Comments for The Water Margin

Comment on Dear Reader by Dawn Ciardi

Dawn Ciardi — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 14:37:55 +0000

Lowry:

The photographs are beautiful and thought provoking. I enjoyed the reflective narrative piece…it really served to enhance the photographs, not diminish them. You website is fantastic. I will be checking back…reading your material made me realize that I have missed your “voice”.

Comment on 19. When Nothing Is Done, Nothing Is Left Undone by Liam Brown

Liam Brown — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 06:53:50 +0000

I just found your article today. It was very interesting and thought-provoking. I’ve read a decent bit from the Tao, Zen Buddhism, and some of the ideas of American transcendentalists, but I’ve never heard an argument for “big mind,” as it were, put quite the way you put it. Another interesting thing is that proponents of “small mind” (call it ego, I suppose) are liable to overlook a lot of conscious intelligence in animals whose IQ appears to be below whatever arbitrary threshold is used in deciding the difference between humans and the rest of things with brains. Not only does the natural world exhibit a collective intelligence about how to get by, but there are many animals whose behavior seems to suggest that neither emotion nor consciousness are traits unique to humans. We just happen to be the most skilled at throwing things out of balance.

Comment on A Miniature Arcadia by Stephen Brown

Stephen Brown — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 01:33:59 +0000

This is great stuff. Noticing that which is beneath notice. I don’t know what value it has, but I’m certain it has value. Meanwhile, your point about public access and awareness I’m sure is well-taken: “If more people live next to the marsh and know about it, some of them will probably start caring about it, appreciating it”.

Comment on A Miniature Arcadia by jelizabeth

jelizabeth — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 22:51:11 +0000

Two thoughts:

I wonder if there’s a Moss Society, or something like the Rhododendron Society or Wildflower Society, for people obsessed with mosses? They’d probably love this diverse, mossy landscape at Faces.

And, if affordable housing were built on this site and near this marsh, and if children lived in that housing, wouldn’t they eventually find this watery spot, and it could become their own kingdom?

Comment on Mill Brook & the Res by Inseparably Intertwined « The Water Margin

Inseparably Intertwined « The Water Margin — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 13:58:35 +0000

[...] the place where it flows past a tow truck lot), which you can see at this link, and before that on Sept. 7, 2007. I followed Mill Brook up to the Arlington Reservoir and photographed the marsh (the culmination of [...]

Comment on Tow Lot and Sickle Brook by Inseparably Intertwined « The Water Margin

Inseparably Intertwined « The Water Margin — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 19:48:21 +0000

[...] in November 2007 (especially the place where it flows past a tow truck lot), which you can see at this link, and before that on Sept. 7, 2007. I followed Mill Brook up to the Arlington Reservoir and [...]

Comment on 18. The Open Frame by Kristina

Kristina — Fri, 30 May 2008 18:12:26 +0000

Between this post and the last one, I started thinking about one of my favorite literary scholars, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick. Her recent work is influenced by Buddhism, and I read a (as yet unpublished?) piece by her for a talk she gave about permeability in Proust. I don’t think you’re looking for a literary scholar to read, but if you were, you might give her more recent stuff a try. (I also like her early stuff, but it’s not what I’m talking about.)

Comment on 19. When Nothing Is Done, Nothing Is Left Undone by Kristina

Kristina — Fri, 30 May 2008 18:06:56 +0000

This separation of consciousness from intelligence is very thought-provoking. I have been interested for quite some time in the idea of artificial intelligence, which is perhaps the opposite end of what you’re talking about, and the gothic literature I love is very much interested in the human/animal “opposition” (which turns out not to be an opposition, of course). This gives me more food for thought on those ideas.

I don’t know if you’re already thinking this, but it might be interesting to structure the final product of this project dialogically as well. I’m thinking in a way about your novel For Adam, though I know you have some complex feelings about that. Or Derrida’s The Double Session; I admit I’ve actually never read it, but I like the way it looks on the page.

Comment on 17. Regroup and Begin Again by Kristina

Kristina — Fri, 30 May 2008 17:07:28 +0000

I also agree that the problem with much scholarship is the “overdog” syndrome, the arguing over which interpretation is right and the disproving of other arguments to make one’s point. But I don’t think that’s what scholarship should be. As Renee says, much of it is boring. The best scholarship, the stuff that really gets me excited, is the stuff that goes beyond or steps outside of the either/or model, whether this step is in order to suggest some third possible term, or to say it’s not either/or but both/and, or to analyze the structure of the back-and-forth argument itself.

Comment on Old Channel of the Little River by Don’t Dump - Drains To Alewife Brook - Cambridge, MA « Fading Ad Blog by Frank H. Jump

Wed, 28 May 2008 00:00:43 +0000

[...] Old Channel of the Little River [...]