the fate of fifty index cards

Should Nabokov's last unpublished work be destroyed?

It's a decision that has fallen to his sole surviving heir (and translator), Dmitri Nabokov, now 73. Dmitri has been torn for years between his father's unequivocal request and the demands of the literary world to view the final fragment of his father's genius, a manuscript known as The Original of Laura. Should Dmitri defy his father's wishes for the sake of "posterity"?

stimulation overload

A quick list of some of my favorite things includes mint chip ice cream, Barton Fink, the '55 Thunderbird, Tom Waits, The Road, and Viggo Mortenson. So there was threat of heartflood when I learned this morning that Viggo is going to star in a film adaptation of McCarthy's post-apocalyptic novel. I fear it may be the case that I'll either be too distracted by Mr. Mortenson or by my vigilant attention to the truth of the adaptation to fully enjoy either. Now if only the Coen Brothers were directing with a Tom Waits soundtrack...

While I'm on the subject, the profile of Cormac McCarthy in December's Rolling Stone is definitely worth a read. It details McCarthy's relationship with the genius science geeks at the Santa Fe Institute, where he spends his days as a Research Fellow after riding up on a mule one day.

any zeitgeisty parvenu

I'm not sure how I feel about one of my favorite short story writers weighing in on the presidential race, but Lorrie Moore makes an intriguing argument:

In the progressive Midwestern city where I live, the high school dropout rate for these alienated and written-off boys is alarmingly high. Some are even middle-class, but many are just hanging on, their families torn apart by harsh economics and a merciless criminal justice system. Why does it seem to be the Republicans who are more vocal about reforming our drug laws? Why has no one in the Democratic Party campaigned to have felons who have served their time made full citizens again? Their continued disenfranchisement is a foolhardy strike against these men and their families.

Perfect historical timing has always been something of a magic trick — finite and swift. The train moves out of the station. The time to capture the imagination of middle-class white girls, the group Hillary Clinton represents, was long ago. Such girls have now managed on their own (given that in this economy only the rich are doing well). They have their teachers and many other professionals to admire, as well as a fierce 67-year-old babe as speaker of the House, several governors and a Supreme Court justice. The landscape is not bare.

Boys are faring worse — and the time for symbols and leaders they can connect with beneficially should be now and should be theirs. Hillary Clinton’s gender does not rescue society from that — instead she serves as a kind of nostalgia for a time when it might have. Only her policies are what matter now, and here — despite some squabbling and bad advice that has caused her to “go negative” — the Democrats largely agree. But inspiration is essential for living, and Mr. Obama holds the greater fascination for our children.

sunday short stack

"One has to be able to count, if only so that at fifty one doesn't marry a girl of twenty."
- Maxim Gorky

• New favorite io9 provides five alternate histories for New York City.
• Meanwhile, Los Angeles wins the Wallpaper Design Award for Best City.
• Bear with me for a moment...
• Julia Burchill advocates a return of the "fun-loving, red-blooded bitch."
• This one's for RMM - The Clean: Live at Other Music
• The National Book Critics Circle announces the 2007 awards finalists.
• Times Square in the '70s or your spam folder?
• I have a feeling Billy the Kid will break my heart.
• Chicago Sun-Times: The WGA strike reveals the lack of women writers in Hollywood.
• From the publishers of the lovely Caroline Tiger's book How to Behave: Dating and Sex comes the new instructional guide by Dategirl Judy McGuire: How Not to Date.
• I think describing anyone's music as "if Patsy Cline were the lead singer for The Shangri-Las" is a surefire set-up for disappointment, if not outright sacrilege.

anonymity = notoreity?

Not necessarily in blogging, but in literature:

[Sir Walter] Scott's case illustrates a paradox that we find over and over again: the anonymous writer who does not truly attempt to remain unknown. For the most part, he enjoyed the speculation his anonymity attracted. "I have seldom felt more satisfaction than when, returning from a pleasure voyage, I found Waverley in the zenith of popularity, and public curiosity in full cry after the name of the author". English (and Scottish) literature is full of similar cases - of authors who went to great lengths to maintain anonymity, but thereby promoted their readers' interest in the authorship of a work. The main lesson is a simple one: that anonymity is most successful when it provokes the search for an author.

she started a heat wave by letting her seat wave

Ginger Strand on "femininity, Niagara Falls, and the genuine allure of an American fake" in the latest issue of The Believer:

After World War II, Niagara’s honeymoon promoters aimed to leverage the postwar travel boom. Magazines dedicated to tourism sprang up, like Holiday, which declared in June 1946 that “Niagara Falls is still America’s honeymoon capital.” The Niagara Falls, Ontario Chamber of Commerce began issuing “honeymoon certificates” in 1949, handing out more than forty-two thousand of them in ten years. The auto industry was on board as co-marketer. A magazine called Friends, published by General Motors and handed out by Chevrolet dealers, ran an article in June 1950 titled “Here’s Why They Honeymoon at Niagara.” In it, a variety of couples give their reasons for choosing the Falls. Andrew and Mary DiCicco of Detroit, for instance, chose the Falls “partly because of its romance and partly because it was conveniently close to Detroit—motorists can drive from there to Niagara Falls in less than six hours.”

The postwar Niagara honeymoon was now promoted as an American tradition: a slew of stories about Falls honeymoon history appeared. Honeymooning at the Falls was an American rite of passage. The Niagara Falls Gazette ran a 1946 feature titled “Lore and Sentiment behind Niagara’s Fame as Nation’s Honeymoon Capital.” Referring to the waterfall as “sentiment in liquid form,” they recounted the results of an informal survey asking visiting couples why they came to Niagara. “Eleven couples queried in succession,” the paper reports, said, “‘Our parents came here. We could have gone anywhere, but somehow, this just seemed right.’” And why not? The Falls were an American icon, the Canadians our allies, and a trip to Niagara a way to touch the national past. Returning soldiers, many articles declared, had seen enough of Europe. They’d rather enjoy the sights of their own nation now.

