I learned to read the Tarot in high school with a book dripping in esoteric spookiness--The Key to the Tarot: The Veil of Divination, Illustrating theI learned to read the Tarot in high school with a book dripping in esoteric spookiness--The Key to the Tarot: The Veil of Divination, Illustrating the Greater and Lesser Arcana, EMBRACING the Veil and its Symbols, Secret Tradition under the Veil of Divination, Art of Tarot Divination, Outer Method of the Oracles, the Tarot in History, Inner Symbolism, The Greater Keys by L.W. de Laurence (and the titles went on) published by the de Laurence Company, Chicago, Ill. U.S.A. 1918.
Almost a hundred years later, comes Michelle Tea's Modern Tarot. I absolutely fell in love with it. the tone and focus is worlds away from the de Laurence approach--friendly, down-to-earth, rich with the author's cheerful, outspoken, simpatico voice, she's every bit as knowledgeable but emphasizes the approachability of the oracle, so straightforward and personal, as well as creating wonderful magical procedures as a way of internalizing the energy of certain cards, if you so choose.
Where de Laurence is more in tune with the mysticism, the inner symbols, the Egyptian and Roma roots and Christian/Rosacrucianism, Veils and Hidden Mysteries--Tea brings you behind the Veils, she turns on the lights, airs out the room. It's the perfect volume for the modern reader who might not be attracted to all the incense and mysterio-slightly ominous vibe, but who wants to use the Tarot for divination or for self-exploration. Tea is the perfect guide for beginners or experienced Tarot enthusiasts alike. A great gift book for anyone interested in Tarot....more
Heard this on audio years ago, a title I'd forgotten, yet I remember finding it absolutely mesmerizing, just the feeling of these young people gettingHeard this on audio years ago, a title I'd forgotten, yet I remember finding it absolutely mesmerizing, just the feeling of these young people getting through the night together, the night Tokyo so absorbing, both the strangeness and the mundane quality of night workers and night people and places, love hotels as a place of employment rather than exciting trysts, Denny's, random encounters after midnight. I want to say it was my first Murakami, and I have listened to each subsequent book on audio--immersing myself again in that strange acceptance, the metaphysics at the heart of all his work....more
This was a split decision. The book was well researched and introduced me to the deep bench of literary work by Shepard, and the basic outlines of hisThis was a split decision. The book was well researched and introduced me to the deep bench of literary work by Shepard, and the basic outlines of his chronology, the bone structure of his personal life and psychological makeup, his intrinsic and painful contradictions which generated so much of this literary outpourings. As a theater guy, Dowling also gives a terrific picture of the avant-garde American Theater in the 1960s, probably the biggest contribution of the book. I'd heard the names "LaMama" and "Magic Theater" but never understood how theater groups like that fit into the development of theater in America, the importance of 'off-off Broadway,' and the difference between that and broadway productions. Why a playwright like Shepard was so successful in these spaces but actively disliked (and was disliked by) the more mainstream theater. You even get the impression of the kind of theater he wrote for--the more intimate and fluid the better.
What this was missing for me was two-fold. First, I never really felt the deeply personal side of the man, not a lack of description--plenty of that--but not the flavor of the man. This would have been better served by more quotes from his own work than of critics. Notably absent were first hand interviews with Shepard's first wife, O-lan, and his second, Jessica Lange, and all the many paramours mostly noted as a group, not to mention Patti Smith, with whom he wrote Cowboy Mouth, and Joni Mitchell, with whom he had a brief affair on the Dylan Rolling Thunder tour. Probably not from lack of trying, but the book did suffer from the lack. It's one thing to be told that he was always picking up women, but I'd sure like to know his opening lines. We get a repetition of themes in regard to his personal life, but it all seems at a certain remove, intellectual rather than emotionally resonant.
