As some have noticed, blogging has been slow here at the stately Mead manor the last few days. I got in late yesterday from Lithuania, and today I somehow just didn’t have much to say. Tonight was also a culture night; I had tickets to Hamlet at the Metropolitan Opera. The singing was fantastic; the plot was insubstantial even by operatic standards. Hamlet is one of Shakespeare’s most depressing and least plausible plays. As Wendy pointed out in Peter Pan, they all die. Laertes dies, Ophelia dies, Claudius dies, Gertrude dies, Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern die, Polonius dies, Hamlet dies. The death rate in the opera was a little lower; Polonius and Gertrude were still standing at the final curtain. But trimming the plot highlights the drama’s inconsistencies and some of the set pieces like Hamlet’s ‘To be or not to be” soliloquy and the “alas, poor Yorick” graveyard scene don’t work very well.
There’s a lot more opera to come before the Met season ends in May. I’ve got tickets to Attila, Tosca, Traviata and Armida. Expect at least one opera blog before it’s all done.
Regular blogging should shortly resume. I’m working on a post looking back on the Iraq War which started seven long years ago this weekend. There are a few more posts in the planning stage. I haven’t quite finished my posts on the mess in the Middle East and I’ve been thinking about the ways in which good people with good hearts so often make such dreadful foreign policy. “Goo-Goo Genocidaires: The Blood is Dripping From Their Hands” is my working title; let’s hope I find something a little less confrontational before posting.
We are nearing some mileposts here at the blog. The end of March will mark six months of blogging. At our present pace, we’ll reach 500,000 hits sometime before then. That’s a much greater response than I ever expected. Thanks to all those who have linked to my posts or checked in from time to time. And finally, very soon the comments on the blog will outnumber the posts by a factor of ten to one. That means a lot to me. It means that readers are finding this an interesting place and a useful service. Even when the comments are critical of yours truly, I appreciate that you take the time to make them. And to those of you who send encouragement and support, thanks! It means more than you know.
As I wrote in the beginning, blogging is a relatively new literary form and I am still a very new blogger. This blog has already changed from its earliest days and will no doubt continue to evolve. If you have any thoughts or observations about how it’s changing or maybe some suggestions about how it should change going forward, please feel free to share them below. Blogs change the relationship between writers and readers; that’s one of the reasons I find this form so interesting. Your comments and responses help me figure out what the blog needs to do; keep them coming.
“Your comments and responses help me figure out what the blog needs to do; keep them coming.”
How is the great financial crises affecting your Lithuanian audience, and did they have anything to say about it? I ask because foreign policy, domestic politics and finance are getting tied up in ways I still don’t understand, and it would be nice to hear what people abroad have to say.
One recommendation: I cannot find your e-mail anywhere; on occasion I would like to address some point or points not particularly germane to the core of your post and worry that a long comment would bore your readers. (I don’t like long, OT comments on my blog; they interfere with the conversation.) In other words, an e-mail address would be helpful; though perhaps more annoying to you, less annoying to your readers.
I must say I enjoy your blog tremendously. Your point of view is refreshingly original, your arguments challenging, your scope impressive, and to top it all the quality of your prose is first-rate. Together with Steve Sailer and David Brooks I find you to be one of the two or three most interesting writers out there right now.
Excellent point. My regular email is already so full of invitations to pointless conferences, pleas for extensions and letters of recommendation from students, newsletters and policy reports that no one will ever read and other miscellaneous material that I’m overwhelmed by the in-box as it is. I will pass this along to the tech wizards at TAI and see if they can set up a dedicated blog-only email account. I can’t promise to answer all the emails that come in, especially in a timely fashion, but I’ll do what I can.
I am amazed that Mead can write so much so well, given that the format does not give much time for rewriting and revising. I wonder how he does it.
