Update – I commented a few days ago on Stephen King’s strange remarks at the National Book Awards. They’re having a very lively discussion of the same subject at Crooked Timber today.… Read the rest
All entries by this author
Amazing Mess
Nov 24th, 2003 11:34 pm | By Ophelia BensonSerendipity is always fun. I tend to experience a lot of it, because my bookshelves are so peculiarly organized, and also double-shelved, so that it’s easy to forget what’s behind the front row – I’m always rummaging around looking for one book and ending up with five or six others that I’d been thinking of looking for, wondering where I’d put, wishing I had in my hand. And everything is like that. I’m not very tidy. There are forgotten magazines, forgotten notes, forgotten drafts of essays and articles, forgotten all sorts of things. Nothing that will decay – I’m careful about that – no oozy apples or slimy pears turning up after months of wondering what that smell is. But … Read the rest
Karachi
Nov 24th, 2003 | Filed by Ophelia BensonWilliam Dalrymple on what Lévy got wrong in his book on the murder of Daniel Pearl.… Read the rest
Authenticity or Depravity? Murder and Mayhem As Entertainment
Nov 24th, 2003 | By Barney F. McClellandThose of us in the “flyover” region of the Midwest were treated to a horrific spectacle yesterday clearly illustrating how sick our “culture” (and I use this word in its broadest possible sense) has become. Dennis Greene, 31, was convicted by a jury of murdering his 28 year-old wife, Tara. Greene was sentenced to life in prison for nearly decapitating the junior high school math teacher and mother of their seven-year old son, Chi’An, who witnessed the murder.
If this is not enough, there is more to the story. After the murder, Greene fled to his hometown of Chicago hoping to evade authorities. There he shot a “rap video” where he boasted of “killin’ da bitch” and “cut her neck … Read the rest
Book Reviews That Say No
Nov 23rd, 2003 | Filed by Ophelia Benson‘It is a real pity that argued dissent is regularly caricatured as “hatchet job”, “savage attack” and other such bulking agents.’… Read the rest
Darwin and Hooker and Botany
Nov 23rd, 2003 | Filed by Ophelia BensonAn intellectual collaboration in letters.… Read the rest
The Cultural Turn
Nov 23rd, 2003 | Filed by Ophelia BensonBreathless celebration of the fact that these people are human should give way to finer-grained questions.… Read the rest
What Became of Intellectuals on TV?
Nov 23rd, 2003 | Filed by Ophelia BensonAyer, Berlin, Russell, Miller, Sontag, Magee, Bronowski – not much of that on the box now.… Read the rest
Crowded Barrel
Nov 22nd, 2003 11:58 pm | By Ophelia BensonOh dear, oh dear, I really shouldn’t. But I’m going to. Pester another fish in another barrel. Because it’s quite interesting how lame their arguments are, how beside the point or redundant or both. Either they accuse me of not talking about that which I never said I was talking about, or they say something I already said.
I have to say I found the ‘Bad Writing’ article extremely dissapointing. Like, unfortunately, too much criticism of theory it was utterly, utterly trivial. I mean, was this what the ‘theory wars’ were all about, that some people dislike Judith Butler’s use of subordinate clauses?
But ‘Bad Writing’ isn’t criticism of theory, it is what it says it is: a criticism of … Read the rest
Is Religion Adaptive?
Nov 22nd, 2003 | Filed by Ophelia BensonNot so you’d notice, Richard Dawkins says.… Read the rest
What is a ‘Jewish Intellectual’?
Nov 22nd, 2003 | Filed by Ophelia BensonAnd what is a ‘Muslim intellectual’? Is there a double standard in France?… Read the rest
An Agenda
Nov 22nd, 2003 12:02 am | By Ophelia BensonA few days ago we received an email from a new and enthusiastic fan of B&W, telling us we would be even more wonderful than we already are if we linked to Keith Burgess-Jackson at TechCentralStation. Err, thought I. I don’t much like TCS, though I have seen an occasional interesting article there, and I think finally linked to one. I did a N&C about this at some point – about the quandary of seeing an interesting and/or relevant article at a site which is so free markety-rightwing that I really hate to link to it even if I quite like a particular piece. It is a quandary. On the one hand if the article is good then the article … Read the rest
Brownie Points?
Nov 21st, 2003 9:08 pm | By Ophelia BensonIt just never goes out of style, does it, berating people for liking things that not everyone likes. We just cannot get enough of that kind of thing. Witness Stephen King at the National Book Awards on Wednesday, as reported by the Guardian.
… Read the restKing called on the publishing industry to pay more attention to writers such as himself, accusing the literati of a “blind spot” when it came to popular fiction. “What do you think,” he asked, “you get social academic brownie points for deliberately staying out of touch with your own culture?” He accused many in publishing of making it “a point of pride” never to have read anything by mega-selling authors such as John Grisham, Tom Clancy and
Mind Body Spirit – the Snake Oil of Psychology
Nov 21st, 2003 | Filed by Ophelia BensonYou discover your new friend owns 50 self-help books. What to do? Escape.… Read the rest
Stephen King Rebukes Grisham-Avoiders
Nov 21st, 2003 | Filed by Ophelia BensonBecause if it’s a best-seller there can’t possibly be any good reason not to read it, right?… Read the rest
‘Frontier Medicine in Biofield Science’
Nov 21st, 2003 | Filed by Ophelia BensonAnd other strange frontiers funded by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine.… Read the rest
Submission
Nov 20th, 2003 7:42 pm | By Ophelia BensonI have something I want to comment about, but I keep musing on a different subject, instead. On what a disgusting world it’s turning into, and what an unimaginably disgusting world it would be if the bombers got their way. We thought things were bad before! What with the US propping up repressive blood-thirsty regimes all over the planet as long as they were hostile to the Soviet Union (as Bush acknowledged in London today), and what with the two super-powers piling up ever more and more nukes. But that all looks like a nice cozy tea-party compared to what’s shaping up now, doesn’t it. There is just nothing quite like the combination of nuclear weapons and people who would … Read the rest
Bloody Hell
Nov 20th, 2003 4:21 pm | By Ophelia BensonOh, hell. I despair sometimes, I really do. As who doesn’t. Who in hell doesn’t. What a world, what a world, as the Wicked Witch said. Istanbul, of all places. Well of course. It’s secular. It’s near Europe, and has dealings with the nasty place, and allows women to drive cars and think of themselves as human beings. So let’s just bomb the bejesus out of it.
And kill the British Consul-General, and a lot of people in the street near the bank. A fitting follow-up to killing those pesky Jews at the synagogue the other day. And more tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow – all in the name of a world more like Taliban-world. The worst possible nightmare for … Read the rest
BHL Irritates People
Nov 20th, 2003 | Filed by Ophelia BensonShowing up the unreality of conventional world views tends to infuriate.… Read the rest
Istanbul, Again
Nov 20th, 2003 | Filed by Ophelia BensonBomb attacks on bank and consulate leave at least 25 dead including the British Consul-General, and devastate Turkey.… Read the rest