Essays, Articles, Observations & Images – Through the Lens of the Salish Sea
Rachel Cusk, The Art of Fiction No. 246 Interviewed by Sheila Heti ISSUE 232, SPRING 2020 PHOTO COURTESY OF RACHEL CUSK. Rachel Cusk was born in Canada in 1967 to British parents, who moved the family to Los Angeles, then to England, where Cusk lives to this day. She began publishing in her midtwenties—clever and assured …
“an attack of vertigo and nausea does not now seem to me an inappropriate response to the summer of 1968” - Joan Didion
This is a broad overview of Louis Menand with a focus on Menand's newest book, The Free World. However, Spillman reports a great deal on Menand's biography and our collective cultural milieu along the way. Louis Menand Scott Spillman https://thepointmag.com/criticism/whatever-works-louis-menand/
How to Speak Whale by Tom Mustill (Grand Central) Nonfiction In this book, Mustill delves into the latest research on animal communication. “Is it too much of a leap to think we might someday decode the sperm whale click for ‘mother’?” Mustill writes. “For ‘pain’? For ‘hello’? The answer is, of course, that we cannot know until …
A dazzling new critical biography of T.S. Eliot’s modernist epic. A book review of The Waste Land: A Biography of a Poem, by Matthew Hollis (Faber & Faber) https://www.city-journal.org/the-waste-land-ts-eliot#.Y8a4oOzS6jB.link
Vegetal Consciousness and Agency in an Anthropocentric World This is a transformative exposition of the nature of plants and their relation to humans and the earth. Rarely do we see a concentration on the cognitive and biological nature of plants. https://punctumbooks.com/titles/covert-plants/
This is an interview with Jill Lepore concerning her book on the history of the United States. Fast moving and extremely informative. Season 1 Episode 107 | 26m 40s| Professor of American History at Harvard University and staff writer at The New Yorker Aired: 11/30/21 Expires: 06/30/24 Rating: TV-G https://www.pbs.org/video/jill-lepore-a0pt6o/https://www.pbs.org/video/jill-lepore-a0pt6o/
Introduction to the "Wilderness Letter"Here is an introduction to Wallace Stegner's "Wilderness Letter" (1960) written by Stegner for The Living Wilderness magazine in December 1980. The Geography of Hope Wallace Stegner When I wrote my "wilderness letter" to David Pesonen 20 years ago, I had probably been prompted to do so by David Brower. He was usually …
Continue reading "Wallace Stegner – The Challenge to Preserve"
Trumponomics - It is clear to me that there is a very simple strategy for what Trump is doing to get the US economy booming. I think it is really fair to say that this is Trump’s only strategy. All of the misbehavior and destructive actions going on in all all of his cabinet positions …
The Hive - Vanity Fair Sometimes a soaring rate of cockamamieness can leave us clueless about what to make of it and therefore unable to do anything about it.Those are the times when we seek out something—anything—with enough similarity to the new person or thing, to guess what we are dealing with. We see that …
Profiles February 14, 1994 Issue The Exile Returns Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn posed such a threat to the Soviet Politburo that it exiled him after the publication of “The Gulag Archipelago,” but for twenty years the West was also a reluctant audience for his uncompromising views. Now, having completed his historical opus, the author is going home, …
Continue reading "“The Exile Returns” – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in America"
Neri Oxman, head of the Mediated Matter research group; Cellist Yo-Yo Ma, curator of the MIT Solve Arts and Culture Mentorship Prize; and MSNBC anchor Stephanie Ruhle speak at the 2017 Concordia Annual Summit in New York City on September 18, 2017. https://www.media.mit.edu/videos/mm-grand-central-neri-2017-09-18/
This is a riveting essay about the wild land, wild animals and wild sky. Ms William’s point is that the wild does not belong in our world anymore, cause, well, we just don’t want it too -it doesn’t fit into our consumer-led way of seeing the world. Wonderfully inventive perspectives draw down our mighty problem …
Continue reading "“Save The Whales, Screw The Shrimp” – Joy Williams"
Books November 6, 2017 Issue How Stalin Became Stalinist Puzzling out how the idealistic Soviet revolutionary came to preside over the bloodiest regime of his time. By Keith Gessen https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/11/06/how-stalin-became-stalinist
Francois Mitterrand - Man of Action, Man of Words - Review of Philip Short’s, A Taste For Intrigue. R. L. Wallace November 8, 2015 Sitting up late one evening at Latche, I hear, all around me, talk of life and death, the origins of the world and the existence of God, the beyond and nothingness. …
I have provided three pieces on Svetlana Alexievich's recent Nobel Prize in Literature award: 1) from The New Yorker 2) from The New York Review of Books 3) from the Nobel Organization Readers will note Ms Alexievich's simalarity to Alexandar Solzinitzen in chronicling their respective times. OCTOBER 8, 2015 Svetlana Alexievich’s Nobel Win BY MASHA …
I do not recall if Abbey studied zen. It appears to me that inherent in his craft is the idea that what he does not say is as important as what he does. Each sentence zigs and zags around, over and under so many norms of American society, and he does so with nary a …
This piece was written by Wallace for the 2007 issue of "The Best American Essays" by Houghton Mifflin publishers. For anyone who reads that publication and or is interested in essays this piece reads as fresh today as it did then. I think it’s unlikely that anyone is reading this as an introduction. Most of …
Continue reading "David Foster Wallace – Deciderization 2007 – A Special Report"
photos: PHILIPPE MERLE/AFP/GETTYIMAGES The Atlantic Magazine Interview Writers Can Do Anything William T. Vollmann, author of Last Stories and Other Stories, explains why he works by an assassin's credo: "Nothing is true; all is permissible." 1.0k 225 JOE FASSLER JUL 16, 2014 By Heart is a series in which authors share and discuss their all-time favorite …
Continue reading "William T. Vollmann – “Nothing is true; all is permissible.”"