Recommended reading is highly appreciated. Halfway through God and Gold, and I’m already thinking about trying to get through the second two volumes of Gibbon. And I couldn’t get anywhere with Bergson as an undergrad, but I’m going to give him a second chance. Dover books has just reissued The Creative Mind at bargain price.
Incidentally, for readers who have gotten through Walter’s God and Gold, Pascal Bruckner’s new book, The Tyranny of Guilt, makes a good complement, delving into European attitudes to the U.S., and Israel.
Incidentally, this isn’t puffery; I don’t know Walter, but God and Gold is the best work of non-fiction I’ve read in more years than I can remember, with enormous explanatory power when it describes the genesis of Anglo-American dominance in the world. Assigning religion a central role in facilitating the spread of capitalism is an argument that, by itself, is worth the price of the book.
And, on a final note, for now, respecting God and Gold, I’ve come to see Andrew Sullivan as a latter day incarnation of the Vicar of Bray. Read the book.
Please figure out how I can post your articles on my Facebook account. Thanks.
Noted; you are the second person to ask about this. I will see what we can do.
Hamlet implausible; please! It’s only the greatest piece of fiction ever written in the English language. And if you count them up, half the idioms in the English language come from Hamlet. It’s not just “to be or not to be…” it’s “neither a borrower nor a lender be…” it’s “to thine own self be true…” it’s “though this is madness there is a method in it…” it’s “what piece of work is man…” it’s “the lady doth protest too much….” it’s “in my mind’s eye…” it’s “get thee to a nunnery” it’s “the undiscovered country from which no bourn returns” it’s “when we have shuffled off this mortal coil…”
I could go on and on.
Hamlet, along with Cervantes’ Don Quixote is the very fount of modern consciousness.
I do have to admit that the opera isn’t as spectacular as the play; but the music is lovely.
Mr. Mead, if it’s not presumptuous, I would like to suggest that you consider patronizing the New York City Opera. They perform in the New York State Theater which is right next store to the Metropolitan Opera in Lincoln Center. The City Opera features younger singers many of whom are wonderful. The City Opera also performs many new operas which they have commissioned from contemporary composers and librettists and older but infrequently performed operas. This season you can still see “L’Etoile, a French comic opera by Emmanuel Chabrier and Partenope by Handel.
City Opera is a venerable old institution that was actually founded by Fiorello LaGuardia. It’s fallen on hard times recently because they lost a season while their theater was renovated and the recent financial crisis hasn’t helped with fundraising. Many of the star singers who perform regularly at the Metropolitan Opera got their start at City Opera.
If you give them a try, I know you’ll love them!
There can’t be too many opera companies in New York for my taste. Thanks for the reminder!
I’ve found your political/historical writings and PBS commentary very illuminating these past few years. When I discovered your blog, I found another daily must-go-to site on the web.
Unless I’ve missed you mentioning these movements, I’d like to read your assessment of the social-political movement “Front Porch Republic” in the US, and the new “Red Tory” movement coming out of the UK. The Front Porch Republic folks seem to me to be a blend of Jeffersonian-Jacksonian politics (although this description makes them sound much more “southern” than I take them to be). Your analysis is welcome.
Keep up the great posts on American Protestant Christianity — its complex history, present problems, and possible future(s). You give hope to this world-weary theology professor.
WigWag, re Hamlet, this is the first time I think I’ve ever agreed with you. You comment at FP.com, right? I’ve abandoned accosting Tom Ricks in favor of WRM recently. It occurs to me that they kindof have the same look. If their looks were similar to my dad’s, I’d be worried, but I’ll just chalk it up to coincidence.
WRM, what’s plausibility got to do with knocking great fiction? Do you say the same thing about Oedipus?
Luke Lea, those three writers triangulate yourself extremely well. I know exactly where you’re coming from now. Picking just three is pretty hard, so I’ll include 2 non-traditional blogs to appear less pigeonholed: Glenn Greenwald is the obvious one, Daniel Larison and David Byrne are the others. My full prime-time list is at my blog, linked below.