I’m a bit of a late-comer to the Pat Conroy Fan Club, but better late than never. While I have not read anywhere near all of his books (Thank God! It I’m a bit of a late-comer to the Pat Conroy Fan Club, but better late than never. While I have not read anywhere near all of his books (Thank God! It gives me something to look forward to.) I have read enough to know that he is of vital importance to American literature.
Conroy passed away in March 2016, leaving behind eleven books; mostly novels, with a few nonfiction and one cookbook. (I currently have it on hold at my local library.) He was, sadly, his most prolific in the last decade of his life, publishing three books in four years before succumbing to pancreatic cancer.
He was married three times, had a slew of kids (both adopted and biological), suffered from depression and suicidal anxiety, loved food, and was a voracious reader.
His wife, novelist Cassandra King, helped in the publication of “A Lowcountry Heart”, which was a collection of some of Conroy’s blog posts (a late-in-life pastime that was a conundrum to his friends and family, as Conroy often mentioned that he detested the Internet), speeches, and, near the end, beautifully-written essays and eulogies written by friends and family about the poetic and compassionate soul of Conroy. (It would behoove you to keep a box of tissues nearby when reading this.)
Reading a Conroy novel is a perfect sunset on a beach. It’s a hug from a friend. It can be painful and upsetting at times, but that’s life. (You can’t be happy all the time.) In fact, Conroy would probably agree with the sentiment that life can be pretty shitty, but that shouldn’t stop you from trying to have a good time....more
I knew nothing about the late Charles Krauthammer before reading “Things That Matter”, a collection of hand-picked essays and columns he has written oI knew nothing about the late Charles Krauthammer before reading “Things That Matter”, a collection of hand-picked essays and columns he has written over the course of his 30-plus-year career as a syndicated columnist at The Washington Post, political pundit, and a psychiatrist.
The only thing I had heard about him—-indeed, what initially attracted me to his writing—-was the fact that he was a conservative who, in his few final years before his death in 2018, continually maintained a loathing and disgust for Donald Trump. (https://whyy.org/articles/rip-charles...)
That alone was enough for me to give him a try. And I’m glad I did.
While I don’t think I agreed at all with a majority of his politics, I nevertheless found him to be intelligent and humorous and compassionate in his writing. Even when excoriating people he didn’t like, such as Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, he was never mean-spirited, and he always made it clear that he disagreed with and disliked the policies and not the person.
His was a spirit of true old-fashioned gentlemanly political criticism that is not seen anymore, certainly not amongst his other conservative pundits and bigmouths like Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, and the late Rush Limbaugh.
I think it’s important to read books by authors that you may not agree with or are not aligned, politically, with. It helps to broaden one’s political viewpoints and promotes intellectual growth. To my fellow liberal friends: if you are looking for a differing viewpoint, reading Krauthammer may be a good place to start....more
“Black Rednecks and White Liberals” is a collection of six long essays by Thomas Sowell, an economist and philosopher. Each essay is an examination of“Black Rednecks and White Liberals” is a collection of six long essays by Thomas Sowell, an economist and philosopher. Each essay is an examination of certain racial/ethnic groups as seen through the lens of economics.
To people who are not economists, this may sound like a dry, boring textbook. At least, this was my initial thought going into it, as I am not an economist and, to be honest, have always thought economics to be a dry, boring subject.
Surprisingly, Sowell had me engaged right away. His style of writing is far from dry. While professorial (He was a professor, having served on the faculties of Cornell, Brandeis, and UCLA), he writes with an enthusiasm that demonstrates his fascination for his subject matter. He loves economics, and it shows.
He also has a unique perspective, and one that I am ashamed to say that, going into it, I was afraid that I would find problematic.
Sowell is a conservative. (This is the part in the review when my liberal friends shout, “Egad!”)
I jest, of course, but I am familiar enough with some of Sowell’s reputation. He is a black conservative who is—-like other black conservatives Allen West and Candace Owens—-highly critical of governmental assistance for black people (such as affirmative action), as he believes that it has created a dependency that doesn’t actually help, and may actually hinder, the intellectual and emotional development of black people. While there may be some validity to this argument, I don’t necessarily agree with it totally.
That said, I went into “Black Rednecks and White Liberals” with as open a mind as I am capable. I honestly didn’t know what to expect.
To my delight, I actually enjoyed the book far more than I expected. I found Sowell’s essays to be enlightening and thought-provoking. They introduced me to concepts and ideas that I have never heard before.
For example, in the first essay, “Black Rednecks and White Liberals”, Sowell writes about how much of “bad” Southern black behavior (laziness, drunkenness, misogyny, violence) as well as mannerisms (saying “I be” instead of “I am”) that contributed to many negative stereotypes that are still around today actually comes from identical bad traits exhibited by specific white immigrants that settled in the South from an area west of England. These white immigrants—-often referred to as “crackers”, “rednecks”, or “poor white trash”—-literally rubbed off , behaviorally, on many of their black neighbors in antebellum and postbellum Southern states.
I found this fascinating. As I did the essay, “Are Jews Generic?”, in which Sowell writes about the historical mistreatment of “middleman minorities”, which are, historically, ethnic groups that often found success as bankers or merchants between the wealthy producers and the lower class consumer groups of another ethnic group, Jews perhaps being the most familiar within European countries. Being “middlemen”, these groups often felt the brunt of irrational anger and hatred during economic downturns and were often scapegoats.
Every essay in this collection intrigued, shocked, and enlightened me in some way. They challenged some of the liberal “truths” that I have held for a long time, and helped to reconsider some things that I have always considered sacrosanct. It reminded me of what the late Allan Bloom (another conservative philosopher) said about how having prejudices was a good thing, because when those prejudices are challenged or overturned, it is in that moment when true learning happens....more
If an extinction-level event were to occur tomorrow (let’s say, hypothetically, a viral pandemic that would turn every human’s brain into guacamole) aIf an extinction-level event were to occur tomorrow (let’s say, hypothetically, a viral pandemic that would turn every human’s brain into guacamole) and, in a thousand years, an alien expedition of extraterrestrial archaeologists happened upon our human-free planet, their best source for understanding human culture in the last 23 years of human existence would be found in Chuck Klosterman’s “X: A Highly Specific, Defiantly Incomplete History of the Early 21st Century”.
Never mind the depressing fact that, due to the extinction-level pandemic, Klosterman’s “History” would actually be complete.
Also never mind that the book was published in 2017, which means that the alien archaeologists would never read about the last six years, which means they would never read about Covid-19, January 6, 2021, Ron DeSantis’s book “The Courage to Be Free”, or The Golden Bachelor. (On second thought, maybe that’s all for the best.)
