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Category Archives: Ed Mooney

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Quixote, Carnival, Brussels, Easter

March 27, 2016 by Ed Mooney

                                                       Bakhtin coined the term “carnivalesque’ to mark literary works with multiple, contrasting, and forever-competing centers of gravity. These paintings above have multiple, contrasting, and forever-competing centers of gravity. They’re done by someone new in my world, Octavio Ocampo. These images help with Dostoevsky, Bakhtin, and Cervantes — with Paris, 9/11, Easter, and Brussels     And they just won’t hold still!   One is called “Kiss […]

Categories: Ed Mooney, ZiR • Tags: art, death, literature, philosophy, writing

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Starry Nights, Science, Atheists

March 20, 2016 by Ed Mooney

  Richard Dawkins’ head is fizzing with mad thoughts.. . .  Outside a shimmering band of turquoise near the horizon brings a soft sparkle to the beads of dew hanging from trees in early bud; the heavy clouds in the distance look peach-pink and insubstantial; so do the old pale brick houses that line his street. The birds are singing in riotous chorus. “Accept my genetic information, females of my species!” they sing. “Observe my superior fitness for survival, as […]

Categories: Ed Mooney, ZiR • Tags: art, philosophy, poetry, politics, science

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Alienation, The Academy, Public Philosophy

March 13, 2016 by Ed Mooney

  Once upon a time, there was a wildly popular “school” of thought called “existentialism.” Ordinary educated persons read works of existential writing and attended plays by existentialist dramatists; existential themes were bandied about in pubs and cafes; even the mass media took note of the way in which existentialist philosophy had broken the boundaries of the academy and been taken up in the streets. Eventually, of course, the badge “existentialist” became exhausted and dismissed, parodied, travestied, and ignored until […]

Categories: Ed Mooney, ZiR • Tags: alienation, education, literature, philosophy, universities, writing

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Holocaust, Son of Saul, Kierkegaard

March 6, 2016 by Ed Mooney

  Kierkegaard appears unexpectedly on the “Opinionator” page of last week’s New York Times. He’s discussed in “The Stone” by a canny and sensitive philosopher, Katalin Balog. She finds the Danish thinker just under the surface of the Hungarian movie about the Holocaust, “Son of Saul,” which was recently awarded “Best Foreign Language Film” at the Oscars. The movie’s central theme is Saul’s inner world, the loss and recovery of his soul. In scene after scene we see his face unmoved, […]

Categories: Ed Mooney, ZiR • Tags: death, ethics, film, love, philosophy, technology

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Identity, Erikson, and the Third Phase of Life

February 28, 2016 by Ed Mooney

I remember in the ’60s being fascinated by the writing of Erik Erikson. I’m not sure if he’s read much today. But there I was last week in the quiet of my new home, Portland, Maine, in the quiet of Longfellow Books, gazing fondly at the titles: Young Man Luther, Gandhi’s Truth, Childhood and Society. Beyond the books I had warm, appreciative feelings for the man. His many books portrayed exemplary persons. He did not stall with the lame and […]

Categories: Ed Mooney, ZiR • Tags: childhood, ethics, philosophy, reading

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Affect, Irony, Idiom

February 21, 2016 by Ed Mooney

                        Post-secular spirituality features:   1) posthuman ethics; 2) posthuman subjects; 3) totalistic re-positioning   I’ll read anything — almost. Once a month it’s my habit to browse stacks of journals out of my field. Looking for promising titles, I’ll glance at the first page or so to get the drift, then tag the piece to the “read later“ pile or the trash. A few weeks ago I was in the midst of leafing through a pile of new […]

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

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Bach, God, Fervor, the Devil

February 14, 2016 by Ed Mooney

  I returned last night from a concert that featured, among other things, two movements from Bach’s unaccompanied cello suites. By pure luck, I had been reading an essay by Edward Said on Bach’s life and work. Bach cavorts with immortality. As my exposure to the cello suites confirmed once more, Bach’s work is inexhaustible in its energy and in its inspiration. Its boundless innovation can — and is — rendered in ever  fresh ways. With discrete elision, I might […]

Categories: Ed Mooney, ZiR • Tags: art, literature, philosophy, women, writing

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Trees, Biology, Etiquette

February 7, 2016 by Ed Mooney

  It turns out that a runaway best-seller in Germany is a local forest ranger’s book about the communal life of trees. The Hidden Life of Trees will appear in English translation next fall. Trees help each other out. If their limbs block a neighbor’s light, they’ll sometimes lean away, and many trees do better in clumps, as members of tight communities, rather than as solitary stand-alones. Canopies collect moisture. When it drips down, it helps the whole community. Now […]

Categories: Ed Mooney, ZiR

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Big Science, Big Art

January 31, 2016 by Ed Mooney

I was startled to read in yesterday’s Boston Globe that a scholarly paper on “the God particle” (the Higgs boson) had 5,154 authors. I wondered if they hired a stadium for the signing and celebration. I usually think of science as dancing with poetry. An odd couple, you’ll say, but I’ve learned from Thoreau that they don’t have to stay off the dance floor, or only glower at each other. But here, in this headline about the “God particle,” I […]

Categories: Ed Mooney, ZiR • Tags: art, philosophy, technology, writing

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Welcome to Zeteo, since 2012

Zeteo is for people who are readers, lookers, listeners, thinkers. Increasingly we are interested in short texts that call attention to other texts, works of art or music that deserve more attention than they are getting. And we are interested similarly in historical phenomena, ignored aspects of contemporary life, . . . We look forward to hearing about your ideas, your reading, what you’ve seen . . .

  • Aaron Botwick
    • Reviving Shylock
  • Adrian Wittenberg
    • Identity, Illness, Guillain-Barre
  • Ana Maria Caballero
    • In Favor of Fantasy
  • claratimsit
    • THE VIRUS, MEXICO, POVERTY, DEATH
  • danielpage49
    • Elizabeth Bishop and Howard Moss
  • Daniel Taub
    • The Chosen Comedians
  • Ed Mooney
    • In Poetry Pre-Linguistic?
  • Emily Sosolik
    • Spiritualism, Summerland, Slavery in the Afterlife
  • fritztucker
    • Look Rich or Go Bankrupt Trying
  • Alexia Raynal
    • Narcissism in children
  • Jennifer Dean
    • Storytelling
  • John Sumser
    • Cartier-Bresson, Senior, Trump (Gaps)
  • Martin Green
    • Foreign Meddling, President’s Ego: World War I
  • Steven A. Burr
    • Reading, Violence, Solidarity
  • sjzeteo2015
    • Reading a poem/A poet reading
  • stewchef
    • Culinary Star Wars
  • Walter Cummins
    • Rum and Coca, the Congo and Brazil
  • William Eaton
    • Cy Twombly, Charles White — Art & the Unspeakable

Recent Posts

  • In Poetry Pre-Linguistic?
  • THE VIRUS, MEXICO, POVERTY, DEATH
  • Cy Twombly, Charles White — Art & the Unspeakable
  • Valéry, Landscapes, the Whole Human
  • Rum and Coca, the Congo and Brazil

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