What are your feelings about eating meat? In the latest set of stories, The Pole, by J. M. Coetzee contains one of his favourite characters, Elizabeth Costello, who tells her son that as a committed vegetarian,as is Coetzee of course, her favoured project in her old age would be to support the building of an … More The glass abattoir in the centre of a city
What technology would you be better off without, why? According to Foucault, the modern management of self is to accentuate the ‘exomologesis’ (or dramatic demonstration) of the negation of self in one big exaggerated monologue (actually it’s ‘exagoresis’ but ‘exaggerated monologue’ is smarter) in which you talk about your self-abasement to what is and has … More The binding force of ‘technologies of self’. Better off without ’em.
What are your favorite animals? I have given up with these daily prompts but I have to honour my old doggy, Daisy, given the opportunity, even if I still have to bend the question to my own purposes. Let’s do it by pictures only: There is no doubt that she is camera shy. A friend … More I love Daisy
What’s your favorite month of the year? Why? April is the cruellest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with spring rain. Winter kept us warm, covering Earth in forgetful snow, feeding A little life with dried tubers. T.S. Eliot ‘The Waste Land’, lines 1ff. For whole … More April pierces to my root, no wonder we call him cruel.
What is your favorite place to go in your city? The front of the then School of Education, Durham University Soon after I moved to County Durham I studied for a PGCE in teaching English and Drama. Those portals to teaching were taught in then School of Education in Durham University in the College of … More Durham: a cathedral, a castle and a prison – and a river runs through it.
If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be? Daily prompt? I have seen this question come and go and shuddered at the assumptions that I feared were its motives. Today, I want to confront it, in the light of my visceral response to it, for the world is too much with … More ‘Eyeless in Gaza, at the mill with slaves’: The dream of a permanent home or the choice of a luxury setting?
If you could meet a historical figure, who would it be and why? Daily prompt – laptop options We turned a corner off that street halfway Between the library and museum. The day was already in its decay So present was the past that had Priam stood as if in metal made, Trojan brass, we … More To meet and part and then travel on. ‘Nothing beside remains’.
What book are you reading right now? Daily prompt on laptop – why does it differ it from mobile? I have never read only one book at a time, although these days I tend to just read two. One I read at night when I go to bed earlier. At the moment that is Bryan … More Reading in multiples.
Who is the most famous or infamous person you have ever met? Daily prompt Emily Dickinson is quite ‘somebody’ nowadays. I haven’t met her though I read her work frequently and THAT IS A KIND OF MEETING. I think it is unlikely that you, dear Reader (surely there’s one of you! La!) have met her … More “I’m nobody! Who are you? / Are you nobody, too?”
What’s the first impression you want to give people? Daily prompt Codex ephremi (The S.S. Teacher’s Edition-The Holy Bible – Plate XXIV).Source is Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=36972 Ancient manuscripts were written on parchment (though an even more ancient writing surface – the wax-coated tablet of stone was the origin of the idea of writing as making … More To be a palimpsest of impressions.
Do you trust your instincts? Daily writing prompt I have tried in my long-winded rewritten title to re-frame this question in a way that allowed me to answer it. There were two problems for me in its terms and a larger one in its possible assumptions. Let’s take the terms first: These images tell you … More ‘Even if I knew all the causes determining a need to act in a certain way, it would be wrong to trust any one of them without reflection and planning my decision-making’.
What was your favorite subject in school? I take my title from Henry James’ What Maisie Knew, a wondrous novel in which a little girl (Maisie of course) is exposed to the hidden facts of illicit adult sexual liaisons and the secret knowledge about adult life they normatively occult from children in the interests of … More Life is ‘a pathway literally strewn with “subjects”. … It must do us good – it’s all so hideous,” …
Steve_Bamlett_blog 