The event formerly known as a music festival just no longer fits Austin, or anywhere in particular. In that sense, SXSW is like American culture at large.
I see here Ishiguro got a new book. This, what is it called? Around here somewhere. Let’s see. The Sleeping Giant. The Sleeping Giant.
What’s that? The Minkman’s telling me – what’s that, Minkman?
O.K., Buried Giant. Minkman says the title is Buried Giant. What’s that? The Buried Giant. With the...
Presented without comment.
From "Harold Bloom, the Art of Criticism No. 1," Paris Review (Spring 1991).
“If we were hitting a million clicks a day, we’d be working in the wrong way. Because I know what it would take to reach those numbers, and it is not what I intend to do. It is not what we do here.”
Linkiesta interviews editor Lorin Stein. [Note: Interview is in Italian.]
Refreshing to hear someone say it.
"Call me Ishmael," may be one of the most recognizable lines in literature, but Moby-Dick; or, The Whale didn’t achieve commercial success after its first publication in 1851 and was even out of print when Herman Melville died in 1891. It was not until the 20th century that Moby-Dick began its rise to American literary fame.
In 1930 Random House issued a trade edition of Rockwell Kent’s illustrated Moby-Dick. The illustrations originally appeared in the Lakeside Press three-volume limited edition. These images are incredibly iconic and for me it is hard to separate them from the story itself. Kent’s drawings perfectly evoke the drama and emotion of the Pequod’s journey and Ahab’s manic obsession with Moby Dick.
Moby-Dick is one of my favorite books! I even have a matching sweatshirt!
-Jillian P.
P.S. If you can’t get through the whole novel, try listening to post-punk laptop rapper MC Lars’s song “Ahab” instead!
My latest at NRO, of the Supreme Court's ruling in Hobby Lobby:
Conservatives rejoiced in the Court’s decision, but no matter how it ruled the result was bound to be unsatisfying because it could not address the root of the problem: Pervasive, systematic regulation of private activity requires the violation of rights and liberties the Constitution was meant to protect.
As Islamist militants redraw maps of the Middle East, U.S. negligence may be costing the world a territorial compromise that has worked for decades.
My latest at The Federalist examines the end of Sykes-Picot in the Middle East.
This is 2014, not 1914 — but the problems in Ukraine are a direct result of the First World War’s troubled conclusion in Russia.
My latest piece, posted today at LA Review of Books, on WWI and its long aftermath.
A map from Arlen J. Hansen’s “A Tour of Expatriate Paris.”
On Pont de la Concorde, a restored barge made into a restaurant, Hansen writes, “Jean Cocteau, who’d come dressed as a ship captain, wandered among the crowd whispering, “On coule” (“We’re sinking”). At one point, some guests removed the enormous wreath commemorating the occasion [the premiere of Stravinsky’s balket “Les Noces”], and Stravinsky, running the length of the room, dived through it. Exemplary, even for hosts Gerald and Sara Murphy who seldom did anything gauche, this dinner was the talk of Paris for years.”
"On coule"
The author evinced an almost Roman Catholic understanding of human nature back then. How would it play now?
My latest at The Federalist.
Some nights I like to get the kids to bed, pour a drink, and search the web for military-produced PDFs in order to look at the amazing graphics within them. I’d thought I was the only person with this hobby, but a few weeks ago my friend Finn Smith told me that he, too, likes military PDF graphics. The Internet is wonderful at bringing people together.
Politicians constantly invoke the authority of science, research, and experts of every stripe in the service of government schemes to impose some necessary good.
My latest at The Federalist, in which C.S. Lewis explains why we should be careful about letting experts dictate the proper role of government in our lives.
Matthew Northrup’s Century Atlas, 1897-1911, Alaska.
The Webley Mk V of 2nd Lieutenant J.R.R. Tolkien.
Tolkien was an Oxford University student in 1914 but was commissioned into the Lancashire Fusiliers soon after taking his degree in 1915. He joined the 11th Battalion of his regiment in France in June 1916, shortly before the Battle of the Somme. During the battle Tolkien served as the battalion signals officer. In late October 1916 he contracted trench fever and was sent back to England in early November. He spent most of the rest of the war convalescing. It was at this time that he began to write early versions of his Middle Earth stories. Debate continues regarding the extent to which Tolkien’s war experiences influenced his literary work.
April 21, 1943: The “Surgeon’s Photograph” was published in the Daily Mail, purporting to be proof of the Loch Ness Monster’s existence.
In honor of Nessie, a host of sea monsters! And a little bit of Loch Ness thrown in.
Maps: Magnus, Olaus. “Carta Marina.” Sea monsters: a voyage around the world’s most beguiling map / Joe Nigg. Chicago ; London : The University of Chicago Press, 2013.
Tatton, Gabriel. Nova et rece terraum [sic] et regnorum Californiae, novae Hispaeiae Mexicanae, et Peruvia … / M. Tattonus celebrem sydrogeographó edita ; Benjamin Wright Anglus caelator. [New York] : American Heritage, [196-?]
Arrowsmith, Aaron, 1750-1823. Map of Scotland, from original materials… [London], 1811.
Hondius, Jodocus. Septentrio America. [Amsterdam], 1606.
Blaeu, Joan, 1596-1673. “Americae: Nova tabula.” The third centenary edition of Johan Blaeu Le grand atlas; ou, Cosmographie blaviane. Amsterdam, 1663. Amsterdam, 1967-
Münster, Sebastian, 1489-1552. Typus universalis / Sebastian Münster. [St. Louis] : Roy Wenzlick and Co., [196-?]
Ortelius, Abraham, 1527-1598. Typus orbis terrarum : quid ei postest videri magnum in rebus humanis, cvi … / map by Abraham Ortelius, 1590. New York : Penn Prints, [1986?]
Ortelius, Abraham, 1527-1598. Americae sive novi orbis, nova descriptio. Reproduced from his Theatrum orbis terrarum published in Antwerp. [Antwerp] 1587. St. Louis, R. Wenzlick [1954]