On the side of the plays, as someone who hasn't the familiarity with Shepard's work, it would have been very useful for the writer to have included summaries of the major work, especially what made each of them significant unto themselves, and direct quotes from the plays and stories which would be resonant with what made Shepard such an important playwright. It was like the writer was looking for other people to draw out the nuances he should have been drawing out. All the plays described sounded like the same play--two brothers, or a disaffected son with a monstrous father. More attention was given to the situation which inspired him to write this or that play, and the details of the first performances, rather than the substance of the plays themselves.
Yet, despite my wishing for more of each, it was a great introduction to a life and work, and fueling an interest to learn more....more
A book I admired in several respects but never warmed to it--often for the very reason I admired it. Let me explain. I admired it in form, as a seriesA book I admired in several respects but never warmed to it--often for the very reason I admired it. Let me explain. I admired it in form, as a series of abruptly abandoned short stories interspersed by the musings of an elderly and distinctly unlikable London-based Dutch writer, Dora Frenhofer, presumably the author of the stories. The stories are introduced at the end of each short Dora section (only a few pages), with three attempts to start a story (two crossed out), and then the story.
While some of these stories engaged my attention, at the end of the first one, about an Indian bureaucrat who contemplates (abstractedly) the societal benefit of suicide and ends in a mishap in the local river, completely unresolved, I realized that each story--no matter how engaging--would end abruptly and without resolution. The shaggy-dogness of the stories, coupled with the under-exploration of the "author", who just seems uniformly disgruntled and a spoiler of good things, kept me from loving the book.
Yet I did admire how each story tangentially overlapped with the other, and I loved the characters and milieus of the individual stories--the hippie trail kids in the first tale, the frightful kidnap of a Franco-Arabic man and political torture in the second, the comedy writer in entertainment world, presumably Dora's estranged daughter--in the third, the overqualified bike messenger, manager of a semi-communal house of eco radicals, and clickbait boiler room in the fourth, overlapping with the man in the second; a lost son and lover (overlap with the 'author' and the daughter) in Paris in the fifth, and a final wrap-up story from the author's point of view, which may be true or another story. But the fact that I loved some of these characters led me to want Rachman to complete the stories and not just snatch them away again without completing them because it was "only a story."
INventive but accessible, it will appeal to fans of Cloud Atlas, Let the Great World Spin, readers who love stories within stories and are fine with truncated tales in favor of the overall work....more
I'm finding this an extremely interesting read, as I am not a Buddhist nor do I practice a Buddhist based meditation, but feel a great yearning for miI'm finding this an extremely interesting read, as I am not a Buddhist nor do I practice a Buddhist based meditation, but feel a great yearning for mindfulness in daily life. It is a book which requires engagement, to pick up each piece and examine it and check in with your own belief system/philosophy and weigh its usefulness to the outsider versus its 'inside-baseball-ness.' That said, I admire its comprehensiveness and depth, its systematic pulling apart of the issue of awareness and mindfulness, examining each aspect in turn, making it worth the engagement, even though its touchstone is the Buddhist idea of non-attachment to the things of this world--for this Taoist, sense-positive, joy-positive reader, taken to the extreme, not really living at all. But so much to think about! I find myself applying aspects of it even as I'm reading. Not even consciously, but simply by exposure to the concepts. (Non-effort being part of the Taoist approach).
For example--I always bristle at the description of earthy pleasures being "defilements". think that insistence on purity in anything always takes us on a wrong road. But in the system of trying to liberate the human from attachments that cause suffering, it's all of a piece. So much in here is so valuable, who's to say you have to accept it all to benefit?...more
This was a demanding read for a book so short (under 200 pages). Austen Riggs a major psychoanalytic center... this was a book for the psychological pThis was a demanding read for a book so short (under 200 pages). Austen Riggs a major psychoanalytic center... this was a book for the psychological professional, an argument about how neurotic people conform to certain 'styles' of thinking and behavior: paranoid, obsessive, hysterical, and impulsive (which has subcategories, the psychopathic and the passive)-- and varieties of same. The language is very specific as Shapiro unfolds his ideas -- therefore for the layperson, there's a constant internal translation out of psychoanalytic terms into everyday terms (e.g. 'affective' instead of 'feeling') requires slow and careful reading.
