Month: September 2012

The unbearable stiffness of goodThe unbearable stiffness of good

“To promote virtue, of whatever kind, forces people to be more of a piece, to be more consistent, than they can bear to be.” — Adam Phillips, “Commanded to Mourn”

PeoplePeople

David & Diane, from The Compton-Kids, Series #1 (copyright by Tetman Callis)

So pay attentionSo pay attention

“One of the things our traditions are there to do is to remind us what the best things about us are.” — Adam Phillips, “Commanded to Mourn”

PeoplePeople

David #2, from The Compton-Kids, Series #1 (copyright by Tetman Callis)

Guidance is providedGuidance is provided

“The books tell you to open the books so that you can find out beforehand what will be the most significant events in your life.” — Adam Phillips, “Commanded to Mourn”

PeoplePeople

David #1, from The Compton-Kids, Series #1 (copyright by Tetman Callis)

The glorious nose of dogThe glorious nose of dog

“A good dog is a natural super-soldier: strong yet acrobatic, fierce yet obedient.  It can leap higher than most men, and run twice as fast.  Its eyes are equipped for night vision, its ears for supersonic hearing, its mouth for subduing the most fractious prey.  But its true glory is its nose.” – Burkhard Bilger, “Beware of the Dogs”

PeoplePeople

David, Janice & Jeff, from The Compton-Kids, Series #1 (copyright by Tetman Callis)

Here’s looking at youHere’s looking at you

“We have come to take for granted comprehensive lateral surveillance. We have grown used to regarding friends as also spies, whose allegiance is uncertain; they are agents who are liable to identify us in photographs, keep tabs on our whereabouts, spread misinformation or disinformation in permanent, public forums on our behalf — or to our detriment, who can be sure? Even intimates can become inadvertent double or triple agents in the infinite regress of strategies and counterstrategies in our intricate social-media self-presentations, which we can never really be sure aren’t false-flag operations. Why do people share what they share? And since they know I will be asking that question, how has that affected their choice to express that enthusiasm over that Stanley Cup playoff game, or Obama’s kill list, or the kale they had for dinner? How do I respond? Everything is a move in a complicated game that social-media surveillance makes sure we are always playing. Control over even our own identity slips away from us, as we lose sense of what is spontaneous and what is mere tactical performance in the midst of such recursive reflexivity. We sense our own fragile fakeness, which can only confirm our suspicions of others.” – Rob Horning, “Agents Without Agency”

PeoplePeople

David, Diane & Jeff, from The Compton-Kids, Series #1 (copyright by Tetman Callis)

If you still have oneIf you still have one

“One of the greatest gifts you can give anybody is the gift of your honest self.” — Fred “Mister” Rogers (quoted by Rob Owen in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

PeoplePeople

David, Dan & Jeff, from The Compton-Kids, Series #1 (copyright by Tetman Callis)

Damning the torpedoesDamning the torpedoes

“When you do not take fortune at her offer you must take her as you can find her.” — Admiral David Farragut, 1864 (quoted in The Civil War: A Narrative, by Shelby Foote)

To get there from hereTo get there from here

“Oh, for more faith and clearer sight!  How stable is the City of God!  How disordered the City of Man!” — Salmon P. Chase, 1864 (quoted in The Civil War: A Narrative, by Shelby Foote)

A usual cruel punishmentA usual cruel punishment

“Every day, at least fifty thousand men—a full house at Yankee Stadium—wake in solitary confinement, often in ‘supermax’ prisons or prison wings, in which men are locked in small cells, where they see no one, cannot freely read and write, and are allowed out just once a day for an hour’s solo ‘exercise.’  (Lock yourself in your bathroom and then imagine you have to stay there for the next ten years, and you will have some sense of the experience.)” – Adam Gopnik, “The Caging of America”

Welcome to LockuptownWelcome to Lockuptown

“For most privileged, professional people, the experience of confinement is a mere brush, encountered after a kid’s arrest, say.  For a great many poor people in America, particularly poor black men, prison is a destination that braids through an ordinary life, much as high school and college do for rich white ones.  More than half of all black men without a high-school diploma go to prison at some time in their lives.  Mass incarceration on a scale almost unexampled in human history is a fundamental fact of our country today—perhaps the fundamental fact, as slavery was the fundamental fact of 1850.  In truth, there are more black men in the grip of the criminal-justice system—in prison, on probation, or on parole—than were in slavery then.  Over all, there are now more people under ‘correctional supervision’ in America—more than six million—than were in the Gulag Archipelago under Stalin at its height.  That city of the confined and the controlled, Lockuptown, is now the second largest in the United States.” – Adam Gopnik, “The Caging of America” (emphasis in original)

And a dismal placeAnd a dismal place

“A prison is a trap for catching time.” – Adam Gopnik, “The Caging of America”

Suck on it, prosersSuck on it, prosers

“If you look at the history of literature, poetry is the one enduring genre from Homer to Ashbery—no other literary form has lasted as long. The novel is only two or three hundred years old…” – Jonathan Galassi (from Nathalie Handal interview in Guernica)

First, last, and alwaysFirst, last, and always

“Not every writer is going to be immortal, even writers who are very popular in their lifetime often sink out of relevance later on. You have to write for yourself finally.” – Jonathan Galassi (from Nathalie Handal interview in Guernica)

If you’re ever wondering what it takesIf you’re ever wondering what it takes

“Really being a writer is being at home and writing your book and reading.” – Jonathan Galassi (from Nathalie Handal interview in Guernica)

There it isThere it is

“My day is not yet done: the finest hour is over the low wall.” – Eugenio Montale, “Glory of Expanded Noon” (trans. Galassi)

“Road Rave” published by Fox Chase Review“Road Rave” published by Fox Chase Review

Fox Chase Review has published my story, “Road Rave,” as part of their Autumn/Winter 2012 issue.  I could post a link here that would take you straight to the story, but instead I’ll post the link that takes you to the front page.  It’s a nice-looking page.  From there you can find your way to my story if you like.

http://www.foxchasereview.org/

In about three months, if I remember, and I probably will, and if I’m still alive and healthy, as I hope to be, I’ll add the story to my “Previously Published Stories” widget hereabouts.

Rising and fallingRising and falling

“We sometimes think that the historical imagination is the gift of seeing past — seeing past the surface squalors of an era to the larger truths.  Really, history is all about seeing in, looking hard at things to bring them back to life as they were, while still making them part of life as it is.” — Adam Gopnik, “Inquiring Minds”