Helveticat!

Happy April Fool's Day!

Now for something silly and adorable, and in the vein of my previous post about typography...

HELVETICAT!

http://www.swiss-miss.com/2013/04/helveticat.html

It's possibly the cutest typeface I've ever encountered. (I mean, cats!) It doesn't appear to be available for download, unfortunately. (I would be willing to pay for that. I would! My friends would get annoyed with me pretty quickly, but it would be worth it for the sheer joy of sending entire e-mails full of cat cartoons.)

Recovering the Doves Type

If you're a bibliophile like I am, you might have noticed that the endpapers of hardcover editions usually include a note about the typefaces used in the book. (For a more general layman's overview of the history of typography, I recommend the book Just My Type by Simon Garfield.) While the origin stories of typefaces might seem a relatively dry topic, they sometimes make for fascinating tales of adventure and intrigue. To wit, that of the Doves Type, one of the most influential typefaces of the past couple of centuries:

http://creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2015/february/recovering-the-doves-type

The improbable saga of their recovery seems like something straight out of a Sherlock Holmes novel! (If compelled to choose one, I'd compare it to The Sign of the Four.)  But it's the ending that strikes me; after such a journey, the "treasure hunter" and type designer Robert Green notes that he'll never sell the portion of the typeface that he kept for himself, saying, "It’s too precious. I feel very attached to it now I’ve retraced Cobden-Sanderson’s steps and stood on that very same spot of the bridge." I can sympathize with a sentimental attachment to a piece of history that becomes an obsession! It's fundamentally human to assign value to artifacts of culture, even those that seem a small and incidental portion of a more significant work.

A Day in the Life of a Squirrel: a Photoshoot

Another interesting piece on animals! This time, it's squirrels:

http://www.incrediblethings.com/pets/a-day-in-the-life-of-a-squirrel/

I'm amazed that the photographer managed to get the squirrels into human-like positions, especially since none of the squirrels appear to be specially trained. It's all a matter of clever set and nut placement, apparently! I never would have guessed that squirrels' faces, with their limited range of motion, could be so oddly expressive.

I'm reminded of the Redwall series, which I read religiously as a kid. (I still own every book in that series.) There were essentially two or three plotlines in the entire series, rehashed over and over with different lovable woodland critters, different riddles, and slight changes in scenery -- but as a child, I didn't really notice, and I devoured them all the same. The photo series calls to mind the cover art on those books, which all featured rodents and other small mammals in human-like poses, wearing clothes and brandishing weapons. One wonders if the art department ever considered using photographed rather than illustrated covers -- would they have looked too silly?

Advice on Life, Creativity, and Making Meaning, from the Creator of Calvin and Hobbes

I'll be the first to admit that I'm not as well-versed in the iconic comic Calvin and Hobbes as I should be. What little I've seen of it has moved me, and I mean to read more, truly. Bill Watterson is a rare talent. And he gives some pretty inspiring advice, too, both for creatives and for everyone else:

http://www.fastcodesign.com/3027095/4-tips-on-creativity-from-the-creator-of-calvin-hobbes

The four maxims Watterson presents are by no means comprehensive, but they do form a solid foundation for a creative life. And, even though it's clear from context that he uses "creative" to mean "artistic," I believe his advice holds true for any field involving passion and productivity, which is most of them.

Essentially, it boils down to: "Do something you love (no field is too small or esoteric), stay true to your vision, and give it 110%." Sensible for anyone, but especially for creatives who face a long, risky, uphill battle with no surety of success and with little but their own belief to light their way. It's true of artists, entrepreneurs, and innovators of all stripes -- one hopes to have the cultural impact Watterson did.

And then there's this, which was illustrated by Gavin Aung Than of Zen Pencils:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2013/08/27/bill_watterson_s_cartoonist_s_advice_in_comic_form_by_zen_pencils_aka_gavin.html

In its narrowest reading, this graphic interpretation of Watterson's words vindicates stay-at-home parenting -- for either gender. While challenging normative views of masculinity and patriarchy is daring and important, it isn't quite innovative today. Rather, the broader readings of this comic are more interesting: in a society where status -- as defined by a widely accepted slate of value judgments -- is in part determined by income and prestige of employment, Watterson and Than assert that one can viably choose not to take part in that hierarchy (or at least, choose to ignore it). If your idea of meaning and fulfillment cannot be met within the traditional system, it's legitimate to create your own. You shouldn't let society influence or shame you into pursuing a traditional path towards conventional markers of success.

