I’ve made love in every way possible, she said. I don’t believe you, I said. In every way possible? In every way, she said, and I didn’t say anything (I preferred to shut up, maybe I was embarrassed) but I believed her.
Gelernter the Galoot
Many years ago, I reviewed one of David Gelernter’s books for my college newspaper. It was, and remains, one of the worst books I have ever read, so poorly written and badly reasoned that it stayed in my mind more vividly than a lot of better books did. Bad books have a way of haunting us, which is probably why we hate them so. The worst movie you see in your life will be gone from your head by the next morning, but the worst book you were forced to read in school will be with you till you take your last breath.
The world and I moved on, but David Gelernter did not stop writing. Now he’s written an essay for The Wall Street Journal in which he claims to have solved the mystery of why “the left” hates Donald Trump so much.
Anchoring an Argument: Leo Chavez’s “Anchor Babies and the Challenge of Birthright Citizenship”
Donald Trump is under the impression that he can abolish birthright citizenship at will — more evidence, were any needed, that he should have taken up Khizr Kahn’s offer to borrow his pocket edition of the U.S. Constitution. Scott McLemee first posted the article below five months ago, but, as he notes, “now is the time to drum up readership for it…”
What America Looks Like (Redux)
See the trailer for What America Looks Like below. Dennis Myers’ documentary about the first two days of the Trump administration, complete with swearing in and swearing, will play at the “Cinema on the Edge” festival in Santa Monica this weekend. If you’re going to be in that town on Sunday around 1:00 p.m., you can see it on a big screen (and get a ticket discount with this code FRIEND10). Or you can watch it online here.
Tom DeMott R.I.P.
Tom DeMott died suddenly from a heart attack in his New York City apartment on October 23rd.
Mondays in the Sun: Tom DeMott and the Promise of Happiness
The author first met Tom on Anna Maria Island in Florida. He wrote these reflections about his then new–but now late–friend a year or so ago…
Port of Shadows (Excerpt from Library of Congress’s “The Unknown Kerouac”)
What follows is the conclusion of “I Wish I Were You”–the concluding story in the new Library of Congress volume:The Unknown Kerouac: Rare, Unpublished and Newly Translated Writings. “I Wish I Were You” is a dark story, but I believe my Beat brother Tom DeMott would’ve found the light in it. B.D.
The Bitch Whistle
The appointment of Brett Kavanaugh is a stark reminder of patriarchal power, but also a catalyst of militance and mobilization. Suburban women—the so-called soccer moms—are a major swing vote, and in the midterms their feelings about sexual harassment could be a decisive factor, at least when it comes to the House. But beneath the outrage and determination is a more complicated picture. To ignore it is to suffer the results.
Judge Kavanaugh and Adventures of the Dialectic
“Oh Fuck!” Senator Coons reportedly said when he learned last Friday morning his friend Jeff Flake would vote to send Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Senate for a final confirmation vote.
Face Time
For me a big part of rapey culture are those faces, those tight, thin-lipped, angry, grizzled, wrinkled faces that are ugly from self-loathing and alcohol and a sense entitlement that is crumbling, those faces belonging to male humans with the power to govern every part of my life and the lives of other women and men, those faces looking down, the spittle and pointed fingers, the screwed up features or the features flat with inobservance and power fatigue, those faces that are so much stupider than you, have always been more ignorant, cloudy in their thinking, poorly read if read at all, fucking stupid and dumb but with power.
