Monthly Archives: June 2011

Nothing So Sensible as Sensual Inundation

By Robin Bates | Published: June 21, 2011

Poetry, with its eye on what really matters, can help us taste food again. Mary Oliver’s “Plum Trees” reminds us to eat with full awareness.

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Date Rape or Cultural Misunderstanding?

By Robin Bates | Published: June 20, 2011

Reading “Passage to India” for the first time in decades has given me insights into a date rape that I became involved in years ago involving an Ethiopian and an American student. How much, I wonder, can be attributed to cultural misunderstanding?

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Touching the Divine through Poetry

By Robin Bates | Published: June 19, 2011

Think of religious visionaries as the early poets, those who have found ways to gesture towards (not encapsulate!) the divine. The religious poets who have come after help keep religious language from getting stale.

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James as Telemachus to Wade’s Odysseus

By Robin Bates | Published: June 18, 2011

Lebron James is not the king but the sidekick, not Michael Jordan but Scottie Pippen. In literary terms, he is not King Odysseus but Prince Telemachus. His teammate Dwyane Wade is the king of the franchise.

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King (and Eventually Queen) of Masks

By Robin Bates | Published: June 17, 2011

The Chinese film “King of Masks,” followed by a concert of Chinese women performing on traditional Chinese instruments, demonstrated China’s new synthesis, liberated women reclaiming ancient arts that the Communists had tried to erase and from which women had been excluded.

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The Novel that Changed the World

By Robin Bates | Published: June 16, 2011

When it comes to literature changing lives, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” is the gold standard for what is possible.

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Sam Spade Takes on Sarah Palin

By Robin Bates | Published: June 15, 2011

Something about Monday’s debate amongst Republicans vying for their party’s presidential nomination reminded me of Dashiell Hammett’s “The Maltese Falcon.” They are all chasing after a legendary black bird that seems to be priceless but all too often turns out to be a lead simulacrum.

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Mutton Mouths and Butter Bodies

By Robin Bates | Published: June 14, 2011

Jennifer Cognard-Black notes that food, being perishable, presents museums and historians with a challenge. To study what and how people ate, we must look for related artifacts, including written recipes.

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Trollope, the Cure for What Ails Our Politics

By Robin Bates | Published: June 13, 2011

David Brooks uses Anthony Trollope’s novel “Phineas Finn” to examine a very pressing issue, the tension between independence and service in our politicians.

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