Wonderful Things Research Articles

Peran Guru BK dalam Meningkatkan Rasa Ingin Tahu (Curiosity) Pada Siswa Menggunakan Bimbingan Klasikal

Character strength is the basis of our identity, it can be seen when we express this strength of character through thoughts and actions. The truly wonderful thing about character strengths is that they can contribute to personal well-being, the quality of relationships, and the personal community as a whole. For example, curiosity helps explore new ideas, people, places and so on. As well as making it possible to collaborate on projects and see the value of each person's contribution and the courage to help yourself get out of your comfort zone, and be able to challenge yourself.Therefore, the role of the guidance and counseling teacher is very important in increasing students' curiosity, especially in terms of education, which shows that we tend to feel happier, more connected, and more productive. Counseling teachers teach students to always have a high curiosity by exploring new things, creating new ideas, and always generating new innovations.

Online Dispute Redressal – A Blessing or Havoc

The role of online dispute resolution in arbitration of conflicts and objections in the most effective and expeditious manner known to date should no longer be neglected. For some, on- line education is a wonderful thing because it is very convenient and open to all but there are those who say that it may cause even further complexities and bewilderment. This paper takes a look into the advantages and constraints of Online Dispute Resolution, evaluating their effect on the different interest groups and the whole judicial system. Digital dispute redressal analysis is designed to examine various aspects and tell us whether this tool serves as an effective solution or the potential source of problems in the legal landscape. In the digital age, with the advent of online platforms, it is digitalization not only we have innovated but also the process of resolution of disputes. This paper examines and explore the nuanced online dispute redressal space, where they can be classified as either a blessing or creations of chaos. This research explores the utility of ODR by giving its pros and cons. A successful pursuit of the study is expected since it shall provide insights into the effectiveness, fairness and impact of ODR on judicial systems and society. The paper evaluates the process of ODR platforms, their technological foundations, the way they increase the access to justice while looking at the problems such as data security, cyber threats or algorithmic prejudice. Moreover, this paper examines the role of regulatory frameworks in forming the narrative of ODR and suggests approaches for extracting the most out of the ODR system while at the same time preventing possible inherent problems associated with it. By pointing out the relationship between technology, legal aspects and people's behaviour, this study leads to complex understanding of the implications of online dispute redressal making the ground for proper policy making and justice advancement in the digital age.

"Dementia Doesn't Mean That Life Doesn't Have More Wonderful Things Ahead": A Qualitative Study Evaluating a Canadian Dementia Support Services Program.

Community support programs can improve quality of life for people living with dementia and their care partners. Important to the successful implementation of such programs is close engagement with end-users to gain a better understanding of their needs. This study describes the perspectives of people living with dementia, care partners, and health-care providers on the First Link® dementia support program provided by the Alzheimer Society of British Columbia (ASBC). Following a large-scale survey (N=1,164), semi-structured interviews were conducted with participants to explore in greater detail the different needs and themes that emerged from the first phase of the study. The interviews explored: 1) experiences with the program; 2) future planning; 3) meaning of independence; and 4) impact of the program on emotional and physical well-being. A total of 48 participants were interviewed in this study. Knowledge and education were key factors that helped participants manage the impact of dementia. Learning about dementia, the experiences of others, strategies on how to manage symptoms, what to plan for in the future, and how to access different services in the community, was tied to increased feelings of confidence and comfort, and decreased stress. Participants also provided suggestions for improvement of the First Link® dementia program such as further embedding the program into the patient journey, providing more services in remote areas, providing education for health-care providers, and increasing awareness of the program. By emphasizing the lived experiences and needs of those living with dementia and their caregivers, this work will inform future research-based program evaluations globally and, in turn, improve the existing services to support people living with-and impacted by-dementia.

Selling God: Using Big Data to Target Vulnerable Individuals

Abstract: Over five decades ago, professors of marketing Philip Kotler and Sidney Levy advocated for expanding the use of marketing tools to benefit the nonprofit world. Today, nonprofits are extending this strategy by using big data analytics. Typically controversial in corporate America, nonprofits are using powerful technology to target vulnerable individuals and offer them services. This paper seeks to encourage conversation around this strategy and calls for research that investigates three main areas: the question of ethicality, the question of consequences, and the question of regulation. Without question big data and predictive analytics can be very helpful tools. Similarly, nonprofit organizations can do wonderful things for their communities. However, the intersection of these two elements may have major adverse effects on consumer well-being. The risks at this intersection provide the motivation for this paper.

