Alicia Baladan is an Italian illustrator whose work has given me yet another reason for massively improving my Italian. I love this work — with its beautiful palette of colors and evocative imagery. Her latest children’s book “Una Storia Guaraní” is about the Guaraní Indians of Uruguay and their sacred and incredibly useful relationship to […]
Alicia Baladan: “Una Storia Guaraní” Read More »
A few years back, I posted about an amazing find of a 1959 audio file of Flannery O'Connor giving a lecture on "Some Aspects of the Grotesque In Southern Literature," — taken mostly from her terrific essay in Mystery and Manners. I am very excited by another new discovery — this time a tape buried
Flannery O’Connor’s Voice: Part II Read More »
Marly Youmans' Thaliad offers a healing balm to the swath of nihilistic post-apocalyptic fiction for young adults. Told in free verse reminiscent of heroic epics (Homer meets Gerald Manley Hopkins), Thaliad recounts the aftermath of a fiery apocalypse and the perlious journey of a band of children led by a girl whose prophetic visions
Marly Youmans and Clive Hicks-Jenkins Collaboration: Thaliad Read More »
I was quite astonished to see this wonderful mythic and western art of Javier Pinon — the unusual combination of cowboys and Greek myths. This is a collage of Icarus Falling — and it struck me so much because it bears an eerie resemblance to a passage of transformation that I wrote years ago in
Falling From the Sky And The Art of Javier Pinon Read More »
"Do you have any books the faculty doesn't particularly recommend? Flannery O'Connor's commonsense advice on the practice of making writing a habit: "I'm a full-time believer in writing habits, pedestrian as it all may sound. You may be able to do without them if you have genius but most of us only have talent and
Flannery O’Connor: Writing Habits Read More »
"6. After searching for entire nights without knowing it, beyond sleep, beyond exhaustion, having traveled forests of lucid insomnia, you will reach a great deserted clearing where, holding your breath, your ear against the ground, you can hear the very heartbeat of silence. Then, as you rise, you will realize that you are surrounded by
Fernand Dumont: Treaties on Fairies Read More »
I love this beautiful poem by Seamus Heaney, “St Kevin and the Blackbird,” and think it appropriate for a weekend that will specialize in Irish saints — though perhaps with more “spirit” than reverence. Still …enjoy this recording of the poem. The art above, “St. Kevin and the Blackbird” is by one of my favorite
Seamus Heaney: St. Kevin and the Blackbird. Read More »
I have just finished a conference where we read and discussed in great depth Emile Zola's novel, Au Bonheur Des Dames (The Ladies Delight.) The novel, set in the late 1860's, centers on the invention of the department store (based on the historical store Bon Marché in Paris). The owner Mouret — a scoundrel and
The Splendor Of Shopping: Emile Zola and Au Bonheur Des Dames (The Ladies’ Delight) Read More »
Actor John Turturro has acquired the rights to create a filmed version of Italo Calvino's Italian Folktales (perhaps my all time favorite fairy tale collection). Last year, Turturro tested the waters so to speak with a new play "Fiable Italiano" adapted from Calvino's collection. It was performed before sold out audiences in Turin, Naples and
John Turturro And Italo Calvino: Italian Folktales On The Stage And On Film Read More »
“The strangest of all the phantasms described is, perhaps, the Youaltepoztli, literally, “the night hatchet or axe.” It manifested itself by causing loud intermittent sounds resembling those produced by the blows of an axe in splitting wood. These ominous sounds were audible at dead of night in the mountains, and inspired terror, for they were
Youaltepoztli: The Night Hatchet Read More »
