Fear and Trembling

There are three stages of being: reason, intuition and counter intuition which roughly correlate to Kierkegaard's esthetic, moral and religious categories. Kierkegaard, who could have been a great counterintelligence agent, illustrates the religious in Fear and Trembling where he addresses Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac, an act which requires the ultimate leap of faith. Such an act can only be described as counterintuitive since no parent sacrifices their child. There are the exceptions you read about where mothers abandon their children. Of course scripture deals with that too in the story of Moses. Counter-intuition also resembles counterintelligence and hermaphroditism. In all of these you play both ends against the middle.

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

Deaccessioning the Enlightenment

David Hume (1711-1776)

Erosion of the shoreline is a product of global warming, Coastlines shrink. The same might be said of the Humanist Project which began with Hume, Hobbes and Locke. It's not only Project 2025 and the threat to democracy but the whole notion of education. Rousseau’s Emile (1762) is a broadsheet for “Le Gai Savoir,” the joy of learning which Godard appropriated as the title of his 1969 film. The thrill of Goethe’s Faust is something you might find yourself experiencing in isolation, ditto any number of the classics which themselves depend on an inurement to literature. The great books whuch were once part of the core curriculum constitute a palette. Knowledge has always been a lonely pursuit with its satisfaction deriving from discussions on the way out of the carrel. With AI libraries and dictionaries, the repository of history and language have all been swept up in a maelstrom of data bytes.

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

Trump

Stay tuned for Trump weather. Lonnie the Trump weatherman formerly known as Quinn. It’s Trump o’clock. Trump FEMA announced it is handing out 3 rolls of paper towels to every country hit by a hurricane. DHS secretary Christy Trump announced that not only immigrants will be detained indefinitely in their local Trump detention center. Trump Tower graces the avenue formerly known as Fifth and you may find yourself requiring a bar of Trump formerly known as soap."Trump," is the way most conversations will begin. "Two diamonds, three spades, three No Trump." Give Trump for Life, Trump Centers across the Trumpoverse. The Trump formerly known as moon. The Trump Way formerly known as Milky, both candy and star. Trumpty Dumpty had big fall. All the king's Trumps and all the Trump's men..."

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

QED

Patricia Highsmith (1921-1995)

Why readers enjoy mysteries lies in resolution. The crime is solved, the villain apprehended. In real life, there often isn’t any resolution or if there is one, it occurs long after all the cast of characters have departed the earth. Are you the kind of person that likes everything to fit in place? Have you been accused of wanting everything tied up in a neat little bow, with the pieces of the puzzle fitting together too precociously for believability? Perhaps you want answers that are not within reach, not within the ken of the doctor, lawyer, financial consultant (no one can ever look into a crystal ball as far as markets are concerned) or scientist. About this latter, no heavenly body is asteroid proof. If you really want certainty, read a book!

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

Cotard's

Jules Cotard (1840-1889)

Cotard’s Syndrome is a neurological condition where the victim suffers from the delusion they’re dead--"the delusion of negation" is another way this disorder is described. It’s the country cousin of Capgras where there's the haunting suspicion that a familiar persona is a guise for a imposter. Deep REM sleep can sometimes result in amnesia. Essentially you awaken on a profoundly wrong side of the bed, where you’re skating without blades so to speak. Temporary amnesia of this kind is akin to what a woman experiences, when she's left hobbling cause her heel’s fallen off. Their world falls apart unless they’re lucky enough to find a shoemaker.

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

Antigone

How does one handle suffering? Numbness or rage are both symptoms of Grief. Antigone famously rages at Creon's refusal to allow her to bury her brother, Polyneices. You may have been praised for taking things well for complying and assuming that the losses, failures and disappointments you're experiencing are part of life. You can get used to almost anything, including, imprisonment, solitude, perhaps not death. If it's your demise, you won't have the luxury of the vote. One of the first casualties of mortality is expression. On D Day soldiers scaled the cliffs of Omaha beach. Such self-sacrifice is almost unimaginable within a universe where self-seeking is the lingua franca.

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

Closely Watched Trains

The Orient Express is a legendary train that has since become a curiosity and whim indulged in by wealthy esthetes like the late William F. Buckley who famously recounted his travels ("Buckley Aboard The Orient Express, NYT, 11/22/81). If only he could have carried his harpsichord on board! Apparently during the purges Stalin removed whole populations to far off regions in Uzbekestan like Tashkent, by train. Needless to say such trains exhibited no luxuries. Notoriously Hitler’s box cars transported Jews to their deaths. E.M Frimbo was the alter ego of Roger E.M. Whitaker, The New Yorker's famed train traveler. Then there’s of course Freud who likened free-association to the perception of passing reality through a train car window.

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