“Of Withered Apples” was first published in Cosmos Science Fiction and Fantasy (July 1954), but if Philip’s wife Kleo’s memory is correct, it may date “Of Withered Apples” was first published in Cosmos Science Fiction and Fantasy (July 1954), but if Philip’s wife Kleo’s memory is correct, it may date back as early as 1950. With a few other Dick stories of this period--”Beyond the Door” and “Out in the Garden” come to mine—it takes for its consequences a young unhappily married woman who is drawn toward a sexual relationship with something other than human. Here that something is an old apple tree.
The story is simple enough on the surface (and perhaps a little too gimmicky in its ending), but what sticks with the reader is the woman’s profound frustration, the comic dull stupidity of her husband and father-in-law, and the way nature itself calls, through her many manifestations, to the unquellable sensuality in all of us.
Not quite perfect, but close. This is a story that sticks with me....more
First published in The United Amateur (November 1919), “The White Ship” is the earliest example of Lovecraft’s Dunsanian dream fantasies, the most acc First published in The United Amateur (November 1919), “The White Ship” is the earliest example of Lovecraft’s Dunsanian dream fantasies, the most accomplished and developed of which is The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath.
In this story, lighthouse keeper Basil Elton dreams of a white ship that carries him to various marvelous cities, and the narrative ends with the lighthouse keeper’s rude awakening. The accounts of the cities he visits are interesting in themselves, but the structure of the tale seems to cry out for some progression of moods or symbols in these urban descriptions, and I—except for a few whispers of allegory—I have failed to detect any of that. Consequently, “The White Ship” is notable for what Lovecraft began here, not what he achieved. The story just doesn’t seem to go anywhere very important.
Here’s an excerpt, to give you a good example of Lovecraft’s early style (and the closest “The White Ship” gets to an interesting allegory):
Then came we to a pleasant coast gay with blossoms of every hue, where as far inland as we could see basked lovely groves and radiant arbours beneath a meridian sun. From bowers beyond our view came bursts of song and snatches of lyric harmony, interspersed with faint laughter so delicious that I urged the rowers onward in my eagerness to reach the scene. And the bearded man spoke no word, but watched me as we approached the lily-lined shore. Suddenly a wind blowing from over the flowery meadows and leafy woods brought a scent at which I trembled. The wind grew stronger, and the air was filled with the lethal, charnel odour of plague-stricken towns and uncovered cemeteries. And as we sailed madly away from that damnable coast the bearded man spoke at last, saying: “This is Xura, the Land of Pleasures Unattained.”
Days after Manson died, I kept thinking about him, how he and his Family had summoned the darkness at the heart of the Summer of Love. I remembered ho Days after Manson died, I kept thinking about him, how he and his Family had summoned the darkness at the heart of the Summer of Love. I remembered how surprised we all were, that the drugs and the smiles and the flowers had come to this, but then I thought, no, not all of us. Joan Didion would have understood; Joan Didion would not have been surprised.
Slouching Toward Bethlehem, a collection of magazine essays and Didion’s second book, is about many things, but mostly it is about ‘60’s California. In its first section “Life Styles in the Golden Land”—slightly longer than half the book--every piece but one is set in California: a San Bernadino Valley murder, profiles of California icons (John Wayne, Joan Baez, Howard Hughes), characteristic California political institutions (the Communist splinter group the CPUSA, the now defunct liberal think tank the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions), and the California nexus of the Hippie Explosion, San Franciso’s Haight-Ashbury district during the Summer of Love. (Even the short piece not set in California, “Marrying Absurd,” about the Las Vegas wedding industry, is about California and its culture too.)
But the California connection does not stop there. Didion was a product of the Sacramento Valley, the descendant of settlers who—before the Gold Rush—crossed the plains in a covered wagon (Joan’s great-great-great grandmother travelled with the Donner party, but, unlike the Donners, her family avoided the fatal short cut and instead followed the old Oregon Trail.) Thirty additional pages of Bethlehem, some of the most personal of the book, describe her California and how it has shaped her character and her perspective.. She recognizes that, even for a Native Daughter like herself, the oldest of California traditions are too recent to constitute roots, that the culture of the ‘60’s Golden Land is always changing: from orange groves to real estate to aerospace (and, later, to high tech and beyond). In her title essay, Didion lays bare the predispositions of the lost freeway children who inhabit the Haight in the late '60's: aimless, disconnected from culture, lacking the principles that might help them fashion a viable alternative, they are people for whom any hypnogogic amusement, any superficial enlightment, even a dark savior, will do.
You can learn much about the ‘60’s from this book, but its real pleasure lies in its elegant, sinewy prose. If there is a single clumsy sentence in this book, I failed to find it (and I am one of those irritating fellows who looks). Here is just a taste, from “Some Dreamers of the Golden Dream,” a description of the San Bernardino Valley:
This is the California where it is easy to Dial-A-Devotion, but hard to buy a book. This is the country in which a belief in the literal interpretation of Genesis has slipped imperceptibly into a belief in the literal interpretation of Double Indemnity, the country of the teased hair and the Capris and the girls for whom all life's promise comes down to a waltz-length white wedding dress and the birth of a Kimberly or a Sherry or a Debbi and a Tijuana divorce and return to hairdressers' school. “We were just crazy kids” they say without regret, and look to the future. The future always looks good in the golden land, because no one remembers the past. Here is where the hot wind blows and the old ways do not seem relevant, where the divorce rate is double the national average and where one person in every thirty-eight lives in a trailer.