It's an almost Thoreauvian way of living -- not necessarily the most practical or accessible, but a worthy goal nonetheless.

The Most Beautiful Route from A to B

This is such a refreshing idea!

http://www.technologyreview.com/view/528836/forget-the-shortest-route-across-a-city-new-algorithm-finds-the-most-beautiful

It's a navigation app, much like Google Maps, but it takes users on the scenic route -- a welcome change.

I'll first caveat that for the most part, efficiency is a very good thing. When it comes to governments, corporations, public transportation -- it behooves the administrators to optimize for efficiency. But when it comes to the individual, there are many situations when one misses opportunities and inspiration by taking the most conventionally efficient route.

As a New Yorker, I'm the first to acknowledge that some of our subway stations, for example, are not up to scratch when compared with those in other cities. But there's an uncommon beauty to some of the cityscapes I've had the fortune to encounter in my years here. This is a view of an approaching train coming down the tracks, on a typical subway platform in the city:

And this is an evening view of the iconic Flatiron Building:

I'm a believer in stopping to smell the roses once in a while. I've had some of my best ideas while walking alone through the city, or people-watching from the window of a café, or even in a hot shower on a cold day. I find that beauty begets beauty, just as cunning design or sound judgment often prompts the same. The benefits of walking in beauty are often unseen and manifest subtly, so such pursuits are overlooked in the bustle of our lives. It's a shame, and I hope this algorithm helps users inject a little colour into their lives.

Future Library (Margaret Atwood, Denizen #1)

A library is growing in Norway.

The Future Library is a time-capsule project, of sorts. A thousand trees were planted in a Norwegian forest this summer, to be harvested in a century's time. Every year until the day of the reaping, a different author will be invited to contribute a story to this library. The catch? The story will remain unread until these trees are made into the paper on which these works will be printed. The writers who contribute towards the beginning of the century won't likely live to see their books published. And that's sort of the point. In a hundred years, none of the originators of the project will be around to see its completion.

It'll be interesting to see what authors end up participating. It takes a certain sort of writer to produce a work that will likely be published posthumously, and to be happy with having completed it, without any notion of where it might stand in public opinion or among literary critics. It's fitting that the first contributor to the Future Library is Margaret Atwood; a science fiction writer is likely to agree with the notion of art as time capsule for future generations.

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/sep/05/margaret-atwood-new-work-unseen-century-future-library

Her story about the "lost" Haida manuscript in the above Guardian article is particularly apt. Who knows how language might change in a century? We certainly think differently than our ancestors did in the early 1900s. We find references to iceboxes and horse-drawn carriages archaic, for example, and there are many words that have disappeared from common usage in the past hundred years. It begs the question of whether authors who are consciously writing for the future, without the preconditions of a contemporary readership, would choose to write differently. To what extent, after all, does art demand and audience?

I am reminded (as I often am) of the Percy Shelley poem "Ozymandias," as well as of Faulkner's Nobel acceptance speech. The Future Library seems simultaneously an endeavour without ego and perhaps the greatest projection of self-preservation instinct an author can have.

I suppose we'll have to wait and see.

Surrealist Street Artist Inspires in Tehran

I've always enjoyed public art, from mosaics in subway stations to murals in parks. It lends spaces a sense of personality, shaped by the people who interact with the architecture around them as much as by the planners and architects who first conceived them. It makes a place look truly inhabited and a structure look alive, more so than a form designed purely for unobtrusive function would otherwise be.

Of course, there's often a more specific message behind public art -- the very nature of the beast lends itself to political and social expression. One might expect that public art in fraught environments would be more message-driven (even though the risk to artists is correspondingly higher). One often forgets that beauty, with no ulterior motive, can be a message in itself:

http://www.policymic.com/articles/90589/an-iranian-artist-is-beautifying-tehran-with-surreal-street-art

I hope this artist continues to create and inspire.

R.I.P. Rizzoli Bookstore

As the bibliophiles and New Yorkers among my readers might have heard, the city's iconic Rizzoli Bookstore is being evicted from its iconic Midtown premises, to be replaced by a luxury high-rise. Despite petitions and protests, this historic location was denied landmark status on a pure technicality; the bookstore is housed in what used to be a piano showroom, with vaulted ceilings and massive cast-iron chandeliers that make visitors feel as though they've stepped into the pages of history. (Appropriately, Rizzoli is known for its stock of art books.) Today was the store's last day in business, and it feels a bit like the end of an era.