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/03/books/review/McCulloch.t.html?_r=0 Susan Sontag - A Biography Daniel Schreiber Translated from the German by David Dollenmayer Daniel Schreiber has created a wonderfully written, well organized short biography on Susan Sontag. The book is fluid in pace and provides an ample well of historical context to enable the reader to see the many connections and subtleties of …
It is not a surprise that literature aids all countries in showing a human face in the midst of hard-edge politics and ideology.This piece is from The New York Times. Follwing the NYT piece is aninterview with Putin and Tolstoy concerning the culture policy document. RLW CreditJames Hill for The New York Times By RACHEL …
Continue reading "In Putin’s Nationalist Russia, a Tolstoy as Cultural Diplomat"
Bernard-Henri Levy: Poroshenko's visit with death in Kramatorsk before fateful meeting with Putin Feb. 15, 2015, 12:31 p.m. | Op-ed — by Bernard-Henri Lévy - from Kyiv Post - Ukraine’s leading English-language newspaper. A handout picture taken and released by the Ukrainian presidential press service shows Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko (2nd R), standing next to French …
Continue reading "The War In Ukraine – A Frenchman’s Eyewitness Report – Bernard-Henri Levy"
Apple’s $850M solar plant rockets it to first place among U.S. corporations Computerworld | Feb 12, 2015 4:06 AM PT Apple over the next year or so is expected to surpass Walmart as the largest corporate user of solar power. The company this week announced it will invest $850 million to build a solar power …
For however strong you may be in respect of your army, it is essential that in entering a new Province you should have the good will of its inhabitants. The Prince - Niccolo Machiavelli, 1532
Posted: 12/23/2014 9:34 am EST Updated: 12/24/2014 10:59 am EST - The Huffington Post. Cross-posted with TomDispatch.com It was the most thrilling bureaucratic document I've ever seen for just one reason: it was dated the 21st day of the month of Thermidor in the Year Six. Written in sepia ink on heavy paper, it recorded …
Continue reading "Turning a Writer’s Focus to Power and the Planet"
photo - getty images The New Republic Magazine, a 100-year-old liberal publication was purchased recently (two years ago) by the young co-founder of Facebook ( worth $700 Million) who now wants to turn the company into a digital media company after initially announcing that he wanted to maintain the …
Continue reading "Michael Kinsley Weighs in on “The New Republic” Controversy"
"One lesson we may have learned in the years since the Sept. 11 attacks is that no terrorist group can damage or destroy the United States and its Constitution. Only we can do that to ourselves."Tim Weiner is a Pulitzer Prize-winning former national-security correspondent for The New York Times and author of Legacy of Ashes: …
As David Brooks points out, this should be a defining time for the left, if not an era for the left. Yet what we get is a staggering win for the right. This whirlwind of motion and change is left in a dark caldron to be sealed for as long as people let others run …
Photograph by Gasper Tringale. (photo - Chris Walker, Chicago Tribune) Mr. Wills is the foremost literary journalist and thinker of our time. This article is a tribute to this iconoclast, one who has followed his own path to understanding America with intelligence, tenacity and grace. The American Mind The historian Garry Wills has written …
Continue reading "Garry Wills – American Thinker & Iconoclast"
This is a well argued approach to building information-based economic structure in countries lacking a means of showing ownership of assets and rights. This was fundamental to Peru's advancement. Its an unlikely conclusion to draw without the dramatic example of Peru. It makes sense and if it works, its the right thing to do as opposed …
Continue reading "Creating a Level Playing Field for Arab Spring Economic Success"
This is a short interview of Christopher Hitchen's wife, Carol Blue, shortly after he passed away in 2011. She is a very gracious and talented woman who shows what a muse she must have been. http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2012/s3619164.htm
I attended Sam Hamill's reading last night at Elliot Bay Books on Capitol Hill in Seattle. Mr Hamill considers himself a zen Buddhist poet. The room was packed and Sam read from his new book of collected poems: Habitation: Collected Poems. His poems ranged from youth to present. His presentation was crisp, human and forceful. …
This is a recent post by the New Yorker Magazine. It is in further to the controversy surrounding Amazon's crude behavior to force publishers to do things the Amazon way and oh, to pay up. JULY 10, 2014 AN “UNBELIEVABLE” ENCOUNTER WITH AMAZON POSTED BY MALCOLM GLADWELL
photo - towards point omega - rlw This book is a meditation held together by the flow of time; time says that one thing must come after another, we do not will this, it is. We can will to erect things, language, to look as though we have arrested the flow but it is a …
Continue reading "Point Omega – DeLillo’s Literary Masterpiece"
An excellent story from N + 1, showing some of the roots and political forces of the Ukraine conflict. Given the history of the Ukraine as it is told here, it is clear why simple violence can cut through the web of historical entanglement that refuses to get clear for a life in the present. …
Continue reading "Ukraine – Summing Up – And the Role of the American Press"
Just when you thought it was over. From : VANITY FAIR MAGAZINE - MAY 2014 In most hand-wringing debates about the future of newspapers, high-quality journalism is seen as doomed by the Internet. The author—V.F.’s newest columnist—begs to disagree. By Michael Kinsley BY CARL MYDANS/TIME & LIFE PICTURES/GETTY IMAGES.THE WAY IT WAS Multiple editions, breaking …
West Pacific Review 