Dark Skies Over A Cold Mountain
We’ve hiked Cold Mountain more than any other mountain in the world. It isn’t Everest, but it is appropriately named. Long before the book by the same name was published, we were hoisting our hammocks in the 25 square feet of flat land on the peak and picking through a plane that crashed on the side of Southern Sixer in the 50s. The mountains are a setting for the individual and the mind. So, in our return to the 2-D world, we delve into the individuals behind the works. Interviews abound, profiles emerge in our path of discovery. Pittsburgh is a fitting place of apocalyptic journey, not that Cormac McCarthy had (or wanted) any input. Our backcountry background had us pining (oh dear…) for a job as a NYC park ranger, much like Able Brown’s forest within a city. We have four different lists in front of us, Umberto Eco knows what we’re talking about. Sadly, none of the Post-It Notes have the possible homes of Jesus’ foreskin. And, in memory of Claude Levi-Strauss, an interview with quasi-structuralist author Tom McCarthy. Without further ado, here are the individuals, in their own words, led by others’ questions. – Andrew Geer
– Italian novelist and semiotician Umberto Eco, who is curating a new exhibition at the Louvre in Paris, talks to SPIEGEL about the place lists hold in the history of culture, the ways we try to avoid thinking about death and why Google is dangerous for young people. — Umberto Eco in Der Spiegel
Ah, Pollution In The Morning
– Novelist Cormac McCarthy shuns interviews, but he relishes conversation. Last week, the author sat down on the leafy patio of the Menger Hotel, built about 20 years after the siege of the Alamo, the remains of which are next door. — Cormac McCarthy in The Wall Street Journal
– Whatever happened to Jesus’ foreskin? The Apocryphal Gospels reveal that shortly after his birth, Jesus’ mother gave it to an old Hebrew woman who had the prescience to preserve it in a jar of nard. Fast-forward one millennium, to a time when spiritual relics are all the rage and an idea takes hold that, in between rising from the dead and ascending to heaven, Jesus may have left a little piece of himself behind—a snippet of flesh; the Santissimo Prepuzio; the Holy Foreskin. — David Farley in The Brooklyn Rail
A Forest In The City
– Meet Able Brown: artist, New York City park ranger, body-surfing enthusiast and stand-up comedian. His drawings and paintings have been included in group shows at several galleries, including a show at the Fleisher/Ollman gallery curated by Will Oldham, aka Bonny Prince Billy. His illustrations also illuminate the disk jacket for Billy’s album “Summer in the Southeast.” But who cares about all that. The Rumpus loves him. — Able Brown in The Rumpus
– Tom McCarthy’s severely ambitious first novel, Remainder, is one of those books that blurs the gap between philosophy, fiction, and art happening. His recent book-length essay, Tintin and the Secret of Literature, follows the same hybridized suit, deconstructing the Belgian comic book series, literary-theory style. It investigates Tintin creator Hergé’s process of “encrypting” autobiographical material into The Adventures of Tintin, and then compares it to Balzac, Barthes, Bataille, and Derrida. — Tom McCarthy in The Believer
Video: Cold Mountain
