“The people dance passionately on the earth, sanctifying it and becoming one with it.”
— Igor Stravinsky
I’m sure it’s a hipster affectation of mine: I try to listen to Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring every year when the Spring Equinox comes around. It’s a hipster affectation because I don’t … Read the rest
1922 was a special year for modernist literature. On February 2, James Joyce was the shy guest of honor at a small publication party for Ulysses in Paris. Sylvia Beach showed Joyce the book for the first time that day, thus establishing 2/2/22 as its Joycily pleasing official publication date.… Read the rest
Who wants words, on an August weekend before the final week of the summer? I don’t. Let’s look at some pictures instead.
Renee Jorgensen Bolinger, a philosophy graduate student at the University of Southern California, has found a fresh way to think about her favorite thinkers: she paints their portraits… Read the rest
Tactile philosophy. These words popped into my mind when I saw a beautiful, amazing photograph of a blissful 74-year-old Helen Keller enveloped by a troupe of Martha Graham’s dancers, feeling the music and visual expression through vibration and touch, raising her arms and joining in the dance. (Is this … Read the rest
Nationalism feels so natural to us — to all of us, during this age on planet Earth — that we barely question it. We could solve a few problems by questioning the basic concept of nationalism itself.
Virulent public arguments over immigration reform are currently taking place in the United … Read the rest
In his essay The Doors of Perception, Aldous Huxley describes his experiences after taking a dose of mescaline. At the end of the book, he makes this observation:
… Read the restThat humanity at large will ever be able to dispense with Artificial Paradises seems very unlikely. Most men and women lead
I’m still on my Jacques Derrida kick! I’ve spent a week surfing his works and reading the exciting biography Derrida: A Biography
I now realize how ridiculous it is that I’ve never studied Derrida … Read the rest
I’ve been trying for years to get a firm grasp on the work of Jacques Derrida. This philosopher has never fully caught on with the general population in the United States of America (yes, we do have popular philosophers here, but unfortunately they are Aristotle, John Locke and Ayn Rand). … Read the rest
Where is experimental literature in the 21st Century? And where is it supposed to be?
Most generations probably fail to recognize their experimental geniuses in real time. However, James Joyce and Gertrude Stein were recognized in their lifetimes, so it’s fair to ask who might be carrying that torch on … Read the rest
