Strange Doctrines

Rilke

Vain. Self-pitying. Obsessive. Narcissistic. Snobbish. Whining. Arrogant. Childish. Demanding. Lachrymose. Neurotic. Given to tantrums and panics. Self-indulgent. Spiteful.

But enough about me. There's some discussion of new volumes about Rilke here. (One quibble: the quotation of Nietzsche is hardly his last, best-informed word on Salomé; her breasts were definitely real.)

(Via Arts & Letters Daily.)

Shop Class Warfare: Hard Work as a Waste of Time

Last Sunday I had to fix an electrical problem on one of my semi-hollowbody guitars. Determining the problem, finding a store that had the part, and doing the replacement - all told, it took me about four hours.

"Soulcraft"? I'd rather have spent the time practicing. Or even reading a book-length version of a dubious argument.

Late Great Books

Part of the conceit behind the "Great Books" movement is that history is more likely to secure its greatest works.

But if you think about it, were some great calamity to strike earth today and wipe out most or all of human civilization, the literary artifacts most likely to survive would be pop bestsellers like The DaVinci Code or the Harry Potter series.

It's reasonable to infer, then, that the works of Homer, Aeschylus, Sophocles and Hesiod were but the pulp fiction of their day. Imagine what's been lost.

(Via 3 Quarks Daily.)

Some Discommoding Poop on the Impending Shit Crisis

Johann Hari reviews Rose George's The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why It Matters. Selected passages here.

(Via 3 Quarks Daily.)

It Involved Something About Reading

I only managed to skim this Mark Bauerlein article. Which means he must be right.

(Via Arts & Letters Daily.