Bleak House

Is there value free jurisprudence? In her blistering dissent, Kentanji Brown Jackson said of the affirmative action decision that it "proceeds (ostrich-like) from the hope that preventing consideration of race will end racism."Justice Sonya Sotomayor compared its delusive exceptionalism to "putting lipstick on a pig." Deconstructionists have argued that language itself is culture bound. What's good where everything is by definition relative? And what's moral? Does equality mean no accommodation is ever made in a contest? Survival of the fittest in absence of context recalls Herbert Spencer's Social Darwinism, the ideology which justified the worst abuses of the Industrial Revolution. What does it actually mean for Justice to be blind? Jarndyce v. Jarndyce was the case that goes on for generations in Dickens' famed novel about the courts. Bleak House is also the legacy of a Trump appointed conservative majority. However, hope springs eternal. Amherst College has now undertaken a policy of what might be called "affirmative detraction" whereby legacies are no longer given preferential treatment.

read "Social Darwinism Redux" by Francis Levy, HuffPost

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

Are You a Robot?

So you insert the correct User Name and Password but then you’re asked if you’re a robot to which any robot could be trained to answer "no" and after jumping that hurdle you have to say which square has telephone wires, dogs, buses or motorcycles. This scenic part of your journey can easily backfire so Caveat Emptor! The way so many sites deal with those who would like to get on is to reject prospective clientele even when the correct answer is given. It’s a test of perseverance, if nothing else. But the point is you’re not going to get to the site for PSEG unless you’re willing to face rejection. Some sites are even like Studio 54 to the extent that figuratively they have a velvet rope and digital bouncer blocking the entranceway. You may have encountered those who are alternately exuberant or downcast as a result of their luck in getting onto Verizon or Pay Pal. Then there are the desperate ones who refuse to give up and will sell their souls to a dotcom.  

read A-Z Quotes from Francis Levy

and listen to "So Many Men, So Little Time" by Miquel Brown

Planet Duane Reade

Chains are selling a world as well as a product. You slow down your engines as you land on CVS, Walgreen’s, Wendy’s or Raymour & Flanigan. Everyone knows that one of life’s sublime pleasures is to quaff down an Impossible Whopper in the parking lot of Burger King while listening to MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell. Some of these stop-offs display the self-sufficiency of planet earth. Others like Dunkin’ Donuts could be sometimes threatening asteroids, floating through the cosmos chaotically without a rhyme or reason for their existence; you cannot survive In a Dunkin’ Donuts biosphere but Duane Reade is another matter to the extent that it comprises a universe filled with possibility. BTW did you know that Duane Reade is not named after a person but two streets in Tribeca? You could live forever in a DR whose aisles offer everything from dinner to Astroglide all served up in the Muzak of the spheres. Houston calling Duane Reade.

read "Pet Buddha" by Francis Levy, Vol. 1 Brooklyn

and listen to "25 Miles From Home" by Edwin Starr

On the Principle of Population

 Is the earth becoming like The French Laundry the high-end restaurant in Napa Valley where you can wait a lifetime for a reservation? In France they say "nous somme complets” or "desole" when you ask for a prenotazione (Italian for reservation). In other words is the planet running out of things? In the Hamptons a fragile ecology is threatened by a dearth of farmland. Why kill yourself growing corn when an acre can go for millions? On the other hand there are, in fact, huge swathes of desert and ocean that beg the notion of eternity. Malaysia 370 has not been found. The Mariana Trench, which James Cameron has reached in a submersible, is like Everest upside down. Still population is not decreasing in the undeveloped world where there will always be too many mouths to feed. In tandem with this phenomenon is the fact that the birth rate is declining in highly affluent societies where there's food to spare.

read "An Incident of Defenestration" by Francis Levy, Vol.1Brooklyn

and listen to "Lazing on a Sunny Afternoon" by The Kinks 

How to Tell If You're Neurotic?

Signund Freud DDS

How to determine if you’re a neurotic? Do the symptoms manifest anecdotally? Do you need a saliva test (salivation is one of the first signs of neurosis). To begin with you may want to see a specialist, whose field is neurotic disorders. Many sufferers try psychoanalysis but with all the new DSM classifications, you may want to see someone with a different kind of advanced degree, preferably a DDS. Those who grind their teeth at night will know that childhood conflicts create cavities. Root canals not dreams are to quote Freud “the royal road to the unconscious.” Freud, btw, flirted with dentistry before he became convinced that mental problems often began with the teeth. If you consider the fact that dentists cure one of the most common symptoms of mental pain, toothaches, you begin to realize how important a good dentist can be when it comes to mental health. If you’re feeling a sense of vacuity, you might, for instance, first get x-rayed to see if it's cavities that are causing the problem. After each visit the dental assistant who performs your prophylaxis will give you a little plastic bag with floss, toothpaste and a new toothbrush. Some patients spend years in talk therapy without realizing that the solution to their problems simply lies in dealing with another part of the mouth--the incisors. 

read "Died Young" by Francis Levy, The Brooklyn Rail

and listen to "Hot Pants" by James Brown

Strivers' Row

Strivers' Row is the block of elegantly appointed brownstones along 138th street and 139th Street. The name emanates from the years of the Harlem Renaissance in the early part of the twentieth century which ultimately produced major figures like Ralph Ellison. Every community has, at least, a figurative version of the same architectural signpost. But who are the so-called “strivers.” Even if they were gifted with particular talents, they’d undoubtedly have to step on someone else to rise to the top. Ruthlessness often attends ambition. Ayn’s Robert Roark from her novel The Fountainhead epitomizes Nietzsche’s “ubermensch” or “Superman” who’s characterized by a singleness of purpose.  Not everyone is possessed by this kind of drive. In its most invidious form you have a Trump or even Darth Vader, who, significantly, was once good. Power and wealth go with the territory. Naturally these are things that most people want and few achieve. Are Fifth Avenue and Central Park West, two great thoroughfares that face each other and preside over Central Park the Valhalla of human talent or are they just imposing residences occupied by the rich?

read "Pornosophy: Full Stop At the Intersection of Sexuality and Ambition" by Francis Levy, HuffPost

and listen to "Gotterdammerung by Wagner

Strung Out

Everything Everywhere All At Once, the sleeper Academy Award Winning film has achieved its success due to the recognizability of its themes. According to the doctrine of eternal return one's form exists in infinite doppelgängers. A monkey sitting in front of a typewriter iterating Hamlet is another expression of the same idea. But that’s intellect. What about emotion and catharsis? The reason why moviegoers liked EEAAO is that they recognized themselves in it. Parenthetically the reason why Jackson Pollock was recognized was not through the machinations of a dealer though that obviously helped. The world is not what it appears to be and in this case foresight is 20/20. In analytic theory the concept of "apres coup" posits the notion that trauma only reveals itself to victims post hoc. The nature of the universe hence may not be Stuart Davis Ashcan School realism but a world underneath--an idea presented eloquently inThe Matrix, one of the most iconic expositions of this theme. The new realism is what used to be deemed surreal or abstract or strung out (a la StringTheory) This world only appears as a glimmer or insinuation until a work of imagination like EEAAO opens one’s eyes to it. 

read The Wormhole Society by Francis Levy, The East Hampton Star

and listen to "Freeway of Love" by Aretha Franklin