ZETEO

Poetry in Film

December 2, 2014 by William Eaton

A good friend recently sent me an article from Flavor Wire titled “10 Famous Poems that Appeared in Film.” The selection is actually surprising. William Blake is prominent on the list. There is mention of Jim Jarmusch’s cult 1955 Western “Dead Man,” which is supposedly based on the visionary poems of William Blake. And, there is mention of the now-classic film “Blade Runner,” also inspired by the poetry of William Blake. Excerpts from the English poet’s book “America, a Prophecy” recur throughout the […]

Categories: Ana Maria Caballero, ZiR • Tags: culture, film, lit, poetry, writing

Parents look back and children do too

December 1, 2014 by Alexia Raynal

Last morning, as I skimmed through my favorite books, I bumped into Marjorie Orellana’s Translating Childhoods: Immigrant Youth, Language, and Culture. I had not picked up the book since last year, but it was easy to remember why I like it so much. While speaking mostly about children’s work as translators for their monolingual parents, Orellana also dedicates a brief section to Immigrant Childhoods. She begins this section by explaining: Immigrant families differ from those who have resided in the United States for generations on dimensions […]

Categories: Alexia Raynal, ZiR • Tags: books, childhood, children, families, immigration, Marjorie Faulstich Orellana, Translating Childhoods

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On Savoring

December 1, 2014 by William Eaton

Some features of an ethics of tasting, good and bad By William Eaton [I]t is muttered that whenever any government wants to dupe the peasants, it promises the abolition of the wine tax, and as soon as it has duped the peasants, it retains or reintroduces the wine tax. In the wine tax the peasant tastes the bouquet of the government . . . [Karl Marx, The Class Struggles in France, 1848-1850] It tastes twice the price. — […]

Categories: Essay • Tags: Camus, food, France, Paris, restaurants

I am the government of your country

November 30, 2014 by William Eaton

George Bernard Shaw’s Major Barbara, which premiered in London in 1905, is shining once again in an excellent production at New York’s Pearl Theatre. The dominant personality, of a play that offers half a dozen or more strong characters, is Andrew Undershaft, an enormously successful weapons manufacturer—for anyone and everyone, without prejudice, throughout the world. As Undershaft himself puts it: To give arms to all men who offer an honest price for them, without respect of persons or principles: […]

Categories: William Eaton, ZiR • Tags: capitalism, George Bernard Shaw, government, Major Barbara, theater, war

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For Sale, but Not for Purchase: The Terms of Sex in Sweden

November 29, 2014 by William Eaton

[email_link] [print_link] The prostitute is not, as feminists claim, the victim of men but rather their conqueror, an outlaw who controls the sexual channel between nature and culture. CAMILLE PAGLIA, Vamps and Tramps We say that slavery has vanished from European civilization, but this is not true. Slavery still exists, but now it applies only to women and its name is prostitution. VICTOR HUGO, Les Misérables The question I am interested in exploring today, came neither […]

Categories: Caterina Gironda, ZiR • Tags: sex, women

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De Profundis — Wilde’s cry from the depths of prison

November 28, 2014 by William Eaton

[print_link][email_link] In May 1895, at the height of his literary career, the Irish poet and playwright Oscar Wilde was arrested and charged with ‘acts of gross indecency with other male persons’. Convicted at the Old Bailey, he became a bankrupt outcast overnight, and was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment with hard labor. Before he was released from Reading prison, Wilde wrote a long letter to his former lover, Lord Alfred Douglas, which was later published as De Profundis. In it, […]

Categories: Catherine Vigier, ZiR • Tags: homosexuality, literature, love, poetry, politics

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The Unum in the American Pluribus

November 27, 2014 by William Eaton

What is the unum in the American pluribus? What is the “out of many, one,” those cultural values, attitudes, customs, historical heritage and other distinctions answering the question, “What holds us together?” In The Longest Road: Overland in Search of America from Key West to the Arctic Ocean, Philip Caputo asks this question of people he meets. Caputo begins “his long journey” in 2010 with wife, and two English Setters, truck and Airstream trailer at Key West, ending it months later […]

Categories: Tucker Cox, ZiR • Tags: travel

For the Holidays: The Phoenix of Xu Bing

November 27, 2014 by William Eaton

“One-of-a-kind,” “spectacular experience,” “magical,” and “dazzling” are some of the words used to describe the Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular. These words equally describe the Phoenix of Xu Bing now installed at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine (Amsterdam Avenue at 112th Street) until the end of 2014, and, I propose, a meaningful alternative to commercial holiday attractions in New York City. This is the second installation of the Phoenix Project in the U.S. From December 22, 2012 […]

Categories: Gayle Rodda Kurtz, ZiLL • Tags: art, Cathedral of St. John the Divine, Phoenix, Xu Bing

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The Lincoln Tunnel to Ferguson

November 26, 2014 by William Eaton

I regrettably ended up with the more dysfunctional of the two ‘solidarity with Ferguson’ protests last night. I didn’t think marching to Times Square was desirable in the first place. Somewhere along the way, however, we went west, and half-an-hour later ended up at the entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel. For those who are familiar with NYC geography, that is a considerable and complex diversion, not merely a wrong turn. I asked several people how/why we ended up there. The only person who […]

Categories: Fritz Tucker, ZiLL • Tags: African-Americans, civil rights, crime, death, New York City, politics, race

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