MELVILLE: THE MAKING OF THE POET mentioned in David Dowling's CHASING THE WHITE WHALE (2010)

Toric Lenses--FDA Approved sinced 1998. No One Told Me!

I have 2 pair of graduated indoor-outdoor glasses mainly for driving but for alternating when one hits the wrong head spots too long; 2 pair of computer glasses, again so I can rest certain pressure points on the nose and ears; one pair of reading glasses in the study and another in the living room; an old pair of reading glasses in the landing chair for when I need to lccate the cat up there; a TV watching pair with a very small reading section for deciphering lines on Netflix sleeves; and an old pair by the bathroom scales. Now they are all more or less useless, starting with the expensive indoor-outdoor pairs. The bad left eye 10 days after the installation of a toric lens is better than the good eye (on which surgery is set for next Monday). The good eye sees everything through a blurry cast of greenish yellow and still dominates the left eye when both eyes are open. I knew all last fall that I was sinking into a depression (over the shoulder pain, I thought) but I had no idea that I was seeing the world as if it were the inside of an institutional green hospital mop closet lighted with a fly-spotted 25 watt bulb. Next Tuesday everything will be up for grabs again (I may get to try a 1970s pair of glasses), but for now I have found a pair of 1980s glasses that work for the computer. Next Tuesday I should see the waves of the ocean in white instead of grayish green. The astigmatism of the left eye is gone for good, apparently, and the worse astigmatism in what I always thought of as the good eye should be gone next Monday morning and ready to start adjusting to helping the left eye. What a miracle the toric lens is! I had no idea that the removal of cataracts could lead to much better vision. The in-house pessimist says I am very lucky--I got TB after they had streptomycin . . . . Before just a few years ago, cataract surgery would not have had the fix-astigmatism option.

Attention writers of personal blogs and litblogs--mention in review of MELVILLE BIOGRAPHY: AN INSIDE NARRATIVE

            On the back cover of Melville Biography: An Inside Narrative, Harrison  Hayford declares ‘Hershel Parker has become, quite simply, the most important Melville scholar of all time.’ This assessment is in keeping with the commanding way in which the author charts the recent history of Melville studies, interweaving his analysis with forthright assertions that leave the reader in no doubt as to Parker’s views on certain trends in literary criticism. Unsurprisingly Parker, who has spent much of his career battling waves of hostile criticism of what he terms ‘documentary facts’, is keen to demonstrate that six decades of ‘unholy war’ against biographical scholarship is finally being challenged. He locates a future for ‘intelligent reviewing’ in personal and ‘litblogs’ which remain outside, although not necessarily therefore above, some of the worst excesses of partisan literary scholarship. As much as it is a critique of Melville studies and more specifically biographical study of Melville, this is a book about biography as a genre. Whilst it is not a manual for the budding biographer, this collection of insights, which explores the difficulties of taking on such an enormous, theoretically fraught task, will serve as a useful case study to anyone wishing to engage themselves as a chronicler of literary lives. Melville Biography also contributes to the relatively new field of biography studies. The book is divided into three sections: the first is an autobiographical account of the researching and writing of Herman Melville: A Biography; the second is a detailed account of the aforementioned critical hostilities Parker sees Melville studies as having faced for well over half a century. Charles N. Feidelson, Jr., and others wither under the magnifying glass of Parker’s loathing for New Criticism and the New York intelligentsia. Blinded by his anger at the ‘dehumanizing’ project of New Criticism the author is not; however, Melville Biography is somewhat weighed down by its disagreements. Nonetheless, Part III presents a productive progenitor of the previous two sections in a discussion of some of the ways in which Parker thinks work on Melville might progress. Using ‘episodes not fully developed’ in his biography or ‘told only in chronological fragments’ Parker ‘invites’ scholars to ‘harness the Internet’; he highlights, in particular, a potential project that would plot ‘the literary and personal interconnections among early British admirers of Moby-Dick’.

THE YEAR’S WORK IN ENGLISH STUDIES 2014

If you are getting only 2 or 3 serious reviews, let one be in THE YEAR'S WORK IN ENGLISH STUDIES!

            NEW COMMENT ON MELVILLE BIOGRAPHY: AN INSIDE NARRATIVE—THE FIRST REVIEW SINCE CARL ROLLYSON’S IN THE WALL STREET JOURNAL TO RECOGNIZE THAT THIS IS “A BOOK ABOUT BIOGRAPHY AS A GENRE” AND THAT IT “CONTRIBUTES TO THE RELATIVELY NEW FIELD OF BIOGRAPHY STUDIES,” AS WELL AS BEING A HISTORY OF MELVILLE BIOGRAPHY.    I AM QUITE CONTENT WITH THIS REVIEW!  

