From the category archives:

Aesthetics

A Beautifully Scrambled Egg

Thumbnail image for A Beautifully Scrambled Egg October 19, 2010

Mathews is just talking about how to cook eggs. He’s paying really close attention to both the delicate things eggs are the delicate process of cooking them. What for? Because it’s frickin’ awesome. Shut up and enjoy the eggs.

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Dickinson and St. Theresa of Avila

Thumbnail image for Dickinson and St. Theresa of Avila October 5, 2010

There is an inwardness so vast, so total, that it has a true integrity—not the pretentiousness of artistic temper, not the vanity of professional mysticism, not the neurosis of social anxiety disorder, but a forthrightness, an honorable, hourly withdrawal from the world that seems, for lack of a better word—ecstatic.

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Using the Tools of Postmodernism

Thumbnail image for Using the Tools of Postmodernism October 2, 2010

Part of the 20th century revolution in poetry was an interest in parody, pastiche, send ups, cut ups, a constant recapitulation of tired tropes in such a way as to reinvigorate them. If we look at poetry aesthetics as tools rather than as truths, then everything becomes available to us—all the thousands of years of utterance.

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“The Invisible Avant-Garde”

May 28, 2010

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Excerpt from The Book of Tea: “V. Art Appreciation”

Thumbnail image for Excerpt from The Book of Tea: “V. Art Appreciation” May 14, 2010

V. Art Appreciation Have you heard the Taoist tale of the Taming of the Harp? Once in the hoary ages in the Ravine of Lungmen stood a Kiri tree, a veritable king of the forest. It reared its head to talk to the stars; its roots struck deep into the earth, mingling their bronzed coils [...]

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100 Chimes at Midnight

Thumbnail image for 100 Chimes at Midnight April 10, 2010

FALSTAFF:
My king! my Jove! I speak to thee, my heart!

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Reciting your own poems from memory is for supernerds, or the worst project of my life

Thumbnail image for Reciting your own poems from memory is for supernerds, or the worst project of my life March 30, 2010

Concerning all the recent discussions about memory, recitation, etc, I thought I would try it in my own way. I should disclose that I never recite my own poems from memory at readings. I think it is corny, weird, it makes me uncomfortable, and frankly, to spend that much time memorizing your own work is kind of sick.

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The Problem of Style

Thumbnail image for The Problem of Style March 27, 2010

Do you remember that Eliot was billed as giving a talk on ‘Scylla and Charybdis’ and he’d realized that they’d simply misunderstood. That is, when he was asked what he was going to talk about, he’d said that these things were always a matter of Scylla and Charybdis and so forth, and this became the title of the talk so that we got a talk on this subject because they’d slightly misunderstood what he was saying. But it’s true to him.

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Do Movie Critics Matter?

Thumbnail image for Do Movie Critics Matter? March 25, 2010

Journalistic standards have changed so drastically that, when I took the podium at the film circle’s dinner and quoted Pauline Kael’s 1974 alarm, “Criticism is all that stands between the public and advertising,” the gala’s audience responded with an audible hush—not applause.

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THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING, ABRIDGED

Thumbnail image for THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING, ABRIDGED March 24, 2010

Ben Luzzatto’s THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING, ABRIDGED (UDP, 2010) is one of those rare artifacts that transfers its own actual magic—and it is real magic—until the possessed begins to lift a bit toward the sky.

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