The Fact Of The Cage

David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest raised expectations of what a novel might do. As he understood fiction to aim at what it means to be human, so he hoped his work might relieve the loneliness of human suffering. In that light, The Fact of the Cage shows how Wallace’s masterpiece dramatizes the condition of encagement and how it comes to be met by "Abiding" and through inter-relational acts of speaking and hearing, touching, and facing. Revealing Wallace’s theology of a "boneless Christ," The Fact of the Cage wagers that reading such a novel as Infinite Jest makes available to readers the redemption glimpsed in its pages, that reading fiction has ethical and religious significance—in short, that reading Infinite Jest makes one better. As such, Plank’s work takes steps to defend the ethics of fiction, the vital relation between religion and literature, and why one just might read at all.

Set during Burma's military dictatorship of the mid—1990s, Karen Connelly’s exquisitely written and harshly realistic debut novel is a hymn to human resilience and love. In the sealed-off world of a vast Burmese prison known as the cage, Teza languishes in solitary confinement seven years into a twenty-year sentence. Arrested in 1988 for his involvement in mass protests, he is the nation’s most celebrated songwriter whose resonant words and powerful voice pose an ongoing threat to the state. Forced to catch lizards to supplement his meager rations, Teza finds emotional and spiritual sustenance through memories and Buddhist meditation. The tiniest creatures and things–a burrowing ant, a copper-coloured spider, a fragment of newspaper within a cheroot filter–help to connect him to life beyond the prison walls. Even in isolation, Teza has a profound influence on the people around him. His integrity and humour inspire Chit Naing, the senior jailer, to find the courage to follow his conscience despite the serious risks involved, while Teza’s very existence challenges the brutal authority of the junior jailer, perversely nicknamed Handsome. Sein Yun, a gem smuggler and prison fixer, is his most steady human contact, who finds delight in taking advantage of Teza by cleverly tempting him into Handsome's web with the most dangerous contraband of all: pen and paper. Lastly, there's Little Brother, an orphan raised in the jail, imprisoned by his own deprivation. Making his home in a tiny, corrugated-metal shack, Little Brother stays alive by killing rats and selling them to the inmates. As the political prisoner and the young boy forge a cautious friendship, we learn that both are prisoners of different orders; only one of them dreams of escape and only one of them achieves it. Barely able to speak, losing the battle of the flesh but winning the battle of the spirit, Teza knows he has the power to transfigure one small life, and to send a message of hope and resistance out of the cage. Shortlisted for both the Kiriyama Prize for Fiction and the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, The Lizard Cage has received rave reviews nationally and internationally.

Most South Africans have strong views on our past and present, often based on how we have been personally affected by history, and an understanding of the challenges that face us as a country. But how well-examined and solid are these positions? Have your views been properly thought through? Are you correctly informed? Do you even have the facts straight? Rattling the Cage takes the reader on an informed tour of the South African reality: from the highs and lows, the successes and failures, FW de Klerk’s gaffes to Fees Must Fall, the Oscar Pistorius trial, the 2010 FIFA World Cup, triple BEE, global warming, the Covid-19 pandemic, gay rights in Africa, and veganism. Among the questions Meersman asks are: Do South Africans still believe in their Constitution and democracy? Why do so many young South Africans say Nelson Mandela was a sell-out and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was a dismal failure? Is outlawing hate speech and criminalising racist behaviour really a good idea? Why do communities still burn down their schools? How did the Marikana massacre happen in the democratic era? Why are African immigrants increasingly unwelcome in South Africa? Can our media be trusted to tell us the truth? And how do we embrace climate change? History, big-picture philosophy, grassroots journalism and a novelist’s eye – animated by a genuine sense of moral indignation at the current state of the nation – come together in these essays to provide critical perspectives on and insights into South Africa’s recent past and current political, economic and social undercurrents. No matter what your views are, you are sure to find your understanding of the country deepened, challenged and sometimes changed.

A teenage girl recounts the suffering and persecution of her family under the Nazis, in a Polish ghetto, during deportation, and in a concentration camp.

