Friday, March 6, 2026

Kostelantez and Grok

Emanations contributor Richard Kostelantez has been investigating artificial intelligence and writers' biographies.  He asked grok to remark on our work together (Kostelanetz is a regular contributor to Emanations, and his work is often featured in this blog--for example, see HERE. Also, I have articles in the third edition of his Dictionary of the Avant-Gardes project (see books on right). The Dictionary also has an article about me.

Mr. Kostelanetz asked AI "entity" Grok about our work together, and here is the result:

Richard Kostelanetz has authored numerous books, including dictionaries of the avant-gardes, and founded imprints like Archae Editions and Avant-Garde Classics to publish innovative and classic works that might otherwise remain unavailable. carterkaplan.blogspot.comapi.pageplace.de

Carter Kaplan is an American author, editor, and academic specializing in literature, philosophy, and speculative fiction. His notable works include the novel Tally-Ho, Cornelius!, the Invisible Tower Trilogy (Echoes, We Reign Secure, and The Sky-Shaped Sarcophagus), the Aristophanic comedy Diogenes, and the critical study Critical Synoptics: Menippean Satire and the Analysis of Intellectual Mythology, which explores analytic philosophy through poetry and fiction. Kaplan also edits the anthology series Emanations and is involved with International Authors, a consortium publishing literary works. He has taught literature, philosophy, and research writing at various universities across the US and Scotland. amazon.com

Kaplan and Kostelanetz share a professional relationship in the realm of avant-garde and experimental literature. Kaplan has contributed articles to Kostelanetz's A Dictionary of the Avant-Gardes(third edition, 2019), including entries on "Herman Melville" and "Michael Butterworth." The dictionary also features an entry on Kaplan himself, highlighting his contributions to literary theory and satire. api.pageplace.desearchworks.stanford.edu

Kaplan's blog, Highbrow, has featured Kostelanetz's writings, such as a 2022 post sharing Kostelanetz's detailed statement on his publishing philosophy for Archae Editions and Avant-Garde Classics. In it, Kostelanetz discusses his approach to on-demand publishing, reprinting modernist classics (e.g., works by Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, and Guillaume Apollinaire), and collaborating with authors like Charles Doria to preserve innovative texts. carterkaplan.blogspot.com

Thursday, March 5, 2026

Highbrow Returns: Emanations 12 progress report

All Emanations 12 materials (except fiction illustrations) are now in the "master file". 

I've prepared a fair draft of the Table of Contents. 

Lots of formatting tasks to preform (mostly fine adjustments to the poetry). The book looks very good... Time consuming, but it's worth it. 

 Lots of clever material--all of it. 

As I indicate above in the title, daily Highbrow remarks now resume.

 Please share.

Albrecht Durer - Little Owl, 1508


Tuesday, January 13, 2026

Highbrow Hiatus - Taking off to read manuscripts, back soon...

Sky King: Kirby Grant and Gloria Winters with a Cessna 310B, N5384A, the Songbird. (Photograph by Hal McAlpin)


Monday, January 12, 2026

Saturday, January 10, 2026

Satan Rock Star - Reading of Satanic Verses (from Terrance Lindall and Bienvenido Bones Bañez, Jr.)

Just across my desk from Terrance Lindall.  Here, AI (I am assuming) reads from Bienvenido Bones Bañez, Jr's Satanic Verses.  While I have reservations about the theology, the productions of Monsieurs Lindall and Bañez are often intriguing:

Friday, January 9, 2026

Friday January 23, Joshua Tree, California

 
Space Cowboy Books 10 Year Anniversary Celebration

Friday January 23rd 4-6pm
61871 29 Palms Hwy. Joshua Tree, CA 92252
https://spacecowboybooks.com/

Come celebrate this milestone with Joshua Tree’s independent bookstore, featuring live music from The Kearns Family & Phog Masheeen, with snacks by Epicurean Fling, and 10% off store-wide. This event is free to attend.

