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MATTHEW ROTHSCHILD WRITES at The Progressive magazine’s site:
“How many innocent people will die in this act of vengeance against thekilling of innocent people? And how many seeds of terror will the U.S. retaliation sow?”
And Howard Zinn writes on the same site:
“We are at war, they said. And I thought: They have learned nothing, absolutely nothing, from the history of the twentieth century, from a hundred years of retaliation, vengeance, war, a hundred years of terrorism and counter-terrorism, of violence met with violence in an unending cycle of stupidity.â€
To Those Who Say I’m Not a Patriot
by guest columnist Eve Appleton
There was a famous Spanish animal expert who was quoted to say, “Man is the only animal to stumble over the same stone twice.”
Advocates of peace are patriots. Advocates of war are patriots. The argument is not one of patriotism. It’s of options.
Options, which in times of shock, pain and confusion are difficult to come by. During these times people are most vulnerable and most susceptible to propaganda. Most out of their reasoning minds.
In my day, now substantial years ago, I was a media queen. My voice could sell anything–product or concept. I engineered, wrote, produced, directed. News, entertainment, educational and commercial programming. I did whatever it took. And I could pump out the propaganda with a speed of force that left my bosses’ mouths agape. Straight to the heart and soul of the listening audience. I was a behavioral scientist in a field day of resources and a world of open receptive minds to play with.
Which is why I quit. I woke up one day to the realization I was feeding the people lies. Worse, they believed me. Even worse yet, they trusted me, acting on my words. Words, images and sounds meshed together with intent to manipulate behavioral response. To my benefit. The pay was handsome. The recognition thrilling. The demand growing.
I was dangerous. I was a hypocrite. And it suddenly became very difficult to look my children in the eye. So I quit. A decision I’ve not yet regretted. Doubt I ever will.
Film (including media broadcast formats) is considered the most prolific medium of manipulation. Its mastery is catagorized as an art. At it most basic function/application, it uses light–a very powerful and actually organic technology–to condition (or communicates with) the central nervous system through the optic nerves in our eyes. Its whole purpose is to manipulate sensory systems through varying patterns of light fluctuation which influence all sensory bodies to a programmed response. Like the sparkle of fire, which mesmerizes.
The difference is intent. Fire does not intend to mesmerize. It just does. Film intends to mesmerize. Media intends to mesmerize. When you get your target audience to respond as anticipated are you considered successful in the “Art.” Open any media text. This is what it will teach. You promptly learn there is no such thing as objective journalism.
I’m writing to you right now with intent to manipulate you. I openly admit it.
I’m trying to get people to think. Which is damn near impossible when they’re in a state of shock, pain and confusion. But, those of us who can. Who are more removed from the direct link to our most recent loss. We need to move out of our pain. Quickly. Because major decisions are being made in these days of confusion, which will affect all our lives for years to come. Decisions which are being made without the attention of the American people. Without giving measure of options. And while we find ourselves in a most vulnerable state.
No matter our pain, no matter our confusion, we need to stay alert. There’s something bigger then us at risk. There is an entire world’s future. And we are all responsible. This is very serious.
Every time I hear the word “war” I remember the Vietnam era. I feel caught in a past era’s nightmare. But this time, I have young adult children, male and female, who, based on my actions and the actions of my fellow Americans, could soon die.
And for what? A decision made in haste during a moment of shock and confusion? A decision made while we are out of our reasoning minds?
I don’t want my children to die. And I don’t want them to have to kill just to live. It’s not my right to ask this of them. Only they can make that decision. Let the people who are willing to die and kill go forward if they must; void of age discrimination, race discrimination, sex discrimination… That’s their right.
Let them go to the front lines. And, with them, the generals and politicians. Let them do the boot camp, carry the guns, shoot to kill. Something tells me the politicians just might protest.
My father was a career military man in the Strategic Air Command, the bulk of his career involving diplomatic and international services. Much of his work was classified. But the things he experienced we lived first hand, up close and personal, in our home. He was an officer, a colonel. It was said his career didn’t go further because he had a way of pissing off the generals. But they liked him by their side because they knew he was honest. Rare in the military.
He went to Vietnam as a volunteer. He reasoned it was his ability to afford one young person over there a return home chance at life. He felt it was the least he could do. He would grumble under his breath of the travesty of how the war was being run. Said at this rate the end of the war was nowhere in sight. The two biggest problems: Children being sent to do men’s jobs, and politicians running the war.
