ZETEO

Isolation vs. Solitude

August 13, 2014 by William Eaton

With Drew Whitcup on vacation, Zeteo Associate Gayle Rodda Kurtz is reading Montaigne— When did the celebrated notion of our individualism slip into a form of isolation? We are familiar with the sight of those around us in public spaces hunched over their electronic devices and addicted to mindless electronic games and time-wasting media activities. Thinking that we were in our own private worlds, we now know that we are caught up in complex systems of surveillance technologies. This toxic […]

Categories: Gayle Rodda Kurtz, ZiR

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The Bedroom is Trees

August 12, 2014 by Ana Maria Caballero

Last week I wrote about a three-way interview published by “The Review Review” about the future of poetry. The three-way was composed of Rob MacDonald of Sixth Finch Journal, Matt Hart of Forklift Ohio Journal and Gale Marie Thompson of Jellyfish Magazine. I recommend at least perusing the article to get a sense of what people in the poetry world (and these are very relevant people within that cloaked realm) have to say about the general future of the genre. But what is truly special about the […]

Categories: Ana Maria Caballero, ZiR • Tags: books, literature, poetry, reading, writing

Waksler & Dickens: Different, not less

August 11, 2014 by Alexia Raynal

Frances Chaput Waksler’s writings on the sociology of childhood have been a must for people interested in working with children for decades. Her article “Studying Children: Phenomenological Insights” (1986) is one of her most quoted texts. In it, Waksler encourages her readers to substitute the term “less” with “different.” Children as a category, she argues, are not less serious, less knowledgeable, less important than adults: The distinction between adult and child may become irrelevant as we come to focus simply on varieties of […]

Categories: Alexia Raynal, ZiR • Tags: Charles Dickens, childhood, children, education, Great Expectations, literature

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Figuring it out

August 10, 2014 by William Eaton

From one of the songs of The Pajama Game, which won the Tony Award for the best musical of 1955: I figured it out I figured it out With a pencil and a pad I figured it out! Seven and a half cents doesn’t buy a hell of a lot, Seven and a half cents doesn’t mean a thing! But give it to me every hour, Forty hours every week, And that’s enough for me to be living like […]

Categories: William Eaton, ZiR • Tags: Broadway theater, capitalism, consumerism, Hollywood, unions

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Twenty-first century octopi & geriatric migrant workers

August 9, 2014 by William Eaton

With Cat Gironda on vacation, Zeteo Associate Gayle Rodda Kurtz is reading — Two essays in the August 2014 issue of Harper’s Magazine that cover developments, which are not prominently reported in the mainstream media, of the changed economic and social landscape. Independent writer Rebecca Solnit’s op-ed Easy Chair column, titled The Octopus and Its Grandchildren, compares those who accumulated great wealth in the nineteenth century with technology’s billionaires of today. Southern Pacific Railroad and Standard Oil were depicted in cartoons […]

Categories: Gayle Rodda Kurtz, ZiR • Tags: Google, lobbying, migrant labor, retirement, Twitter

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Storytelling

August 8, 2014 by Jennifer Dean

This morning I came across an Indiewire post with a video where “Darren Aronofsky and a Neuroscientist Discuss How Movies Mess With Your Brain.” The title is a little disingenuous because it’s really about the power of narrative. I was drawn to it because of the written introduction: Darren Aronofsky, director of mind-bending films such as “Pi,” “The Fountain” and “Black Swan,” sat down with psychologist and neuroscientist Jeffrey M. Zacks to discuss storytelling, myth and how human brains perceive these […]

Categories: Jennifer Dean, ZiR • Tags: film, mythology, philosophy, storytelling

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“Life was not so bad,” – Ernest Shackleton

August 7, 2014 by William Eaton

After drifting on slabs of pack ice for five months, escaping in small open boats when the rising temperature at last did its job and finally, after 16 months of living on the ocean, Sir Ernest Shackleton’s crew landed on Elephant Island, Antarctica. “The accomplishment of another stage of the homeward journey” boosted morale, prompting an enthusiastic declaration, “Life was not so bad.” Sir Ernest narrates one of the most arduous itineraries in the annals of travel literature: South the […]

Categories: Tucker Cox, ZiR

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A Chat about the Future of Poetry

August 5, 2014 by Ana Maria Caballero

The founding editors of three of today’s most well-respected online poetry journals had a talk about the future of poetry with “The Review Review.” Here’s the link. Rob MacDonald of Sixth Finch Journal, Matt Hart who edits Forklift Ohio Journal and Gale Marie Thompson who runs Jellyfish Magazine spoke about how the masses perceive poetry and how this is affected by the way that poetry is taught. This discussion is not new within the very self-conscious poetry world, but the up-and-coming poets […]

Categories: Ana Maria Caballero, ZiR

Future, it’s a big word for me!

August 4, 2014 by Alexia Raynal

The Children of Gaza The amount of child injuries and deaths during the conflict in Gaza is devastating, with children making up about 30 percent of the civilian casualties according to the Unicef in a report by The Telegraph. There is no academic reading for today, only the words of children of Gaza (published online by The Hypertexts in an ultra simple format), which I will let stand on their own. We feel for all those lives that have been interrupted by war. […]

Categories: Alexia Raynal, ZiR • Tags: childhood, children, Gaza, Palestine-Israel conflict, politics, war

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