All the Small Wonderful Things by Kate Foster (review)

All the Small Wonderful Things by Kate Foster (review)

Even better than the real thing: a conceptual history of the “Celtic Phoenix”

ABSTRACT This article chronicles the history of the phrase “Celtic Phoenix.” It began in sincere right-wing Celtic Tiger revivalism, but was popularised instead in a satirical mode, through Paul Howard’s parodic upper-class Dublin persona “Ross O’Carroll-Kelly.” In Howard’s play Breaking Dad (2014), a fascistic character exults that “Oh, the Celtic Tiger was a wonderful thing […] But the Celtic Phoenix – well, it’s going to be even better.” The phrase was quickly rehabilitated into mainstream economic analysis, via The Economist in 2015, and grew widespread in the mid-2010s: a 2018 article even speculated whether the “Phoenix” had already “passed its peak.” Subsequently, a cynical cast returned to the phrase’s currency, with negative connotations of Celtic Tiger shortsightedness observable in its usage in late-2010s and early-2020s journalism and criticism. The shifting usage of this term reflects a country still reckoning with the Celtic Tiger and the 2008–9 financial crash. This is seen in the written literature of “Celtic Phoenix” Ireland, in work by writers including Caoilinn Hughes, Kevin Power and Sally Rooney. To these newer writers, the crash is a previous generation’s disaster: an old but healing wound capable of being explained away as “something to do with capitalism.”

Restless Pilgrim: Andrew Jenson's Quest for Latter-day Saint History

Restless Pilgrim: Andrew Jenson's Quest for Latter-day Saint History

Analysis of Service Quality to Increase Customer Satisfaction of Libro Café

This research was conducted using a quantitative survey method which managed to collect 30 respondents who were students of one private university in Banten. The goal of this study is to evaluate how satisfied customers are with the level of service offered by Libro Café, a café that is housed within a university. The first and ninth indicators are both in quadrant I, which represents areas that are very important yet nevertheless perform poorly. This cafe should pay attention to and develop these two aspects so that customers can feel satisfied with the queuing system and the friendliness of Libro cashiers and baristas. Then in quadrant II, there are the second and third indicators which discuss the payment system or payment methods and the cafe area's cleanliness. Being in the second quadrant denotes significant relevance and performance. It is advised that the café continue with this because it is a very wonderful thing. It is in quadrant III, which indicates that its importance and performance are modest, there is the tenth indicator. This indicator discusses Libro café, which sells products at reasonable and affordable prices. Even though the urgency level is not that important, this indication needs to be taken into account and developed because it is a part of quadrant III. Last but not least, quadrant IV, which is low in relevance but high in performance, there are indicators 4 to 8, which are in this quadrant IV. This is also a good thing.

The Only Wonderful Things: The Creative Partnership of Willa Cather and Edith Lewis by Melissa J. Homestead

