Kaddish

Allen Ginsberg (photo: Hans van Dijk)

Modernity is becoming synonymous with millenarianism.  Ideologues deconstruct the very notion of reality in a way that is not totally disingenuous yet disingenuously pursue Armageddon in the face of anarchy. Imagine the rubble of an attack like the fire bombing of Dresden.That's a good description of the evolution of ideas. Relativism is evolutionary. It is not a question of bad actors though it is a field ripe for predation by philosophical despots who create manifests for the flight from civilization--at least as humanity now conceives and experiences it.

read the review of Francis Levy's The Kafka Studies Department in Booklife (PW) 

and listen to "Every Little Bit Hurts" by Brenda Holloway

Kamala

Lower the volume, you'll lessen the conflict. If you're a straphanger you know that. If you get an unexpected heated response from someone you've accidentally jostled, you can apologize or say "fuck you" which is like raising someone in poker. "Fuck you" leads to "what did you say?" "Your mother!" "What did you say about my mother?" Or you could say "I'm sorry" and avoid an altercation. Trump has called Kamala Harris "garbage." He had accused her being stupid, more liberal than Bernie Sanders and the acolyte of the worst president in American history. In the face of these slurs, she stopped in mid-sentence the other day and simply described the remarks of her opponent and his vice-presidential running mate by pausing and saying, "It's just plain weird." You can't go nuclear unless you have unstable elements and an igniter. Without reactivity, there's no explosion. It may be lacking in excitement but it can also be gratifying to get off at the next stop and go about your business without having to think about what you could have or would have said to an angry person.

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

and listen to "You'll Never Walk Alone" by Patti Labelle

Little Murders

A girl is chained up willingly to a wall. She asks, "should I show my bosom?" She is intelligent looking and treats her ensuing degradation as a joke. She giggles at the start. Then she and her attacker are both laughing but isn't that how people handle what Jules Feiffer called Little Murders? You make something destructive look like it has no meaning. The way this particular perversion works is that a few girls start spitting in the face of the tied up girl. It's plainly group sex to the extent that sex is aggression. There are all these barnyard sounds the leader of the girl gang makes as she coagulates spit. How many people are aware of recondite sexual practices? Raise your hand if you know what "queening" or "bukkake" are? Coming on someone's face, in the past, was simply the end of an angry blow job. Bukakke is organized and reeks of religion. Why else would beautiful looking women allow large groups of men to come on their faces and then get filmed so their day in the sun goes viral? Doesn't bukkake sound like the Branch Davidians, Jim Jones or QAnon?

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

and listen to "Duke of Earl by Gene Chandler

Garbage

Last night Lawrence O'Donnell gaslighted Trumpty Dumpty when he threw the former  president's appellation right back in "The Dumpster's" face. Trump brought political discourse to a new low when he called Kamala Harris "garbage" (this after responding to president Biden's heartfelt and memorable speech by calling him the worst president in US history). "Garbage" was how O'Donnell described Trump's behavior. O'Donnell is a journalist known for his keen-eyed preening of facts and calling Trump "garbage" is simply a matter of record. Everyone knows Trump aka "The Dumpster" is a repository for garbage. Rudy Giuliani, Mike Lindell, Jim Jordan, JD Vance, Mike Johnson etc are all the unrecycled "garbage"--that Trump doesn't have the courtesy to bring to the dump. Oh and yeah Trump himself is the kind of garbage that earns a fine when it's left the middle of Fifth Avenue (where the former president will be found exercising his immunity when he starts shooting people). O'Donnell was never so irate nor so brilliant as he was last night in reporting on the nation wide "garbage" crisis.

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

and listen to "Duke of Earl by Gene Chandler

Bannon

photo: Gage Skidmore

Eloquence and erudition can be hypnotic. Words cast a spell. They're like a disingenuous seduction.You're won over only to become a scorned lover who's nothing more than a notch on some Lothario's belt. Netanyahu and Trump are great speakers. Biden not so much. In the past Kennedy outshone Nixon and Obama, McCain. Bernie sanders is perfervid. AOC adds beauty to the mix. Majorie Taylor Greene is "grunge" and Matt Gaetz with his ghoulish pompadour is the Boris Karloff of the house. A number of factors can tip the scales. William Jennings Bryan famously came up short against Clarence Darrow on the evolution issue. Hearing someone like Bannon quoting Milton's "better to reign in hell than serve in heaven" in  American Dharma, you may have to wake yourself up when your conscience is caught off guard by that and his wicked repartee.

read "Fav Lines From Francis Levy's Seven Days in Rio" Two Dollar Radio

and listen to "There's a Moon Out Tonight" by The Capris

Picasso

When you took algebra you learned about equations with two unknowns and about plotting lines with coordinates representing X and Y values. Would that the universe followed such neat laws. The kinds of mathematical relationships are reflected in math, but have little if nothing to do with life. The amount of unknowns is generally incalculable. Imagine trying to plot a graph of one's life, even as you got closer to the point where you were closer to the end. Calculus is designed to deal with variation, but it's a little like "there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy, Horatio." Math like art is a form of beauty that distills and at the same time excludes the complexity of the life force as it paints its truth. "Art is a lie that makes us realize truth" is the famous Picasso quote.

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

and listen to "Duke of Earl by Gene Chandler

Raskolnikov

There are unrepentant criminals and sociopaths who only know a "crime" is something you can't get away with? Are crimes those acts which societies regard as offenses against norms? For instance, inTexas, even a woman in danger of death is guilty if she terminates a pregnancy. Most New Yorkers would encourage her and the inmates of Sachsenhausen to break the law.Those opposed to a carceral state tell inmates to escape no matter what. Raskolnikov had no problem seeing the murder of the old pawnbroker as a crime. If anything Dostoevsky's character has an over active conscience. The novel, after the murder, is about wrestling with their own evil--amongst other things. Kamala Harris was the attorney general of California before she became vice president. She knows how to try a case. Her opponent has publically stated he could walk down Fifth Avenue and shoot people (btw what happens if another gunslinger shoots him back, do they partake of presidential immunity?) and that major celebrities can grab women by the crotch. How will she prosecute her felonious opponent?

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

and listen to "Duke of Earl by Gene Chandler