Stickybuffalo.com

Quite a few books to cover this month, including a few which I completed during the last bit of December when the Christmas-to-New-Year’s stretch finally left me some time to sit and read.

Blake, Peter Ackroyd. I can say with some confidence that this is a well-written biography; it’s more difficult to evaluate its subject. Even describing William Blake, and why he might be considered significant, is a challenge. I became aware of Blake through my extensive and probably somewhat idiosyncratic exposure to British culture and history… Blake seems a particular favorite of a few British comic creators I like. I really have no idea how well the man is known or regarded in more mainstream circles, though.

Personally, I find the label of “genius,” applied by some, goes a bit too far. Einstein was a genius. I’d call Hayao Miyazaki and Alan Moore geniuses. I can’t quite see Blake as a genius, though. Perhaps it’s just because his work doesn’t greatly appeal to me; his art is interesting but seems kind of limited, and his poetry does little for me at all (to be fair, so does most poetry). I would unhesitatingly call Blake a visionary, but I suppose I just don’t find that much to admire in his visions.

In many ways, Blake’s thoughts and ideas are very foreign to me, even allowing for his living in the 18th century. Blake was original and inventive, constructing a remarkable mythology of his own, parallel to traditional Christian beliefs and values of his time. But unlike, say, the mythology of Tolkein, Blake’s was not really meant to entertain (nor does it, so far as I’ve noticed); honestly I’m not fully sure what it was meant for. If Blake was a “prophet,” I see little to commend his prophecies; superstitious mumbo jumbo is still superstitious mumbo jumbo, whether it’s official doctrine or the invention of a creative and earnest lone crackpot.

And yet, the story of Blake was not only interesting, but thought-provoking on a personal level. (more…)

Lately I’ve noticed a number of terms which are frequently used, particularly by the Anglo-American news media and punditry, in ways that seem deeply misguided and misleading. I would like therefore to challenge the assumptions made in current usage of the following terms:

Center (or centre). Frankly, in the context of American politics, the term “center” seems to have become nothing less than a euphemism for “conservative,” “reactionary” and/or “Republican.” “The center” always seems to be located in a rightward direction; the only time it ever seems to apply to Republicans is in the context of a primary race, usually for the presidency, in which there is a brief window between courting primary voters and commencing the general election campaign when a candidate might “move back to the center” by means of some modest leftward shift. Otherwise, the “center” seems exclusively used to describe a position to the right of Democrats.

(more…)

As world leaders, and particularly America’s government, fret and squirm at the possibility of democratic fervor empowering “dangerous extremists” in Egypt…

I just can’t help wondering whether any of them have considered that, to many people throughout the world and to at least some right here at home, in America democracy has already led to empowering dangerous extremists, on many occasions.