Reviewed by: The Only Wonderful Things: The Creative Partnership of Willa Cather and Edith Lewis by Melissa J. Homestead Jada Ach Melissa J. Homestead, The Only Wonderful Things: The Creative Partnership of Willa Cather and Edith Lewis. New York: Oxford UP, 2021. 394 pp. Hardcover, $39.95; e-book, $14.39. After spending eighteen years researching the life of Edith Lewis, Melissa J. Homestead learned “to see what should have been obvious all along”: “Lewis’s instrumental presence at [Willa] Cather’s side rather than at her feet” (2). Organized both thematically and chronologically, The Only Wonderful Things depicts Lewis and Cather not only as “life partners” but also as “literary collaborators” (2). Homestead depends on extensive and illuminating archival research to render visible Lewis’s artistic, editorial, financial, and emotional contributions to her “creative partnership” with Cather, a term the author borrows from Lillian Faderman’s To Believe in Women (8–9). Such an intimate and generative partnership, Homestead claims, challenges us to rethink Cather’s oeuvre through a collaborative lens. According to Homestead, who serves as director of The Cather Project and associate editor of The Complete Letters of Willa Cather, critics and biographers have often characterized Lewis—when they characterize her at all—as a kind of assistant to Cather. Even more frequently, scholars tend to depict Lewis as “a nonentity or a mystery, or they draw thumbnail sketches of a fussy, slightly hysterical woman,” Homestead adds (8). As a corrective project, The Only Wonderful Things sets out to define Lewis as a successful writer, editor, and “modern career woman” in her own right (3). When it comes to Cather’s writing life, Lewis’s support and influence were paramount, Homestead asserts throughout. In one of the most provocative chapters, “‘Our Wonderful Adventures in the Southwest’: Willa Cather and Edith Lewis’s Southwestern Collaborations,” Homestead argues that Cather’s Death Comes for the Archbishop, The Professor’s House, and other western regional works should largely be viewed as “collaborative texts” (115), which challenges the image many have in their minds of Cather as a “solitary genius” (13). In fact, Lewis’s “handwriting appears all over a working typed draft” of The Professor’s House, leading Homestead to refer to Lewis as a kind of coauthor. In the case [End Page 438] of this and other works by Cather, it is frequently “Lewis’s language that readers have known for nearly a century as characteristic of Cather’s style,” Homestead says (139). Later in her life Lewis even confessed to her nurse that she wrote an entire chapter of Cather’s Shadows on the Rock. This radical reframing of literary authorship does more than just demonstrate the amazing potential of creative collaboration; through close examinations of manuscripts, letters, sketches, photographs, and other materials in the vast Cather archive, Homestead argues that Lewis achieves the creative agency that many critics have either overlooked or denied altogether. In addition to helping to write, edit, and revise Cather’s work, Lewis’s financial stability as a magazine editor and advertising copyeditor gave her partner the ability to take creative risks and dedicate herself to her craft. “As a pilot and anchor, Lewis made Cather’s New York-centered life possible,” Homestead argues in the second chapter, highlighting the fact that Lewis’s position as assistant editor of Every Week gave the two women yet another opportunity to actively engage their “creative partnership.” Every Week frequently published western genre fiction, Homestead tells us, and it is probable that these stories informed the development of one of Cather’s most celebrated novels, My Ántonia. “Lewis’s magazine editorial work and Cather’s novel writing were not parallel activities running on separate tracks,” the author claims. “Instead, the two Nebraskans were thinking together about their home region and how to present it to a national audience through both words and pictures” (106). Every project that depends on the archive must grapple with the gaps that exist in the archive. Near the end of the book, Homestead admits that her “account of Cather and Lewis’s life together would be richer” had she access to more letters between the two women; currently, only one letter...

