Vicki Nemeth > Recent Status Updates

I want to read this guy McLuhan is criticizing (or differentiating himself from).

I had to plough the meandering article, "Joyce, Mallarmé, and the Press," with low comprehension a couple of times in order to get to a point where I could somewhat read it. Thankfully, I could jump to the previous section of technopoems in between sessions.

It hasn't featured the daughter's voice since the letter in the very beginning. It just touches on measures Galileo has to take to protect his daughters from violence by enemies too cowardly to target him directly. More than a quarter through the body text, finally another letter is coming. I've kept reading because I'm starved for material about the topic of crappy vs sound thinking. The writing does flow well.

"His telescopic discoveries transformed the nature of the Copernican question from an intellectual engagement [with existing assumptions from classical philosophers] into a debate that might be decided on the basis of evidence."

(I always write the completed page above, not the page I'm on)
Printable page says 41, navigation says 42 (anyways, I'm halfway through that page)

"American Advertising"

Having read more background on later mid-20th-century Canadian poets, I wonder if my previous assessment of this introduction is not critical enough of how much it isn't. The editor scorns McLuhan's detractors in a leet sort of way, but like many Canadian critics, seems less political than the author's, or audience's, original context.

Currently able to sign out a copy on inter-library loan, so reading content now.

"Prairie Voices" is an important practical poem for poets new to the region. It takes note of local gaps in the freedom Canada is known for, and makes curious observations about its effect on racialization (seemingly worse now than on publication). I laughed at the relatability of faux lefties associating pale ginger Maritime tone with Blackness? Although at least his hypocrites were more normal workers than Academia

"claustration" is such a stronger sounding word than "cloistering"

I didn't like the title of, "Dolphins Are People." Too jerky. But a warning to visitors to the Angloshpere, we are not so innocent. Cantor V is particularly dark and adult.

"Design for a Chessman" is equally critical and ends on a sad note.

Read, "Manitoba Elders," a collection of mini interview autobiographies by Indigenous elders published by the Manitoba Indigenous* Cultural Education Centre in 1981. Considering requesting addition to Goodreads but it has no ISBN or ASIN. A social and economic history eye-opener for sub/urbanized Canadians. Some useful practical knowledge.

(*Called by the now outdated term, "Indian," at the time of publication)

As I could not be bothered to find out how I would have read, "Cartaphilus," wrongly, I had to delay reading it for a couple of days to ensure I was in the right frame of mind. While reading, I had to look up a lot of names.

Returning after a long break during which time I realize Canadian literary critics depoliticize their subjects too much, I find the poem I left off at comments on exactly that problem.

It's refreshing to see someone regard the treatment of women in the Middle East and Central Asia as a warning of how Western countries could devolve treat women, rather than as a way of othering the cultures (many of whom were much healthier before outside interference) over there.

Every time someone portrays a principle Margaret Thatcher preached as something she was actually working towards, a brain cell dies. I keep seeing British people doing this. Disappointing. You seem unable to understand that she was *using* the rhetoric of freedom to promote her agenda, not that she *actually* promotes freedom. You make it sound like freedom is bad because Thatcher said it was good.

Barbara Castle