John Holbo

Anne Applebaum on ‘the literary divide’ between highbrow and pop culture (via A&L Daily). Does this sound right to you?

Popular culture now hates high culture so much that it campaigns aggressively against it. High culture now fears popular culture so much that it insulates itself deliberately from it.

Surely wrong on both counts. Chat amongst yourselves.

Our first text for tonight comes from Lionel Trilling’s “Manners, Morals, and the Novel”, delivered in 1947 at Kenyon College and available in your local copy of The Liberal Imagination. The great man had been instructed to inform about ‘manners in relation to the novel’. Here he indicates the proportions of his subject, making points that have all been made before, no doubt, but making them exceedingly well and elegantly:

[click to continue…]

Via scribblingwoman, who heard it from Maud, this is indeed a beguiling pastime.

Here are my hasty contributions:

[click to continue…]

When a man writes a perfectly good Derrida parody about blogging – and when that man has but two comments to reward his clownish labors a week on – that is not justice. By the powers of Crooked Timber, I call on you to tell Adam he is a very funny fellow.

Is this thing on? OK this question is really more of a digression. The Poor Man’s proposed Bush reelection ad raised a lot of hackles … and a lot of questions. Specifically, I have long known that the English – perhaps all denizens of Great Britain and (some) former British colonies? – use the phrase ‘big girl’s blouse’ in a derogatory manner. But I don’t know how to pronounce it. I don’t know where the stress should fall. Presumably on the element that makes the item of apparel self-evidently bad. But I am afraid my moral intuitions fail me on this point. Is it bad to be a girl, or a BIG girl (hence the blouse is only bad by metonymic association); or is it bad to be a blouse, or a BIG blouse, or a big GIRL’S blouse, or a BIG GIRL’S blouse, or all of these at once? (In which case the stress would naturally fall evenly on all three elements?)

It all just goes to show that English is a tonal language. All answers should be formulated, likewise, as digressions.

UPDATE: Woah. I posted this thing after Kieran and Quiggin posted theirs, but here it is underneath. That’s time zones for you, I guess.

Tom Smith is playing Socrates to my sophistical Polus, if I make no mistake:

Polus: What? May I not speak at what length I please?

Socrates: It would indeed be hard on you, my good friend, if, on coming to Athens, the one spot in Greece where there is the utmost freedom of speech, you alone should be denied it. But look at my side. Would it not be hard on me also, if I may not go away and refuse to listen, when you speak at length and will not answer the question. (Gorgias, 461e)

But then I cannot for the life of me think why Smith does not simply refuse to listen. Perhaps he hereby sets a cunning, socratic riddle for me to solve. He feels I have not answered the question.

Another bite at the ‘conservatives in academe’ apple it is, then. Yes, it has been nibbled by everyone, right down to the core. (Especially liked Harry’s post.) But the core is interesting.

[click to continue…]

Isaiah Berlin’s “Two Concepts of Liberty” contains a sentence fragment, which, in context, constitutes an answer to some such question as ‘what are we on about, eh?’ Typed it in today, and had occasion to consult MS-Word about spelling overall. And no way to do that without getting two-cents worth about grammar. So what do you suppose the Beast of Redmond thinks we should do about “That which a man cannot give up without offending against the essence of his human nature”? Answer: “consider revising.”

When philosophy of language attacks!

Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this Constitution or the constitution of any State, nor state or federal law, shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups.

So much not to like. Yet our outrage is such – and rightly so – that we may flail about to find yet more holes through which to vent. Yesterday folks were pointing out that the proposed FMA would be the first amendment to exclude, rather than include – if you see what I mean. Thought about adding my voice to that choir. Then: nah, people are sinful. Ergo, someone proposed an amendment back in the 19th century that never made the cut but was way worse. We’ll read about it in the blogs tomorrow. And Jack Balkin does not disappoint. And, since President Buchanan is somewhere in Belle ‘Bucky’ Waring’s family tree (great, great, great grand-second-uncle or something?) – it’s all in the family. She’s not a direct descendant, mind you, because Buchanan never, erm, married. Ahem: “Buchanan’s long-time living companion, William Rufus King, was referred to by critics as his “better half,” “his wife,” and “Aunt Fancy”.”

But I digress.

I would be curious to know whether Bush can legitimately be deprived of this laurel: first sitting President to support a Constitutional amendment without knowing – hence without caring – what it says.

[click to continue…]

With great power comes a little responsibility. As guest timberwossname, I inform you the best lit/film/culture online journal is Pseudopodium – formerly, Bellona Times. I wandered in one night by accident, while making my drunken way home. Well, it felt more like I fell through the roof, as Indiana Jones might find himself suddenly amongst the treasures of an ancient temple. For, you see, it’s one of those serially updated personal sites/online journals that goes back so far that it’s … older than blogging. Damn, you think, running a fingertrack through the dusty HTML. Place is old. 1999; 1997, even. Crap, some of this stuff was written in 1990. Frankly, it spooked me how good – smart and winning and heartfelt and erudite. Hazlitt and Howard Hawks, Nicholas Ray and Ruskin. I felt about uncertainly in this marvelous terrain, then with increasing delight; finally I was cramming my pockets with treasure to call my own ever after. I have returned regularly and very lately entered into edifying correspondence with its ten-times admirable demiurge, Ray Davis.

Now go and don’t come back until you have read for an hour. I could tell you which are my favorites, but I want you to have your own, that you found yourself.

Here’s the song that gave my title. Hope Ray doesn’t mind me provoking you all to strain his bandwidth.

UPDATE: Just to explain the joke, the connection between the two is, via the world, ‘with a kick to it’.

Thanks, Henry. I am delighted to be here – and … and I’d just like to thank all the little people who made it possible, such as myself, and everyone else, and God.

I guess – since you’ve got a back button – I’ll say a few words about John & Belle’s place in the history of the blogosphere, the true meaning of blogging, etc.

[click to continue…]