A Focus on Truth: Thomas Merton's Uncensored Mind by Patrick W. Collins

Reviewed by: A Focus on Truth: Thomas Merton's Uncensored Mind by Patrick W. Collins Robert Inchausti A Focus on Truth: Thomas Merton's Uncensored Mind. By Patrick W. Collins. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2021. 197 pp. $19.95. Based on the five volumes of Thomas Merton's selected correspondence, the ten essays that make up this book chart the evolution of Merton's thoughts on a variety of religious subjects—everything from interreligious dialogue to the priesthood, ecumenicalism, church authority, liturgy, and monastic renewal. They are united—Collins tells us on the very first page—by Merton's "unending search for what is real and true, not just in books but in living experience and practice" (1). As each essay unfolds, we see Merton evolve from a young convert thrilled by the "answers" he has found in the liturgy and teachings of the Roman Catholic Church to a seasoned monastic and spiritual master who has arrived at questions not so easily answered by the "verbal formulas" that satisfied him as a young convert. The chapter "On Spirituality," for example, starts with Merton's youthful aspiration to "be a saint" as he spelled it out in the Seven Storey Mountain, then jumps to this passage from a letter he sent to Catherine de Hueck Doherty ten years later: "After so boldly advertising to the world that I was out to become a saint, I find I am doing a pretty bum job of it. . . . But it is certainly a wonderful thing to wake up suddenly in the solitude of the woods and [End Page 85] look up in the sky and see and see the utter nonsense of everything, including all the solemn stuff given out by professional asses of the spiritual life: and simply to burst out laughing, and laugh, and laugh with the sky and the trees because God is not in words, not in systems, and not in liturgical movements, and not in 'contemplation' with a capital C, or in asceticism or anything like that, not even in the apostolate. Certainly not in books. I can go on writing them, for all that, but one might as well make paper airplanes out of the whole lot" (16–17). Collins follows this selection up with passages from Merton's correspondence with John Harris, a schoolteacher in England, and the Anglican scholar Etta Gullick. In both of these exchanges Merton defends contemplation against its facile popularizers in the late sixties and against those churchmen who reduce it to a species of rare and extreme piety not for public consumption. Near the end of this essay, Collins cites Merton's letter to Dom Francis Decroix in which Merton admits that when he entered the monastery in 1948, he had a lot of "answers," but now—twenty years later—he has only just begun to seek the right questions. "And what are those questions?" Merton asks. "Can man make sense out of his existence? Can man honestly give his life meaning merely by adopting a certain set of explanations which pretend to tell him why the world began and where it will end? Why there is evil and what is necessary for a good life. My brother, perhaps in my solitude, I have become as it were an explorer for you, a searcher in realms which you are not able to visit—except perhaps in the company of your psychiatrist. I have been summoned to explore a desert area of man's heart in which explanations no longer suffice, and in which one learns that only experience counts" (49–50). Each of the chapters in the book have a similar kind of progression as Merton corrects his own youthful simplifications, deepens his commitments, and qualifies his claims. On some topics, however, Merton retains his original positions now clarified and deepened by personal experience. Other times, he forges ahead into new territory or owns up to a new, honest, and hard-won befuddlement. Taken together, this multiple highlight reel of Merton's subtlest and most intimate spiritual turns of thought, throw light on the discerning operation of his mind and demonstrate for us what it means for a Christian contemplative to "focus...

The Friend: A Novel by Sigrid Nunez

Reviewed by: The Friend: A Novel by Sigrid Nunez Marta J. Lysik (bio) the friend: a novel Sigrid Nunez Riverhead https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/558005/the-friend-by-sigrid-nunez/ 224 pages; Print, $16.00 Vicarious pleasure can be derived from reading Michael Chabon's Wonder Boys (1995), but over the years I kept wondering: Who and where are the wonder girls? Where are American campus and academic novels about indocile, out-of-control women who are writers based in academia, unlucky in life and love yet always landing on both feet, eccentric and wildly charming? There is a tendency to cast as protagonists unhappy women, tormented victims rather than fierce and empowered individuals with agency, resilience, and a sense of humor, so it seems that a female counterpart of Grady Tripp, a happy-go-lucky writer protagonist who gets away with everything, is missing in American literature. But perhaps what defines a wonder boy and what makes a wonder girl are two different scenarios? For years, unwittingly steeped in the patriarchal discourse, I've been operating on a fallacious premise—that the constitution of a wonder boy equals that of a wonder girl—and so I couldn't find wonder girl characters in academic novels. This essay attempts to begin to ameliorate this misconception and portray the female protagonist of Sigrid Nunez's The Friend: A Novel (2018) as a wonder girl, that is, a woman writer based in academia who chooses who she wants to be and how she wants to live—though this doesn't mean she always succeeds. In the novel we witness a nameless protagonist, a woman, a writer, an artist, meditating on writing and relationships, sometimes on the nexus between the two. She has carved out a space for herself in life; she has loved in the past, though nowadays she devotes most of her energy to writing and enjoys modest success. Teaching, she survives; writing, she thrives. She is a friend to a certain male professor/writer in an asexual and nurturing role, even after his death. Their relationship has changed over the years. First, he, an older professor, was a mentor to her, a younger student. Later, [End Page 30] they were lovers, just once—when he was "the department's youngest instructor, its wunderkind, and its Romeo." When the tension was gone, they became friends. Although he had three nameless ex-wives and countless lovers left behind to choose from, she, being the best candidate according to him as she has few commitments, is the one to adopt his Great Dane, Apollo. She is disillusioned with literature, both reading and writing it. She suffers from a writer's block, as she is trying to write a nonfiction piece about victims of sex trafficking, ruminating on how this could disempower the victims even further. She reflects on how writing is and isn't therapy, whereas he became disenchanted with students, writing, and the publishing business, and asked: "Where do all you people get the idea that being a writer is a wonderful thing?" Yet he enjoyed its perks while he could. In a way, she is a foil to him, living like a saint: "Promiscuity had always been second nature to you … plenty of great writers were also great womanizers, or at least known to have potent sex drives." He wrote best when he was having "lots of good sex" and thus justified his cheating. There are rumors that female students have accused him of being overfamiliar and calling them "dear." They fight over this, although they rarely fought over anything. She admits, realizing her hypocrisy, "We both knew I used to be thrilled when you called me dear." She sees sexism, but her feminism is too quiet. She shares an office with a former student of hers called O.P., now a published writer who won literary prizes, a wonder girl. O.P. thought teaching might give her something to do, but she radiates insecurity, deals with anxiety, unable to finish her second novel and dealing with impostor syndrome. Our protagonist, as an older colleague, observes her with sympathy, for some of the greatest authors have grappled with a similar...

