Salinger est mort

Apparently Salinger continued to write and these manuscripts will now hopefully be published, unless of course he destroyed them recently. We can but wait for the executors to make an announcement or come to a decision. I for one am looking forward to see what happened to the Glass family, Franny in particular.

If you want to view all his works in full text online they are here.

Franny and Zooey, go together with Le Grand Meaulnes and Les Enfants Terribles as important books of my late teenage years. It would be nice to have an addition to any of them.


I was never the greatest fan of Holden Caulfield, although the character has some charm, I never found the book spoke to me. An examination of that wealthy preppy NY society was forever surpassed for me by the characters in Metropolitan, which although a film, covers much the same ground only being better than the book. If you haven't seen the film, it's your loss, but here are some of the quotes from it http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100142/quotes


see



and

Great Australian Internet Blackout

I am supporting the Great Australian Internet Blackout campaign against the Governments plan to censor Australia's Internet, and the .js file to do this should be working (you may have seen it), but I have noticed it isn't all the time. Anyway if Australian, go here and support it.

Here is the image that should be displaying on the homepage.



Update
.js file removed as campaign period over.

David Cameron

See that poster, you can now make your own at http://mydavidcameron.com. Have a look at some that have been made previously on the site, many are excellent. I like very much this one.



Also. The Conservatives now have a tree as their logo.


It's quite nice and quite strange really. A tree represents stability, endurance, longevity, and a myriad symbolic things particularly in Pagan and Christian lore, but is it the sort of thing to be bandied about by the Conservatives? I thought they hated nature and wanted to get rid of trees, certainly we know they hate animals and are in the pocket of the animal industries and farmers (who hate trees). But you wont find the Liberals (Australia's Conservatives) supporting trees or using them as emblems, here we even have hunger strikers in the cause of cutting down trees.

What I am listening to right now

I am not Tracey Emin

Tracey Emin asked these questions below of prospective clients. Once a large deposit was paid and the questionnaire completed, she would then make an original piece of neon art, which would then be sold to them for another very large sum. I however am not Emin, fill in the questionnaire and you may get an original piece of art work at a very reasonable cost. Obviously it wont be as good as an Emin, and I am not being facetious I love Emin's work, and it won't be in neon.

• Do you believe in God?
• How old are you?
• Do you still look at yourself the same way in a mirror?
• Is there any colour that makes you violently sick?
• Who is your favourite poet?
• If you could choose how to die then how?
• Passion, Romance or Hard core sex?
• Who is or was the greatest love of your life?
• Would you like the neon to be for them?
• Do you talk when you make love?
• If you could be anywhere now where would it be?
• How would you rate your sense of humour out of ten?
• Antique or contemporary? Fireplace or radiator?
• How often do you get homesick?

The poetry of Mikey Carroll

I hate when we're apart
I go to bed alone each night with a very heavy heart
I miss your arm around me, I miss our legs entwined
I wish that judge hadn't sent you down; I wish you'd just got fined.

From Careful What You Wish For

Edward Upward believed to become a good writer one must be a good Marxist or failing that be working class or if that not possible, then fully sympathise with the working class for only they can "tell the truth about reality"1. Mikey Carroll's poetry which features in his autobiography is writing that Upward would have admired as it lacks any stylistic pretension and any allegorical or metaphorical qualities, being ground in real life experience (the poem above refers to Carroll's wife who is in prison). It is a shame that Carroll is working class, as otherwise he would have been a good Marxist, but unfortunately as Upward showed you can't be both.


1. Sketch for a Marxist Interpretation of Literature (1937)

Schonfeld vs Newkirk

Victor Schonfeld writes in the Guardian:

five fatal flaws of animal activism:

1. Instead of promoting animal rights goals as a major plank within broader social change movements, animal organisations insist on going it alone. Yet the Green party's animal rights goals are as radical as any animal rights organisation's.

2. One of the world's largest animal rights organisations routinely employs naked young women, including porn stars, to chase mass media attention. Would a human rights organisation stoop so low?

3. Animal rights organisations have been handing out awards and lavishing praise on slaughterhouse designers and burger restaurant chains after "negotiations" for small changes that leave the systems of exploitation intact.

