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Monthly Archives: July 2023
‘Shouldn’t Be Hard’ But IS
It shouldn’t be hard to agree that the highest purpose of the First Amendment is to protect speech we like the least — speech we are sure is pernicious, bigoted, obscene or potentially harmful to health. Thus spaketh Bret Stephens, … Continue reading
A Drumbeat
I can’t remember the journalist’s name (Jon Pareles?), but several years ago I read an article about James Brown’s “Funky Drummer.” In the recording, Brown puts the spotlight on his drummer Clyde Stubblefield, who plays a brief but memorable drum … Continue reading
Accent and Affect
I heard a Nebraska state legislator say, “I’m extremely from Nebraska.” The adverb was novel. I’m from Texas, but not “extremely.” If I’d been raised in Terre Haute I’d be a Hoosier (but not extremely). What arrests me more than … Continue reading
Etel Adnan: ‘Words Are Social’
Lebanese-American painter-poet-novelist Etel Adnan (1925-2021) was interviewed by Gabriel Coxhead for the June 2018 issue of Apollo. In the 1970s, having returned to Beirut to work as a journalist, she was forced to flee to Paris when the civil war … Continue reading
A Crestomathy of Crescendos
From prose pieces published in Poetry, July/August 2023: Douglas Kearney, “On Spite: Folly Comes Daily” … Kit, who pokes at poetry with a long sharp stick to make certain it’s dead before skulking past it… *** Elisa Gabbert, “On Self-Pity: … Continue reading
Notes on Poetry (Feelings)
“Whatever happened to Gary Cooper? The strong silent type. That was an American. He wasn’t in touch with his feelin’s. He just did what he hadda do. So what they didn’t know is once they got Gary Cooper in touch … Continue reading
Basically It’s Sort of Like About Two Tech Dudes Grokking AI
… It’s about a woman named Joan who’s sort oflikea mid-level manager at what appears to bea big Silicon valley tech company,and she discovers one day thatunbeknowst to herthere is a TV show being made about her lifestarring Salma Hayek … Continue reading
Kevin Young: ‘Usher’
…The dead wake for nothing.Or wake & nothingis still there. The wide meadow. Deep grass.Distant ships.The far fires Only glimpsedfrom a distance.Nothing looks back, blinks twice.…(Kevin Young, from “Usher”) That “blinks twice” produced a red-letter reading moment for me, a … Continue reading
The ‘Weird Causality’ of Passive Voice
“Mistakes were made.” (Politicians from Nixon forward) Jamelle Bouie cites a passage from Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in America by the historians Karen and Barbara Fields: Consider the statement “black Southerners were segregated because of their skin color”— a … Continue reading
The Pollution of Advertising
There will always be too much to do, no matter what you do. But the ironic upside of this seemingly dispiriting fact is that you needn’t beat yourself up for failing to do it all… Instead, you can pour your … Continue reading →