Wanda Landowska

Wanda Landowska

How many times are required to remove the terror of riding the cyclone? You can tolerate a certain amount of fear with practice! But the pulse is always going to quicken as your opponent approaches you in a boxing ring. That is one of the reasons for the jab. The jab is also what you need to set up an attack. In rhetoric, prolepsis, the anticipation of a question before it’s asked, is an accommodation to the fear created by uncertainty, particularly when you’re facing a canny opponent like the late Gore Vidal. William F. Buckley, the author of God and Man at Yale might have profited from a little defensive work before his famous showdown with his famously erudite opponent. Playing harpsichord, as Buckley did, undoubtedly helped shore up the blows. BTW, no one mentions Wanda Landowska anymore. Getting back to Coney Island and other places that make you feel your stomach coming up on you, remember the Steeplechase? Everybody has one in their lives. More likely it's a person who takes you on a ride.

read "Rhododendron" by Francis Levy, The East Hampton Star

and read "Punk" by Francis Levy, The East Hampton Star

Income Inequality and Racism

The current big beautiful bill will increase income inequality which is the subject of Thomas Piketty’s Income in the 21st Century. Racism is economic. You need a underclass of service workers. What better insurance than to permanently demote whole sectors of society as is the case with The Untouchables in India. Make no mistake, the latest Trump windfall will bankrupt the poor and disenfranchised even more than they already are. Which is great if you’re a trillionaire and need to hire the “help.” Zohran Mamdani’s political program which offers free transportation and protection from rent increases, threatens to disenfranchise poverty—a political goal which is necessary, unless you wish to maintain the status quo and have a not so smoothly running society of haves and have-nots.

read "Rhododendron" by Francis Levy, The East Hampton Star

and read "Punk" by Francis Levy, The East Hampton Star

Free Love

The emotional equation is simple. Quantum entanglement is not a position in The Kama Sutra since human beings are not sub atomic particles. Thus whether you’re talking of emotional or even just physical intimacy you give to Peter to take from Paul. Stretching oneself thin never results in good performance in work and the same applies to love. But what about freedom? Your philosophy Horatio reeks of destructive Victorian morality. It’s true! One would think that love would be tantamount to freedom since it involves choice. The paradox is that it’s not.

read "Rhododendron" by Francis Levy, The East Hampton Star

and read "Punk" by Francis Levy, The East Hampton Star

Is There Interest on Borrowed Time?

Is there an interest charge on borrowed time? And what about reparations for sufferers and fines for perpetrators? If you look at the political world as Wild Kingdom, predator and prey are simply just a step down on the food chain from governance. In fact many viewers find entertainment value in the sight of a hyena dining in the innards of peaceful baby giraffe as the defeated animals legs flail in an involuntary last attempt to escape. The gladiatorial battles of Rome, bull and matador and finally MMA are just one degree separation, with the purse rewarded to a killer. What then is the shock in seeing pure animal behavior in The White House where the notion of an emoluments clause is laughed at and lying is de rigueur? Spencer, social Darwinism, the weak caving to the strong in the unending survival of the fittest—these describe the constitution of our new “body.”

read "Rhododendron" by Francis Levy, The East Hampton Star

also read "God Bless Pig Latin America" by Francis Levy, The East Hampton Star

Gitanes

 

Have you ever thought, I want to go to a tanning salon and smoke Gitanes before I die? Notably smoking was the subject of Italo Svevo’s Confessions of Zeno. The protagonist who is the first analysand in literature is trying to stop smoking. He’s also an anti-hero whose comedic aspirations are reminiscent of Don Quixote. Anyone who has ever attempted to rid themselves of addictive behavior will recognize the Sisyphean nature of the task. The question which then comes up is this: will Zeno fall off the wagon? Say he goes on to live a preternaturally long life, will he simply say, one day, towards the end, say to himself, why not? Perhaps he concludes he really enjoyed the life of the reprobate. His heros are Bukowski, Henry Miller, Rimbaud and literally anyone who steps over the line. Timothy Leary had a point. Yes it’s nice to be “there” for others who need you in lieu of running after “ecstasy.” But are you really happy? Do you want to have a heart attack in the middle of an AA meeting or smoking and sipping espresso in the back row of The Thalia watching  the revival of Godard’s Les Carabiniers, c 1963?

read "Rhododendron" by Francis Levy, The East Hampton Star

also read "God Bless Pig Latin America" by Francis Levy, The East Hampton Star

Facesitting

All across the country, people are sitting on each other's faces. No matter Democrat or Republican, the phenomenon is as American as cherry pie. In order to insure that more people will sit on each other's faces, Facesitting has become as mandatory as some vaccines used to be. Medicaid coverage will be revoked for couples and threesomes who refuse to comply (Lysol wipes are recommended for facesitters, though not for baby sitters by the CDC--ed.) Are facesetting and its country cousin, rimming, what fellatio used to be before it became so common, it was not even regarded as sex by some adherents? People with differing political points of views frequently point out they would like to sit on their opponent's face, in order to smother their words. The fact of the opposition having their face sat on might be a source of pleasure seems not to bother them.  After all, you can always say whatever you have to say after getting "queened," which is one of the words used for the practice in urban legend. Discussing this subject can be like opening up a can of worms, but worms themselves will not be the result.

read "The Wasteland" by Francis Levy, The East Hampton Star

and also read "Punk" by Francis Levy, Vol.1 Brooklyn

Jamie Raskin

What gives Jamie Raskin the strength? It’s hard to conceive him a role model since so few people have to dig down that deep in the face of illness and unspeakable tragedy. The latest Supreme Court decision about extending executive privilege over the judiciary makes any response simply more exhausting amidst the numbing horror. Such a state is not a good place from which to act. It’s as if one were sedated or administered Novocain in a dentist’s chair. Perhaps the best preparation for a Job-like circumstance is the gratuitous act. Curiously it’s something that’s in the province of classic Existentialism in which meaning is created in a succession of moments that have little to do with what verdict or executive order SCOTUS or POTUS delivers on any particular day.

read "Rhododendron" by Francis Levy, The East Hampton Star

also read "God Bless Pig Latin America" by Francis Levy, The East Hampton Star