Being So Inclined
[Samuel Johnson] said, that for general improvement, a man should read whatever his immediate inclination prompts him to; though, to be sure, if a man has a science to learn, he must regularly and resolutely…
Tag: Susan Sontag
Walt, Various
1. I was simmering, simmering, simmering; Emerson brought me to a boil.–Walt Whitman 2. In 1968 Susan Sontag visited Hanoi for two weeks. In her account of her experiences, she seemed a bit surprised the…
True Happiness Is a Verb
Monday 28 December 2020 Dear C, Having written you yesterday about Annie Liebovits and Susan Sontag, I want to mention today that I took the phrase “Wisdom Project” from Sontag in her collection, At the…
The Good News of Translation, 3.17.2017
Opera excepted, I never asked myself, in those early years of reading literature in translation, what I was missing. It was as if I felt it were my job, as a passionate reader, to see…
Worth Reading
Dear Irina, Here are some books that may speak to a few of your questions, interests, and enthusiasms. I’ll send more later on if you want…. Mark Daniel Berrigan, Isaiah: Spirit of Courage, Gift…
Like When I quoted Jon Sobrino in “Dear Layla Welcome to Palestine”
The quote is always fascinating because it changes out of context, becomes different and sometimes more mysterious. It has a directness and assertiveness it may not have had in the original. — Susan Sontag
On Susan Sontag, Trip to Hanoi
Journal, July 2005 Susan Sontag spent two weeks in North Vietnam in 1968, and wrote 90 pages about her experiences. (Perhaps I will cull from those notebooks I kept in Gaza and the West Bank…
Pass It On
A work of art is something you make, something you give to other people. It’s an object for use, and people can make many different uses of the same work. Susan Sontag