Klosterman hand-picked a selection of essays from numerous sources to illustrate life in the 21st-century, which is basically a history of the rise of anti-intellectualism, pretentiousness, moral relativism, political apathy, and a bizarre fascination with spinner fidgets.
Every essay in this book is entertaining and intelligent, even the ones having to do with sports. (I will never understand or appreciate Klosterman’s love for sports of any kind, as I find most, if not all, sports unbearably stupid, barbaric, and pointless, but they seem to have some kind of social, historical, and religious importance to many people.)
I, of course, have my favorites, including: Klosterman’s defense of, and appreciation for, Taylor Swift’s musical talent; his interview with novelist Jonathon Franzen; his love for the long-running political talk show The McLaughlin Group; his revealing (in a way that was incredibly non-revealing) non-interview with Tom Brady; and his love letter to the rock band Kiss, which includes a full discography and reviews of each and every Kiss album.
I find it amazing that Klosterman has the rare ability to make almost any subject riveting, even if it’s not a subject that I would have necessarily been interested in. For example, Klosterman starts the book with an essay about a legendary 1988 basketball game between two relatively unknown North Dakota colleges. Two subjects I have zero interest in—-college basketball and North Dakota—-suddenly become a compelling underdog story; like “Rocky”, only with Native Americans and, well, basketball.
Many of the essays in this book are short (2-3 pages at most), and they all run together in a stream-of-consciouness kind of way. It feels random, and yet it doesn’t.
The great thing about reading a Klosterman essay is that I don’t feel guilty about wanting to re-read a Klosterman essay. That’s just really good essay-writing....more
True crime is quickly becoming one of my favorite genres. There is, however, a lot of crappy true crime books out there. Most of these read like policTrue crime is quickly becoming one of my favorite genres. There is, however, a lot of crappy true crime books out there. Most of these read like police reports, without trying to delve deeper into the broader picture or offering insights into the human condition. Many of them are prurient and sensationalistic.
I like true crime that tells a story about what it means to be a human being and how to live a life beset on all sides by temptation and evil. I like true crime that transcends its own genre into works of important literature.
Certain authors in this genre stand out: Truman Capote, Ann Rule, James Renner, Michelle McNamara, David Grann. All of them have taken the true crime genre to elevated places in their work, attempting to find some meaning in meaningless acts.
Published in 2010, David Grann’s “The Devil and Sherlock Holmes” is a compilation of articles he has written over the years, originally published in a plethora of magazines, including The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, The New Republic, and The New York Times Magazine. All of them could be classified under “true crime”.
More than one of the twelve stories in this book has already been made into a film or TV show. All of them would make for a fascinating documentary film or series on Netflix.
They cover a wide swath of subjects and a wide range of themes, but all of them have, at their heart, a horrible crime. It’s not always what one expects, either.
For example, in the story “Trial By Fire”, a horrible house fire in which a man loses his three children is determined to be an act of arson by fire investigators. Later, the science is questioned, and another team of investigators overrules the findings of the original arson “experts”, who used faulty science in their investigation. The man, sentenced to Death Row, turns out to be that rarest of all criminals: one who is innocent of his crimes. Despite numerous petitions and attempts to have him released, however, the state justice system (including the governor) puts the man to death anyway. One crime (determined to be not a crime after all) leads to an even bigger crime committed by the government.
In another example, the story “Which Way Did he Run?” begins in New York City on September 11, 2001: one of the worst crimes perpetrated on American soil. An entire company of firefighters is killed in the World Trade Center, except for one lone survivor. Miraculously, he walks away from the tragedy, only to discover a new tragedy: he has amnesia. He can’t recall anything that led up to the moment that he arrived at the WTC. Even worse: he is haunted by the horrible thought that the only reason he survived is because while his fellow firefighters were running towards the danger, he may have been running away from it. Cowardice? Or merely a human fight-or-flight reaction?
All of these stories describe a true crime, but they also provoke numerous thoughts: What would you do in this situation? What would you decide, as a juror, if given the facts? Are the people in these stories criminals or victims?
Of course, there are no easy answers, and Grann does not often—if ever—-provide the closure that one might find in a murder mystery or a crime novel....more
Sadly, I discovered Chuck Klosterman too late in life. His incredibly thoughtful, intellectual essays on popular culture which were very relevant rougSadly, I discovered Chuck Klosterman too late in life. His incredibly thoughtful, intellectual essays on popular culture which were very relevant roughly ten years ago are, unfortunately, totally irrelevant now. This is weirdly ironic considering the essays in his 2009 book “Eating the Dinosaur” are all about cultural relevance.
Actually, I’m pretty sure Klosterman planned that, the cheeky bastard.
The essays in this book are about, in order: how fake and, ultimately, totally unrevealing interviews are; the wonderful idiocy of Nirvana’s 1993 album “In Utero” and Kurt Cobain’s intentional attempt to come across as an idiot to his fans, which is, in itself, brilliant; deconstructing time travel in fiction and how stupid time travel would be in real life; the short and sad career of NBA player Ralph Sampson (a player I knew nothing about prior to reading this and, strangely enough, still know nothing about after reading it); how and why it is exciting to watch people through their windows and the kinky pleasures of voyeurism in general; the ridiculous popularity and complete disappearance of Garth Brooks; the fascination we have for road movies and their existential pointlessness; football (why some people, like me, can’t stand the sport while others, like Klosterman, love it); ABBA (why everybody in the world loves the band); the stupidity of laugh tracks; the unbelievable importance of advertising in American culture; how fleeting popularity is amongst teenagers, especially in re: My Chemical Romance and Lady Gaga; how totally authentic and honest the band Weezer is; and why Ted “the Unabomber” Kaczynski’s manifesto may have been completely correct.
I also learned that it is grammatically incorrect to write the word “and” following a semicolon. Well, fuck you, Klosterman....more
When someone loves something with a passion, it is often infectious. You simply can’t help but share in the love, even if it’s something you may not lWhen someone loves something with a passion, it is often infectious. You simply can’t help but share in the love, even if it’s something you may not love yourself. I’m not a fan of baseball, but one can clearly see the love of the game in Michael Lewis’s “Moneyball” or Philip Roth’s “The Great American Novel”. I’m not an astrophysicist, but it’s clear to see the passion that Cixin Liu has for the stars and planets in his novel “The Dark Forest”. I could care less about MTV’s The Real World, but Chuck Klosterman’s love for the show is strangely contagious in “Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs”.
