Author Archives: weinberg

books

a bad dream from the grandparental past

“To read “The Man Who Loved Children” would be an especially frivolous use of your time, since, even by novelistic standards, it’s about nothing of world-historical consequence. It’s about a family, and a very extreme and singular family at that, and the few parts of it that aren’t about this family are the least compelling parts. The novel is also rather long, sometimes repetitious and undeniably slow in the middle. It requires you, moreover, to learn to read the family’s private language, a language created and imposed by the eponymous father, and though the learning curve is nowhere near as steep as with Joyce or Faulkner, you’re still basically being asked to learn a language good for absolutely nothing but enjoying this one particular book.

Even the word “enjoying”: is that the right word? Although its prose ranges from good to fabulously good — is lyrical in the true sense, every observation and description bursting with feeling, meaning, subjectivity — and although its plotting is unobtrusively masterly, the book operates at a pitch of psychological violence that makes “Revolutionary Road” look like “Everybody Loves Raymond.” And, worse yet, can never stop laughing at that violence! Who needs to read this kind of thing? […] The book intrudes on our better-regulated world like a bad dream from the grandparental past. Its idea of a happy ending is like no other novel’s, and probably not at all like yours.

And then there’s your e-mail: shouldn’t you be dealing with your e-mail?”

– Jonathan Franzen in the NYT on Christina Stead’s 1940 novel, The Man Who Loved Children.

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art

historically limited palettes

“…how should an artist cope with color deficiencies?

Most of my color deficient readers recommend the use of a limited palette, in particular a selection of paints that creates minimally confusing color mixtures. It’s worth considering the fact that traditional easel painters, because of their historically limited palettes, rendered colors with gamut limitations that are easily as extreme as many types of color deficiency.” (emphasis mine)

– from Bruce MacEvoy’s Handprint essay on color deficiency (colorblindness)

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art

aesthetic fire

“Although I never attended one of Louise Bourgeois’s Sunday Salons held in her Chelsea townhouse, they were reportedly psychic-artistic battlegrounds. Open to anyone, artists could bring their work, wait their turn, and then get feedback from Bourgeois, who was said to preside over the proceedings like a queen. Some were made to cry; more shook in anticipation. But all seemed to leave with the sense of having passed through some sort of aesthetic fire.”

– NY Magazine article on Bourgeois’s critique sessions.

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the chorus

this weekend

I’ve been doing a lot of work on the blog for ||8ve (The Parallel Octave) which is the project name for the recordings-of-poems chorus group I’ve been running here for the past 2 months. I am going to try to finish it tomorrow, and it’ll be great to share it. I’m very curious to hear what people think of these sound files.

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Baltimore, film

on roach velocity

Saw THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO tonight. Excellent, although people who don’t like seeing lots of mutilated bodies onscreen should avoid. Also, unnecessary Swedish National Socialists. Really good movie, though. Fantastic acting.

After, with friends, observing slow-moving Baltimore roach saunter across sidewalk, I found myself defending Los Angeles’s superiority yet again, saying, “If we were in LA, that roach would be moving much faster.” Now, that isn’t true. I can think of slow-moving LA roaches: I can even think of one I’ve written into a poem. However, I think that I now have my new poetic theme around which to organize thesis: Ways In Which LA Will Usurp Your City’s Greatness By Winning Battles No One Wants To Win. Best traffic, best roaches, best heat, etc.

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the chorus

Chorus meeting, tomorrow: THE APPARITION

Dear Baltimorean actor/singer/musician collaborators, come lend your voice and musical instruments to a improvised choral rendition of John Donne’s THE APPARITION, tomorrow, 2-3:30 pm, 3032 St. Paul.

The Apparition

When by thy scorne, O murdresse, I am dead,
And that thou thinkst thee free
From all solicitation from mee,
Then shall my ghost come to thy bed,
And thee, fain’d vestall, in worse armes shall see;
Then thy sicke taper will begin to winke,
And he,whose thou art then, being tyr’d before,
Will, if thou stirre, or pinch to wake him, thinke
Thou call’st for more,
And in false sleepe will from thee shrinke,
And then poore Aspen wretch, neglected thou
Bath’d in a cold quicksilver swear wilt lye
A veryer ghost than I;
What I will say, I will not tell thee now,
Lest that preserve thee; and since my love is spent,
I’had rather thou shouldst painfully repent,
Than by my threatenings rest still innocent.

– John Donne

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art, Baltimore, writing

I don’t think I’m allowed to title any more posts on this blog “don’t call it a comeback”

Drove out to Mt. St. Mary’s today, and attended a career interest lunch for Maryland sophomores, which meant I got to spend an hour and a half at a table with seven sixteen-year-olds who were interested in writing, theater, or both. They were running around from one leadership event to the next, and were a bit worn down: the way we ran it was I talked while they ate, and then I ate quickly while they asked questions. I had a great time with them. I hope some of them will email me.

I found it surprisingly inspiring. Telling other people not to give us has a good effect on making you (one) not give up.

After it was over, my friend dropped me off at the art supplies store on North, and I bought colored pencils (Lyra) and markers (Sakura) and the best pencil sharpener ever (Staedtler tub sharpener with a lid, for those of you who sharpen pencils / draw in bed) and spent a couple of hours scribbling. I now think I have the new concept for the ever-shelved Sander Lamori project.

So, hear me out: instead of a first-person narrative (Sander’s blog, Sander’s journal, etc.) I’m thinking of a first-person narrative told by multiple writers, a la Moonstone, in the form of a collective blog put together by a group of art students. This means that I don’t have to make Sander’s personality incorporate all of the visual things I want to do with the project: I just have to invent enough other co-bloggers for him. This is a very attractive idea to me. There can be co-bloggers who tend to supply more of the writing, or others who do more of the visuals.

I’m exhilarated about this, but if I had a nickel for every time I’ve reinvented Sander’s concept platform over the years, I’d have ten years of Sander comics / graphic novels / blog posts.

Also cleaned bathroom.

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Baltimore, gradschool

Commencement

The quad behind the library has so many people in it it looks like a political rally. Graduates, sweating, shielding their faces with massive envelopes. People in mortarboards wandering around Charles. A younger brother, too excited to listen, bounding around the cafe, asking everyone where the vending machines are. He asked me, and then five minutes later, he asked the guards. Older relatives, with swollen feet and nowhere to sit down. I saw a man walk up a set of narrow stairs and back down the same set of narrow stairs. A petulant girl to her family: “I want to stay with the group!” Not going to happen. The point of this is that you have to leave the group. Making my way in to campus, I saw a couple of the usual-suspect graduate students, caught in the flood of families, looking like squirrels at the tops of trees with the water rising, resigned to getting no work done today.

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Baltimore, the chorus

back from NYC

enjoying the Baltimore weather, playing soccer (for the first time ever!) Commencement is tomorrow. I’m working in the library by day, reading–plowing through the enormous Raymond Carver biography–by night, making more recordings on the weekends. Yes, still thinking about choruses. I played some sound files from the recent chorus projects for friends in NYC, and although I liked doing it, I think I need to be more stringent with sound quality in the recordings we make. It’s one thing to document and another to distribute. I want to start making recordings that are so good they need no explanation. This is going to mean learning more or finding someone who knows more.

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