Doubt and the Unknown

We are just starting out, but it's clear from the first few essays in Loitering that the book is fiercely sad, mercilessly - surgically - self-conscious, and  beautifully written. D'Ambrosio's writing is a weird mix of world-weary wisdom, clear-eyed observation, and basically just writing about a bunch of things that he doesn't know much about. And he admits as much right up front. He says he doesn't do research. He just writes from a place of doubt and uncertainty. He says he doesn't even Google because he "wouldn't want to gunk up the works with irritable facts and information..." But it's forceful stuff. As he says, these are essays, not articles.

"My uselessness appalls me."

Selection for March & April 2015

Loitering: New & Collected Essays

by

Charles D'Ambrosio

Green as beginning, let the garden diving / Soar.

D.T. in one word:  Delirious?

Dylan Thomas in Interstellar

There's been a spike in interest about Dylan Thomas recently because his most famous poem "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" was featured heavily in the film Interstellar. The movie was pretty good, though the use of the poem was a bit ham-handed. (Michael Caine repeated it melodramatically about 10 times.) In any case, the poem is about raging "against the dying of the light" probably in terms of getting old and dying. The film used it on a more profound level: humans colonizing other planets as an act of "raging" against an existential threat.

Interestingly enough, Michael Caine says he KNEW Dylan Thomas irl:

In Interstellar, you recite Dylan Thomas’s “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night,” which sounds a lot harder to nail than math talk.
As an actor, you just read the reality of what is going on. I love that poem. I also knew Dylan Thomas quite well. I knew him, but he didn’t know me. He was always drunk when you met him. I know he’s dead, but I’m sure if you said, “Did you ever meet Michael Caine,” he’d say, “I don’t know.” He was a fabulous poet. He was just around in the bars and clubs in London. He was a very bright Welshman who drank too much.

See the full interview on Vulture: http://www.vulture.com/2014/11/michael-caine-interstellar-interview.html

Thomas on Thomas

Thomas describes his technique in a letter: “I make one image—though ‘make’ is not the right word; I let, perhaps, an image be ‘made’ emotionally in me and then apply to it what intellectual & critical forces I possess—let it breed another, let that image contradict the first, make, of the third image bred out of the other two together, a fourth contradictory image, and let them all, within my imposed formal limits, conflict.”

Selection for Jan/Feb 2015

Dylan Thomas: Selected Poems

O, kingdom of neighbors, finned

Felled and quilted, flash to my patch

Work ark and the moonshine

Drinking Noah of the bay

---

My ark sings in the sun

At God speeded summer's end

And the flood flowers now.

I see you.

"If we accept that we can see that hill over there, we propose that from that hill we can be seen."

Ways of seeing Ways of Seeing

Spoiler Alert: "Ways of Seeing" is actually based on a TV series from the 1970s and you can watch the episodes for free online. Here is episode 1:

You should still read the book though. It's very short. You could probably read it in less time than it would take to watch the videos.

Selection for Oct/Nov 2014

Great Last Sentence

Despite all my complaining about Speedboat, the last sentence is really good:

"It could be that sort of sentence one wants right here is the kind that runs, and laughs, and slides, and stops right on a dime."

It's the kind of sentence you write on a scrap of paper and say to yourself "This'll be the last sentence of a book someday."