4. Instead of animal rights organisations promoting a clear "moral baseline" that individuals should become vegans to curb their own demands for animal exploitation, groups have given their stamp of approval to deeply compromised marketing concepts such as "happy meat", "freedom foods", "sustainable meat", and "conscientious omnivores".

5. Tactics of violence and personal intimidation have at long last fallen out of favour, but activists now pour energy and resources into organisations that lack any real strategy for bringing an end to animal exploitation, whether for food or science.

Number 1, just aint so. Attempts to put animal rights or even welfare on the platforms of political parties has been tried exhaustively, with very few successes, fox hunting in the UK being the only one I can think of, and that after 150 years of trying. Linking animal rights to other rights movements is also problematic, only because other rights groups do not want to associate their movement with ours.

Number 2, intrigues me, why exactly is it stooping low? I completely disagree.
To me human rights organisations peddle images far lower than anything PETA has ever done. Those organisations images are designed to elicit money or support by illuminating and publicly degrading the most vulnerable people for their organisations benefit. Let us not forget these organisations exist on funds generated by public appeals designed to make money from misery. The images of poor, homeless, starving, tortured, frightened, scarred people that grace the publicity materials of human aid and human rights groups are far more low. They project suffering as virtue, and seek your money from shame and guilt. Is this not the lowest. To me it is far lower than pandering to sex.
The image of a semi-nude semi-celebrity (or porn star) asking you not to wear fur, or to spey your pet for PETA is in no way worse than the pornography of want displayed by human centred organisations.
I would question also the morality that thinks it is not acceptable to use Sasha Grey (the porn star Schonfeld takes exception to) in an advert as opposed to any other professional or 'celebrity' as though porn stars were somehow less worthy of consideration as human beings.

Numbers 3&4, all animal rights groups are clear on their final demands, including PETA, which are a complete end to all animal exploitation for food, clothing and other unnecessary ends. Getting there is the thing, some organisations believe incremental steps are the way to go. See Newkirk's response citing Peter Singer's utilitarian stance linked below.
Also actually there are few or no animal rights organisations that do promote the 'happy meat' concept, the organisations that do support this are animal welfare groups, which are a completely different thing. Animal welfare groups do not even promote vegetarianism, and as such may not be the enemy but are also not part of the solution.

Number 5, well what strategy is being offered here. The 'by any means necessary' camp of animal liberationists have indeed stopped activity. Let us never pretend however that animal rights were not significantly advanced in the scientific, cosmetic and clothing industries by the actions of dedicated liberationists prepared to risk very long periods of imprisonment for their actions.



The PETA image of the multi-talented Sasha Grey, that Schonfeld objects to.

If you look at me and you think, here’s a woman who’s intelligent, cognizant and making her own choices, and you still tell me that what I’m doing is wrong, screw you, because that should end the debate.

Sasha Grey in Rolling Stone magazine


Ingrid Newkirk writing in response in the Guardian defends the use of whatever works:

As for the sexy women in our ads, the silly costumes, the street tableaux and the tofu sandwich give-aways, in a world where people want to smile, can't resist looking at an attractive image and are up for a free meal, if such harmless antics will allow one individual to reconsider their own role in exploiting animals, how can it be faulted? Yes, Peta could restrict its activities to scientific work, but how often do you read of that in the papers? It could just hand out lengthy tracts about ethics, but how many people would stop and take one, let alone read it? Any peaceful action that opens eyes, hearts and minds should be commended, not condemned.

P.S.

Wow, also, but what is most amazing about this newspaper exchange is the comments on the website. Over 90% are rabidly anti-vegetarian and anti-animals in general, with no insight at all on the issues. I have previously had it drawn to my attention that the Guardian’s Comment is Free section commentators are taken solely from the angry and the insane, and if you look at any comment area where the discussion is Israel you will see what I mean.


P.P.S.

I lived in the same apartment as Schonfeld for a time whilst he was working on The Animals Film, he played the album Remain in Light by the Talking Heads almost constantly, literally, just saying..

Howl

A new film on Allen Ginsberg's Howl is coming out soon.

By the looks of the trailers, James Franco remarkably has the mannerism and very much the voice of Ginsberg down pat. He does not look much the part, but then he isn't Ginsberg, and Ginsberg was a pretty unattractive man, truth be told.