Here is the last stop for all those who come from somewhere else, for all those who drifted away from the cold and the past and the old ways. Here is where they are trying to find a new life style, trying to find it in the only places they know to look: the movies and the newspapers.
First published in Imagination (1955), “The Hood Maker” is not only a good idea well plotted and executed, but it also contains the classic Dickian th First published in Imagination (1955), “The Hood Maker” is not only a good idea well plotted and executed, but it also contains the classic Dickian themes of total surveillance, paranoia, telepathy, the arrogance of totalitarian elites, and Nature’s often surprising—and subtle—capacity for revenge.
Set in a repressive society where the thoughts of all citizens are subject to examination by telepathic human mutants, a rebel inventor has devised a method by which a person may conceal disloyal hood: a hood that can protect the wearer from telepathic invasion. When Doctor Franklin receives such a hood in the mail, he puts it on. And then—very quickly—everything begins to change.
My favorite Dick stories are the ones that are filled with stunning inventions, mind-blowing twists and turns, and “The Hood Maker” is a little too conventional for my taste. Still, the issues raised are good ones, the plotting is artful, and the ending is surprising and satisfying....more
August Wilson is one of the finest playwrights of the 20th century, but this is not one of his finest plays. The usual elements are here: a setting su August Wilson is one of the finest playwrights of the 20th century, but this is not one of his finest plays. The usual elements are here: a setting superbly realized in place and time, a large cast of eloquent, mellifluous African American voices, the abiding presence of music, hints of dark magic and ghostly hauntings, and an overwhelming sense of a complex and dangerous cultural heritage, a heritage which may lead to wisdom but can also lead to despair, violence, and death. When Wilson combines these elements most artfully, they may be transmuted into a masterpiece like Fences. Here, however, the elements don’t coalesce, the transformation never happens.
The “seven guitars” of the title are the seven voices of the characters in the play, the six mourners who gather after the funeral to celebrate the life of blues singer Floyd “Schoolboy” Barton, snuffed out at the moment when he had begun to achieve success, and the voice the guitarist and singer, the “Schoolboy” himself. Like many expressionistic playwrights—O’Casey and O’Neill come to mind—Wilson is often deficient in structure and relies instead on the music of his character’s speech as a form of organization. This time, though, it doesn’t work. The language of the characters isn’t sufficiently individualized, except for that of the mad old prophet Hedley, who should act as an occasionally chilling symbolic voice, but overwhelms and unbalances the play.
I admit that I could be wrong. This is a play after all, and I believe that, given the proper attention to the actual blues music of the play, a director, sensitive to the rhythms of speech and blessed with a cast of superior actors with their own individualized voices, could make this play into an an extraordinarily powerful entertainment. I didn’t have the privilege of seeing it, though, I merely read it. And in my reading, Seven Guitars--unlike Fences, “The Piano Lesson,” and “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom”—failed to come to life.
I’ll quote here one of my favorite passages . Floyd the blues singer, on the verge of stardom, expresses his frustration at the factors that hem him in, the forces that seem determined to keep him from going to Chicago and cutting another hit record:
I had seven ways to go. They cut that down to six. I say, “Let me try one of them six.” They cut it down to five. Every time I push . . . they pull. They cut it down to four. I say, “What’s the matter? Everything can’t go wrong all the time.” They cut it down to three. I say, “Three is better than two—I really don’t need but one.” They cut it down to two. See . . . I am going to Chicago. If I have to buy me a graveyard and kill everybody I see. I am going to Chicago. I don’t want to live my life without. Everybody I know live without. I don’t want to do that. I want to live my life with.
Sleepers Joining Hands (1973) seems at first an odd congeries of poems, consisting of a few fine nature meditations plus a few protest poems, followed Sleepers Joining Hands (1973) seems at first an odd congeries of poems, consisting of a few fine nature meditations plus a few protest poems, followed by a savage surrealist jeremiad against the Vietnam War (“The Teeth Mother Naked at Last”), followed by a twenty-page Jungian essay (“I Came out of the Mother Naked”) asserting that America has identified too heavily with The Father and that The Mother is now coming to seek her revenge, which is followed in turn by another long poem (“Sleepers Joining Hands”) which charts the course of a spiritual journey from Father through Mother toward a new integration. Yet once I completed the collection and thought about it for awhile, I concluded that the disparate parts worked together just fine and that this was a strongly unified and spiritually compelling collection.
