Writers: A Room of Our Own

Well, that comes later, in the development.

Ethan Frome

I don’t know. Where has it been?

I didn’t read the memoir, which dates way back to 2012. Bad?

Perhaps he wrote everything he had to write and didn’t want to start repeating himself.

A woman and a cat, both in red sweaters, climb a hill behind a house, attracted by a brilliant light in the sky. The woman looks up, shades her eyes, and frowns. The cat looks up and smiles. It is mid-afternoon, and the producer leaves for lunch.

• This reply was modified 8 years, 10 months ago by  davidsmith.

Yes, but this

http://clv.h-cdn.co/assets/cm/15/09/54eb988037c2b_-_brz-xln.jpg

or this

http://clv.h-cdn.co/assets/cm/15/09/980×735/54eb98811c43d_-_131010_canoebay_104-he0yjb.jpg

rather than this

http://clv.h-cdn.co/assets/cm/15/09/54eb987cb29fe_-_small-of-fame15-0215-xln-49277923.jpg

or this

http://clv.h-cdn.co/assets/cm/15/09/54eb9887812aa_-_small-of-fame14-0215-xln-70461932.jpg

Minimal, spare, and unobtrusive, in a woods or on a hilltop or on water.

It might be fun, if one had the money and the time and didn’t mind the bugs :o)

“Art” is whatever anyone says it is, especially if that person is an “art critic”. For me, though, art is an object made by a person. I don’t think individuals made fourteenth-century Gothic cathedrals, but they’re certainly awe inspiring. And, of course, they’re art – because the critics have said so. Maybe that’s why I like crafts, rather than “the fine arts”. A craft object is a made thing, made by a person. It’s usually unprepossessing, simple, approachable, and to the point, although, for all that, it can be exquisite. “Beauty” is sort of like “goodness”, isn’t it? The user gets to make up his own definition.

I don’t think I’ve ever been thunderstruck by a building. Now and then, a space is pleasing. Exteriors of Frank Lloyd Wright buildings can be, um, well, maybe breathtaking, but the interiors of the few I’ve been in have been cramped, like doll houses. I. M. Pei’s Louvre pyramid seems just wrong in that place. Skyscrapers can be impressive and overwhelming, but so can a locomotive or an airplane or an army tank. Gaudi’s cathedral in Barcelona is supposed to be overwhelmingly beautiful, and maybe it is if you’re in it, but from the photos, I’d say it’s just weird. Art, beauty, and the ability of an object to strike thunder into a human heart are, as you say, personal.

On the other hand, they’d be great for getting home early.

Happy dogs likely bespeak happy humans. At least, I hope that’s the case with you and Cowboy.

Spring is here, in Ohio. The earth and the air are happy, and so are we.

Edward Lear. That’s coherent. They went to sea, found a ring, were married, and danced by the light of the moon. Period.

Alas, though I have good English skills, they’re probably not proper or fit for editing.

Good luck, though!

Of course, that depends on your definition of “art”. For me, it’s the product of individual effort, at least at its best. So, I suppose, that severely demotes fourteenth-century cathedrals, and even the most successful movies. Maybe all I want to do is simply to articulate a personal hierarchy of values, in which the individual human, acting alone, matters almost infinitely more than the hive mind.

A building, which, like a movie, is made by many people, can be pleasing, but buildings seldom are, even if they look glorious in the drawings. A building that works in real life is a happy accident. Movies almost always fail. Now and then one comes to life, but considering how many movies are made, the exception proves the rule that a million monkeys can make anything.

However, we live on a planet ruled by people for whom everything is a machine. The individual is merely an assemblage of cogs and has no great value in herself. We also live in a time of great respect for powerful systems, and an individual is a weak system. So there we are 😎

And totally content, one hopes 😎

Coherence in incoherence. Finished and understandable. Sense out of nonsense. A point of light.

Oh, heck, I dunno.

Translation is hard and, I’m pretty sure, thankless. I imagine most translators are poorly paid and little regarded. I once considered translating a Pierre Véry mystery into English but gave it a pass. The charm is in the language, not in the story.

Robert Lowell, who did not, I think, speak or read Russian, did an “imitation” of a Russian poet or two. I assume he communed with the authors’ spirits. Well….

http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2011/nov/30/translating-dark/