While he was there, he sent audio tapes from the front for our seventh-grade social studies class. He was very diplomatic. Careful not to say the wrong things. But we all felt it–a sober fear.
He also sent my mom audio tapes. Sometimes we could hear explosions and sirens and screams in the background. He assured us he was nowhere dangerous, far from the enemy front. Then he would chuckle and say he was too mean to die.
He was the one who told me the generals and politicians were never present at the front line. They hid behind the shield of their ranks, claiming themselves too important to be risked. He also said the news reporters never went to the front line, but instead sat at the bars and got drunk, taking their news feeds from the military propagandists. He said they had no idea what was really happening. We were being crucified. He was a career man who believed in his country. He was a devout patriot. He also knew from an eye witness point of view, truth from lie.
My father went to the front line. In fact he crossed the front line on many a mission which required, in his words, “the experience of an officer.” And in doing so, he was exposed to Agent Orange. We didn’t find out till his death. His files conveniently came up missing shortly thereafter. Files I’d read personally because I’d been named executrix of his health and estate. The government was afraid I’d sue and knew I had an ironclad case. It was laid out pretty clearly in those files. But I didn’t want to sue. I just wanted to know why they didn’t let us know sooner, so we could have helped him in his life. There’s nothing to be done after death.
What kind of parents are we if we ask our children to go to war, if not the worst kind? And please, don’t ask me to bless a war sanction and my children’s death for a boost to our economy. There are other ways to do that. And in fact, war doesn’t boost our economy. It leaves generations to come in dysfunction–even with all their body parts attached.
Call me selfish if you must, but I’m fighting for my children’s lives. I would consider myself a horrible mother if I did anything less. And I clearly understand the responsibility before me. I won’t ask my children to kill. I certainly won’t ask them to die. I have no more right to do this then ask children I don’t even know, to kill and die.
But I will ask them to help find and support clear reasoning, educated decisions, and alternative solutions. To start thinking. Justice for those we have lost does not have to be accompanied by more innocent bloodshed. Our children are innocent. If we can’t see this, we are obviously not in our reasoning minds.
What our current administration is asking us to do is not a TV show. It’s very real. The Vietnam War lasted what, ten years? More? If you have a child who is thirteen right now, in five years this child will be eligible for War. (Oh whoopie! He–or she–can die looking for some slimey crazed mad man. Oh goodie!)
And if we are successful in keeping the war off our home land, we can say bye bye to any current luxuries. Probably even our houses. We’ll be holding the jobs our children held while here. We’ll be living on poor wages–those of us lucky enough to hold jobs. Our savings will be depleted, as our industries shut down in the name of wartime crisis. As will our hearts, as our children are shipped home in body bags–or worse, as shellshocked, limbless vegetables.
Unless, of course, the nuclear bombs are deployed. In which case, there’ll be nothing for any of us because we’ll all be maimed, suffering slow death, or just plain dead.
So what do we do?
Options! Start thinking of options.
Our current option is unacceptable. We are intelligent, sophisticated, capable people who represent fairness, justice, liberty, freedom and equal rights. It’s an ideal which only we can make into a reality.
And no one ever said it would be easy. Retaliation is easy. Getting to the truth is more difficult. We need time to discern the information before we run off and start lynching. Lynching is our past. It doesn’t have to be our future. We don’t need to stumble again over this stone. It’s time we learn by doing something new. Something smart, conscious and yes, futuristic. If we don’t, we’ll only ever know war.
Justice doesn’t have to be accompanied by bloodshed. Nor will it be justice if we get only some, or possibly the wrong offenders.
And while we may have a damn good idea of one or some responsible, please don’t think I’m buying this was the act of a lone madman and a posse crew. That’s just ridiculous. Even Kissinger said that pulling off an attack of this sort required extensive resources. This guy may be rich, but clearances alone for what just happened suggest far more complicity. We need to get to the bottom of this.
It’s important to our future to know the truth. We need to account for all responsibility. We’re not going to be any more safe with a quick fix-it mobbing and a bunch of young dead lives. We’re just going to be more pathetic; or we’ll be nuclear waste.
