“August 1968,” by W.H. Auden
The Ogre does what ogres can,
Deeds quite impossible for Man,
But one prize is beyond his reach,
The Ogre cannot master Speech:
About a subjugated plain,
Among its desperate and slain,
The Ogre stalks with hands on hips,
While drivel gushes from his lips.
…These scholars may teach English, but they do not always write it, at least not quite. A novelist, we are told, “tasks himself” with this or that; things tend to get “problematized”; the adjectives “global” and “post”-this-or-that receive a good workout; “alterity” and “intertextuality” pop up their homely heads; and “agency” is used in ways one hadn’t hitherto noticed, so that “readers in groups demonstrate agency.” About the term “non-heteronormativity” let us not speak.
Joseph Epstein, from his review of The Cambridge History of the American Novel, titled “What Killed American Lit” (today’s WSJ). He blames the decline of undergrad interest in English degrees on a failure of the professors to inspire true passion in great works, instead indulging in leftist crackpot analysis with not enough staying power. Hmm..
Joseph Epstein, from his review of The Cambridge History of the American Novel, titled “What Killed American Lit” (today’s WSJ). He blames the decline of undergrad interest in English degrees on a failure of the professors to inspire true passion in great works, instead indulging in leftist crackpot analysis with not enough staying power. Hmm..
No, this is not the average tumblr picture. But that’s okay.
This is me and my father. He was hurt in Iraq in 2006. I just wanted to put this out there and show everybody what happens. Live’s are lost, and people get hurt. My Dad being one of them. He was seriously paralyzed. He can’t talk, move, or really anything. But I love him.
So do me a favor, show love, reblog?
This! And yet our athletes are the ones living in mansions
This is the movie (starring Elizabeth Taylor and Andy Warhol, no joke) based on Muriel Spark’s The Driver’s Seat. I’ve never read anything like it. It’s disturbing. Very disturbing. But with a lot to say for such a short work.
Miss Mackay wishes to question my methods of instruction….The word ‘education’ comes from the root ‘e’ from ‘ex,’ out, and ‘duco,’ I lead. It means a leading out. To me education is a leading out of what is already there in the pupil’s soul. To Miss Mackay it is a putting in of something that is not there, and that is not what I call education, I call it intrusion….Now Miss Mackay has accused me of putting ideas into my girls’ heads, but in fact that is her practice and mine is quite the opposite. Never let it be said that I put ideas into your heads.
Miss Jean Brodie, from The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark
Miss Jean Brodie, from The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark
The young people of today think of nothing but themselves. They have no reverence for parents or old age. They are impatient of all restraint. They talk as if they alone knew everything and what passes for wisdom with us is foolishness with them. As for girls, they are forward, immodest and unwomanly in speech, behavior and dress.
Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC).
Some things never change.
(via meme-meme)
Actual A-hole
I didn’t have but one boyfriend, to say a real one, before Grover. But that one didn’t last. He was from down at Hartgrave. He went off to Tennessee and sent me a postcard that said, ‘Hoping to be up in your parts by Sunday night.’ You can’t love somebody you’ve laughed at that way.
Beulah Cordle Gibbs, from “Sold,” by Wendell Berry
Beulah Cordle Gibbs, from “Sold,” by Wendell Berry
For sale: baby shoes, never worn
I love this idea. It’s the original really short short. Here’s mine for today: Crutches turned automatic doors into miracles.
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