Melissa J. Homestead, The Only Wonderful Things: The Creative Partnership of Willa Cather and Edith Lewis

Melissa J. Homestead, The Only Wonderful Things: The Creative Partnership of Willa Cather and Edith Lewis

A Conversation with Amanda Forsythe, Part 1

A Conversation with Amanda Forsythe, Part 1 Leslie Holmes (bio) THE VOCAL POINT Soprano Amanda Forsythe, who specializes in Baroque and early Classical music, has performed around the world. She has been highly praised by Opera News for her "light and luster" and "wonderful agility and silvery top notes." She has sung with over 16 early music groups, plus opera companies such as Covent Garden, Opera Philadelphia, Seattle Opera, Bayerische Staatsoper (Munich), Die Komische Oper (Berlin), and the Rossini Festival in Pesaro. Amanda has been a soloist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony, the Philadelphia Orchestra, The New York Philharmonic, among others. Of her performance of Jemmy in Guillaume Tell, one critic wrote, "the best singing of this crucial part I've ever encountered." Her recent solo CD of Handel arias has received wide critical acclaim. Click for larger view View full resolution Amanda Forsythe Leslie Holmes: Talking with Amanda Forsythe, May 18, 2022—my sister's birthday. You are in the midst of an amazing career and I'm so happy for you, because of it. Covid has certainly not been helpful, I'm sure. Amanda Forsythe: No. Actually, the pandemic has been hard for careers, but, I think, for my mental health it was a reprieve from a very busy time. The two years previous, 2018 and 2019, I'd been traveling a lot, working a lot. This, sort of, forced vacation ended up being a great thing for me. I'd moved houses recently … I'd gotten a divorce … so it gave me some time to be in my new space. The most wonderful thing was being able to spend time with my kids, who were home schooling for a year. LH: They must be about 10 and … AF: 10 and 12. Two boys, fourth grade and sixth grade, very different interests, but both musical. LH: That's nice. AF: Yeah, they both recently have taken an interest [in music]. They've been taking piano lessons since they were little kids, but neither of them really had any great affection for the piano. Then, we enrolled my older son in the Handel and Haydn Youth Chorus, which he's been doing this year. So, he's developed an [End Page 255] interest in singing. Also, through his public school they do instruments. He's started the violin at school. Sarah Darling, a local treasure, has been giving him violin lessons. He's doing well. Actually, both my kids are doing a production of Pirates of Penzance. This is supposed to be about me, and I'm telling you about my kids. [laughs] LH: But you see, this is the kind of thing that people love to read in the Journal. It is such human interest, instead of about technique or kinds of music. The readers love those items, too, but they really enjoy having some intimate ideas about who singers really are in their personal lives. It's very important to hear about your children. AF: They are a very important and influential part of my career and my decision making. I would have also liked to be in Pirates, but you had to be in the eighth grade or younger. [laughs] LH: Mabel is a wonderful role. I performed it when my husband was in medical school. AF: Yeah, I would love to sing that. Actually, my son wanted to sing Mabel, but he got cast as the Major General. LH: She [Mabel] walks on stage and says something like, "Yes. 'Tis Mabel," with lots of roulades. It is quite an entrance. When you were growing up did you play an instrument? AF: I played the piano, and I still play the piano fairly badly, but enough that I can read through music that I'm learning. Actually, I think playing the piano badly has, somehow, helped my memorization process. Because I really have to stop and stumble, and figure everything out, I go much more slowly and, somehow, this lodges it into my brain. That's my theory, anyway. I think people who are very good sight-readers have a hard time memorizing. LH: Yes, I did. I could sight...

