61 of the Psalms.  With a modern poet's ear and a learned Jew's perspective, he found depths in David's lyrics which I had not appreciated until I read his take on them.
    This year, in preparation for the Tenebrae service during Holy Week, I am slowly working through Slavitt's translation and meditations on Lamentations.  It is a difficult task.  Not because the poetry is clumsy and dense, it is not, but because Slavitt has contextualized the Book within the tragic nature of the Jewish experience throughout the centuries.  As a Christian, it is not pleasant reading, however, it is vital reading.  His translations use Hebrew poetry's acrostic style that demonstrates Jeremiah's intent on imposing a semblance of order out of the seeming chaos of the world.  The verses have a flow and a sense of profundity that makes their use as Lectio Divina almost required.
    Get it.  Don't just borrow it, buy it.  Read it again, and again, and again.  Write in the margins, argue with it, rage at it and with it.  Make it your cry to the Lord as well.

Summertime, and the readin' is easy

What is the favorite "beach" book you have ever read?

For me, John Barth's "The Sot Weed Factor."  I recall that I was sad when I reached the half way point because I would soon lose these wonderful characters.

Book 'em

It was bedlam this evening in Harvard Square.  Roads around the Square were blocked off and pedestrians by the thousands were having a grand party, many in fancy dress, all in a great mood.  There wasn't the smell of dope nor any indication that there was much alcohol consumption.  If anything, the Snapple Ice Tea concession was doing the biggest business tonight.

The most odd thing was that this extravaganza was not because of a local team's victory, nor the premier of a hot movie, a concert performance of some rock band.  It was to celebrate the publication of a book. 

Young kids, teenagers and college age folks were out in droves anticipating the release of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," the last book in the Hogwarts series by J.K. Rowling.  At 12.01am the Harvard Coop and the great children's bookstore, Curious George, will start to sell this book as fast as a bottle water stand can move Perrier in the Mojave Desert. 

Then some truly remarkable will happen.  Something that the television cameras will miss and the newspapers will fail to report.  The Square will get very, very quiet as people sit down and read.

Yes, that's right.  They will find a spot, and camp out, turning pages after pages as their imaginations make every reader's journey through Harry's final adventure different .  And then they will feel the loss of saying goodbye, regardless of each character's fate, as this final book is over.

And they will be hooked.  They will come to recognize that even the best animation cannot compete with the visions that the printed word creates in a reader's mind.  They will crave to find characters that live and breathe for them like old friends and enemies.

It doesn't matter if the writer is J.K. Rowling, Judy Blume, or F.W. Dixon.  Each of us who is a reader today remembers the writer who made lives come alive in our heads through just scanning a page of print. 

Rowling has done what scores of English teachers couldn't.  She has made books come alive for this generation of kids.

Huzzah for Hogwarts!

No Dewey? That's Screwy

The New York Times has a article about the abandonment of the Dewey Decimal System by a public library in Gilbert, Arizona in favor of grouping books in "neighborhoods" as they do in Barnes & Nobles or Borders.  The librarians stated that the System was tough on classifying food and travel books. 

Food and travel books...  A whole universal classification system which allows a reader find the exact title she or he needs is being tossed aside because of cookbooks. 

If ever there needed to be additional proof of the continued existence of anti-intellectualism in American life, today's NY Times has provided it.

Write about what you know...

The University of Kentucky Press is advertising its Spring 2007 book list.  It includes:

"Basketball and Philosophy: Thinking Outside the Paint" JL Wallis, G Bassham (eds.)  Forward by Dick Vitale

The ad does have a quote from that prominent post modern philosopher, Coach K.

It keeps going and going and going...

The family food fight between Peter and Christopher Hitchens continues.  It is such great fun.  Both brothers seem to relish the row and they give it back to the other as quickly as it comes.  Here is an article from The Independent with ripostes from Christopher after Peter's review of his book, "God is Not Good".  (I wrote about the review a week or so ago with its url in the post "The Brothers Hitchens.")

Enjoy!

http://news.independent.co.uk/media/article2640860.ece

Nada, zip, nothing

I like atheists.  Let me be more specific, I like thoughtful atheists, those that take the question of a deity and humanity's place in the cosmos seriously.  Unlike the vast number of those who profess some religious faith but whose conduct has little if any regard for their belief, to be a thoughtful atheist in modern America is to know that one's modus vivendi is at odds with one's culture.  In a recent set of public opinion surveys the only "religion" which would place a serious impediment to election to high office would be atheism/agnosticism.  It takes some guts to profess no belief.

So I expected more from Nica Lalli's memoir of her life of disbelief, "Nothing."  I thought she would explicate how and why her mother, raised as a Jew, and her Italian father, a lapsed Roman Catholic, had come to be atheists.  I was wrong.  Instead she relates the story of how she came to find out "what we were" in just a couple of pages, which were more concerned with her nervousness in asking that question, than in the matter of fact way her parents "came out" as atheists.  She didn't push further as to why or when this decision came to her family.  The rest of the book had that same "of course I'm an atheist" feeling that made me initially reject Lalli's writing as jejune and relatively pointless.

As I put the book down I noticed the publisher, Promethius Books.  It is a tiny press and from its choice of name, seems to specialize in atheist/humanist tomes.  The penny then dropped. 

This book wasn't written for me.  It wasn't written for the theologian or even the "believer."  It was written to be read by other atheists who would view the choice of "free thinking" as normative.  The book wasn't to be an apologia pro vita mea but rather a chronicle of her encounters with believers who made her feel like an outcast: as a teenager, in college and with her husband's family.  Under that guise I have to suppose that the book fills a niche for those in our society who feel set apart during the seventh inning stretch at every major league baseball game as a recording of Kate Smith belts out "God Bless America" with the participation of the entire stadium.  Lalli will give them a sense of a kindred spirit (oops, sorry!) in whose story they can relate.

For the rest,  it is nada de particular.

What was that URL again?

The blog publishing software cut off part of that url.  Let's try it again:

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books
/article1796075.ece

I know what boys want, I know what guys like...

When I was growing up, a sure sign that a book was going to bore me to tears was that it won a Caldicott, Newberry, or some other such children's literature award.  Without exception they were always books with which no self respecting boy would EVER be caught dead.  In fact, I was convinced that Purgatory was full of such books.  The thought of my after-life being comprised of having to read that drivel was almost enough to stop me from...well...discretion, discretion.

Finally, educators have figured out (makes ya think what an Ed.D. is worth, doesn't it?) that boys want to read different stuff than girls want to read.  I know that some of you are shocked and surprised, but they are the learning experts, don't you know.

The British Ministry of Education, or some such body of mandarins, has come up with a list of 160 top books for boys.  While everyone will have some favorite titles that didn't make the cut, it isn't a bad set of books.  It has both the classics such as Twain, Stevenson and Mary Shelly, as well as some surprises like Dave Pikley's silly "Captain Underpants and the Preposterous Plight of the Purple Potty People" and Douglas Adam's "Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy."

Take a look at the list, better yet, if you have a boy whose birthday is coming up, print it out and take it to the local bookseller (an independent bookstore, if you can find one :)  )  and buy him something fun to read.

It can be found at:

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article1796075.ece

Now, why can't the US Department of Education have created something like this?