Likewise, Quentin Tarantino’s obvious love for movies jumps off the page and into your heart in his latest (and first nonfiction) book “Cinema Speculation”. It is, I’ll admit, not a book that I expected to love so much, and I daresay that it is my favorite nonfiction book of the past year.
Part memoir, part film criticism, “Cinema Speculation” is an all-out gushing love-fest for movies. At least, a very specific era and genre of movies.
The era is the 1970s. Tarantino was 6 when his mother took him to see a double feature. These weren’t kid’s films, either. The first film of the double feature was a film called “Joe”, starring Peter Boyle as a disgruntled blue collar worker who goes on a murderous rampage in a hippy commune. It was basically a Trumper wet dream, long before the Trumpers. It was controversial, even for 1970. And Tarantino saw it at age six.
His childhood abounded with a plethora of excellent, fantastic, totally age-inappropriate films: “Bullitt”, “Rolling Thunder”, “Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice”, “Texas Chainsaw Massacre”, “The Getaway”, “Sisters”, “Hardcore”, “Sweet Sweetback’s Baadassss Song”, “Deliverance, “The Outfit”, “Paradise Alley”, “Halloween”, “Mean Streets”, and “Taxi Driver”.
Tarantino brilliantly and lovingly dissects the films of his childhood, pointing out the things he loved about them, what he hated about them, how they influenced his own filmography, and his checkered history with cinematic violence. It’s a very reflective, intelligent, fun, and energetic examination of the Grindhouse film era as only Tarantino can tell it....more
When Jonathon Swift published his wickedly funny satirical piece “A Modest Proposal” in 1729, it set the standard for how powerful and effective good When Jonathon Swift published his wickedly funny satirical piece “A Modest Proposal” in 1729, it set the standard for how powerful and effective good satire can be. The essay, which (jokingly) suggests that one way to solve the problem of overpopulation and excess children being a burden in impoverished households is for parents to sell their children to the wealthy for food, was shocking and horrifying to those audiences who don’t understand satire. On the same token, for many desperate poor people (who also didn’t understand satire), it might have actually sounded like a good idea.
Speaking of Good Ideas that Aren’t, Donald Trump’s presidency became fodder for a whole new generation of great satirists and writers of comedy and dark humor. Alexandra Petri, a columnist for The Washington Post, is one such great satirist. Her collected “greatest hits” of the past four years of columns is titled “Nothing is Wrong and Here is Why”.
If you read only one essay by Petri, read “Trump’s Budget Makes Perfect Sense and Will Fix America, and I Will Tell You Why”. It is, as Petri herself claims, “so accurate and true” that someone in the Trump Administration read it, thought it was a perfect summation of Trump’s budget plan, and published it in the March 16, 2017 daily e-mail sent out by the White House staff of Trump-approved “real news” before it was, obviously, discovered to be an example of satire and taken down from the website.
This is an essay in which Petri writes, in regards to the National Institutes of Health: “We are decreasing funding because in the future we will cure disease by punching it, or, if that fails, sending drones after it. Also, we will buy more planes and guns to shoot airborne viruses out of the sky.”
Of the National Endowment of the Arts: “The NEA will be destroyed and replaced with an armored helicopter with a shark painted on it.”
On Education: “All schoolchildren will be taught by an F-35 wearing a Make America Great Again hat.”
If you’re not laughing at any of that, you are clearly humorless and/or a Trumper who finds absolutely nothing wrong with any of that.
Every essay in this book is brilliant and hilarious. But be forewarned: it’s the kind of hilarious that, when one unpacks the humor, one finds that it is hiding some depressingly unfunny truths behind it....more
February is Black History Month, and I decided to read some books by black authors that have been on my (ridiculously long) “to-be-read” list for a whFebruary is Black History Month, and I decided to read some books by black authors that have been on my (ridiculously long) “to-be-read” list for a while, starting with James Baldwin’s “The Fire Next Time”.
Originally published in 1963, “The Fire Next Time” is a short book comprised of two essays that appeared originally in other publications. “My Dungeon Shook” was originally published in The Progressive, and “Down at the Cross” originally appeared in The New Yorker.
“My Dungeon Shook” is in the form of a letter, addressed to his nephew, on the 100-year anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, the famous speech by Abraham Lincoln which signaled the abolition of the institution of slavery.
The tone isn’t very celebratory; in fact, it is rather melancholy. It is the tone of a black man writing to another younger black man in the early 1960s at the height of the Civil Rights Movement. It is a time in our country’s history in which, arguably, racism was at its zenith, because black people in America at the time were finally calling out white people. Black people were finally saying “Enough is enough”, and the white majority didn’t want to hear it.
Baldwin writes about the violent backlash by white Americans. He writes about the truth of the history of black people in this country: “You were born into a society which spelled out with brutal clarity, and in as many ways as possible, that you were a worthless human being. You were not expected to aspire to excellence; you were expected to make peace with mediocrity. (p. 7)”
One would expect Baldwin to follow this with advice on how to fight back at the ugliness of white racism. One would probably not expect Baldwin’s advice on how to fight back.
Baldwin’s letter isn’t resentful or hateful. On the contrary, Baldwin—-raised in a religious Christian (albeit dysfunctional) home—advises his nephew to fight back by being better than white people—-excelling in everything, from academia to business to sports.
Baldwin writes, “[T]hese men are your brothers—-your lost, younger brothers. And if the word integration means anything, this is what it means: that we, with love, shall force our brothers to see themselves as they are, to cease fleeing from reality and begin to change it. (p.10)”
“Down at the Cross” is Baldwin writing about a season of crisis; specifically a crisis of faith. He writes about his complicated relationship with Judaism and Christianity, and then he writes about an eye-opening experience meeting Elijah Muhammad, the leader of the Nation of Islam at the time.
Baldwin doesn’t share the tenets of the Black Muslims. He does not support the Black Muslims’ view that complete separation from white people is the only way for black people to survive. Baldwin believes that black salvation lies in finding a way to live peacefully with white people. It is the only way, even if it is the most difficult and seemingly impossible way:
“It demands great force and great cunning continually to assault the mighty and indifferent fortress of white supremacy, as Negroes in this country have done so long. It demands great spiritual resilience not to hate the hater whose foot is on your neck, and an even greater miracle of perception and charity not to teach your child to hate. (p.100)”
Baldwin believes, quite rightly, that if anyone has the right to hate with vigor it is black people. The fact that most black people don’t hate white people is due to the consciousness gifted to black people from centuries of pain and torture. Black people possess a vision of reality that white people do not: “The American Negro has the great advantage of having never believed that collection of myths to which white Americans cling: that their ancestors were all freedom-loving heroes, that they were born in the greatest country the world has ever seen, or that Americans are invincible in battle and wise in peace, that Americans have always dealt honorably with Mexicans and Indians and all other neighbors or inferiors, that American men are the world’s most virile, that American women are pure. Negroes know far more about white Americans than that; it can almost be said, in fact, that they know about white Americans what parents—-or, anyway, mothers—-know about their children, and that they very often regard white Americans that way. (p. 102)”
Everything Baldwin writes in this book has the authority of a loving parent. His words are as poignant today, in 2022, as they were sixty years ago when he wrote them.
