I realize that this blog has become pretty much an all-ur-texts-all-the-time blog. I am working my way towards the conclusion of that project, realizing that I am getting a little fed up with it. I just want to read all the cool books I've been gathering over the past couple of months, but been prohibiting myself from reading. I excised The Lord of the Rings from the list, mostly so that I can be done soon.
Anyway, in other news, I have been thinking about Libya. I agree with this guy.
Also, if the chatter and fairly substantial hints that I've dropped haven't made it at all clear, it's time for me to tell you: I'm getting married.
Monday, March 28, 2011
Friday, March 25, 2011
Ur-Texts: The Prophet
While reading Kahlil Gibran's "The Prophet," I realized that this book really hasn't been that formative to me. I love reading it, and it has moments where its language really shines, but it has not had any kind of serious or notable influence, at least not as notable as the influences of the other books I've been re-reading.
It expresses very eloquently ideas that I have about the world, and though I am striking it from my list of ur-texts, I would not miss the opportunity to share some quotes:
"Who can separate his faith from his actions, or his belief from his occupations? Who can spread his hours before him, saying, 'This for God and this for myself; This for my soul and this other for my body?'"
"If this indeed be the hour in which I lift up my lantern, it is not my flame that shall burn therein. Empty and dark shall I raise my lantern, and the guardian of the night shall fill it with oil and he shall light it also."
It expresses very eloquently ideas that I have about the world, and though I am striking it from my list of ur-texts, I would not miss the opportunity to share some quotes:
"Who can separate his faith from his actions, or his belief from his occupations? Who can spread his hours before him, saying, 'This for God and this for myself; This for my soul and this other for my body?'"
"If this indeed be the hour in which I lift up my lantern, it is not my flame that shall burn therein. Empty and dark shall I raise my lantern, and the guardian of the night shall fill it with oil and he shall light it also."
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Ur-Texts: Cannery Row II or III
I just finished reading Cannery Row, and feel that, rather than summing up the book as a whole, it may be better to discuss my favorite of its chapters, chapter 17.
I) Truth
This chapter more than anything else Steinbeck has written (except maybe "Log From The Sea of Cortez") demonstrates his ideas about non-teleological truth. The narrator recounts Doc's previous search for truth, then Doc, on a collecting expedition, picks up a hitchhiker, who reprimands him for drinking and driving. Doc promptly casts the hitchhiker out of his car, threatening violence. Immediately thereafter, Doc orders the beer milkshake, which he has been contemplating since early in the chapter. "Well here is was and what the hell," thinks Doc, and then, as the chapter reaches its climax. Doc drinks the beer milkshake, and realizes that it tastes "just like stale beer and milk."
The milkshake has, at this point, become a sort of Holy Grail stand-in, yet Doc's triumph in finding it is preceded by a moment of bad faith with the hitchhiker, and followed by a lie ("I've been drinking it for seventeen years"). This Grail is clearly not some powerful image of purity as much as it is a thing for the sake of the thing.
It is this kind of truth that Steinbeck is after: things are what they are. It is a philosophy that has a lot of resonance with both Zen Buddhism and biology, and though I am neither a Buddhist nor a biologist, I like this kind of truth, partially as a result of this book's warmhearted, funny, deeply sad and touching portrait non-teleology.
II) My Beer Milkshakes
In my first post on "Cannery Row", I linked to a piece I wrote for the Williams-Mystic student literary magazine about my experience making a beer milkshake there, but that is not the only beer milkshake I have made.
My good friend Jesse Albanese, maybe after having read "Cannery Row," or maybe just having heard about it from me, was curious about the beer milkshake. Ben and Nathan were also there, and so we made a second beer milkshake. There are a few ways to explain why that beer milkshake was not nearly as satisfying as the first beer milkshake. It could have been that the higher quality of the ingredients paradoxically lessened the quality of the milkshake. It could have been that, having just had dinner, we were not hungry for it. I suspect, though, that it was because a second beer milkshake is an impossibility; that the value of the beer milkshake is in the experience of fearing it and accepting it. Once that experience has been had, it cannot be re-had.
III) Conclusion
Having had tangible impact on my real-life actions is something that few books can claim on me, and so, between the beer milkshake(s) and the reading at Cannery Row, this book's position on my list of ur-texts is indisputable.
I) Truth
This chapter more than anything else Steinbeck has written (except maybe "Log From The Sea of Cortez") demonstrates his ideas about non-teleological truth. The narrator recounts Doc's previous search for truth, then Doc, on a collecting expedition, picks up a hitchhiker, who reprimands him for drinking and driving. Doc promptly casts the hitchhiker out of his car, threatening violence. Immediately thereafter, Doc orders the beer milkshake, which he has been contemplating since early in the chapter. "Well here is was and what the hell," thinks Doc, and then, as the chapter reaches its climax. Doc drinks the beer milkshake, and realizes that it tastes "just like stale beer and milk."