“Sleepers Joining Hands”, with its artful balance of male and female imagery, and its ability to express the almost inexpressible, may be the best thing about this collection, but, since excerpting does not do it justice, I will include a passages from “The Teeth Mother Naked at Last,” a passage which seems newly relevant now that Donald Trump is president, and even more relevant since William Barr became attorney-general:
II
….Now the Chief Executive enters; the press conference begins: First the president lies about the date the Appalachian Mountains rose. Then he lies about the population of Chicago, then he lies about the weight of the adult eagle, then about the acreage of the Everglades.
He lies about the number of fish taken every year in the Arctic, he has private information about which city is the capital of Wyoming, he lies about the birthplace of Attila the Hun.
He lies about the composition of the amniotic fluid, and he insists that Luther was never a German, and only the Protestants sold indulgences,
That Pope Leo X wanted to reform the church, but “the liberal elements” prevented him, that the Peasants’ War was fomented by Italians from the North.
And the Attorney General lies about the time the sun sets.
* * *
These lies are only the longing we all feel to die. It is the longing for someone to come and take you by the hand to where they are all sleeping: where the Egyptian pharoahs are asleep, and your own mother, and all those disappeared children, who used to go around with you in the rings at grade school. . . .
Do not be angry at the President—he is longing to take in his hand the locks of death hair— to meet his own children dead, or unborn . . . . He is drifting sideways toward the dusty places
This is Mary Oliver’s first major collection, published in 1965, and few of the poems—at least considered stylistically—resemble her later work. Most This is Mary Oliver’s first major collection, published in 1965, and few of the poems—at least considered stylistically—resemble her later work. Most of the poems here are iambic, often rhymed, and occasionally remind me more of poems by Millay, Frost and Emerson than they do of Mary Oliver herself. The themes of later years—the spiritual and aesthetic comforts of the natural world—are here, often in embryo, existing at the margins of these poems. Still, I think at least half of these poems have at least one bird in them, and that’s something. It wouldn’t be Mary Oliver without birds.
There is more loss here, more hints of sorrow, than Mary often allows herself in later poems, and the overall theme of the book—if there is one—is best articulated in the title poem, “No Voyage.” People, Mary says, don’t voyage to a desired destination, but instead move away from grief: “...they only leave/ Wherever they are, when the dying begins.” Because of this, she believes—at least psychologically—in staying right where she is: “Let the dying go on, and let me, if I can,/ Inherit from disaster before I move.”
I have picked out, not the most representative poems here—which are after all derivative—but instead a few shorter pieces I liked best and that reminded me of the Mary I know. I’ll begin with what I believe is the best known and only acknowledged classic from the collection:
THE SWIMMING LESSON
Feeling the icy kick, the endless waves Reaching around my life, I moved my arms And coughed, and in the end saw land.
Somebody, I suppose, Remembering that medieval maxim, Had tossed me in, Had wanted me to learn to swim,
Not knowing that none of us, who ever came back From that long lonely fall and frenzied rising, Ever learned anything at all About swimming, but only How to put off, one by one, Dreams and pity, love and grace,- How to survive in any place.
THE LEGENDS
I have sat in the circle of the storyteller, Spellbound by the legends, Grieving for every ill-starred name Defeated in battle, defeated in love,—
Yet I leave as hopeful as I came.
History has no counsel for the wanting blood; Among the syllables of the storyteller’s voice I hear the tick of the clock in the hall;
And quickly, my love, ride to me, over This landscape where the heroes fall and fall.
NOW THERE IS NO COMPANION
Now there is no companion nor poem nor music To go where I go In hard boots and a jacket thin from labor Down fields of sun.
Love began as the wing is in the egg; To be patient now Is to keep feathers under cloth And walk in leather boots.
Now there is no companion, nor music nor poem, To teach or tell-tale Better than the pausing of birds at noon, The silence and the locked wings As the mad sun brims over.
This story was written in 1919, when Lovecraft was only 29, but it is one of the most concentrated and effective tales of his early maturity. It is ba This story was written in 1919, when Lovecraft was only 29, but it is one of the most concentrated and effective tales of his early maturity. It is based on a passage from an article in The New York Tribune (“How Our State Police Have Spurred Our Way to Fame,” 4/27/19), which uses a particularly degenerate family—the Slaters or Slahters—as a typical example of the decadent dwellers of the remote regions of the Catskills.
In Lovecraft’s story, an unnamed intern in a “state psychopathic institution” describes the strange behavior and visions of one Joe Slater (or Slaader) whom he observed and with whom he conversed. It begins with this description of Slater:
...his appearance was that of the typical denizen of the Catskill Mountain region; one of those strange, repellent scions of a primitive colonial peasant stock whose isolation for nearly three centuries in the hilly fastnesses of a little-travelled countryside has caused them to sink to a kind of barbaric degeneracy, rather than advance with their more fortunately placed brethren of the thickly settled districts. Among these odd folk, who correspond exactly to the decadent element of “white trash” in the South, law and morals are non-existent; and their general mental status is probably below that of any other section of the native American people.
