Wednesday, April 2, 2014

Thanks to Wikipedia

I love Wikipedia, especially when I hear other educators disparage it.  I don't trust it completely, but I don't trust any text completely.  I love that I can change it if I disagree with it or find it factually incorrect.  I love that it has so much of the information I want to find quickly.

I looked at Frank O'Hara's Wikipedia page last week.  I learned that the TV show Mad Men has references to his work.  I learned of his birth in 1926, the same as Robert Creeley and Allen Ginsberg, and of his death in 1966.  I had thought of him as born later and dying even younger.

I've begun reading Zukofsky's Complete Short Poetry again.  I love Bob Creeley's introduction.  I don't understand "Poem beginning 'The'" but I look forward to finishing rereading it and rereading the whole book.  I plan to read some Catullus in Latin along with Louis and Celia's Catullus versions when I reach that section of the book.

2 comments:

  1. I dig Wikipedia too, but RAW would eat up the fundy materialists and their attacks on anyone who writes anything remotely positive about chinese or indian medicine, Rupert Sheldrake, etc. This website currently has my interest:
    http://wikipediawehaveaproblem.com/

    Sorry to hear about Joseph Kerman, btw.

    Your optimism seems infectious.

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  2. Thanks for your comment. I suspect you correctly predict Bob's response to the "skeptical" shaping of Wikipedia, but he often surprised me with his responses. Thanks for the link. I've started reading the opening article.

    Thanks also for sharing with me Joseph K's passing. He has had a huge impact on me. I first heard of him from Erich Leinsdorf's The Composer's Advocate, wherein Leinsdorf recommends Kerman's book The Beethoven Quartets. Rereading the Leinsdorf book in the winter of 1990-1991 led me to read The Beethoven Quartets, which blew me away. I've since read all of Kerman's books. I used his book Listen as a textbook for my high school music history class for thirteen years. RIP Joseph Kerman.

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