Parts of Speaking Publishing

From  https://www.millersbookreview.com/p/how-long-should-this-sentence-be?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F9817360e-0427-42cc-8cb1-5cff0ff9351d_1920x1346.jpeg&open=false   I have stopped buying books on writing; I have some of the really good ones. I've been asked to write one myself, but I don't need to choke the world with another book on writing, to paraphrase Annie Dillard. Everyone wants to find the secret sauce, and it doesn't exist in a recipe. It exists in the writing, the practice, the WORK.   The question isn’t how many words a writer employs but how clearly those words relate to the core. Length doesn’t cause problems. Muddled thinking expressed in clumsy writing does. Give a writer 100 words to build a sentence, and they won’t automatically become Faulkner, anymore than limiting a person to 15 makes them Hemingway. The sentence serves the thought and desired effect, not the other way around. You can pile clause up...

 I, for some reason, watched The Night Manager, a series from about nine years ago. I think I was going through a John LeCarre phase. Anyway, I got hooked on this spy story (as I am on Slow Horses but will probably pry myself off of it). The plot is too complicated, but let's just say a British veteran, working the night shift in a Cairo motel, gets recruited to work for British Intelligence to bring down an arms dealer who covers his work with the patina of a peace-loving NGO. He's vile and mean and ready to destroy nations for a buck. Very plot-driven but the main character is charming and you root for him. (route?) So, when the second season finally came around, I'm watching. And I'm disappointed. The same villain is back at it. Come on, did Hugh Laurie need something to do? I guess so. He was too trusting in the first series. Second disappointment, spoiler; the antagonist, a Colombian with his own charity, is the son of the the first one. Too cute, too easy, but it ...

This is what I have been trying to say, less well.  It was posted by the former president of "my" college, where I taught 21 years.  Worth a read and some methodical reflection. The best comments I have read on the subject Written by James Bell I’ve waited to speak about the recent tradegy surrounding ICE, the protests, and the killings because as a pastor, it feels like there is a new moral outrage demanding immediate commentary almost every week. But immediate reaction is rarely the same thing as wisdom. So I have taken time to read, to listen to people I disagree with, and to think. And what I feel most is not just anger. It is sorrow. The Hebrew word for justice is mishpat (מִשְׁפָּט). Mishpat is uncomfortable in polarized cultures because it refuses to fully side with anyone. It critiques the right when authority crushes mercy. It critiques the left when compassion ignores responsibility. Justice answers to God, not to movements And mishpat is exactly what we are strugg...

  ‘ O look, look in the mirror, O look in your distress: Life remains a blessing Although you cannot bless. ‘ O stand, stand at the window As the tears scald and start; You shall love your crooked neighbour With your crooked heart.’ — W. H. Auden A (sort of) Christmas Poem six weeks late. But it's by Wendell Berry, and I think I like his poetry better than his fiction. This one is "Sabbaths." Remembering that it happened once, We cannot turn away the thought, As we go out, cold, to our barns Toward the long night’s end, that we Ourselves are living in the world It happened in when it first happened, That we ourselves, opening a stall (A latch thrown open countless times Before), might find them breathing there, Foreknown: the Child bedded in straw, The mother kneeling over Him, The husband standing in belief He scarcely can believe, in light That lights them from no source we see, An April morning’s light, the air Around them joyful as a ch...

 I was directed to the All Poetry site to read a poem by Philip Larkin, " Church Going. " I was studying the poem and started to read the "Analysis" pasted below it on this site. As I waded it through its bullet points (how does one analyze a poem with bullet points?) I thought, this reads like even more pretentious than usual AI. I pulled back up to the start, but there was an easy-to-miss (ai) after the word "Analysis." For shame. I am sure the poet would be enraged to know that we are being led to understand his poem through what an algorithm collects and inflicts on us.  AI sure knows its abstract language and poetic-ese, though. I am spooked by the experience of a machine explaining this poem, which I found thoughtful, to me. The sense of personal betrayal cuts deep. 

  At the risk of copyright infringement, I am reposting this newsletter article from the Chronicle of Higher Education.  I have been to UT-Austin and enjoyed its scholarship on teaching and learning. This news is baffling, although I've heard of such from other large institutions.  If you are a college or university instructor, please respond to Dr. McMurtrie.  I worked in this field for many years--not at the level Josh Eyler, etc, do, but in my own little way--and this is not good news for higher education.  I used to keep up a blog called Higher Education Observer (link https://highereducationobserver.blogspot.com/ :  ) and posted many articles on this subject.  What is a teaching center for? Last week I  reported  on the impending closure of the University of Texas at Austin’s teaching center. The news, announced in an email by the provost, was short on details, but described the decision as part of an effort to “optimize” and “streamline...