Soon, though, our narrator, “a constant speculator concerning dream life,” begins to realize Joe’s ravings and visions are quite extraordinary:
The sum of all my investigation was, that in a kind of semi-uncorporeal dream life Slater wandered or floated through resplendent and prodigious valleys, meadows, gardens, cities, and palaces of light; in a region unbounded and unknown to man. That there he was no peasant or degenerate, but a creature of importance and vivid life; moving proudly and dominantly, and checked only by a certain deadly enemy, who seemed to be a being of visible yet ethereal structure, and who did not appear to be of human shape, since Slater never referred to it as a man, or as aught save a thing. This thing had done Slater some hideous but unnamed wrong, which the maniac (if maniac he were) yearned to avenge.
. It is then that the intern, wishing to learn more than the inarticulate speech of Joe can reveal, constructs an electronic apparatus by which he can himself can see and hear Joe’s dreams. His account of what he meets in that dreamworld comprises the rest of the story.
Although I have little use for such cumbersome electronic devices—some inexplicable mental sympathy between two beings is enough explanation for me—I found the rest of the tale engrossing, and the intern’s connection both to Slater and to Slater’s dream-self (who is, in a real sense, not Slater) to be emotionally moving and disturbing at the same time.
First published in Startling Stories (January 1954), “A Present for Pat” is conventional, almost “Jetsons” in its cuteness, yet the philosophical side First published in Startling Stories (January 1954), “A Present for Pat” is conventional, almost “Jetsons” in its cuteness, yet the philosophical side of Dick pervades it somehow, transforming what might have been a treatment for a sci-fi sitcom pilot into a dark folktale, a meditation on godhead, the dangers of authority and the unpredictability of fate.
Businessman Eric Black comes back from Ganymede with a present for his wife Patricia: an honest-to-god real god, a little fellow named Tinokuknoi Arevulopapo, overseer of the local weather, whom Mr. Black obtained at a bargain price. Just put a food offering into the cup on his belly, Eric tells his wife, and he will speak to you. Soon the Blacks’ world becomes a comedy of errors involving discussions of religious beliefs and alternate universes, the transformation of people into toads and stones (plus a little alchemy), the firing of Eric Black by his employer Terran Metals, his arrest for the importation of an alien deity, and the return of everything back to (almost) what is was before.
Like I said, the Jetsons. Maybe with a bit of “I Dream of Jeannie” thrown in. Still, the questions raised by “A Present for Pat”—about the arbitrariness of our reality, the supposed benevolence of our environment, the precarious thread we call everyday life—lingers long after the story has been completed....more
Nine months into the Trump presidency I’m seldom shocked anymore, but when I heard that the Las Vegas Shooting victims were being abused online, accus Nine months into the Trump presidency I’m seldom shocked anymore, but when I heard that the Las Vegas Shooting victims were being abused online, accused of being Soros-paid actors in an anti-gun conspiracy, I was shocked. I mean, c’mon, this isn’t Sandy Hook! (as crazy as that theory was too.) I mean, this is a large, well-publicized event, involving hundreds of salt-of-the-earth country music fans, an event which happened during a pro-NRA Republican administration! And you guys can find a conspiracy, even here?
Then my next thought: I’ve been promising myself I was going to read “The Paranoid Style in American Politics.” No time like the present, no time better than today.
I’m glad, after all these years, that I read it. This essay, first widely available in Harper’s November 1964 issue (I read the unabridged Oxford Lecture version, delivered a year before), may have been occasioned by the rise of Barry Goldwater, but it detects the “paranoid strain” as something that was present from the early days of the republic: from Federalist fear of the Illuminati (1796-1798) through the related Anti-Masonic Movement (1820s and ‘30s) and the anti-Catholic “Jesuit Threat” (1840s and 50s). The targets may be different, but the McCarthyites, the Birthers, TV Glen Beck (and his chalk board), and Alex Jones from InfoWars and the QAnon folks all follow a similar pattern.
I learned much from this essay, and I am sure I’ll read it again, for it deserves close study. From my first reading, I found the following passage to be the most illuminating:
The situation becomes worse when the representatives of a particular political interest–perhaps because of the very unrealistic and unrealizable nature of their demands–cannot make themselves felt in the political process. Feeling that they have no access to political bargaining or the making of decisions, they find their original conception of the world of power as omnipotent, sinister, and malicious fully confirmed. They see only the consequences of power–and this through distorting lenses–and have little chance to observe its actual machinery. L. B. Namier once said that “the crowning attainment of historical study” is to achieve “an intuitive sense of how things do not happen.” It is precisely this kind of awareness that the paranoid fails to develop. He has a special resistance of his own, of course, to such awareness, but circumstances often deprive him of exposure to events that might enlighten him. We are all sufferers from history, but the paranoid is a double sufferer, since he is afflicted not only by the real world, with the rest of us, but by his fantasies as well.
But I must admit that the following excerpt from a contemporary account of the “Jesuit Threat” is my favorite part of the essay. Probably because I’m a product of Jesuit education (Cincinnati Xavier), I found the following passage extremely amusing:
“It is an ascertained fact,” wrote one Protestant militant, “that Jesuits are prowling about all parts of the United States in every possible disguise, expressly to ascertain the advantageous situations and modes to disseminate Popery. A minister of the Gospel from Ohio has informed us that he discovered one carrying on his devices in his congregation; and he says that the western country swarms with them under the name of puppet show men, dancing masters, music teachers, peddlers of images and ornaments, barrel organ players, and similar practitioners.”
