August 2011
49 posts
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“Either the book will continue to be the medium for reading, or its replacement...”
– Umberto Eco on his new book, This is Not the End of the Book: A Conversation Curated by Jean-Phillipe de Tonnac.
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“Without reading, there can be no learning. The humanities are essentially a...”
– The poetry scholar Helen Vendler in her article “Reading is Fundamental: How to Preserve the Humanities” in this month’s edition of Harvard Magazine.
As I said before, I’m now reading Vendler’s book The Art of Shakespeare’s Sonnets, a performance of exactly the...
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“I’m celebrating my 50th birthday in two days by throwing a nyama choma goat...”
– The goat has already been sourced from a local Maasai, we’ll drive to the village to get Tuskers and soda tomorrow, the staff cook is on board for side dishes, and one of the chefs will make a cake. Then on the big day the fire will be built, the cooks will do their thing, and we’ll have a nice...
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“Old as I am, I continue to be amazed at the sudden emergence of daffodils and...”
– Ernest Hemingway, in Key West (1955).
That is nice.
(via winesburgohio)
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“Truly, Google is like Dante’s afterworld: the celestial rose that re- claims and...”
– Elif Batumen, in her essay, “A Divine Comedy: Among the Danteans of Florence” in this September’s issue of Harper’s.
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“Dante is, like Kafka, one of the writers for whom the law is tremen- dously...”
– Elif Batumen, in her essay, “A Divine Comedy: Among the Danteans of Florence” in this September’s issue of Harper’s.
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“I don’t speak of vengeance or forgiveness; forgetting is the only...”
– Jorge Luis Borges, “Fragmentos de un evangelio apócrifo”, Elogio de la sombra, my transl.
In the original:
Yo no hablo de venganzas ni de perdones; el olvido es la única venganza y el único perdón.
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“The necessity of being up-to-date in order to obtain recognition explains why...”
– Pascale Casanova, The World Republic of Letters, 2004 (trans. M. B. DeBevoise). (via literarypiano)
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“Lying is not only saying what isn’t true. It is also, in fact especially, saying...”
– Albert Camus, Afterword for The Outsider (1955)
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Saint Lucia, San Marino & Togo: My Ignorance
A few weeks ago, during my brother’s visit to Turkey, Mrs. Tragos, Brother Tragos and I decided that we knew nothing about the world. Nothing. Unable to withstand the shame any longer, I made a proposal.
I would print out a full list of the world’s countries, cut them into slips of paper, and stuff them in a coffee can. Every Saturday, we will draw a slip of paper from the can. And...
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“Lorca was a poet of no school. He’s usually included among the Spanish poets...”
– No One Is Untouchable: Not Federico Garcia Lorca, Not Ai Weiwei < PopMatters (via byronic)
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I Would Be in Paradise
Does anyone have a Harper’s subscription? And willing to send me Elif Batuman’s new piece on Dante in the latest issue? (I’m desperate here).
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My Cotton Tumblr Day
Two years ago on this day, I took a deep breath, shook my head, sighed, and made my first Tumblr post.
If you would have told me on that day that I would be writing my second anniversary post in the Ankara airport on my way to pick up a stroller in Kalkan for my soon-to-be born daughter, I would have surely said: “Ankara. That makes perfect sense. Strollers on the Turkish Mediterranean...
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byronic:
The city smells of jasmine, lavender,...
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Line Breaks & Other Violent Crimes: "Gospel," by... →
ewilcox:
The new grass rising in the hills, the cows loitering in the morning chill, a dozen or more old browns hidden in the shadows of the cottonwoods beside the streambed. I go higher to where the road gives up and there’s only a faint path strewn with lupine between the mountain oaks. I don’t ask myself what I’m looking for. I didn’t come for answers to a place like this, I came to walk on...
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“Children don’t read to find their identity, to free themselves from guilt,...”
– Isaac Bashevis Singer, “Why I Write for Children”
(Referenced in: “Isaac Bashevis Singer: Conversations, University Press of Mississippi, 1992)
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Where Did Looting Come From?
In bloviating on the nature, causes and consequences of the London riots, the mainstream media seems mired in a war of definitions. Are they “riots” or “protests”? Is this “civil disobedience” or “anarchy”? Each word or phrase comes highly charged with repressed histories and connotations.
For example, where does the word “looting” come...
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Line Breaks & Other Violent Crimes: "Einstein... →
ewilcox:
INSERT SHOT: Einstein’s notebook 1905—DAY 1: a theory that is based on two postulates (a) that the speed of light in all inertial frames is constant, independent of the source or observer. As in, the speed of light emitted from the truth is the same as that of a lie coming from the lamp of a face…
Please, read on.
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Was Albert Camus Killed by the KGB? →
msodradek:
The Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera has now suggested that Soviet spies might have been behind the crash. The theory is based on remarks by Giovanni Catelli, an Italian academic and poet, who noted that a passage in a diary written by the celebrated Czech poet and translator Jan Zábrana, and published as a book entitled Celý život, was missing from the Italian translation.
In...
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Strange Tragos Question of the Day
Question for New Yorkers: does anyone know what kind of trees they have in Abingdon Square park?
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On the Impermanence of Reading Things
“In the Roman Empire, the literacy rate was never high, and after the Sack of Rome, in 410 C.E., it began to plummet. It is possible for a whole culture to turn away from reading and writing. As the empire crumbled and Christianity became ascendant, as cities decayed, trade declined, and an anxious populous scanned the horizon for barbarian armies, the ancient system of education fell...
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Belatedness and Food
Me, eating watermelon: Wait. Has there ever been a superhero whose superpowers were derived solely from one food? Like, watermelon?
Mrs. Tragos, looking at me with deep concern: Popeye.
Me: Damn.
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