The New York Times > Books > Poetry Starts to Wear $100 Million Crown
The Poetry Foundation awarded its first two prizes out of the $100 million gift it received two years ago to Greenwich Village poet Samuel Menashe and former poet laureate Billy Collins.
The latest issue of Poetry Magazine is largely devoted to a single (disturbing) poem by Frank Bidart, most of which is about sculptor Benvenuto Cellini. Cellini, while a gifted sculptor, was apparently a monstrous human being, guilty of at least one murder. Once again a refutation of the idea that art is dependent upon morals.
Enjoying Macbeth has quite a bit of useful information about the historical background of the play, but is marred by gratuitous remarks about "white Broncos" and "radical Afrocentrist" historians and about the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church. (I don't deny that the author has a right to his opinions, but I find some of his remarks and quotations neither to my taste nor germane to discussion of the play.)
Gayle and I went to see a very good production of Macbeth this afternoon at the Shakespeare Theatre. The play gave rise to several observations:
Foreign Reporters A World Apart In the Campaign (washingtonpost.com)
One Democratic campaign official ranks the foreign press "about on a par with lice" on his list of concerns. The official would not allow his name to be used, for fear his comment would reflect poorly on him.
Gee, I wonder why the rest of the world has a low opinion of us. Equally striking is the observation that during the last month of a campaign, the print media in general is treated just as badly as the foreign press is the rest of the time. Television is all that matters.
House Rejects Same-Sex Marriage Ban (washingtonpost.com)
Every once in a while the U.S. Congress shows a grain of common sense and humanity:
The House joined the Senate yesterday in refusing to approve a constitutional amendment to bar same-sex marriage, described by Republican supporters as a vital protection for traditional families but denounced by Democratic foes as a divisive pre-election ploy to inflame prejudice.
Any temptation to rejoice should be tempered by the realization that although the proposed Amendment fell short of the two-thirds vote necessary for passage, a majority of the House voted for it. We've got a long way to go, baby.
Washington Drank Here (washingtonpost.com)
The Distilled Spirits Council is restoring Washington's still at Mount Vernon. It is a reminder of the prodigious quantities of alcohol that the revolutionary generation consumed.
MoorishGirl: A Sense of Vocation
Guest-blogger Terri Brown-Davidson on why she writes.
The Elegant Variation: AS THOUGH WE NEEDED MORE REASONS TO HATE WAL-MART
The Elegant Variation points out that Wal Mart has stopped marketing one of the most notorious works of Anti-Semitism in the face of massive protests.
Caterina.net: Greenblatt Bio of Shakespeare
Caterina Fake on Greenblatt, Renaissance Studies, and arc welding.
The New York Times > Magazine > Shakespeare's Leap
Stephen Greenblatt gives us a glimpse into his new critical biography of Shakespeare. Greenblatt discusses how Shakespeare at once incited laughter at Shylock and made his audience self conscious about that laughter. In an England where all Jews had been expelled 300 years earlier and Jews were stock figures of malevolence, this was both an innovation and an accomplishment. As an antecedant to the play, Greenblatt cites the notorious execution of the Queen's physician, Ruy Lopez, born Jewish and condemned for treason. Greenblatt argues that in the fascination and repulsion that Shakespeare felt at the mob's reaction to Lopez's dying words, the Merchant of Venice was born.
The Food Industry's risible criticism of the Center For Science in the Public Interest reminds me to check and see if I need to renew my subscription to CSPI's Nutrition Health Action Newsletter.
Burningbird — This is Wrong on Oh So Many Levels
Shelley Powers (a.k.a burningbird) has a thoughtful commentary on sincere — and less than sincere — interactions between bloggers:
I value every comment left, and every link given — they are gifts. And I value those who take the time to read me, as time is precious and there are so many good writers who have weblogs.
She adds, however, that she would never change what she had to say simply to keep a reader.
Today is the anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation. Whatever its moral impact, the Proclamation did not as a practical matter free any slaves, since its provisions applied only the States then in rebellion against the United States. Slave states on the side of the Union (e.g. Maryland) were exempted.
Rejecting Turkey, And the Future (washingtonpost.com)
Here's a quiz: Over the past two years, which developing country has undertaken the most dramatic economic, political and social reforms in the world? Some hints: This country has deregulated its economy, simplified its tax code and put its fiscal house in order, resulting in 8.2 percent growth this year and a 10 percent rise in productivity. It has passed nine packages of major reforms that have reduced the military's influence in government, enshrined political dissent and religious pluralism, passed strict laws against torture, abolished the death penalty, and given substantial rights to a long-oppressed minority.
Fareed Zakaria makes an incisive argument for integrating Turkey into the European Union. Of course, it is not up to us.
A memory I would like to carry into my old age is Rachel cradled asleep in my arms in the rocker, upturned face peeking over the "piggums" clutched in her arms.
Addressing the real but uncertain dimensions of voter fraud means risking potentially greater harm to legitimate voters. "There is no doubt that there has been fraud over the years — people voting twice, immigrants voting, unregistered people voting — but no one knows how bad the problem is," Lowenstein says. "It is a very hard subject for an academic or anyone else to study, because by definition it takes place under the table." And, despite its neutral-sounding name, "voting integrity"� has had an incendiary history. "It's one of those great euphemisms," Pamela S. Karlan, a professor at Stanford Law School, says. "By and large, it's been targeted at minority voters."
The New Yorker argues that a new shift in the Justice Department toward cracking down on voter fraud rather than ensuring voter participation will discourage minorities from exercising their right to vote, to the benefit of the Republican Party.
J-A opines on the iconic significance of upside down Chinese characters. By inverting the "good luck" sign when it is on display, one evokes the Chinese character for "arrival." The visual pun on "luck" and "arrival" signifies an expectation that good luck will arrive. J-A sounds overdue.
The New York Times > Washington > Survey Confirms It: Women Outjuggle Men
It may fall into the category of Things You Knew but Could Never Prove, but a new survey by the Department of Labor shows that the average working woman spends about twice as much time as the average working man on household chores and the care of children.
The average working woman also gets about an hour's less sleep each night than the average stay-at-home mom. And men spend more time than women both at their jobs and on leisure and sports.
Clearly, men need to be more helpful around the house. (Progress is relative, however: a male friend of mine in Morocco once expressed astonishment that American men did any housework at all.)
The story goes on to mention that we spend more than half our leisure time watching TV. My aspiration is zero TV, but even it weren't, half my leisure time watching the tube would be way too much.