Category Archives: Uncategorized

Beans, Moms, Hockey

Posted on July 14, 2010 by Francois Lachance

A tasty bit from a review with a long title about a book with a long title. But then I am reminded of my friend — the one whose nose fills with the smell of beans whenever she hears that … Continue reading →

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Pun Punch

Posted on July 9, 2010 by Francois Lachance

It begins to rain and Timothy Findley at the end of the title story in The Ark in the Garden (edited by Alberto Manguel) turns the reader’s mind to the moral of the story with a twist on the popular … Continue reading →

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Fail Again. Fail Better.

Posted on July 8, 2010 by Francois Lachance

We begin once more with Epicurus from the Vatican sayings (so-called because of the location of the manuscript). [Translated by Russel M. Geer] In a philosophical dispute, he gains most who is defeated, since he learns most. And with the … Continue reading →

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gluk glak gleek

Posted on July 7, 2010 by Francois Lachance

Anthony Burgess on the semantic and sonorous creativity of James Joyce (Joysprick: An Introduction to the Language of James Joyce) and its limitations (as poetry) A mark of Joyce’s genius was to recognise the smallness of his poetic talent and … Continue reading →

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Chained to Change

Posted on July 5, 2010 by Francois Lachance

I was reading an entry at jill/txt about generations to come. “Can you imagine that the world will change?” broaches the topic of a “future deficit” and the consequences of the “broad present” [Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht. The Broad Present: Time … Continue reading →

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Infinity Interrupted

Posted on July 1, 2010 by Francois Lachance

Out of Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi a passage describing the blockages. It is interesting to note that these two societal obstacles to flow, anomie and alienation, are functionally equivalent to the two personal pathologies, attentional … Continue reading →

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Floral Gender-Bending

Posted on June 27, 2010 by Francois Lachance

Vita Sackville-West. Some Flowers. Plates by Graham Rust. The entry on Tulipa Clusiana, the Lady Tulip, ends […] the slim little Lady Tulip who is more like a boy. which recalls the beginning She is familiarly called the Lady Tulip, … Continue reading →

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Dual Duels

Posted on June 25, 2010 by Francois Lachance

Would that English have a nice dual that was not first person plural which collapses the difference of the two (or more) into a collective identity. Even if there were a lexical means for referencing a dual, the verb inflexions … Continue reading →

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Tracing Spacing

Posted on June 23, 2010 by Francois Lachance

Who is GS whose initials are in tiny type at the base of this poem in praise of the American sculptor Louise Nevelson? The title and dedication are made of bunched up letters and subsequent letters rain down in lines … Continue reading →

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It’s spelt c-a-p-i-s-c-e, capeesh?

Posted on June 22, 2010 by Francois Lachance

I was seized of the Italian origins of “capisce” when I recently encountered it in print. Throughout my years on earth I had thoroughly thought of it as a proper English expression with Anglo-Saxon roots for “do you understand?” http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/capisce … Continue reading →

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