The Spouter-Inn

By Suzanne Conklin Akbari and Chris PiumaArts Books

The Spouter-Inn episodes

November 15, 2020 37. Times Square Red, Times Square Blue.
Despite moments of infatuation on both sides, these were not love
relationships. The few hustlers excepted, they were not business
relationships. They were encounters whose most important aspect was that
mutual pleasure was exchanged—an aspect that, yes, colored all other
aspects, but that did not involve any sort of life commitment. Most were
affable but brief because, beyond pleasure, these were people you had little
in common with. Yet what greater field and force than pleasure can human
beings share?
Times Square Red, Times Square Blue is a book that’s half memoir, half
theoretical argument. It’s about Samuel R. Delany’s experiences in the adult
theatres of New York City (which he often frequented, and which, as the book
was written, were being torn down and replaced with the “family-friendly”
version of Times Square we know today) and about the nature of contact in a
vibrant city. It begins our cluster of books on
sex with astonishing frankness,
nuanced thought, and vast empathy—and it’s gorgeously written as well.
Show Notes.
Samuel R. Delany: Times Square Red, Times Square
Blue.
[Bookshop.]
Other books by Delany that we mention: Dhalgren;
In Search of Silence: The Journals of Samuel R. Delany, Volume I,
1957-1969; Return to
Nevèrÿon; The Motion of Light in
Water; Heavenly
Breakfast; Through the Valley of the Nest of
Spiders.
Jane Jacobs: The Death and Life of Great American
Cities.
Our episodes on Middlemarch, A
Moveable Feast, and Memory
Serves.
Anne Carson: Nox.
Julia Kristeva: Stabat Mater.
[JSTOR, paywalled, but you can see the layout of the first page, at least.]
Walter Benjamin: The Arcades Project.
Delany’s website has long included a robust
page of errata he’s found in his books, which often get updated in reprints
(though the page seems to be broken right now).
The Poetry Project has some videos of Delany talking
about and reading
from the 20th anniversary
edition of the book.
Next: The Mahabharata.
[Bookshop.]
If you’re enjoying The Spouter-Inn, consider supporting us on
Patreon. Thank you!
57 min
October 27, 2020 36b. Bonus: Shamma Boyarin on the Disciplina Clericalis.
There are these moments in The Scholar’s Guide, where they’re not
necessarily contradictions, but they’re ruptures, they’re gaps between what
is happening and what we actually notice. That I think suggests that what
Petrus Alfonsi is doing. He’s actually using [the genre of dialogue]
in a way to undercut it. It’s a didactic literature that’s anti-didactic in
its mode.
Shamma Boyarin is an Assistant
Professor in the English Department at the University of Victoria. He is also
the director of the Religion, Culture and Society Program. His research and
teaching interests span medieval literature (with a specific focus on Hebrew
and Arabic literature), religion, and pop culture. He joined us recently to
discuss what he’s been reading during the pandemic, and joins us once again to
talk about Petrus Alfonsi’s Disciplina
Clericalis, as well as teaching such a
text in the context of the history of literature from England.
Show Notes.
Shamma was previously on our second
episode on Reading During Crisis.
Adelard of Bath.
Meir of Norwich.
Susan Einbinder: No Place of Rest: Jewish Literature, Expulsion, and the
Memory of Medieval France.
The article Shamma mentions is Gabriel Ford’s “Why Not Read Petrus Alfonsi’s
Disciplina clericalis in the British Literature
Survey?”,
which is sadly behind a paywall.
Suzanne’s article “Between Diaspora and Conquest: Norman Assimilation in
Petrus Alfonsi’s Disciplina Clericalis and Marie de France’s
Fables”.
If you're enjoying The Spouter-Inn, and you're able to, consider supporting
us on Patreon. Thanks!
41 min
October 20, 2020 36. Disciplina Clericalis.
