That Virginian Ringwald fact was a corker. She was on British TV last night. It was fairly 'explicit', I'm afraid. Sixteen Candles fans really missed out. And I'm a Sixteen Candles fan. Miller mulled:
Yes I know people can be entertained by Virginia Woolf and Syliva Plath,
And it's true, the very thought of Plath's syliva entertains me for hours. It was deliberate? Oh, yes, I see.
in which VW takes the wooden spoon with "How It Strikes a Contemporary".
She would have to take it, wouldn't she, cos in that famous essay about, ho-hum, 1910 she banged the drum, nay, the saucepan lid, about how ONE'S COOK is not what she was in the C19. eg: the cook now insists that madame do some of the cooking. If that means taking a wooden spoon, madame, so be it.
But somehow I struggled through it, only to find T.S. Eliot's "Tradition and the Individual Talent" blocking my path.
Edmund Wilson nearly finished me off with "Philocetes: The Wound and the Bow". Each unto
Golly! But this sounds like one heck of a book. Odd thing about that essay: the way he stops halfway through (it was in the Egoist in 2 parts, I think) having started on his scientific metaphor, then comes back in the second half and says, 'Welcome back - and we're joined at this point by listeners to the World Service' - and adds, 'You may recall that I talked of carbon monoxide blah blah... the meaning of my metaphor was this'. I could check these details, but to what end? I am just too lazy to walk across the room for them right now. The geezer Miller knows what I'm on about, anyway. Oh, OK. here he is: 'The analogy was that of the catalyst' - that's the bit I find silly and fun. 'When the two gases previously mentioned are mixed in the presence of a filament of platinum, they form sulphurous acid. This combination takes place only if the platinum is present; nevertheless the newly formed acid contains no trace of platinum, and the platinum itself is apparently unaffected: has remained inert, neutral, and unchanged. The mind of the poet is the shred of platinum'. (T.S. Eliot, Selected Essays, London: Faber: 1951, p.18.) I have only just noticed that he dedicated that volume to Harriet Shaw Weaver, 'in gratitude, and in recognition of her services to English Letters'. That makes me think. For TSE to dedicate his Selected Essays (and this is a big tome we're talking about, with many of his greatest thoughts in it) to a Communist lady - that was sweet. Maybe if I ever get to publish a Selected Essays, I should make a point of dedicating it to Harriet Wheeler, in gratitude, and in recognition of her services to English records. It's a good thing, by the way, that Steady Mike is off discussing old TV programmes in that Alaskan pipeline of his. If he was around he'd undoubtedly tear a strip off TSE's pseudo-scientific platinum jargon. I quite like that essay, really. It once struck me that the best way of understanding it was to think about 69 Love Songs. No wonder Miller doesn't dig it. their own. I have never read that one, but I love Wilson all the same. Axel's Castle is enough. But there's a fine essay on James, a staggeringly knowledgeable one on Shaw, an original and pioneering one on 'Flaubert's Politics' - this all in The Triple Thinkers, I think. Gosh - I love being on The Official Edmund Wilson & Lionel Trilling Mailing List.
Slyvia Plath fan
That's a good one too. SP has surely never been mentioned as much before on sinister in a single week. I think it's all a cunning advertising plan by La Welthorpe. He'll, I mean, she'll, have us hotly debating PAUL MORLEY next. That reminds me: 'I Love 1984'. Morley was good value for money, I thought. Especially when dissing Robert Elms and the Modfather. I thought that was the best episode yet. Anyone else?
Joan Didion's in it, Lloyd Cole turned a whole generation on to Joan Didion.
There's no doubt about it. Dan Wakefield (see previous e-mail - I think it may have been 'We Don't Need No Piece Of Paper From The City Hall') turned on the whole previous generation to Joan Didion. Or did he just turn on to, or even into, Joan Didion? I mean, Joan's not been seen around for a while. Hasn't posted for yonks.
For instance, I really like the subnormal Black Sabbath roadie riffing on one of the Foxgloves' songs ("Second Hand"?),
but not to the exclusion of more delicate offerings, like the Welthorpe penned "Stop
treasurable. the Bus I Want a Wee-Wee". outstanding. You, I mean. Not us or anything.
Am I right in thinking the next Papercuts will be out to coincide with ATP?
Yes - ATP 2002. And there'll be another one along in the summer of 2010, to coincide with the rerelease of the film of Arthur Clarke's novel.
it's all thirty-five yard aerial benders.
That's what I heard.
I bet Anthony Powell didn't do his own dusting.
No. He had to write, or thought he did. Some have disagreed. Best recent thing on Powell: Michael Wood in the LRB. It's grate being on the Michael Wood Mailing List. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get personalized email addresses from Yahoo! Mail - only $35 a year! http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail sinister@missprint.org. To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to majordomo@missprint.org. WWW: http://www.missprint.org/sinister +-+ "sinsietr is a bit freaky" - stuart david, looper +-+ +-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "peculiarly deranged fanbase" +-+ +-+ "pasty-faced vegan geeks... and we LOST!" - NME April 2000 +-+ +-+ "frighteningly named Sinister List organisation" - NME May 2000 +-+ +-+ Nee, nee mun pish, chan pai dee kwa +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+