There's been an outpouring of grief and outrage on the internet, unsurprisingly. One of the most moving  and articulate pieces about Rizzoli is this rather personal New Yorker article by Jon Michaud:

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2014/01/rizzoli-and-selling-books-to-madonna

It recalls an almost Gatsby-esque old New York, doesn't it? (And of course, the pictures are stunning.) I love the idea -- and it's more than a mere idea -- of a bookstore as the sort of village that raises exemplary young adults. It seems to be a recurring theme both in literature (Christopher Morley and, more recently, Robin Sloan come to mind) and in real life, and it saddens me to think that such an education might no longer be available to coming generations.

I will have more thoughts on this later, I'm sure. For now, though, allow me to wallow.

Three Minute Photoshop Makeover, the Music Video

I've watched this video a few times this week, in part because the music is catchy, but mostly because its message is powerful:



http://www.policymic.com/articles/79585/watch-this-woman-get-a-complete-photoshop-makeover-in-3-minutes-flat

Body image, especially that of young women, has become increasingly prominent in our social discourse over the past decade or so. There's been, at one end, greater awareness of eating disorders and related insecurities; on the other end, there's been significantly wider recognition of this country's obesity problem. The former is often associated with standards of beauty as dictated by media and peer interaction, while the latter is often a consequence of economics and the vulnerability of children who don't know any better than to consume what appeals to them in the short term (and the adults who were raised that way).

This video deals with the former problem -- that of media perpetuating impossibly exacting ideals, which millions of young women attempt to imitate in real life, without the aid of Photoshop. While a proportion of the changes depicted can be accomplished with cosmetics, other changes, such as altering the symmetry of the singer's face, is not something that women can physically achieve. And while humans are instinctively more attracted to symmetrical faces with higher contrast, one cannot expect a mathematical level of symmetry in our natural, imperfect bodies.

We are visual creatures. When introduced to a pair of images, we all have opinions as to which one we find more aesthetically pleasing. But we, through millennia of civilization and progress, are more than our basest instincts, more than our visceral reactions. We are rational and more evolved creatures who value each other for qualities greater than appearance. While it makes sense for us to make reasonable attempts to look pleasing to others, our society now has the tools with which to project images that are unreasonable to imitate. The crucial part here, then, is to ensure that we all recognize that it would be unreasonable to expect each other, and ourselves, to look like that.

We are none of us aesthetic ideals. Even models, actors, beauty queens -- even those we have collectively deemed the most attractive specimens of our species -- have their own insecurities. We must learn, in our most vulnerable and susceptible years, that we are valued not for how closely we conform to our society's standards of beauty, but rather, for our contributions in areas deeper and more within our power to shape. In appearances, we are limited by genetics, by environment, by the hand we are dealt. In what lies beneath, we are bound by fewer and less arbitrary constraints.

Moreover, we cannot take it with us. At the end of the day, it's all transport. We keep the engine primed and the moving parts oiled so that we might achieve more, and live more happily, in our time. The parts of us that are not flesh -- these comprise what we have made of ourselves.

On another note: this video is a testament to the power of activist art. Slogans and speeches will only get us so far, after all. In order to effect change, people must want the change themselves -- and one of the most effective ways to influence somebody's viewpoint is by creating empathy and emotional connection. As much as I believe in solving problems rationally and logically, there are many situations where the visceral reaction evoked by imagery is a more powerful motivator. As Lincoln famously said to Harriet Beecher Stowe, "so you are the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war!"

Eleanor Catton on Literary Elitism, Some Thoughts

I recently read this year's Man Booker Prize winner, The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton. It's a sprawling epic of a mystery novel set in Australia during the gold rush, and brings together a large cast of close third-person characters. It's tremendously ambitious and very well-written, though to me, it seems a little "constructed" -- in large part due to the constraints of its narrative structure, which assigns each of the viewpoint characters an astrological symbol, and bases each chapter on an astrological interaction.

