Today is Canadian Independent Bookstore Day. I only made three stops today which is probably for the best since I still far exceeded my budget.
First up from Paper Hound, The Castle of Crossed Destinies from Italo Calvino, Memoirs found in a Bathtub by Stanislaw Lem and Bunting’s Persia, a collection of Persian poetry translated by Basil Bunting. Also from Paper Hound—appropriately enough—a CIBD special postcard of Basil Bunting’s advice to student poets.
Next stop, Macleod’s Books were in the basement depths I found three new-to-me Tuttle paperbacks. We have In Ghostly Japan by Lafcadio Hearn, Japan: The Story of a Nation by Edwin O. Reischauer and Low City, High City (about Tokyo from 1867-1923) by Edward Seidensticker.
Lastly, PFB Main where I picked up a photo book of Fred Herzog’s B&W work. The purchase of which also qualified me ($50 or more) for entry into their top tier CIBD prize draw. Fingers crossed!
Basil Bunting’s advice to student poets.
I SUGGEST
1- Compose aloud; poetry is a sound.
2- Vary rhythm enough to stir the emotion you want but not so as to lose impetus.
3- Use spoken words and syntax.
4- Fear adjectives; they bleed nouns. Hate the passive.
5- Jettison ornament gaily but keep shape
Put your poem away till you forget it, then:
6- Cut out every word you dare.
7- Do it again a week later, and again.
Never explain - your reader is as smart as you.
I love this part from George Perec’s essay “Brief Notes on the Art and Manner of Arranging One’s Books”. The phrases “an indiviudal bureaucracy” & “good-natured anarchy” will always stick with me.
Opposed to this apologia for a sympathetic disorder is the small-minded temptation towards an individual bureaucracy one thing for each place and each place for its one thing, and vice versa. Between these two tensions, one which sets a premium on letting things be, on a good-natured anarchy,…
The Five Lems by Jonathan Lethem.
In a Station of the Metro
The apparition of these faces in the crowd:
Petals on a wet, black bough.
By Ezra Pound
A Little Wordy #6 🎨🤡 0% theoatmeal.com/wordy
I knew what this was after I clicked the “rhymes with” clue but I could not be bothered to type it out.😄
I’m not sure I’ll ever recover from Prime Video describing the UK crime drama series Midsomer Murders as “sensual”.
I almost had a heart attack when I saw this post pop up in my RSS reader.
EVERY FRAME A PAINTING POSTED A NEW VIDEO?!!!
But no, the post in the RSS feed was missing this crucial bit of info at the top of the article. To be fair the feed post had the info at the bottom of the article but I’d already leapt over to youtube before scrolling to the bottom.
A fun little word game from The Oatmeal, called A Little Wordy.
I thought this was interesting, from the introduction of Five Modern No Plays by Yukio Mishima (transl. Donald Keene)
“In some respects Nō suggests ancient Greek drama: there are few characters; there is a chorus, dances, and masks (worn by the principal dancer in many cases), and an abundant use of traditional or legendary themes. How-ever, unlike Greek drama, which became increasingly realistic, Nō developed into an essentially symbolic theatre, where both the texts of the plays and the gestures of the actors were intended to suggest unspoken, indefinable realities.”
I’m currently reading Inferno by Dante and at the same time trying out micro.blog’s import tweets feature. These two things have collided in an unexpected and delightful way. After import I was browsing through old tweets I found a link to this McSweeney’s post from August, 2011.
DANTE ALIGHIERI’S GOOGLE+ CIRCLES
Virtuous Heathens
The Lustful
The Gluttonous
The Avaricious
The Wrathful
The Heretics
The Violent
Panderers and Seducers
Thieves
Hypocrites
The Traitors
Friends
Family (Descended from Ancient Romans)
Family (In Laws)
Acquaintances
Work
Literary Buddies
Beatrice
Venetians
Literary Critics
Interview with director Makoto Shinkai, on the Ghibliotheque podcast, about his new movie Suzume.