Sniffing, half friendly, half savage/ Dominant,(Jack London)

The Call of the Wild (Jack London). This book is about a dog named Buck His life starts out in Santa Clara Valley but he was neither a housedog nor a kennel dog. His father was a Saint Bernard and his mother was a Scotch Shepherd dog. At one point in the book Buck's change is compared to his Scotch Shepherd side sort of fading away. Later his actions mirror and even dominate those of the wolves around him. The book is about Buck and his transition and response to the wild land he finds and the "wild" that may have always been in him. We are told that the "dominant primordial beast was strong in Buck."A series of events took him to Alaska where many big dogs with strong muscles found work. His strong attachment and genuine love for his master ends with no master and he seems to have become what had called him all along.We really do see through Bucks eyes. Even so it isn't just his transformation that we feel but get our own taste of what the "wild" is. The book is one that you will want to read in one sitting. It is hard to put down. It is a good book for friends who may not really like to read and likewise is a unique experience in a point of view for those that do

A friend told me that he just didn't like to read. He said he had not read a book in 20 years. He just didn't enjoy it and he didn't think anything would hold his interest. Over the next two years I gave him "Call of the Wild", and "Into Thin Air" as Christmas presents. I will admit that I would not have done it the second time if he had not admitted to reading Call of the Wild. He said it took him several weeks but that he had really enjoyed it. I have read it a few times and usually do in in one siting. I find it interesting to see the world through the eyes of a dog and then to see the wild through those same eyes.

An Experiment in Criticism/Different by degrees/ C.S. Lewis

Different by Degrees



C.S. Lewis in his book “An Experiment in Criticism” covers some of the same ground that Harold Bloom does in his book “How to Read and Why. Bloom answers the question in part saying, “because it matters”. Lewis says that reading admits us to the experiences of others. He suggests that we can read or look at art to find what satisfies us or to experience what the writer or artist saw. He tells us in this way we become what we were not before, seeing through others eyes.
Lewis tells us that reading is a pleasure and it is good but adds that this "good" can be just a hedonistic value. Then he dissects that value by telling us that it does not have to be logical or what we may believe to be true or to be good. In the first chapter he compares buying a book to someone who buys a picture. One person might buy the picture to cover a bare spot on the wall and then after a week or two the pictures become mostly invisible to them. Another person would buy a picture, live with it, and actually feed off of it, for years. The book helps to understand what it might mean to "feed off" or even “rest in” what the book said. He suggests that to do this with your reading allows you to become or see what you had not found before. He likens this condition to a Greek poem saying, "I see with a myriad of eyes, but it is still I who see". The book has eleven chapters and an epilogue. Many of these chapters deal with the types of things men read and then in the final chapter the question of judging literary tastes by the type of books read is discussed. The approach is normally to judge by what a person reads. This is reversed. We are asked to judge literature by the "way" men read it. If it is how we read rather than what we read, then we are free to really become, as he suggests, "a thousand men and yet remain myself". Rather than pushing a point of view, something it could be assumed that a Christian writer would do, this book pushes the idea of real agency of reading choice. He then shows how pleasurable the experience can be but the pleasure is not dependent in a specific point of view but in learning to experience the point of view.

The question might be is the difference in the eye of the beholder? If so can we let someone else behold and still experience. See through others eyes.

Same old road, all new thoughts.(John Dewey's book)

It is remarkable how easily and insensibly we fall into a particular route, and make a beaten track for ourselves.
Henry David Thoreau



















The relationship of reflective thinking to the education process , or maybe just to "a process", seems to be where Dewey wants to go with his look at what "thinking is". I compare this to what Thoreau said in Walden. He claimed that one could best be a philosopher not just by having by having a variety of thoughts but by actually loving wisdom. It seems like for Dewey wisdom was a process, rather than specific concepts. The book, "How We Think", is often mentioned as a basic for those that want to teach. Is teaching just about learning or is it about concepts. Is learning something that as Dewey suggests is just a process or does the material thought about more important than the process.

Canon is a word that means the particular choice of books. Maybe the connection and influences of canon are really what drives thought. If so then reading matters. If not it may still matter but then but only as a process rather than an influence.

60 minutes to define a life./ Alive in someones heart/Nietzsche

Nietzche told us we find words only for what is already dead in our hearts.


