Not So Random Entries, Commonplace Moleskine /2
40. The principal truth is this: latent in every act of complete reading is the compulsion to write a book in reply. The intellectual is, quite simply, a human being who has a pencil in…
Tag: George Steiner
“The Hebrew socialist revolution against the fascist national Golgotha”*
Notes on Eliot Katz, The Poetry and Politics of Allen Ginsberg Example of George Steiner’s championing learning by heart: Ginsberg knew hundreds of poems from memory [20] In Dear Layla and Book of Mev: The…
Learning by Heart, the Joy of Music, and the Power of the Prophetic
Dear Lauren, I received your letter today about the online Good News class and your hand-written adaptation of Kipling’s famous poem. The fact that you have had “If” as a companion in your work and…
On Book Six of The Brothers Karamazov
For Cab Yau Perhaps these will speak to you as we reconsider Dostoevsky’s masterpiece… “where we read truly, where the experience is to be that of meaning, we do so as if the text (the…
Taking Sides
Carol, you posted, “Alas, Mark, must we always ‘Take sides’–or is there a middle way?” You know the Buddha would say there’s a middle way, for sure. You saw what Dom Pedro did, no “ifs,…
Hold It All
Hold it all The sun blasting away and the clouds offering respite June 1968 and July 1988 The nights I used to work at the Bristol Bar and Grill and the mornings Sara Wall worked…
Wednesday 19 September
A sunny day 70 degrees Sitting outside together We discuss the future— Prospects, possibilities, The quixotic quest for balance in this topsy-turvy world
Written in the Margins of a Page in a Book by George Steiner
Pain is our teacher Our nurturer of memory Our judge of the quotidian Our provocateur for empathy Give pain your respect
Righteous Jews
for Hedy Epstein A reflection on Roane Carey and Jonathan Shanin, ed., The Other Israel: Voices of Refusal and Dissent (New York: The New Press, 2002). 1. When I came back from Palestine after working…
Poet against War – Aharon Shabtai: A Voice Mocking in The Wilderness
It’s summertime and this means vacation for some of us, and people will be browsing in chain bookstores for the perfect summer escapist read: mysteries, sci-fi, biographies, anything to take our minds off of work,…