In my in-box right now are several emails–hate mails–that, when compared to the 34 “non-hate” mails, don’t give a frame of reference to 85 percent of the American people wanting war. But our TVs keep telling us we want war. Our leaders urge us to raise flags. To wear them on our heads. Put them on our cars. We assume it to mean we support America. Our leaders are interpreting it as a vote for war. Where is the voice of the 34-vs.-2 emails?
Also, why is there an assumption that because I advocate peace, clarity and conscious action, I’m not a patriot? Peace is not a statement of anti-patriotism. It is a plea of intelligence. My resistance to flag waving right now, is not a negative statement toward my country, but toward the media blitz which seeks ratings and recognition and deep pockets without an ethical consciousness.
People are more divided right now then I’ve seen them in a long time. They are only under a symbolic media illusion of being united. But if you get into the streets, or listen for a moment to the ones who’ve been seeking peaceful solution; if you were to experience the hate mail and threats and name calling they have had to endure; you’d know there is an anger raging through the streets of America, dividing neighbor against neighbor, which is far more terrifying then any new advent of airplane bomb.
Our world has been glued to its TV sets, programmed by people they don’t even know. Unknown people they are empowering with their trust. Some of us have spent our time away from the TV sets–reaching out to sources of all kinds and status, looking for answers which may provide alternative solutions.
We have been thinking. Mostly because we are so very aware of how much there is to lose. And how precious this life really is. This does not sound anti-patriotic to me. It sounds smart. And caring. And compassionate. And concerned. And serious.
As you pray to your god tonight, or meditate in compassion, ask your god or your self to help us all start thinking. Of options; of solutions geared toward truth. Solutions which will show the world we are not barbarians like those who have terrorized us, but rather, intelligent, conscious, well reasoned and greatly empowered with the strength of clarity.
We are a great nation. And yes we are young. Maybe. And I do believe it possible. We the young can show this old world, old dogs aside, we know how to learn new tricks. We can reverse the sins of our fathers. We can successfully not trip over the same stone twice.
Please do not send children to war; world into hardship; hatred toward neighbor. Start thinking. Start writing. Start talking and advocating other ways. We can all do this together. Probably better then we can do any war. Peace for one and all.
Love
Eve
—
Eve’s Apple Laboratories
Herbal Aphrodisiacs
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Seattle, WA
http://evesappleinc.com
email: evzapple@zipcon.com
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RICHARD DAWKINS WRITES:
“Those people were not mindless and they were certainly not cowards. On the contrary, they had sufficiently effective minds braced with an insane courage, and it would pay us mightily to understand where that courage came from.”
ERIC S. NYGREN WRITES:
“One of the best ways Americans could express atriotism right now would be to trade in their SUVs for high-mileage hybrid cars. (Or get trade in cars
for bikes, buy a buss pass, etc.)
“There is an almost direct line of causality between America’s gluttonous reliance on foreign oil and our current woes. It’s been noted that the catalyst that started Osama bin Laden on his current path was coming home to Saudi Arabia to find a huge contingent of U.S. troops, who were there in preparation for the invasion of Iraq, which Bush pere felt we needed to invade because of… well, you get the idea. It doesn’t take much intellectual candlepower to connect the dots, but that’s apparently more than our current political leadership seems to have.
“America has been on notice since the 1973 oil crisis that we need more prudent policies to foster energy conservation, alternatives and independence. Discussion of such policies has been precisely nowhere in evidence amongst the current din and clamor, which shows just how little we’ve learned over the last 30 years.”
AN EMAIL CORRESPONDENT suggested I look up September 1, 1939, a poem by W.H. Auden about the reactions he witnessed in NYC to the outbreak of WWII in Europe:
“All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky:
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.”
EDWARD SAID WRITES:
“Rational understanding of the situation is what is needed now, not more drum-beating. George Bush and his team clearly want the latter, not the former. Yet to most people in the Islamic and Arab worlds the official US is synonymous with arrogant power, known for its sanctimoniously munificent support not only of Israel but of numerous repressive Arab regimes, and its inattentiveness even to the possibility of dialogue with secular movements and people who have real grievances. Anti-Americanism in this context is not based on a hatred of modernity or technology-envy: it is based on a narrative of concrete interventions…
“…Demonisation of the Other is not a sufficient basis for any kind of decent politics, certainly not now when the roots of terror in injustice can be addressed, and the terrorists isolated, deterred or put out of business. It takes patience and education, but is more worth the investment than still greater levels of large-scale violence and suffering.”