Reading Baldwin—-and, in particular, this book—-is the perfect way to inaugurate Black History Month in 2022....more
Joan Didion passed away, at age 87, just two days before Christmas Day in 2021. Her death has been felt intensely by members of the American literati.Joan Didion passed away, at age 87, just two days before Christmas Day in 2021. Her death has been felt intensely by members of the American literati.
I had not read anything by Didion prior to her death. I may have once read an essay or two by her in college, but nothing that really stuck in mind.
My knowledge of her life stems solely from the few tidbits of information that I have gleaned in articles and her entry in Wikipedia. In other words, I don’t know much about her. She is, like many famous American writers who have died, just a name to me.
I arbitrarily picked her 1979 book of essays “The White Album” to start with. It’s probably as decent a book to start with as any of her other books. I have perhaps gained a brief glimpse at the type of person she was through her writing.
She had a sense of humor, but it was dry at best. Subtle and nuanced is the best way to describe her writing.
The book is a series of essays written between the years 1968 to 1978 on a variety of topics, most of which were chosen to represent the zeitgeist of the ‘70s. It is also a self-reflection of Didion’s state of mind at the time, which was, by her own admission, not very stable. Then again, as she intimates in the introduction, her mental fragility was a likely and appropriate response to the decade.
In what I can only describe as prose that defies gravity, Didion writes on every topic—-whether it’s meeting Jim Morrison of The Doors, visiting the Operations Control Center for the California State Water Project, the vapidness of Hollywood’s liberal elite, the feminist movement, or vacationing in Bogota, Colombia—-with an almost-weightless sense of awe. She seems almost utterly entranced by everything she sees, everyone she meets, everything she experiences.
This is what makes her a phenomenal journalist and a wonderful chronicler of life.
I will be reading more Didion in the near future. That is a certainty. ...more
Like most of Americans, I was horrified and saddened by the barbarism and stupidity on display by protestors at the Capitol building yesterday. Four pLike most of Americans, I was horrified and saddened by the barbarism and stupidity on display by protestors at the Capitol building yesterday. Four people are dead because our president can’t accept that voters are sick of his shit and is whining, like a three-year-old, that more than half the country “stole” the election from him, based on absolutely no evidence whatsoever.
My wife and I watched the news coverage last night. At times, neither of us could hold back tears. But one question kept coming up between us: How could it have gone that far?
With all the Capitol police, local police, and National Guardsmen (which, please correct me if I’m wrong, were only called in later, after the fact, I think) on-site, how were so many idiotic protestors allowed to even get to the point where they were crashing through windows, running through the halls, breaking into Senate offices, ransacking desks, sitting in chairs with their feet up, and snapping selfies with their fellow grinning insurrectionists? How?
Because let’s be honest: If this had been a crowd of Black Lives Matter and other anti-Trump protestors, you know that the police would have used much more force. Screw the tear gas and rubber bullets. They would have used real bullets, and the numbers of fatalities reported this morning would have been astronomically higher.
And I’m sorry, but anyone who tries to justify the actions and behavior of these protestors by comparing them to BLM is full of shit. BLM protestors are protesting an ACTUAL injustice that happens every. Single. Day. These Trump-humpers are protesting a FAKE injustice that has been manipulated by a president who has never been accountable to anyone a day in his life. Trump is a sore loser. Plain and simple. And now four people are dead.
What a way to start 2021.
Speaking of uncomfortable: Read Emmanuel Acho’s “Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man”. It’s an important book. Especially now.
Acho was a football player in the NFL and now is a host of FOX Sports 1. He also created a Youtube show called “Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man”, which was later re-worked and published as a book in November 2020.
Acho’s book could also be titled “How to Talk to White People About Race and Racism Without Being Accusatory and Making Them Feel Like Shit”. But his title is actually a lot shorter and more succinct.
It is a book that I would not hesitate to include on school reading lists, as it is an excellent primer on starting conversations about topics such as implicit bias, white privilege, cultural appropriation, systemic racism, reverse racism, and everything in between.
It is one of those books that I wish I could give certain people I know and ask them to read it and seriously think about.
It is one of those books that I would buy to keep on my shelf and re-read several times, highlighting passages and writing notes in the margins.
It is a book that I hope to one day give my daughter to read, so that we could have a conversation about it, because I don’t even know how to begin that conversation with a seven-year-old.
Acho’s format is, I’m assuming, much like his show (which I have not seen). He starts with a valid question about race from a white person, and he sincerely tries to answer it as best he can. In eloquently succinct responses, Acho defines terms, gives thoughtful and real-life examples, and (my favorite part) sources for further reading. I have already added a dozen or so books to my reading list. Some of them are books I have read before, but I want to go back and re-read them now.
After the shitstorm that happened yesterday, we need a thorough, compassionate, intellectual conversation about our democracy, much of which is tied—-whether we like to admit it or not—-directly into the topic of race. Thankfully, we have thinkers like Acho to start that conversation....more
Reading a newspaper column devoted to critiquing TV shows of the years 1970 to 1972 probably wouldn’t---or shouldn’t---resonate with contemporary readReading a newspaper column devoted to critiquing TV shows of the years 1970 to 1972 probably wouldn’t---or shouldn’t---resonate with contemporary readers. Unless, of course, those columns were written by the late, great Harlan Ellison.
“The Other Glass Teat” is a follow-up to Ellison’s groundbreaking collection of columns, “The Glass Teat”, which compiled his reviews, musings, complaints, cantankerous outbursts, and other wonderful miscellenia that he published in a weekly newspaper, The Los Angeles Free Press (a.k.a. The Freep) during the late 1960s and early 1970s.
While the TV shows he mentions (“The Flip Wilson Show”, “The Young Lawyers”, “The Interns”, “The Partridge Family”, “The Mod Squad”, et al. ) have all been relegated to the ash heap of (thankfully) forgotten and culturally insignificant television, and while the current events he writes about (the Kent State shootings, the My Lai massacre) have seemingly no bearing on our current state of affairs, there is something fresh and, well, important about what he is writing about.
