Browsing Archive: May, 2011
Posted by Roger Boylan on Monday, May 23, 2011,
It happens every May and June: I return in my mind to a place I know well and a past I never knew. Specifically, to France in the spring and summer of 1940, and (on June 6th) in the spring of 1944. Around this time 71 years ago the crucial mistakes had been made; the best divisions of the French Army under the able but ill-used Generals Huntizger and Georges were stuck in Belgium, and insufficient defenses manned the Ardennes gap through which von Rundstedt and Guderian would direct their Pan... Continue reading ...
Posted by Roger Boylan on Wednesday, May 18, 2011,
"My time will come," said Gustav Mahler, who died at the too-young age of 50, a century ago today. At the time he was seen as a brash, eccentric conductor who wrote immense and turgid symphonies during his spare time. An apprentice Bruckner, no doubt soon forgotten, sniffed the snobs. Fortunately, he was right about his posthumous future. If anything, the pendulum has swung to the other extreme, as it tends to do, reflected, for instance, in the title of an articlewritten by Tim Smith, music ... Continue reading ...
Posted by Roger Boylan on Monday, May 16, 2011,
I don't know, it must be so tempting, when you're the favorite of the gods, to throw it all away. This certainly would appear to be the case with Dominique Strauss-Kahn, jet-setting director of the International Monetary Fund and, until a certain incident in New York the other day, shoo-in for the Socialist nomination and probable dead cert for the presidency of France. ("Yes, he Kahn" was the Obamian campaign slogan du jour.) But not any more. DSK, as he is dashingly known, could hardly have... Continue reading ...
Posted by Roger Boylan on Thursday, May 12, 2011,
I've had two Celtic-nationalist manifestations in my life. The first, in Northern Ireland, led me into membership of a certain Catholic republican/nationalist group not in good odor with the local Protestant population, and resulted a year later in a hasty exodus to Scotland. Ever the chameleon, once there I transferred my allegiance seamlessly to the sister Celtic culture and, no doubt under the influence of the water of life and/or strong ale, I joined the Scottish National Party, then a sm... Continue reading ...
Posted by Roger Boylan on Monday, May 9, 2011,
This is the confluence of the rivers Limmat and Sihl, in Zurich. During his wartime sojourns in Switzerland, James Joyce often took his ease in this pleasant spot. He was doing so one cold day in January 1941 when suddenly he doubled over in agony and went home in a taxi, to be ministered to by his wife Nora. Bed rest did him no good, however, so an ambulance, parp-parping through Zurich's silent nocturnal streets, rushed him to hospital. He was operated on for a perforated ulcer, improved, l... Continue reading ...
Posted by Roger Boylan on Saturday, May 7, 2011,
In an article in the Irish blog Some Blind Alleys, "A Life in Literature, Or, What You May Lose By Becoming a Writer," Carlo Gebler, an Irish writer (above), has written a blistering analysis of what it's like to be a midlist (or lower) denizen of Grub Street. I've never read a more glaring indictment of what I do; and yet, of course, I will continue to do it, having no choice in the matter. Here's his take on how he feels about other writers. Sound familiar, o fellow scribblers?
"[A]ll that I... Continue reading ...
Posted by Roger Boylan on Wednesday, May 4, 2011,
The TIME cover says it all: Bin Laden is dead. Generally, the reaction was one of muted celebration, with the exception of a few raucous street parties in DC and NYC. President Obama took a considerable political risk by ordering a commando attack instead of a bombing raid. The high-level professionalism of the Navy SEALs who ran OBL to ground and killed him is beyond reproach. Thank God, most of us feel, this country can still do something right. And thank God most of us appear to feel that ... Continue reading ...
Posted by Roger Boylan on Monday, May 2, 2011,
"To jump in anywhere ... is to be caught up in a totality, a dimension between Pynchon and the Pythons, though more accessible and coherent than that implies."
Read Kevin Riordan's overview of the Killoyle Trilogy in The Evergreen Review. Continue reading ...
Posted by Roger Boylan on Sunday, May 1, 2011,
Back when I lived in the Lower East Side of New York City, I was in daily danger of being knifed or coshed or shot on those mean streets, but I was reasonably safe from hurricanes and in no danger at all from tornadoes and floods. Now that I live in the placid Texas Hill Country, I run the risk of being viciously mugged by Mother Nature at any time of the day or night, any season of the year, according to this NY Times map.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/05/01/weekinreview/01safe.htm... Continue reading ...
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