2013 Noble Laureate: Alice Munro

Munro at her home in Clinton, Ontario

Alice Munro's Writing

Many selections from Munro's writing career can be found at The New Yorker. However, these may not be available to the general reading public. You may have better luck getting a selection of her stories here.

The announcement of Munro's 2013 Nobel Prize selection.

Nobel Prize win was ‘totally unexpected,’ Alice Munro says

SANDRA MARTIN

The Globe and Mail

Published Friday, Oct. 11 2013, 9:46 PM EDT

Last updated Friday, Oct. 11 2013, 9:50 PM EDT

Stylish, charming and as sharp as the proverbial tack, Alice Munro sat down on Friday in the lobby of her Victoria hotel with Globe photographer John Lehmann for her first video interview since winning the Nobel Prize for literature the day before. Ms. Munro is the first Canadian citizen and only the 13th woman to win the world’s most prestigious literary prize for lifetime achievement.

Watch a video with Munro talking about winning the Nobel Prize.

Alice Munro Wins Nobel Prize in Literature

By JULIE BOSMAN

The New York Times

Published: October 10, 2013

Alice Munro, the renowned Canadian short-story writer whose visceral work explores the tangled relationships between men and women, small-town existence and the fallibility of memory, won the 2013 Nobel Prize in Literature on Thursday. 

To read all of The New York Times article go here.

Here are some of the numerous interviews with and articles about Munro on the web:

The New Yorker interview with Munro.

The Paris Review's Art of Fiction interview with Munro.

The New York Times Magazine has a lengthy profile on Munro.

The Atlantic conducted an interview with her.

CNN presented  news of Munro's Nobel win on their website.

NPR reported on Munro's Nobel win, based on earlier interviews.

Munro's home in Ontario, Canada

1A: Steven Johnson

As I prepared for class re: Steven Johnson, I came upon a couple of things that might be of interest to you.  First, there is his website, www.stevenberlinjohnson.com. While there, I was directed to a New York Times article, "Wired for Distraction," by Matt Richtel. It looks good, as does Johnson's response to the article.  I hope to get to both soon.

I also watched this video promoting his book,  Where Good Ideas Come From. I'm going to have to watch it again.

Here's must-watch TV:  Stephen Colbert interviews Steven Johnson in 2006. And Charlie Rose, about five years ago, talks with Johnson for about 15 minutes. The interview starts shortly after the 40 minute mark.

1B - Selected Poets (Dylan Thomas, Elizabeth Bishop, Frank O'Hara, Theodore Roehke, Carolyn Forche)

Dylan Thomas (1914-53)

Here are some things that you might want to check out on the web:  Dylan Thomas reading "Do not go gentle into that good night" and an interview with Elizabeth Bishop that appeared in the Paris Review.



Elizabeth Bishop (1911-79)

Frank O'Hara reads "Having a Coke with You".  O'Hara, as you know, wrote "The Day Lady Died" as a remembrance of Billie Holiday.  Watch and listen to performances of Holiday singing "One for My Baby (and one more for the road)"  and  "Strange Fruit".  The latter song is considered one of the greatest of the 20th Century and certainly one of the greatest about racism in America. If you've never heard Holiday sing, both are worth a few minutes of your time.

Frank O'Hara (1926-66)

Theodore Roethke is heard reading "My Papa's Waltz."

Theodore Roethke (1908-63)

You can also watch Carolyn Forche read "The Colonel."

Carolyn Forche (1950-- )

Should I tell you about one more reading of "Do not go gentle into that good night"?  I guess I just did.

1A: Joan Didion

Joan Didion in Conversation with Sloane Crosley

from The New York Public Library on FORA.tv

If you have time, and I hope you do, check out some of these links re: Joan Didion.  They may help you with "On Morality."

15 Great Essays by Joan Didion

Didion on Why I Write

You can find an interview with Didion at The Art of Fiction, no. 71, Paris Review, Fall-Winter 1978.

You can find an interview with Didion at The Art of Nonfiction No.1 Paris Review, Spring 2006

"Joan Didion: Writer" by Sheila Heti, The Believer, undated.

“I Was No Longer Afraid to Die. I Was Now Afraid Not to Die.” The secret subject of Joan Didion’s work has always been her troubled daughter. Her wrenching new memoir tells us why" by Boris Kachka, New York magazine, Oct 16, 2011 

"Notes on a Voice: Joan Didion" by Robert Butler, from Intelligent Life, Summer 2011

The New York Times Joan Didion Times Topic page.

"The Autumn of Joan Didion" by Caitlin Flanagan, The Atlantic, December 20, 2011

The Unclosed Circle by Sarah Kerr, New York Review of Books, April 26, 2007. A review of Didion's We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live: Collected Nonfiction

"At least some of the time, the world appears to me as a painting by Hieronymus Bosch," Didion declares in "On Morality." This triptych, above, known as "The Garden of Earthly Delights," is the most famous of Bosch's painting, the Dutch artist who lived from 1450-1516. What does the painting show, from left to right? What does this painting tell us about Didion's state of mind within her essay? Learn more about Bosch at this site dedicated to him.

LancerMail

PCC wants students to know about LancerMail

• LancerMail is PCC’s new Google-powered student email accessible through LancerPoint.
• All official communications from PCC will go to this email account, including Financial Aid. You must check this account regularly or forward to your personal email account. Your login is your LancerPoint username that you used to register for classes.
• More information is available at https://login.pasadena.edu/lancermail_faq.html  

1A Readings: Your Future

Study in Science Shows End of History Illusion
"Why You Won’t Be the Person You Expect to Be" by John Tierney. The New York Times, January 3, 2013.
[Also, read Comments section following the article for reader responses.]


