Hamlet's Father's Ghost

"Hamlet and His Father's Ghost" by William Blake (1806)

Remember the old horror movies in which the angry ghost comes back to life. Stephan Daedalus theorizes Hamlet's grandson is Shakespeare's grandfather. Then there is just the classic misty gravesite with the pallid white hand whose fingers one by one inter the whole body. On a more quotidian level everyone is simply haunted by memories that at times seem so real, they themselves are on the verge of coming back to life. You may recently have experienced an untimely death, either by virtue of illness or accident. There are moments when you are likely to be caught off guard. You have something to tell the person who's left. For a second you have the impulse to call them up when all at once you realize, they're no longer around. Consciousness has yet to catch up with reality.  Sometimes your desire creates a break in which you suddenly think you can talk to the dead. It's a bit like flying. You may have experienced the feeling as a child that you could jump out your bedroom window (that's why bars are mandatory) and find an airwave that will let you fly like a bird. Free soloists may be those who never get over the childhood delusion they can jump of the window. 

A Psycho

Gaslighting is the primary mode of political discourse employed by the Trump administration, but there is a fine line between employing a figure of speech as as an ideology and outright mass psychosis. MAGA Republicans are a cult.Trump is Jim Jones. His followers, who constitute a considerable portion of ghe population, will do anything he says. Thus the famous statement about walking down Fifth Avenue shooting. Actually it’s not hyperbole. That is what he is doing. It is unclear whether Trump or Netanyahu is to the proxy. The result has been and will be carnage. 

The Last House on the Left

 

One of the most ubiquitous comments one hears is, "you couldn't have dreamt this up." Meaning "a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." "Motiveless malignity" what Coleridge wrote in the margin about Iago? Doesn't fit and btw is there ever a method to madness? No the plot needs something. Real Housewives of Ice? You may have to go back to Thomas Middleton's The Revenger's Tragedy (1606) to unleash the venom the president is looking for. However, there is always Wes Craven's The Last House on Left (1972) whose narrative is enough to make any Jacobean wince.

read "Double Reverse Midas Touch" by Francis Levy, The East Hampton Star 

Civil War!

The United States is in its second Civil War. Hopefully the casualties won’t be as great. Instead of relenting in the face of an inflationary economy and an unwanted and unauthorized war, MAGA remains strong. Yesterday Trump defeated Thomas Massie and right wing Americans said it was OK for Trump to produce a 1.9 billion slush fund which will ostensibly go to the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers and all those who were prosecuted for attacking the police defending the capital on January 6. But Trump is even scorning his own faithful,
in the radical endorsement of the notoriously corrupt Ken Paxton in the Texas primary. Whether this helps James Talarico the centrist democrat who defeated Jasmine Crockett remains to be seen. In terms of polarization, the Squad and Bernie Sanders are drawing the crowds while the more moderate Maine governor Janet Mills, who famously went nose to nude with Trump in a shouting match, has caved to Graham Platner. So it’s the radical right and what Trump
likes to call "the radical left" are facing off, with a number of prominent exceptions such as the Texas race which pits a moderate against an extremist. Actually Trump calls anyone who opposes his will "a radical left lunatic." You don’t have to be AOC to apply. Will the two sides take up arms? Political violence is the new lingua Franca and that form of social capital is not fungible.

read "Double Reverse Midas Touch" by Francis Levy, The East Hampton Star 

 

Freedom 250

Most of the speakers, Trump, Vance, Hegseth, addressed the Christian nation rally by way of video. Is it MAGA or MACA, make America Christian again. The most important political figure to appear in person was Mike Johnson . UFC Freedom 250 will occur on the South Lawn of the White House, July 14. The Freedom 250 Grand Prix is scheduled from August 22-23. The route turns down Ninth Street onto Constitution Avenue, crosses the National Mall on Seventh Street, and loops back via Independence Avenue and Maryland Avenue to Third Street. Drivers include such well known names as Christian Rasmussen and Josef Newgarden who will speed past crowds almost 200 mph. The question is do you have to be Christian to attend?

read "Double Reverse Midas Touch" by Francis Levy, The East Hampton Star 

Childhood

Childhood is a long slog. Holden Canfield says:  "If you really want to hear about it...and what my lousy childhood was like." You're always hungry, your feet are frozen and your fingertips sting from the cold. There's nothing to do. School days go on forever. You come home snack, study, eat dinner by yourself at 5 since you can't wait for dad  who's always in a hurry though he always comes home later with the small of whiskey on his breath. Your parents' fighting frightens you. You want everything to be alright. You hold the hope that the book report you hand in will garner an A. You are always wishing for improbable things and are surprised only in those moments when you're not looking. Good news is like a rabbit punch. You don't see it coming, but it will always be this way. Your stomach churns in the morning. You say the pledge. The teacher calls the roll. The mocking laughter dies--one of those swells that never becomes a wave-- the second your name is uttered. The linoleum in the hallways smells like vomit. You need a pass to go to push the door marked "Boys." You hope no one else is in the bathroom. You're mostly lucky. Everyone has that one experience of being bullied by the smell coming from a stall--which makes you gag. Recess and dismissal both become mimicked in your life as an adult.

ead "Double Reverse Midas Touch" by Francis Levy, The East Hampton Star 

Power of the Purse

Hermès Birkin Bag

It's almost inane to point out the preposterous contrarieties of MAGAism. Trump backing flavored vapes is the latest. What about Dobbs? No matter. You would rather be a big tobacco company then a woman who chooses to use Mefipristone--which according to the right-to-lifers needs more evaluation, for women's sake. For God sake's! Continued strategic ambiguity on Taiwan, continued appeasement of Russia on Ukraine? Why not fatten up Russian coffers with the Strait of Hormuz blocked? Value-free politics, realpolitik--which ever way you put it, the buck stops here.

read "Double Reverse Midas Touch" by Francis Levy, The East Hampton Star