Writings, Reviews, Cultural Criticism
Where The Light Fell is a “Covid-aware” memoir, which is to say that even though the book narrates and reflects upon earlier times, it keeps one of its bookish eyes on the present moment and, while barely saying so, draws a line of continuity from past events to the present lunacy that grips America today….
Spiotta has created not a novel so much as a record of the American zeitgeist with its strange mix of idyllic New England towns and protofascist MAGA mobs, its glorious universities and rampant anti-intellectualism, its shining democratic institutions and its racist trigger-happy police.
It was odd to travel through a red state at that particular moment in history. In fact, the western shore of Florida was experiencing a red tide and people with respiratory issues complained that it was difficult to breathe. No kidding.
There is a temptation to treat Arendt like the American Psychiatric Association’s DSMV: if an authoritarian leader meets enough of the documented criteria, then we can diagnose him with the political disease called totalitarianism.
This is a curated collection of letters both from Martha Gellhorn and addressed to her from a variety of correspondents, most notably H. G. Wells and Eleanor Roosevelt, interpolated with Janet Somerville’s contextual notes. The overall effect is much like a tragic epistolary novel of grand dimensions.
My understanding is that Karens throughout the American South still assert the right to go maskless. Presumably street photography in places like Houston and Tallahassee has not yet assumed an after-time look. That might change once all the Karens have died…
Every year, personal autonomy in the arts suffocates a little more as corporate interests suck more oxygen out of the creative atmosphere.
Canada may end up adopting the province of Québec’s motto: je me souviens. In years to come, we will say to ourselves: I remember the day America betrayed us.
When power seeks to exploit disaster, we look to the arts for our prophetic voices, those who will ground authority by exposing folly and drawing us back to the centre. In White Noise, DeLillo does this through satire.
Near the end of Homage to Catalonia, George Orwell’s memoir of his service in the Spanish Civil War, Orwell confesses that he was not above resorting to graffiti.
Every now and then, Kylo Ren made an appearance accompanied by two stormtroopers. Notwithstanding the park’s ban on guns—even toy guns—the stormtroopers carried blasters and swaggered, stiff-torsoed, like they were US Marines.
The System woke the Agent twenty-four hours before it woke the President. That was the protocol. Twenty-four hours would give the Agent time to secure the bunker and to become clear-headed enough to serve the President’s needs.
I spent last week on a photo workshop with Richard Choe at the Ghost Ranch near Abiquiu, NM, a 75 minute drive northwest of Santa Fe.
Last Friday, I found myself in the town of Taos in New Mexico which was setting up for a weekend fiesta. According to Wikipedia, Taos is one of the oldest continuously inhabited communities in North America (more than a thousand years).
This morning, while staring at myself in the bathroom mirror, I had a thought about narcissism. I wanted to take a selfie to capture the moment but was concerned about what people (in this instance, my wife) would think of me. The last thing I want is for people to think I’m narcissistic.