I didn’t absolutely love this book. The choice of murderer was arbitrary, many of the minor characters forgettable, but how can you not love an ‘80’s I didn’t absolutely love this book. The choice of murderer was arbitrary, many of the minor characters forgettable, but how can you not love an ‘80’s detective mystery set in a San Francisco pulp magazine convention that features a plot straight out of Nero Wolfe and features not just one but two locked room mysteries?
The Nameless Detective, our hero, is asked by old pulp writer Russell Dancer to attend the upcoming pulp magazine convention. It seems the eight surviving members of “The Pulpeteers”--a small writer’s club founded in NYC, in the ‘40’s—has received a copy of the novelette “Hoodwink,” along a letter threatening extortion and accusing them of plagiarizing “Hoodwink” and turning it into the successful Hollywood movie Evil by Gaslight. The Pulpeteers want Nameless to hang around the convention, and see if he can unmask the blackmailer. Nameless agrees, probably because he is a big pulp detective fan himself.
The convention begins, Nameless observes certain suspicious behaviors, and—of course—somebody ends up dead. Mysteriously dead. In a Locked Room. What could be more pulp-friendly that that? Now Nameless has real old fashioned mystery on his hands. The Question: What Would John Dickson Carr do?
This is a welcome addition to the Nameless series. Recommended for all Black Mask fans and for John Dickson Carr fans too....more
One of my great reading pleasures is to discover, in the prose of an older writer new to me, the evidence of his influence on a writer I greatly admir One of my great reading pleasures is to discover, in the prose of an older writer new to me, the evidence of his influence on a writer I greatly admire. Michael Collins’ Act of Fear gave me that pleasure, for before completing twenty pages I became convinced that, without this book and the other Dan Fortune adventures which follow, Lawrence Block would have been a much different writer, and Matt Scudder—one of my favorite detectives—might not have existed at all.
The two detectives have much in common. Each is a native New Yorker, living and operating in or near Chelsea, the Village, and Hell’s Kitchen, each suffers from a disability (Fortune has one arm, Scudder is an alcoholic), and each has a artistic lady friend who works in the sex industry (Fortune’s Marty is an actress/ topless dancer, Scudder’s Elaine an art collector/ hooker.) But it is the detectives talk and think that yokes them indisputably together.
Both Fortune and Scudder engage in continual monologue: about themselves, about their city and its people, about their witnesses and suspects too. Much in these monologues seem beside the point—and some of it is—but the overall effect is to create a three-dimensional picture of what it means to be a person enmeshed in a big city, limited and defined by its concatenation of personal obligations and social taboos. Unlike in Hammett, Chandler, or Ross Macdonald, where the action often proceeds—respectively—from greed, romantic gestures, or psychological wounds, the crimes and consequences in Collins and Block stem from the position of the human being in the city, and his relations with others of his kind.
This tone and attitude is evident in every line of the first Matt Scudder novel, Sins of the Father (1976). But Dennis Lynds (writing as “Michael Collins”) used the same tone and attitude consistently in his Act of Fear (1967).
Act of Fear won the Edgar in 1967, and it deserved it. It is an absorbing mystery, in which Detective Dan Fortune is hired by a kid from Chelsea, Pete Vitanza, to find his friend Jo-Jo Olsen, who hasn’t shown up to work at the bike shop for four days. Jo-jo isn’t important—just a kid in love with motorbikes—but as soon as Fortune starts snooping around, it becomes clear that somebody very important doesn’t want Jo-Jo found.
This is a good mystery, worth reading. And if your are a Lawrence Block fan, like I am, this is an essential book as well....more
“Breakfast at Twilight” (Amazing Stories September 1954) is an effective but not exceptional science fiction story about the horrors of war visiting a “Breakfast at Twilight” (Amazing Stories September 1954) is an effective but not exceptional science fiction story about the horrors of war visiting a typical American neighborhood. It is a rather typical example of the “Cold War” inspired fiction of the time, and lacks the unique mind-blowing imaginative spark that most Dick fan’s have come to Love.
The McLeans, a typical nuclear family, is getting ready for work and school. It is a morning like any other, except for the fact for the heavy fog, and the fact that the radio seems to be broken. But then, a squad of soldiers bursts into their home, interrogating them. bullying them, confiscating their food, and soon the McLeans discover this isn’t a typical day after all, and the fog isn’t really fog….
Although the story lacks Dick’s characteristic strangeness, it is uncompromising in the way it reveals the reductive and brutalizing effects of war....more
This old book leaps to new to life in these days of Generalissimo Trump. Written during the Kennedy/Johnson years, it was fashioned, out of Spanish an This old book leaps to new to life in these days of Generalissimo Trump. Written during the Kennedy/Johnson years, it was fashioned, out of Spanish and Latin American materials (and maybe a few threads of Ginsberg too), into a protest poetry fit for the United States, a crazy new poetry that had what it takes to descend into the American darkness.