Fifty years may have passed, but Ellison’s words still strike at the heart of the problem: our government officials are a cabal of shitty no-good pieces of dog excrement who care little to nothing about anything other than their own self-interest. On top of that, there are lots of Americans who are so ignorant and willing to suckle the government teat that they will lap up anything and everything that government officials dish out to them and call it gospel. And while television can be a showcase of artistic talent and vibrant intellectualism, it more often than not is simply a place where people turn off their brains for a few hours because they don’t want to think about the world and their own personal problems. Not that escapism is a bad thing, but it can, occasionally, lead to an overload of escapism, which can be a bad thing.
Ellison’s writing from fifty years ago touches upon some of the same issues, fears, and worries that we face today, almost as if the problems of the past are still the problems of the present. Fancy that.
While Ellison was dealing with Nixon and Agnew, we’re dealing with Trump and Pence. While Ellison was defending the student protests against Vietnam, we’re dealing with nationwide protests against police brutality and the inequities of our legal system against black people. While Ellison was dealing with corporations fighting to stop regulations so that they can pollute the air and seas, we’re dealing with... well, fuck, the very same thing.
Disregard the publication date of 1975. This book could have been published yesterday.
As the saying goes: the more things change, the more they stay the same. This is illustrated brilliantly in "The Glass Teat", a book of essays by the As the saying goes: the more things change, the more they stay the same. This is illustrated brilliantly in "The Glass Teat", a book of essays by the late Harlan Ellison, published in 1970. Most, if not all of these essays appeared in column form in the Los Angeles Free Press in the late-60s.
While dated, Ellison's criticism, commentary, and complaints about television will probably resonate just as much today as it did when he first published them, long before cable, the Internet, Hulu, Netflix, etc. The TV shows are different, but the problems are essentially the same.
Ellison is often scathing and cut-throat in his excoriation of TV shows and the evening news. His criticism tends to go back to the same problem: TV provides a white-washed and completely bullshit portrayal of real life. Even the news tends to give a one-sided viewpoint. (Keep in mind: Ellison was writing these essays during the height of the Vietnam War.)
Fast forward fifty years: these same complaints can be made for most of the shit on our TV screens today.
Don't be scared off by the dated material. You don't have to have a pre-existing knowledge of TV shows like Mod Squad, Hawaii Five-O, or Adam 12. I'd be surprised if most people still remember those.
It's Ellison's humor, intelligence, and compassion that shines through, as always....more
8/30/2024 addendum: Best known for her dead-accurate prediction of Trump's 2016 presidential win (for which she got major shit and ridicule), journali8/30/2024 addendum: Best known for her dead-accurate prediction of Trump's 2016 presidential win (for which she got major shit and ridicule), journalist Sarah Kendzior saw the writing on the wall for years before Trump joined the race, and this book is essential reading in trying to figure out the how and why of Trump ultimately becoming president...
For a large percentage of Americans, living in Donald Trump’s America has been a terrifying nightmare, one that seems to have no end in sight. Unfortunately, Trump seems to be shaping into a new Teflon president. Like Ronald Reagan, no bad policy seems to be bad enough and no scandal seems to be crippling enough.
But Trump wasn’t born in a vacuum, and many of the problems facing Americans were problems long before Trump assumed the presidency. Granted, he hasn’t made them any better and, in fact, has worked to make a lot of them worse, but, as many astute critics have pointed out, Trump is merely a symptom, not the cause.
Several astute journalists saw him coming. Many didn’t, but then again, many people who should have seen him coming didn’t. The Democrats didn’t. Many Republicans didn’t either. But he’s here now.
One of the key points in Timothy Snyder’s excellent little book about the rise of fascism, “On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons From the Twentieth Century”, is the importance of good journalism and a free press.
Thankfully, despite what Trump or his Administration lackeys seem to think in regards to “fake news”, there are many good journalists out there, fighting the good fight against the powers of fascism and censorship.
One of those journalists is Sarah Kendzior, whose 2015 book “The View From Flyover Country: Dispatches From the Forgotten America”, a collection of essays she wrote for various publications from 2012 to 2014, immediately became an underground online sensation after the 2016 election. It’s easy to see why.
Besides having predicted Trump’s win, she also, for years prior to Trump’s election, was witness to the building blocks and scaffolding being put in place for someone like Trump. Her astute and intellectual observations made it quite clear, in hindsight, that Trump was an inevitability.
She writes about many things, but the following themes crop up with regularity: big cities are gradually becoming so expensive that nobody but the super-wealthy will end up being able to afford living in them; colleges are becoming so expensive and elitist, soon only the children of the super-wealthy will be able to afford attending; good, high-paying jobs are scarce and, not only that, limited to those who have good connections and/or are already somewhat wealthy; health care in this country is so expensive that only the super-wealthy will be able to afford it.
See the pattern?
Anyone with eyes and a dwindling paycheck should have seen all of this building to a head. Most Americans did, especially those groups of people who are bearing the brunt of the economic failure in this country---minorities, immigrants, the middle class, the inner-city poor, the rural poor. They are, unfortunately, the groups with the least ability to lobby Washington politicians. Today, Washington, D.C. is owned by the rich.
Thankfully, journalists like Kendzior give voice to the voiceless. People like her must continue to be encouraged and protected from the authoritarian onslaught of wanna-be dictators like Trump.
Support the First Amendment. Support good journalism. Fight fascism. Read this book....more
Roxane Gay’s book, “Bad Feminist”, is an imperfect and awkward mix of extremely spot-on, humorous, emotionally draining, infuriating, wonderful, profaRoxane Gay’s book, “Bad Feminist”, is an imperfect and awkward mix of extremely spot-on, humorous, emotionally draining, infuriating, wonderful, profane, esoteric, and fun essays on a wide range of subjects, from playing in Scrabble tournaments to the inappropriateness of rape jokes to the not-so-subtle misogyny in Quentin Tarantino’s filmography. This is to say, of course, that it is all over the map in much the same way that Feminism in the 21st century is all over the map, a point that Gay makes more than a few times in the book.
Gay refers to herself as a “bad feminist” because she doesn’t always agree with or follow everything that more vocal feminists try to promulgate. She believes in the basic tenets of Feminism---gender equality, female empowerment, women’s reproductive rights---but she loses it in the details. Sometimes she listens to music that denigrates women. Occasionally she will watch a movie that objectifies women. She thinks Chris Brown is hot, and she feels very guilty about that. She’s not a perfect feminist.