I then found this article that Catton wrote on elitism within the literary community -- a topic I've discussed quite a few times with people in the publishing industry, with fellow English majors, and with people who are enthusiastic readers but not involved with such communities:

http://metromag.co.nz/metro-archive/eleanor-catton-on-literature-and-elitism

Catton writes eloquently on the subject of literary criticism, and the idea of critics and qualified tastemakers in general. Her biases are, of course, obvious: she's the winner of a major literary prize, and a product of the MFA (Master of Fine Arts) system, which teaches what is considered serious literature.  (I have some of my own pet peeves with that school of thought, one of which is their rather rigid definition of what might be considered "serious literature" -- often snubbing genre fiction of equal quality -- but that's neither here nor there.)

Biases aside, Catton makes some excellent points. There is a difference between quality as discerned by a critic -- presumably someone well-educated and qualified specifically for the role -- and enjoyableness as experienced by the lay reader. That's part of the value of a degree in literature, after all: the ability to recognize quality and to critique. (That's not to say that only English majors are qualified to write novels, or that all novels are written by English majors -- it's merely that, statistically speaking, such an education is more likely to confer the necessary skills.) Also, it's less a matter of creation as it is of appreciation. There's always a context, an artistic tradition, in which a work of art is produced, and it's a critic's job to bring her knowledge of said context to bear when judging the merits of the piece. In the case of prizes, that's especially true: the only way to evaluate a novel as "better" or "worse" than any other novel, given the subjectivity of the reading experience, is to view it in the context of greatness, meaning, and technical mastery as established by the books that came before it. Obviously, any individual critic might have, say, a penchant for Shakespeare and a gripe against Dostoevsky -- personal preferences that color her judgment -- but across many readers, scholars, and thinkers over the centuries, "the canon" has generally been tested and found to be a functional measure of quality.

These books are not necessarily the most "enjoyable" to read -- in fact, many of the best books are, to a certain degree, difficult. They require a level of thought and engagement from the reader that makes the experience that much more rewarding. After all, art is in many ways a conversation -- with its creator, with all the art that preceded it, with its audience, and with the criticism and study that it engenders. People these days -- Americans, especially -- are culturally obsessed with the idea of genius, of creation springing forth like Athena from the mind of Zeus, without taking into account the foundation (personal or societal) laid in preparation for the act of creation in the present. (I've previously written about this here.) Just as a writer -- an artist in any medium, really -- learns the craft by studying the greats, so too should an informed and conscientious reader strive to be a better appreciator and critic by putting in the work to understand a novel in its proper context. Only then can the reader really evaluate the book, whether her reaction is positive or negative, or (most often) somewhere in between. A thoughtful and articulate negative criticism of a book, I find, usually requires the deepest literary background, because the critic must develop a good sense of what the book and its author were attempting to do, and where the work fell short, as compared to literary masters who did it well.

Anyway. This is a topic of particular interest to me, so I expect to revisit it later. Also, I imagine it won't go away anytime soon, so there will probably be more articles, and more perspectives, that catch my eye.

"Borges and I" by Jorge Luis Borges

I was just rereading one of my favorite short stories, and I wanted to share it with all of you. It's a very short piece called "Borges and I" by Jorges Luis Borges, and may be found here:
http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/users/00/pwillen1/lit/borg&i.htm

It's not precisely a story, and it's so short that it might qualify more as flash fiction or microfiction -- or perhaps not any sort of fiction at all. I first encountered it, that I can remember, in a philosophy of literature course at university. Even then, I was awed by the way the piece conveys all the meaning of an essay in just a few paragraphs. It's stayed with me, the idea of the human being as a vessel for the creative spirit, much like Athena in the skull of Zeus.

In particular, there's the line "I live, let myself go on living, so that Borges may contrive his literature, and this literature justifies me." I find that over the past few years, I've appropriated that term, "justify," for my own use when thinking about creative output, human identity, and self-worth. It's a particularly powerful word in that it demands an answer. A person spends a lifetime striving for that answer -- especially artists, philosophers, creators, and others who feel the need to pursue goals greater than themselves.

It also introduces, in just a few turns of phrase, the dichotomy of solitary creation and human experience. Art is usually a form of commentary and a crystallization of ideas -- even if the artwork and the artist espouse no agenda nor any overt message. Good art requires some understanding of the themes and cadences of human existence, of living our lives on this planet. And yet so often, when an artist in the act is not experiencing anything new of the outside world; rather, he experiences himself in the act of creation. So, in one flesh and one mind, there must be some rub between the human being who lives and learns, and the artist who creates. Is it, then, the artist's fate to oscillate forever?

Just some food for thought, going into the new year. (The lunar New Year was this weekend.)

La Bohème at the Met Opera!

A few friends and I got rush tickets to the Metropolitan Opera's production of La Bohème yesterday. I've never seen it live before (even though I have three different recordings on my computer). It was absolutely worth the experience; the show was spectacular. I can't believe what I've been missing. (Rodolfo's character, especially, tugs at my heartstrings.)

It's always interesting listening to music with lyrics in a language I don't know, because so much more of my understanding depends on the vocalists' interpretations of their parts. (The Met Opera has electronic panels on the back of each seat displaying translations of the lyrics, but I tried not to rely on that, because watching the staging of the production is a huge part of the experience.) You can always get a rudimentary understanding of what's going on, because there's enough overlap between the various Romance languages (though that leaves German lyrics nigh impossible), but the nuances are really up to the vocalists, in their facial and body language down to the minute inflections of their lines. For instance, in this production, the audience could tell in the first act the exact moment when Benoît loses control of the situation at Rodolfo's apartment -- you could tell by his posture and the vocals of the other characters how inebriated he was getting.

Another element I've noticed: it's hard for any stage performance to adequately develop character, because it's constrained to about two hours, and there's only so much of each character that the audience gets to see. I do like how -- other than the marketplace scene -- Puccini doesn't include any group or choral numbers. The opera focuses narrowly on the lives of the six central characters -- and really only three or four of them are developed at any depth; the small cast lends it a sense of intimacy that you don't often see in some of the larger, more traditionally theatrical operas in the repertoire. It would be a good choice for an indie opera house -- I'm not surprised that Rent (a very creative update on La Bohème where everyone dies of AIDS instead of tuberculosis) remained an Off-Broadway production despite its success.

Now I really must see Rent. I missed both the original production, which closed when I was in high school, and the revival, which went dark quite recently. (I have the soundtrack to that, as well, and I do like how Jonathan Larson includes so many nods to Puccini.) I've heard mixed reviews of the film, but one of these same friends is organizing a screening of the original production -- I'm super excited! :-)

Empire State Sunset

A view from my office window at sunset:

It looks like a watercolor, doesn't it?

Boston

I went to Boston this weekend to visit one of my oldest friends (we've known each other for most of our lives). It was wonderful to experience a different city with someone who knows the lay of the land. Here are some highlights of the weekend...

My trip apparently coincided with a major sporting event, so there were people wearing Boston gear all over the city. Someone decided to clothe the Public Garden's decorative brass ducks:

And this is what looks like a ballroom in the main branch of the Boston Public Library:

It's a stunning space, with wood panelling and frescoes running the entire length of the walls. I could imagine a medieval ball being held here.

This library could give the New York Public Library at Bryant Park a run for its money. It has an interior courtyard that looks like it was airlifted from Renaissance Europe:

I'm reminded of the courtyard of the Frick Museum. I could imagine Juliet leaning on the rail of the balcony on the left, beckoning to Romeo in the garden below. I've never been to Verona, but in my mind, it looks something like this.

Boston is also home to the world's only Curious George store! I didn't know this a few days ago.

This was taken on a bridge over a particularly scenic stretch of the Charles River:

I believe it was the Longfellow Bridge, which was named for the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. He was one of the preeminent poets of his day; one of his most famous works, "Paul Revere's Ride," is a classic in the American canon. There is a plaque in his honor, and the poem is engraved on a stretch of the footpath on the bridge. I didn't think to get a photo of it at the time; I was too busy walking backwards reading the poem!

And that was Boston. It's such a quaint place (cobblestone streets! trolleys!) with so much history tucked into the fabric of the city.

Knights vs. Snail in Medieval England

A whimsical curiosity from the British Library's medieval manuscripts blog (the librarians post some fascinating stuff -- the rest of the blog is definitely worth a peek too):

http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2013/09/knight-v-snail.html

The motif of knights fighting giant snails is apparently quite common in medieval illuminated manuscripts, though nobody knows why, or what it was supposed to have signified. (There's even snail jousting! And monkeys!) Was it all just marginalia? Bored monks -- who were only human, after all -- having a bit of fun with their transcription? Did snails moonlight as agents of Satan when not making nuisances of themselves in the monastery vegetable patches? Even among the eminent scholars at the British Library, nobody knows.

While the world of medieval archivists puzzles over this mystery, the rest of us get some Easter eggs in our manuscripts. Happy Monday, everyone!

Statistics, Demographics, Music, Art

Last night, I went to Vienna Teng's concert at the Highline Ballroom with Brett, who was in town this week. Vienna's touring her new album, Aims. Her sound in this record is rather different from her earlier work -- it's louder, more electronic, more contemporary. But it's still the Vienna we all know and love, and it's not the first time she's tried something new (see "Grandmother Song" and "Radio" from her previous album, Inland Territory).

One of the aspects of Vienna the songwriter that I admire is how she incorporates a wonderfully diverse array of experiences, abstract concepts, and places into her work. One never forgets that she's a true renaissance woman -- she just finished up a dual degree in business and environmental science (one of her passions is environmental sustainability), and she was a computer scientist out of Stanford undergrad. Aims's album artwork, for example, is quite inspired -- it's a population density map of Detroit:

http://viennateng.com/album/aims

It makes the demographics/stats/sociology nerd in me really happy. I've always loved maps -- centuries-old ship's maps, star charts, subway maps, hilariously inaccurate classical and medieval maps (like those inspired by Herodotus, for example), Tolkien's maps... (The maps room is probably the coolest underrated exhibit in the Vatican Museums compound.) Maps that convey information beyond mere geography, like this one, are even better.

On the subject of demographics... I can't wait until The Signal and the Noise comes out in paperback! It's another case of excellent concept meets brilliant cover design (the art department at Penguin has turned out some really thoughtful covers these few years; Moonwalking with Einstein and The Painted Boy come to mind):

http://www.us.penguingroup.com/static/pages/features/the_signal_and_the_noise

I get the sense that Vienna must have read some Nate Silver, and not just because she's an intelligent, multi-talented person with a mathematical brain and two advanced degrees. This occurred to me while listening to two particular songs on the Aims album, "In the 99" and "The Hymn of Acxiom." The former includes the phrase "said the signal to the noise" -- while the phrase (or a variation thereof) didn't originate with Nate Silver, Vienna does use the line in a song about social (im)mobility and economic stratification. "The Hymn of Acxiom" was, more obviously, inspired by Acxiom, a marketing/advertising company that compiles databases of personal information. It's actually rather creepy how much it knows about us -- Vienna even said as much when she was introducing the song. (Just a year and a half ago, she'd said in an interview that she was trying to figure out how to merge the worlds of music and sustainability -- I suppose she found it!) Even in her Inland Territory days, one could sense from her music that she was highly aware of, and engaged with, the social context in which she was writing (see "Stray Italian Greyhound," inspired by the 2008 presidential election, and "No Gringo," a commentary on the illegal immigration issue). 

The first step to addressing any issue is understanding it -- which is especially difficult with broad, longterm problems like climate change, food security, infectious diseases, &c. I particularly admire people like Vienna Teng and Nate Silver because they're not necessarily on the front lines, not really within the system or calling the shots, but they've nonetheless found ways to achieve great things in fields that they love and simultaneously contribute to our understanding of how our world works and how we might face the challenges of living in it. (Vienna's taken the approach of having two mostly separate careers, music and sustainability, that inform each other; Nate Silver has found an innovative way to apply his expertise, quantitative analysis, to a largely unrelated field.) Interestingly -- and I'm sure it's no coincidence -- all of these areas deal with multitudes, the masses, the People.

One of the great advantages of civilization, which elevates homo sapiens above non-sentient species, is our ability to consider and attempt to solve problems which affect humanity as a whole, as opposed to merely dealing with issues that affect our genetic kin and the small populations we interact with regularly. We're capable of viewing our species (and indeed, our world) as collectively valuable -- even the pieces we can't see -- and of thinking in the big picture, in the long-term, in lightyears rather than miles and millennia rather than mere decades. We acknowledge that which is greater than the individual, the genetic, even the human, and embrace the possibility that comes with it. (I am one, but I am of the many, and my words, actions, ideas may one day sway the multitudes, whether they know it or not.)

R.I.P Seamus Heaney

A literary luminary died today:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-13930435

I've owned a copy of Seamus Heaney's translation of Beowulf for as long as I can remember, and I've read it cover-to-cover at least three times. It's beautiful, and not just because the parallel text (with annotations!) indicates just how faithfully Heaney translated from the original Anglo-Saxon. Rather, given the cadence and word choice of his modern English, it becomes immediately evident that the translator is himself a poet.