Their time was different from ours—the presidents were saner, their advisers smarter, their actions not nearly so reckless, never quite so close to summoning a nuclear cloud—but their time in many ways was similar too. White privilege, male privilege, economic privilege, corporate privilege, and the hatred of people with darker skin and darker hair, all conspired to bring death to the rice fields of Vietnam just as surely as today death roams the ruins of Syria, the hills of Puerto Rico, and the deserts of Niger.
What Robert Bly knew even then is that the modern age is too absurd for the usual lamentations, jeremiads, eulogies, elegies, sermons, and satires that make up most of our protest poetry. What we need is something surreal, disjointed, filled with fragmentary beauty and horror, something which embodies America’s brokenness, the widening gulf that separates war from peace, white from black, man from man, humanity from nature, the body from the soul. Nothing but a spiritual utterance beyond creed that cries out in the darkness while summoning “the light around the body” can encourage us now.
This is not a perfect book. It is filled with sudden shifts, abrupt shocks, and I’m sure not all the poems that worked for me will work for you. Some of them didn’t move me at all, and some of them I only liked in parts. But at its best, this is a surrealism that dives to the heart of the real, and makes me want to go out and fight to keep the United States I still care about.
Oh...the profits Bly received from this best-selling National Book Award winning collection? He donated them all to the antiwar movement.
Here’s three I like a lot.
THE BUSY MAN SPEAKS
Not to the mother of solitude will I give myself Away, not to the mother of love, nor the mother of conversation, Nor to the mother of art, nor the mother Of tears, nor the mother of sorrow, nor the mother Of the downcast face, nor the mother of the suffering of death; Not the mother of the open fields, nor the mother of Christ.
But I will give myself to the father of righteousness, the father Of cheefulness, who is also the father of rocks. Who is also the father of perfect gestures; From the Case National Bank An arm of flame has come, and I am drown To the desert, to the parched places, to the landscape of zeros; And I shall give myself aways to the father of righteousness, The stones of cheerfulness, the steel of money, the father of rocks.
ROMANS ANGRY ABOUT THE INNER WORLD
What shall the world do with its children? There are lives the executives Know nothing of. A leaping of the body, The body rolling—and I have felt it— And we float Joyfully on the dark places; But the executioners Move toward Drusia. They tie her legs On the iron horse. “Here is a woman Who has seen our mother In the other world!” Next they warm The hooks. The two Romans had put their trust In the outer world. Irons glowed Like teeth. They wanted her To assure them. She refused. Finally they took burning Pine sticks, and pushed them Into her sides. Her breath rose And she died. The executioners Rolled her off onto the ground. A light snow began to fall And covered the mangled body, And the executives, asthonished, withdrew. The other world is like a thorn In the ear of a tiny beast! The fingers of the executives are too thick To pull it out! It is like a jagged stone Flying toward them out of the darkness.
COUNTING SMALL-BONED BODIES
Let’s count the bodies over again.
If we could only make the bodies smaller, The size of skulls, We could make a whole plain white with skulls in the moonlight!
If we could only make the bodies smaller, Maybe we could get A whole year’s kill in front of us on a desk!
If we could only make the bodies smaller, We could fit A body into a finger-ring, for a keepsake forever.
First published in Imagination (September 1953), “The Trouble with Bubbles” is an example of the kind of thing Dick does best: the theological/philoso First published in Imagination (September 1953), “The Trouble with Bubbles” is an example of the kind of thing Dick does best: the theological/philosophical short story. But this story is even better than the average Dickian mind-bender, for its central image, of the riot of destruction that follows the “bubble contest” is an unforgettable one.
The story takes place on our earth, many years in the future, when human beings, bored because there are no more inhabited worlds to explore, have resorted to creating little “bubble worlds” for themselves, with kits designed by Worldcraft, one of Terra’s most successful companies. People spend hours constructing their worlds, and hold competitions to see whose world is best, but at least one person, Nathan Hall, believes these bubble worlds are bad for humanity and wishes to pass a law to end them.
The ending is abrupt and disturbing, but not really surprising, for Philip Dick, a fine craftsman of literary “bubbles” himself, has prepared the way so that his reader has many questions—cosmic questions—to ponder....more
This most personal and self-reflective of all Hillary Clinton’s books may not have taken a village to rear, but it did take half a squad: two speech w This most personal and self-reflective of all Hillary Clinton’s books may not have taken a village to rear, but it did take half a squad: two speech writers (Dan Schwerin expository specialist, Megan Rooney narrative specialist), one researcher (Tony Carrk), and—of course—Hillary Clinton herself. But—wait a minute!—in the "Acknowledgments," right after Schwerin, Rooney, and Caark, comes a list of seven trusted advisers followed by another list of approximately ten dozen names of other people who also contributed their advice and insights. So I guess it did take a small village after all.
That’s Hillary for you. Scrupulous and precise (no anonymous ghost writers for her!), generous in her praise and acknowledgment, but so conscientious and exhaustive about every facet of her life and campaign that, after awhile, the eyes of even the most sympathetic acolyte must glaze over, the head of the most attentive reader begin to nod.