As she puts it, the “bad feminist” label encompasses the fact that “I am human. I am messy. I’m not trying to be an example. I’m not trying to be perfect. I am not trying to say I have all the answers. I am not trying to say I’m right. I am just trying---trying to support what I believe in, trying to do some good in this world, trying to make some noise with my writing while also being myself. (p. xi)”
The term “feminist” is, more often than not, spoken of in a derogatory tone. It’s generally looked at as negative. Many feminists are probably to blame for this, according to Gay, in much the same way that many Christians have given Christianity a bad name due to awful role modeling.
It took Gay many years to feel okay enough with feminism to call herself a feminist. But, like many women, she has suffered horribly at the hands of deplorable men. For women like Gay, most of life was just being in survival mode. No one gives a shit what your views on abortion or pornography or the latest Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage is when you are being gang-raped in an abandoned cabin in the woods. This happened to Gay.
That she can make jokes and speak eloquently on a wide range of esoterica at all, after everything she has suffered and survived, is testament to her strength as a woman and a human being. Gay, in “Bad Feminist”, is simply trying to redefine the term “feminist” as anyone who gives a shit about what it means to be a human being in the 21st century....more
The essays in “Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture” are heart-breaking, gut-wrenching, profound, straightforward, beautiful, ugly, enlighteningThe essays in “Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture” are heart-breaking, gut-wrenching, profound, straightforward, beautiful, ugly, enlightening, confusing, disturbing, and angry. They are essays from women, some men, and some transgendered people. They are people from all walks of life: young, old, white, black, Asian, Latinx, gay, straight, bisexual, low-income, middle-class, rich. They are all essays written by victims of rape and rape culture.
Editor Roxane Gay (a victim of rape, too) has created a compilation of voices that paint a brutal picture of our cultural landscape, where women often feel trapped by male privilege and systemic sexism. It is a culture of Harvey Weinstein and Donald Trump, powerful men who use their power to do horrible things to women. Sometimes, they get caught, arrested, and imprisoned. Sometimes, they become President of the United States. More often than not, they get away with their awfulness because fighting them takes more time, money, and effort than the victims are willing to give and the general public doesn’t always give a shit anyway. More often than not, the victims are blamed for the crime. This is just life in a rape culture.
The title of the compilation is a refrain that appears in nearly every essay. Many times, the victim of rape doesn’t even know, at first, that what they experienced was rape. They tell themselves that the experience wasn’t that bad. Even worse, when they confide in friends or family, they are often told to get over it, it happens to everyone, it’s not that bad…
I am a man who has never been raped, nor have I ever raped anyone, but reading this compilation of essays makes me realize my own culpability in a rape culture. It’s the things that we think are not that bad—-ass-grabbing someone at a bar, telling an inappropriate joke, turning a blind eye to other men’s bad behavior—-that contribute to an environment in which sexual harassment, assault, and rape are not taken as seriously as it should.
I read this an Audiobook on CD. Each essay was read by their respective author....more
Fun fact: Zombies, as we know them today, were never meant to be referred to as “zombies”. George Romero, the director of the 1968 film “Night of the Fun fact: Zombies, as we know them today, were never meant to be referred to as “zombies”. George Romero, the director of the 1968 film “Night of the Living Dead”---the film which is credited for starting the whole zombie movie genre---never liked the term “zombie”. The word itself is never mentioned once in that seminal horror film classic. Romero preferred the word “ghoul”, the term for an ancient mythological creature that roamed graveyards and feasted on human flesh. The term “zombie” is actually a reference to either a hypnotized victim or a reanimated corpse through the power of voodoo magic, according to Caribbean folklore. Somehow, “zombie” became the preferred term for the walking dead in Romero’s film, and it stuck. Zombies have now become a part of the zeitgeist of American pop culture.
The question is: Why? What is it about zombies that has fascinated generations and continues to fascinate us? In terms of mythology, vampires have been around far longer and a part of far more national cultures than our own. Golems, werewolves, poltergeists, manitou, dragons, sea monsters: these mythological monsters have haunted human psyches for centuries. In the grand scheme of things, zombies are the newborns of nightmare creatures. Yet, for some reason, they are extraordinarily popular.
Perhaps one reason has something to do with social class. According to Kim Paffenroth, author of “Gospel of the Living Dead”, zombies have appeal due in large part to their proletariat leanings: “Zombies are the lowest, most “peasant” type of monsters, especially in comparison to vampires, who are always very sophisticated and effete... (p.16)” It makes sense, when one places zombies in a socialist context: as the undead, zombies literally lack the most important means of production: a pulse. They also outnumber the living (their beourgeosie) by about a thousand to one, so they definitely have strength in numbers.
Zombies also have another plus going for them in this pro-socialist argument: they are completely morally incorruptible, primarily because they are completely incapable of having morals to corrupt. They exist solely as id, no ego or superego. They are ruled solely by an eternally insatiable hunger for human flesh.
While this may seem awful, it’s actually a pretty pure and unsullied purpose. Unlike humans, zombies aren’t going to screw over other zombies for profit. They also aren’t going to exhibit feelings of superiority or hatred due to racism, classism, sexism, or homophobia. None of that matters to a zombie. All zombies are equal in each other’s dead, soulless eyes.
It’s actually kind of endearing.
Paffenroth, an Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Iona College in New Rochelle, NY and a huge zombie film buff, has written an intellectually satisfying academic study on the morality and ethics of zombies, using as his basis of study five films in particular, four of them directed by Romero: “Night of the Living Dead”, “Dawn of the Dead” (both the 1978 version, directed by Romero, and the 2004 remake, directed by Zach Snyder), “Day of the Dead” (1985), and “Land of the Dead” (2005). He also references other Romero-inspired films such as “Shaun of the Dead”, “28 Days Later”, and “Resident Evil”.
Basically, Paffenroth makes the very well-supported case that the zombie film genre is an exceptionally popular subgenre of horror precisely because of its tendency toward strong social commentary. Zombies, according to Paffenroth, are all too-relatable because they represent so many negative things about Americans: our rampant consumerism, our love of violence, our obsession with guns, our fear of foreigners, our society’s lack of empathy toward the poor and the lower class. In almost all cases, zombie films represent humans as being worse enemies to other humans than the zombies.
