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- Looks like I wasn’t the only one impressed by Nobel Prize laureate Orhan Pamuk’s lecture at the awards ceremony Thursday. Encyclopedia Britannica’s Britannica Blog calls it “a rich, engaging, and moving text.”
- From the sublime to the borderline ridiculous or else from Turkey and literature to America and popular culture. What is this year’s bestselling book at Amazon? Cesar’s Way. No, this isn’t about Julius Ceasar or anything of that ilk. It is “an accessible guide to help new and current dog owners better understand the needs of their beloved pets.” Not having read it and being a dog lover, I’m not really knocking it. I’m knocking American consumers.
- BuzzFeed does its thing with the plagiarism accusations involving Ian McEwan.
- Hugo-nominated SF author John Scalzi interviews Hugo-nominated SF author Charlie Stross.
- Writer’s Dreamtools provides a historical guide for writers to the decades from 1650 through 1990. (Via Kottke.org Remaindered Links.)
- Literary Cache has a TBR challenge that would probably help my ailing bookshelves. Basically, you pick 12 books that have been on your “to be read” list for more than six months and read one each month from January through December of next year. Granted, this is a variation on the Stacks Winter Challenge but I missed the starting bell on that. I’m also considering the 2007 Winter Classics Challenge, which is to read five “classics” in January and February. Although it would do me (and almost anyone) some good to read some classic works, things look hectic enough already for January and February that I am hesitant to embark on it. I am more optimistic about squeeing two “TBR” books in during those two months than five classics.
Every book teaches a lesson, even if the lesson is only that one has chosen the wrong book.
Mason Cooley, City Aphorisms
I was just going to post a note about it but Nobel Prize laureate Orhan Pamuk’s lecture at the awards ceremony today is just too good to be relegated to a brief mention. Available online in English, it is a wonderful exposition. Here are just two excerpts.
On literature:
… The starting point of true literature is the man who shuts himself up in his room with his books.
But once we shut ourselves away, we soon discover that we are not as alone as we thought. We are in the company of the words of those who came before us, of other peoples’ stories, other people’s books, other people’s words, the thing we call tradition. I believe literature to be the most valuable hoard that humanity has gathered in its quest to understand itself. Societies, tribes, and peoples grow more intelligent, richer, and more advanced as they pay attention to the troubled words of their authors, and, as we all know, the burning of books and the denigration of writers are both signals that dark and improvident times are upon us. …
On the proverbial question of why writers writer:
I write because I have an innate need to write! I write because I can’t do normal work like other people. I write because I want to read books like the ones I write. I write because I am angry at all of you, angry at everyone. I write because I love sitting in a room all day writing. I write because I can only partake in real life by changing it. I write because I want others, all of us, the whole world, to know what sort of life we lived, and continue to live, in Istanbul, in Turkey. I write because I love the smell of paper, pen, and ink. I write because I believe in literature, in the art of the novel, more than I believe in anything else. I write because it is a habit, a passion. I write because I am afraid of being forgotten. I write because I like the glory and interest that writing brings. I write to be alone. Perhaps I write because I hope to understand why I am so very, very angry at all of you, so very, very angry at everyone. I write because I like to be read. I write because once I have begun a novel, an essay, a page, I want to finish it. I write because everyone expects me to write. I write because I have a childish belief in the immortality of libraries, and in the way my books sit on the shelf. I write because it is exciting to turn all of life’s beauties and riches into words. I write not to tell a story, but to compose a story. I write because I wish to escape from the foreboding that there is a place I must go but – just as in a dream – I can’t quite get there. I write because I have never managed to be happy. I write to be happy.
The starting point of all this? Pamuk’s father leaving him a small suitcase filled with his writings, manuscripts and note-books two years before his death. From that flows not only these excerpts but exquisitely expressed thoughts on the meaning of place and family.
A writer talks of things that everyone knows but does not know they know.
Orhan Pamuk, 2006 Nobel Lecture
I’m always telling my wife and kids that it’s a bitch getting old. A different kind of proof came today. You know you’re old when….. you don’t own and would barely recognize any of the songs receiving Grammy Award nominations for Record of the Year, Song of the Year or Album of the Year.
