Tehran

The Seventh Fleet will attack in a week, ten days.  On CNN, Admiral James Stavridis, the former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO recently gave it a 60% chance of it happening in 7-10 days. Kidnapping the Ayatollah will be a trifle harder than the antiseptic operation that moved Maduro from Caracas to the Metropolitan Detention Center. Imagine the Supreme Leader imprisoned there. Well, it's not far from the site of 9/11. Succession may be the biggest issue. Will the Shah's son rise to the occasion? Word has it that his rhetoric is already extreme. Iran is a country of 80 million people. Thousands of demonstrators recently died in a massive crackdown by the Revolutionary Guard. The problem is not simply regime change, but the aftermath. How to juggle all the varying interests, political, religious and economic? Lastly, there is the impact on the region.  During the initial attack US bases in friendly nearby countries like Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Jordan will be threatened. In the aftermath, regime change in Iran is likely to unleash extremist elements throughout the Middle East. In Syria, Bashar al Assad fell, but ISIS still has a stronghold.  Remember that Iran is also part of the Axis that includes Russian and North Korea. It's the Domino theory and also--"spheres of influence," a vestige of the 50s political order which has ironically been reignited by Trump in his Greenland grab.

read "Current Events" by Francis Levy, The East Hampton Star

Mania

Pyromania, nymphomania, dipsomania Vergangensheitsbewaltigung (the burden of the past) anglophile, bibliophile. diarrhea, logorrhea—all of these are inclinations, with the exception of loose stools, generally something  which is out of the control of the sufferer. The sympathetic fallacy occurs  when nature mirrors the interior mind of a headless horseman. Onomatopoeia is a word that sounds similar to the thing described. Inspissation is an example of onomatopoeia. An emordnilap is the opposite of a palindrome like say nun, a word which can retain its meaning backwards and forwards. Prolepsis is anticipating the answer to a question which has yet to be asked. Zeugma or yoking is when one verb applies to multiple nouns. And then there are eggcorns, "for all intents and purposes" used wrongly in place of "for all intents and purposes"--"slips of the ear," named after "acorns" by the linguist Geoffrey Pullum in 2003.

read "Current Events" by Francis Levy, The East Hampton Star.

9½ Weeks

Trump's last State of the Union was 99 min. Yesterday's was threatening to weigh in at 9½ Weeks. Hitler and Mussolini also were known to give exceptionally long speeches. Haranguing is really the form. Why when you know tedium makes people angry? Answer, when oratory crosses a certain line it transforms from informational to medicinal. MAGA is a cult based upon irrational adoration, under the theory of The Second Coming. Yes Christ is now a portly figure who sports the hairdo of one of those used car salesman on Northern Boulevard. Trump is a real Queens man. All he needs is the white patent leather shoes with the faux gold bunion and a 70s double knit disco suit and he’ll be at home in the beloved outer borough which will always treat him like Ofysseus. It’s hard to think of Melania as a Penelope since she’s undoubtedly too busy with her staff of beauticians to attend to her McDonald’s quaffing warrior. For a proto fascist the whole idea of speech giving is incite not insight—will the midterms be another January 6 with DJT Big Mac in hand declaring a state of emergency and martial law when the house and even senate turn color.

Release Checklist for Ghislaine

mug shot Ghislaine Metropolitan Detention Center

Memory stick with Jeffrey's emails, massage table, hairdryer, hand weights, golf clubs, hot plate, massage table (2), swim suit, goggles, fins for snorkeling at Club Fed, hot plate, espresso maker, Neuhaus Valentine's Day dark chocolate selection, hardback Art of the Deal,  God Bless the USA Bible, red MAGA hat, "enjoy your stay" cards from Pam Bondi, and Kristi Noem received on arrival at Bryan Federal Prison Camp, autographed Bryan guest services manual including room service menu, together with check-out times, schedule of yoga classes, Marjorie Taylor Greene workout video, guidebook Little Saint James.

Lonely Are the Brave

David Miller’s Lonely Are the Brave (1962), recently revived as part of the The Sag Harbor Cinema’s 60’s Western series, is a predecessor to John Schlesinger's Midnight Cowboy (1969). The difference is social consciousness versus stylized, albeit sublime anomie. Here Kirk Douglas on his horse finds himself mowed down by the oncoming traffic. In Midnight Cowboy a young Texan (Jon Voight) dresses up as a cowboy to become a Times Square hustler.The movie also stars Gena Rowlands of Cassavetes fame, Walter Matthau as the sheriff and Carol O’’Connor aka Archie Bunker as the ill-fated trucker who unwittingly becomes the representative of ugly modernity. The movie is hard to gauge at first. Who is this character riding saddle in traffic and choosing solitude over the chance for love? Then suddenly the pieces fall into place. A signature scene where Douglas in flight from a posse of cops literally drags his rambunctious horse up a mountain pass attains a mythic grandeur. Taken literally, the movie makes no sense. There are still cowboys today but they're too busy herding cattle to challenge the conventions of modernity. However, that’s the point. Lonely Are the Brave is Death of a Salesman meets The Lone Ranger. Speaking of the depredations of capitalism, the screenplay is by Dalton Trumbo, one of the blacklisted Hollywood 10. Two civilizations on a collision course is ultimately the source of the drama.

Ezra Klein

On Fareed Zakaria’s GPS Ezra Klein iterated the theory that opponents can’t counter one sally, if another is leveled right after. According to him, the idea, "muzzling," originates with Steve Bannon and comprises the playbook of the administration. In the world of fisticuffs you have "brawlers" and “boxers.” Mike Tyson who famously said, "everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face," is the type to mix it up. You level a flurry and the fight is over. Lennox Lewis was a champion who won all his fights counterpunching with a brutal jab. MAGA people never let the opposite side get a word in edgewise. Listen to Steve Miller or any other of Trump's henchmen as they talk to a CNN anchor. A barrage of words follows every question. The interviewer is hard put to interrupt and point out the subject is off topic when they veer off the point--or their rocker, in fact.

Interiority

"The Persistence of Memory" by Salvador Dali (1931)

Interiority has never been popular—despite Proust. Belly button gazers was the accusation by those who  attended the Communist Internationals. You could put The Interpretation of Dreams in your backpack if you joined the Lincoln Brigade but Lenin’s What Is To Be Done? would go over better with your comrades. The mind resembles a toilet which works on the principle of the siphon. Vacuity is the aim. Think of it. Most people complain of emptiness in the aftermath of the stimulations of food or sex. You're always going against the grain when you risk solitude. But in today’s virtual reality universe where bytes of data comprise the lingua franca, the dendrites and axons which guard the synapses where neurotransmitters flow are chemically challenged. It’s akin to what green gases are doing to the environment. Stimulation is addictive; it’s no surprise that the turbulence of this moment of history is a juggernaut. It’s hard to get one’s breath back when one's always having to duck the next oncoming wave.

Ilse Koch and Kristi Noem

Only their hairdressers know for sure

DHS Secretary Kristi Noem bears some comparison to Ilse Koch, the infamous Bitch of Buchenwald. One of her most notable moments was an appearance at the notorious CECOT prison in El Salvador. There she paraded around in her signature revealing outfits, as tattooed inmates packed into cages, looked on. One knows what happens to prisoners in such facilities who get erections during the visits of dignitaries. Koch made lampshades out of human skin and used prisoners to build a riding ring. By comparison five-year olds are detained in ICE facilities, like the Dilley Family Detention Center, with untreated diseases.  Ghislaine Maxwell is being held at "Club Fed" in anticipation of her prospective release--which is likely to be one of the last pardons Trump gives before leaving office. {Editor's Note: The New York Post reported Noem was having an affair with Corey Lewandowski. Melania Trump and Noem ought to rent CECOT for a Victoria's Secret fashion show in honor of Jeffrey Epstein associate Leslie Wexner }

The Secret Agent

The title of Kleber Mendonca Filho's The Secret Agent cites the Conrad novel after which it is named. In the eponymous work, the main character is a rather ineffectual spy. The same tone of irony is at work in the current production. In the opening scene, a corpse is covered by cardboard, but when the police arrive, it's to shakedown the main character Armando (Wagner Moura). Lucky he has the required fire extinguisher in the glove compartment of his car. Armando's yellow beetle is an iconic presence in the film, a Beetles "Yellow Submarine" bobbing through an atmosphere of impending doom as the main character tries to skirt a pair of assassins during the l977 Brazilian Carnival in Recife. The atmosphere of joy, with masked revelers and public sex, alternates with constant fear and terror. Armando's father-in-law, Sr. Alexandre (Carlos Francisco) is the projectionist in a theater where Jaws is being shown while Chicago's l976 hit "If You Leave Me Now" provides the soundtrack. Armando takes refuge in a safe house in Recife, but he's given a job in an agency which creates government identity cards and where he spends his free time searching for information about his late mother, who he barely remembers. Throughout the movie there are continual cuts to the present time in which, Flavia a researcher working to identify victims of past brutality, visits Armando's son Fernando, who works in a blood transfusion unit situated on the site of Sr. Alexandre's old movie theater. The film creates its own internal atmosphere which is timeless even as it moves from past to present. Industrial espionage and fascism bookend the action, but the style is one of cinematic magical realism in which history and memory create their own timeline and tapestry.

JE

                                                      

One hesitates to even employ the name. The ubiquity is the issue. The only comparison is Covid from which no society is immune. Was it passed from Dennis Rodman onto Kim Jong-un. Were those in solitary infected? Did Rex Heuermann, the Gilgo Beach murder have dealings even after the first conviction in 2008.  Did artificial intelligence become superficial? People are earnestly abhorrent but what to think of something that crosses state and party lines? BTW how did the eponymous JE vote. Was it a democrat? Or did it move right just as a thermometer moves up? Soma was the drug employed in Huxley's Brave New World to drug the populace. Corruption is by definition value free. Beria and Thomas Jefferson were both corrupt and would both have been prone to JE? The DOJ harbored millions and millions of documents, but why and when did it start? Say Door Dash delivered to JE townhouse one night in 2009 then to you? As is evident with ISIS or Hamas, it's impossible to extinguish an idea.  JE Wanted Dead or Alive. 

Ogen Nash

Nash and Dagmar 

Are you tired of the monotony of politics? Ideology is another matter since it’s a form of thinking. Who would you listen to? Tommy Tuberville, Joseph de Maistre or Ogden Nash? Stupidity can be colorful. Don’t count on the world of poetic discourse for a respite from the culture wars. There are 9 circles of Inferno at every Dante conference. If you entertain the belief that Gilles Deleuze’s Anti-Oedipus has anything to do with mental health, you may be in for a surprise—ditto trying to explain why you still have to pay the full fee for a Lacanian 50 minute session, that’s cut off. If you're an event organizer, you may have to juggle Turning Point America, The Eulenspiegel Society and the Right to Die. Spoiler Alert: it's all someone else's fault. Sure go listen to the annual Moby Dick reading in Sag Harbor but don’t think the world of Melville scholars isn’t riven by a Unified Executive.

read the review ofThe Wormhole Society by Francis levy and Joseph Silver in The East Hampton Star 

The Story of O

Perversion is altering something from its original course. Perversion of justice, for instance. Something is perverse when it begins this process. Perverts are those who enjoy such derailments and a perversion, when it comes to sex is defined as abnormality. "What is normal?" is the complaint of every pervert from the Marquis de Sade on. One walks a slippery slope in trying to lower or raise the bar in reference to that which some deem to be a form of pleasure. There are those who may derive their kicks from getting their leg pulled. That train has left the station means an inalterable process has begun. A pervert trying to reverse course is similar to a fish swimming upstream. Yes salmon return home to die, but the average tuna will find itself canned. You'd think perversion would be an easy thing to cure. Just give the person the correct directions. Easier said than done. It's hard to eradicate an idea.

read the review of The Wormhole Society by Francis Levy and Joseph Silver in The East Hampton Star

The Wild One

It may seem odd in this age of Jeffrey Epstein to remember America is a puritanical society. The Scarlet Letter is worn by every American. Sexuality not only results in humiliation, it’s predicated on it. Shame was the 2011 Michael Fassbinder movie about a sex addict. America isn’t the only country where transgression fuels arousal. Catholicism and fascism were the cocktail that formed Pasolini’s sensibility, but America is a secular society where there's at least the illusion of freedom. So the outlying forces, the attraction between positive and negative plus and minus in fact create the buzz. In The Wild One (1953), Marlon Brando auditions as America’s great heartthrob by leading a motorcycle gang into town. James Dean, Jack Nicholson, Warren Beatty and their female counterparts Janet Leigh, Natalie Wood and Marilyn Monroe all become stars by defying the mores of society.

Read "Boudu Saved From Drowning" by Francis Levy with a painting by Hallie Cohen in The East Hampton Star

How Proust Can Change Your Life: Not a Novel

Can an inward turning figure be an activist? What revolution would Proust lead? There has famously been a conservatism to great 20th  Century modernism, Ezra Poind ended up in St. Elizabeth’s in the wake of his fascist broadcasts during the Second War. Tolstoy is an exception particularly with regard to the Christianity which infused his writing in the latter part of his career. Andre Malraux, a Gaullist political figure, wrote both Man’s Fate and Man’s Hope (if manifest content is significant, the titles tell part of the story). Camus, the editor of the famed resistance paper Combat, was the author of The Stranger, a unique combination of interiority with intention and there were Koestler, Silone and, indubitably, George Orwell whose complex convictions are an essay in consciousness itself. Alain de Botton's How Proust Can Save Your Life  fuses the how-to genre with a Proust's excavations of memory in both its voluntary and involuntary forms (as exemplified by the iconic madeleine). The potential humor and even silliness of the endeavor is belied by acuteness of the author's insights.

Read "Boudu Saved From Drowning" by Francis Levy with a painting by Hallie Cohen in The East Hampton Star

The Full-Service Replacement Division of Andersen

 

Plato

You may have seen the television ads about the years of training installers of The Full-Service Division of Andersen receive. There are is also the PhD and of course the post graduate division located in Frankfurt where famous for philosophers like Herbert Marcuse whose notion of "repressive desublimation" is an important element of his One Dimensional Man. Can a one-dimensional man install a three-dimensional window? As was once said about Clairol, "only your hairdresser knows for sure." In their first year most students will take Contemporary Civilization, a survey of Greco-Roman and classical culture that plays a major role in the kind of installing that clients enjoy. If nothing else a graduate should be able to converse freely with the kind of highly educated customer who can afford a top quality window replacement job.

Read "Boudu Saved From Drowning" by Francis Levy with a painting by Hallie Cohen in The East Hampton Star

The Great Dictator

 

Cut to the famous scene in the Charlie Chaplin classic where Chaplin, impersonating Hitler, is throwing the world around like it's a rubber ball. Trump vows to nationalize elections in violation of the constitution. He declares war on Venezuela and Iran without the consent of congress. He attempts to grab Greenland, a relatively minor gambit whose failure he sloughs off. Emoluments. His current earnings as president are nearing 1.8 billion and he has sent the FBI into the office of Fulton County to illegally vet ballots. Is that Tulsi Gabbard, Director of National Intelligence, making a guest appearance? The FBI under $Cash Patel and the DOJ under Pam Bondi, whose past role was in Surfer Girl, have now been merged with The White House, whose East Wing has been torn down to build a $300 million ballroom, without wasting time to confer with the NCPC (National Capitol Planning Commission). Who cares?

The Phone

"Midway upon the journey of our life
  I found myself within a forest dark,
  For the straightforward pathway had been lost."--Canto I, The Inferno

"Lasciate ogni speranza, voi' ch'intrate"--reads the sign above the gate--Canto III

But what is hell? Is it everyday life with its disillusion, disappointments and boredom? And with the ephemeral pleasures of the flesh like eating and passion. Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso all have 33 cantos each. So hell doesn't dominate existence, but for the unrepentant sinner it's the last stop. Tolstoy ran away from Yasnaya Polyana and died alone in the Astopovo Station "He who is without sin cast the first stone"--John 8:7 . Waiting is the human predicament. No one is free of it and salvation is rarely what is sought.

Life

At birth, one is sentenced to life with no time off for good behavior. Parole? It’s the one case where it would not necessarily be desirable. Commutation is tantamount to death.  No one has the benefit of awareness of the birth or death which bookend existence. Supernal events inevitably convey mystery since they traffic in both the invisible and ineffable. Time is a light spectrum filled with signposts such as the advent of consciousness—which however elusive tantalize with their potential knowability. Personhood follows the vacuum which leads to nothing.

Read "Boudu Saved From Drowning" by Francis Levy with a painting by Hallie Cohen in The East Hampton Star

Boswell's The Life of Samuel Johnson

Here is what Boswell says about Samuel Johnson: "He had, from the irritability of his constitution, at all times, an impatience and hurry when he either read or wrote. A certain apprehension, arising from novelty, made him write his first exercise from College twice over; but he never took that trouble with any other composition; and we shall see that his most excellent works were struck off at a heat, with rapid exertion." Much is made of rewriting, but the fact is most writing is unconscious, occurring not in the mind but the fingers. The idea is to get ahead of the reasoning function which buries thought in notions.  Encapsulating a creative impulse is akin to taming a wild horse. The manageability is inversely proportional to its richness and unpredictability. 

read "Boudu Saved From Drowning" by Francis Levy (with a painting by Hallie Cohen), The East Hampton Star

Nabokov's First Poem

 "A moment later, my first poem began. What touched it off? I think I know. Without any wind blowing, the sheer weight of a raindrop, shining in parasitic luxury on a cordite leaf, caused its tip to dip, and what looked like a globule of quicksilver performed a sudden glissando dow the center vein, and then, having shed its bright load, the relieved leaf unbent."--Speak, Memory. Nabokov would go on to write Pale Fire, a 999 line novel in poetry form by the fictional John Shade, with commentary by Shade's neighbor, Charles Kinbote--the Boswell of the tale. Nabokov's own description of his first prosody sounds a bit like Stephen Hawking: "Tip, leaf, dip, relief--the instant it all took to happen seemed to me not so much a fraction of time as a fissure in it, a missed heartbeat which was refunded at once by a patter of rhymes..."

read "Boudu Saved From Drowning" by Francis Levy (with a painting by Hallie Cohen), The East Hampton Star