If you study religion rather than or in addition to studying the Bible you discover that there are a number of stories similar to those found in the Bible. You find even more if you study mythology. By myth I do not mean a widely held but false belief such as “urban legend.” I mean universal stories that help us understand who we are, where we came from, and what that means. For a long time I avoided knowing about myths for fear that a myth might have the same plot as the Gospel of Mark. If Horus was crucified, buried, and resurrected on the third day, wouldn’t that lessen the story of Jesus? Like others I eventually faced that fear and found faith in...
President Obama wants to disengage from the disastrous war on Afghanistan the way he withdrew from the disastrous war on Iraq. Leaving Afghanistan is likely to be as difficult, dangerous and messy as leaving Iraq has been. And it will require accommodating the Taliban in Afghanistan’s future, including Afghanistan’s notoriously corrupt government, because the Taliban are largely from the Pashtun tribe that comprises half of the population.
Can Taliban become a trusted member of a representative government in Afghanistan? That is a very complicated question historically, politically and economically.
First the history: “Turkistan, Afghanistan, Transcaspia (states east of the Caspian Sea), Persia (Iran)...are the pieces on a chessboard upon which is being played out a game for the dominance of the world.” Lord George Curzon....
I'm been re-reading the Marilyn French introduction to my frayed edition of Edith Wharton’s "The Custom of the Country," and that has set me straight on Jonathan Franzen’s odd review in The New Yorker of her work on the occasion of her 150th birthday:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/02/13/120213fa_fact_franzen
Franzen begins by complaining that because she was born into privilege it is difficult to feel any sympathy for Edith Wharton or her writing. That’s odd as I have found Franzen’s writing cold and unsympathetic. And this brings me back to Marilyn French's observation that it is very interesting what men writers make of the women in their lives. I suppose one could also say the...
The air is surprisingly cool for late August. I’m sitting on an upstairs porch looking out over the tops of trees in their full dress of summer greens—maples, magnolias, dogwoods with white blossoms. The branches and leaves sway and rustle in the breeze. Somewhere a wind chime answers the moving air with a light ting and ringing like a message in the near distance, signaling the change of seasons. Overhead, shifting faces of white clouds drift through a blue sky, sliced by faint streaks from the trail of a jet that has long since passed by.
In this moment before evening, before the shift in seasons and the rush of autumn, I can almost...
It’s touching how diligently pundits and politicians of the non-fact-based reality persuasion try to rewrite the record of George W. Bush. For example: Tea Party Nation head Judson Phillips “said that the death of Osama bin Laden happened in spite of President Obama.” (Right Wing Watch 5/2/11) “Bush’s persistence was palpable and set the tone for the intelligence community tasked with bringing bin Laden to justice. (Dan Balz, Washington Post 5/2/11)
To make such statements one must ignore the opportunity before 9/11. “The Bush administration now had in its hands what one participant called ‘the holy grail’ of a three-year quest by the U.S. government – a tool that could kill bin Laden within minutes of finding him. The CIA planned and practiced the operation. But...
Was Ernesto Cardenal Censored at PEN's World Voices Poetry Evening titled: The Second Skin? Was it censorship in the guise of "Art for Art's Sake?" I heard Cardenal read a vital poem, "Cell Phone," at Poets House in the afternoon. He intended to read it at PEN, Friday evening. I was told by those traveling with him, that it was cut from his intended program by the directors of the poetry event. Why?
I was shocked that the PEN poetry event directors seemed to censor Ernesto Cardenal's vital poem, "Cell Phone." It's in Cardenal's latest book--no doubt one of the greatest poetry books of the 20 or 21st Centuries, titled The Origin of the Species, after Darwin's treatise, and translated by John Lyons. "Cell Phone"...
The PEN World Voices Festival had already begun, as director Laszlo Jakab Orsos observed, with a lecture on the role of the public intellectual. By the time the opening night started at the Lighthouse at Chelsea Piers, a literary celebration was already well underway.
The re-centering of this year's festival towards the High Line means a lot of hoofing it, so prepare yourself for some long walks, with ample rewards: skyline views, sights of ferries crossing the Hudson River, and the nautical oddity that I will never really get tired of, the tugboat.
Opening Night abounded with stars, from Wallace Shawn to Malcolm Gladwell, and superstars that you may not be aware of, such as Belgian writer Amelie Nothomb, who publishes a...