Yes, What Happened is quintessential Hillary. Which is why this “personal, self-reflective memoir” is 469 pages long (that is, if you don’t include the twenty page index).
Okay, just to let you know where I’m coming from: I voted for Bernie in the Ohio primary (as a DSA member for twenty years, I figured I owed him that much), but as soon as the last primary was over, I took off my very cool Shepard Fairey “Bernie” tee and exchanged it for a not-as-cool “Hillary” shirt. You see, I’ve always had a soft spot for Hillary. As a democratic socialist, I was of course frustrated with the way Bill and Hill moved the Dems to the right, but, since I’m almost as old as they are, I can remember how disheartening it was to be “clean for Gene” (McCarthy) and “on board for George” (McGovern), and then watch the Republicans win five out of six of the next presidential races. Sure, the Clintons' program was too centrist, detailed, and super-wonky for my taste, but at least they figured out how to win an election. Later, I sensed that, underneath the plate armor she donned against the attacks of the (very real) “vast right wing conspiracy” there was a woman who genuinely loved her husband and who cared for America’s least fortunate citizens, particularly its women and children. And when, in October of 2015, I watched all eleven hours of the Benghazi hearings (I’m retired now) and saw how seriously she kicked herself some Freedom Caucus butt, I began to look forward to the idea of President Hillary.
But back to the book. I’m sure it was a chore to write, and it is often a chore to read, what with the exhaustive lists of the people—the famous of course but also the humble (but exemplary)—she encountered on the campaign trail, her typical domestic routines (far too much information), and her extraordinarily specific plans for how President Hillary intended to make America better (I’m sorry, but you lost, and the detailed aspirations of a presidency which will never happen are best left to the specialists now). Moreover, even when the information Hillary and Co. gives us is worthwhile, it is often overly specific. For example, I was interested to learn that, in the wake of her loss, Hillary embraced the yogic practice of alternate nostril breathing; I did not, however, need to have this practice described to me in a paragraph of 150 words.
I have heard some say that Hillary is bitter and hateful in this book, but I did not find this to be true. She does have a few harsh words for Bernie (as well as some kind words too), but I think she is fair to him: his Santa-of-the-left routine did make her sound like a “spoilsport schoolmarm” and his attacks on her as the Candidate from Wall Street may well have hurt her in the general election. Her harshest comments, however, are reserved for the two people she sees—understandably—as most responsible for costing her the election (Comey and Putin), and for one other target, of which I heartily approve: Matt Lauer, the disgraced moderator of what was supposed to be a “Commander-in-Chief Forum,” who made it all about “but her emails!” once again. Trump? I detect no malice here: She treats him as a natural disaster, a four-year tornado that must be guarded against.
What are the best parts of the book? It is good on her emails, Russian involvement in the election, and the role of women in public life and politics, but it is even better when it tells a personal story or expresses a private sentiment about a particular event or person: the Commander-in-Chief Forum, the Final Debate Where Trump Looms, election night, Marian Wright Edelman, Dorothy Rodham, Bill Clinton.
My advice? Don’t read it if you’re a Hillary hater. But even if you’re not a hater, I’d advise you to skip a little, skim a lot. Life is too short for you to do as I did and read the whole darn thing through. But by all means dip into it, spend a little time with it, and you may find much here to interest you, more than a few things to anger you, and one or two things to make you cry.
I’ll end with one of my favorite parts, where Hillary talks about Bill and their marriage:
My marriage to Bill Clinton was the most consequential decision of my life. I said no the first two times he asked me. But the third time, I said yes. And I’d do it again.
I hesitated to say yes because I wasn’t quite prepared for marriage. I hadn’t figured out what I wanted my furture to be yet. And I knew that by marrying Bill, I would be running straight into a future far more momentous than any other I’d likely know. He was the most intense, brilliant, charismatic person I had ever met. He dreamt big. I, on the other hand, was practical and cautious. I knew that marrying him would be like hitching a ride on a comet. It took me a little while to get brave enough to take the leap….
We’ve certainly had dark days in our marriage. You know all about them—and please consider for a moment what it would be like for the whole world to know about the worst moments in your relationship. There were times that I was deeply unsure about whether our marriage could or should survive. But on those days, I asked myself the question that mattered most to me: Do I still love him? And can I still be in this marriage without becoming unrecognizable to myself—twisted by anger, resentment, or remoteness? The answers were always yes. So I kept going.
This is the “Nameless Detective” novel I have been waiting for, the fulfillment of the promise I could see so clearly in each of the previous five boo This is the “Nameless Detective” novel I have been waiting for, the fulfillment of the promise I could see so clearly in each of the previous five books. Nameless has grown gradually into his history and destiny, and with Labyrinth he enters the ranks of the truly superior private eyes. I’m sure his pulp idols—Race Williams and Michael Shayne, for example—are filled with pride.
