I was thinking about how little poets seem to matter to modern political administrations. Maybe to modern society as a whole. Their light has, it seems, been waning for several decades as our collective attention shifts. I was thinking about what an odd, awkward fit it would be for a
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Scripturient: Collingwood’s first postliterate council
At the Corporate & Community Services standing committee meeting this week, the committee discussed the Art on the Street festival, its operation and management to be taken over by the BIA. That’s probably a good thing because any affinity to culture and cultural events at the council table evaporated early
Continue readingScripturient: Three, six, seven, nine… how many basic plots?
When I was in school, back in the last century, I was taught there were three basic plots in which every story ever written could be classified: Man-vs-man, man-vs-nature and man-vs-himself. That was in the days when it wasn’t politically incorrect to use the word man to mean everyone. Today
Continue readingScripturient: Book collecting: snobbery or reading passion?
The book has always been a sign of status and refinement; a declaration of self-worth – even for those who hate to read. That’s the lead into a recent piece on Aeon Magazine about book collecting and collectors. It’s also about reading and the snobbery of readers. Fascinating piece. For
Continue readingScripturient: Reading Moby Dick
Recently, coincidental to while I was reading Herman Melville’s classic novel, I read a story that some folks in Vancouver took offence to the name of a restaurant: Moby Dick’s Fish & Chips. Apparently the property overseers mistook the “Dick” in the name for a euphemism for penis, rather than
Continue readingThe Wandering Joe: NYE Resolution Update 1: January
As I mentioned in my very recent post, I’ve committed to reading a new book and buying a new album each month. Why am I doing this? I want to hold on to what limited brain plasticity I have, and this seems like a good way to do it. So,
Continue readingThe Wandering Joe: NYE Resolution Update 1: January
As I mentioned in my very recent post, I’ve committed to reading a new book and buying a new album each month. Why am I doing this? I want to hold on to what limited brain plasticity I have, and this seems like a good way to do it. So,
Continue readingScripturient: Leonard Cohen deserves the Nobel Prize, too
News that songwriter Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize for literature shook the literati worldwide. Here was a pop icon sitting in the august company of Alice Munro, Mario Vargas Llosa, Doris Lessing, Harold Pinter, V.S. Naipaul, Gabriel García Márquez, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Yasunari Kawabata, Ernest Hemingway, T.S. Eliot, Bernard Shaw,
Continue readingPostArctica: Marguerite Duras – The War, A Memoir
A friend recently told me that he likes to save texts, not quotes but texts, larger pieces, that he finds interesting. I am reading this book and thought this was a powerful passage. It is the end of the Second World War and she is wondering if her husband is
Continue readingScripturient: Everything Flows
Tonight’s book-with-wine discussion is about Vasily Grossman‘s novel, Everything Flows (New York Review Book, USA, 2009). It was his final work, and left unfinished at the time of his death, in 1964. It’s not a difficult read, but it …
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: Virginia Woolf – On Literature
“Suppose, for instance, that men were only represented in literature as the lovers of women, and were never the friends of men, soldiers, thinkers, dreamers; how few parts in the plays of Shakespeare could be allotted to them; how literature would suffer! We might perhaps have most of Othello; and a good deal of Antony; […]
Continue readingScripturient: O tempora, o mores!
Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum. Marcus Tullius Cicero wrote those words in the short book about a Roman court case, Pro Lucio Murena (For Lucius Murena). They mean, in English, Not…
Continue readingScripturient: On the 400th anniversary of the Bard’s death
“Is There Such a Thing as a ‘Bad’ Shakespeare Play?” asks a recent article on the Smithsonian website. It adds, “Shakespeare, despite the efforts of notable dissenting critics and writers to forcibly eject him, has occupie…
Continue readingScripturient: The Bard’s Best? Nope…
To help celebrate the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s birthday (April 23), the website Mashable has put together a “battle” for the “Best Shakespeare Play Ever.” It’s done up as a sort of sports playoff gr…
Continue readingPostArctica: Abandoned Literature – Romeo and Juliet, Finnegans Wake
From my ongoing Abandoned Literature series. Message or email me if you would like a print. If you can’t make out the text in these images (these are small low […]
Continue readingScripturient: The Crafty Crow and the Doves
Once upon a time, an old crow lived by the seaside. He had grown fat over the years because he was too lazy to work for his food. He preferred to sit than fly. He followed the other animals to get their leftovers, taking what wasn’t his, and ann…
Continue readingScripturient: Aesop is Still Relevant
A MONKEY perched upon a lofty tree saw some Fishermen casting their nets into a river, and narrowly watched their proceedings. The Fishermen after a while gave up fishing, and on going home to dinner left their nets upon the bank. The Monkey, who is t…
Continue readingScripturient: Reading Pablo Neruda
One hardly expects poets to generate spirited debate in the media these days*, but they did, not that long ago, well within my own lifetime. Pablo Neruda (1904-1973) was one of those who sparked great, passionate emotions in people, for both his writin…
Continue readingScripturient: Decoding Alice in Wonderland
It is tempting to suggest author David Day’s lush new book, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland Decoded is the final word on the mysteries and secrets behind Lewis Carroll’s iconic children’s fantasy, but alas, it would be an ov…
Continue readingScripturient: Where Have all the Readers Gone?
No, it’s not a remake of Pete Seeger’s famous 1955 anti-war song. That’s the title of an article that appeared in the Globe and Mail this week, by Peter Denton, lamenting our overall slide into image-based information with the “…
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