A Really Ace Place

Christopher Hitchens on the darker side of England: "This is the world of wretched, tasteless food and watery drinks, dreary and crowded lodgings, outrageous plumbing, surly cynicism, long queues, shocking hygiene, and dismal, rain-lashed holidays, continually punctuated by rudeness and philistinism...A neglected aspect of the general misery, but very central once you come to notice it, is this: we are in a mean and chilly and cheerless place, where it is extraordinarily difficult to have sex, let alone to feel yourself in love."

Cheers!

Idealism as Belief System

"Activists weren't some fringe element back then. They had defeated the naked bigotry of the Jim Crow south. They had waged war on poverty. Now they wanted to end a senseless war. People believed that taking to the streets could change the moral condition of the country. There weren't nearly as many screens in our lives; we hadn't begun pouring so much of ourselves into them. Idealism wasn't an object of ridicule. It was a legitimate, even laudable, belief system."

Steve Almond gives the Occupy Wall Street protests some proper historical context.

To My Dead Father

by Frank O'Hara

Don't call to me father
wherever you are I'm
still your little son
running through the dark

I couldn't do what you
say even if I could hear
your roses no longer grow
my heart's black as their

bed their dainty thorns
have become my face's
troublesome stubble you
must not think of flowers

And do not frighten my
blue eyes with hazel flecks
or thicken my lips when
I face my mirror don't ask

that I be other than your
strange son understanding
minor miracles not death
father I am alive! father

forgive the roses and me

         RIP Dad

Doing It For Love

The Knowmads, the Seattle-based hip-hop group, is financing their new album entirely through the website Kickstarter. So far, they have been able to raise almost $8,000, with nearly three days to go. For my money, the Knowmads -- which, full disclosure, feature my friend Tom Pepe as one of the primary emcees -- are making some of the best hip-hop music to come out of the Pacific Northwest. They do it for the love -- and it shines through in their music.

Which Looks More Appetizing?

My very first British fish and chips...

or my very first British organic harvest?

Burn, Baby, Burn

I'm proud to see that my old employer SEIU is among the panoply of unions that have stepped up in support of the Occupy Wall Street protests this week. Along with the New York State Teacher's Union, the Transport Workers Union, and several others, SEIU local 1199 is providing food, clothing, transportation, and strategy to the protestors.

On a separate note, I am also encouraged that the nascent movement has implemented a makeshift library. As librarian-cum-protestor Mandy Henk explains, "Information is liberation. Offering people the opportunity to explore the world themselves through the written word is why I became a librarian. Connecting readers to writers is what I do. Doing that in the heart of what is rapidly growing into the strongest mass social movement since the 1960’s is an experience I will always treasure."

Whether or not Mandy is right -- whether the movement conflagrates or ultimately flames out -- remains to be seen. But I, for one, am hoping it burns, baby, burns.

"He Writes Like A Pompous Ass"

When, some months ago, I heard David Mamet had converted to conservatism, I was intrigued, as I almost always am by serious conservatives, especially of the literary variety (see Saul Bellow). Artistic success does not automatically confer political insight, of course. But Mamet is an intelligent guy. I was curious what he had to say.

Now I haven't actually spent time with Mamet's pompously-titled The Secret Knowledge: On The Dismantling of American Culture, his screed against liberal dogma, but after reading the devastating takedown in The American Conservative, of all places, I'm not sure I want to.

"Turgid when it's not imperious, utterly lacking in fresh insight, full of breathtakingly stupid generalization, The Secret Knowledge is, for a writer of Mamet's caliber, nothing short of embarrassing," writes author and musician Scott Galupo. "The literary critic James Wood once described a certain kind of freshly adopted religious commitment this way: 'It is like entering prison: you must turn out your spiritual pockets and hand over all your inner belongings, even your shoelaces.' Well, Mamet has handed over his shoelaces, voluntarily stripped, and appears eager for a cavity search."

Ouch. And this from a fellow conservative.