[A poet] presented his badly composed verses to the king. [...] The
king did not receive him well and asked him whose son he was. The poet said
he was the nephew of [a] famous author, at which the king burst out
laughing. [...] The king said, “I once read a book containing a fable,
which I now see before my eyes.”
    They asked him what it was and the king said:
    “A fox found a newborn mule in a field, and, surprised, asked him: ‘Who are
you?’
    “The mule said he was a creature of God.
    “The fox asked him, ‘Have you a father or a mother?’
    “The mule said, ‘My uncle is a noble horse.’
    “And just as this mule did not claim the ass as his father because it is a
lazy, ugly animal, so this poet is ashamed to confess his father...”
The Disciplina Clericalis — which has been
translated into English as “The Scholar’s Guide” — is a curious collection of
aphorisms and (often salacious) short stories put together by Petrus Alphonsi
in the early twelfth century. Who is this educating, and from what
perspective? How does the dialogue format function in education? Is this an
educational text at all? Suzanne and Chris have a dialogue about it.
Show Notes.
Disciplina Clericalis [The Scholar’s
Guide].
[Bookshop.]
Our episode on Boccaccio’s Decameron.
Petrus Alphonsi: Dialogue against the
Jews [Dialogi contra Iudaeos].
Gesta Romanorum [some old
translations].
Dame Sirith.
Ramon Llull: The Book of the Gentile and the Three Wise
Men.
Peter Abelard: Dialogue between a Philosopher, a Jew, and a
Christian.
Adab.
A medieval manuscript that includes the Disciplina
Clericalis.
Next: Samuel R. Delany: Times Square Red, Times Square
Blue.
[Bookshop.]
If you’re enjoying the show, consider supporting us on
Patreon. If you do, you can chat with us
about books on a members-only Slack. Thank you!
52 min
September 24, 2020 35b. Bonus: Loretta Todd on Monkey Beach.
I was so deeply moved by the love that Eden [Robinson] showed for her
characters. There was so much love she had for Lisamarie and her family.
There was so much devotion, really, to—not so much their happiness, but
their resilience.
Loretta Todd is a writer, director,
and producer. Her credits include award-winning documentaries, such as
Forgotten Warriors,
Kainayssini Imanistaisiwa: The People Go
On, and
Hands of History. She also
created, produced and directed Tansi! Nehiyawetan, a
Cree children’s series on APTN; MyCree, a
Cree language learning app (which has had over 20,000 downloads); and Fierce
Girls, a webseries and transmedia project for
Indigenous girls about Indigenous girl superheroes. And she is the director of
the feature film adaptation of Eden Robinson’s novel Monkey
Beach, which premieres today at the Vancouver
International Film Festival.
She joins us to discuss her relationship with the novel, the choices that went
into adapting it for the screen, and what it was like to film with and around
Haisla Nation.
Show Notes.
Loretta Todd’s website.
Several of her films are available via the
NFB, including Forgotten
Warriors, the film acknowledged
in Monkey Beach.
Monkey Beach premieres
tonight at the Vancouver International Film Festival.
Watch the trailer.
Our episode on Monkey Beach.
It’s a Wonderful Life.
Another interview with Loretta Todd about Monkey
Beach.
Loretta Todd giving a talk about Indigenous Storytelling in
Cyberspace.
If you are enjoying the podcast and are able to help out, please consider
supporting us and our network on Patreon.
Thank you.
47 min
September 21, 2020 35. Monkey Beach.
Contacting the dead, lesson one. Sleep is an altered state of consciousness.
To fall asleep is to fall into a deep, healing trance. In the spectrum of
realities, being awake is on one side and being asleep is way, way on the
other. To be absorbed in a movie, a game or work is to enter a light trance.
Daydreams, prayers or obsessing are heavier trances. Most people enter
trances reflexively. To contact the spirit world, you must control the way
you enter this state of being that is somewhere between waking and sleeping.
