2005 July « The Big Idea

Samuel Clemens said No War! ?

I came across this article about Mark Twain’s anti-war writings. Did you know that Mark Twain was an anti-war activist? I didn’t. This article explains why history has forgoten that part of his life. When I mentioned this to a friend who as reading Lies My Teacher Told Me who told me other startling lapses in my (and I’d guess other’s) knowledge of U.S. history. For example, did you know that Helen Keller was an active radical socialist and helped found the ACLU? Nope. Neither did I.

Mark Twain’s Anti-Imperialism, Then and Now by Jim Zwick (2004).

The article has many links to actual essays and letters by Twain.

Excerpt:

July 30th, 2005 | Tags: antiwar | Category: Ahimsa | One comment - (Comments are closed)

A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami

Haruki Murakami refuses to explain what his stories are about or any symblolism in his writing. Instead he says that the reader’s interpretations are as valid as his own. (Rubin, Jay. The Other World of Murakami Haruki. ? Japan Quarterly 39 (1992): 490-500.)

I really like that.

This is a novel about sheep, one particular and very powerful sheep.

The back cover explains:

?A twenty-something advertising executive receives a postcard from a friend, and casually appropriates the image for an insurance company’s advertisement. What he doesn’t realize is that included in the pastoral scene is a mutant sheep with a star on its back, and using this photo he has unwittingly captured the attention […]