Episteme

Ending something hot and steamy is never quite as easy as slamming the door in the face of an ugly stalker. But what if the former becomes the latter?

For a case in point, go to Graham Greene's 1951 classic, The end of the Affair. You'll understand why Julianne Moore and Ralph Fiennes were psyched to play this lurid drama on the big screen, and you might even identify with parts of it if you have ever been through a terrible breakup.

Maurice Bendrix is obsessed with Sara Miles, who is the wife of Henry Miles, a civil servant. Maurice and Sarah have a history together - they enjoyed a long affair, including having sex in the married couple's house when Henry was there and actually walked right by the door. So they got pretty obvious at times and of course the loser husband ended up finding out.

Continue reading "The End of the Affair" »

Posted by Kim at 09:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I just read this very exciting, very cheesy novel by Alice Hoffman, called Second Nature. The only problem is it's about a man who was raised by wolves, which I doubt could ever happen. Going back to the issue of fact versus fiction, don't you kind of like fiction that might be real, even if you know it's not? Isn't that kind of the point, so that the voluntary suspension of disbelief isn't quite so difficult?

Well, my best answer is that if there is sex, murder, and a psychiatric hospital involved, you make the effort to suspend whatever it is until you're done with the book. Hoffman is a good enough writer to make you think, who knows, maybe a man could be raised by wolves. Maybe if he was young enough when he fell from a plane in northern Michigan and was the only survivor, he could nurse from a female wolf with other pups and basically learn wolf language. Maybe he could learn to run really, really fast and kill things with a sharpened stone to make up for his lack of fangs. Maybe they would accept him even though he looked different, because his nature was able to change, in the sense that all his former human knowledge got suppressed and he gave himself over to this other set of knowledge, like how to track and kill.

Continue reading "What qualifies as cheese, and is there anything wrong with that?" »

Posted by Kim at 01:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I am officially reading again, which makes me wonder -- does it make you dumb not to read, or when you don't do it are you just more in the present, for better or worse, more involved in the day-to-day problems of work, getting from here to there, cooking and cleaning, and the like?

Whatever brought me to it and whatever it brought me, I enjoyed the time I spent reading Falconer, by John Cheever. Even though I am technically supposed to be educated, I often don't enjoy reading. I have trouble getting absorbed in it, even long enough to finish a news or magazine article, but I was done with this in just a few days. I was kind of avoiding it because it feels like a guy book that I wouldn't be able to get into, but the characters are fascinating, mainly I think because Cheever is able to span the range between the syntax and experiences of the elite just as well as that of the guy who murdered his wife in cold blood because she looked at him the wrong way. Farragut is a mixture of the two - just as in the Call of the Wild, where the dog goes from pampered and proud to a being of instinct, he finds himself able to blend in with the prison crowd, even if he's always thinking about skiing and fancy dinners.

Continue reading "Locked inside for what you did" »

Posted by Kim at 05:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So my not-so-noticeable absence can be explained by one word: disruption. I've just been disrupted the last few weeks and as I sit on my bed now looking around a room half in boxes, I realize I'm almost through it. Almost.

But I haven't stopped wondering about things, which brings me to my primary point: terrorism. I don't really understand what goes through the minds of people who want to kill bystanders and threaten the fabric of free societies, so I won't guess. I do know when I board a plane headed to Europe next weekend, I won't be able to bring any liquids me with as a consequence. It's going to be a wonderful vacation, one I've worked hard for almost a year to pay for, but nonetheless, I am - as all airline passengers are - in the drag net of terrorism. And that makes it seem a little less joyous or maybe it should be even more so. But really, I'm going to drink beer and see friends, nothing else. I'll let you know when I get back.

