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We have much to catch up on. This of course is Frye’s centenary year, and we’ll have much to say about that in the coming weeks and months. Over the next few days we hope the get ongoing threads up and running again.

Unfortunately, I tripped over my laptop cord and brought it crashing to the ground. The screen is now unreadable, but the sounds of the laptop chirping to life is a hopeful sign. I hope that tomorrow I can transfer data from the old laptop to the new one, and we can resume where we left off.

2,000 Posts

It’s gratifying to post that number, but it’s just window dressing. We’ve drawn 200,000 visitors so far, and they are responsible for a remarkable 800,000 page views. That’s the number that matters. People are clearly coming here to access the resources in our journal and our library, which is really what this is all about.

I’m going to ease up the pace a bit for the next week or so. With the foundation of Frye references in place, I’ll likely only post on Occupy and Keystone XL and other current events for the next little while. We don’t need to justify our coverage of them any further.

However, I’ve got plans for what is still to come. The nature of our current events recently makes this an opportune time to have a look at Frye’s decades-long involvement with the Canadian Forum. It never hurts to remind ourselves that Frye was never simply an ivory tower scholar, he was a man very much engaged in the world around him and was an excellent commentator on it. We also have other threads on the go and will continue to add to them.

We’ve posted some wonderful new material in the last few weeks. Please have a look at Péter Pásztor’s “Translating Frye into Hungarian,” and Joe Adamson’s “On Relevance: Frye on Universities and the Deluge of Cant,” both of which will soon be added to our journal. And, of course, there is also Bob Denham’s new collection, Essays on Northrop Frye, a prized addition to our library.

We have recently compiled two collections of Frye’s references to Marshall McLuhan and to anarchism, both of which will be shortly posted in our library.

Frye on Anarchism Coming Soon

The rise of the Occupy movement invites a consideration of Frye’s views on anarchism. I am putting together a comprehensive collection of quotes, which I will post soon.

But not before I post Joe Adamson’s essay, “On Relevance: Frye on Universities and the Deluge of Cant,” which will go up at midnight.

Saturday Night Video: Occupy Everywhere

First OWS commercial.

Jesse LaGreca interviewed by Russian Television.

Early footage from Toronto.

I haven’t been posting video of police violence against the protesters because it puts the emphasis in the wrong place. However, if you want to see clips, you can find them at YouTube easily enough. What’s striking is that not only are the crowds peaceful and refusing to respond to police provocation, they are duly recording everything, which is why so much of this video exists. It’s worth recalling that what sparked this protest to become the international event it is today was viral video three weeks ago of a number of young women who were kettled and then pepper sprayed in the face at close range by a senior New York City police officer.

UPDATE:

Raw footage out of Toronto this afternoon.

This movement no longer belongs just to the young people whose determination got it going. As this footage makes clear, it is now a middle class affair, including young families and retirees.

Bob Denham’s New Book Coming Soon

We are just applying the final touches before posting Bob Denham’s latest collection of essays on Frye, including eight new titles: “Frye and Aristotle,” “Frye and Giordano Bruno,” “Frye and Henry Reynolds,” “Frye and Robert Burton,” “Frye and Soren Kierkegaard,” “Frye and Mallarmé,” “Frye and Joachim de Floris,” and “Frye and Lewis Carroll.”

I think we can safely say that this is an event. And it should (fingers crossed) occur by Friday.

Until then, be sure to check out Bob’s other work in our library. It’s a remarkable collection, including all ten volumes of his Northrop Frye Newsletter; his classic Northrop Frye and Critical Method (in its entirety, we are very pleased to say: that’s an earlier print edition pictured above); all nine introductions to the volumes of the Collected Works he edited; four previously unpublished lectures; a number of indispensable compilations of Frye on topics like chess, Islam and the Koran; some miscellaneous Frygiana, and a remarkable collection of all of the movies that Frye saw up until at least 1955.

Let’s put it this way: the library collection is comprised almost completely of bequests from Bob, which is only one reason that we call it the Robert D. Denham Library. The other is that he is and always will be one of the greatest Frye scholars we can ever hope to see. So go in and browse. There’s treasure in there. We promise that you will find something you’ve never seen before.

And, as long as you’re browsing, maybe peek in on our journal as well.

Bob Denham’s “Essays on Northrop Frye”

We are very pleased to announce that we will very shortly be posting a new collection of twenty-two essays on Northrop Frye by Bob Denham, which he has very generously decided to publish with us. These essays will examine a number of prevailing themes and influences in Frye’s work, including the more esoteric dimension of his interests. Nine of these essays will examine his relation to a number of other influential thinkers, including Aristotle, Giordano Bruno, Kierkegaard, Mallarmé, and Lewis Carroll. I think we can confidently promise that these will be available in our library for you to read in paginated, searchable, and downloadable PDF by Monday.