Today was the first day of the annual Los Angeles Times book festival. Rode my trusty 21 gear steed out to USC to check it out (after a breakfast panaderia stop with DH).
It wasn't as crowded as in year's past and one wonders how the economy is affecting book sales. I saw Pulitzer Prize winning The Swerve at the Book Soup tent, but thought, Eventually this will be at the library....
Similarly, the Harvard University Press tent had a book titled Florence and Baghdad. The thesis was that the art of perpective actually originated in Baghdad. The book had beautiful color plates, and obviously the author was quite learned. Even so, I just made a mental note to remember that "perspective originated in Baghdad" and walked away empty-handed, but with $40 still in my account.
My first purchase was from The Travelers Bookcase (their delightful bricks and mortar shop is on 3rd Street, just east of La Cienega). They sell slightly damaged (undetectable to me) Lonely Planet Guides for half off. I picked up a Rome city guide and two titles from the new Berlitz "Secrets" series--Paris and Marrakech.
(I've been thinking about Rome a lot these days, just way more than is normal or appropriate. I nearly bought a Rough Guide Rome but was embarrassed, seeing how I had a Fodors Rome at home and that would bring the total to three.)
What else? A book about older ladies backpacking ("We're in the Mountains, Not Over the Hill", or somesuch), and a volume by Carol Muske-Dukes. I loved her anti-Iraq war poem, and she also wrote a kind remembrance of Adrienne Rich.
So, antiquity-art (Rome), adventure-inspiration (Mountains), one city I'd like to get to know better (Paris), another city I don't know at all (Marrakech), and new poems to tuck into.
I love it how one can spend $70 or so on books and feel fantastically (en-)RICH(-ed).
Try doing that on frigging Rodeo Drive.
Saturday, April 21, 2012
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
What Did You Do During the Run-up to War, Governor?
Our sisters and brothers on the right bristle at any mention of former president George W. Bush yet his presidency remains just as pertinent to the current campaign as it was to the 2008 campaign. The former president, unlike his parents and one brother, may have decided to not endorse any of the GOP hopefuls but surely the candidates should go on the record about their opinions of the 8 years of George W. Bush.
Governor Romney, you've been relentless in your criticism of President Obama yet silent on the Bush presidency. Do you believe President Obama has been a worse president than George W. Bush? If so, how?
Imagine that President Obama was elected by way of a 5-4 Supreme Court decision, with cases of people being turned away due to false felony lists. That he had appointed a horse trainer college roomate buddy to head FEMA and Katrina occurred under his watch. Or that he took the more vacation days than any other president.
Think Govs. Romney and Santorum and Speaker Gingrich might mention it once or twice? Maybe?
But those, incredibly, are actually small matters compared to the diseased core of the George W. Bush presidency:
Imagine that President Obama had manipulated intelligence and public heartache over 9/11--and repeatedly outright lied--to enter the United States into war with Iraq under the guise of looking for "weapons of mass destruction." And there were none.
I'm pretty sure the GOP candidates would mention that little "whoopsie" had President Obama been the instigator. The question is, why do they lack the integrity to mention it against Bush? What's their defense? That it's old news? That it doesn't matter? Would they recycle Bush's own after-the fact defense that the hundred thousand deaths and trillion dollars were worth the cost to get rid of a dictator?
Any citizen, let alone one running for the presidency, would have an opnion on the subject, so put the questions to them:
How did you feel when you realized the Bush Administration misled the American people into going to war? Were you suspicious that CIA employee Valerie Plame's identity was released shortly after her husband shot down the uraniun from Niger tale? Were you angry? Did you think it was appropriate that the prosecution of the war was "kept off the books" so it didn't gouge a hole into the budget? And speaking of books, what books have you read about the lead-up to the war?
Are you just willing to let bygones be bygones over the largest ethical collapse since Watergate?
We as a nation can talk about the GOP budget later, but let's put first things first and have the conversation about the origins of the Iraq war. Because of all of shortcomings real and imagained critics of the president whine about--the Affordable Care Act, that he's a secret Muslim / Socialist / Kenyan, that he's uppity / arrogrant / elitist, that he uses a teleprompter, that "he thinks he's better than you," etc. etc.--President Obama strikes me as being tempermentally unable to do anything as heinous as to lie his way into a phony war.
Governor Romney, you've been relentless in your criticism of President Obama yet silent on the Bush presidency. Do you believe President Obama has been a worse president than George W. Bush? If so, how?
Imagine that President Obama was elected by way of a 5-4 Supreme Court decision, with cases of people being turned away due to false felony lists. That he had appointed a horse trainer college roomate buddy to head FEMA and Katrina occurred under his watch. Or that he took the more vacation days than any other president.
Think Govs. Romney and Santorum and Speaker Gingrich might mention it once or twice? Maybe?
