Take a guess.
A Box of Chocolates
… for Valentine’s Day. There’s the Victorian way. And then there’s the Mustillian way. “February 14, is Valentine’s Day” © 1975 by Norman O. Mustill.
Obama W. Bush Does His Banana Republic Thing
When Noam Chomsky or Ralph Nader or Glenn Greenwald or Paul Krugman or Chris Hedges or any number of Obama’s leftwing critics call him a disgrace and worse — ok, let’s say it, a finkified hypocrite — their opinions are dismissed on the right as the mutterings of ideologues who in some cases feel that […]
Literary Papers for Sale! Getcha Red Hot Papers!
The cache, dubbed william s. burroughs word horde 2.0, is priced at $260,000. Apparently some institution, or somebody with that kinda bus fare, already has dibs on it. The dealer — Ken Lopez Bookseller — has it listed with a “hold.” Here’s what he has to say about the collection: A substantial archive of manuscript […]
From the Musical Comedy Dept.
Oh, gee. Bill Keller, executive editor of The New York Times, is terribly upset. In his view, Julian Assange is the very scruffy model of a modern major-general. File his complaint under Gilbert and Sullivan; see The Pirates of Penzance. Keller is a mirthless feller. I am the very model of a modern Major-General, I’ve […]
The Wyler Touch
Now that Hollywood’s hype is fully upon us — I’m talking about the Oscar nominations — it’s worth recalling what William Wyler, far and away the most Oscar-nominated director, once said: Sitting here in this room, I can see a beautiful bridge — the George Washington Bridge — spanning the Hudson River. It is a […]
They Died in Gaza
Lizzy Ratner said she was in “triage mode” finishing up an article, and could she answer my question in “two or three days?” The question was, what prompted her to co-edit THE GOLDSTONE REPORT: The Legacy of the Landmark Investigation of the Gaza Conflict? It was just published by Nation Books. She hasn’t got back […]
The Difference between Decency and Civility?
On Martin Luther King Day, let’s see … As Glenn Greenwald rightly explains in a devastating column on the “centrist” opposition to the rule of law by the Brookings Institution — a Washington, D.C. think tank widely regarded as the best and most “independent,” with a reputation for rising “above partisanship” — the difference is […]
The Real ‘Abbie Hoffman’ Show
I see there’s a new one-man show on the boards, “Abbie,” about Abbie Hoffman, starring a lookalike. According to the NYT review, it is “framed as a 1987 talk by Hoffman” covering his upbringing, influences, student activism, and Yippie days, as well as his underground life on the lam. He jumped bail after an arrest […]
Crosshairs? What Crosshairs?
Ol’ amigo Mustill’s collage, from 1979, says plenty about that. Collage © 1979 by Norman O. Mustill. driftglass: “… this problem didn’t just precipitate out of the pellucid ether two years ago …”
Wikileaks Updates, Continued
(Click for the latest Wikileaks news in real-time updates.) In hyperventilating magazine style, Vanity Fair looks “behind the headlines” at the collaboration between “the Web’s notorious information anarchist” and “some of the world’s most respected news organizations.” Sarah Ellison’s less-than-friendly takeout, The Man Who Spilled the Secrets, focusses on his relations with the British newspaper […]
Nader on the Retreat of the Left
“They have reduced themselves to a cipher.They vote. The vote totals up. But it means nothing.” Flickr / Nick Bygon He tells Chris Hedges at truthdig: “The more outrageous the Republicans become, the weaker the left becomes. The more outrageous they become, the more the left has to accept the slightly less outrageous corporate Democrats. […]
Janine Pommy Vega, R.I.P.
She was that rare human being whose identity transcended all the categories that defined her — poet, teacher, novelist, feminist, human-rights activist for prisoners and migrant farmworkers. Janine Pommy Vega died on Dec. 23. She was 68. Here’s her obit in today’s NYT. The last time I saw her was on the Lower East Side […]
Abandon Earth — Or Face Extinction
A thought for 2011 from the smartest guy on the planet. OK, one of the smartest …
Sprechen Sie Deutsch?
Click for the TV interview. It’s in German. In this TV interview about the German literary scene, old amigo Carl Weissner, author of Death in Paris and Manhattan Muffdiver — and translator of too many books to list — sounds as if he’s sitting in a bar gossiping about gangsters. “Right,” he messages in an […]
‘Courage Is Contagious’
Julian Assange speaks to David Frost. A friend writes: “I see an escalating need for him to break himself down to subatomic particles and travel by solar wind…” (For continuing updates go to Nemesis a k a Mr. Wikileaks and scroll down.)
Greenwald to Krugman to Orwell to Osborne
Here’s Joe “Good Guy” Biden contradicting himself about Wikileaks. Sickening isn’t it. Thank you, Glenn Greenwald. (Update: Dec. 19 — Really sickening, to say nothing of U.S. officials calling European standards for human rights an “irritant.”) Which brings me to Paul Krugman’s blogpost “Decade of the Living Dead.” Krugman’s blog, The Conscience of a Liberal, […]