Unfortunately the film seems to centre on the obscenity trial over the poem and as such will be of less interest than might be expected. There are numerous court room dramas over censorship or similar, Scopes, Chatterley etc. etc. and as such the debate over art/censorship is already covered enough for me in this medium. That debate though rages on still, in NSW it is being rehashed again at the moment, wherein the government is ruling out artistic merit as a defence against pornography laws.

The beats have been featured in a number of films, Robert Frank's short film Pull My Daisy being the epitome. There have also been David Cronenberg's frequent filmic use of the ideas of Burroughs, including his actual Naked Lunch. But there has been no film that centre stages the time/events around Times square when Ginsberg, Cassidy, Kerouac, Huncke and Burroughs first coalesced as a 'movement'. There would be no shortage of source material on this period, as there are numerous references to this period in the works of those concerned and many peripheral players. Notably one of which would be John Clellon Holmes, whose book 'Go' was the first so called 'beat' work published and although, not written with anything like the style of Kerouac, would be easily adaptable as a film script.

Howl, the original poem obviously also tells or alludes to many adventures/stories of the main beat protagonists (and Carl Solomon) in New York, across America and even on to Tangier. It would be possible and interesting to compose a film from the poem, rather than a film about the poem. If a film could be made from the 12 lines of Where the Wild Things Are, surely a film could be made from this.





Within Howl there are the lines:
who cooked rotten animals lung heart feet tail borsht
and tortillas dreaming of the pure vegetable kingdom

Which brings me to the subject of Ginsberg's supposed vegetarianism. It has been stated in numerous places that he was a vegetarian. This is in fact not the case and he ate meat in much the same way as all other Buddhists. The standard Buddhist belief (as given by Gautama himself) is that it is alright for adherents to eat meat as long as they have no reason to believe that the animal in question was slaughtered specifically for them. 2500 years ago, before the advent of the animal factories we know today, this was an acceptable compromise, in that individual animals were not killed especially for them when they were visiting people’s houses or in restaurants, so that even if they ate meat no blood as it were was on their hands. This stricture also allowed Buddhists who frequently in the past relied upon alms for their diet to receive and eat whatever food was offered. An alms receiver, after all, cannot be too picky about what is offered them. Today, however where there is no possible correlation between any individual non-human killed in an abattoir that kills maybe 50,000 a day and any one human individual, Buddhists therefore have a supreme get out clause that can allow them to eat almost all meat or fish. As with all religions that originally proscribed meat-eating on particular days or periods whether Christians, Jews, Mormons, etc., whatever means to defy the proscriptions will be made by adherents and leaders to continue to allow them to eat meat. Though of course this applies to all the tenets of all the faiths, for if people actually did follow all the sanctions and duties of each religion, they would be compelled to live in caves.

But back to Ginsberg, he clearly had a view towards vegetarianism, but like most people apparently he couldn’t bring himself to live up to it. He would have liked to have adopted the ‘pure diet’ a term he would be familiar with from studying his beloved William Blake, but choice and circumstance has him eating rotten meat.

When planning your Australia Day, keep this in mind

Also if in Sydney:

Australia Day Vegetarian BBQ
VENUE Bondi Surf Life Saving Club
26 January 2010, 11am - 4pm

Join us and Fry’s Vegetarian for the great Australian vegetarian BBQ.

Enjoy your freshly baked, preservative free bread thanks to Bakers Delight and Frys vegetarian food, manufacturer of vegetarian meat alternatives. All this for a gold coin donation to raise money for the Bondi Surf Life Saving Club.

There will be heaps happening on the day including a huge area with sun lounges, umbrellas and chairs and tables for people to relax and enjoy the BBQ. Key celebrities are also expected!

A year on

See this old post http://edgarcrook.blogspot.com/2008/11/new-dawn.html

I said I would tick all the boxes as the new President solved America's most urgent social problems. One year after succeeding to the Presidency, in a surprise move, the most unlikely issue is on the way, somewhat, to being solved. This however meagre the attempt in the face of entrenched opposition must be applauded and represents a better job done than that by Mr Clinton.




The outstanding issues will I am sure be solved in time. I look forward to ticking further boxes as the presidency continues.

Kingston Public Library

Canberra’s newest public library opened last month, it is only today that I first got to visit it. I had in fact tried to visit earlier, but that was on a Wednesday which with Sunday is a closed day.