But those, incredibly, are actually small matters compared to the diseased core of the George W. Bush presidency:
Imagine that President Obama had manipulated intelligence and public heartache over 9/11--and repeatedly outright lied--to enter the United States into war with Iraq under the guise of looking for "weapons of mass destruction." And there were none.
I'm pretty sure the GOP candidates would mention that little "whoopsie" had President Obama been the instigator. The question is, why do they lack the integrity to mention it against Bush? What's their defense? That it's old news? That it doesn't matter? Would they recycle Bush's own after-the fact defense that the hundred thousand deaths and trillion dollars were worth the cost to get rid of a dictator?
Any citizen, let alone one running for the presidency, would have an opnion on the subject, so put the questions to them:
How did you feel when you realized the Bush Administration misled the American people into going to war? Were you suspicious that CIA employee Valerie Plame's identity was released shortly after her husband shot down the uraniun from Niger tale? Were you angry? Did you think it was appropriate that the prosecution of the war was "kept off the books" so it didn't gouge a hole into the budget? And speaking of books, what books have you read about the lead-up to the war?
Are you just willing to let bygones be bygones over the largest ethical collapse since Watergate?
We as a nation can talk about the GOP budget later, but let's put first things first and have the conversation about the origins of the Iraq war. Because of all of shortcomings real and imagained critics of the president whine about--the Affordable Care Act, that he's a secret Muslim / Socialist / Kenyan, that he's uppity / arrogrant / elitist, that he uses a teleprompter, that "he thinks he's better than you," etc. etc.--President Obama strikes me as being tempermentally unable to do anything as heinous as to lie his way into a phony war.
Adrienne Rich - What We Can Still Find There
How sad to read of Adrienne Rich's passing this week. Yet, circumstance aside, seeing her gentle, wise face on the NYT page brought back the joy I felt when I read her collection An Atlas of the Difficult World, Poems 1988-1991 (W.W. Norton & Company, 1991. 60 pp.).
Supposedly a melon-baller scoop of black hole is of such density it would make endless piercings of Earth, up and down til the blue planet was no more. So, it is with the poetry of Adrienne Rich; this thin slice of her genius is about all my allotment of brain cells can absorb.
Which is fine. This volume alone is brilliance enough for a lifetime.
Remember when Bush Sr. decided on the Gulf War? (I marched against it, but Good Lord! The Gulf War was as noble as Gandhi's salt campaign compared to his Bush's son's high crimes and misdemeanors-laced tenure. Of this era Rich said
Flags are blossoming now where little else is blossoming
And in one short but truthfully massive line she captured the visual for recession and war.
Upon reading of her passing I set out on a hardbody, living quarter-wide search for my copy of "Atlas". On dog-eared page 5, the last six lines are underlined.
I drive inland over roads / closed in wet weather
I can see these roads; she lived in Santa Cruz, and these words put me in mind of the road north of the city, in the woods, that take one to Big Basin State Park.
Later:
These are not the roads / you knew me by. But the woman driving, walking, watching/ for life and death, is the same.
I just alway loved the duality and danger of this person, this woman who doesn't look like she can handle a pickup on slick roads parallel to the height of redwoods is doing just that.
Her power derives not from bravado, from tough talk ("dead or alive"). It comes from watching. From listening. Paying attention. Only such a human being is equipped to notice the sadness of flags blossoming where little else is.
Thank you, Adrienne Rich.
Supposedly a melon-baller scoop of black hole is of such density it would make endless piercings of Earth, up and down til the blue planet was no more. So, it is with the poetry of Adrienne Rich; this thin slice of her genius is about all my allotment of brain cells can absorb.
Which is fine. This volume alone is brilliance enough for a lifetime.
Remember when Bush Sr. decided on the Gulf War? (I marched against it, but Good Lord! The Gulf War was as noble as Gandhi's salt campaign compared to his Bush's son's high crimes and misdemeanors-laced tenure. Of this era Rich said
Flags are blossoming now where little else is blossoming
And in one short but truthfully massive line she captured the visual for recession and war.
Upon reading of her passing I set out on a hardbody, living quarter-wide search for my copy of "Atlas". On dog-eared page 5, the last six lines are underlined.
I drive inland over roads / closed in wet weather
I can see these roads; she lived in Santa Cruz, and these words put me in mind of the road north of the city, in the woods, that take one to Big Basin State Park.
Later:
These are not the roads / you knew me by. But the woman driving, walking, watching/ for life and death, is the same.
I just alway loved the duality and danger of this person, this woman who doesn't look like she can handle a pickup on slick roads parallel to the height of redwoods is doing just that.
Her power derives not from bravado, from tough talk ("dead or alive"). It comes from watching. From listening. Paying attention. Only such a human being is equipped to notice the sadness of flags blossoming where little else is.
Thank you, Adrienne Rich.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)