Tag: Love

• March 19, 2012

  Notes on the Milonga: An essay in improvisational dance

  The following is a poem or poems that my friend Carolyn and I wrote late last week. Carolyn’s contribution is in black, mine is in teal. The theme nestled, three-fold, is the following: how will women live today, how will men do so, and how will they (we) live radiantly together? You know that our…
• March 3, 2012

  Of parabolas, East of Eden, and biting philosophies

  A scene: Late afternoon at the playground. A boy, towheaded, with eyes the color of turquoise, and a man, early 30s, with pelo dorado and eyes of wolf-blue. Green jacket against green tire swing against red corduroy pants. The man pushes the boy at regular intervals. The boy’s eyes draw a parabola on the way out,…
• February 4, 2012

  Austen’s ethical vision of wholehearted love

  My essay on Jane Austen can now be read at World and I. Typical among Austen readers and academic scholars is the claim that she was keen to cast a critical eye on genteel society, and yet she entertained no thought of going beyond its inequalities and class distinctions. My suggestion is that this nay-saying–the satirical…
• February 2, 2012

  Bernini’s Pluto and Proserpina: Beauty, death, and eros

  The image you are looking at was not taken by a camera. Nor were the fingers pressed into the underside of the woman’s thigh. Nor the index finger–his left index finger–hooked onto her lower rib, marking it. Nor the veins on her butt beginning at the the top of her hip. Nor was the birthmark…
• January 2, 2012

  Never love by halves

  The late philosopher Gilbert Ryle was fond of Jane Austen, so fond that he once likened Austen’s style of characterization to the technique of wine tasting. There is a joke about him that I quite like. When he was asked whether whether he ever read any novels, he replied, “Yes indeed. Each year all 6.”…