From a spectacular essay in Poetry by Mary Ruefle: I remember John Moore, another teacher, who did the damnedest thing. We were studying Yeats, and at the beginning of one class Mr. Moore asked us if we would like to see a picture of Yeats. We nodded, and he held up a photograph of YeatsContinue reading “The great and the small: Mary Ruefle”
Category Archives: thinking out loud
Humiliation planned for losing candidate: Romney set
The most astonishing book of the year to date around here is critic Wayne Koestenbaum's Humiliation, from 2011, a pained confessional essay about being brought low, about being crushed, about what the pain of embarrassment, shame, and mortification brings to a sufferer. Tomorrow the media pillory that Koestenbaum describes so well will begin (it's alreadyContinue reading “Humiliation planned for losing candidate: Romney set”
“Lying is what makes you sound like a conservative”
From Rick Perlstein's dark journey into the mind of Mitt Romney: It’s time, in other words, to consider whether Romney’s fluidity with the truth is, in fact, a feature and not a bug: a constituent part of his appeal to conservatives. The point here is not just that he lies when he says conservative things,Continue reading ““Lying is what makes you sound like a conservative””
Refiners push up gas prices in CA today: L.A. Times
A sharp letter to the editor this past weekend alerted me to a startlingly good Los Angeles Times story I had missed on California's high gas prices, complete with a graph that almost tells the story itself. Here's the letter, from Jim Cody of North Hollywood: The graph that accompanied this article, which shows how crudeContinue reading “Refiners push up gas prices in CA today: L.A. Times”
Sandy: Hybrid megastorm challenges the language
The trouble between tropical storm Sandy and the English language began when the hurricane was still far from the United States. It started on Thursday in, of all places, an offical teletype-style all caps release from the National Weather Services Hydrometeorological Prediction Center that referenced, for the first time ever, surely, a 19th-century writer. ForecasterContinue reading “Sandy: Hybrid megastorm challenges the language”
Climate change + health in Philippines: Charlotte Kellogg
Last December at the AGU, I heard a presentation of a ground-breaking and troubling study on climate change and public health in the Philippines. Two young researchers charted typhoons and their aftermath, and argued powerfully that our reporting of the damage caused by these powerful but brief storms (one of which landed near Manila in August)Continue reading “Climate change + health in Philippines: Charlotte Kellogg”
What is going on with the alleged El Nino of 2012?
Six months ago, temperatures in the equatorial Pacific suggested that, after two years under the influence of La Niña, which tends to mean cold dry winters here in Southern California, that our ocean was turning towards an El Niño condition. Under that condition, warm temperatures and westerlies in the equatorial Pacific predispose those of usContinue reading “What is going on with the alleged El Nino of 2012?”
Faction: Why Truman Capote lied about himself
Biographer and psychologist William Todd Schultz argues on an Oxford University Press blog that Truman Capote lied about his past because he needed to be telling a story about himself. (If I understand correctly.) Schultz comments: Aren’t psychobiographers supposed to care about the facts? Yes, facts are crucial. Facts are the instruments of revelation. IContinue reading “Faction: Why Truman Capote lied about himself”
Did Neil Young just buy Crazy Horse’s beaded jacket?
For 10k? I hope so. Someone did today, anonymously, at an auction I happened to cover. No one in our culture has loved Crazy Horse better than Neil Young. No one individual better deserves a chance to have a beaded jacket that appears to be (at least through the Internet) more of a sacred vestmentContinue reading “Did Neil Young just buy Crazy Horse’s beaded jacket?”
The post-modern candidate who is about nothing: Romney
Mitt Romney's latest "secret video" debacle has been unexpectedly depressing for me. Think conservative Jonah Goldberg (of all people!) put his finger on the reason why here: Romney’s remarks reinforce the overriding problem with his campaign: It is bloodlessly non-ideological. And that is by design. Stewart Stevens, Romney’s top strategist has made it abundantly clear heContinue reading “The post-modern candidate who is about nothing: Romney”
Kit Stolz 