“Romero and the other filmmakers,” writes Paffenroth, “use the fantastical “disease” of zombies to criticize the very real diseases of racism, sexism, materialism, and individualism that would make any society easy prey for barbarian hordes. And the portrayal is so powerful and compelling in these films, that it is impossible to discount it as some thoughtless anti-American screed: it is a real, if extreme, diagnosis of what ails us. (p.18-19)
Paffenroth looks at each film through the kaleidoscope of Dante’s many circles of hell, utilizing literary references and even biblical support for his arguments. The result is a smart, fascinating, and entertaining examination of an insanely popular genre. It should be noted that Paffenroth published this book in 2006, before AMC became the first channel to air a TV series, “The Walking Dead”, heavily inspired by Romero’s films.
Love them or hate them, zombies aren’t going away any time soon. In this Age of Trump---with a resurgence of white supremacy, vicious hate crimes, xenophobia, and rampant sexism and misogyny---Romero’s socially-conscious and moralistic zombie films seem all the more appropos....more
Whenever I read anything by the late Christopher Hitchens, I feel like Wayne and Garth in an SNL “Wayne’s World” skit, prostrate before one of their rWhenever I read anything by the late Christopher Hitchens, I feel like Wayne and Garth in an SNL “Wayne’s World” skit, prostrate before one of their rock gods, wailing, “I’m not worthy! I’m not worthy!”
Hitchens is like a literary rock god to me. Erudite, witty as hell, and mind-blowing in his intellectual capacity, Hitchens won me over years ago after I read his atheist manifesto, “God is Not Great”. I have relished everything I have ever read by him since, although I have not come close to reading everything by him. I have been savoring his essays one at a time from his collected book of essays, “Arguably”, partly because I feel quite intellectually drained after reading them. I consider myself pretty intelligent, but I feel like I definitely missed a few classes after reading Hitchens. I am not worthy.
Interesting fact: Hitchens was (one of) the preeminent contemporary experts on George Orwell, having spent many years reading, researching, and writing about Orwell. It helped that he was a fan.
Hitchens published “Why Orwell Matters” in 2002. Less an apologetics for the contemporary relevance of Orwell’s writings than an examination of Orwell’s socio-political significance in English letters, Hitchen’s book was a series of essays in which he attempted to defend Orwell from critics, detractors, and haters, of which there are quite a few.
Everyone from Communists to anti-Communists, liberals, conservatives, feminists, homosexuals, Anglophiles, Anglophobes, cat-lovers, coffee drinkers, and people from New Jersey hated Orwell. (Okay, I made up those last three, but I’m fairly certain a few Jersey folk may hate him, too. No proof of this, though...)
It may seem like a contradictory list, but Orwell was, as Hitchens continually points out, a complicated guy and not so easy to pin down in many ways.
A lifelong democratic socialist, Orwell despised tyranny and despotism in any form. Sometimes, unfortunately, that tyranny took the form of a socialist or communist regime. Orwell wasn’t afraid to criticize or denigrate fellow socialists and communists for their atrocious behavior. It didn’t get him invited to a lot of communist barbecues.
Many on the Left felt that he should have been a bit more gung-ho in his support for socialism, while many on the Right felt that his socialist leanings were a little too open and risque. Orwell’s response to both sides was the same: Poppycock.
Once, when his novel “1984” was accused of being an attack on the British Labour Party, Orwell responded, “My recent novel is not intended as an attack on socialism or on the British Labour Party (of which I am a supporter) but as a show-up of the perversions to which a centralized economy is liable and which have already been partly realized in Communism and fascism... The scene of the book is laid in Britain in order to emphasize that the English-speaking races are not innately better than anyone else and that totalitarianism, if not fought against, could triumph anywhere. (p. 85)”
Truer words could not have been spoken. It resonates even more today, in the U.S., with the fledgling dictatorship and embryonic totalitarian state of the Trump Administration.
Feminists and homosexuals, Hitchens argues, perhaps had a better case for their accusations of misogyny and homophobia in Orwell’s writing, although either accusation is somewhat unfair.
Orwell’s novels certainly paint a negative view of women as politically apathetic and dependent on men to the point of being somewhat infantile. Inexplicably, as the few women in Orwell’s life, including his wives, were all known to be extremely intelligent and independent-minded.
Hitchens flips the argument and writes, “[I]t would certainly be true to say that men in Orwell’s fiction are utterly incapable of happiness without women. Yes, they resent the need of women, as many men do, and as Orwell himself obviously did. Yes, they distrust the marriage bond as a ‘trap’ by a hypocritical and acquisitive society. But to write about male-female relations in any decade and to omit these elements would have been to abandon verisimilitude. (p. 150)”
Orwell’s few references to homosexuality in his books are almost always negative, and Hitchens doesn’t even bother defending it other than insinuating that it was the general view of the times and that Orwell had, like many British schoolboys, possibly been buggered by older boys, more than once.
I despise homophobia and support gay rights, but I suppose if I had been routinely involved in homosexual rape as a young man, under the noses of indifferent and, in some cases, inculpatory adults and authority figures, my views toward gay people may be somewhat, and understandably, tarnished.
“Why Orwell Matters” sheds deeper light on a fascinating person. Whether you love him or hate him, Orwell and his writings are nonetheless as important today as they were nearly seventy years ago when he was first published....more
George Orwell is perhaps best known as a novelist, but, truth be told, in his career as a writer, Orwell only published six novels. Granted, that “onlGeorge Orwell is perhaps best known as a novelist, but, truth be told, in his career as a writer, Orwell only published six novels. Granted, that “only” covers some amazingly unforgettable and important novels, like “1984” and “Animal Farm”, both of which have earned and surpassed their “modern classic” status.
Orwell was probably most prolific with his essays, a broad category that covered articles, reviews, and short memoirs that he had published in various literary publications throughout his lifetime.
George Packer, in 2008, compiled a selection of Orwell’s essays in two volumes. The first was a selection of critical essays entitled “All Art is Propaganda”, which consisted of various book reviews, movie reviews, and sharp political commentary.
The companion piece, “Facing Unpleasant Facts”, focuses on Orwell’s narrative essays, short works that had as their focus mainly entertainment, many of which were published elsewhere but also including a few that have never been published.
Some of the essays, like “The Spike”, were either used as the basis for, or excerpted from, some of Orwell’s longer works. “The Spike” refers to the slang term for “workhouse”, a place where the destitute and poor came to find jobs, shelter, and food. Orwell was, in his later 20s, living on the streets and struggling to find scraps of food. This experience would later be documented in his memoir, “Down and Out in Paris and London”.
Some essays came out of his experience as a military police officer in Burma, an experience that opened his eyes to the tyranny of British colonialism and imperialism and started him on his life-long path of democratic socialism.