PHIL AGRE WRITES:
“In an infrastructural world, security cannot be a force, something exerted from the outside, a lid kept down or a shield put up.
“…The important thing is to draw a distinction between military action, as the exercise within a framework of international law of the power of a legitimate democratic state, and war, as the imposition of a total social order that is the antithesis of democracy, and that, in the current technological conditions of war, has no end in sight.”
IRA CHERNUS WRITES:
“To ask about our share of responsibility does not in any way condone the evil. It does not lessen by one whit the responsibility of those who actually did the deed. In death as in life, they remain fully responsible for their own heinous choices.
“But pacifists cast the net of responsibility more widely because that is the only way to end the cycle of violence. If we go on putting all the blame on others, and thereby justifying vengeance, we simply perpetuate the suffering and anger that led to the violence.”
NAOMI KLEIN WRITES:
“The era of the video game war in which the U.S. is always at the controls has produced a blinding rage in many parts of the world, a rage at the persistent asymmetry of suffering. This is the context in which twisted revenge seekers make no other demand than that American citizens share their pain.
“…The illusion of war without casualties has been forever shattered. A blinking message is up on our collective video game console: Game Over.”
ROBERT FISK WRITES:
“Retaliation is a trap. In a world that was supposed to have learnt that the rule of law comes above revenge, President Bush appears to be heading for the very disaster that Osama bin Laden has laid down for him.”
AND LAWRENCE FREEDMAN WRITES:
“The first step is to agree a realistic description of the objective. The eradication of terrorism as a global phenomenon does not meet this test, because not only is the definition contested in many instances but also the phenomenon’s existence is bound up with numerous conflicts, many beyond immediate resolution.”
NOAM CHOMSKY WRITES:
“…The crime is a gift to the hard jingoist right, those who hope to use force to control their domains.”
NY TIMES: “Web Offers Both News and Comfort.”
PONDER-AGE #1: I believe there likely won’t be another big terror attack of this sort within the next weeks or months. The state-of-seige measures now in place or considered are a matter of locking the barn door after the horse has gotten out, a universal human reaction but one which, in this case, should be guarded against. We don’t want the defense of American property to become an excuse for the destruction of American freedoms.
PONDER-AGE #2: Besides the immediate destruction and mass murder, the attack (and the reactions to it) could very well destablize an already teetering economy.
At least one airline, Midway, has said it won’t resume business; this week’s suspensions had been the last of its many fiscal woes.
Also, “just-in-time” manufacturing and distribution systems (not to mention catalog and e-commerce retailers) have made American business even more dependent on its air freight system; even as budget-cutting companies have reduced their use of passenger business flying. The lack of air-transport options means truck and van delivery systems are glutted and sluggish.
Not only have movie theaters and other entertainment attractions been closed one to three days, but the lack of TV commercials means movie openings this and near-future weekends will face diminished attendance.
On the almost-positive side, four days without the NYSE and NASDAQ might provide an overdue breather from the past year and a half of irrational selling that had followed four years of irrational buying.
PONDER-AGE #3: I really wish Harper’s Magazine had an adequate website, because I’d love to link to editor Lewis Lepham’s big essay a month or two back on America’s contradictory image of itself as all-powerful AND all-innocent. It’s precisely this national self-image might’ve helped lead to the bombings.
In Lapham’s argument, the U.S. (or at least its top management and the punditocracy) likes to think of itself as both The Only Superpower and The World’s Peacemaker. Thus, everything done in the country’s name is unquestionably Good, from backing the Contras and Pinochet to bombing Belgrade.
This is not to justify the terrorists but to understand the feelings they successfully exploited among their suicidal foot soldiers. From at least the Spanish-American War on to the present day, the U.S. has instigated, supported, and/or sponsored all manner of terror attacks, coups, counterrevolutions, proxy armies, covert actions, etc. etc.
Yes, superpowers (Rome, Japan, Spain, England, Russia, the Ottomans) have historically and regulalry abused their power as means of maintaining it. But if that’s what it takes to be the world’s single most powerful entity, we should ask if we really want to keep being it.
CORWIN HAECK WRITES:
“Not quite a morbid aside, but this occurred to me early in the unfolding of the story: Some buildings are just too damn tall.
