Education – Page 4 – the coffee philosopher

Posted on March 5, 2014March 4, 2014 by the coffee philosopher

Midweek Meeting – From The Mouths Of Babes

Because it’s what smart people do.

Krausian theater.

The end of brutalist worship in DC.

‘Type Rider II: The Tandem Poetry Tour’ – I know, cool, right?

Posted on February 14, 2014February 11, 2014 by the coffee philosopher

Weekend Reading – It Turns Out Entrepreneurs Less Concerned About Tax Rates, More Concerned About Not Living In A Nightmarish, Ayn Rand Fantasy World

This will blow your mind, but entrepreneurs are actually drawn to cities with a high quality of life (read: investments in infrastructure, environment, arts, etc) and a pool of skilled employees (read: investments in education, k-12 and beyond). Not, apparently, the low wage wastelands with low taxes and minimal regulations (read: gutted protections for clean air and water and for labor).

Could. Not. Agree. More.

This is the sort of thing that makes me nostalgic. Bars have gotten louder and cafés have gotten quieter… and each change affects the promise of political change. I can remember when you could have a conversation and even read in a bar. I used to read in bars all the time. Not so much anymore. And how long has it been since a coffeehouse was the site of active discussion? A long time, I bet. I can remember when coffeehouses were far more boisterous, with strangers engaging in conversation. The coffee wasn’t so good, but I was actually okay with that trade off. And it probably promoted entrepreneurship. I just sayin’.

Posted on February 10, 2014January 31, 2014 by the coffee philosopher

Monday Morning Staff Meeting – Yes, But Was He Any Good?

This article goes into the big question when it comes to J.R.R. Tolkien: was he any good as a writer? The article says… maybe. It’s all a bit wishy washy. And I object strenuously to the negative criticism of his poetry, which I loved when my mother sang to me while reading The Hobbit out loud to a seven year old me. I think that there is also an argument to be made for a little pomo gamesmanship in his writing, if you look at it as having been written in an imaginary language (based on Anglo-Saxon and pre-English languages from the British Isles) and then translated into English. Rather as if someone wrote an epic novel in Klingon and then translated it into English. And, in case you hadn’t figured it out yet – I’m a fan of Tolkien.

Neo-liberalism and negative solidarity.

UC Davis has sold out to Amazon.

Emile Zola: novelist, polemicist, pamphleteer… influential art critic?

There are Crystals in Stone and Pressure in Snow So Are Snow and Stone the Same

Allen Ginsberg was many different from the others.

I’m glad that some newspapers are still covering poetry. Even if it is on the other side of the country (Dear WaPo, would it kill you to write more about literature and poetry ’round here? ‘Cause there’s a lot of it, most of it having nothing to do with poorly researched, pseudo-timely musings on the politics of six months ago).

Posted on January 29, 2014January 27, 2014 by the coffee philosopher

Midweek Staff Meeting – You Are Doomed To Failure

The soul crushing poverty of the humanities’ major has been overstated. Slightly. It’s not so bad, really.

But since you don’t read anyway… meh.

Can I just say that this a great little list of why D&D is awesome? You’re welcome.

So, yeah. The Gulf is still screwed. Good times.

Posted on January 24, 2014January 23, 2014 by the coffee philosopher

Weekend Reading – More Stuff About Things Declining Or Dying Out Or What Not

It’s not books this time, it’s readers. But usually, stuff about the death and/or decline of the book is really about the decline and/or metaphorical death of readers, aren’t they? But actually, this article says that’s not really happening, after all. So I’m going to blame the person who wrote the headline, because that’s usually different than the person who wrote the article.

A strange and somewhat confusing article about James Bond. Some weird psychoanalysis taking place here.

Never stop making manifestos!

So, hey! A little profile of Coffee House Press! I bought Anne Waldman’s Iovis Trilogy from them. That book get mentioned a couple of times in the piece so I should really get around to finishing it. Maybe after I finish The Cantos. Generally, they do a lot of great work with contemporary poets. I actually dropped into their offices one time, when I was living in Minnesota, just asked, hey, do you need entry level folks? They were polite in saying no, so… that’s about as far my anecdote goes, really.

Robert Creeley’s books and why he left Scribner.

The GOP is struggling to find new, young donors to replace their aging donors.

Posted on January 10, 2014January 7, 2014 by the coffee philosopher

Weekend Reading – The Existential Despair Of The Political Hack

This is just weird to read. A strange sort of interview/chronicle of the midlife crisis of Frank Luntz. But, I have seen that before among politicos. You dedicate yourself to the exclusion of all else and then, one day, you realize, you excluded all else and if you are unable to participate in the world you dedicated yourself too or if some existential crisis pops us, you lack something to fall back on. I saw this happen to a good friend. It’s never happened to me because I’m dilettante at heart, which has also held me back, careerwise. But I’ve also had ‘something else,’ which is, by definition, something. Anyway. Read this… whatever… about Frank Luntz.