There is no avoiding conscience in an age of environmental destruction. With the Japanese Nuclear Disaster creating a huge dead zone in Japan like that in Chernobyl, it is time for all writers to come out against fail deadly nuclear energy. Imagine the books and libraries, writers and readers who were destroyed by radiation in Japan and Chernobyl. Those in the New York Metropolitan Area where PEN American Center is located, and a large number of libraries, writers and much of the publishing industry reside, should be aware that Indian Point, the nuclear plant in the wake of 20 million people, just up the Hudson River and less than 50 miles from The City is the MOST DANGEROUS PLANT in the USA. We have...
Patti Smith strode into Great Hall wearing pink socks, jeans, short boots, a white shirt, and a black leather jacket. "I grew up in the 50s where most people were getting rid of old stuff," she began, talking about finding a first edition of Dickens, having guardianship of Artur Rimbaud's calling card. Author Jonathan Lethem, who recalled going to CBGB's as a teen, asked knowing questions, and the conversation flowed as though these two hadn't just met, Patti complimenting his (Ramones) sneakers. With her hands in play, Smith went on, "I don't think of myself as a musician but more as a writer and performer," recounting not only how Mapplethorpe mentored her when they were at Pratt but also how becoming part of a...
PEN president K. Anthony Appiah was the eloquent master of ceremonies on Saturday afternoon, unruffled despite flaws in the sound system, as the venerable and stately Toni Morrison, reigning US Nobel laureate, in a remarkable show of writerly generosity, came...
At the 92nd Street YM-YWHA on Friday, the novelist and essayist Shirley Hazzardengaged the novelist Richard Ford in a conversation about reading and writing that was so warm, and literate, and amusing, and inspiring that it provoked something I don’t often encounter at literary events: a standing ovation. At her entrance, Ms Hazzard supported herself with a cane, but as she limped nobly to her chair, she brought us into her fold. “Excuse me,” she said, turning our way before she was even seated. “I’ve got a game leg.” That is, she was bonding with her audience at 60 m.p.h., even before Mr. Ford—who walked out with the assured gait of Clint Eastwood—could get a word in edgewise. Now, Mr. Ford is...
I can’t attend a literary evening without recalling Elizabeth Hardwick’s comment that the only thing she ever learned from a poetry reading concerned the physical condition of the poet at the time of the event. No poets read last night at Gilder Lehrman Hall in the Morgan Library—perhaps the most elegant and well-designed mid-sized auditorium in the New York—but I can report that each of the speakers appeared to be in good condition.
The evening was co-sponsored by New York Review Classics which is publishing editions of short stories by writers whose work is, in one way or other, haunted by New York. The panel was drawn from the writers who have edited the NYRB Classics editions: Colm Tóibín on Henry James, Roxana Robinson on...
Thursday evening PEN World Voices spread out. As I sat in the front section of the Morgan Library auditorium, I knew there were whirlwinds of words circling over Manhattan and at least one other borough.
PEN World Voices is one of my favorite weeks in the literary year. I'm making a list of events I want to cover, and also preparing to talk about Sherman Alexie at the National Book Critics Circle panel on Friday April 30 at 1 pm at the Austrian Cultural Center. (I'm moderating a conversation about writers at this year's festival, with Rigoberto Gonzalez, who will talk about Mexican novelist Martin Solares; Eric Banks, who will discuss German-language writers, and Mary Ann Newman, who will discuss Catalan author Quim Monzo.)
Monday night's launch at WNYC, with Claire Messud moderating a panel including Lorraine Adams, Andrea Levy, and Norman Rush, bouncing off her Guernica guest edited edition on women, sex and fiction, and looks like a...
Amigo Ángel,
Gracias por sus palabras. Usted sabe, en esto de conjeturar frente al océano infinito, turbulento o engañosamente en calma, hay mucho riesgo. La mayoría de las veces erramos. Nos cuesta mucho ver con claridad el pasado que, dicen, está hacia atrás; y mucho más nos cuesta ver el futuro que está delante. Y así vamos tropezando en la oscuridad, apenas guiados por una experiencia sobre el camino, nunca suficiente, a veces engañosa, a veces un obstáculo más para prever, para cambiar de rumbo a tiempo, para inventar caminos nuevos.
En lo que de verdad importa somos como niños que recién se han despertado y refriegan sus ojos para ver sin comprender que esa noche blanca es el sol que cae sobre el rio.