The new library is a ‘shopfront model’ in that it mimics a shop, and is in a traditional shop space rented at commercial rates like any other commercial business.
The library as the photos show contains two rows of shelves running along the sides. One side is devoted to popular fiction, the other contains, the non-fiction, reserve shelves, and children’s and manga collections. In the centre at the back is a relatively inappropriate Xbox station (inappropriate as sits in an access aisle between the two sides, leading to no privacy and if playing one would be interrupted by people passing past the TV screen at which the games are viewed. Further down the central aisle is some shelving displaying oversize books, periodicals, the cd and DVD collection, a table for newspaper reading (seating uncomfortably maybe 6), Internet terminals and the check out desk which includes a self checker.



The first thing to note is that apart from the table there is no other general seating (aside from a small sofa type seat in the children’s area, but one so small that no child and adult could read together and even if they could their feet would be in the way of passing users), there is also no reference collection (aside from that available online) no quiet study area and there is no community room or any space for activities that would normally be provided such as storytimes, reading groups etc.

The collections consist of a largish but somewhat slim range of popular fiction, a very large amount of manga (that didn’t look at all well used), and a woefully inadequate non-fiction section. Being pretentious I checked for philosophy and poetry (Dewy ranges 100s and 800s) and found nothing at all. Within the 100s there were some self help books, and in the 800s a few basic lit crit texts. The only non-fiction areas of any use (albeit small) were health, cookery and travel guides.

This library therefore is not what one could conceivably call an information point. There is no sense either that reference queries would be handled in an appropriate way. In traditional libraries there is at least a desk where a librarian may be consulted, privately if required; here you would not feel free to do so. Set up as it is as a shopfront, the feel of the library is that of a shop, and consequently just as one would not ask a normal shop assistant for help beyond information on wares for sale, here one would feel awkward asking queries also beyond what is in stock. Having worked in public libraries, I know the range of queries that can come a librarians way from embarrassing (to the user) medical questions, to answers to tricky crossword clues as well as the general chats about reference or reading advice. I can’t imagine here with no comfort or privacy at all that people would feel at ease asking for help. Of course if they did ask, whether they would be talking to a librarian or not is debatable, as the only recognisable staff member is the library assistant who sits at the only staff chair in front of the issues desk. The actual librarians if there are any in the library, do not have a seat or any visibility, so finding one for starters would be hard.

This library seems to fulfil a very narrow definition of a library; there is no sense of library space, no community access points or gathering areas, no personalisation and no area for possible public input. It is a library, in so much as it provides some fiction items to borrow, beyond that it does not function.

Interestingly at the checkout they were giving away badges (below).


The words on the badge fascinate me as does the library for they appear to be implying that libraries are directly in competition with bookshops. I think this is a terrible idea, libraries and bookshops should be complementary, and both should be about providing a range of different services. Of course I value libraries far above bookshops and believe that what the badge says is true, but I don't think it is helpful, particularly seeing as this library is situated nearby 2 nice independent bookstores, which cannot be said of any other small shopping area in Canberra. Obviously borrowing books instead of buying them is cheaper and better for the environment, but attacking bookshops on price, when you are a public funded body is mistaken.

Bookshops, in particular the larger chains, have become more like traditional libraries, in that they have moved beyond just providing shelves of books and now have comfortable seating, coffee bars, readings/signings and often some small form of community participation and helpful customer/staff interaction. This library has conceded on all fronts those options and dispenses with any idea that a library should be about more than lending current popular fiction, and thus in a stroke is a return to the days of the badly run public and subscription libraries in Australia examined in the Munn-Pitt report of 1935. In those libraries of the past (and it really only since the 1960s that things improved) there was most often just a meagre collection of popular fiction titles and no works to edify and educate and few or no actual trained librarians. In this library which is over half given over to new copies of paperback fiction, there is the current range of ‘popular penguins’ surrounded by a mass of paperback crime novels. This meagre collection does not a modern library make.



In saying all this I recognise that library items may be ordered in from other libraries, and that the library system has many online services to assist users, but as the newest library and the public face of the library system in the area I think this library needs a major rethink. Putting libraries in the way of shoppers is a good move, but it does not necessarily mean that the library must function as a shop; a library can and should be so much more.

On a better note, a very new library member was made.

Ha ha