I plan to read 'A Christmas Carol' for the first time ever this year. Everyone knows the story, of course, but it suddenly occurred to me that I'd never read it -- even though I ploughed through a fair amount of Dickens at university.
I'm impressed by writers who create enduring characters -- characters so iconic that they see to be mental givens rather than the creations of a particular mind at a particular time.
Watched a documentary about Arthur Conan Doyle yesterday: how he despised Holmes and the detective's ardent fans.
So there we are. Creating an enduring character. Discuss.
Or as Deleuze & Guattari might call them: conceptual personae. That chapter in What is Philosophy? is always worth revisiting. Zarathustra, Socrates, Christ -- Scrooge, Sherlock Holmes . . . ?
And talking of D&G, here's what the Times said recently about those Plane Stupid demonstrators:
'The group has no defined membership, leaders or constitution, but works in geographical “cells”. Members say it is modelled on the “rhizome concept”, a nonhierarchical model designed to share information and ideas developed by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, the philosophers, in the 1970s.'
Good to see D&G still relevant and offering practical solutions...
Thought you might have migrated South for the winter.
re. Tiny Tim etc. I used to read the story on Christmas Eve as a kind of ritual. I think it is jolly good - and central to Dickens' work. Much more interesting than Disneyfied versions suggest.
(Tim Burton's 'The Nightmare Before Christmas' is also highly recommended.)
re. Holmes - we're just starting on the short stories in 9th Grade (in fact they'll do an exam on 'The Speckled Band' this very afternoon. I LOVE the whole caboodle - the stories, the Basil Rathbone films, the Brett updates, etc. I'd also argue for Holmes being a key fin-de-siecle decadent - much closer to Baudelaire than the Eng.Lit. Blue Plaque brigade tend to suggest. I reckon Iain Sinclair gets a lot out of SH (Brian Catling, too, I seem to remember reading).
(And didn't Peter Cook & Dudley Moore do a version?)
(Oh - and the Cleese-Arthur Lowe film was good.)
re. D&G - I'm looking forward to the break to get back into those books.
... - and what's your line on Stephen Rodefer? I missed him when he was over in Cambridge in the 90s - OTL used to go drinking with him at the CCCP events & kept telling me I should read the poems. I'm really enjoying the Selected. 'Four Lectures' seems to be the key text - and unavailable!
I'm embarrassed to say that I know very little about Stephen Rodefer, but your post and a look at his blog persuade me I must rectify this situation as soon as possible.
Another poet I had no knowledge of has just come to my attention: Peter Robinson. Ashbery said of him: 'We know about "strong" poets. Attention must now be paid to the "curiously strong" like...Peter Robinson.'
But no doubt you know all this... Any thoughts on Robinson?
I feel a little low-energy today. The sky is white. It's bitterly cold. And the year's whole sap is sunk. I'm looking forward to the New Year and a fresh beginning . . .
Nope - Peter Robinson I don't know other than he might be the poet who knew Pound? Carcanet did a volume of his poems recently?
I think Rodefer is great - the obvious influence is Frank O'Hara but it would be unfair to both to press the comparison too far.
OTL = Out To Lunch = Ben Watson the scourge of lily-livered-limp thinking, Zappa guru, Poodle Play conceptualizer, Resonance fm stalwart, ex-Prynne student, and more besides.
(he hates Deleuze, however - all too PoMO for Ben's Marxist rigour).
I, too, feel under the weather but - in my case - put it down to too much wine last night. Just don't have the stamina these days...
4 comments:
Forces do indeed help.
And that's one seriously scary robin.
Season's greetings to you, sir.
I plan to read 'A Christmas Carol' for the first time ever this year. Everyone knows the story, of course, but it suddenly occurred to me that I'd never read it -- even though I ploughed through a fair amount of Dickens at university.
I'm impressed by writers who create enduring characters -- characters so iconic that they see to be mental givens rather than the creations of a particular mind at a particular time.
Watched a documentary about Arthur Conan Doyle yesterday: how he despised Holmes and the detective's ardent fans.
So there we are. Creating an enduring character. Discuss.
Or as Deleuze & Guattari might call them: conceptual personae. That chapter in What is Philosophy? is always worth revisiting. Zarathustra, Socrates, Christ -- Scrooge, Sherlock Holmes . . . ?
And talking of D&G, here's what the Times said recently about those Plane Stupid demonstrators:
'The group has no defined membership, leaders or constitution, but works in geographical “cells”. Members say it is modelled on the “rhizome concept”, a nonhierarchical model designed to share information and ideas developed by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, the philosophers, in the 1970s.'
Good to see D&G still relevant and offering practical solutions...
All the best,
W
Hi
Thought you might have migrated South for the winter.
re. Tiny Tim etc. I used to read the story on Christmas Eve as a kind of ritual. I think it is jolly good - and central to Dickens' work. Much more interesting than Disneyfied versions suggest.
(Tim Burton's 'The Nightmare Before Christmas' is also highly recommended.)
re. Holmes - we're just starting on the short stories in 9th Grade (in fact they'll do an exam on 'The Speckled Band' this very afternoon. I LOVE the whole caboodle - the stories, the Basil Rathbone films, the Brett updates, etc. I'd also argue for Holmes being a key fin-de-siecle decadent - much closer to Baudelaire than the Eng.Lit. Blue Plaque brigade tend to suggest. I reckon Iain Sinclair gets a lot out of SH (Brian Catling, too, I seem to remember reading).
(And didn't Peter Cook & Dudley Moore do a version?)
(Oh - and the Cleese-Arthur Lowe film was good.)
re. D&G - I'm looking forward to the break to get back into those books.
... - and what's your line on Stephen Rodefer? I missed him when he was over in Cambridge in the 90s - OTL used to go drinking with him at the CCCP events & kept telling me I should read the poems. I'm really enjoying the Selected. 'Four Lectures' seems to be the key text - and unavailable!
Jingle bells, etc.
The C.
I'm embarrassed to say that I know very little about Stephen Rodefer, but your post and a look at his blog persuade me I must rectify this situation as soon as possible.
Another poet I had no knowledge of has just come to my attention: Peter Robinson. Ashbery said of him: 'We know about "strong" poets. Attention must now be paid to the "curiously strong" like...Peter Robinson.'
And he has a site:
http://charles.sal.tohoku.ac.jp/
robinson/books.html
But no doubt you know all this...
Any thoughts on Robinson?
I feel a little low-energy today. The sky is white. It's bitterly cold. And the year's whole sap is sunk. I'm looking forward to the New Year and a fresh beginning . . .
Ying tong iddle i po,
W.
PS Remind me who OTL is . . .
Nope - Peter Robinson I don't know other than he might be the poet who knew Pound? Carcanet did a volume of his poems recently?
I think Rodefer is great - the obvious influence is Frank O'Hara but it would be unfair to both to press the comparison too far.
OTL = Out To Lunch = Ben Watson the scourge of lily-livered-limp thinking, Zappa guru, Poodle Play conceptualizer, Resonance fm stalwart, ex-Prynne student, and more besides.
(he hates Deleuze, however - all too PoMO for Ben's Marxist rigour).
I, too, feel under the weather but - in my case - put it down to too much wine last night. Just don't have the stamina these days...
Off to get a haircut.
Cheers
The C.
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