Category Archives: Uncategorized

On Bait

Posted on February 25, 2009 by Francois Lachance

I like how the quest for appreciation takes shape in this remark from James Merrill. I can imagine the archness in the voice (Unfortunately I only have the print booklet from the Random House AudioBooks volume in the series “The … Continue reading →

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Spirit-Made Flesh

Posted on February 24, 2009 by Francois Lachance

Edmund White City Boy on Balanchine and the art of choreography: In a quite different way I suppose he was showing us how the supreme manifestations of the mind require sweat and muscles, how the spatial and temporal meditations of … Continue reading →

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Details

Posted on February 23, 2009 by Francois Lachance

Taking this celebration of the interesting bits as an injunction to pay attention to details, I lifted it out of the specific context of not concentrating “either exclusively or primarily on those points that appear to be the most ‘important,’ … Continue reading →

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Blinkers

Posted on February 22, 2009 by Francois Lachance

The epigraph to Rabih Alameddine Koolaids: The Art of War I wonder if being sane means disregarding the chaos of life pretending only an infinitesimal segment of it is reality. Of course compulsively obsessing about a segment is a form … Continue reading →

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Weather Watching

Posted on February 21, 2009 by Francois Lachance

The characters in Jane Austen’s novels are susceptible to changes in the weather. Indeed, their ability to read the weather or talk about the weather proves important in plotting. Two examples. Take Marianne’s proclivity for bracing walks hampered in Sense … Continue reading →

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Taking the Call

Posted on February 20, 2009 by Francois Lachance

A character in Koolaids: The Art of War by Rabih Alameddine has a glorious rant about cellphone use. I suspect, and hope, that the phenomenon it lambasts is peculiar to a specific time and that courteous behaviour reigns in public … Continue reading →

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Special Spoiler

Posted on February 16, 2009 by Francois Lachance

Sometimes one reads the after-word or the note before completing the parts that come first. Sometimes what we read afterward reverberates. For example, the simple statement: Some sources contend that the war ended differently. Once you’ve read the book, this … Continue reading →

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Awe, Piety and the Contingent

Posted on February 15, 2009 by Francois Lachance

Like three embers there are three passages in Ursula K. Le Guin’s Lavinia that touch upon the theme of awe. The first puts the word in the ambit of the notion of piety and refers to a receptiveness. Lavinia, our … Continue reading →

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Wit and Wisdom

Posted on February 11, 2009 by Francois Lachance

The alimentary is elementary in this take on chewing on it by Northrop Frye. [A]n open mind, to be sure, should be open at both ends, like the foodpipe, and have a capacity for excretion as well as intake. from … Continue reading →

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Garden Inhabitants

Posted on February 10, 2009 by Francois Lachance

I like how the tricolon trips up on the enjambement. Then all our goblins would turn out to be elves, Our vampires guides, our demons angels In that garden. Lines from Ted Hughes “Stubbing Wharfe” in Birthday Letters. I like … Continue reading →

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