Your View of the future is Shaped by the Past
The future has ways of surprising us.
Psychology Today, August 12, 2011 by Art Markman, Ph.D. in Ulterior Motives


Past Predictions: Expert Q & A
Matt Novak has spent more than five years writing a blog that examines, as he puts it, “the future that never was.”
Posted November 8, 2012 at PBS NOVA scienceNOW


What Will the Future Be Like?

Meet the people building tomorrow's robots, 3-D virtual environments, mind-reading machines, and more. Broadcast November 14, 2012 on PBS NOVA. 55 minutes.

PCC AlertU

AlertU is a text messaging system that notifies PCC students, faculty and adminstrators about safety news important to the PCC community. To enroll in AlertU, go to http://www.pasadena.edu/police/alertu.cfm

For your safety you may also wish to add the PCC campus police phone number to your cell phone contacts.  The PCC campus police can be reached by calling 626-585-7484.

"One Today" by Richard Blanco, the inaugural poet

Following is the text of the poem, “One Today,” delivered by Richard Blanco, the inaugural poet.

One sun rose on us today, kindled over our shores,

peeking over the Smokies, greeting the faces

of the Great Lakes, spreading a simple truth

across the Great Plains, then charging across the Rockies.

One light, waking up rooftops, under each one, a story

told by our silent gestures moving behind windows.

My face, your face, millions of faces in morning’s mirrors,

each one yawning to life, crescendoing into our day:

pencil-yellow school buses, the rhythm of traffic lights,

fruit stands: apples, limes, and oranges arrayed like rainbows

begging our praise. Silver trucks heavy with oil or paper—

bricks or milk, teeming over highways alongside us,

on our way to clean tables, read ledgers, or save lives—

to teach geometry, or ring-up groceries as my mother did

for twenty years, so I could write this poem.

All of us as vital as the one light we move through,

the same light on blackboards with lessons for the day:

equations to solve, history to question, or atoms imagined,

the “I have a dream” we keep dreaming,

or the impossible vocabulary of sorrow that won’t explain

the empty desks of twenty children marked absent

today, and forever. Many prayers, but one light

breathing color into stained glass windows,

life into the faces of bronze statues, warmth

onto the steps of our museums and park benches 2

as mothers watch children slide into the day.

One ground. Our ground, rooting us to every stalk

of corn, every head of wheat sown by sweat

and hands, hands gleaning coal or planting windmills

in deserts and hilltops that keep us warm, hands

digging trenches, routing pipes and cables, hands

as worn as my father’s cutting sugarcane

so my brother and I could have books and shoes.

The dust of farms and deserts, cities and plains

mingled by one wind—our breath. Breathe. Hear it

through the day’s gorgeous din of honking cabs,

buses launching down avenues, the symphony

of footsteps, guitars, and screeching subways,

the unexpected song bird on your clothes line.

Hear: squeaky playground swings, trains whistling, or whispers across café tables, Hear: the doors we open

for each other all day, saying: hello| shalom,

buon giorno |howdy |namaste |or buenos días

in the language my mother taught me—in every language

spoken into one wind carrying our lives

without prejudice, as these words break from my lips.

One sky: since the Appalachians and Sierras claimed

their majesty, and the Mississippi and Colorado worked

their way to the sea. Thank the work of our hands:

weaving steel into bridges, finishing one more report

for the boss on time, stitching another wound 3

or uniform, the first brush stroke on a portrait,

or the last floor on the Freedom Tower

jutting into a sky that yields to our resilience.

One sky, toward which we sometimes lift our eyes

tired from work: some days guessing at the weather

of our lives, some days giving thanks for a love

that loves you back, sometimes praising a mother

who knew how to give, or forgiving a father

who couldn’t give what you wanted.

We head home: through the gloss of rain or weight

of snow, or the plum blush of dusk, but always—home,

always under one sky, our sky. And always one moon

like a silent drum tapping on every rooftop

and every window, of one country—all of us—

facing the stars

hope—a new constellation

waiting for us to map it,

waiting for us to name it—together

1B: Alexie, Hemingway, Joyce, and Walker

Sherman Alexie.  Photograph by Mike Urban.

Who is Sherman Alexie?  In addition to posing for photographers, he has written novels, essays, and short stories. How short?  Six words short.  Take a look.  If the link doesn't work, you might need to register at Narrative Magazine.  If you want to waste more time on the web, and I mean that in a good way, go to Sherman Alexie's website.  You can also watch this video with him: 

Want to read a biographical sketch of James Joyce? Take your pick at the Joyce biography page at The Brazen Head: A James Joyce Public House, the self-proclaimed best Joyce page on the web. 

James Joyce: "A small, thin unathletic man with very bad eyes," the narrator

 of the above video says, so Hemingway stood between Joyce and a punch.

Our Ernest Hemingway assignment is weeks away, but keep these links in mind for when you read his work. Timeless Hemingway is an excellent website devoted to Hemingway where you'll find an extensive page covering Hemingway's life story. Another biography of Hemingway can be found here.  

Hemingway with his son John Hadley in 1927
about the time of the publication of "Hills Like White Elephants"

See the official website of Alice Waker, and you can find more information about Walker at this page.

Alice Walker won the Pulitzer Prize in 1983 for The Color  Purple