De lo...
I’m staring straight into the sun lighting up the sky in shades of pink before it sets. I watch it slowly losing altitude behind a building near the World Bank. The yellow globe is sinking into the river, into the trees of Virginia across the Potomac. I am typing without looking at the page, my eyes fixed on the sun which I want to keep in the sky. For some reason I feel frantic to keep staring at the sun, hoping it won’t disappear. But in the time it has taken to write these few sentences, it has already lost half its sphere and is now only a diameter on the horizon. Soon it will be dark. I keep writing. I...
I'm fascinated by curious juxtapositions, which always get me thinking, and this week presented an intriguing one. First, and most sadly, J.D. Salinger passed away, a man as famous for hating being famous as he was for writing "The Catcher in the Rye." Second, Martin Levin, Books Editor for The Globe and Mail, wrote an article entitled, "You suck, and so does your writing" wherein he bemoans the fact Canadian writers aren't more brutal (and witty) in their invective against one another.
Thanks for sharing.
Now, I know Martin Levin slightly, and look forward to getting to know him better, and admire him immensely, and...
Washington, DC is emerging from its winter wonderland of nearly two feet of light powdery snow over the weekend. With snow crested on rooftops and banked along the streets, with sparkling lights blinking around town, circling the monuments and the White House, the city looks like a postcard for the holidays.
Over the weekend if you didn’t have to travel, the record snowfall—between 15-20 inches, the largest ever in December—was magical. We walked into a restaurant with a fire place, met with family and friends for lunch then played in the park with our family dogs—one old dog and two puppies—who jumped and romped and tumbled through the snow as if it had fallen for their pleasure, theirs and the children who were sledding down the...
WASHINGTON - The People's Republic of China celebrated its 60th anniversary today with massive military parades, fireworks, and concerts throughout the country. In mid-November, President Obama will make his first presidential visit to Beijing, marking the 30th anniversary of Chinese-US relations with an agenda likely to include the environment, security, and the global economy.
In the time between these milestones, the fate of an individual Chinese citizen hangs in the balance and may well foreshadow future relations with China. Liu Xiaobo, one of China's leading writers, intellectuals, and dissidents, is expected to come to trial...
In 1989, newly elected president, Bush 1 pardoned Secretary of the Army Caspar Weinberger and other Iran/contra defendants ending the investigation of Iran/contra crimes. Stonewalling, perjury, obstructing justice, shredding evidence, retaliating against truth tellers had proved to be effective.
The Kerry subcommittee reported: "the saga of Panama's General Manuel Antonio Noriega represents one of the most serious foreign policy failures for the United States...It is clear that each US government agency which had a relationship with Noriega turned a blind eye to his corruption and drug dealing, even as he was emerging as a key player on behalf of the Medellin Cartel. Manuel Noriega was allowed to establish "the hemisphere's first ‘narcokleptocracy.’”
According to Noriega on March 18, 1988, he met with US State Department officials...
I frequently get letters from emerging fiction writers, asking me what I think about self-publishing. What a difficult question. The truth is that (and these words may come back to haunt me one day) I can't imagine self-publishing. I'm sure there are some reputable companies out there. I'm know there are wonderful exception-to-the-rule stories of authors who have self-published, sold a whack of books, been picked up by a great agent, sold the book to a major house and gone on to fame and fortune. And I'm sure some writers...
“Is the freedom to write separate from other freedoms?”
This is how the fourth annual Arthur Miller Freedom to Write lecture with Egyptian novelist and activist Nawal El Saadawi began on Sunday in Cooper Union’s Great Hall. “I have not seen a real freedom to write in any country,” she continued. “And here the censorship is more dangerous because it is invisible.”
Dr. Saadawi, small, her voice high and lilting, adjusted her seat and microphone for a few moments before continuing the conversation. “Can you hear me?” she asked, shielding her eyes from the stage lights and smiling. “Equality is important in dialogue.”
Before touching on some of the more controversial events surrounding Dr. Saadawi- her time in prison, the death threats...
Innocence and Guilt: Domenico Starnone in Conversation with Antonio Monda
Nell’ accogliente saletta dell’Istituto Italiano di Cultura, Domenico Starnone continua la conversazione di qualche ora prima alla Scandinavia House, raccontando del suo ultimo libro (Prima esecuzione, Feltrinelli; da poco tradotto in inglese).Una storia che ha a che fare col terrorismo nostrano degli anni Settanta, ma anche con il mestiere dell’insegnante e dello scrittore.Cosa...
