Essays, Articles, Observations & Images – Through the Lens of the Salish Sea
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, …
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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. …
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 …
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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 …
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LETTER FROM LONDON July 2013 America the Marvelous At any liberal-establishment dinner table in London, say, or Paris, the U.S. will figure as a big, fat, dumb child. Enough, says the author, in an adaptation from his new book: America is Europe’s finest invention—and ultimate aspiration. By A. A. GillIllustration by Barry Blitt KING OF THE WORLD The …
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Excellent writing about a master of fiction and American life. Saul Bellow: Letters In the newly published collected correspondence of Saul Bellow... BY LEO ROBSON PUBLISHED 11 NOVEMBER 2010 Letters Saul Bellow, edited by Benjamin Taylor Penguin, 571pp, £30 "Of course I am not a Freudian," Saul Bellow wrote to Philip Roth in 1974. "For one fierce …
My life as a concert pianist can be frustrating, lonely, demoralising and exhausting. But is it worth it? Yes, without a shadow of a doubt. 'Isn't it worth fighting back in some small way?' Pianist James Rhodes. Photograph: Dave Brown 2012 After the inevitable "How many hours a day do you practice?" and "Show me …
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Illustration from Seed magazine It is inevitable that we learn about human psychology from other living creatures. It is proving that bacteria is a source of rich insights and an incredible wealth of scientific learning and understanding. This will proceed assuming that we put our arrogance and high place in the universe aside and look …
A very learned and wise monologue on art, creativity and character.
From the Preface - A Treatise On Poetry, 2001, HarperCollins, NY, translated by Robert Haas: First, plain speech in the mother tongue. Hearing it you should be able to see, as if in a flash of summer lightning, Apple trees, a river, a bend of a road. And it should contain more than images. Singsong …
The Absence I speak to you across cities I speak to you across plains My mouth is upon your pillow Both faces of the walls come meeting My voice discovering you I speak to you of eternity O cities memories of cities Cities wrapped in our desires Cities come early cities come lately Cities strong …
It is a very peculiar climate, summed up by that man of undoubted genius, Monsieur Derrida, when he says that every text is a “pretext.” This is one of the most formidably erroneous, destructive, brilliantly trivial wordplays ever launched. Meaning what? That whatever the stature of the poem, it waits for the deconstructive commentator; it …
The video for the line spoken by Czeslaw Milosz. Production completed with the participation of students in the art school under the supervision of Monica Opole Nowojskiej. Content of the poem: Czeslaw Milosz - The Angels You deducted white robes, Wings and even the existence, However, I believe you, Messengers. Where on the left side …
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photo credit: Clay Enos Graham Greene has a very European take on life that is artfully described in this book. The setting is Vietnam, Saigon, in the mid-fifties and while there is an ongoing stream of events that take place in his time there as a journalist, it is his relationship with his Vietnamese woman, …
Marek Zyga captures a classical elegance and mystery in his sculpted figures. Having viewed the forms we seek possession, perhaps obsession - we want to know more: the history, the story, the actions, when they breathe and move again. Background: Mr Zyga's studio is in Poland near the German and Czech borders. He is exhibiting …
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The dead surround the living. The living are the core of the dead. In this core are the dimensions of time and space. What surrounds the core is timelessness. from Hold Everything Dear - John Berger
Czeslaw Milosz - The Wilno Poet Under California Skies November 2012 It is not an anomaly to be transformed by the breadth and scope of the Northern California landscape. To stand on a mountain and look over the rocky shore and the expanse of the blue Pacific is a powerful sensation. While one's awe eventually …
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To Robinson Jeffers If you have not read the Slavic poets so much the better. There’s nothing there for a Scotch-Irish wanderer to seek. They lived in a childhood prolonged from age to age. For them, the sun was a farmer’s ruddy face, the moon peeped through a cloud and the Milky Way …
T.S. Eliot - Tradition & the Individual Talent T.S. Eliot (1888–1965). The Sacred Wood. 1921. Tradition and the Individual Talent I IN English writing we seldom speak of tradition, though we occasionally apply its name in deploring its absence. We cannot refer to “the tradition” or to “a tradition”; at most, we employ the adjective in saying that the …
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West Pacific Review 