Wednesday, July 2, 2025

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

Tuesday, July 1, 2025

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

Monday, June 30, 2025

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

Friday, June 27, 2025

Raw





Dog and God are palindromes. War and raw are showstoppers which make a noxious cocktail. Strange bedfellows is an oxymoron. Casus belli is an occasion for war. Ordinance is a bomb. Fission reactions use U-235. There were, it turns out, insects left in Hiroshima after the dropping of the first atomic bomb by the crew of the Enola Gay, whose captain, Paul Tibbets was, contrary to myth, not institutionalized. Ryusuke Hamaguchi's Drive My Car is about a director who is putting on a production of The Seagull in Hiroshima. His wife, who is a sex addict, dies of a brain aneurysm he has a chance to intervene.

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


Thursday, June 26, 2025

Zohran Mamdani




Charles Fourier  (1772-1837)

Speculating on politics is a little like the stock market though you don’t always get payback in terms of money, if you pick a winner. In fact, if you like free bus fare and no rent increases, somebody is going to pay the piper. Socialism is a dirty word to Republicans, but is individualism really curtailed when ifJeff Bezos ore the world’s richest man, EM, are left with say 20 billion each. Why do people need so much money? Zohran Mamdani’s victory
 is a test. The  Bernie Sanders AOC tour was impassioned, but what about the radical centrism of the much maligned and highly humane Joe Biden? Meanwhile the failure of Cuomo's cynical negative campaign tactics is another nail in the coffin of the Democratic political machine.

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

Wednesday, June 25, 2025

Castlevania




Castlevania

GRAND THEFT AUTO is one of the biggest computer games and there is GRAND AUTO THEFT which is no game. And of course you remember SUPER MARIO. But there are two new ones that exist in totally virtual universes. In that field SECOND LIFE offers its own currency and way of life, but a Mark Zuckerberg clone or drone, a mysteriously elusive guy, like the founder of Bitcoin, has created POTUS and SCOTUS. In fact, don't be surprised if you find not only kids but all your friends and neighbors walking around with the new versions which will soon be available at your local Facebook or Tesla dealership. where AR (Augmented Reality) and VR (Virtual Reality) are the lingua franca.

read "The Waste Land" by Francis Levy, The East Hampton Star

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

Tuesday, June 24, 2025

Cosa Nostra

 



Trump by way of the middle east is defeating Putin. He has become the local tough, the local strong man of international politics--for good or for bad. He and Netanyahu are one of those gangs that you might have sentenced to Cetco, for their unlawful behavior. Fight fire with fire. It's a world of criminal syndicates, say Godfather on the world stage with Donald Trump as Don Corleone. Putin may do all the threatening he wants. He'd be dumb to give Iran nukes. In the meanwhile, hopefully Ukraine will come out on top. Why not? Trump at this point doesn't need Putin anymore. He's the strong man. Giving the Russians Ukraine would only build up their war chest with those rare minerals everyone wants. BTW there will be some minor changes to geography to reflect the new Cosa Nostra (literally "our thing"). BTW Mare Nostrum ("our sea") was what the Romans called the Mediterranean. Most of the map will simply be Trumplandia (natives will run the two words together so they sound like "Trumplunds"). There will be the Sea of Putin. That relatively small province that used to be North Korea will be Kim Jong-oink. A baby's first words will be "MAGA" rather rather than "mamma." Nothing much will have changed besides that. 

read "The Waste Land" by Francis Levy, The East Hampton Star

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