“I always felt that way about the World Trade Center. Not only were they too tall, but they visually unbalanced the entire island of Manhattan. The towers, by virtue of being featureless, untapered rectangles, looked top-heavy and ungainly.
I admire some tall buildings. The Empire State Bldg. is a brilliant classic. The Patronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur are too tall but at least look cool. Overall, though, most really tall buildings are excessive and ugly.
“Now we see again that they can be targets, too.
“The loss of life in this attack is terrible. The loss of the buildings is no tragedy.”
SCRIPTING NEWS quotes an email posted from a Seattle hotel room by John Perry Barlow, a pro-corporate Libertarian with whom I often disagree, but who here has a salient warning:
“…Nothing could serve those who believe that American “safety” is more important than American liberty better than something like this. Control freaks will dine on this day for the rest of our lives.
“Within a few hours, we will see beginning the most vigorous efforts to end what remains of freedom in America. Those of who are willing to sacrifice a little – largely illusory – safety in order to maintain our faith in the original ideals of America will have to fight for those ideals just as vigorously.
“I beg you to begin NOW to do whatever you can – whether writing your public officials, joining the ACLU or EFF [note: Electronic Frontiers Foundation, a group opposing Net censorship], taking to the streets, or living visibly free and fearless lives – to prevent the spasm of control mania from destroying the dreams that far more have died for over the last two hundred twenty five years than died this morning.
“Don’t let the terrorists or (their natural allies) the fascists win. Remember that the goal of terrorism is to create increasingly paralytic totalitarianism in the government it attacks. Don’t give them the satisfaction.
“Fear nothing. Live free.”
For 31 of Seattle Center’s 39 years of existence, Bumbershoot: The Seattle Arts Festival has been its biggest annual event.
Devised from the start to encompass the entire former World’s Fair grounds (except the now separately-run Space Needle and Pacific Science Center), it’s also the last of Seattle’s annual lineup of big populist summer gatherings (starting in May with Opening Day of Boating Season and the Film Festival, then continuing with Folklife, the Bite of Seattle, and Seafair).
Bumbershoot’s premise: An all-you-can-eat Vegas buffet of culture. A book fair in one corner, short plays in another, contemporary art installations in another. At the big stages, bigname music celebs. At smaller stages scattered about, secondary performers of all types.
And between everything, the familiar sideshow attractions of Thai-food booths, street jugglers, balloon sellers, and fenced-off beer gardens.
In its early years, Bumbershoot was strictly aimed at a specific socioethnic caste then taking control of the city’s cultural identity–aging, increasingly square baby-boomers. Nonwhite performers were largely limited to boomer-friendly blues bands; mainstage shows were heavy on the likes of Bonnie Raitt and James Taylor.
In the late ’80s, that started to change slightly. Younger, hipper, and more diverse acts have steadily gained their way into the mix.
A bizarre P-I preview story called this year’s lineup “Bumberpalooza,” comparing it to the ’90s Lollapalooza rock package tours. I initially thought the article’s writer used the analogy to claim the festival was becoming more corporate-mainstream.
But the writer, still believing Lollapalooza’s original “alternative” hype, really wanted to say B’shoot had become edgier and more experimental. Fortunately, she was right.
With more hip-hop acts, a whole electronica stage, and a mainstage lineup ranging from Loretta Lynn to G. Love and Special Sauce, Bumbershoot 2001’s fulfilling its name’s promise of an all-covering umbrella of expression.
In these images: Happy crowds; the Book Fair (including, this year, only one small press with the word “heron” in its name!); local collectors’ caches of electric mixers and Harlequin Romance cover paintings; an information booth at the start of the slinking line into KeyArena; Posies legend Ken Stringfellow; a hula-hoop demonstration on the main lawn; and, below, our ex-Stranger colleague Inga Muscio.
Muscio, scheduled to perform on the Starbucks-sponsored literary stage, peppered her half-hour slot with plugs for smaller coffee brands. She ended it with a story about dreaming Starbucks boss Howard Schultz was her S&M slave.
Which Loss Is Worse?
by guest columnist Jenniffer Velasco
Everyone has losses, each one unique. It can make one stronger, or it can make one a victim.
For me, it’s the feeling that something is missing permanently.
It’s too difficult to re-examine the overwhelming losses in my life. I’m too busy right now, creating a life from pure dreams and fantasy.
So I leave journal-like writings that ache and bleed… still.
