Inside Jacket

Incredible images and documentation on Marcel Duchamp’s great and his last piece of work “Etant donnes. When everyone thought he was playing chess, Duchamp has been working secretly on his late masterpiece. A work that is still disturbing and frankly shocking.

Violence, eros, and mystery all wrapped in one art work. Yale University did a fantastic job in putting this volume together. There are tons of Duchamp books out there, but this is truly an essential volume. The more one writes about this work, the more mysterious it becomes. Truly unique and one-of-a-kind.

After Diane Scharper wrote her appreciation of Sister Maura Eichner, who taught for many years at The College of Notre Dame of Maryland and died at age 94, some readers asked for the sister’s poem, “What My Teachers Taught Me, I Try to Teach My Students.” Here it is (with thanks to the college for providing it): 

A bird in the hand/is not to be desired

In writing, nothing/is too much trouble.

Culture is nourished, not/by fact, but by myth.

Continually think of those/who were truly great

who in their lives fought/for life, who wore

at their hearts, the fire’s/center. Feel the meanings

the words hide. Make routine/a stimulus. Remember

it can cease. Forge/hosannahs from doubt.

Hammer on doors with the heart/All occasions invite God’s

mercies and all times/are his seasons.

William Wordsworth’s birthplace in the Cumbrian town of Cockermouth is taking a beating from the floods that are causing havoc in the region reports The Independent. (Cockermouth is one of my favourite place names along with Puddletown and Piddletown in Thomas Hardy country.)

Once again the mob has spoken, and we have your winner right here…

….You can see all the entries, i’ve fast forwarded to the winners bracket.

Earlier this week the William Hill Sports Book of the Year award was handed out to Duncan Hamilton for the second time in three years – this time Hamilton won for his biography of the cricketer and demon fast bowler Harold Larwood. This book is going straight onto my ‘to read list.’ I think I know the Larwood story pretty well – coal miner becomes fastest bowler in England and humbles the Aussies including the great Don Bradman and is then shunned by the cricketing establishment for refusing to adopt the dangerous tactics demanded by his captain – but I’m sure this book has more to say about him.

Cricketing fans might like to know AbeBooks has four signed copies of Harold Larwood’s autobiography, The Larwood Story, on the site. I think the greatest irony of Larwood’s life is that he emmigrated to Australia – the nation whose team he was asked to destroy with this bowling. The class system means nothing in Australia.