Eden Robinson’s debut novel Monkey Beach is a
coming-of-age story that has elements of horror and magic realism, but is
deeply rooted in the writer’s own Indigenous Haisla and Heiltsuk culture. The
education that the narrator, Lisamarie, receives from her uncle and
grandmother on the lands and waters (both salt and fresh) of the Pacific
Northwest is a powerful counterbalance to the trauma of the residential school
that has damaged the community so painfully. And her own search for her
brother, Jimmy, leads Lisa into the past and even—like Dante’s narrator—into
the spirit world of the dead.
Content warning: In the main discussion of this episode, we mention
violence, death, and sexual assualt.
Show Notes.
Eden Robinson: Monkey Beach. [Sadly, not available
on Bookshop.]
Other books by Eden Robinson: Blood Sports, Son of
a Trickster, Trickster
Drift, The Sasquatch at Home: Traditional Protocols
and Modern Storytelling.
The new film of Monkey Beach premieres
Thursday at the Vancouver International Film
Festival.
The CBC recently checked in with Eden
Robinson.
Our episodes on other texts we mention: The Autobiography of Malcolm
X [finally available in audiobook!];
Purgatorio;
Middlemarch;
Iliad.
Tseshaht First Nation commemorates the closing of Alberni Indian Residential
School.
The names of all 202 children known to have died in Vancouver Island
Residential Schools.
An article about WIllie Blackwater, a student who stood up to an abuser at
Alberni.
Next: Petrus Alfonsi: Disciplina Clericalis [translated as The Scholar’s
Guide].
[Bookshop.]
59 min
September 08, 2020 34b. Bonus: Karla Mallette on Purgatorio.
There a lot that I like about the Purgatorio. I mean, I like the fact that
there’s time. Uniquely among the three canticles, the Purgatorio takes place
against a backdrop of time. Time is weird—it doesn’t work the same way for
the penitent souls as it does for us, you know—and it’s really clear,
especially in Purgatorio and the Paradiso, that Dante is experiencing these
regions of the afterworld on demo mode.
Karla Mallette is a professor of
Italian and Middle East Studies at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Her
work focuses on the relationship between literary traditions in the medieval
Mediterranean, especially Arabic, Latin, and Romance vernaculars. Her earlier
books include The Kingdom of Sicily,
1100–1250, and European
Modernity and the Arab
Mediterranean. Her most
recent book, called Lives of the Great Languages: Arabic and Latin in the
Medieval Mediterranean, will appear in 2021. She joins Chris and Suzanne to
talk about all the feels in the Purgatorio, as well as what it’s like to teach
the poem to a wide variety of students.
Show Notes.
The Inferno as translated by Mark Musa
[Bookshop] or Charles
Singleton. Also available free online in Allen
Mandelbaum’s translation (with useful notes by Teodolinda
Barolini) at Digital Dante.
Jacques Le Goff: The Birth of Purgatory.
Stephen Greenblatt: Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became
Shakespeare.
(Suzanne, tell us what you really think of Stephen
Greenblatt…)
German expressionist films.
Frederic Leighton: Dante in
Exile.
Boethius: The Consolation of Philosophy, book 3 metre
12.
Sandow Birk’s and Gustave
Doré’s illustrations for the
Divine Comedy.
If you are enjoying the show and are able to, please consider supporting us
(and our network) on Patreon. Thanks.
47 min
September 01, 2020 34. Purgatorio.
Close to the top, we reached a point from where
I saw a gate...
...and I saw
the silent figure of someone on guard.
I slowly raised my eyes: I saw that he
was sitting on the highest step, his face
too splendid for my eyes—I looked away!
And in his hand he held a naked sword;
so dazzling were the rays reflected thence,
each time I tried to look I could not see.
...
Falling devoutly at his holy feet,
in mercy’s name I begged to be let in;
but, first of all, three times I smote my breast.
Then with his sword he traced upon my brow
the scars of seven P’s. “Once entered here,
be sure you cleanse away these wounds,” he said.
