Reading Of Readings Of Books With Some Music
So to beat the night time ennui that comes the silences that he had fallen out of the habit of, and also because he is too unsettled to use such time to read an actual book, he wanders, meanders, reading others' words on their readings.
The first one that catches his attention is a piece from a to be published book on Joseph Cornell by Mr. Foer, the recently annointed literary rockstar. He remembers his first encounter with Cornell's boxes a few years ago at the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC. These boxes, if he remembers right were displayed right next to Calder's crazy, because they are magical, mobiles, and also in close proximity to Andy Wharol's trashy vision of Marylin Monoroe.
And their effect on him was immediate, and subconcious; so much so that by the time he had to leave that city, out of an ammalgamation of shells, pebbles, algae, twigs, cardboard, yellowing newspapers and glue; he left behind a construction, for his friend and host, and this was perhaps nothing more than the continous extension of his backyard sandlot revieries that ended when he was thirteen
Later he encountered Joseph Cornell again, this time via the work of Octavio Paz, who had termed Cornell's boxes “slot machines of visions”. This encounter happened when he was browsing a curious book of poems in a bookstore, which was born as a result of a joint collaboration between Paz and his wife Maria Jose, with Paz's wife constructing boxes similar to Conrell's and Paz writing a poem for each new box. This process he later attempted to recreate using photographs in writing what he termed Image-ned Words.
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This review of a biography on Orson Welles (of Citizen Kane fame) is interesting for this interesting observation on the recently beautified St. Ronald:
"It was with a certain wryness that Orson Welles observed that he had been discouraged from standing for election because he was a) divorced and b) an actor; Reagan was, of course, both."This is also makes for interesting reading from an Indian context given that over there showbiz charisma routinely translates into political capital.
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Jane Smiley continues her exploration in the dense and magical forest of the novel by talking about "Zeno's Conscience", which is apparently in the same leauge as Kafka's 'Trial", and whose name I haven't encountered until this review. A funny qoute:
At one point he remarks, "I believe that he is the only one in this world who, hearing I wanted to go to bed with two beautiful women, would ask himself: Now let's see why this man wants to go to bed with them."...
A.0. Scott's essay in the NYT Book Review explains the process through which Toni Morrison's "Beloved" is chosen as the best American novel in the past 25 years. And yes, since I spend too much time catching up on book gossip like this, I must admit I haven't read any of the novels, perhaps beyond the first 5 pages, mentioned in this essay.
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For music we have Frank Zappa, whom I consider one of the most indespensible musicians of the last 25 years, for all his very very vulgar and very very postmodern work:
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