Got a bunch to say -- about baseball stats, about the Tremendous writer's retreat we just finished, about the subject of my favorite ever sports event, about the iPad 2, about the 32 best players in baseball, about my favorite day in the NBA, about something that is still secret -- but I'm running in so many directions at the moment that I'm not sure how or when I'll get to any of it.
In the meantime, through a series of misunderstandings, I ended up downloading William Hazlitt's "Lectures on the English Poets Delivered at the Surrey Institution." I assume that this is a classic because I was able to download it for free, but I must admit I knew nothing whatsoever about it or Hazlitt or really English Poets. I am reading it now and I am shocked to report that ... it's is absolutely wonderful and mind-blowing.
Two quotations -- the first a bit longer -- about poetry, but really about writing, but really about life:
"Fear is poetry, hope is poetry, love is poetry, hatred is poetry; contempt, jealousy, remorse, admiration, wonder, pity, despair, or madness, are all poetry. Poetry is that fine particle within us that expands, rarifies, refines, raises our whole being: without it 'man's life is poor as beast's.' ... The child is a poet, in fact, when he first plays hide-and-seek, or repeats the story of Jack the Giant-killer; the shepherd-boy is a poet, when he first crowns his mistress with a garland of flowers; the countryman, when he stops to look at the rainbow; the miser, when he hugs his gold; the courtier, who builds his hopes upon a smile; the savage, who paints his idol with blood; the slave, who worships a tyrant, or the tyrant who fancies himself a god."
The second quotation is the best description I have ever heard of blogging.
"It is the perfect coincidence of the image and the words with the feeling we have, and of which we cannot get rid in any other way, that gives an instant 'satisfaction to the thought.' This is equally the origin of wit and fancy, or comedy and tragedy, of the sublime and the pathetic."
If I ever thought something as awesome as "the perfect coincidence of the image and the words with the feeling we have," I'm pretty sure my life would be complete. Though I did write that thing about Snuggies.
The iPad2? I still want the iPad 1 review!
ReplyDeleteI think (and hope) that waiting for an iPad review is the blog equivalent of a snipe hunt.
ReplyDeleteJoe, I feel the best use of your time vis a vis iPads is to just start the iPad3 review now. It just might be ready by the time the thing comes out.
ReplyDeleteFucking Hazlitt, man. Hazlitt rulez. And when you're done with Hazlitt, check out Walter Pater. Dude's a muffuga, Joe.
ReplyDeleteOh Hazlitt, he is quite the quotable contrarian. I have only read him as he is quoted by Harold Bloom, but even in the quotes he comes across as that dude at the party you have to listen to:
ReplyDelete(From "On Poetry in General" as quoted in Bloom's "The Western Canon"
"We see the thing ourselves, and show it to others as we feel it to exist, and as, in spite of ourselves, we are compelled to think of it. The imagination, by thus embodying and turning them to shape, gives an obvious relief to the indistinct and importunate cravings of the will.-We do not wish the thing to be so; but we wish it to appear such as it is. For knowledge is conscious power; and the mind is no longer in this case, the dupe, though it may be the victim of vice or folly."
Maybe "Stop Time for short period" covers this power that I'd like to have but not really... How about the power to change the outcome of a major sporting event? (Let's say you get three in your entire lifetime)
ReplyDeleteI seriously thought of two so far in my life of 58+years that I would use my power to change. I wish that half court heave by Butler stud basketballer last April had gone in to give Butler a one-point win over Duke - and I'm not a huge Duke hater like some folks are. Just would have loved to have see little Butler win the Big Dance.
My other one so far would be to change outcome of 1972 NLCS Game #5 back when LCS went only 5 games. Pittsburgh led by a run going into the bottom of ninth in Cincy but Bench led off with an opposite field HR that he crushed and then things went all to hell for the Buccos. The late Bob Moose wild-pitched the game winning run in later that same inning. It was also Clemente's final game...I walked the streets of Columbus for many hours that evening in a bad funk. Never have ever totally gotten over that result.
One of my favorites:
ReplyDelete"Poetry is speaking painting."
-Plutarch
@jasonlinden --
ReplyDeleteAlong similar lines, and poetic in its own right:
"Architecture is frozen music." -- Goethe
A ball caroms.
ReplyDeleteAn ace falls.
A rib cracks.
A Brewer weeps.
A Red smiles.
A Royal sighs.
Hazlitt's "On the Pleasure of Hating" is one of the gems of the English language, and as fresh today as it was in 1826 (probably more so). He also has one of the longest Wikipedia pages I've ever seen. And invented the word ultracrepidarian, which predicted blogging without a doubt, but what do I know.
ReplyDeleteI blush to say that I've never read Hazlitt -- but you might want to check out David Lodge's academic novel trilogy (Changing Places, Small World, Nice Work). One of the main characters is an English professor who's an expert on Hazlitt, which all the other English professors think is very uncool. And Small World is one of the funniest novels I've ever read.
ReplyDeleteWe read Hazlitt's essays in Freshman English. He write a terrific essay on boxing, too: http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/Hazlitt/Fight.htm
ReplyDelete