The Only Wonderful Things: The Creative Partnership of Willa Cather and Edith Lewis by Melissa J. Homestead

The Only Wonderful Things: The Creative Partnership of Willa Cather and Edith Lewis by Melissa J. Homestead

On the Cover: Mary Had a Baby

On the CoverMary Had a Baby Stephen Towns Click for larger view View full resolution Natural and synthetic fabric, polyester and cotton thread, crystal glass beads. Courtesy of the artist. 47 × 36.75 in. 2020 Mary Had a Baby is from a series of story quilts called A Songbook Remembered. Ancestral music is at the heart of this series, a quilted collection of imagined historical narratives with imagery drawn directly from the poetry of African American spirituals. This work represents a deeply personal and emotional evolution within Towns’s quilting practice, as he turned to both spiritual music and the process of quilting as sources of comfort during the uncertainty of the covid-19 pandemic. Towns’s intricate stitchwork is guided by songs of joy, hope, resilience, and protest, and the creative process itself functioned, for the artist, as an act of remaining present in a time of chaos. Mary Had a Baby is inspired by the song that tells the biblical tale of how Mary conceived and raised Jesus to go on to do wonderful things. Te quilt draws from a plethora of portraits of Madonna and child works. In it, Madonna stares lovingly at her child who bears a red cross. Stephen Towns’s quilts can be seen in his traveling solo exhibition Declaration & Resistance at Reynolda House in Winston-Salem, NC from February 18 through May 14, 2023. Copyright © 2022 Johns Hopkins University Press

A defective structural zipper in photoreceptors causes inherited blindness.

Being able to see the beauty of this world is a wonderful thing unfortunately unavailable to people with inherited blindness. In this issue of PLOS Biology, Mercey and colleagues present optimized expansion microscopy for retinal tissue, which represents a huge step forward in our ability to study these blinding conditions.

The Voyage of St Brendan by A. B. Jackson

Reviewed by: The Voyage of St Brendan by A. B. Jackson Jameson D. K. Lawwson The Voyage of St Brendan, by A. B. Jackson (Hexham, Northumberland: Bloodaxe Books, 2021, 80 p., paperback, $16.95) The Voyage of St Brendan follows the oceanic wanderings of the Irish monk St. Brendan, who, tasked by a higher power to repent after burning a book of fantastical tales, sets out to broaden his horizons and experience wonders the real world might have on offer. Along with six other monks, he assembles a traditional Irish ship called a currach and sets sail. On this voyage, Brendan experiences a plethora of things: a genteel whale with a forest on its back, sea serpents, hellfires, cast-aside angels in purgatory-paradise, and his own unceremonious-unsanctified-quiet death. In a well-crafted reimagining of this Irish tale, A. B. Jackson predominantly works with a fourteenth-century Middle Dutch version, originally translated from Old Irish. The book begins with the monk's folly: enjoyment of a book, which Brendan self-scorns with a measure of hefty Christian guilt, which forces him to disparage its contents. In a dream, an angel-messenger arrives to correct him: the contents of the book were in fact true. From there begins Brendan's journey to discover the honest and wonderful things available in the world. His worldview, and by extension his faith, is expanded wildly by his years on the sea, where witness is borne to mermaids and sirens, where temptations are resisted and succumbed to, where demons are surprisingly convivial. Jackson's work re-creates a variety of poetic form constraints from Irish history, paying homage to older works of Irish poetry. Jackson also includes elements of prosimetrum, the practice of offering sections of reflective prose to break up the poetry, hearkening to Irish epics like Táin Bó Cúailnge. The poetry within the collection, reminiscent of classic adventure narratives but still wholly adult and scholastic, serves the story well. Jackson preserves a sense of wonder that will delight readers new to the tale and reignite a passion for the journey in those already familiar. The quick-sharp poetry does not linger any longer than is welcome, the flitting from location to location is perfectly served by the author's careful hand, and the respect given to each incident places the reader deeply and firmly within the moment. While the poetry of the piece only runs from pages fourteen to fifty-six, the experience of Brendan's full journey is not lost or hastened beyond what is reasonable. The intricate lacing of facets of the journey appear as quick anecdotes, each incident a vignette of Brendan's thoughts and experiences regarding every interaction with the now-wondrous world. The stitching in of prose, as Jackson himself admits post-script, reminds the reader of the connection to epic poetry beyond the implications of the immram style and the ever-present comparison to Mael Duinn. The use of prosimetrum, while not necessarily a strict adherence to its traditional appearances in epic poetry and other earlier Irish works, is a [End Page 144] welcome addition to the tale's fluidity, breaking up the poetic verses and maintaining a narrative speed consistent with the content. The prose poem–esque sections, which number ten in total, are typically of moderate length and imitate the styles of the poetic verse well. The bulk of the collection takes the form of shorter, stanza-style verses, predominantly in quatrain. Jackson works with different old-style Irish meters and the classic ABCB quatrain to differentiate his version from the Middle Dutch one that served as his inspiration. The distinct and deliberate step away from the epic draws attention from the confines of the heroic couplet and the imposing bulk of the long poem. The movement away from heroic and epic conventions frees up space for interpretations and allows Jackson a considerable degree of creativity in manipulating form and content. Beyond the constraint of heroic couplets, Brendan's voyage is presented in the present tense; in this current-moment approach the reflective presence of the epic past is left by the wayside, removing the fantasy veil of separation expected of...

Counterpoint to Walach's Review of The Real Anthony Fauci. Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

At age 77, I can remember polio. I was terrified of it. Everybody was. A child in perfectly good health suddenly got a fever and the next morning was paralyzed for life. Everyone knew someone who had it. Then a vaccine came out, and this was a Wonderful Thing. Parents eagerly lined up their children to receive it (or a placebo in the earliest phases of its development), and nobody questioned this, as polio was obviously worse than the vaccine could ever be. Republican or Democrat, you did not want to get polio: There were no politics involved. There was also no Facebook.
 Enter COVID. Suddenly 450 beds of my 650-bed hospital contained COVID patients, all of them good and sick. Corpses accumulated faster than they could be disposed of. Local nursing homes saw a majority of their residents die. People were terrified. The country shut down. When a vaccine finally arrived, you would think everyone would rush to get it, and many did. But then a strange and probably unprecedented thing happened: politics supervened. Why not wanting to die should be informed by your political affiliation is still beyond me. By September 2021, 56% of Republicans were fully or partially vaccinated, as opposed to 92% of Democrats [1]. During October/November 2021, an unvaccinated person was 78 times more likely to die of COVID than a fully vaccinated one [2].
 There have been nine deaths attributable to COVID vaccine [3] — all from the Johnson & Johnson product and at the time of this writing, 900,000 deaths from COVID in the United States. Polio vaccine, when the live virus, oral product (Sabin vaccine) was used for the convenience of not having to give a shot, caused five to ten cases of polio/year. For many years this was considered acceptable, compared to the millions of cases prevented. But as American society became more risk-averse, the original Salk vaccine, which did not use live virus but had to be injected, was brought back. Politics, by the way, was not involved in this change. The point is, sometimes vaccines have adverse effects, but are worth it. A child paralyzed by polio, a grandparent dying of COVID—who would not avoid this if they could?
 Against this backdrop, the Editor-in-Chief asked me to examine the review, by Harald Walach of the book The Real Anthony Fauci, Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. I am a conventionally-practicing, university-based family physician.

Writing the Sphinx: Literature, Culture and Egyptology by Eleanor Dobson

Reviewed by: Writing the Sphinx: Literature, Culture and Egyptology by Eleanor Dobson Kathleen Riley Writing the Sphinx: Literature, Culture and Egyptology. By Eleanor Dobson. (Edinburgh Critical Studies in Victorian Culture) Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. 2020. xiv+265 pp. £80. ISBN 978-2-4744-7624-9. In her Introduction to Writing the Sphinx, Eleanor Dobson makes an important distinction in terms of classical reception: 'It is [its] relative popular appeal and accessibility that distinguishes Egyptology from comparable disciplines, such as the study of ancient Greece or Rome' (p. 3). In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries—the focal period of Dobson's fascinating monograph—Egypt infiltrated the popular imagination with a fluidity, ubiquity, and marketability that the Graeco-Roman world, for all its aesthetic allure and erudite cachet, simply could not match. As an idea, and very often a fantasy, it bridged highbrow and lowbrow culture with tremendous ease, from Decadence to detective fiction and from Fokine's Cléopâtre to Wilson and Keppel's sand dance (the latter a notable omission from Dobson's otherwise thorough investigation), literally leaving its exotic imprint on everything from Oscar Wilde's gold-tipped cigarettes to the gloves of 1920s flappers sporting Tutankhamen cartouches. As Dobson demonstrates, this period of 'Egyptomania' coincided with, and was nourished by, such phenomena as the democratization of tourism (thanks to Thomas Cook & Son), museum patronage, and book ownership; the commodification of the ancient artefact as an affordable, wearable luxury; and the unprecedented reach and speed of mass media. On the last point, the Tutankhamen excavations, commenced in 1922, were the first archaeological dig to be recorded using moving-picture cameras. Dobson begins her analysis with the highly atmospheric account by Howard Carter and A. C. Mace (in the first volume of The Tomb of Tut·ankh·Amen: Discovered by the Late Earl of Carnarvon and Howard Carter) of the moment in which Carter peered through the darkness into the tomb of Tutankhamen. The two most enduring and spellbinding phrases in that fabled account are 'everywhere the glint of gold' and 'wonderful things' (quoted p. 21). Rat the passage reads as a romantic adventure tale, rather than the more prosaic excavation diary from which it originated, is the result of Carter's own storytelling sensibilities and the assistance provided by popular novelist Percy White, who, Dobson indicates, 'may [thus] have had a hand in rewriting history' (p. 24). Re collaboration between Carter and White encapsulates Dobson's principal thesis, namely 'the substantial and mutual debt that Egyptologists and authors owed to each other across a period of decades' (p. 5). Another defining aspect of this collaborative relationship, and its impact on [End Page 292] the popular imagination, is Harry Burton's photographs, which accompanied the text of The Tomb of Tut·ankh·Amen, with their almost cinematic composition and lighting. Witness, in particular, the dramatic chiaroscuro of Burton's image depicting Carter 'opening the door of the second shrine' (fig. 1.1), a scene of artfully posed but nonetheless breathtaking wonder. Dobson has, appropriately, excavated a wealth of sources to reveal more fully 'these cultural synapses' (p. 225), as she calls them, the creative connections and conflicts between Egyptologists, writers, and visual artists. In evocative detail she explains how the Egyptological engagement of serious scholars and writers of fiction alike was characterized by a fascination with, and desire to emulate, 'the materiality of ancient Egypt itself' (p. 41). With an admirable set of illustrations she relates how the bindings of all manner of Egyptological texts as well as contemporaneous fiction 'relied upon the glamour of gold, sensation, theatricality and Gothic thrills' (p. 51). She devotes subsequent chapters to the increasing visibility (and physicality) of hieroglyphs in public and private spaces; to the talismanic aura of Marie Corelli's Egyptian necklace; and to Egyptian antiquity as an intoxicating sensory, and especially olfactory, experience to be achieved by ingesting the dust and effluvia of mummies or, more palatably, by incense, tobacco, and perfume. In her final chapter, Dobson explores a particularly intriguing form of cultural exchange or overlap, that between Egyptologists and practitioners of esotericism, uncovering along the way a conviction advanced in the pages of fiction...

Laura Marcus (7 March 1956–22 September 2021)

Laura Marcus (7 March 1956–22 September 2021)