Comments for I think the title goes here

Comment on Shakespeare, Or, How to Destroy an Elizabethan Idol by deweydink

deweydink — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 19:40:09 +0000

Hi Lavonne. Thanks. I do try to write in an accessible way that exudes enjoyment and positive energy, even if I am arguably engaged in destroying… or, for lack of a better world, arguing. The fine art of arguing without anger and ugliness…
Keep shining.
Peter

Comment on Shakespeare, Or, How to Destroy an Elizabethan Idol by Lavonne

Lavonne — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 18:46:19 +0000

Peter, I’ve read your comments on Shakespeare. Here’s what I’d like to say: You have an excellent way of writing. Whether someone would agree with you or not, your style is enjoyable, interesting, creative and accessible. You could be writing for the New Yorker (for want of me knowing more literary, not to mention Canadian, magazines). i like your daring to shake up the status quo. You do have a gift and an ability to write, and drifting and gravitating, indeed, just doing what you seem to love to do, is evolving and creating what is time worthwhile spent and perfectly spicey reading.

I read the Kafka article as well, because I was always amazed at how Kafka was able to impart to me a feeling that we all probably know from having to endure beaurocracy. It’s as if he were portraying the psychological wound of feeling powerless with the father figures, authority, being stuck in a psychological morass, unable to figure how to get out. That, perhaps, speaks of our entire society, never mind the German back then. My take on it. I confess that I never did finish the book. It sits on my bookshelf, waiting.

I’ll have to take another time to read more of your items. My one preference would be to see the articles headlined at the top to select, instead of scrolling down such a long way. However, then, perhaps as with Kafka, I would not get around to scrolling to the end to see all.

I still have to show your Dad this site. He’s gone to church.
Lavonne

Comment on Our Responsibility to Write Comedy by deweydink

deweydink — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 00:17:37 +0000

Thanks for the thoughtful response. The disease analogy seems right, but I wonder if the utopia-purgative opposition really applies. Personally, I’ve given up on trying to diagnose others. I think my immunity can’t handle all the exposure and the hysterics. So, I’ve forsworn it and become a bit of a disciple of utopia and some kind of ‘transcendental’ comedy. Perhaps a dose of health can have serve as a curative, and manifestations of health can draw the sick to realize they are sick. Then again, that seems somehow naive.

Thanks for the heads up on Jessica, as well.

Cheers.

Comment on Our Responsibility to Write Comedy by JM

JM — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 16:09:33 +0000

Having read several things here, a question arises.

How is it possible to produce “good” or “healthy” literature–or, for that matter, any kind of fruit from any artistic endeavor–when the formula for doing so is devoid of any personally reflective realism? The purely “healthy” “comic” mind–as you seem to have concluded in the piece–is not easily arrived at, to say the least. Certainly you’re not insisting that there is nothing we can learn from chronicling an experience–even a tragic one –though it might be only initially useful in its baser form as a personal purgative. At least there’s the possibility that if attended to properly, one might rid themselves of the carrier’s disease and even might spread some awareness that the insidiousness of the disease actually exists.

The historically sick are that way because they pay too little attention to the recurring tragedies around them, never mind the ones they create–without thinking–for themselves and others.

Before visions of Utopia can be entertained, the realization that it doesn’t in fact exist has to first be embraced–no matter how well it’s being sold to us or how eager we are to buy it from the sellers.

PS. Portia isn’t Shylock’s daughter; her name is Jessica.
Cheers.

Comment on Environmentalism and Sympathy in Literature by acardott

acardott — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 00:07:39 +0000

Yes, literature that demonstrates our destructive habits’ effects on the ecosphere tends to have an alienating effect, making the reader feel too small to be effective (a fine excuse), and empathy for the ground is a hard thing to get to. But I’d like to see people talking about the sympathy between people inherent in our ecology, to wit, our language and interactions, and how we can do that with the ground as our focus. What do you think? My story ‘La Dársena’ is a clumsy attempt to demonstrate the greater arc of people’s responses to environmental catastrophe with regard to how we arrange ourselves, which allowed me to get ideas about how people are looking out at the world and at each other. If we can all be convinced to give directions to the bus station because we’d have them do it for us, surely we can just as well be convinced to give up a tiny share of the millions of daily habits that destroy the ecosphere. It boils down to compassion, doesn’t it? Natural disasters are great because nature has no use for “compassion.” But we’re stuck with making that choice. Thanks for writing! ac

Comment on From Ancient Greek Drama by Philosoph

Philosoph — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 13:00:02 +0000

Thanks for the post, I think this is the best I’ve read on this topic