The tale begins as two disparate strands. First, the police tell our hero that a young murder victim has been found with a business card of his on her person, and second, soon after he is hired by a rich woman to tail her brother (who has killed a woman accidentally with his car, and whose husband may be out for revenge.) Soon, these two cases seem to draw together, and Nameless has a real puzzler on his hands.
I liked this book quite a bit. The mystery is a good one, the characters kept my interest, and, there are a good number of exciting scenes along the way. But what I particularly enjoyed was Pronzini’s treatment of coincidence. Usually mystery writers take advantage of it, often to the point of abuse, but Pronzini not only makes it a factor in his detective’s deliberations, but also raises questions about the place of coincidence in the mystery genre itself.
For the first time, I could see the complete design of the labyrinth. And it only had three connecting sides. The open end, the missing side, was nothing but coincidence...
“The Haunter of the Dark,” the last original story written by H.P. Lovecraft, has an interesting history. Robert Bloch (author of Psycho) had publishe “The Haunter of the Dark,” the last original story written by H.P. Lovecraft, has an interesting history. Robert Bloch (author of Psycho) had published a story called “The Shambler from the Stars” (Weird Tales (September 1935) in which he killed off a character obvious based on Lovecraft. When a Weird Tales fan wrote a letter suggesting H.P. should return the favor, Lovecraft obliged, writing a tale in which a certain writer named “Robert Blake” dies of fright during an encounter with “The Haunter of the Dark.”
This is not only Lovecraft’s last story, it is also one of his best, most characteristic, and most personal. The view from the window of Robert Blake’s Providence apartment—a sinister old church located atop Federal Hill—is precisely the view which could be seen from Lovecraft’s own study. And the walks Blake takes through Federal Hill’s Italian district are walks Lovecraft took himself.
The sinister old church is based on a real church, now torn down: St. John’s, a Catholic church on Atwell’s Avenue. Its belfry was demolished by a lightning strike five months before Lovecraft wrote this story, an event which no doubt inspired the fictional electric storm which precipitates the conclusion of both “The Haunter of the Dark” and the unfortunate Robert Blake’s brief life.
This is one of my favorite Lovecraft stories. It features economical, atmospheric description, a subtle balance between humor and terror, and it ends with a memorable and chilling four word phrase.
All in all, a fitting conclusion to Lovecraft’s career....more
First published in Imagination (December 1953), “Project B: Earth is perhaps as much theological fantasy as it is philosophical science fiction. Then First published in Imagination (December 1953), “Project B: Earth is perhaps as much theological fantasy as it is philosophical science fiction. Then again, the same could be said of many of the more thoughtful stories of Philip K. Dick.
The mysterious old man Edward Billings is being spied on by Tommy and the other neighborhood children, who are convinced he is up to something mysterious, maybe sinister. He spends hours composing and typing up an immense book called “Project B,” and he is also working on growing something he calls “Project C” in his roof garden. Tommy discovers “Project C” and steals it, thereby effecting the course of civilization, particularly the fate of “Project B.”
I can’t say much more without giving a great deal away, but I can say this: “Project: Earth” suggests that games like “hide and seek” and “dress up” may contribute greatly to the development of individuality and independence, not only for the individual but for the species. The more I think about it, he may be right....more
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom—the only drama in the Pittsburgh Cycle not set in Pittsburgh—is August Wilson’s first great play. Like his masterpiece Fences Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom—the only drama in the Pittsburgh Cycle not set in Pittsburgh—is August Wilson’s first great play. Like his masterpiece Fences, it presents us with a compelling central character—the great blues singer Ma Rainey—who organizes the play around herself by virtue of her own personal energy, molding what might otherwise be a mere collection of thought-provoking scenes and atmospheric tableaux into a parable not only of black and white power relations, but of the relationship of the artist to his business, and the relationship of the artist to his art. In exploring these complex issues, however, Wilson never loses track of the songs and wounds that form and transform the human heart.
The entire play takes place in a recording studio during the production of a single record: “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” but Ma—although unforgettable when she appears—is not the whole show. The white men, Irv her manager and Sturdivant the producer, have their place of course, but the characters who really give a dynamic feel and color to the play are the other musicians in Ma’s band, particularly Levee, a brash young trumpeter eager to play his own music, and Cutler the trombonist and Toledo the pianist, two veterans reconciled to their status as side men. The way they explore each others pasts, philosophies and musical approaches adds to the depth and richness of the play.
The play ends in tragedy, which comes—as it often does in life—suddenly, without apparent warning. Yet when we reflect upon the nature of the world Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom has shown us, tragedy, as sudden and arbitrary as it seems, does not come as a surprise.
I’ll end with a few things Ma has to say about the Blues:
I never could stand no silence. I always got to have some music going on in my head somewhere. It keeps things balanced. Music will do that. It fills things up. The more music you got in the world, the fuller it is….White folks don’t understand about the blues. They hear it come out, but they don’t know how it got there. They don’t understand that’s life’s way of talking. You don’t sing to feel better. You sing cause that’s a way of understanding life….The blues help you get out of bed in the morning. You get up knowing you ain’t alone. There’s something else in the world. Something's been added by that song. This be an empty world without the blues. I take that emptiness and try to fill it up with something.
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