GIVING UP THINGS WE LOVE

STANLEY FISH May 27, 2013, 9:00 pm 414 Comments

Moving On

By STANLEY FISH

Stanley Fish on education, law and society.

I have sold my books. Not all of them, but most of them. I held on to the books I might need while putting the finishing touches on a manuscript that is now with my publisher. I also kept the books I will likely need when I begin my next project in the fall. But the books that sustained my professional life for 50 years — books by and about Milton, Spenser, Shakespeare, Skelton, Sidney, Herbert, Marvell, Herrick, Donne, Jonson, Burton, Browne, Bacon, Dryden, Hobbes — are gone (I watched them being literally wheeled out the door), and now I look around and see acres of empty white bookshelves.

JOSS WEDON, DIRECTOR

GRADUATES:  Action is more important than words....but words are more important than nothing.  Here are 13 minutes of funny, serious, true words than can help you, if you occasionally think of them.

The two professor-administrators at the front, who probably invited him, get his dark entertaining humor and agree. The professor in the back is probably bored and thinks he's a jerk.  You can make your own decision.  (The English is clear and non-academic.)

The problem is that at graduation ceremonies, students are thinking about partying, their dates, supportive and non-supportive families, no job, the terrifyng future, being hot or cold, holding on to their caps in the wind, eating, texting, boredom, and having a good night's sleep, hopefully with someone.

Still, the Graduation Speech Ritual is one of civilization's more useful inventions, too often unused.

http://www.upworthy.com/behold-the-bluntest-funniest-and-deadliest-graduation-speech-in-the-history-of-the-known-universe?g=2&c=upw1

RAY HARRYHAUSEN

Ray Harryhausen, a nice man, legend of creative, hand-made, non-digital special effects in movies, died. Age 92. He learned from Willis O'Brien, and added art, humor, and warmth to his mentor's visual inventions. Low-cost, humanly imperfect, Ray's effects made the films accessible to kids and adult audiences in way that perfect photo-realism can never do....

Now that film, film pioneers, and hand-hewn story-telling are virtually extinct, it is sad, but fitting, that Ray goes on to have fun in imperfect Heaven. He leaves new scientific technology to more greedy, less talented, and certainly less charming Hollywood feature videogame entrepreneurs.

A BOULDER OF MUSIC

George Jones died.  He did not pass away.  Anyone who has ever been emotionally moved by carefully-crafted modern country pop music, should listen to his old-fashioned truthful albums.  His songs are shot from his heart into your ears, without dilution by producers, managers, marketeers, or public image ego.

George Jones lived a tortured self-destructive life, but instead of physically killing others or himself, he turned his love and pain into intimate art that he shared courageously with anyone who would listen.  His singing style was not manufactured to win screaming concert fans, or to sell 100 albums he recorded.....Everything in George Jones' songs - his traumatic voice, unequaled precise phrasing, brilliant succinct poetry lyrics - was straight from his soul.  It was not entertainment.  A life was at stake.