Dante’s Divine Comedy continues with Purgatorio , in which the poet
explores Purgatory. As he climbs this terraced mountain with his guides, he
will learn about the seven deadly sins, and talk with people who are working
through their problems. Eventually he will reach the top of the island—the
Garden of Eden—and reencounter his beloved Beatrice, who will be his guide
through the final section of the poem, Paradiso (which we’ll probably do next
year). Also, Chris and Suzanne take this opportunity to talk about
ekphrasis—the depiction of one medium of art in another medium (such as a
description of a painting).
Show Notes.
The Inferno as translated by Mark Musa
[Bookshop] or Charles
Singleton. Also available free online in Allen
Mandelbaum’s translation (with useful notes by Teodolinda
Barolini) at Digital Dante.
Our episodes on the first part of the Divine Comedy,
Inferno, and on Virgil’s epic poem, the
Aeneid.
Statius.
This article by Suzanne
begins with a medieval map of the cosmos.
Alan of Lille’s Sermon on the
Intelligible Sphere is in this collection.
Sandow Birk’s, Gustave
Doré’s, and William
Blake’s illustrations for the Divine Comedy.
A collection of other illustrations of the Commedia, including a
map of Purgatory.
Next: Eden Robinson: Monkey Beach [Sadly, not
available on Bookshop].
If you’ve been enjoying the podcast, and can afford to, please consider
supporting us (and our network) on Patreon.
Thank you.
52 min
August 04, 2020 33. W, or the Memory of Childhood.
What is true, what is certain, what is immediately striking, is that W,
today, is a land where Sport is king, a nation of athletes where Sport and
life unite in a single magnificent effort. The proud motto FORTIUS ALTIUS
CITIUS emblazoned on the monumental arches at the gates of each village, the
splendid stadiums with their meticulously maintained cinder tracks, the
gigantic wall sheets which publicize the results of sporting contests hour
by hour, the celebrations held daily for the winners, the men’s dress: grey
tracksuits with an outside W emblazoned on the back, such are the sights
which greet the newly arrived visitor. From them, he will grasp with
wonderment and enthusiasm [...] that life, here, is lived for the greater
glory of the Body.
Georges Perec’s W, or the Memory of Childhood,
retells a story the author wrote as a child, of W, a far-off island where all
of life revolves around sport. But we also get, in alternate chapters, a
curious autobiography, where the author tries to recover his mostly forgotten
childhood: growing up in Paris during World War 2, losing his father in the
early fighting of that war when he 4 years old, and losing his mother soon
after, as she was taken to the concentration camps. The author assures us that
both halves are needed to tell the story, and although at first they seem
unrelated, the connections slowly pile up, to devastating effect.
It’s a curious and haunting book, and Chris and Suzanne discuss its take on a
monomaniacal approach to sport, its exploration of the slipperiness of memory
and language, and (surprisingly enough in a book with so much loss) its
profound sense of play.
Content warning: There’s a discussion of sexual violence that lasts about
two minutes; we give a heads up. Also, this was an ill-fated recording
session, so apologies for the occasionally dodgy audio.
Show Notes.
Georges Perec: W, or the Memory of Childhood.
[Bookshop.]
Other books by Perec mentioned: A Void [La
Disparation], Life A Users Manual.
Our episode on Hayy ibn Yaqzan.
Oulipo, the Ouvroir pour la litérrature
potentielle.
Perec’s
palindrome.
A newer, longer palindrome (in
English).
David Rousset: A World Apart [L’Univers
concentrationnaire].
Double or Nothing: Jewish Speech and Silence in Georges Perec’s W ou le
souvenir d’enfance.
The Absolute Originality of Georges
Perec.
Next: Dante: Purgatorio.
[Bookshop.]
If you’ve been enjoying the podcast, please consider supporting The Spouter-Inn on Patreon.
56 min
July 20, 2020 32b. Bonus: David Hadbawnik on the Aeneid.