“Shooting an Elephant”, perhaps his best-known essay (it is often found in just about every high school or college English Literature textbook), is an allegedly* true story of Orwell’s experience in which a rampaging elephant threatens a busy Burmese marketplace, and Orwell must fight his inner turmoil over killing a majestic beast versus the safety of the people in the village.
(*I say “allegedly” because there is, according to Packer, some doubt as to whether this event actually ever occurred or if it was embellished by Orwell’s imagination. No existing military documents or local news accounts can corroborate the incident. Not that it matters. It’s still a great essay.)
Some essays delve into the rarely-seen aspect of Orwell’s childhood and upbringing, such as the never-published “Such, Such Were the Joys”, which is an unflinching and disturbing look at the boys’ prep school that Orwell attended as a youth. It’s perhaps clear why the essay was unpublished, as it describes, often in graphic detail, some of the harsh bullying and violence perpetrated by older boys against the younger, including homosexual assault. Adults were rarely present, and when they were around, they were often dispassionate or indifferent to the boys’ suffering. They were more interested in sucking the money out of parents than providing a decent education.
Some essays are strictly informative. “A Nice Cup of Tea” is simply Orwell’s eleven rules for preparing a cup of tea. If you ever thought the seriousness with which the English put into teatime was a stereotype or exaggerated in any way, this essay will clear up that misconception. The English do take their teatime seriously. Very.
Every essay in “Facing Unpleasant Facts” is immensely enjoyable and showcases the economy of language, the range in tone and topic, and the sheer brilliance of Orwell....more
“From the totalitarian point of view history is something to be created rather than learned...(p. 259)”
Let’s start with the basic definition of the wo“From the totalitarian point of view history is something to be created rather than learned...(p. 259)”
Let’s start with the basic definition of the word “totalitarian”: “adj.) of or relating to a centralized government that does not tolerate parties of differing opinion and that exercises dictatorial control over many aspects of life. (dictionary.com)”
Arguably, the country I live in and love---the United States of America---has never been a democracy. It is technically a republic. True democracies don’t exist because true democracies would inevitably crumble and destroy themselves. Such is the nature of the human condition: we all, secretly, hate those with which we don’t agree and, secretly, wish to see them proven wrong and/or permanently silenced. Anyone who claims otherwise---egalitarian do-gooders who believe that “everyone deserves to have an equal voice”---is lying to you and themselves.
George Orwell knew this. He spent his life writing about totalitarianism and its polar opposite philosophy, democratic socialism. He abhorred the former, but he knew the latter was a fairy tale. Socialism, as it was practiced by people claiming to be socialists, was fascism in disguise.
All the so-called Socialist regimes---Nazis, Soviets, Cuba, China---were perversions of true socialism. They paid lip service to socialist ideals while openly engaging in fascistic atrocities. They were wolves in sheep’s clothing.
But people who strived for true democracy weren’t much better. They were, according to Orwell, often people who felt themselves to be morally and intellectually superior. They were judgmental and self-righteous. They were, ironically, dismissive or indifferent to whole segments of the population that they felt were beneath them: “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others. (from “Animal Farm”)”
So it was for the nearly 70 years since Orwell’s death. Then, in November 2016, something strange happened. A man with absolutely no credible qualifications for any profession, let alone politics, was elected to the highest political office in the land.
Now, totalitarianism is the hot new buzz word, and Orwell is back on the bestseller lists.
****
“A totalitarian state is in effect a theocracy, and its ruling caste, in order to keep its position, has to be thought of as infallible. But since, in practice, no one is infallible, it is frequently necessary to rearrange past events in order to show that this or that mistake was not made, or that this or that imaginary triumph actually happened...(p. 259)”
Donald Trump probably likes to think of himself as infallible. He certainly ran his campaign like he was infallible, often claiming that he knew more than military leaders, opponents, and his own advisors. He has yet to utter the three most important little words---”I was wrong”---in regards to anything.
So far, Trump has been wrong numerous times, but the journalists who have the audacity to fact-check him and suggest that he is less than factual in his assertions are written off as “fake news” and misleading the public. His antagonism towards the press is unprecedented, even when compared to Richard Nixon.
Thankfully, the press is putting up a pretty good fight against Trump, but it’s perhaps only a matter of time before Trump sets up his own Ministry of Propaganda. I’m sure Steve Bannon and Kellyanne Conway are working on it right now.
The attack on journalism is only one small part of Trump’s totalitarian war against freedom and autonomous thought. Don’t forget that the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities are also being considered for federal de-funding. Granted, the NEA and the NEH have been under attack by Republicans for decades, so there’s nothing really new there.
Still, it’s important to remember how important Art is to a culture’s health and stability, because Art is perhaps the most democratic of all endeavors. Freedom of expression is the bedrock of the foundation of this country. All other freedoms---of religion, of the press, of bearing arms---stem from this freedom.
Expression---of one’s feelings, opinions, criticisms---is where all Art comes from, which is perhaps why Orwell liked to repeat the phrase, “All Art is Propaganda”. Even the most innocuous and bland work of art is, essentially, political in that it is an expression, and extension, of the artist’s worldview. We can choose to dislike it, disagree with it, loathe it, but we can’t suppress it. Attempts to do so are what is called censorship.
****
“Then, again, every major change in policy demands a corresponding change of doctrine and a revaluation of prominent historical figures. This kind of thing happens everywhere, but clearly it is likelier to lead to outright falsification in societies where only one opinion is permissible at any given moment. Totalitarianism demands, in fact, the continuous alteration of the past, and in the long run probably demands a disbelief in the very existence of objective truth. (p. 259)”
“All Art is Propaganda” is Orwell’s collected critical essays, and they are perhaps as important today as they were when he wrote them, nearly 80 years ago.
Even the dated ones---the “current” book reviews of bestselling authors such as Henry Miller and Graham Greene or the movie review of Charlie Chaplin’s “The Great Dictator” ---have a contemporary resonance, illustrating how history isn’t that distant and the past isn’t always the past. Everything may change, but nothing ever changes.
Orwell was that rarest of intellectual writers, the one who secretly loathed intellectualism, at least the blatantly pretentious kind of intellectualism that he couldn’t stand among many of his contemporaries. His loathing wasn’t really much of a secret.
He wrote in a very succinct, straightforward manner, a trait most likely owing to his stint as a journalist. He never wasted five words when one word would suffice. Yet every word he wrote packed a wallop. Because every word he wrote came from a place that valued social justice and freedom of thought.
This is why it’s heartening to see Orwell back on the bestseller lists and popular again....more
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