Margaret Atwood reviews Trickster Makes This World.
Thomas McEvilley runs a graduate program in Art Criticism and Writing.
"Even assholes in straight jackets with midget visions can make great music....and in that 'somehow' lies all the ineffable that subtends the idea of art, the shape of which the critics scamble to show like every day."
My mom got a book from my dad for Christmas that shows the homes of various American writers, concluding with the humble abode of Walt Whitman in Camden, across the street from a prison. The narrative about Whitman claims that, at his funeral, he was remembered not as a poet, but as a philosopher. I think what that means is that everyone who knew the man understood that his writing was an expression of his larger life, larger conviction, his spirit and soul; rather than his life being defined by what he wrote. Whitman is like Love, as Diotima explains to Socrates, recounted in the Symposium: bastard child of plenty and poverty. Child giving it up for America and all its beautiful boys.
I don't know how to choose an object of study. Things are like dust. We play with them; we fight.
Not even the philosophers know what philosophy is.
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3 comments:
So I now own, all shrinkwrapped and pretty, this 'Trickster Makes This World' book of yours, because you recommended it, and I added it to my amazon wishlist, and my adorable college roommate sent it as a war-against-christmas present. How's that for a copacetic call-nd-response? Respect (to you) is due.
I heard this! So excellent! I hope you like it. I think you will. Hyde makes a thoroughly convincing case for transgression, mischief, and chance in myth and art. Also it's very well-written.
It is only appropriate that the book came to you through such happenstance.
i meant to tell you - there was something written by mcevilley in the gallery catalog i was just looking at for my body in art class.
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