The program was intended for high school students and that pleased me because their knowledge of science might not be much greater than mine. I was not interested in science when I was young. I didn’t care why a bat looked like a bat or a zebra looked like a zebra. “God made them that way,” was the only answer I required. I was an adult when I read Darwin’s account of his trip on the Beagle
Evolution is slow moving, reliable. We trust in the old ways, value remembered ceremonies. The young groan at the words, “Because we’ve always done it that way,” but it gives comfort to the old that they can still comprehend the world. It also gives comfort to the incurious.
Tijis Goldschmidt...
Maggie Cousins was born in Munday, Texas, population 400, but went to New York where she became managing editor of McCall’s, then senior editor at Doubleday.
When she retired she returned to Texas. When she was well into her 80s I heard Maggie tell some young children that they should pursue adventure. “When I came to San Antonio, I decided to have an adventure every day,” she said. “If I lived in Munday, I’d manage to have an adventure every day.”
And she did. You don’t have to be young, or beautiful, or travel to Morocco to have an adventure. You don’t even have to have a book. All you need is an adventurous mind. The best adventures are in the mind. No one can take...
It's easy to slip into obsessive thinking. It's easy to lose our perspective and think our problems, our opinions, our troubles, are more important than they are.
On my bad days, this is my view of the world
(Thank to Rev. Allen King for sharing the image with me.)
I know that sometimes, when someone says something I find hurtful, or thoughtless, I engage in long conversations with them, outlining the error of their thinking. The problem is, they aren't in the room. Heck, often they aren't even in my
From China to Syria, repressive nations are cracking down hard on digital dissidents.
February 24, 2009
From the Christian Science Monitor
Washington - Eleanor Roosevelt never imagined the Internet.
Neither did the other framers of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 60 years ago when they enshrined the right to freedom of expression. Yet they wisely left room for just such a development by declaring in Article 19: "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."
Today, the Internet is both the vehicle and the battleground for freedom of expression around the world....
You who made us
do not grow tired of telling us who we are.
You who made our hearts, and taught us how to love
tell us why love hurts, why we cherish folly,
why our hearts beat out of tune with you.
You who gave us a mind to know the stars and the imagination to trace the wind
tell us why they devise mischief and live on the street of vanity.
You who gave us eyes to see Your name in every sparrow’s wing
tell us how to see through tears, through pain
through easy satisfaction.
You who gave us hands to build, to touch, to heal
tell us why when they are empty they make a fist.
You who gave us a voice to sing, to praise with loving words
tell us why we...
Grandstands are rising around Washington, DC. The U.S. is preparing for the Inauguration of a new President whose campaign mobilized a record number of citizens and focused on themes of hope and change.
Half way around the globe in the world’s most populous country, a relatively small group of citizens are proposing radical change for their nation, change which reflects in large part the ideals upon which the United States was founded. However, the proponents of this change have been interrogated and arrested.
On December 10, the 60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 300 leading mainland Chinese citizens—writers, economists, political scientists, retired party officials, former newspaper editors, members of the...
A Man Born Blind
John 9:1-4
Jesus and his disciples passed a man blind from birth and his disciples asked who sinned. Some Rabbis taught that there was no suffering without sin so Jesus’ troubled disciples asked whether he was blind because his parents sinned or because a fetus could sin in the womb. Jesus said that the man had been blind from birth so that God’s work could be revealed through him.
That troubled me as a child, that someone was blind from birth so that Jesus could heal him. Later I rationalized that I was blind to many things because I took them for granted, but being blind from birth everything this man saw was a miracle. Not just his first sight but everything he...
The philosopher Descartes had a dog, which he treated as a friend and which became his inseparable companion. The name he gave the dog was "Monsieur Grat." The salutation in the name not only humanizes the animal, but also recalls the dog of the Cornelius Agrippa, who was at the time considered the most notorious practitioner of the black arts. The dog of Agrippa was simply called "Monsieur," and it accompanied Agrippa everywhere, sharing even his meals and his bed. At the death of Agrippa in Grenoble in about 1535, Monsieur allegedly had jumped into the Rhone river and disappeared completely.
Since Monsieur Grat shared the solitude of Descartes, I am wondering if the dog might in some way have...
