An immense and enigmatic brilliance and scholarship, expressed in gorgeous prose; Roberto Calasso forges an art of myths, history, philosophy, literature, in fact the whole of Western Civilization. His works are like the colored patterns of light shining through stained glass windows, transforming and illuminating his subjects in beautiful, glorious ways. His work as … Continue reading Roberto Calasso, on his birthday May 30
“There are two kinds of madness one should guard against, Ben. One is the belief that we can do everything. The other is the belief that we can do nothing.” Andre Brink, A Dry White Season, p.304 An African magical realism of huge interlinked narratives, history and myth, the multilevel richness of the … Continue reading Andre Brink, on his birthday May 29
Before all else, there is the Great Book of gender and identity, The Twyborn Affair. Gender as a shifting puzzle box of images, of performances with intent to escape classifications, the ambiguity and elusiveness of beauty, and the devastating effects of colonialism. The Tree of Man is a conjuration by which Patrick White … Continue reading Patrick White, on his birthday May 28
Metafictional tomfoolery, crazy loops of self- referential silliness, his stories a set of nesting boxes, hilarious, fantastical, crafted with meticulous precision like a ship’s rigging, displaying a broad and immense scholarship, with gorgeous play of language and subversive wit, the works of John Barth include masterpieces of our world heritage of literature. And would … Continue reading John Barth, on his birthday May 27
“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson A tireless champion of the abolition of slavery, of equal rights for women, and of those of Native Americans, Ralph Waldo Emerson began a long American tradition of looking to the … Continue reading Ralph Waldo Emerson, on his birthday May 25
A connecting rod between the generations of his model Gustave Flaubert, his mentor Ezra Pound, his collaborator Charles Olson, and the Beat Generation poets of San Francisco who claimed him for their own, Robert Creely was instrumental in freeing poetry from its cages of formal structure, by abandoning historical conventions and creating new forms. His … Continue reading Robert Creely, on his birthday May 21
The novels of Peter Hoeg are maps of confusion in which the signs have all been changed, the echoes of the past moving among us all unseen, chaos and evils and malign desires swirling around and through us as close and unnoticed as our breath, in which we are chess pieces in a game of … Continue reading Peter Hoeg, on his birthday May 17
Here is the voice of Sleeping Beauty, who woke herself up one day and set about to reinvent herself and her society, a 50’s housewife turned poet radical who contains within her the whole history of feminism, and whose mission is to shake the rest of us awake. Using a gorgeously wrought poetry to … Continue reading Adrienne Rich, on her birthday May 17
The origins of evil and its relationships to the social use of force in both war and legal justice, political relations interwoven with and described in religious terms and frames, written beautifully; the themes and methods of Katherine Ann Porter remain today stellar models of study for anyone wishing to become a writer; how wonderful … Continue reading Katherine Ann Porter, on her birthday May 15
Gender as an illusion of shifting images, identity as a changing set of variables like a dance of veils, memory as a fluid dynamics system, and with all three of Daphne du Maurier’s great themes, gender, identity, and memory, the ownership and power relations as shaping forces thereof. No wonder she is misunderstood … Continue reading Daphne du Maurier, on her birthday May 13
Dollhouse Park Conservatory & Imaginarium 