I tried to write in the Arboretum’s Japanese garden, but it was so zen; too peaceful, too calm. I ended up forgetting about loss; pretending I was a coy fish.
I attempted to write about loss in a coffee shop, but it would be too intense to cry in public. I’m so focused on plans, schemes, schmooze, booze, friends, art, and, oh yeah, life.
My apartment is open and friendly; yet the space where I sleep celebrates my sacred losses. One is of my failure to see my grandma, who raised me and protected me from the bad men. The other is the loss of being a mother.
In my bedroom, I’ve placed a painting of my grandmother Lola, half-young and half-old, and a painting of myself holding a child in my arms before giving him up for adoption at age 17.
EXCERPTS FROM OLD JOURNALS:
Aug. 28, 1993
Brandyn:
It’s been a month since I last held you. It had been so difficult that day. You looked so beautiful. How could anyone with a heart give you up without feeling?
But in my tears and heartbreak, I still put your well-being first. This is what matters to me: That I’ll know for sure you’ll be OK and well taken care of. In my ease of giving you up, I am giving up the chance to know or feel love for you. Your love will be for other parents.
I’ve been through a lot with you. You were born three and a half months before your time. I wanted to keep you. I fell in love and saw you in the prenatal hospital often, holding you for hours at a time, just enjoying my few moments.
It hurts so much to love you, knowing I’m going to lose you in a matter of time.
But I’ll tell you this: I was never afraid to love.
Sept. 7, 1998
This month has been testing.
I’ve been working hard, trying to save money for a ticket to the Phillipines. My mission was to see Lola (a Filipino word for “Grandma”). She is my mom’s mom.
I’ve been through an attempted muging for $400, the only way to buy a plane ticket. My Washington ID has been lost.
I waited for six hours with my dad, racing against time. The clock ticked away. I fought the passport agency–crying, yelling, hating everyone. I ended up having to drive to my old high school to get my freshman records, just to verify that I’m an American, I’ve lived here all my life.
In all this, I was thinking only of Lola. I needed to see those kind eyes of hers just one more time. I felt sick inside with fire and anxiety; trying to cut the red tape.
I finally relaxed, thinking all the proper papers are in order. I was finally going to see Lola.
As I was cleaning my closet, my mother called from New York, telling me Lola was dead.
I HAD KNOWN the love of my Lola. The fried rice with eggs in the morning, Sleeping next to her at night, arguing–me in broken Tagalog, her in her brittle English. She died thinking of me.
But with my child, I felt a slower grieving. I was too young and naive about my love for him; waiting for the hope the he’d look for me to explain how much I’ve wept for him. Every Christmas, every birthday, every Mother’s Day, every baby I see reminds me of my life without him.
The sun is coming up. It’s Thursday, I think. Many pains have carved my existence; yet I don’t identify with them.
I am at this moment, not by what I’ve lost but by what I’ve gained.
Teenage girls across North America are snapping up T-shirts with risque slogans on them, including assorted variations on the number 69, Playboy, and declarations of general naughtiness.
Parents, journalists, and even a few politicians are getting predictably perturbed. (My, aren’t these grownups just so immature?)
News flash: Adolescents have hormones, and love to make a big tease among their peers. Adolescents also love to proclaim their independence and impending grownuphood, and there are few better ways to do that than by publicly announcing one’s sexual arrival.
What’s new? Just the particular pride and explicitness in these T-shirt statements.
Three years ago, one of my ex-Stranger colleagues tried to get a deal to write a book about high school girls who were really virgins but were branded as sluts by other girls, merely for looking or acting insufficiently ladylike. Three years, of course, is the standard turnover rate for teen trends; so the younger sisters of those ‘90s shunned girls are now proudly proclaiming slutdom as a status symbol.
(Of course, today’s assertions of slutdom probably have as little to do with reality as yesterday’s accusations of slutdom.)
In keeping with a more-or-less annual tradition around these cyber-parts, here comes another fantabulous MISC Late-Summer Reading List. Its purpose: To let you know what you should’ve been investing your time with this warm-weather season, instead of frittering it away on needless time-wasters such as jobs and sex.
High Drama in Fabulous Toledo by Lily James: A raucous, giddy little novel that lives up to its title with nary a tinge of irony. Our heroine is the bored, easily distracted fiancee of a borderline-suicidal bar owner. She gets kidnapped from a 7-Eleven parking lot one night, and turned over to become the captive bride of a rich computer genius completely lacking in social skills.