Continue reading "The Bigger Threat Is Us" »

Posted by Dawn at 02:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Why does she have to die?
Why does Strindberg reveal both her and her lover to have millions of contradictions, to be attracted to one another and repulsed at the same time, so that the only relationship they can have is sexual?
Why is Julie so fascinated with desceding from the tower of privilege into which she was born?
It becomes so clear that she had no idea what she was getting into. The craziest scene is when they are about to flee together and her lover starts screaming at her when she brings her pet bird in a cage and tells her she has to kill it. That's when the whole thing gets serious, when she realizes that by trying to cross class boundaries she is playing with fire. The only reason she felt courageous enough to do it was because of her n aivete, and the rest of the servants in the house only think worse of her for halfheartedly trying to mingle their ranks while maintaining her air of superiority.

Continue reading "Miss Julie" »

Posted by Kim at 06:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Neruda's Canto General to me is like another creation story, almost a religious document. It outlines the creation of the world, humanity, then on through the indigenous civilizations of Latin America, up to the exploitation of these people by the Europeans and later, by the United States. It begins with creation and expands to encompass the world, but ends, significantly, with the self, with an autobiographical poem called "Yo Soy." This is worth linking with the Popol Vuh Creation story and thus with Genesis, and not at all in a sacreligious way. It's humanity's interpretaion of why we are here, what it all means. And if you notice, it all starts with water, the essence of life.

I'm going to start at the beginning of the song...

Continue reading "Another take on creation" »

Posted by Kim at 07:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Matamos lo que amamos.

We kill what we love. What the hell does that mean? Have you ever hurt someone you love? Have you ever done something because you know it's right, even though it makes you feel like you are the most selfish person who ever walked the planet? Have you ever bitten the bullet and decided that your highest responsibility is to yourself?

Continue reading "Love and death" »

Posted by Kim at 07:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Jane Jacobs died this week while I was in the middle of The Death and Life of Great American Cities. I saw her give a lecture at the Herbst Theater in San Francisco little more than a year ago. If I had read her book(s) at the time, I probably would remember more of what she said, but I do remember is how she got into writing, urban planning and journalism: all by accident. She loved New York City, what made it New York City, at a time when the great experiment of suburbanism was getting underway and people were evacuating cities as though to escape pestilence.

Continue reading "Death of Cities, Death of Jane " »

Posted by Dawn at 12:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

For Neruda, the identity of the poet expands to encompass all the world. That positioning of the poetic I is one of the things that gives his poetry the rhythm and reach that it has, seeming to unify the entire world under one blanket of beauty, pain and philosophy. In "Yo voy a vivir" (1949), one of the last poems in Neruda's great work, Canto General, he speaks of living on as a part of humanity.

"Yo no voy a morirme. Salgo ahora,
en este dia lleno de volcanes
hacia la multitud, hacia la vida." (lines 1-3)

Continue reading "Immortality" »

Posted by Kim at 06:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

One of the first hings that I did when I came to Mexico City was to buy a few books. As much as I would like to say that I set out to find them, it would be more accurate to say that they found me. I was looking for an apartment, and on the way back to my hotel I noticed a little hole in the wall where used books were sold. There was a man with wire rimmed glasses and leathery skin behind the counter, which was little more than a plank across a corner of the store, where he sat surrounded on either side by towering stacks of dark, dusty books. There was history, there was art, there was travel, and of course there was literature. I told the man that I wanted to get to know Mexican literature while I was here, but I didn't know where to start. He gave me Los de abajo, by Mariano Azuela, and said "Start here."

Continue reading "Los de Abajo" »

Posted by Kim at 06:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

What I was alluding to yesterday with Reinhold Niebuhr is his book The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness. I had never thought of WWII in terms of original sin and the implications it has had on human behavior throughout history. So Niebhur is writing this in 1944, when things in Europe are bad, to say the least (makes me think of Europe Central), and Neibuhr being a Protestant scholar and preacher, looks at what is engulfing Europe in terms of "universal good" and "universal law."

Continue reading "Children of Light and Darkness" »

Posted by Dawn at 09:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)