. I learned at an early adult age, with only minor but memorable pain, not to hero-worship. When we lionize people, we tend to forget the natural inclination of the lion to consume the person. I prefer admiration. Admiration works from the muck up. While hero worship sets up the faithful for a fall, admiration […]
A Günter Grass Manifesto
. Ezra Pound is noted, finally, for living the last decade of his life – after his indictment for treasonous, antisemitic broadcasts in support of Mussolini, and his confinement to the asylum of St. Elizabeth’s – in near silence. “I know nothing at all…. I have even forgotten the name of that Greek philosopher who […]
Making it Modern
“Art is a private thing, the artist makes it for himself; a comprehensible work is the product of a journalist.” Tristan Tzara, “Dada Manifesto,” March 23, 1918 “Literature is news that stays news.” Ezra Pound, ABC of Reading (1934) Serge Diaghilev, at the composer’s studio, on hearing the first few minutes of Igor Stravinsky’s The […]