Burton Norval Hatlen, 1936-2008

University of Maine English professor Burt Hatlen passed away this past Monday at the age of 71. Anyone who's attended the University of Maine in the past forty years will remember him as a literary giant, a patient teacher, and an infinitely kind man. He was an accomplished scholar whose expertise was of that rare variety that spans many time periods, cultures, and media, from modern poetry to Renaissance literature. He was a social activist and a patron of the arts. Even during his illness, he continued to teach courses in the English Department and the Honors College, where I had the privilege of hearing him lecture on numerous occasions. Of course, he is most well known as Stephen King's mentor. King has called him "the greatest English teacher I ever had." It's truly a shame that future generations of students and writers will not be able to benefit from his knowledge. The State of Maine was lucky to count him among our citizens. He was such a good man.

See the Bangor Daily News article on his life for more.

Art for a snowy day

http://www.martin-munoz.com/

On this beautiful snowy day in Boston, here's some appropriate art to ponder as I look out my window at the white blanket covering the city.

Walter Martin and Paloma Muñoz make tiny, three-dimensional works of art and put them inside snow globes. Their current show, "Islands," is on view at P.P.O.W. in Chelsea through February 9th. Snow globes are typically purchased as travel souvenirs, or are sentimentalized display pieces of peaceful, comforting rural scenes. But the scenes Martin and Muñoz put in their snow globes are, well, kind of disturbing. They're like snow globes in a nightmare world. The landscapes are barren, sparse, colorless, and punctuated with forlorn-looking human figures isolated in the harsh elements. Cold and macabre, but also weirdly compelling. The Cliff (2006), above, especially intrigued me. The spectacle of people jumping off a cliff to their deaths like that, en masse, reminds me of the people jumping from the towers on 9/11.