An old delivery wagon and an old house. The old house reminds me of one on the west side of the town I grew up in. The horse and delivery wagon reminds me of a guy who grew up in the late 1920's and given one hour to tell a group of us about his life recalled mostly his youth. He told a group of us one day about delivering milk out of a wagon as a boy for his fathers business. In the hour that he had he used at least 25 minutes was spent on his winning the "marble champ award" for his school and then the state as a young boy. Then about 10 minutes on his job on a wagon like this. He did indeed find words for what had already had become if not dead at least long gone but for him it was his life. I would hate to use my hour like that............................................

No Subject Today, Nothing

(Just some words, perhaps alive and reflective of the day, at least)

Nothing is got for nothing Emerson's law of compensation

I do follow a few blogs and find them interesting. I can't tell you if this series of thoughts, random as they may be, really are of much reflect the day. I have a blog I follow a lot. It is a guy who lives way up North. He is Irish. he posts just a picture each day. Says nothing. I don't know who reads it or why, yet I find it interesting. I recall that he posted a picture of a old wagon delivering peaches in Chicago in 1903 the other day. Don't have a clue why he posted it.

A metaphor, the whole thing (How to read and why, Harold Bloom)

Somewhere Else

A good place to be today. Beats the snow we got again. It isn't an island I really want to read about. Truth is I would just as soon really be there.

Blog Questions

This blog has a lot in it about books. Literature is often the subject matter. On the other hand Literature my be just a metaphor for a desire to be different. A desire to be elsewhere, for a while anyway. This out of necessity requires that it represents being different than oneself.

Writing in many ways accomplishes the same thing. It comes from a desire to be elsewhere. In a different time and a different place.

Why Read .......In the book,"How to Read and Why"

by Harold Bloom it suggests an answer. It says to do so because

"it matters". We can prepare ourself for change and we can weigh and consider.

It adds that the pleasures of reading are selfish rather than social. The reason being that you cannot directly improve anyone else's life by reading better or more deeply.

West Texas, today, Shakespeare/Robbins

El Paso Texas

A river runs through it, El Paso that is. The Rio Grande starts out in the Rocky Mountains, in Colorado and makes its way to the Gulf of Mexico. In these pictures the River divides El Paso and Juarez Mexico, or more offically, "Ciudad Juarez". I think there are 3 ++ million folks on the South side of the river. Many come across the border to shop in El Paso which has close to a million. Today I flew in and landed about 7:30am and left for home about 1:30PM. I do this a lot it seems. Work takes me to the area. I spend the day really aware of all the Spanish being spoken. No surprise. Today it was cold. Not the normal. At night when I am there it always interesting to see all the lights accross the river. Added to the Lights of El Paso Juarez makes it look like a very very big city.

For two years in a row I have been there to see the local newspaper headline about El Paso being one of the most safe cities in the US. I guess 5 police forces helps. Texas Rangers. EP Police. Military Police tied to Fort Bliss. Border Police. A Juarez police. (Bet the FBI is there too, probably the others) Fort Bliss will be the place that the Military in Middle East come home through so in preparing it is becoming very big.

Ciudad Juarez

Looking accross the river from this view focuses on a lot of poverty. There are some nice areas and some business centers. Still a lot changes with crossing a river.

A Mountain in El Paso

Lots of Rock. Rugged. This is part of a range of mountains and canyons. One day last summer I ran up one of the canyons with a friend. We went early one morning. It gets hot in the summer and it was hot at 5 AM.

Remembered in Movies, books, and songs to:

Marty Robbins

Out in the West Texas town of El Paso

I fell in love with a Mexican girl.

Night-time would find me in Rosa's cantina;

Music would play and Felina would whirl.

Shakespeare was considered the "People's Poet"

Marty Robbins canon seemed central for the day.

