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Just up: The always thoughtful and committed Scott McLemee has written one of his satisfyingly uncategorizable essay-interviews about the critic and scholar's new collection of essays (whose publisher is inexplicably without a website, Scott points out). As usual, his piece is so deeply focused and intricately patterned that it's hard to scoop out the spoonful of Skippy that makes quick-admiration posts like this easier, but I liked this section quite a lot:
We sometimes say that a dog “worries” a bone, meaning he chews it with persistent attention; and in that sense, Divided Mind is a worried book, gnawing with a passion on the “moral/political” problems that go with holding an egalitarian outlook. Scialabba is a man of the left. If you can imagine a blend of Richard Rorty’s skeptical pragmatism and Noam Chomsky’s geopolitical worldview — and it’s a bit of a stretch to reconcile them, though somehow he does this — then you have a reasonable sense of Scialabba’s own politics. In short, it is the belief that life would be better, both in the United States and elsewhere, with more economic equality, a stronger sense of the common good, and the end of that narcissistic entitlement fostered by the American military-industrial complex.
A certain amount of gloominess goes with holding these principles without believing that History is on the long march to their fulfillment. But there is another complicating element in Divided Mind.... Continued.
Scialabba and Scott have both won the National Book Critics Circle's Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing (Scott's acceptance speech will slay you). As for me, let's see, I do own a volume of Virgina Woolf essays written in by Nona Balakian, in confident pencil. I've also been acquainted with her poet nephew, whose memoir Black Dog of Fate: An American Son Uncovers His Armenian Past is unforgettable. The mind writes and writes and lives by writing; praise to them who can concentrate long and honestly enough to bring sound thoughts into being! It is necessary to go through dark and deeper thought and not to turn. I've been paraphrasing. And liking the gerunds!
Speaking of thinking, you may be wondering (is this a Roches song?), what about the Nicholas Lemann piece that's gotten everybody itching like a man in a fuzzy tree? I have links (here's one I haven't read yet), I have thinks, all will come in due time.
Related in McLemee updates:
"The Cultural Equivalent of E-Mail Spam"
Taking Our Galbraith Away
There Is Nothing Like a Dame Helen
Things One and Two, Worth Noting
Plagiarizing? At Least Know the Literature
About us
Hello! We're a small band of media enthusiasts, culture addicts, and journalists based in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Emdashes, formerly a New Yorker fan site, is our collection of conversations—mostly civilized—about magazines, movies, politics, design, punctuation, and other things that stir us.
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Dashes, some say, “are particularly useful in a sentence that is long and complex.” Emdashes—like an em dash itself—provides a thoughtful pause amid the hubbub.
Emdashes, founded in 2004, is written and drawn by Emily Gordon, Martin Schneider, Pollux, Jonathan Taylor, and Benjamin Chambers, as well as occasional guest contributors. All posts before October 2008 are by Emily Gordon.
The site was designed by House of Pretty with illustrations by Jesse R. Ewing.
Additional drawings are by Carolita Johnson and Pollux (author of our web comic, "The Wavy Rule"). The Emdashes pencil logo is by Jennifer Hadley, based on a 1943 Dorothy Gray ad.
Other writing by Emily Gordon
- Writing on theater: reviews (for Time Out Chicago; imperfect but workable search results)
- Profile: Valerie Casey, Designers Accord founder, is spearheading the design of sustainability (for SXSW World)
- Feature: Rea Irvin: visionary art director, bon vivant, New Yorker founding father (for Print)
- Slide show: the Coney Island Mermaid Parade (for NYCgo.com)
- Feature: Muslim immigration iconography in the Netherlands, and an interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali (for Print)
- Review: King's Gambit: A Son, a Father, and the World's Most Dangerous Game by Paul Hoffman (for Newsday)
- Homage: Celebrating lindy-hop legend Frankie Manning (for NYCgo.com)
- Inquiry: Does a New Republic redesign mean a change of tune? (for Print)
- Interview: James Surowiecki on what's next for the wisdom of crowds (for Assignment Zero)
- Interviews: four up-and-coming designers under 30 (for Print)
- Profile: novelist and dance critic Laura Jacobs (for Newsday)
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