February 2

It's Groundhog Day! (By the way, I can't believe that PETA is proposing that Punxsatawney Phil be replaced with a "robot groundhog." Or rather, I should say, I can believe it: typical media bait.)

The literary critic Van Wyck Brooks, ashamed of an unsupported observation he once committed to print, reminded himself that "I should never generalize, even for a moment, about any author, *all* of whose works are not clearly in my mind." It's a very tough standard; even if one has experienced all or almost all of a creator's works (a rare enough occurrence in itself), are they all clear in one's mind? Even if one relaxed Brooks's standard to 75% of a creator's works, still, there is almost no one I should be generalizing about, ever. I can't live within that stricture, of course, but I should try not to forget it, either. And I admire Brooks for raising the issue, at his own expense.

This is kind of an interesting concept -- the Thirty Best "Long Tail" Films of the Decade:

http://wherethelongtailends.com/archives/the-decades-30-best-long-tail-films

There is a new film coming out of a relatively obscure posthumous Philip K. Dick novel, Radio Free Albemuth:

http://io9.com/5459233/sneak-peek-at-upcoming-philip-k-dick-movie

Bas Jan Ader is new to me: a Dutch conceptual artist who died in 1975 as part of a performance piece. Unintentionally, but still. Chris Burden had himself shot, starved, and crucified, but he never died.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2010/01/art-review-bas-jan-ader-at-patrick-painter.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bas_Jan_Ader

Mid-20th century American composer Henry Cowell, who had a dizzying array of sonic interests, is due for rediscovery and may actually be getting it:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2010/01/henry-cowell-revived-in-new-york.html

There's currently a show in New York dedicated to another rediscovery candidate, Mary Webb, whose memory is being kept alive by an enthusiastic couple, Mary and Bruce Crawford. This New York Times piece shows that there is plenty of meaningful work that "amateur literary historians" can undertake:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/29/arts/design/29antiques.html

Among notables born on this date are violinists Fritz Kreisler and Jascha Heifetz, novelist James Joyce, poets James Dickey and Pavol Hviezdoslav (Slovakia), musical theater composer Burton Lane (Finian's Rainbow), jazz saxophonist Stan Getz, Mexican illustrator Jose Guadalupe Posada, comedian Tom Smothers, singer Eva Cassidy, rocker Graham Nash, conductor Andrew Davis, and actors Elaine Stritch, Duane Jones (Night of the Living Dead), and Brent Spiner (Star Trek: The Next Generation). I remember the first time I heard Kreisler's 1926 recording of the Beethoven Violin Concerto (he made another in 1936), and it not only took my breath away, it actually made me cry, it was so damned beautiful.