Selma

 Edmund Pettus Bridge

Do people name their daughters Selma anymore? Do you know any Selmas born after April 30,1975, the day the US embassy was evacuated in Saigon? Names like Jan, Alexis, Aubrey, Avery and Billie are given to both men and women. Collies, Beagles and Cocker Spaniels can be Linda, Larry Maurice, Fred and Don, but have you ever heard of a German Shepherd or St. Bernard named Selma? Selma was usually the name of your mother's friend. It was that or Muriel. Doris Kearns Goodwin is a famous historian but did any Selmas write about the Roosevelts? Can you imagine Selma Kearnes Goodwin, Selma Day O'Connor or Selma Obama? Selma can be the name of a town. Take Selma, Alabama.

read "Frankel" by Francis Levy, Vol 1 Brooklyn

and listen to "Barbara" by The Temptations

Schenck v. US

Mario Savio, Sproul Hall (1966)

Get the fuck out of there is what you're going to do when someone cries "fire" in a crowded theater. That's the reason Oliver Wendell Holmes delivered the famous Schenck decision, cautioning on the limits of free speech. It's a free country. The Bill of Rights allows for the single individual to stand fast against the will of the many. The problem comes  when one deals with limits. Danger to life is an obvious parameter but whaf if there really is a fire? People are likely to be killed not only because of the  smoke and flames, but the stampede which results when the alarm goes off. 

read "Frankel" by Francis Levy, Vol 1 Brooklyn

and listen to "Boogaloo Down Broadway" by Johnny C

Schopenhauer

What do you want? Classically the question arises in developmental stages where love and work are concerned. "Plastics" was the iconic quote from The Graduate. Plastic is a word for a substance as well as emotion or personality. Everyone graduates though not every graduate has the good fortune of being seduced by Anne Bancroft. In another way of thinking the end of study itself is biological. Esse est percipi. You only stop when you can no longer be perceived. Thus eschatologically one can never know until one takes a last breath. Desire is the arbiter until the story is over. Die Welt aus Wille und Vorstellung is Schopenhauer's great tome. Steven Greenblatt's Will in the World, may refer to both the Shakespearian and Shavian "life force."

read "Francis Levy's Divine Comedy," Exquisite Corpse

and listen to "Duke of Earl by Gene Chandler

Phillippe Petit

Phillippe Petit, Allentown, 1974

Free solo is one of the most dangerous sports. Ultra marathons, UFC fights which allow kicks to the legs and choke holds. Diana Nyad braving shark infested waters in 90 mile swims to Cuba and Phillipe Petit scaling skyscrapers or tightrope walling between them and the crew of the dirigible who perished on the way ti the wreckage of the Titanic, the astronauts who never seem to be returning (like the riders in Boston's MTA in the famous folk song), film director Ian Cameron's explorations of The Mariana Trench and the riders of the Tour de France braving ever more difficult courses at record breaking speeds,  Patrick Mahomes, Aaron Judge--does the thrill derive from knowing you can't compete with these daredevils or is it vicarious? Does it lie in imagining what it would be like if you could?

read "Frankel" by Francis Levy, Vol. 1 Brooklyn

and listen to "Make America Great Again" by Pussy Riot 

Harris v Trump Heavyweight Title Fight

Joe Lous v Max Schmeling (1938)

A jab in boxing is both a defensive and offensive move. It keeps your opponent off while inflicting damage on them at the same time. Lennox Lewis won fights with his lethal jab. Tonight's debate is the equivalent of a heavyweight fight, even though the two contenders are not in the same weight class (Harris being the heavy and Trump super light, verging on laughable). Harris needs to put Trump on the defensive by constantly making him pay every time he comes close. When she sees him start to weaken and try to throw a wild punch out of frustration, let her feint, duck and unleash a combo--in this case a mixture of attacks on his inanity, lying and general moral turpitude while showing forth the power and legitimacy of her agenda.

read "Frankel" by Francis Levy, Vol. 1 Brooklyn

and listen to "Make America Great Again" by Pussy Riot 

Fear

Fear can lead to championships. Adrenalin fuels the competitive instinct (in that case it's not clear what comes first the cart or the horse, but most likely the cart since it's apprehension that produces the chemical reaction). Interestingly priapism which creates necrotic tissue is treated with Adrenalin. You don't find too many sprinters running the hundred yard dash with a tent in their crotch.

read "Frankel" by Francis Levy, Vol. 1 Brooklyn

and listen to "Make America Great Again" by Pussy Riot 

The Power Clean and Jerk

Dead lifts, power cleans and jerks, in which you pick up the bar then flip your wrists, and lift up the weight, squats and naturally bench presses are four competitive weightlifting categories. George Foreman heaved cars up a hill as part of his training regimen. He lost one of his last fights to a youngster named Shannon Briggs. When a sportscaster asked what went wrong he simply promoted his grill. He was a real "heavyweight" a brooding malcontent turned into a statesman by the beating he took from Mohammed Ali at the "Rumble in the Jungle." At 96, Jack LaLane was still exercising every day. Hearns v. Hagler, Ward v. Gatti--now it's Trump v. Harris. Will it be a standing KO?

read "Frankel" by Francis Levy, Volume 1, Brooklyn

and listen to "Hooked on a Feeling" by B.J. Thomas (1968)

Stupidest Candidate Trump

 

Lawrence O'Donnell has previously used the soubriquet "stupidest candidate Trump." Commenting on Trump's appearance before the Economic Club of New York Thursday, he remarked New York's "stupidest rich people" clapped after Trump said "childcare is childcare." He also made the point that while the country's economy was suffering, these captains of industry continued to make money from money. Calling someone stupid is usually considered to be a low blow that reflects badly on the speaker, but Lawrence O'Donnell is very smart. Equivocating about evil is what is stupid. Moreover it perpetuates suffering. 

Les Mots

Oceans of words are weaponized against sometimes invisible enemies. You know the conversations that go on in your head with this or that hardened criminal guilty of no ore than the drumbeat of human difference--which is btw truly a misdemeanor. The contrived  enemies are shell companies. You don't even qualify as an account receivable. Then there are the agitators with their bullhorns. The tides of language are monetized by acts that will have to be paid for--in full. Water over the dam is the only way to treat fhe extensions of desire or denial that soon find their way into the immortality of oblivion.

read "Frankel" by Francis Levy, Vol 1 Brooklyn

and listen to "Boogaloo Down Broadway" by Fantastic Johnny C

Procrustean Don

Sassy the Sasquatch  (Bloody Boppa)

OK there's "Crooked Joe," "Comrade Kamala" and "Lyin' Hillary." What about "Procrustean Don?" "Procrustean" is the best adjective to use for Trump. "A rolling stone gathers no moss" is a fitting way to describe his ideology. Think of Gulliver among the Lilliputians. His 2025 agenda is Big Foot. Everyone criticizes the former president for lying but when you're good at something  (say the destruction of democracies), shouldn't there be a reward? "Gaslighting" is a noun which also epitomizes his method. If you arrest an insurrectionist or prevent the state of Louisiana from putting the Ten Commandments in classrooms, you are encroaching on freedom. If you don't allow government to enforce Dobbs, you are depriving right to lifers their freedom. Trump believes six weeks is too short, but he has to vote against Florida's abortion rights amendment since it might allow abortions as late as 9 months. If you recall murder of the first born sons of the Egyptians was one of the ten plagues--and a form of euthanasia. You marvel at the illogic the way you become entranced by someone who's capable of spinning a tall tale.

read "Francis Levy's Divine Comedy," Exquisite Corpse

and listen to "Duke of Earl by Gene Chandler

101 Dalmations

Fantasy is the most cogent argument for determinism. You don't choose the couplings in your head. They come to you first hesitantly and then in more full-blown form, a display of imagery fit for a king or despot depending on the fantasy. Of course, there's the free will crowd who discountenance the effect libertinage has on others. The fact is, everything manifests for a reason and has consequences that are determined by the effect these behaviors have on others. Fantasy itself is naturally a complex issue that can be deconstructed.The beautiful princess in the tower classically dreams of being rescued by her knight in shining armor but her more repressed wish may be to be rescued by a damsel or lady boy or simply be hung out to dry. Not everyone is going to be excited by the same scenario. While it's easy to blame the ferocity of images that tarnish imaginative freedom, it's important to realize that people ultimately only see and hear what they want.

read "Removing Your Unconscious" by Francis Levy, The East Hampton Star

and listen to "Bernadette" by The Four Tops

Dialectical Materialism

Karl Marx (1875)

Not to condone anything, but there is something wrong in the USA just as there was in Germany attendant upon the rise of Hitler. It's easy to blame MAGA Republicanism. Yet that's only a symptom of something else--is it inflation, jobs or the border? Everything is ultimately a symptom of everything else. For instance joblessness leads to tariffs which upends the balance of trade. The balance of trade is exacerbated by the plethora of unskilled workers in countries like China. There is no denying a phenomenon. You can't kill an idea as is the case with radical movements like ISIS and Hamas. Is this an argument for a tragic view of existence? Maybe rather a philosophic one. Neoliberalism may prevail in the current election simply because the threat Trump poses to Constitutionalism is so great. However, there is a historical process going on. Dialectical materialism produced Communism. What is the synthesis that will result from opposing historical forces in today's world?

read "Francis Levy's Divine Comedy," Exquisite Corpse

and listen to "Duke of Earl by Gene Chandler

The Outcry (1957)

Les quatre cent coups (1959)Tirez Sur le Pianiste 1960), Jules et Jim (1962) seem like yesterday as does the famous first line of L'etranger and Before the Revolution (1964) (with its less famous depiction of social class in the seating of the Parma opera house) The Conformist (1970), Last Tango (1972), which Pauline Kael compared favorably to Le Sacre de Printemps and lesser known classics like Antonioni's Il Grido, The Outcry (1957) which takes place in the Po Valley Bellocchio's Devil in the Flesh (1986) which starred the Dutch actress Marushka Detmar's whose "natural" style both of acting and body hair were originally displayed in Godard's First Name: Carmen (1983).The famous Bergman trilogy about the absence of God Through a Glass Darkly (1961),Winter Light (1963) and The Silence (1963) are yesterday as is Superfly (1972) recently revived at Film Forum, with the signature Curtis Mayfield sound track. Don't forget the Una Vita Difficile (1961) whose title is that of a novel its leading character, the tragic-comic figure played by Italy's Chaplin, Alberto Sordi, writes. Sordi also memorably starred in Lattuada's Mafioso (1962). These all also are yesterday for alumni of The New Yorker and The Thalia along with those currently enrolled at Film Forum. Remember "Death Knocks,"Woody Allen's New Yorker parody of The Seventh Seal (1957)?

read "Removing Your Unconscious" by Francis Levy, The East Hampton Star

and listen to "Bird on the Wire" by Leonard Cohen

Crossroads

Jean Willes and Dennis Morgan in Crossroads (1955)

There is the famous DMZ at the 38th parallel where South Korean farmers are purportedly gathering honey. Before the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, you had the famous Checkpoint Charlie but no space between East and West. Back in the 50s There was a Sunday morning religious series, Crossroads, in which a minister, priest or rabbi found themselves at a moment of spiritual conflict. The introduction always had a troubled spiritual person at a four-way intersection which formed a cross. Of course, the most famous of these sufferers, and someone whose story was not part of the TV series, was Oedipus who by running away brought about the very thing he was afraid of. This iteration, itself, is a spiritual axiom. But what is more frightening, finding oneself in one of two hostile zones or inhabiting the unknown world between them?

read "Removing Your Unconscious" by Francis Levy, The East Hampton Star

and listen to "Jump (For My Love)" by The Pointer Sisters

Food

Mr. Creosote

Eating is a metaphor for something. You look forward to it. You may even think of what you are going to eat before you get to a particular restaurant. In this way it's akin to... but more of that later. You imagine a pleasure. You indulge it. Then it's gone. So what's the point of consumerism which spends ad dollars in a proleptic attempt to answer the question before it's asked. There you are with the steak or roast or prospective sexual object whose delectable body awaits your ministrations.
Then one, two, three it's over. In the case of certain people this  requires only the count of "1." Ok you can't fuck a Grecian Urn or otherwise get impregnated with the immortality gene. Gluttony might seem inevitable. Your anticipation turns into vulgarity and the end result is that you miss out on everything.

read "Removing Your Unconscious" by Francis Levy, The East Hampton Star

and listen to "Groove Me" by King Floyd (1971)

Alphabet City

Microprocessors use the binary alphabet of 0 and 1. Alphaville (1965) is the name of a sci fi flick by Godard starring Akim Tamiroff, but it's also alphabet city.You could not produce a binary version of it or The Brothers K. Here is where CP Snow's "Two Cultures" come to a dead end. If you place a monkey in front of a computer for eternity he will at some point produce "The Grand Inquisitor" poem, but you'd have to teach it to type. Artificial intelligence is not merely some passing fad but it's also not fungible. It flags when confronted with the enigma of the Mona Lisa's smile.

read "Removing Your Unconscious" by Francis Levy, The East Hampton Star

and listen to "Freeway of Love" by Aretha Franklin

Vico

Giambattista Vico

There is "eternal recurrence" for which you need an infinity and then Vico's circularity which refers to history. Vilfredo Pareto's "circulation des elites" refines this kind of historical pattern recognition into ideological relativism. "The dictatorship of the proletariat" would yield the "nomenklatura," which was not far from say Britain's aristocratic ruling class or America's 19th century robber barons, Vanderbilt, Carnegie and Rockefeller. Ideology is immune to treating its leaders with equanimity and ironically the inheritor of the mantle of the Soviet State (who is now unsuccessfully trying to reconstitute the Imperial Russia) is one  of  wealthiest men in the world, an oligarch whose wealth exceeds that of any czar or Russian noble. There will always be a Caesar, no matter what the system of government. In talking about Renan's The Origins of Christianity in To the Finland Station, Edmund Wilson says: "the Christianity of the Apostles is no longer the Christianity of Jesus; the Christianity of the Scriptures is modified as it is attracted toward the Greeks or the Jews; the Christianity of the Rome of Nero is something entirely different from the primitive Christianity of Judea. Our ideas are all spun from filaments, infinitely long and mingled, which have to be analyzed with an infinite delicacy."

Day Zero

It's that great come and get it day. All the years of waiting and disappointment have come to this. No you are not finally running for president. Maybe you were a pick up artist. In other words a "fine" artist. You were looking for the right person or thing but either they or it wasn' t right or you weren't right. Against all odds you persevered. Again, it doesn't matter what it is. It could have been getting the starring role in an Acadeny Award winning film or simply winning a mahjong tournament in Cedarhurst. All your ducks are lined up. You are there. Even your dyspeptic partner is in a good mood. You are so happy that you forget to look at the truck coming at you as you cross the street.

read "Removing Your Unconscious" by Francis Levy, The East Hampton Star

and listen to "Freeway of Love" by Aretha Franklin

Kamala Harris At Work

Kamala Harris has been accused of being strong on rhetoric and short on actual policy. If you read between the lines, her acceptance speech was just the opposite. In fact, as the 47th president of the United States, she is already doing business. In fact, she is all business. At one point in the speech she offered her unequivocal support to Israel. A few sentences later she pledged her support of the Palestinians, underscoring the terrible loss of life in Gaza, but at the same time calling Hamas a terrorist organization. There has been a negotiation going on. Anthony Blinken has said this moment in history may be the last chance for a cease fire, ostensibly leading to a release of the hostages. Read between the lines! Netanyahu has been a big obstacle. She throws him a bone in a very prominent pledge of support, but that's it. Put up or shut up. She said: “What has happened in Gaza over the past 10 months is devastating. So many innocent lives, lost; desperate, hungry people fleeing for safety over and over again. The scale of suffering is heartbreaking.”

read "Frankel" by Francis Levy, Vol. 1 Brooklyn

also read "Removing Your Unconscious" by Francis Levy, The East Hampton Star

Happiness

If you're the kind of person whose state of mind is described by Kierkegaard titles (Fear and Trembling, The Sickness Unto Death, Either/Or), you might want to make an existential decision to be different. Existence over Essence is the famous philosophical dichotomy. Kierkegaard may have been the darling of Sartre and Camus but who's to say you can't make meaning by being Julius, the mangy duck that descended out of nowhere on "You Bet Your Life." Raskolnikov kills the old pawnbroker, Meurseult, the Arab. What if you were hit with the idea of being happy, deliriously happy, so happy that you can't contain yourself and don't know what to do about it? Does the shoe fit the foot?

read "Frankel" by Francis Levy, Vol. 1 Brooklyn

and listen to "The Harder They Come" by Jimmy Cliff

Jasmine Crockett

Jasmine Crockett one upped Shakesspeare's "to be or not to be" with“bleach-blonde, bad-built, butch body," which is what she said about Marjorie Taylor Greene, after the former Cross-Fit trainer, now Georgia Congressional rep tried to criticize her Texas counterpart's eyelashes. In Puritan New England Marjorie Taylor Greene would have been put in stocks for her famous 2019 commenting Parkland survivor David Hogg was "an idiot" who was "trained like a dog."On a brighter note Jasmine Crockett possesses the very Shakespearean quality of chutzpah. During her speech at the convention, she described how Kamala Harris wiped away her tears when she came to the VP for support as a freshman congresswoman. So what does that show? She tough and has heart, a winning cocktail for any fighter.

read "Frankel" by Francis Levy, Vol.1 Brooklyn

and listen to "Freedom" by Beyonce

The Waning of the Middle Ages

The Waning of the Middle Ages is a classic by the Dutch historian Johan Huizinga. It's also the condition of the current generation of baby boomers. Old Age is different from other stages of life due the fact the end is in sight. During the Middle Ages, scholastic philosophers famously debated about how many angels could populate the top of a pin. In middle age, there's similarly time to quibble about the fine points since life still feels eternal. In old age one is forced to develop a truly philosophical (rather than scholastic) attitude to life.  Realism and nominalism were the two great systems of philosophy debated in the Middle Ages. In retirement colonies, stoicism and the simple dichotomy between the pre-Socratic Eleatics (Zeno, Parmenides) and Milesians (Anaximander, Thales) become the talking points. Mentoring is, btw, one of the duties and privileges of the later years.

read "Frankel" by Francis Levy, Vol. 1 Brooklyn

and listen to "Juicy" by The Notorious B.I.G.

Inalienable Rights

James Madison

"Inalienable rights" is a concept that's hard to conceive. It makes you traffic in terms like "freedom" and "liberty" which are not necessarily fungible. One person's exercise of "liberty" can impinge on another's "freedom." Yet this precept at the heart of the Bill of Rights is the most precious of all those conferred on individuals by the constitution since it also protects the individual from the crowd. Majority rule is a mantra of democracy, but you  don't need a majority to allow an utterance when it comes to the First Amendment. In these fractious times it's hard to give credence to one faint cry amidst the roar of the mob.

read "Frankel" by Francis Levy, Vol. 1 Brooklyn

and listen to "Many Rivers to Cross" by Jimmy Cliff

Neither/Nor

Kierkegaard famously wrote Either/Or. but let's hypothesize a Neither/Nor in your philosophy, Horatio! Two negatives electromagnetically produce a positive charge. So this need not  be a manifesto of anarchism, nihilism or even the kind of adolescence negativity expressed in the expression, "what does it all mean?" Take a look at neither/nor the next time you spot it in a sentence. "He is neither good looking nor intelligent." Sound like the description of a loser? Sorry many if not the majority of successful people are neither intelligent nor good looking. Depending on looks alone is a losing proposition and you've undoubtedly met people who are too intelligent for their own good. 

read "Frankel" by Francis Levy, Vol. 1 Brooklyn

and listen to "Daddy's Home" by Shep & the Limelites

The Critic

Animadversion is criticism, a word which has gotten a bad deal. It's not nice to criticize people but when you're talking about books or painting criticism is epistemic and can open up worlds of thought and also sensibility. Criticism is the country  cousin of art itself to the extent it conveys a way of looking at the world which is in fact what art is supposed to do. Some critics like Clement Greenberg who was the ideologue of abstract expression can be dogmatic in their brilliance. Others like the famous critic of modern British literature F.R. Leavis are a bright light in the deep cavern of antiquity like Keats' "Grecian Urn" the embodiment of immortality itself.

read "Frankel" by Francis Levy, Vol. 1 Brooklyn

and listen to "You Don't Know Like I Know"by Sam & Dave

The Man Who Came to Dinner

Remember The Man Who Came to Dinner (1942) about the radio personality who overstays his welcome in the home of an Ohio family? The two NASA astronauts came for 8 days and may have to remain on the space station until 2025 or whatever amount of time it takes Boeing to figure out what's wrong with the thrusters on its Starliner. An indeterminate period of time feels like forever and long trips seem interminable until you have found signposts along the way. Knowing--the torture of being lost and not knowing when you'll be rescued. Imagine the plight of the kidnap victim buried alive with only a feeding tube/air valve for sustenance or the skiers caught as the avalanche caves in around them even further, the more they try to escape the mountains of snow. What's worse? To live with no end in sight or to have life suddenly snatched away? Star Wars deals with invaders and aliens, but Tarkovsky's Solaris describes the psychology of a stranded crew manning a spacecraft which has mysteriously lost its meaning and reason for being.

read "Frankel" by Francis Levy, Vol. 1 Brooklyn

and listen to "Please Mr. Postman" by The Marvelettes

You Have No New Messages

You get it. After the fifth text with no response, x doesn't want to talk to you. Your partner or someone in your small circle of mourners points out that it may not have anything to do with you. Perhaps the person you're trying to connect with is dead or at the very least having an IRS audit. The idea that anybody is too preoccupied with their own life to pay attention to your increasingly urgent missives is a hard nut to swallow. Indeed, it's rarely true that whatever it is has nothing to do wIth you. If your attempts go answered, the person who is receiving them is simply telling you to fuck off. What have you done? In fact it's almost consoling to think there's one incident that caused the breakup rather than mere indifference. In the former case you still retain your agency as opposed to experiencing the cosmic yawn that lies at the heart of existence. If you don't face death you're living an inauthentic existence is how Heidegger put it. Authenticity may be one of the backhanded rewards that derives from being rejected.

read "Frankel" by Francis Levy, Vol. 1 Brooklyn

and listen to "Please Mr. Postman" by The Marvelettes

Revolution

Every revolutionary movement wants to eradicate the status quo by any means possible. The January 6 mob who stormed the capitol, either subliminally or literally, knew the election wasn't rigged. In fact,Trump had said many times that he would only accept the results if he was the winner. Trump is saying the same thing today. He proclaims people should vote for him, noting it will be the last time they will have to exercise this right. In essence any revolutionary stance is metaphysical since it's predicated on an ideal that transcends reality and hence empirical truth. That's the conflict with notions like democracy which are empirically based. Lenin was steely-eyed in his resolve as the sealed train approached the Finland Station to cite the title of Edmund Wilson's classic work.

read "Frankel" by Francis Levy, Vol. 1 Brooklyn

and listen to "You Don't Know Like I Know" by Sam & Dave

Motiveless Malignity

Lawrence Fishburne and Kenneth Branagh in Othello

Motive is what prosecutors and mystery writers look for. You may find yourself baffled when your husband or wife suddenly walks out on you. Only later do the revealing instances become apparent. Hindsight is 20/20 and foresight tends at best to myopia. Then there are the whole gallery of people who knew what you refused to see and might even have experienced some guilty schadenfreudian delight in seeing the fall of a person they had always regarded as smug and self- satisfied. If you've been rebuked by your therapist for disliking happy people, here is your revenge. What role do the machinations of fate play? By avoiding a prophecy Oedipus famously brings about the very thing he fears. Sound familiar? On a microcosmic level, it happens every day. 

read "Frankel" by Francis Levy, Vol. 1 Brooklyn

and listen to "Funky Broadway" by Wilson Pickett

The Bonfire of the Vanities

One way to deal with luck or good fortune is to believe you're entitled to it. When Trump was spared, Governor Tim Scott saw it as a sign from God. It's actually the grace Max Weber refers to in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. This may account for the reason most rich people are schmucks. They're guilty about the unfairness of a situation they at the same time don't want to gjve up. This may account for the shit eating grin that appears on the faces of despoilers. Individual initiative is nice and socialists like Fourier have proposed an economics that allows for freedom while mitigating the economic inequality described by Thomas Piketty in Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Is allowing a small group of billionaires to account for the major part of the country's wealth really freedom? Of course no system of governance is immune. Lenin was no less of a schmuck than Vanderbilt or Rockefeller. Members of the Nomenklatura left Moscow on the weekends for their dachas. Daumier painted caricatures of what Tom Wolfe would later called "Masters of the Universe" in The Bonfire if the Vanities.    .

read "Frankel" by Francis Levy, Vol. 1 Brooklyn

and listen to "Land of a Thousand Dances" by Wilson Pickett

Global Warming

Global warming has produced a rise in temperatures both on land and at sea. The latter has raised water levels and also resulted in the diminution and destruction of shorelines and beaches; it has also affected the Gulf Stream and El Niño and extended the hurricane season--something which has had particularly dire consequences in the Southeast. A side effect has also been the prevalence of particularly destructive tornadoes all across the US. A number of towns outside Omaha were recently flattened by such meteorological events. Many Americans have gotten used to seeing rising waves as auguring further destruction in the form of tsunamis. Positive energy in the form of huge crowds is something one has come to associate with MAGA Republicans and their historic fascist antecedents. The Kamala Harris Tim Walz ticket is the first positive experience  of "warming," global or otherwise that Gen Z has ever experienced. In this sense it may be greeted with a mixture of awe but also suspicion. It's hard to believe that the  the masses have finally landed on something worthy and helpful, they can also believe in.

read "Frankel" by Francis Levy, Vol. 1 Brooklyn

and listen to "Funky Broadway" by Wilson Pickett

Take Five

Remember the cover of the Dave Brubeck LP with its colorful cubist design? Perhaps it was lying next toThe Fire Next Time. Your eyes were just beginning to open to another world in which you knew James Baldwin had a house in Saint-Paul de Vence not far from the Matisse Chapel and that not so good restaurant Colombe d'Or owned by Simone Signoret and Yves Montand. You emerged from the dark well of childhood finding yourself sitting by a pool in Mougins where the only sound was that of apricots falling from a tree--the house which you had rented from an ad in the The New York Review of Books. Then your voyage would take some turns you wouldn't foresee, however apparent in that aggregate of experience known as fate.

read "Frankel" by Francis Levy, Vol. 1 Brooklyn

and listen to "Funky Broadway" by Wilson Pickett

Goethe

Your freedom is likely to encroach on the liberty of others. Isaiah Berlin examined these kinds of contrarieties. Freedom is a word bantered about promiscuously by Republicans. One should be free to purchase assault rifles but not free to get an abortion. One should be free to drill for oil but not free to read certain books ( especially if you're a kid). According to Mike Johnson democrats are not free to put their VPs in the running, while Republicans are free to discredit the results of the 2020 election (even though everyone knows the truth which is that Donald Trump has threatened to excommunicate any Republican who doesn't go with the flow). Freedom is one thing for existentialist thinkers who believe that nothing presupposes their being (a la Sartre's Being and Nothingness) and another for metaphysicians. Faust was free to make his bargain with Mephistopheles.

ead "Francis Levy's Divine Comedy," Exquisite Corpse

and listen to "Boogaloo Down Broadway" by Johnny C

Waiting For Godot

Are you one of those people who are always waiting? It could be for answers. If you're a creative, you have spent your whole life being the unwanted suitor and writing emails like "I was wondering about the status of my submission (or the more pathetic query about "wondering if they had received" when you know they did). You imagine people like the late Martin Amis who had entree into everyone's office and pants (if they were a female Penguin editor). When it cones to love you may only have spent part of your adult life waiting. Most lovers get over the Young Werther stage. It's easy for an artistic personality, who prefers the imagined life over reality, to err as far as work is concerned and end up chasing windmills like Don Quixote.

read the Kirkus review of The Kafka Studies Department by Francis Levy

and listen to "Mickey's Monkey" by Smokey Robinson and The Miracles

Israel

Ismail Haniyeh (Federation Council)

The Actors Studio produced Marlon Brando, Eli Wallach, James Dean, Estelle Parsons, Anne Bancroft, Maureen Stapleton, Geraldine Pageand and many other greats but a number of bad actors have also crossed the world's stage courtesy of Russia, Iran, China and North Korea. Donald Trump has received an honorary degree from this conservatory. Putin, Kim Jong-un and Xi Jinping might be described as graduates of the Bad Actor's Studio. The generals in Myanmar, responsible for the genocide of the Rohingya, graduated at the top of their class. Israel is a bad carpet bomber. Sympathy for Israel over the horrific October 7 Hamas attack has been dulled by the genocidal treatment of Palestinians. What Israel is good at is locating and removing bad actors from the stage of human life. Yesterday they assassinated two Iran proxies, the number two men in Hezbollah and Hamas both. If Mossad assets could be deployed against Kim Jong-un or say Maduro in Venezuela, Israel would kill two birds with one stone.

read "Francis Levy's Divine Comedy," Exquisite Corpse

and listen to "Duke of Earl by Gene Chandler