"it begins, again, with not being afraid of technology."

[jazzfish]

Back in the late nineties I took a class on Modernist Poetry from Len Scigaj ("ski plus jive minus the V"). It was, I believe, the only class I didn't fail during the Failing Time. It's where I got my love of modernist poetry (Auden excepted, and I've even found myself warming up a little to him), and my fascination with H.D. and with Eliot's The Waste Land.

At one point we watched a video of people discussing The Waste Land. One of the people on the video was Hugh Kenner. He had a long face, horn-rimmed glasses, and a mop of grey hair, and he spoke with an odd impediment[1], and he was so very excited and happy to be talking about Eliot. I have no recollection of anything he said, it's just the general sense of his exuberance that's stuck with me.

Scigaj and Kenner are both long gone, but thanks to a Twitter conversation between PNH and Jim Henley, I've learned that Kenner was not only a Modernist critic, he also wrote a book on Chuck 'Looney Tunes' Jones and one on Buckminster Fuller's geodesic domes ("which I think I understand better than Fuller did"), and a column for Byte Magazine in the eighties. He frequently turned up on one of the early online chat boards.

Language Hat's obituary, and an interview with Kenner from 2001.

Fascinating guy. Tiny world.

[1] I found out recently that he'd been mostly deaf since the age of five, from a childhood case of flu.

Comments

[jazzfish]

"What the heck is Modernism anyway" is a fraught question. :) Near as I can tell the answer is something like 'a violent reaction against centuries of tradition.' (e.g. Dada and Cubism in visual art, Rite of Spring in music, Imagism in poetry.) The general timeframe of 'first half of the 20th century, give or take' is as good a guideline as any.

Ooh. Thing is, Tailor of Gloucester is *perfect* for Xmas with a small one. It's got that lovely Victorian/Edwardian language and rhythm, and also great illustrations. CCW has great language, but (the versions I've seen at least) substandard artwork.

[thanate]

It is an excellent thing to read, and after the sixth or seventh time through, I start to feel that perhaps there are other excellent things.

She hasn't quite gotten the hang of looking at the pictures yet; books come in toys (which adults are not invited to help her play with) and things that other people read (sometimes to her.) Some of the latter have pictures, but often that's frustrating, because you're trying to get her to look at a book, but you won't let her turn handfulls of pages.