After the initial shock she comes to like the adventure of her predicament; but soon becomes bored again as she realizes her captor’s domestic-suburban plans for her life. Meanwhile, her distraught boyfriend is consoled by a mysterious policewoman with, shall we say, personal issues of her own. To tell any more would spoil the ride.
High Drama is a great light-comic caper story that also happens to be classifiable as “post-feminist” or “genre-deconstucting” (the genre here being romance-novel ravishment). It’s also a highly accessible, engaging read that, in a better world, would bring wealth and renown to James and to the literary-press publisher FC2, which put it out.
The Knife Thrower and Other Stories by Steven Millhauser: One of the dozen or more tomes I’d left stacked at home from the Tower Books closing sale back in February. Shouldn’t have waited this long to read it.
This guy’s one helluva prose stylist, and he spins great yarns too. His sentences and paragraphs, lovely as they are, are always held subordinate to his fantastical plots–which, clever as they are, are always held subordinate to the heart and dignity with which he endows his characters.
Many of these tales have to do with the dark side of small-town existence, and the light hidden behind such shadows. The finest example of this is “The Sisterhood of Night,” in which a gentleman relates his town’s newest teenage fad: Girls who sneak out of their homes in the middle of the night to gather in the woods and, apparently, do nothing. No drugs, no sex, no Satanic rites; but also no peer pressure, no parental shrieks, no requirements to do or say anything. The narrator ends by wondering whether this could be more potentially subversive than any cult or gang; Millhauser leaves you feeling like it just might.
The Bellero Shie by Jay Davis: A gem of a tiny paperback. When the author was here on a reading tour in June, he left some promo copies at Confounded Books (now at 2nd & Bell in Belltown). Behind the circa-1961 corporate-manual cover are eight stories which amaze and confound in their finely-tuned haunting alienation.
In “Family Food and Drug,” an unwitting supermarket customer is put through militaristic interrogation, for the “crime” of refusing to provide personal demographic-marketing information. In “Sparky,” a man retreats from his wife and family to his only consolation, the family dog, which happens to be dead and stuffed. Yeah, it’s PoMo, but it’s PoMo with a soul–and a quietly aching one at that.
(The apparently closest thing the publisher has to an online presence is this review, which lists a California address for the outfit even though the inside cover says it’s from Illinois.)
Erogenous Zones: An Anthology of Sex Abroad, edited by Lucretia Stewart: Great premise: Literary nonfiction passages from many times and places, all about having sex far from one’s home, with someone the author didn’t set out from home with. But the adventures become repetitious after a while; particularly the ones involving hookers with the invariable hearts-O-gold and the ones involving anonymous gay-pickup sex. But it is a very handsomely-manufactured volume; and it’s fun to read some of the troubadoric descriptions from male diarists, languishing wistfully over the bodily and other charms of their long-separated meaningless-encounter partners.
Mike Daisey, the comic actor and monologuist who became the conscience of Seattle E-business with his show 21 Dog Years: Doing Time @ Amazon.com, has signed a (reputed six-figure) deal to turn it into a book.
The bad news: Daisey’s taking the money to finance a move to NYC. Don’t leave us, Mike! We need you!
ELSEWHERE:
Odd recipes including “Tofu Sex Aids” and “Liquid Meat” (found by Robot Wisdom).
Singles to Jingles
by guest columnist Charlotte Quinn
IN THIS WACKY WORLD, TV ads create the music hits.
The radio stations wouldn’t touch Sting’s new album, but suddenly got bombarded with requests for his new song after the Jaguar commercial aired. So now we have greedy and artless ad execs chosing our records for us (rather than greedy and artless radio producers).
Then there is Moby, who deserves brief mention, since he sold every song on his album Play to advertisers. The Chemical Brothers sold out to Nike, but most horrible of all is, of course, the old Nair commercial that some how got the rights to “Short Shorts.”
This leaves us with the obvious question: Is there any dignity left?
I wonder if it has anything to do with 100 TV channels, or the MTV generation, or the gradual coorporate overtake of the music industry, or… oh whatever! Truth is, when this generation gets older, our favorite songs, the anthems of our generation, will be fuel for Rolaids, Paxil, and feminine itch products.
Here are some possible ads we may see in the future:
