I have always loved words that fox the mind, Words of the archaic or rare-used kind. My life-story is inenarrable. I can’t tell you stuff I’m not capable Of telling either if I’m deficient In apt terms, or secretly efficient In hiding things I dare not let you see In case perchance you think badly … More Does life bear telling, when what matters in life is inenarrable!
What if it were a Sandretto plastic injection moulding machine …? Some initial thoughts on first reading Matthew Rice’s Plastic. Perhaps the most intriguing poetry publication of this year is Matthew Rice’s volume, a narrative in a series of lyrics each dedicated to a single passing minute of a 12 hour night shift in a … More What if it were a Sandretto plastic injection moulding machine …? Some initial thoughts on first reading Matthew Rice’s ‘Plastic’.
Yesterday I put online an admiring blog on the new (well!, newly translated to be accurate) biography of Louise Bourgeois (see it at this link) which in this translation is entitled Knife-Woman: The Life of Louise Bourgeois. There is no photograph of the artwork referenced by the title (‘Femme-Couteau’) which is meant to connote knfe … More Feel the Fear but do it anyway! Confront ‘Femme-Couteau’: Louise Bourgeois on the ‘bad’, ‘good’ and ‘good-enough’ mother.
Deconstructing a life that seems to circle around complaints by a creative woman about ‘family’: Is that the function of biography about a ‘knife woman’? This is another blog on the challenging art of the biographer with reference to Marie-Laure Bernadac [trans Lauren Elkin] (2026) ‘Knife-Woman: The Life of Louise Bourgeois’. New Haven & London, … More Deconstructing a life that seems to circle around complaints by a creative woman about ‘family’: Is that the function of biography about a ‘knife woman’? This is another blog on the challenging art of the biographer with reference to Marie-Laure Bernadac [trans Lauren Elkin] (2026) ‘Knife-Woman: The Life of Louise Bourgeois’.
In reading this question, the contemporary and most frequent use of the word ‘complaint’ will be uppermost, which is mainly related to an expression of grievance or satisfaction leading to seeking a means of redress from the person or institution providing those goods or services which are found faulty or dangerous. It is part of … More From making myself feel better by expressing my suffering to finding a means of redress for a grievance.
‘Leisure’ is one of those few words that has not much change its range of meaning from its etymological origins – although the analogy with ‘pleasure’, and the adoption of a spelling change from that association is interesting. leisure (n.)c. 1300, leisir, “free time, time at one’s disposal,” also (early 14c.) “opportunity to do something, chance, … More ‘Sour leisure’ gives ‘sweet leave’: but to do what?
Source: https://observer.co.uk/culture/books/article/the-sunday-poem-burning-car-by-andrew-mcmillan I suppose even physical clutter is the residue of memories, sometimes transmuted into obsessional and repetitive images – the better if repeated with a kind of nuance that varies each token from others in its type of memory. I use the words type and token as in philosophical metaphysics, explained in the link … More Memories clutter but are dangerous to seek to clear out sometimes.
You mostly remember the road trip you didn’t take only because the ‘other one’ is an illusion, ‘knowing how way leads on to way!’ First, let’s read the poem by Robert Frost once again! It is a well-trod road trip – by us and so many more. Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,And sorry … More You mostly remember the road trip you didn’t take only because the ‘other one’ is an illusion, ‘knowing how way leads on to way!’
It was this blog, of course! How to write on a life, whose archival raw material is ‘marked by two conspicuous gaps – the relative absence of material regarding Constantine’s erotic life and his views of Muslim Egyptians’.[1] This is a blog on Peter Jefferies & Gregory Jusdanis Alexandrian Sphinx: The Hidden Life of Constantine … More It was this blog, of course! It is on Peter Jefferies & Gregory Jusdanis ‘Alexandrian Sphinx: The Hidden Life of Constantine Cavafy’.
The Folk Hall at New Earswick. My first go at this prompt related to a vague memory of the recitation of a speech from Measure for Measure (see it at this link). Since then, my friend, Ann, who has been my friend since we both went to Wooldale Primary School, has reminded me of much … More An Addendum to my first version of this: My friend Ann says I Recited ‘The Collar’
Ian McEwan states in his novel’s title a concern with What We Can Know. Clearly, this concern with the nature and limits of knowledge is central to the conduct of history including predictive history, biography and the study of the art or even counterfactual forms of those things. However, the epigram of this novel, taken … More Ian McEwan states in his novel’s title a concern with ‘What We Can Know’. Clearly, this concern with the nature and limits of knowledge is central to the conduct of history including predictive history, biography and the study of the art or even counterfactual forms of those things. However, the epigram of this novel, taken from the biographer Richard Holmes, implies that biography embodies ‘human truths poised between fact and fiction’ themselves which requires the question of ‘what we can know’ but also goes on to ask ‘what we can believe, and finally what we can love’.
When Tennyson published the lyric usually recalled as a Christmas and New Year hymn in 1850, he was as keen to eradicate old corruptions as welcome new vigour, although he lefts the politics of the change he wanted vague in order not to contradict any powers that be. The point of the poem remains is … More Ring out the darkness of the land! If only!
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