Few poets have been as universally revered in their lifetimes as Heaney was. It has been said, even before today, that he was Yeats's successor as Ireland's foremost poet -- and one would be hard-pressed to find a competitor for the accolade. His original poetry was not only sublime, but also widely accessible -- he was a true poet of the people. His laurels are too many to count (including the Nobel Prize in Literature, the Struga Golden Wreath, and the Irish PEN), but in my mind, one of his most significant accomplishments was that he brought poetry to those who might not otherwise consume poetry, who might consider the art too academic, too arcane. He brought beauty and wonder to generations of readers who saw something of themselves set on paper in his words.

He was, by all accounts, a compassionate and upstanding man who was profoundly aware of his position as a voice of the people in a land often rent by civil and religious strife. He tried to balance a sense of cultural heritage and pride of place with a concern for individuals that was evident in everything he wrote. One of my favorite of his poems, "Digging," describes his work as a natural continuation of the life's work of his forefathers, telling the story of several generations in just a few verses. (You can hear Heaney's own rendition of it here.)

A star has fallen.

Edit: I just discovered that Seamus Heaney's last words, delivered via text message, were "Noli timere" (Latin for "Be not afraid"). How fitting -- he was a poet to the last.

New York at Dusk

There are times when I walk alone in the streets of New York, when I'm surrounded by looming glass behemoths against the deep blue dusk, when the air is crisp and a fine mist of rain coats the pavement, when the hum of human activity permeates the corners of the city -- times when I'm happy to be alive and grateful to live in such a magnificent, vibrant place. There's nowhere quite like New York.

I took this picture near Rockefeller Center a few weeks ago (the lights of Radio City Music Hall are visible in the lower left). Something about the lone building lit up against a swathe of clouds reminds me of Egypt, of obelisks and monuments erected by long-dead Pharaohs.

This photograph was taken from the High Line. The red-and-white illuminated building in the center is the Empire State Building (I love the way the spire disappears into the clouds). The polyhedral glass rooftop structure, I discovered, contains what appears to be a small library, replete with armchairs, lamps, and a few shelves of books. (That has to be one of the coolest library designs I've seen!)

I took this picture a month or two ago at the piers on the West Side. (The "BEA on a Boat" party happened on that boat, actually.) I was struck by the "halo effect" of the setting sun behind the mast; the boat and the play of light on the water reminds me of the elven ships sailing into the west in The Lord of the Rings.

There's something melancholy and fiercely beautiful about this city when you're alone, spending some quality time with it, just drinking it in.

Faulkner on Literature, Humanity, and Immortality

On Sunday, I had dinner with my friend Brett after an afternoon visit to the Met. I was telling him about an amazing, inspiring book talk I'd recently attended: it was a conversation between Adam Johnson, a Stanford English professor and this year's Pulitzer winner in fiction, and Fredrik Logevall, a Cornell history professor and the Pulitzer winner in nonfiction, moderated by their editor, David Ebershoff, of Random House.

Brett was reminded of (and sent me) this particular speech delivered by William Faulkner on the acceptance of his Nobel Prize in Literature in 1949:
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1949/faulkner-speech.html

It's brilliant and quite worth reading (and not very long) -- so do actually read it! Faulkner's claim is, essentially, that literature -- the written word, storytelling, art -- is humanity's way of achieving some semblance of immortality. He writes not of the genetic "immortality" perpetuated by our biology, of course; I think one of the prerequisites of sentience is a consciousness of meaning greater than base instinct. Rather, Faulkner speaks to our legacy as a species -- the ideas, the intellectual and creative achievements by which humanity might define itself.

Literature is one such vehicle. I would hesitate to call it a record -- that term falls too much in the realm of historiography (which is itself an ambitious and meaningful endeavour, of course) -- but perhaps one might consider literature the pared-down essence of what it means to be human. In books, in art, we see reflected not only the best (and the worst) -- but also the deepest, truest, and most beautiful aspects of ourselves. In literature, we are immortal -- not only the writer, and sometimes not the writer at all (Homer is the example that comes to mind) -- but we, as a sentient species, are captured, burnished, chased in silver -- forever.

Shakespeare expressed a similar sentiment centuries earlier:

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
(Sonnet 18, lines 13-14)

If I Used Twitter

tonight's post would be:

2nd place at YPG spelling bee: winner got "quixotic;" my word not found in OED. Still, pretty cool consolation prize: tinyurl.com/oac7w92.

It's a very graphically interesting cover design:

That is all.