Since opening our doors in January of 2016, Space Cowboy Books has published forty-nine books, musical audiobooks, and chapbooks, plus fifty fanzines, hosted hundreds of in-person and online events, produced ninety-four episodes of Simultaneous Times podcast, won a multitude of awards (Laureate, Bram Stoker, Elgin, +), launched Electronic Brain magazine, provided annual scholarships for Clarion West and Odyssey Writing Workshops, given away thousands of kid’s books, donated hundreds of books to prisons, and generally proliferated the love of literature and all things science fiction. Here’s to ten more years!

RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/space-cowboy-books-10-year-anniversary-celebration-tickets-1979065041815

For press inquiries and photo requests contact Jean-Paul L. Garnier spacecowboybooks@gmail.com

Jean-Paul L. Garnier


Thursday, January 8, 2026

The Fantastic in Art and Fiction

 A Wayback Machine archive of fantastic art and fiction created by the Cornell University Library Institute for Digital Collections. Click the image for access:

Wednesday, January 7, 2026

Countess Mona von Bismarck-Schönhausen (née Strader; February 5, 1897 – July 10, 1983)

Salvador Dalí - Portrait of Mrs. Harrison Williams, 1943.  Oil on canvas, 91.8 x 61.4 cm.  Private Collection.


Wiki biography HERE

Monday, January 5, 2026

Sunday, January 4, 2026

Res ipsa loquitur II

Image









Photograph









Cocktail Party









Modernist Aesthetics









Affluence









The Appearance of Affluence


Thursday, January 1, 2026

Happy Magic New Year

Paul Klee - In the Magic Mirror, 1934

Tuesday, December 30, 2025

Monday, December 29, 2025

Arthurian Legend: Notes and Sources

Arthurian Legend

British Library Article
Project Gutenberg Complete Text of Thomas Mallory's Le Morte Darthur   

 

English Sources

 

Geoffrey of Monmouth, History of the Kings of Britain (Historia regum Britanniae)  (12th century, 1135-39)

 

Wace of Jersey

Layamon

Tristan and Iseult  (12th century)

 

            Anglo-Norman, Inspired by Keltic Legend:

 

                        Deirdre and Naoise

 

                        Diarmuid Ua Duibhue

 

                        Grainne

 

The Pearl Poet, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (14th century)


 

French Sources

 

Chrétien de Troyes Perceval (Grail story)  (12th century)

 

“a Group of Cistercian Monks”(?), Vulgate Cycle  (1210-1230)

 

Prose Lancelot

 

Robert de Boron, Merlin (13th century)

 

“Post-Vulgate Grail Romance” (combining Arthurian Romance with the Tristan Romance)

 

(Mallory’s chief sources were these French romances)

 

 

Welsh Sources

 

Gildas, De excidio et conquest Britanniae, Fall and Conquest of Britain  (mid-6th century)

 

Nennius, Historia Brittonum, History of the Britons (9th century)

 

Annales Cambriae, Cabbrian Annals (late 9th century)

 

The Mabinogion   (12th- 13thcenturies, first English version by Charlotte Guest, 1838-49);

 

Culhwch and Olwen (12th century)

 

 

“Modern” versions and related stories

 

Thomas Mallory, Le Morte Darthur   (late 15th century)

 

Thomas Love Peacock, The Misfortunes of Elphin  (1829)

 

Sources: The Myvyrian Archaiology of Wales  (chiefly in Welsh), Cambro-Briton (periodical ca. 1819); The Mabinogion (first English version by Charlotte Guest, 1838-49); Taliesin (first English version by Nash, 1858).

 

Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Idylls of the King       (1842, 1859, 1888)

 

Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “The Lady of Shallot”   (1832, 1842)

 

T. H. White, The Once and Future King     (1958)

 

Marion Zimmerman Bradley, The Mists of Avalon     (1982)

 

 

Themes:

 

Religion

Myth and Religion

History

Sociology

Psychology

Ethics

Anthropology (typologies)

Fantasy(?)

Nostalgia


King Arthur (Nigel Terry) and Guenevere (Cherie Lunghi) in Frank Boorman's Excalibur (1981)


Saturday, December 27, 2025

Matsu Basho: a poem about lightning, 17th century


A flash of lightning: 
Into the gloom 
Goes the heron's cry.