The milkshake has, at this point, become a sort of Holy Grail stand-in, yet Doc's triumph in finding it is preceded by a moment of bad faith with the hitchhiker, and followed by a lie ("I've been drinking it for seventeen years"). This Grail is clearly not some powerful image of purity as much as it is a thing for the sake of the thing.
It is this kind of truth that Steinbeck is after: things are what they are. It is a philosophy that has a lot of resonance with both Zen Buddhism and biology, and though I am neither a Buddhist nor a biologist, I like this kind of truth, partially as a result of this book's warmhearted, funny, deeply sad and touching portrait non-teleology.
II) My Beer Milkshakes
In my first post on "Cannery Row", I linked to a piece I wrote for the Williams-Mystic student literary magazine about my experience making a beer milkshake there, but that is not the only beer milkshake I have made.
My good friend Jesse Albanese, maybe after having read "Cannery Row," or maybe just having heard about it from me, was curious about the beer milkshake. Ben and Nathan were also there, and so we made a second beer milkshake. There are a few ways to explain why that beer milkshake was not nearly as satisfying as the first beer milkshake. It could have been that the higher quality of the ingredients paradoxically lessened the quality of the milkshake. It could have been that, having just had dinner, we were not hungry for it. I suspect, though, that it was because a second beer milkshake is an impossibility; that the value of the beer milkshake is in the experience of fearing it and accepting it. Once that experience has been had, it cannot be re-had.
III) Conclusion
Having had tangible impact on my real-life actions is something that few books can claim on me, and so, between the beer milkshake(s) and the reading at Cannery Row, this book's position on my list of ur-texts is indisputable.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Ur-Text-ish: A "Cannery Row" Story and Miscellany
I just wrote a more focused post on my favorite chapter of "Cannery Row," (to be posted soon, after a bit of polishing) but I wanted to relate another story that just couldn't fit into that post. First, though, a few notes:
I) David Wax Museum featured in this interesting article. It makes me wish I had the kind of house I could host concerts in.
II) As you may have read before, I'm also blogging for my place of gainful employment, and I wrote the two most recent posts (two links!). I've added that blog to my blogroll (at right) so when it updates, you can read it there. I'll stop posting about it now. Thanks to all y'all abroad who read it; my managers, upon viewing the google analytics report, were impressed by the international audience. I was able to account for all the countries except for a small northeastern European country (Estonia? Latvia). If any of y'all are there and reading, please let me know. I am curious.
III) All right, the story about "Cannery Row":
Like "Moby-Dick," I read this book while studying in the Williams-Mystic Maritime Studies Program. Unlike "Moby-Dick," this reading was not the first time I had read this book. I knew I loved this book coming into the program, so during our field trip to the west coast, my literature professor, Rich King, invited me, as we sat on the docks next to the (defunct, now tourisit-ified and gentrified) canneries, to read aloud the introduction to the class. It was a surprisingly moving moment, in which the power of place was incredibly evident. I read the "disclaimer," the dedication, and the introductory passage, and by the end, was almost choking up. I am not typically moved to tears by books, yet sitting there, mere yards from Doc's lab, the Palace Flophouse and Grill, Lee Chong's, etc. I could barely help myself.
I am also not usually connected to particular books as physical objects, but my Penguin paperback of Cannery Row now contains a map of the row, sketched while I was there, and it accrues new underlinings and dog ears at every read. Both in terms of place and the book itself, "Cannery Row" is, for me, a book of physicality.
I) David Wax Museum featured in this interesting article. It makes me wish I had the kind of house I could host concerts in.
II) As you may have read before, I'm also blogging for my place of gainful employment, and I wrote the two most recent posts (two links!). I've added that blog to my blogroll (at right) so when it updates, you can read it there. I'll stop posting about it now. Thanks to all y'all abroad who read it; my managers, upon viewing the google analytics report, were impressed by the international audience. I was able to account for all the countries except for a small northeastern European country (Estonia? Latvia). If any of y'all are there and reading, please let me know. I am curious.
 |
| My photo of "Doc's Lab." (Western Biological, in real life) |
Like "Moby-Dick," I read this book while studying in the Williams-Mystic Maritime Studies Program. Unlike "Moby-Dick," this reading was not the first time I had read this book. I knew I loved this book coming into the program, so during our field trip to the west coast, my literature professor, Rich King, invited me, as we sat on the docks next to the (defunct, now tourisit-ified and gentrified) canneries, to read aloud the introduction to the class. It was a surprisingly moving moment, in which the power of place was incredibly evident. I read the "disclaimer," the dedication, and the introductory passage, and by the end, was almost choking up. I am not typically moved to tears by books, yet sitting there, mere yards from Doc's lab, the Palace Flophouse and Grill, Lee Chong's, etc. I could barely help myself.
I am also not usually connected to particular books as physical objects, but my Penguin paperback of Cannery Row now contains a map of the row, sketched while I was there, and it accrues new underlinings and dog ears at every read. Both in terms of place and the book itself, "Cannery Row" is, for me, a book of physicality.
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Ur-Texts: Cannery Row
Never have I had a segue so simply handed to me, and I'm going to run with it, because it is this book's quality of vision that makes it one of my Ur-Texts. At its most fundamental level, "Cannery Row" is an encouragement to see things as they are, not as we want to see them. This is a lesson that I also learned reading "East of Eden," but that will come later.
I love just about everything about this book, from its dedication ("To Ed Ricketts, who knows why or should") to its disclaimer ("The people, places, and events in this book are, of course, fictions and fabrications" emphasis mine) to the final, climactic party scene. Other noteworthy portions of the book include the first, enigmatically unnumbered chapter (the beautiful opening lines of which are quoted here), and the beer milkshake sequence. More on the beer milkshake here.
And of course, more to come as I finish reading this lovely little book.
Links
I have protested these developments here in the state capital.
I have listened to this band a lot, and now you can too!
I have another book to add to my Ur-Texts project.
I have listened to this band a lot, and now you can too!
I have another book to add to my Ur-Texts project.
Friday, March 11, 2011
Ur-Texts: Moby-Dick III
I finished "Moby-Dick" a few days ago, and my reflections will be brief, as I am already deep into the next of my Ur-Texts.
My first reaction upon finishing is that "Moby-Dick" is infinitely more fun the second time around. The expectation of a rip-roaring whaling yarn safely removed by my first reading, I found myself enjoying the frequent philosophical digressions, unprompted shifts in point-of-view, and the strange Shakespearean monologues that make "Moby-Dick" such an unconventional and difficult read.
Much of this book's effect on me comes from my powerful, hands-on experience first reading it at the Mystic Seaport Museum. Some of it also comes from the aforementioned philosophical digressions. "Moby-Dick" is, among many other things, a meditation on the ineffable. My favorite of the book's metaphors is the flat front of the head of the sperm whale: "gazing on it, in that full front view, you feel the Deity and the dread powers more forcibly than in beholding any other object in living nature" (Ch. 79).
This contemplation of the mysterious things in the world is something that I, as a person of faith, value greatly, and feel is often overlooked today. I close with a few quotes from the great book, and an exhortation to read it yourself.
"There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness is the true method." - Ch. 82
"You have seen him spout; then declare what the spout is; can you not tell water from air? My dear sir, in this world it is not so easy to settle these plain things. I have ever found your plain things the knottiest of all." - Ch. 85
"An allegorical meaning may lurk here." - Ch. 90
"Book! You lie there; the fact is, you books must know your places. You'll do to give us the bare words and facts, but we come in to supply the thoughts." - Ch. 99
My first reaction upon finishing is that "Moby-Dick" is infinitely more fun the second time around. The expectation of a rip-roaring whaling yarn safely removed by my first reading, I found myself enjoying the frequent philosophical digressions, unprompted shifts in point-of-view, and the strange Shakespearean monologues that make "Moby-Dick" such an unconventional and difficult read.
Much of this book's effect on me comes from my powerful, hands-on experience first reading it at the Mystic Seaport Museum. Some of it also comes from the aforementioned philosophical digressions. "Moby-Dick" is, among many other things, a meditation on the ineffable. My favorite of the book's metaphors is the flat front of the head of the sperm whale: "gazing on it, in that full front view, you feel the Deity and the dread powers more forcibly than in beholding any other object in living nature" (Ch. 79).
This contemplation of the mysterious things in the world is something that I, as a person of faith, value greatly, and feel is often overlooked today. I close with a few quotes from the great book, and an exhortation to read it yourself.
* * *
"There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness is the true method." - Ch. 82
"You have seen him spout; then declare what the spout is; can you not tell water from air? My dear sir, in this world it is not so easy to settle these plain things. I have ever found your plain things the knottiest of all." - Ch. 85
"An allegorical meaning may lurk here." - Ch. 90
"Book! You lie there; the fact is, you books must know your places. You'll do to give us the bare words and facts, but we come in to supply the thoughts." - Ch. 99
Saturday, March 5, 2011
It's Been Awhile...
...but I'm almost done with Moby-Dick, on schedule to finish before both Heather's arrival and the beginning of spring. I will post on it soon.
In other news, my workplace has started a blog, and I wrote for it today.
In other news, my workplace has started a blog, and I wrote for it today.
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