How Should we live. Become Better

Deep Thoughts
Some questions seem to have more to them than meets
the eye. More under the surface than at first glance



A Bird, Thinking





Thinking about things
is a good thing. Then
again what is a good
thing. It seems from
Plato's conclusions that
it must be that which
makes people better.
(Mabye Birds too)

Today I read a story about a blogger, "WordSmith at War", who went from 2,000 hits a year to 200,000 a year. He started out writing about the Iraq war and his day to day thoughts. It didn't take long to be noticed and after a brief period he is now even featured in Time magazine. The good news for him is that he wanted to be a writer and this is opening doors for him. See the site if your interested . http://wordsmithatwar.blog-city.com/


The Republic of Plato would not come up on my re read list for a while execpt that I found some folks interested in talking about Philosophy and was invited to join them later. Kathy expressed her approval writing me back on a email reminder I sent to just let her know I would be gone. "Good Times" perhaps was the essence of the message. Why email upstairs would be a good question if this presented all the facts. Why not, works for me is an answer. Anyway I opened the book. I had read it in colleage and a few times since. I liked what I had underlined during several of these occasions. In the introduction it says that Socrates stood aloof most but was anxious to inquire with anyone that cared to talk with him as to "what men should live for". Plato apparently answered the question by indicating that society could be reshaped in order that man might realize the best that was in him. That seemed to be the main theme of this book.

Some questions seem to have more to them than meets the eye. More under the surface than at first glance.

Thinking about things is a good thing. Then again what is a good thing. It seems from Plato's conclusions that it must be that which makes people better. (Mabye Birds too)

Elysees in the springtime

Louvre

Champ Elysees

Arc de Triomphe

As I recal if you standing in the courtyard of the Louvre and your looking up the Champ Elysees
street looking at the Arc de Triomphe which is about a mile up the street this is what would be behind you and in front of you. My first French victory was figuring out how to pronounce this street. On the other hand if you were standing at the Arc de Triomphe looking towards the Louvre then if you looked to your right about three buildings down the street, if you were me, you would notice an office building and remember that your neighbor a couple of blocks away back home in Utah, at that time, had his office in that building. One of the largest advertising companies in the world. Then and even now it sort of makes me think that would have been a neat job to have had for a while. Long commute however. I have been to London twice but only once to Paris. In some ways I can think of a lot more things that I missed seeing than we saw but we saw a lot. The bottom picture is an old one. Old cars. Today it is four lanes. The cars go around the Arc and turn in and off onto all of the streets that enter the circle like a spoke. Sooner or later I probably will need to makes some comments and perhaps do a reveiw on a book called "Down and out in Paris and London". Or any of a number of other books about Paris I have read. Then this takes me to what is a real interest I have in French Literature. Probably too many random specific thoughts for the night.

Cole Porter wrote this song. Frank Sinatra made it famous.
I Love Paris
I love paris in the spring time
I love paris in the fall

I love paris in the summer

when it sizzlesI love paris in the winter

when it drizzlesI love paris every moment

Every moment of the year

I love paris,

why oh why do I love paris

Because my love is here

A good song, a white sky

New York,

New York

Winter

1888

by the way

I like New York, based on the few times I have been there. I have always thought I would like living there. I don't like snow much however. On the other hand one of the things I don't like about snow is shoveling a driveway. Don't see to many driveways in Manhattan. I don't like driving in snow. Then again maybe if one lived in the downtown of a big city you wouldn't have to drive a lot. Yes sir, I like New York

Start spreading the news

I'm leaving today

I want to be a part of it,

New York, New York

These vagabond shoes

Are longing to stray

And make a brand new start of it

New York, New York

I want to wake up in the city that never sleeps

To find I'm king of the hill,

top of the heap

These little town blues

Are melting away

I'll make a brand new start of it

In old New York

If I can make it there

I'll make it anywhere

It's up to you,

New York, New York.

Wish I had wrote that. Course Blue Sky beats a white sky seen only behind a bunch of wires.

Typing for minutes

I read a book on writing. I have done that a lot of that, reading books on writing, by the way. In this blog today, for this thought, I will report that the book also said that every day you should spend some time writing randomly. Seconds, hours, even just minutes, just writing what ever comes into your mind. The book called the approach the "morning papers". Got to get to work, not writing, work, by the way.

That was easy, you see. So what this morning comes to mind is, is that thought about writing randomly. I probably don't blog in a very broad spectrum of thought anyway so I may be missing an opportunity.

I did add a Amazon review link on this blog. That means on the left side of this you can click and get to Amazon.com and read my reviews. It is sort of odd to have shopping baskets on it, the link. I did the link not to make it an e store, although I guess it is, but to capture my own reviews.

