Life keeps hurtling forward, bursting forth. It’s spring in California, the jasmine’s come in and the streaky roses. It’s been raining hard all morning; just now it stopped abruptly. Lyn writes in My Life, “she observed that detail minutely, as if it were botanical. As if words could unite an ardent intellect with the external material world.” This is Lyn, vitally observing, drawing it all into relation, the mind and the world, botanical, passionate. Making words hold life, making words as life. “Such that art is inseparable from the search for reality,” she writes.
Joris discusses & reads Rushdie's Satanic Verses
Today is the worldwide reading of the works of Salman Rushdie, sponsored by the Berlin Literary Festival. Watch Pierre Joris talk about the attack on Rushdie, with my introduction. Joris's essay was published this month in the Brooklyn Rail. We both then read from The Satanic Verses -- listen to the audio linked below.