April | 2016

Chutzpah, Self-abnegation, Creation

April 24, 2016 by Ed Mooney

I s creation, in the arts, or elsewhere, a matter of chutzpah or daring — perhaps of overweening pride? It often is. And sometime it’s a matter of humility, stepping aside, letting another speak through one. Thus the Odyssey begins, Sing in me muse, Sing of the man of twists and turns driven time and again off course This makes the poet almost incidental to the creation. Can we generalize here? No doubt some poets are models of humility […]

Categories: Ed Mooney, ZiR • Tags: books, literature, philosophy, writing

CIA, Obstruction of Justice, 9/11

April 17, 2016 by Ed Mooney

The only good thing that came out of 9/11 was that the building fell on him. –Michael Scheuer, former head of the CIA anti-bin Laden task force, testifying before a congressional committee, applauding the death of John O’Neill, former head of the FBI’s NYC anti-terrorist task force. The New Yorker has begun to produce short documentaries to view on line. The topics are as varied as the contents of any recent print issue, and the stories might […]

Categories: Ed Mooney, ZiR • Tags: death, ethics, New York City

In Favor of Fantasy

April 12, 2016 by Ana Maria Caballero

Fantasy has it rough. It bears a reputation of being trivial, flashy, adolescent, and entertainment-driven. Indeed, some fantasy is. But, such a judgment is unfair to good fantasy, which is none of the above. Because fantasy is so blatantly allegorical, when it is good, it reveals a forthright understanding of how reality functions. And, when it is great, it resembles myth, with its godlike way of adding meaning to life. Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Buried Giant (2015) raised many literary eyebrows when it came out because it dared […]

Categories: Ana Maria Caballero, ZiR • Tags: book, fantasy, Kazuo Ishiguro, reading, writing

Imagination, Rowling, Happiness, Carnival

April 10, 2016 by Ed Mooney

Memorable lines from William Blake: Twofold, twofold always May God us keep From single vision And Newton’s sleep Imagination lets us see the world as other than a Newtonian assembly of spinning atoms (updated to Quarks), or as a Darwinian stage for Fitter-gene transmissions, or as a Brainy locus for neurological pathways. Blake was worried about a physics take-over of claims to reality. The situation is more complex today, with a variety of sciences vieing for top […]

Categories: Ed Mooney, ZiR • Tags: death, literature, poetry, reading

Consumers, Apprentices, Failed Universities

April 3, 2016 by Ed Mooney

I have no complaints about living in Maine. I find good music, good restaurants, good friends in the small city of Portland. I’ve taught inland and upstate in Bangor – just this side of Old Town, home of the classic canvas canoes I grew up with and rigged for sailing in a tidal river that opens on Buzzards Bay. That inlet-laced coast reminds me of the Maine Coast. There’s an older, slower, pace to life here. All this nostalgia […]

Categories: Ed Mooney, Uncategorized, ZiR • Tags: capitalism, education, literature, reading, technology, writing

ZETEO

Zeteo (ζητέω): to challenge, question, dispute, explore the forgotten and ignored

Monthly Archives: April 2016