I’ve taught some of Borges’s fictions in
two out of
three of my last classes
and am spending this week on “The Immortal,” “The House of Asterion,”
“The Zahir,” and “The Aleph.” I’d be interested in hearing from any of
you who’ve taught Borges, particularly in an introductory course. How
did it go, and how specifically did you handle Borges’s awesome and
conspicuous erudition? “Pierre Menard,” which I taught a few weeks ago,
is among the commented-upon of all the stories; and I have yet* to read
a satisfactory explanation of Menard’s recapitulative bibliography or of
the role of the atypical narrator. In a review of Danto’s relevant book
here, one philosopher noted that it seemed like an interesting
topic–perhaps quixotic–but that he’d live it to the literary scholars
to figure out. More important philosophic issues about aesthetics and
authenticity were at play, you see.
Of all the movies that have made me sweat The ones that make me the
most uncomfortable Are those in which a terrible fool pretends to be
Someone they aren’t–
Denis Johnson
Squidbillies and 12oz Mouse probably represent the limit of human
achievement in the televisual medium at this point in world history, far
exceeding the pornoseconal of Law & Order.
Here’s some of the
evidence
from this recent interview with Jimmy Carter:
“My sartorial misjudgment becomes even more glaring when we arrive
at the restaurant, a small and homely diner with bottles of Heinz
ketchup and a basket of paper napkins on each table.” Heinz ketchup
on the tables. Amazing how slowly time passes for these rustics.
“The secret service agents keep watch nearby, perhaps pondering how
a career associated with glamour and excitement has brought them
here.” Investigating counterfeiting is probably sometimes
intellectually challenging and interesting, perhaps even exciting.
I’m fairly sure the rest of the post-training consists of a lot of
standing around, unless it’s 24.
Mr. Lynch’s Neverland, whether it’s called Lumberton or Twin Peaks or
Mulholland Drive, is by design timeless, fundamentally impervious to
the grown-up perspective that lets most of us assimilate our
experiences into something like a traditional detective story: a
narrative that explains the past and allows us to move (however dully)
on. The world Blue Velvet creates is static, an imaginative city of
simultaneity in which everything, good and bad, is present all at
once.
I’m teaching “The Library of Babel” tomorrow, and I was pleased to find
Quine’s
piece
from Quiddities (an elegantly written book) online. Dennett, who also
mentions the Borges story in his “In Darwin’s Wake, Where Am I?”
(citation available in my Citeulike
directory), presents yet again
the res cogitans as a “skyhook.” Has he ever addressed Chomsky’s
response to this, that Newton’s demonstration of action at a distance
actually rendered the concept of a body obsolete? I read
Consciousness Explained (and an unpublished, to my knowledge, MS by
Jameson on Dennett’s conception of allegory), and I don’t recall any
mention of it there.
Contrary to Phil
Kloer,
Flann O’Brien is neither “obscure” nor a “surrealist,” properly
speaking. The previously mentioned book by Casares seems to me to be
much more influential on Lost, though two things are worth noting
here: a) I haven’t seen all of the episodes and b) the creative team is
the same as that behind the execrable Alias and thus you can assume
that there’s no coherent story-motivation other than to stretch it out
as long as it’s profitable. (24 is unlikely to be cancelled in-season,
for instance, though the first season [the only one I’ve watched]
suffered conspicuously from contradictory details being decided at a
later date.)
It was subtle of Borges’s prologue to place Louis-Auguste Blanqui among
Origen and Augustine in the list of those who refuted the central
conceit of The Invention of Morel. I am looking forward to reading the
scholarly comment on this book, which I suspect hasn’t been
satisfactorily explained. (Clute’s note in The Encyclopedia of
Fantasy, for instance, calls it a “successful search for immortality,”
which requires an unusual definition of “successful” and perhaps even
“immortality.”)
I’m not sure if this one’s been done yet, but still:
_Richard “Dick” Cheney was a friend to the poor. He travelled with a
gun in every hand. All alongside this countryside He opened a many a
door, But he was never known to hurt an honest man.
It was down in Harding County, A time they talk about, With his Service
by his side He took a stand. And soon the situation there Was all but
straightened out, For he was always known To lend a helping hand.
The Codebreakers, I was alarmed to read
this from James Bamford:
What greatly concerns me as someone who has written more about NSA
than any other writer is that in the past, when NSA was allowed to
operate in absolute secrecy, without oversight, it became a rogue
agency. When the agency discovered that another author, David Kahn,
was planning to include a chapter about the agency in his book on the
history of cryptology, The Codebreakers , they secretly placed his
name on their watchlist and began monitoring his communications.
According to an investigation by the Senate Select Committee on
Intelligence, they even considered breaking into his New York house to
conduct “clandestine service applications.” It may never be known how
many other authors and journalists were targeted back then. But with
the Justice Department only willing to go after The New York Times
whistleblower, and not the agency that continues to violate the FISA
law, the ACLU lawsuit seems like the only way to find out who’s being
targeted today.
Probably one of the most fascinating books you’ll have a chance to read
is Hitler’s Uranium Club: The Secret Recordings at Farm Hall (ed.
Jeremy Bernstein, Springer Verlag [2001]). From Heisenberg’s lecture to
Charles Darwin:*
Such an apparatus stabilizes itself at a certain temperature. If one
wants to fix the temperature of the reactor, this can be done by
varying the amount of heavy water in it. If you have got enough
uranium, more heavy water will raise the temperature.
As soon as we had the machine going, we could have made almost any
intensity of radioactive isotopes. Because, just by taking enough
energy out, you can raise the intensity as high as you want. (186)