Further comments on *There is No Such Thing as Intelligence* The Kugelmass Episodes

It’s hard to imagine a more passionate defender of “brilliance” than Bloom, so I can see why you you brought him in. But I still think his *The Anxiety of Influence*has a lot to offer.

Some of my thoughts about your essay come out of working as a school social worker in NY for 25 years. I often get the feeling that in schools, and in society in general, the less people recognize the given talents and abilities of others, the more shrewdness is a valued and admired substitute for thinking.What happens when there is no status to be earned by intellectual accomplishments, according to the common sense idea that “if you’re so smart why aren’t you rich?” I just finished reading Gissing’s *New Grub Street.* In part, it seems to me, the book is an indictment of contemporary culture’s inability to benefit from the talents of those who cannot transpose their intellectual abilities into saleable skills. What would Gissing say now? I’ll bet there are not a few poverty stricken bloggers out there; and who can make a living as an adjunct? Edwin Reardon, the main character in *New Grub Street* dies clearly as a result of disease brought on by malnutrition. He had written a couple of brilliant novels and waited too long to take a job as clerk because, if he didn’t work as a brilliant intellectual, how were people to know he was one? In a rational and responsible society, it seems to me, it would be considered unethical to underrate people because the visible results of their talents do not match who they are as persons. People would then appraise others according to what they have to offer, not according to what they have been able to sell in themselves.

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OCHO 11is available from LuLu.

as is our own

Free Fall

The publisher, Mark Young, had this to say about Free Fall:

gamma ways

Happy Birthday Tom Beckett!

Tom Beckett video on *The Continental Review*

Beckett's *Unprotected Texts* reviewed in the current Jacket (#33, July 2007)

Tom Beckett/poetry/Otoliths

Allen Bramhall on Tom Beckett

Tom Beckett/Steps/Meritage Press

Tom Beckett, curator/E-X-C-H-A-N-G-E-V-A-L-U-E-S The First XI
Interviews/Otoliths

Tom Beckett's e-x-c-h-a-n-g-e- v-a-l-u-e-s blog

hb t.b. Arroyo Chamisa

Tom Beckett is the recipient of our second Thinking Blogger Award (the first was Ray Davis). Tom's blog, Soluble Census, as well as his earlier blogs, have become mainstays of the literary blogging world. Tom is a true thinking blogger if there ever was one: his openness, knowledgeability and dedication to poetry and poetry blogging are legendary. In the stormy seas of contemporary poetry, Tom Beckett's blog is a lighthouse and it is our pleasure to have proffered this token of appreciation. (fait accompli/ 7/17/07)

Tom Beckett today awarded Soluble Census' second Thinking Blogger Award to Eileen Tabios (the first went to Geof Huth)

By George

I've just finished reading the remarkable novel "New Grub Street* by George Gissing. For the past few years I've been searching out early novels that reveal underlying factors leading to the reality of social life as it is lived today. I've been fascinated by the work of Flaubert. Dickens, Wharton, Dreiser, James, Maugham and Orwell, to name a few, partcularly Flaubert's *Sentimental Education*, Orwell's *Keep the Apidistra Flying*, Wharton's *House of Mirth*, Dickens' *David Copperfield*, Maugham's "Of Human Bondage*, Dreiser's *Sister Carrie.*, and James' "Washington Square*. I've been trying to trace themes and connections in these writers, and have been garnering impressions and ideas about prophetic and predictive qualities in the turn of the century and early 20th century realist novel.Any suggestions? Please write to me at nickpoetique@earthlink.net.

The remarkable influence of George Gissing on George Orwell is discussed in an interesting essay I found today on the George Gissing site.

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E ratio9 edited by Gregory Vincent St. Thomasino is just out.

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Veni, Vidi, Vici

Tom Beckett (Soluble Census) has chosen the pied piper of Vispo as the recipient of his first Thinking Blogger award.

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pseudopodium loglist

The second selection, in our ongoing perusal of Ray Davis' loglist is the wonderfully titled
Languor Management

Tom Marches On

Tom Beckett kindly responds and accepts our Thinking Blogger Award and promises to continue the meme.

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While The Boss is Out to Lunch

check out The Process of Avant-Garde Practice, a longish essay on William Watkins' Blog

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Rain, Rain Go Away

but until it does, check out Amy King's Links
which include tons of audio interviews she has conducted, including one with Elaine Equi

King of Brooklyn
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Too Warm? Take Off Your

July Jacket and read on...
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If The Truth Be Told

Tracie Morris and Charles Bernstein sing a duet in
The Brooklyn Rail
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Rachel Maddow

our recent Provincetown neighbor interviews Steve Buscemi, our Park Slope neighbor
today on The Rachel Maddow Show | Air America Radio
Steve Buscemi will be in studio talking about his latest film

Tom Beckett

is the recipient of our second Thinking Blogger Award. Tom's blog, Soluble Census, as well as his earlier blogs, have become mainstays of the literary blogging world. Tom is a true thinking blogger if there ever was one: his openness, knowledgeability and dedication to poetry and poetry blogging are legendary. In the stormy seas of contemporary poetry, Tom Beckett's blog is a lighthouse and it is our pleasure to proffer this token of appreciation.

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pseudopodium loglist bloggers

The very first link we came across on the pseudopodium loglist is a gold nugget. Check outLink Machine

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On My Desk

Our New Orwell?

*Alibi* by Joseph Kanon

Multiple reviews of *Alibi*

*

Toni, an aficianado of 19th century novels loved *New Grub Street* by George Gissing

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Two More Great 8

Jean Vengua

Nicholas Manning

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Jean Vengua, in one of her 8 random facts, mentions she's read all of the stories of H. P. Lovecraft. I was reminded that my friend, the novelist Peter Straub, who has published many terrific novels in the horror genre, is the editor of the Library of America collection of The Tales of H.P. Lovecraft,

Anger at the Scale

Just as Katie Degentesh, pointedly critiques psychological tests in her book The Anger Scale, Kugelmass takes aim at the idea, and specifically, the culture of intelligence, in an essay Ray Davis notably mentions and links to it in his latest post, discussed below, possibly making an indirect critique of the notion of the award I had just presented him with! Enjoy, you geniuses: Kugelmass: There is No Such Thing As Intelligence.

I am not very much in agreement with Kugelmass' thesis. There may be no such thing as intelligence, per se, but there is such a thing as intelligent resourcefulness and this can be taught. Lets not drown the baby in the bathos, Mr. Kugelmass!! Also, check out K's arch reference to Harold Bloom's amazing book, *The Anxiety of Influence*. He seems to feel the A of I was written because Bloom could not create literature on his own (has he wanted to?), in the spirit of those who can do, and those who cannot, teach. Anyway, this is a fine and provocative essay, and our thanks to Ray Davis for pointing us to it.

Ray Davis

Whose blog pseudopodium recently celebrated its eighth birthday, and was our first choice for a Thinking Blogger award, has invited us to peruse his loglist in search of blogs worth thinking about. This is a fine recommendation for a veteran blogger to make, as in my own case, there has been a declining propensity to wade into the ever increasing ocean of new blogs. Happily, Ray takes the moment to talk a bit about himself, and in so doing, mentions Miranda Gaw, and Mark Woods. I see in my crystal ball another Thinking Blogger award coming into view. And who would deserve it more?

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Nobly Disheveled

ursprache