But I found the subject matter fascinating, worth the effort. In each 'style' I could absolutely picture a person of my acquaintance or a character, an actor or a political figure. Anybody interested in human motivation and behavior, especially difficult, maddening, perplexing folks who think very differently than the. norm, this is a wonderful addition to your psychology bookshelf, especially great for the writer, actor, playwright.
It doesn't linger on the case histories--the possibilities of why certain individuals function that way--but focuses on the mechanics of how they function. It sees their behavior as a certain 'style'--a way this individual and those like him/her handle the pressures of life. As to be expected from psychoanalysists, it's not judgmental, only clarifying the case as presented. Nor does it offer any cures. This is just a picture.
The paranoid style has the most detailed section, and explains a lot of the conspiracist mentality we see around us... and man, the psychopathic impulsive sure reminded me of someone currently running my country....more
A sporadically fascinating little book, not written, but spoken by an elderly Duras--novelist, filmmaker, essayist--to a friend and then transcribed, A sporadically fascinating little book, not written, but spoken by an elderly Duras--novelist, filmmaker, essayist--to a friend and then transcribed, presented in tiny chapters, one page, two pages. One paragraph. Each entry retains the oblique quality of her storytelling, where you have to read a bit before you understand what she's actually talking about. The buried lede is her specialty. They're so short, if one doesn't interest, you just move on to the next.. So many were highly engaging--her take on men, her take on women, on making a home (of all things!), her take on love, on alcoholism (her own), and on the process of writing her books, including The Lover, The War, The War, and India Song, an especially good entry. On her late-life lover, the much younger Yann, who seduced her via letters--and certainly had his hands full with this mistress.
Her delusions following a severe dryout, I'd not read anything so frank in a long time. In a way reminding me of the Yellow Wallpaper.
My favorites of course are the ones about love and specific lovers, such as "The Man Who Was A Lie," an unregenerate chaser of superb attractiveness: "Women were the main concern of his life, and many of them knew it as soon as they saw him... He saw himself as young and eternally attractive [and we see him at the end of his life when he was decidedly not], he wanted to live like a young man... He used to follow women around. That's how it was in 1950..." How she avoided him until she gave in. "On the eighth day I went into the cafe as if I were mounting to the scaffold."
Love this on "Wasting Time": '"Life is only lived full-time by women with children." "The best way to fill time is to waste it."
her voice comes through so strongly, the way she forms a sentence, the way she made her films. If you've never read Duras, however, you might want to start with one of her fictions....more
Not a favorite, but an interesting exercise in point of view. A young grad student taken up by a somewhat sinister visiting professor and his slinky, Not a favorite, but an interesting exercise in point of view. A young grad student taken up by a somewhat sinister visiting professor and his slinky, enigmatic French girlfriend seems like it would be an engaging story, but it soon morphs and morphs and morphs again. It goes from the 20 year old, who has a brief affair with the enigmatic girlfriend in the absence of the professor, who has offered him the money to create a literary magazine and staff it, and observes a crime committed by the professor which indicates he may be more than just a professor. The professor flees the country, the student reports the crime and vows revenge--though guilty he did not report earlier.
Then we switch to the story being a manuscript (which I hate, like a novel all having been a dream), that the story we've just seen is the first chapter. There's the new point of view character, an old school acquaintance of the original grad student, who receives the manuscript and learns more about the man's lurid former life in 1967, the attempt of the student to bring the former mentor down.
chapters are dealt out, and then one of the characters described in the book comes to be point of view in the last part of the story. We toggle between first and third, real time and the manuscript, and to my mind each switch drains more energy from the story, renders each part less believable. It's more a game than a novel, and it ends quite abruptly, rather shaggy-dog-like. But for those who like that kind of thing, there is much here to like. ...more
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