            On the back cover of Melville Biography: An Inside Narrative, Harrison  Hayford declares ‘Hershel Parker has become, quite simply, the most important Melville scholar of all time.’ This assessment is in keeping with the commanding way in which the author charts the recent history of Melville studies, interweaving his analysis with forthright assertions that leave the reader in no doubt as to Parker’s views on certain trends in literary criticism. Unsurprisingly Parker, who has spent much of his career battling waves of hostile criticism of what he terms ‘documentary facts’, is keen to demonstrate that six decades of ‘unholy war’ against biographical scholarship is finally being challenged. He locates a future for ‘intelligent reviewing’ in personal and ‘litblogs’ which remain outside, although not necessarily therefore above, some of the worst excesses of partisan literary scholarship. As much as it is a critique of Melville studies and more specifically biographical study of Melville, this is a book about biography as a genre. Whilst it is not a manual for the budding biographer, this collection of insights, which explores the difficulties of taking on such an enormous, theoretically fraught task, will serve as a useful case study to anyone wishing to engage themselves as a chronicler of literary lives. Melville Biography also contributes to the relatively new field of biography studies. The book is divided into three sections: the first is an autobiographical account of the researching and writing of Herman Melville: A Biography; the second is a detailed account of the aforementioned critical hostilities Parker sees Melville studies as having faced for well over half a century. Charles N. Feidelson, Jr., and others wither under the magnifying glass of Parker’s loathing for New Criticism and the New York intelligentsia. Blinded by his anger at the ‘dehumanizing’ project of New Criticism the author is not; however, Melville Biography is somewhat weighed down by its disagreements. Nonetheless, Part III presents a productive progenitor of the previous two sections in a discussion of some of the ways in which Parker thinks work on Melville might progress. Using ‘episodes not fully developed’ in his biography or ‘told only in chronological fragments’ Parker ‘invites’ scholars to ‘harness the Internet’; he highlights, in particular, a potential project that would plot ‘the literary and personal interconnections among early British admirers of Moby-Dick’.

THE YEAR’S WORK IN ENGLISH STUDIES 2014

About the Oxford University Press Journal

The Year's Work in English Studies is the qualitative narrative bibliographical review of scholarly work on English language and literatures written in English. It is the largest and most comprehensive work of its kind and the oldest evaluative work of literary criticism. The Year’s Work in English Studies does not merely offer annotated or enumerated bibliography entries, but provides expert, critical commentary supplied for every book covered.

Each volume includes a detailed overview from Old English to contemporary critical works for a given year, and contains critical notices for some 1100 books; extensive coverage of English Language, American Literature, New Literatures in English and English Literature; coverage of specialist periodicals; comprehensive indexing by critic, author, and subject; plus bibliographical endnotes for each chapter. YWES is an essential resource for scholars in any field of language or literary studies.

Now, Another Way a Costner Played Baseball--Aunt Ida Costner's son

The Costners and Baseball--One of my Carolina Cousins, and One of Kevin's

This is from the Charlotte OBSERVER 5 March 1908
For the whole story see the Southeastern Reporter 63, p. 154. Search Google with names of Cloninger and Costner for 1907-1908.

Requiem for an Aggressive Smoker

Former Mayor of Morro Bay Bill Yates has died of lung cancer at 66. His Embarcadero allies will defend his record as mayor and lament his passing. Others will remember the damage he did to Morro Bay, as in his fighting the California Coastal Commission so long. I remember him as a bullying smoker. In 2004, the last year my allergies allowed me to endure Morro Bay City Council meetings, Mayor Yates puffed on cigarettes during breaks--a great way of controlling who got to chat with him, for his abundant hair and thick beard guaranteed that nicotine would adhere to him to the point that anyone with allergies would be unable to approach. (That was the time the Governator was conducting business in his Smoking Tent, effectively cutting out anyone allergic to his cigars.) I remember Yates at the Vet’s Hall door, looking out toward the street as he conversing with the smokers just outside (in the no-smoking area) while holding his own lighted cigarette behind him, inside the meeting room. When I called him on this on September 27, 2004, he said he did not “mean to offend” and seemed not to comprehend when I told him it was a matter of being damaged, not offended. Before he died of lung cancer, how many people did Yates damage by his smoking?