Bookstores always remind me that there are good things in this world.
~ Vincent Van Gogh
On Henry James - Just say it, Henry
This is too good -- from the LRB:
"Imagine a typical Jamesian plot (or imbroglio as he preferred to call it, ‘plot’ being a ‘nefarious name’): an innocent American comes to Europe and is befriended by a Europeanised American and an older European woman (almost certainly a contessa or a princess, but titles are optional).
The innocent American falls half or three-quarters in love with the contessa, and/or a shade homoerotically with the Europeanised American, or with the relationship between the two. Much conversation follows, and much ‘flirtation’ as we might be tempted to call it, in which the American is ‘seduced’ (culturally) by his hosts and maybe wants to be ‘seduced’ (physically) by the ambient culture. (Are you noticing all these adverbs and inverted commas, by the way?)
Then the American sees the contessa with the Europeanised American arm in arm in the park or, perhaps, in the Soane Museum, when they have said they will be elsewhere. And at this point the climax of the Jamesian imbroglio occurs, a point of recognition at which a more vulgar author might have the Innocent American exclaim: ‘OMG.
They’re fucking?’ At that moment the ‘centre’ does not hold, realising as it does that what it had admiringly thought to be the case is, ‘really’, not the case at all. James talks of the ‘original grossness of readers’.
But there is an ‘original grossness’ at the heart of most of his exquisite fables: there is a thing going on, and probably a dirty thing, that the people in the fiction won’t or can’t see because their window is smeary or they are looking in the wrong direction."
The parable of the good Samaritan directly shows that Jesus was talking about non-family and people of different races. He was including everyone. Prostitutes, tax collectors, etc.
Trump: “In Springfield (Ohio), they’re eating the dogs, the people that came in, they’re eating the cats. They’re eating, they’re eating the pets of the people that live there.”
False.
Well, I don’t know how I missed this, but the fantastic HBO series My Brilliant Friend is back for its fourth and final season. The series is based on Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels and this season covers the events of the fourth book, The Story of the Lost Child.
I love My Brilliant Friend — it’s one of my all-time favorites and might be the best show you’re not watching. I agree completely with Clare Thorp’s description of it as “criminally underrated”.
As the trailer above shows, the previous two lead actors (who were excellent) have been replaced by older ones, a change I’m a little apprehensive about, but everything else about the show has been pitch perfect so I’m gonna trust the process. From an NPR pieceon the new season:
“This child is you, when you were a child,” Maiorino recalled her friend Alessia saying about the novel’s titular protagonist and sometimes antagonist Lila. Like Lila and her friend Lenù, Maiorino is from Naples and stayed in the south, while her friend left to study in the north of the country, get married and have children.
Art has now truly imitated life for Maiorino, who plays Lila in the fourth season of the series.
New episodes of My Brilliant Friend started airing on HBO last night and will drop every Monday for the next 10 weeks. Go check it out!
Cats like to play fetch like dogs. The game is rooted in both species’ hunting instincts PBS
Dogs can remember names of toys years after not seeing them, study shows Guardian
The pet-brain effect: How cats and dogs can save you from cognitive decline BBC
Sort out your life - The Guardian – 100 tiny tricks to help with everything from digital overwhelm to lumpy sugar and unpaid bills – “However distant our schooldays, the start of the academic year makes everyone want to turn over a new leaf, to work harder and smarter; to be better.
None of us has no the whole answer but everyone has a tiny thing that works for them, and this list is based on the hope that some of those tiny things might work for others too. I asked busy people, organised people, parents, experts and Guardian readers about the one thing they do that makes them feel marginally more on top of everything.
Against the Corporate Media: Forty-two Ways the Press Hates You.
You can read an excerpt from my chapter here. (Bumped).
UPDATE (From Ed): Author: No Difference Between Comedians, Entertainers and Journalists. Political strategist Liz Sheld torches ‘Corporate Media’ in essential new book.