Same reasoning went into the other links. Places I like to go on occasion. The reviews have been fun. Daily writing. On Amazon if you like a particular reviewer you can click on their other reviews and see all that they have reviewed. I am proud to say that after a whole week or so of reviewing books I am now ranked as somewhere near the, hold your breath, 1.5 million level. My conclusion is that more have read other reveiewers and they are ranked ahead of me. I like my reviews in spite of my low ranking. Course why would I post them if I didn't. On the other hand at least I have a better way to spell check those reviews than this blog.

So random thoughts. Specific lack of pictures. Looking to break out of the box. Maybe another three or four random reviews in the next day and two thirds. Maybe not.

So I posted my own "minute of typing, "morning papers" my own thoughts, and I used this blog to do it. Took a few minutes.

All the thoughts and things that make one feel this way

C.S. Lewis tells us, on the one hand, that through literature we can see with others eyes and then, on the other, that we can never quite get out of our own skins. Whatever we do, something of our own and our own age's making will remain in our experience of all literature.

He says of poetry that poetry once was literature itself but that it has become what it is now by sepertion and is differentiated from prose. Often used rather than received.

A favorite book of mine is Caroline Kennedy's, "The Best Loved Poems of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis" I have written about this book on previous blogs. I have reviewed it on my Amazon link. The book presents a lot of good poems. Good taste. No surprise. Then this one by Jacqueline seems to be one to receive rather than retell. To help see through others eyes. It seems to be literature, itself.

Thougths

Jacqueline Bouvier

I love the Autumn

And yet I cannot say

All the thoughts and things

That me one feel this way.

I love walking on the angry shore,

To watch the angry sea;

Where summer people were before,

But now there's only me.

I love wood fires at night

That have a ruddy glow.

I stare at the flames

And think of long ago.

I love the feeling down inside me

That says to run away

To come and be a gypsy

And laugh the gypsy way.

The tangy tast of apples

The snowy mist at morn,

The wanderlust inside you

When you hear the huntsman's horn.

Poor weather, good books, a small Friday Blog

Peanuts fusses about the weather.

Seems normal this week

Travels with Charley

John Steinbeck

This is not what you would expect. Well worth reading after reading all the other books. It takes you across the country in the 1960's on a long road trip. If you remeber the 60's it will sound pretty accurate.

What did Lincoln see

One side would make war

rather than let the nation survive

The other accept it rather than

let it perish

It has been 4 years this month since I was last in Washington DC. As I have done several times I went to the Lincoln Memorial. It was snowing and it was cold. Climbing the steps to see this statue of Lincoln is always exciting. You can look back accross the mall to the Washington Monument and beyond.







If you were standing in this spot then behind where you stood would be the "Second Inaugural Address" engraved on the wall. This speech is in many ways really Lincoln's Greatest Speech. (see book reveiw link)

703 words. Talking about Scripture. Talking about God. Suggesting that a proper approach for the nation going forward was to have "Malice towards none and charity towards all".


C.S Lewis said that in reading we can become a thousand men and still remain ourself. See with a myriad of eyes. We can trancend ourselves.

Being at the beginning of a New Year is like finding a new book. To look forward with a thousand eyes and to wonder what it will bring is exciting. What a great New Years goal

Charity towards all and malice towards none

Happy New Year: Art, Books and some Goals

Michaelango's hand of God and Adam

The Pieta by Michelangelo is a marble sculpture in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome

New Years Day is a good day for resolutions. Goals for the coming year. Habits to change. Facing the challenge of being a better person. Lots of pressure.

C.S. Lewis offers a better solution than just pressure*. He suggests that a literary experience heals the wounds without undermining the privilege of individuality. He is talking about reading.

At a time when it is easy to feel that we just have to set goals to become better it is also easy to become unhappy with ourself. Lewis says that by reading great literature that we can become like a thousand men and yet remain ourselves. He adds that like a Greek poem says that we can see with a myriad of eyes, but it is still ourselves that see.

He compares buying a book to someone who buys a picture. One person might buy the picture to cover a bare spot on the wall and then after a week or two the pictures become mostly invisible to them. Another person would buy a picture, live with it, and actually feed off of it, for years. He suggests that to do this with your reading allows you to become what you had not been.

Some great pictures and great art that made me think of some good books.

* An Experiment in Criticism C.S. Lewis