A visit to Niagara was, like much of postwar culture, a reassuring encounter with what the nation had just been fighting for: the American way of life. What did that mean? It went beyond democracy and freedom to embrace a host of lifestyle ideals valorized as the way it should be: the wholesome family life of Leave It to Beaver and Father Knows Best, the small-town community values of Norman Rockwell and Life magazine, the modernity and progress represented by the torrent of household consumer goods Americans adopted en masse—refrigerators, televisions, Tupperware. And of course, the “traditional” gender roles of I Love Lucy, The Honeymooners, Marjorie Morningstar, and the era’s fashions: tiny waists, full feminine skirts, and high heels for women, gray flannel suits for men. The marriage manuals of the era affirmed this natural order: the man was to dominate and the woman was to let him.

Marilyn’s star turn as Rose Loomis turned this stereotype over and examined its seamy underside. She was a wife gone bad—like the Falls, a feminine force, with the emphasis shifted from beauty to power. The movie publicity made the connection explicit: “Marilyn Monroe and Niagara,” crowed the poster, “a raging torrent of emotion that even nature can’t control!”

she came to stay

I share my birthday with some rather dapper gentlemen, but for a long time I was equally proud to have been born on the same day as one special bad ass complex chick - Simone de Beauvoir. Years went by before I was disabused of this notion and came to accept the fact that while we may have been born in the same general calendaric vicinity, I'm 8, she's 9.

Via Campaign for the American Reader comes a list from Lisa Appignanesi of the top 10 books by and about my almost birthday-mate.

this is pretty much how I feel about my birthday today

but if not the humanities, what?

Stanley Fish asks: "Will the humanities save us?" (Hint: The answer is no.)

The premise of secular humanism (or of just old-fashioned humanism) is that the examples of action and thought portrayed in the enduring works of literature, philosophy and history can create in readers the desire to emulate them. Philip Sydney put it as well as anyone ever has when he asks (in “The Defense of Poesy,” 1595), “Who reads Aeneas carrying old Anchises on his back that wishes not it was his fortune to perform such an excellent act?” Thrill to this picture of filial piety in the Aeneid and you will yourself become devoted to your father. Admire the selfless act with which Sidney Carton ends his life in “A Tale of Two Cities” and you will be moved to prefer the happiness of others to your own. Watch with horror what happens to Faust and you will be less likely to sell your soul. Understand Kant’s categorical imperative and you will not impose restrictions on others that you would resist if they were imposed on you.

It’s a pretty idea, but there is no evidence to support it and a lot of evidence against it. If it were true, the most generous, patient, good-hearted and honest people on earth would be the members of literature and philosophy departments, who spend every waking hour with great books and great thoughts, and as someone who’s been there (for 45 years) I can tell you it just isn’t so. Teachers and students of literature and philosophy don’t learn how to be good and wise; they learn how to analyze literary effects and to distinguish between different accounts of the foundations of knowledge. The texts Kronman recommends are, as he says, concerned with the meaning of life; those who study them, however, come away not with a life made newly meaningful, but with a disciplinary knowledge newly enlarged.

sunday short stack

"In a real dark night of the soul it is always three o'clock in the morning, day after day."
- F. Scott Fitzgerald

• Earlier this week, a boy saved his mother from an assailant by attacking him with a light saber.
• I would have to make it to the age of 130 to claim that I'd lived in three centuries - like these people.
• András Szántó on MOCA's Takashi Murakami exhibit: "A savvy cultural investigation into the relationship of art and commerce? Or just another way to sell a handbag?"
• How do you write?
• David Markland pointed out something I hadn't realized when it happened - for the first time in my life, the high-pitched squeal was not only a test.
• The Decapitator wreaks havoc on the billboards of London.
• I'm going to slap these [citation needed] stickers on my students' papers.
• The Wire goes meta.
• Barbara Ehrenreich takes on the Disney princesses.
• Slideshow: The presidential candidates pose with Mr. Potato Head.
• WFMU has a fascinating profile of "eccentric musician, composer and bandleader. . .Milton Delugg."
• Ed returns all shiny and new.

your nose needs some corrections

In a post over at The Millions listing their most popular entries ever, I was introduced to this handy guide: Hard to Pronounce Literary Names (Redux). All I really needed was that Simpsons episode where Mo becomes a poet, and Michael Chabon has a fan in the crowd at "Wordloaf" who yells "SHEA! BON!" at a crucial supportive moment.

correlations between dieting & increased food blogging

Follow the beautiful food photos at TasteSpotting to the yummy recipes beneath, such as panna cotta with an orange-clementine twist (above), Viennese cucumber salad, and a goat cheese and shallot tart.

I wish I were special

Who knew Radiohead's "Creep" was an animated baguette-shaped office drone? In retrospect, I suppose I could have guessed.

strung out on science fiction

The Gawker empire has launched another new site - this one focused on science fiction, of all things: io9. (Its official launch date is today, but it has archives going back to September.) I was a little skeptical as to whether I'm the intended audience when the main categories on the front page included books, movies, science, and Hayden Panettiere. Subsequent page clicks, however, replaced Hayden with categories like Photography, Must Read, and Space Porn. Annalee Newitz tops its masthead.

it's a new dawn it's a new day it's a new life

Oh, how I wish I could post a video of Nina Simone singing "Feeling Good" live, but sadly, I have to settle for Muse: