Enraptured

May 21st, 2011 § 4 comments § permalink

From The Last Time Anyone Was Happy:

I tore out the door the moment I heard the truck. R.T. slowly got out, leaned back against the hood and lit a cigarette like he had all the time in the world. Looking at me through the smoke, in that infuriating way he had.

“You got anything on under that T-shirt?” he said. Read the rest of this entry »

Who’s Sorry Now

May 9th, 2011 § Comments Off § permalink

Garbo

Of all the scenes in the book, the one most resembling the later life of the Tolstoys is not a Levin-Kitty scene, but the final row between Vronsky and Anna just before she goes out to throw herself under a train. Tolstoy’s mastery of the feat of simultaneously putting the reader inside the heads of both characters as well as his own, as if the ball is being tossed from Anna to Vronsky to the narrator at high speed without ever being dropped, is one of the supreme moments of craft in all fiction … James Meek, LRB

… A statement so disarming, I had to go find it.
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Burning the Hajib

April 9th, 2011 § 2 comments § permalink

burning the hajib

Burning down the cloth house. Have you a shred of a chance of realizing all that you know in your heart are your dreams withheld, stifled, lost? And does this loss, what you have already lost and what will come, does it resonate anywhere? Or do your struggles as women rise and disappear like waves in the ocean, what does one woman matter, in a world you know is Wrong. Misguided, stupid to the core. Could you do better with one little finger than the men you refuse to call, anymore, leaders. And don’t you have to live with the terrible obviousness. Your perfect skill to find the moral balance midst conflict. Isn’t it all a big pissing contest, no more than gang behavior … and aren’t you, as a woman, with your maternal, familial skills, aren’t you the hope of the world?

{ fin }

Special, Not Special

February 27th, 2011 § 3 comments § permalink

hippie girl

As a result of the blending of reality and fantasy, some women have chosen to willingly play along by a new set of rules in order to keep their men interested: They’re intentionally impersonating porn stars. Sadie, a real-estate agent, says, “A lot of guys have come to expect P.S.E. [the “Porn-Star Experience”] as a common thing—snatches waxed bald, access to every hole—and plenty of women are more than happy to provide. A few might enjoy it, but for most it’s harrowing. I think there’s a fear that if they can’t make it happen, their boyfriend will retreat online.” New York Magazine

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Might Feel Good

February 21st, 2011 § Comments Off § permalink


Oh go ahead. Hit full screen. They don’t come much more beautiful than this. And with that iconic sound. Think of it—two notes that not only speak the Sixties—and honey, if you don’t know the level of social unrest of the Sixties, the assassinations, the deaths, you don’t really know America, nor what lazy, lulled shits we have, as a country, become—but here they go all over again, those notes, these lyrics, Chuck D, and, in such a beauty move, Steven Stills … Read the rest of this entry »

Harry Truman Makes a Funny

January 23rd, 2011 § 2 comments § permalink

Pretending to take Jack Kennedy’s order. At JFK’s inauguration. January 20, 1961. Fifty years ago. When I was either an infant, or in high school, take your pick. Read the rest of this entry »

You Can Get Anything You Want

November 28th, 2010 § 3 comments § permalink

Kids, I hadn’t planned on writing about Alice’s Restaurant …

Bad For Mommies Too

November 24th, 2010 § 3 comments § permalink

shoes

If only it weren’t now necessary for most women to work to provide basic support to their families, Nance writes in her comment yesterday …

And of course I had told only part of it, the overall story is one of sadness and powerlessness—make no mistake, on the part of all of us, and ironically, that much harder to tell. For is there ever a single pointedness to history. Chomsky, Lowe and others tell us, No.
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