Synopses & Reviews
andldquo;And I have felt / A presence that disturbs me with the joy / Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime.andrdquo;andmdash;William Wordsworthand#160;A Sense Sublime is a record of a life lived during the last years of the twentieth century on the northern edge of the tallgrass prairies of Illinois, where seas of flowing grasses give way to the glaciated hills of Wisconsin.and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; With camera in hand, Richard Quinney walked the streets and byways and traveled the country roads. Quinney watched through his viewfinder the rising and passing of all things, giving attention to the wonder of daily existence. He captures the transcendental landscape; land and sky powerfully meld into one. The black and white of shadow on snow explores the light and darkness we know and experience in human existence. Gothic images of weathered homes and barns of long-gone settlers and shaded cemeteries still haunt the landscape, while romantic vistas of clouds majestically drifting over magnificent prairies instill an agrarian sublimity akin to Wordsworth or Thoreau. The photographs, from the end of a century, document the passing of the seasons and the years.and#160; and#160; and#160; and#160; and#160; and#160; Quinneyandrsquo;s photographs are historical artifacts, framed of portions of the world within his spiritual eye, the cameraandrsquo;s viewfinder. The photos, accompanied with notes from Quinneyandrsquo;s journals, as well as the words of others, are extensions of the long tradition of transcendental writers, romantic poets, and landscape painters. They are Quinneyandrsquo;s own attempt to solve the mystery of human existence and a way to experience the sublime in everyday life. These were the years lived as a camera.
Review
“Roy Chapman Andrews, the celebrated explorer who discovered the first velociraptor skeleton in the Gobi Desert, was also a shameless self-promoter.”—Publishers Weekly
Synopsis
Under a Lucky Star is the autobiography—the lifetime of adventure—of the explorer and archaeologist Roy Chapman Andrews. Adored by the public and pursued by the press, Andrews came as close to superstar status in the 1920s as any explorer of the twentieth century.
About the Author
Richard Quinney is the author of several books of autobiographical writing, including Journey to a Far Place, For the Time Being, Borderland, Once Again the Wonder, Where Yet the Sweet Birds Sing, Tales from the Middle Border, A Lifetime Burning, Once Upon an Island, A Farm in Wisconsin, and Ox Herding in Wisconsin. His retrospective book of photographs, Things Once Seen, received the August Derleth Award from the Council of Wisconsin Writers. He lives in Madison, Wisconsin.
Table of Contents
ContentsPrefacePhotographs and Epigraphs1. Elm and Mulberry (Dag Hammarskjandouml;ld)2. Writing Desk (Mark 13:11)3. Living Room (Taittiriya Upanishad)4. Wi llow at Lagoon (John Newton)5. Windmill (Bhagavad Gita)6. A Cow in Water (Meister Eckhart)7. Three Trees (Ashtavakra Gita)8. Crop Duster (Edmund Burke)9. Saint Maryandrsquo;s Cemetery (Percy Shelley)10. Grain Elevator on Highway 64 (William Wordsworth)11. Abandoned Farm on Old State Road (Matsuo Basho-)12. Malta Grain Elevator (Lal Poonja)13. Farm in Ruins on Cherry Valley Road (William Wordsworth)14. Cemetery on Annie Glidden Road (Zen Master Linji)15. Farm in Ruins at the Edge of Town (Roland Barthes)16. Vacant Farmstead on Derby Line Road (Lao-tzu)17. Self-Portrait from Lucinda Bridge (Thich Nhat Hanh)18. Limestone Quarry on Quarry Road (Bhagavad Gita)19. Upstairs Window (Ramana Maharshi)20. Shabbona Lake (Gerard Manley Hopkins)21. Shabbona Grain Elevator (Henry David Thoreau)22. Cornfield East of Shabbona (James B. Twitchell)2 23. Merritt Prairie on Keslinger Road (James Baker Hall)24. Mailboxes at Waterman Road (Willie Nelson)25. House in Ruins on Irene Road (William Shakespeare)26. Fungi on Tree Trunk at Ellwood House (Wendell Berry)27. Chief Shabbona Forest Preserve (Chief Shabbona)28. Stacks of Shredded Corn Stalks (Genesis 2:6)29. Abandoned Farm on Keslinger Road (Immanuel Kant)30. Tree Grove in Cornfield (Rainer Maria Rilke)31. Saint Maryandrsquo;s Cemetery on County Line Road (James Joyce)32. White Pines in Lions Park (Rainer Maria Rilke)33. Farm Road South of Kingston (Sandoslash;ren Kierkegaard)34. Silver Maple Thicket on Five Points Road (Joseph Leo Koerner)35. Kishwaukee River North of Town (John Szarkowski)36. Horse North of Town (Rex Warner)37. Congregational Church Cemetery (Maurice Maeterlinck)38. House in Ruins South of Town (Albert Camus)39. Branch of the Kishwaukee River (Paul Bowles)40. Junkyard in DeKalb (Albert Camus)41. Willow Branches (Georges Bernanos)42. DeKalb Cornfest (Chuang Tzu)43. Behind East Lincoln Highway (Caspar David Friedrich)44. South Fourth Street (Lao-tzu)45. Hintzsche Fertilizer (W. B. Yeats)46. East Lagoon in Winter (T. S. Eliot)47. Winter Storage (Charles Wright)48. Coal Chute in Town (The Dhammapada)49. Sullivanandrsquo;s Tavern (Alexander Pushkin)50. Oak Tree in the Congregational Cemetery (Wang Wei)51. Train Speeding through Town (Jimmie Davis and Hank Williams)52. Bird Nest at Home (John Muir)53. Old Post Office Building (Ecclesiastes 2:11)54. Entering DeKalb from Chicago (Samuel Beckett)55. Willow Branches at the Lagoon in Winter (Alan Watts)56. Still Life at Home (Josef Sudek)57. Bedroom (T. S. Eliot)58. Kishwaukee River at the End of the Street (Pandauml;r Lagerkvist)59. Bridge over the East Lagoon (Ryoandndash;kan)60. Illinois Central Tracks North of Town (Thich Nhat Hanh)Field NotesBibliography