This post is one in a series of readings I’m posting of each poem in Ezra Pound’s The Cantos, a few at a time. The readings are atypical, for reasons made clear in my first post in the series. This post ends off my discussion of The Fifth Decad of Cantos (also sometimes called the “Leopoldine” Cantos) by specifically dealing with Canto LI, the final Leopoldine Canto.
This post is one in a series of readings I’m posting of each poem in Ezra Pound’s The Cantos, a few at a time. The readings are atypical, for reasons made clear in my first post in the series. This post picks up again (after another hiatus–I was busy for the last few weeks) one step closer to the end of The Fifth Decad of Cantos (also sometimes called the “Leopoldine” Cantos). Today I’ll be specifically dealing with Canto L, the penultimate Leopoldine Canto.
As I mentioned on Twitter the other day, I recently finished a draft of a weird novella with the working title, “In the Company of Distillers.” I guess the best way to explain the story is that it’s set in London at that part of the 18th century Gin Craze just prior to the government’s second attempt (and the first serious one) at Gin Prohibition… As far as the makeup of the story, it’s probably easiest to explain it more like the way one does a gin-based cocktail, that is, in the form of a recipe: two parts alchemy one …
Marc Laidlaw recently shared a link on Facebook to a post on “Good Writing vs. Talented Writing”over on Brainpickings featuring some ideas by Samuel Delany. Essentially, Delany draws a line between “good writing” and superior “talented writing”: The talented writer often uses specifics and avoids generalities — generalities that his or her specifics suggest. Because they are suggested, rather than stated, they may register with the reader far more forcefully than if they were articulated. Using specifics to imply generalities — whether they are general emotions we all know or ideas we have all vaguely sensed —is dramatic writing. A trickier proposition …
… that seems to be cropping up these days, it’s not a post-80s world we live in. It’s in the shadow of the Baby Boomer Generation that we dwell, today: their politics, their economics, their morality, their paradigm. This insight I ran across on the Ivebeenreading blog in a post about a piece elsewhere where Kent Jones “takes after Quentin Tarantino for a poorly thought-out slam of John Ford.” It’s curious that American culture and history are still so commonly viewed through a New Left prism, by means of which 1964 or thereabouts has become a Year Zero of political enlightenment; …
In a book I read long ago, in a galaxy far, far away, the Christopher Dewdney wrote in his book of poetry The Radiant Inventory about neurology, using the most brilliantly poetical and beautiful language. He wrote about all kinds of things, of course: books of poetry are like that. But among the things he discussed in the book was the neurobiology of break-ups, and why they are so difficult. I can’t quote the book, or even paraphrase it in any way I’d regard as trustworthy–my copy is somewhere in that other galaxy where I read it, in a box, floating …
Well, the writers I live with and I tried out the last writing etude I posted, and the results were really quite interesting, but I’m going to update that post sometime with results and thoughts. When we concluded our discussion of that etude, we decided to try another one, suggested by the inimitable E.G. Cosh. She wanted to work on dialogue, and on revealing things through dialogue–especially things like character motivation and and the nature of two characters’ relationship. She suggested the twist that we work on dialogue-intensive (or dialogue-only) scenes, and write the same scene twice, with the same …
This post is one in a series of readings I’m posting of each poem in Ezra Pound’s The Cantos, a few at a time. The readings are atypical, for reasons made clear in my first post in the series. After a very long hiatus, this post picks up again toward the end of The Fifth Decad of Cantos (also sometimes called the “Leopoldine” Cantos), specifically dealing with Canto XLIX–also known as the “Seven Lakes” canto.
Since coming back to the saxophone, I’ve discovered what an amazing resource the internet is for a musician who is looking into techniques, looking for ways to improve his or her playing. Within ten minutes of looking around, one finds all kinds of homegrown etudes, studies, all kinds of things one can download, print out, and try in one’s next practice session. The same isn’t really true for writers. There are a lot of blogs that discuss writing, and even writing techniques. But one hardly finds the net overflowing with etudes of the sort young musicians can grab onto and …
In with the new project, that is. I had a little choreography to work out, since I’m planning to co-write a story with a friend soon, but just got a great idea for a screenplay that pretty much appeared in my mind, not quite fully-formed, but almost. The screenplay sort of brings together a lot of things I’ve wished I could see in a Korean SF movie, and following Justin Howe’s advice, I figure now is a good time to try write it… especially since there’s enough time to get a draft done and submit it to the PIFAN-hosted NAFF …