A man of extraordinary and seemingly limitless talents—musician, inventor, composer, poet, and even amateur mycologist—John Cage became a central figure of the avant-garde early in his life and remained at that pinnacle until his death in 1992 at the age of eighty. Award-winning biographer Kenneth Silverman gives us the first comprehensive life of this remarkable artist. Silverman begins with Cage’s childhood in interwar Los Angeles and his stay in Paris from 1930 to 1931, where immersion in the burgeoning new musical and artistic movements triggered an explosion of his creativity. Cage continued his studies in the United States with the seminal modern composer Arnold Schoenberg, and he soon began the experiments with sound and percussion instruments that would develop into his signature work with prepared piano, radio static, random noise, and silence. Cage’s unorthodox methods still influence artists in a wide range of genres and media. Silverman concurrently follows Cage’s rich personal life, from his early marriage to his lifelong personal and professional partnership with choreographer Merce Cunningham, as well as his friendships over the years with other composers, artists, philosophers, and writers. Drawing on interviews with Cage’s contemporaries and friends and on the enormous archive of his letters and writings, and including photographs, facsimiles of musical scores, and Web links to illustrative sections of his compositions, Silverman gives us a biography of major significance: a revelatory portrait of one of the most important cultural figures of the twentieth century. !--?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /--

David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest raised expectations of what a novel might do. As he understood fiction to aim at what it means to be human, so he hoped his work might relieve the loneliness of human suffering. In that light, The Fact of the Cage shows how Wallace's masterpiece dramatizes the condition of encagement and how it comes to be met by "Abiding" and through inter-relational acts of speaking and hearing, touching, and facing. Revealing Wallace's theology of a "boneless Christ," The Fact of the Cage wagers that reading such a novel as Infinite Jest makes available to readers the redemption glimpsed in its pages, that reading fiction has ethical and religious significance--in short, that reading Infinite Jest makes one better. As such, Plank's work takes steps to defend the ethics of fiction, the vital relation between religion and literature, and why one just might read at all.

John Cage's Concert for Piano and Orchestra is one of the seminal works of the second half of the twentieth century, and the centerpiece of the middle period of Cage's output. It is a culmination of Cage's work up to that point, incorporating notation techniques he had spent the past decade developing - techniques which remain radical to this day. But despite Cage's vitality to the musical development of the twentieth century, and the Concert's centrality to his career, the work is still rarely performed and even more rarely examined in detail. In this volume, Martin Iddon and Philip Thomas provide a rich and critical examination of this enormously significant piece, tracing its many contexts and influences - particularly Schoenberg, jazz, and Cage's own compositional practice - through a wide and previously untapped range of archival sources. Iddon and Thomas explain the Concert through a reading of its many histories, especially in performance - from the legendary performer disobedience and audience disorder of its 1958 New York premiere to a no less disastrous European premiere later the same year. They also highlight the importance of the piano soloist who premiered the piece, David Tudor, and its use alongside choreographer Merce Cunningham's Antic Meet. A careful examination of an apparently bewildering piece, the book explores the critical response to the Concert's performances, re-interrogates the mythology surrounding it, and finally turns to the music itself, in all its component parts, to see what it truly asks of performers and listeners.

The jailer's evil spirit torments residents. The demonic black entity appears in broad daylight. The ghost of a trapped child still searches for her mother. These examples are just a taste of the terrifying phantoms and tortured souls that dwell in the Cage, a cottage in Essex, England, that was used to imprison those accused of witchcraft in the 16th century. When Vanessa Mitchell moved into the Cage, she had no idea that a paranormal nightmare was waiting for her. From her first day living there, Vanessa saw apparitions walk through her room, heard ghostly growls, and was even slapped and pushed by invisible hands. After three years of hostile paranormal activity, Vanessa moved out, fearing for her young son's safety. Then paranormal researcher Richard Estep went in to investigate. Spirits of the Cage chronicles the time that Vanessa and Richard spent in the Cage, uncovering the frightening and fascinating mysteries of the spirits who lurk within it.