I don’t view the Grammy Awards as a stamp of artistic merit but more of a recognition of who flashed in the pan this year. Proof? Bob Dylan has a total of eight Grammy awards, his first one for performing at The Concert for Bangladesh and the first in his own right in 1979. In comparison, Christopher Cross won 5 in 1980 alone, all for his debut album. Which artist stands the test of time? Still, I at least used to be familiar with the names in the marquee categories.
And I’m not quite sure what’s happening with some of the nominations I recognize in other categories. Dylan’s Modern Times and Jackson Browne’s Solo Acoustic, Vol. 1 have record of the year nominations — in the folk category. Interestingly, although Dylan’s album is in the folk category, the song “Someday Baby” is twice nominated in rock categories, including Best Rock Song. Neil Young also has a nomination for Best Rock Song for “Lookin’ for a Leader” off Living With War, itself nominated for Best Rock Album.
Things don’t get much better for me in the jazz categories. The only nominated album I’ve heard is Chick Corea’s The Ultimate Adventure, although I do have Simpático by The Brian Lynch/Eddie Palmieri Project (nominated for best Latin jazz album) on my MP3 player and just haven’t had time to listen all the way through.
Kind of topping it all off, NPR listeners picked their 10 best CDs of 2006. Now I would think that’s probably an audience more in my wheelhouse than the popular Grammy nominations. So guess what? The only one I’ve heard is Dylan’s Modern Times (although the new box set by Tom Waits also resides on my MP3 player at the moment).
I understand all too well that the body gives you aches and pains and related b.s. as you get old and, as my kids say, the mind is the first to go. Still, this music thing really hurts.
Guess the only remedy is to at least go out and listen to some of the NPR selections and jazz Grammy nominations
Everybody’s just waiting to hear from the one
Who can give them the answers
And lead them back to that place in the warmth of the sun
Where sweet childhood still dances
“For Everyman,” Jackson Browne, Solo Acoustic, Vol. 1
As evidenced by the new link at the right, South Dakota bloggers are going to try to help South Dakota Public Television with its fundraising efforts. From the e-mail I received:
Some bloggers in SD have agreed to cooperate with each other without regard to ideology or perspective and request that their Blog readers contribute to SD Public TV on the evening of Friday, December 8, 2006 fund drive. This is the evening of the Williams and Ree special.
When you call in your contribution to SD Public Broadcasting, we SD bloggers request you please mention on which blog you saw the contribution request or at least that you saw a SD blog public service ad Then we will have some idea if we should try this again with a bit better organization and planning.
Blogs have communities of their own and varying degrees of journalistic rigor; but let’s see what the SD blog community can do on just one night without regard to our political or other differences.
The plan is for people to call 1-800-777-0789 to pledge this Friday evening, Dec. 8, between 7 and 9 p.m. Central (6 to 8 p.m. Mountain). I’m personally not a Williams & Ree fan but if you want to call then, great. If you want to call before or after and say you saw this request on a blog (you don’t even have to mention this one), that would be equally wonderful as long as SDPB is getting money.
Credit goes to Doug Wiken for rounding up bloggers to do this.
Public television has an informed audience, more engaged in ideas, better educated and worldlier. Public television is the only place to produce a distinctive product, important for broad reasons, that is driven by more than a desire for quick ratings.
Fareed Zakaria
- Congrats to Bud Parr at Chekhov’s Mistress for his undoubtedly well-deserved Google ranking. All of us who belong to MetaxuCafe are proud of you.
- And let’s not forget my friend MinusCar also has a nice #1 Google ranking himself.
- Leighanna at the University of Nebraska Press blog has a nice post on why science fiction and fantasy get no respect. Her best point, conclusively established by walking into any bookstore: “It isn’t that we have more crap. It’s that the crap is the first thing people see.”
- More best of the year lists before the end of the year from the WaPo (10 best of the year), TLS (six literary folks pick their favorites) and the The Boston Globe (fiction and nonfiction). (Via SFBC Blog.)
- Meanwhile, Buzzfeed is trying to compile “the ultimate year-end list of year-end lists.”
- Finally, and perhaps most important, the answer to the question that has bothered all of us since childhood: if I dig straight down, where will I end up? (I don’t want to spoil it too much but if enough of us in Sioux Falls dig straight down and get a big enough desalinization facility, we would have a good start on solving future water problems). (Via Amy on the Web.)
Sometimes
I wish I had a hiding place
where no one could give me their shit
for the dreams that I have
“Better Than You,” The Uninvited, Artificial Hip
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