The NYRB: in decline, in its pomp… or never actually in ascendance? Interesting article, but I wish they’d get some credit for the interesting books they are publising, beyond the magazine.

This is a tax cut I can support: a deduction for buying books! Forza Italia!

How to be a professional poet.

Where is the poetry high school? We have STEM and performing arts, so why not poetry?

If nothing else, this essay is worth reading for the concise definitions of economic terms related to the most recent/ongoing financial crisis.

Posted on December 23, 2013December 17, 2013 by the coffee philosopher

Monday Morning Staff Meeting – The Trouble With Tribbles

W(h)ither the Catholic writer? The days of Evelyn Waugh, Allen Tate, Graham Greene, J.R.R. Tolkien, Kenneth Rexroth, Robert Lowell, and Thomas Merton are long gone, it appears. When you read about a Catholic writer these days, it is usually in the context of explicitly leaving the Church. Anyway, you should also read it because Dana Gioia is not just a very good poet, he’s also one of the better essayists of the poetry world and it worth reading. And I had no idea he was Catholic.

But where will they drink?

Another paean to Seamus Heaney. He was not my favorite poet, but he was probably the last great, English language poet who came as close as it is possible (in this anti-poetic age) to the stature of his Irish predecessor, W.B. Yeats or Robert Lowell (who has fallen out of favor lately, in favor of his confidante, Elizabeth Bishop, but was held in high esteem in the years after Life Studies) or Robert Frost as a sort of tribal elder figure, held able to comment and illuminate broad truths. Does English language culture have room for another anytime soon? Also, Seamus Heaney liked to text. Yup.

I would say that I was shocked to learn that this incident occurred in Florida, but, really, it’s just kind of inevitable that these incidents take place in Florida. Awesome job, Florida Republican Party! You have used your control of every lever of state power to… I don’t know, wreck my home state? Compete with Mississippi and Alabama for 50th place (56th if we include the District of Columbia, the U.S. Virgin Islands, the Northern Marianas Islands, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, and Guam; that’s right, I said it, Florida, and, by the way, Guam is way out of your league; you’re not competing with Guam, you’re competing with countries emerging out of multi-decade civil wars… and you’re losing). I don’t blame Rick Scott: we knew when we elected him that he was nothing more than a high finance con artist bilking taxpayer funded programs out of their cash who also just happened to look like a Star Trek villain.

Posted on December 15, 2013December 14, 2013 by the coffee philosopher

The Sunday Paper – I, Too, Value The Sweet, Dark Elixir Of Life

‘At any rate, I prize coffee.’ ~from Soren Kierkegaard’s book Repetition, under the pseudonym Constantin Constantius,1843.

Do not, I repeat, do not bring sheep into the library. It is expressly forbidden.

And for heaven’s sake, stop cutting their budgets and do not, I repeat, do not close American libraries.

American style democracy does not leave much room for measured, moderate intellectuals.

An interview with the publisher of Tupelo Press, a quality poetry publisher. Good stuff.

Posted on December 9, 2013December 6, 2013 by the coffee philosopher

Monday Morning Staff Meeting

No news here. Just awesome pictures of college libraries. I’m a big fan of the early ones.

Philosophers in, at. and about the movies. Also, Zizek and Chomsky totally have a kung fu fight. Chomsky and Zizek aren’t really philosophers, though, are they? They are the more general breed, the ‘public intellectual.’ Chomsky, who had done important work on linguistics earlier in his career, but now more of a leftist critic of society. And Zizek is a sort of professional ‘enfant terrible’ of the cultural scene. Not bad things to be, either of them, but not practitioners of philosophy, the way an Adorno was a practitioner (thinking of someone also engaged in issues of mainstream culture).

Dear grad students, F–k you. Respectfully, your professor.

Sometimes, the life of the man’s skull is more interesting than the life of the man. I don’t know. What was Swedenborg’s life like? Was it action packed and interesting?

Posted on December 6, 2013December 5, 2013 by the coffee philosopher

Weekend Reading – Naturally, Florida Gets Namechecked In Any Article About Terrible Trends

The decline of the humanities. More specifically, government support for the humanities. Apparently, it’s not worth it anymore. Ugh. And naturally, Rick Scott, Florida’s favorite governor/unindicted co-conspirator in the largest Medicare fraud case in human history, gets name checked for being a huge a–hole.

It’s an art and an industry. The pun is deliberate.

The scientist as Emersonian scholar-poet.

Rising like the phoenix.