Besides that Diores starts whining since
   he’d fall off the podium altogether
   if Salius were awarded first
      “RELAX”
says Aeneas, “I’m not taking nothing
   from nobody
      but I can sympathize
   with someone who lost out
   through no fault of his own”
For this bonus episode, we are joined by David
Hadbawnik, a poet, translator, and
medieval scholar, whose exciting translation of Aeneid Books
I–VI
was published by Shearsman Books in 2015. In 2012, he edited Thomas Meyer’s
Beowulf (Punctum
Books), and in 2011 he co-edited selections from Jack Spicer’s
Beowulf
for CUNY’s Lost and Found Document Series. He has published academic essays on
poetic diction in English poetry from the medieval through early modern
period. His latest book, Holy Sonnets to Orpheus and Other
Poems, was published by Delete Press in 2018.
We ask David about the particular challenges of translating the Aeneid, his
approach to the translation, and what he finds compelling (and frustrating)
about the second half of the poem as he completes his translation.
Show Notes.
David’s translation of Aeneid Books
I–VI.
A sample from Book
IX.
An interview with David on his translation of the
Aeneid.
Sandow Birk: Inferno,
Purgatorio, Paradiso.
Sandow Birk: American Qur’an.
Thomas Meyer: Beowulf.
Christopher Logue: War Music.
Kevin Varrone: Box
Score.
Since we recorded this conversation, the first episode of David’s new poetry
podcast, Primitive
Information, is out, with an interview with José Felipe
Alvergue. Check it out!
If you enjoy the show, please support The Spouter-Inn on
Patreon, if you can. Thanks!
41 min
July 13, 2020 32. The Aeneid.
The runners took their places. At the signal,
They sprang across the line and down the course,
Pouring like clouds. Now with the goal in sight,
Nisus flashed out ahead of them to first place
As swiftly as the wind or wings of thunder.
The next, though only after a long gap,
Was Salius; Euryalus came third,
Some distance back.
Helymus followed him, and after that
Diores sped—his foot brushed on a heel,
His shoulder loomed. And had the track been longer,
He would have slipped ahead or tied for fourth.
But as they came exhausted to the last stretch,
Poor Nisus skidded in some slippery blood
Which had poured down and wet the grassy ground
When—as it happened—steers were slaughtered there.
Already thrilled with victory, the young man
Did a short dance against the fall but fell
Face-first in filthy dung and sacred blood.
Virgil’s Aeneid, the epic poem about how “it was so hard to found the race of
Rome”, was commissioned by the first Roman Emperor, Augustus, as a piece of
propaganda, and was unfinished at the time of Virgil’s death. And yet it
became possibly the most important work in European literature for well over a
thousand years. Its hero, Aeneas, is tasked by the gods to escape Troy as it
falls and found a new city in Italy—and yet other gods try to prevent this
from happening. Amongst his varied adventures, there’s an entire section
devoted to a day of sports on the beach, and that’s the section Chris and
Suzanne zero in on as they try to unpack what’s going on in this section and
in the poem as a whole.
Show Notes.
The Aeneid: Sarah Ruden’s translation
[Bookshop]. Allan Mandelbaum’s
translation
[Bookshop].
[Chris got the notion that the Aeneid was supposed to be longer from Ruden’s
introduction, but it may not be widely held.]
See also our episodes on the Iliad, the
Odyssey, and the
Inferno. Oh, and our last episode on
C.L.R. James’s Beyond a Boundary.
On Messi vs. Ronaldo.
The kids who come out to the soccer pitch are called player
escorts.
The sortes virgilianae can
now be played online.
Ursula K. LeGuin: Lavinia.
The Aeneid, As Told in Subtweets.
Next: Georges Perec: W, or The Memory of Childhood.
[Bookshop.]
If you’re enjoying the podcast and you’re able to, please consider supporting
The Spouter-Inn on Patreon.
53 min

About The Spouter-Inn

From the publisher's feed

Chris (a poet) and Suzanne (a professor) spent six years talking about “great books” (whatever that means), and are now talking about reading (and all the things that means).