The Educated Imagination

When Peter Cook died in 1995, John Cleese said of him that while he needed three hours to write a three minute sketch, Cook could do it in three minutes.  And that, Cleese concluded, is the definition of genius: the ability to do it in real time.

Above is a clip from the lovely little English comedy from swinging 1967, Bedazzled, in which Cook, as Satan, tries to make a Faustian bargain with the hapless Stanley Moon, played by Dudley Moore.  And, in making the argument, he illustrates the principle that it is better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.

We had our Volunteer Appreciation Party last night at Atlantic Lottery Corporation. What an amazing group of people who contribute so much to our community. We had door prizes for everyone and the opportunity to thank them all for driving authors to school visits, conducting audience surveys at events, taking tickets at the door, playing word bingo with kids at KidsFest, and so much more!

I am lobbying hard to have a new school in Moncton named “Northrop Frye Elementary”…we shall see! Thanks to Robert Denham (via Ed Lemond) for the definition of “Northrop”.

Sadly, I remain “ni-lingual” (incapable of speaking or writing in English or in French), so I don’t have any enormous insights on the Festival yet (sorry Michael!).

As promised, here is the full text of our poet flyé’s (Jesse Robichaud) Poem Flyé. Jesse is a journalist for our local paper, the Times and Transcript and is a gifted, bilingual writer. He told me today that he considers “the festival one of the best things about Moncton, and also symbolic of the best things about Moncton”. Jesse delivered this poem at the Greater Moncton International Airport at our closing and it will have a permanent presence at the airport.

Read the rest of this entry »

My Frye Google Alert alerted me to a blog entry that reads in part, “this reminds me of something one of the more learned people Canada has ever produced, Northrop Frye, once wrote: education doesn’t make bad people good; it makes them more dangerous.”

Thanks to Bob Denham we have the actual quote from “Wisdom and Knowledge“: “Education makes a bad man more dangerous; it does not make him a better man.”  (CW 5, 308)

Please join us at Emmanuel College on May 14 and 15 for “Crucified Woman” Reborn: Current Responses, a conference in honour of the sculpture by Almuth Lutkenhaus-Lackey and all that she represents.

Conference speakers and workshop leaders will include: Doris Jean Dyke, author of Crucified Woman (1991); Rita Leistner, photojournalist; Marjory Noganosh, Ojibway elder and healer; Pat Capponi, writer and activist; Noelle Boughton, author and editor; Marion Botsford Fraser, writer; Sophie Jungreis, artist; Samantha Cavanagh, artist and dancer; Property Smith, harm reduction worker specializing in work with at-risk youth, drug users, and sex trade workers; and Anne Hines, author and humour/lifestyle columnist.

We also invite submissions of poetry on topics related to and/or inspired by the sculpture. We hope to be able to publish a selection of the poems submitted (subject to their approval by a selection committee and the obtaining of a publisher) together with the proceedings for the conference.

Please pass on the information and the poster to anyone you think will be interested. (Click here for the registration form and here for the conference program.)

Warm regards and hope to see you there!

In his lecture on the novel for English 3f on November 9th 1953, Frye observes that Laurence Sterne’s “Tristram Shandy is the greatest English novel.”

You can see a collection of Frye’s superlatives from an earlier post here.

The trailer for a loose film adaptation of the novel, A Cock and Bull Story, after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »