JACOB LEIB COHEN

THE iDof

2012-01-31T07:24:00.001-08:00

Today’s dose of edifying, civilized fun from Douglas “Rabbit” Sutherland:

THE iDof

It hasn't been acknowledged, but
When Steve Jobs left the ring,
The Apple visionary was
Exploring the Next Thing:

The "iDof" (with the name derived
From "Doddering Old Fool"),
The new device for those of us
Relentlessly un-cool!--

The aging population who
Abhors the tweeting rage,
Who'd rather starve in prison than
Observe a Facebook page!--

Self-conscious in our ignorance
And safe behind our scowls,
More comfortable with blood-work and
Discussions of our bowels!

The "iDof" is a lot like us--
A bee without sting--
It blinks and blathers endlessly
But doesn't do a thing!

OBAMA, “VALUE” AND COLLEGE AFFORDABILITY

2012-01-30T16:25:00.000-08:00

Last Friday, we awoke to the news that Barack Obama has solved the problem of college affordability. Bloomberg reports:

President Barack Obama for the first time is proposing to link federal aid to colleges with the institutions' ability to control tuition costs and maintain education quality.

"Colleges that can show that they are providing students with good long-term value will be rewarded with additional dollars to help students attend," the White House said in a statement. "Those that show poor value, or who don't act responsibly in setting tuition, will receive less federal campus-based aid."

Many of Obama’s reformist initiatives began visionary and doable but ended up being rendered incoherent by compromise. Here, Mr. Obama seems keen to beat the process: he’s gone ahead and proposed something incoherent from the outset.

What does “value” mean in the context of post-secondary education? With so many freshly minted attorneys unable to find work, can any law school be said to provide “value” anymore?

Many writers on the subject have noted that college education is an awful “value”. The increase in earning potential that comes with a B.A. is half the yield you’d enjoy if you skipped the lecture hall and invested your college savings in the stock market until retirement.

Or does value have nothing to do with money? Is it a function of the quality of the undergraduate experience? By this measure, many colleges offer poor value due to their increasing reliance upon adjunct instructors—which would undoubtedly increase with Obama’s modest proposal. Cohesive academic communities, and therefore meaningful undergraduate experiences, are hard to foster when 70 percent of the professors are pinballing between three different campuses.

Often, a large slice of tuition goes toward research. Although the student doesn’t directly benefit from research, a college’s prestige is determined by its research program. The more prestigious the college, the more valuable a diploma bearing its name. In that sense, to the extent that tuition reductions impact a college’s research capacity, Obama’s plan could actually lower “value” along with expense.

And why is college even important? Whatever happened to apprenticeship? The idea that only a college can dispense our education is just as tenacious—and incorrect—as the superstition that only a mechanic can change our oil.

And if college is important, what is its function? Is college a big plate of steaming vocational training garnished with sprigs of Western Civ. and English Lit.? Is college about producing good citizens? Is it the four-year bacchanalia that precedes the assumption of adult responsibility?

Higher education is so devoid of coherent first principles that it shouldn’t surprise us that any effort to reform it will seem badly scattered.

The local papers also announced last week that Penn National Gaming will be using Columbus State Community College to train the workers needed to make our forthcoming casino hum.

So, thanks to the availability of cheap adjunct instructors, poor Ohioans will be given the skills they need to harvest money from their poor brothers and sisters. These funds will then provide relief to a state government too timid and ideologically debauched to tax the rich.

Here we have private enterprise, government and higher education conjoined in a sweaty ménage à trios. And all participants in this squalid enterprise can moan ecstatically about “efficiency”, “collaboration”, “economic growth” and “expanded access to college”.

I sure hope this isn’t anything like the sort of “value” that Mr. Obama is talking about.

PETTING ZOO

2012-01-23T11:14:00.000-08:00

Today’s dose of edifying, civilized fun from Douglas “Rabbit” Sutherland:

PETTING ZOO

I've watched with dour amusement the
Republican debates;
I've winced at vitriolic ads
To shoot down candidates.

I've come up with an answer to
What all these folks should do:
Give up the race and start, instead,
A high-end petting zoo!--

Turn off the stupid bickering
To save us more dismay,
String up the yellow ropes and let
The kiddies pet away!

On second thought, it's possible
That children have more sense!--
Would rather handle cobras than
Stick fingers through a fence

Where hungry politicians roam
With teeth filed sharp as knives
(Ignoring our intelligence
And giving me the hives)!

NEWSFLASH: PSYCHIATRY HAS NO BLOODY IDEA ABOUT ANYTHING

2012-01-23T09:51:00.000-08:00

Newsflash: Psychiatry Has No Bloody Idea About Anything. NPR’s Alix Spiegel brings us the story:

THE ELECTROLYTE DIET

2012-01-15T07:55:00.000-08:00

Today’s dose of edifying, civilized fun from Douglas “Rabbit” Sutherland:

THE ELECTROLYTE DIET

Excruciating leg cramps kept
Me wide awake most nights.
To save my life my doc prescribed
Intense electrolytes!

I groaned, "Like battery acid? and
Big gobs of raw seaweed?"
"In fact," he said, "it's worse than that!
Son, this is what you need:

"More salt!" he said. "Salt everything!"
Eat bacon fried in lard!
Eat peanut butter by the tub!
And, though it will be hard,

"Drink milkshakes made with whipping cream!
Eat cream cheese by the vat!
Eat french fries dipped in mayonnaise!
Eat steaks with marbled fat!

"Eat three-cheese pizza followed by
Big slabs of chocolate pie!"
"I'll make the sacrifice," I said.
"I sure don't want to die!"

THE HEIMISHE GOYIM

2012-01-11T16:18:00.000-08:00

Since I started spending a good deal of my free time surfing YouTube for klezmer music, I’ve been surprised that so much of the best stuff is performed by Gentiles.

Take my recent discovery of the Klezmer Kollectiv, a Wales-based outfit:

Or the Dublin-based North Strand Klezmer Band:

These heimishe goyim made me realize that non-Jews may actually have a huge advantage when playing the klezmer standards. Unencumbered by nostalgia, tribal pieties or suburban torpor, they’re able to see that this music rocks—and they play it accordingly.

I’ve heard “Misirlou” performed by countless cheesy Jewish bands over the years. No wedding or bar mitzvah is complete without it, putting it just below “Hava Nagila” in the cliché ranking. I’d be embarrassed to play it anywhere I might run the risk of being heard.

Members of the Klezmer Kollectiv, however, never found themselves snoring through the second hour of an awful party, during which the song comes on, and the women assemble themselves for that distinctive, lethargic circle dance. These Welsh lads can see something in the tune that’s long been lacquered over. And the results are marvelous.

While there are a number of outstanding Jewish musical groups out there carrying the torch, aesthetic abominations such as the following have been not only permitted, but encouraged:

Maybe outsourcing some of our music-making wouldn’t be such a terrible idea.

AN IMPORTANT DIFFERENCE

2011-12-30T06:01:00.000-08:00

This, from Slate:

There is no comparing [Ron] Paul and [Rick] Santorum, said [Dan] Savage, because Paul is a leave-us-alone libertarian. “Ron is older than my father, far less toxic than Santorum, and, as he isn't beloved of religious conservatives, he isn't out there stoking the hatreds of our social and political enemies,” he explained. “And Ron may not like gay people, and may not want to hang out with us or use our toilets, but he's content to leave us the fuck alone and recognizes that gay citizens are entitled to the same rights as all other citizens. Santorum, on the other hand, believes that his bigotry must be given the force of law. That's an important difference.”

Unfortunately, it’s a difference that only a fairly thoughtful electorate can understand.

TODAY’S SMILE-INDUCING VIDEO

2011-12-26T19:25:00.000-08:00

For my Hebrew-speaking readers, today’s smile-inducing video:

HITCHENS MEMOIR TO BE PUBLISHED NEXT YEAR

2011-12-26T10:55:00.000-08:00

This, from The Guardian:

A final memoir by the late author and polemicist Christopher Hitchens will be released early next year, his publisher said this morning.

Hitchens, who died yesterday aged 62, wrote a series of columns for Vanity Fair about his battle with oesophageal cancer, chronicling how he moved "from the country of the well across the stark frontier that marks off the land of malady".

The forthcoming memoir will be based on the essays, said Atlantic Books, and will be called Mortality. The book had been planned for some time, said a spokesperson.

The Vanity Fair columns were magnificent—funny, sharp, self-assured...and for that reason, disappointing. The Stiff Upper Lip is all well and good. But given the circumstance that Hitchens found himself in, staring into the eternal void he was sure that he was soon to be evaporating into, the columns seemed almost pathologically poised.

Was there no room for doubt? Anxiety? Human feeling?

In one of the most illuminating reviews of Hitchens’ memoir, Hitch-22, Adam Kirsch essentially argues that the book offers a picture of a man who, despite the expanse of his erudition and experience, had somehow avoided the acquisition of anything resembling wisdom.

Perhaps Hitchens had deep human feeling, though was loathe to express it, given his reputation for refined toughness. Or perhaps he altogether lacked the capacity to experience human feeling. I don’t know which is more tragic.

I’m eager to read the posthumous book. The prose is guaranteed to be first rate. But what will that prose express? I’d be a little crushed if his deathbed memoir were to leave me chortling “What a witty writer” rather than gasping “What a great, humane person.”

The late William S. Burroughs was a man of less refinement and equal toughness. He accidentally killed his wife in a frivolous parlor game, and spent decades as a heroin addict. But his last journal entry read simply, shockingly: “Love is the most natural painkiller that there is.”

How unfortunate it would be if Hitchens’ final written words didn’t imply a similar realization.

* * *

My Hitchens obituary can be found here.

ANTHRACITE

2011-12-22T18:19:00.000-08:00

Today’s dose of edifying, civilized fun from Douglas “Rabbit” Sutherland:

ANTHRACITE

This Christmas I've embarked upon
A mission from below.
Because, this year, I'm giving coal
To everyone I know.

It's not just ordinary coal!
It's Anthracite, you see!--
The closest thing to diamonds from
The likes of little me!

Of course I could give Lignite or
Bituminous, my Friend,
Or even Sub-Bituminous
Or something of a blend.

But, no! It will be Anthracite!--
Black brilliance by the pound!--
Two hundred fifty million years
Preparing, under ground!

(Just like my heart, in darkness 'til
You glimpsed me from above,
To recognize, and bring me up
Into the Light of Love!)

WALKING IN LITTLE, TINY CIRCLES: MY PATH TO A TEACHING LICENSE (Part Three)

2011-12-20T15:18:00.001-08:00

Previous installments: Introduction, Part One, Part Two

* * *

My wife and I have many times pondered the following question: If we had the maturity of thirty-somethings when we were eighteen, would we have been able to get through the rigors of undergraduate life? Does it require adolescent eagerness to successfully face down, say, general education requirements—those dull, perfunctory, overstuffed classes that have nothing to do with your interests, but constitute over a quarter of your undergraduate experience?

How Psych. 101 ever ended up a Gen. Ed., I’ll never know. But my compulsory semester of it was taught in a massive auditorium by a visibly resentful tenure-holder and his bevy of grad students. I, however, was so thoroughly docile and chipper that it never occurred to me that the requirement was arbitrary, that assessment amounted to little more than regurgitation, and that the whole ordeal did little to enliven my experience as a thinking human.

In other words, I was eager and unsophisticated. I had no sense of the value of my time and no limit to my energy. To what extent is this state a necessary prerequisite to being able to jump through exhausting, sometimes arbitrary hoops (i.e., leaving college with a diploma in hand)?

This question has achieved new relevance for me as I trudge through the online “institute” in pursuit of my Ohio teaching license.

The coursework for educator licensure makes Psych 101 look engrossing. Consider my first assignment, the “Resident Educator Reflection Tool.” It centered around a regurgitation of a series of State of Ohio pedagogical standards which attempt, in Ikea-Bookshelf-Assembly-Prose, to theorize common sense.

After which, I’m supposed to rate myself according to the standards:

[…]
Read each standard, and for each question […] that follows, rate yourself according to the scale. Use “?” (I don’t know) only when you honestly can’t think of why or how you could address that question.

In the Evidence column, provide evidence that supports your responses in each standard. Note: You do not have to provide evidence for each element within each standard, but only for the general standard.

[…]

Identify four areas for growth and indicate the Ohio Standards for the Teaching Profession (OSTP) from which those areas come. From those four areas, identify two that are a priority in your opinion and check the priority box.

I won’t put this assignment in any sort of context, since the licensure course doesn’t. (I can tell, however, that an “area for growth” is a euphemism for “defect”).

The confusion and frustration that are sparked upon encountering instructions such as these were ramified by the fact that they make no distinction between: (a) licensure candidates like me, who already have significant teaching experience; (b) those who hope to gain teaching experience after earning licensure; and (c) everyone in between, like student teachers who’ve been in the classroom, but were never tasked with “…collaborat[ing] and communicat[ing] with students, parents, other educators, administrator [sic] and the community to support student learning” (Standard 6).

It was extremely difficult to figure out what was being expected of me. Clearly they have not yet sufficiently engaged with Standard 3, which emphasizes the need for fair, transparent assessment of student performance.

To make a long story short (or, less long), I managed to fail the assignment—something of an achievement, given that there are no right or wrong answers.

I wonder why the teaching license is still considered important, and I wonder who benefits from this belief. In my case, I can point both to ETS and the State Treasurer; combined, they’ve already collected the equivalent of a half-month’s rent from me. Perhaps the Department of Education benefits. They’re clearly very busy, and if you’re not observing carefully enough, busyness can easily be confused with work.

All I can say is that I will earn my license. But when I hold that document, an embossed thing, I hope, bearing the State seal and a forgery-proof hologram, I fear that I’ll be no more attuned to the nuances of education than when I wrote that first check to ETS.

Which is to say, I’ll still be a damn good teacher. And my facility in the classroom will sharpen with every semester. I’ll devote my undiluted energies to inculcating a love of words, until…until…I reach the four-year mark.

My license will then require renewal, and I’ll have to undergo this whole blasted thing all over again.

ON NEED

2011-12-17T14:01:00.000-08:00

In describing her childhood in a poor Brooklyn neighborhood, my grandmother once painted an unforgettable picture. When men in her community were unemployed—and, during the Depression, many were—their days would begin in a scramble for a nickel for the bus. This would get them into Manhattan for a day of job hunting.

As for returning home, they both literally and figuratively crossed that bridge when they came to it.

I can’t imagine the men were in terrific shape if and when they finally gained an audience with a prospective employer. They were hungry. Their best clothes were showing wear. And they’d still have to figure out how to get back over to Brooklyn that night.

In short, they looked like men in need.

Today, however, need is taboo. When applying for a job, you can count on being asked why you want it. And you cannot respond: “Because I need to eat. I think I’d be tolerably good at this job, and it seems less likely than most to make me want to kill myself.”

No, this position, even if it’s as a night watchman with no benefits or job security, must be portrayed as a unique high point on your career trajectory. You have to argue, in essence, that you are downright eager to do the work—that you’d even volunteer if given half a chance.

According to a study released last week, nearly half of the country now inhabits some part of the poverty spectrum. Many Americans are going without adequate food or medical care. But still, the job supplicant must put on a happy face, buy a wardrobe signifying some sort of aristocratic exemption from need, and put on a good show.

Down the road, the actual salary will be discussed as if it were a venereal complaint—with quiet embarrassment, and in accordance with rules corresponding to a dense network of taboos and HR legal handcuffs. And if you’re lucky enough to get to that purgatory between “accepted” and “hired”, a credit check might be undertaken to ensure that any need you might once have suffered never left a paper trail.

The only time I was ever fired (a traumatic ordeal where management was clearly in the wrong), the boss began the conversation by observing that I didn’t look happy in my post.

“Of course I’m not happy,” I confessed. “But I don’t understand what happiness has to do with job performance.”

I pointed out to the boss that he, along with nearly every other jobholder, was ipso facto unhappy. After all, they call it “work” for a reason. The boss shaved every day and donned a starched shirt before climbing into his car at the peak of rush hour because, when it came down to it, he had bills to pay—he had needs. I was even tempted to explain that in Hebrew, the words for “work” and “slavery” come from the same root.

(Although it’s irrelevant here, I take pleasure in noting that this boss was himself fired soon after. I can only hope that his superior also deployed the serotonin gambit.)

That isn’t to say, however, that acknowledgment of need is always infra dig. We have our exceptions, and they’re perverse. It’s socially accepted that people need 25 percent discounts on flat-screen televisions, and will therefore abase themselves by camping out in Wal-Mart parking lots after Thanksgiving dinner. “Hooray!” shout the economists after a rambunctious Black Friday, “we’re saved!”

On the same day that an Occupy Wall Street encampment somewhere was being forcibly dismantled, I saw tents clustered around Ohio State’s Schottenstein Center. Tickets of some sort were about to go on sale, and people clearly needed them.

We’re all motivated by need. We have bodies that demand a certain number of calories per day. The human animal doesn’t do terribly well without winter shelter. We produce offspring, and try to equip them with the skills that’ll enable them to satisfy need in the most socially, intellectually and morally rewarding ways.

That’s why we work—I think it’s time for some universal honesty about it.

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN

2011-12-17T06:22:00.000-08:00

Since I hate to see a piece of good writing go to waste, here’s a cover letter I had occasion to write a few months ago:

* * *

To Whom It May Concern:

I am writing to offer myself for consideration for the Content Developer position advertised on the Human Resources homepage.

Having worked as a college English instructor since 2005, I have both significant classroom experience and a keen understanding of how the relationships between different academic offices and stakeholders determine student outcomes. I have designed and implemented curricula. And I am a nimble, meticulous researcher.

As Content Developer, I will ensure that all materials issued by the Learning Research and Development Center are as different as possible from the following paragraph, taken from the job description:

In addition to the development of instructional materials, the candidate is also responsible for configuring schedule for completion of deliverables which includes setting, implementing, and monitoring deadlines for each phase of materials as well as communicating with district personnel ranging from the superintendents' office to school office staff, regarding all needs, requests, tasks, supplies, notifications and shipments affiliated with current or past sessions.

All materials I produce for the Center will be lucid and precise.

I also play the banjo competently, and will be pleased to entertain my colleagues during lunch breaks.

I look forward to learning more about the University of […] and the Content Developer position. I will call the Office of Human Resources in two weeks to see if I can provide any additional information. In the meanwhile, should you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me via telephone at […].

Sincerely,

Jacob Leib Cohen

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS, RIP

2011-12-16T06:12:00.000-08:00

Today, we lost Christopher Hitchens. Though the obituary pages will focus on the obvious stuff (his politics, atheism, etc.), I think his most impressive accomplishment was one of PR: He made reading, writing and thinking seem relevant, thrilling and sexy.

Our age celebrates folksy sentimentality and the doctrine that no one’s feelings ought to be hurt under any circumstances. It was a decisive pleasure to turn on the TV news and occasionally see this glorious, charming, erudite and slightly bedraggled Englishman speaking to his viewers like intelligent adults and never hesitating to dispense a clean, effortless smack-down. He performed a great public service.

In my years of teaching, both on the secondary and community college levels, I’ve seen a number of students (not so many, but enough) get turned on by Hitchens to reading, writing and thinking. He taught them that being the smartest guy in the room actually helps you to get the girl, and that thinking can be an adventure.

He taught them that the world around them, the world they took for granted, is shaped by a complex tissue of ideas—that ideas matter, and that those who have ideas as their medium are the real unacknowledged legislators of the world.

In some respects, Hitchens had badly limited human understanding, especially of religion. Though he claimed to “get” what makes religious people tick, I don’t think he really did. When it came to religion, he had a habit of asking the wrong questions, and then answering them incorrectly.

But here’s the thing about Christopher Hitchens: in today’s media environment, which somehow contrives to be both knee-jerk and timid, when he invited people to argue with him, he meant it.

RESCUED POW TO BECOME TEACHER

2011-12-15T17:35:00.000-08:00

This, from The Daily Beast:

Jessica Lynch is on her way to becoming a teacher. The American soldier who was held captive in Iraq and rescued in 2003, will graduate Friday from West Virginia University with a degree in education. The 28-year-old finished her student-teacher training at the same West Virginia elementary school she attended as a child. Lynch’s legs have not fully recovered from injuries she sustained as a prisoner of war in Iraq. She was kidnapped with five other soldiers when her company took a wrong turn in Nasiriyah in 2003.

I’m sure captivity behind enemy lines prepared Ms. Lynch well for the licensure process.

ONE IN TWO AMERICANS ARE POOR

2011-12-15T12:59:00.000-08:00

This, from The Daily Beast:

Is this what decline looks like? According to new supplemental data from the Census Bureau, nearly half of Americans—a shocking record number—have fallen under the poverty line or are classified as "low income" and barely scraping by. Many in the middle class have dropped to the low-income threshold, meaning they make less than $45,000 for a family of four, because of pay cuts or spouses losing jobs. They number 97.3 million, and together with the 49.1 million in poverty, they represent about 48 percent of the U.S. population, or 146.4 million. That's up by 4 million from 2009 numbers.

WALKING IN LITTLE, TINY CIRCLES: MY PATH TO A TEACHING LICENSE (Part Two)

2011-12-14T16:46:00.000-08:00

Introduction, Part One

* * *

Ok. While my conversation with the Department of Education provided little illumination (although the woman in charge was friendly enough), I’ve figured something out: the online slideshow / lecture is sort of irrelevant.

The key is the list of assignments, which seem to be only tenuously connected to the course material. What I’ve got to do, therefore, is to read the essay prompts, and go straight for the stuff that actually gets assessed. As long as I pass those, I’m golden.

So in order for the State of Ohio to deem you a good teacher, apparently, you have to contort yourself into a terrible student.

* * *

It occurs to me that the Intensive Pedagogical Training Institute’s account of itself might prove useful to my readers who’ve spared themselves the headache of undertaking the licensure project. Here’s their website.

WALKING IN LITTLE, TINY CIRCLES: MY PATH TO A TEACHING LICENSE (Part One)

2011-12-14T11:16:00.000-08:00

For the first installment, click here.

* * *

So far, somewhat worse than expected.

The first module required by the online Intensive Pedagogical Training Institute is called Teaching as a Profession.

The initial hour of the ITPI slideshow / lecture covers the entire long-term process for obtaining and maintaining licensure. I learn that Ohio has a four-tier system of licensure, and that someone going into the teaching field can expect the Department of Education’s persistent, career-long harassment as he attempts to go about his business, which is to say—teaching.

The ITPI lecture is comprehensive. Nothing is missing—except for basic information about how the ITPI is actually graded. A good deal of abstract verbiage is dispatched about effective assessment of students in the classroom setting. As for my assessment, God knows. Cancel that. Not even God knows.

Indeed, so much is so wrenchingly unclear that I phone the Department of Education. Sadly, the one person in the Buckeye State qualified to answer my questions is having her lunch.

In the meanwhile, I check my email to discover that a local independent school is keen to hire me as a substitute teacher. Unfortunately, a State of Ohio Substitute License is required.

Back to the DOE website. The License costs $25—something of an insult, given that I’ve just paid $200 to take the ITPI.

In order to begin the ITPI, I had to pass an FBI background check, which cost me $60. DOE regulations essentially mandate that individual schools do their own background checks. The schools can’t just phone the DOE and ascertain that a background check has already been undertaken.

Therefore, in order to substitute, I’ll have to pay enough up front that it’ll take quite a few subbing gigs to break even.

(Most background checks, I should add, are done by private firms. I can’t imagine they object to a would-be teacher showing up repeatedly for the non-service of having it verified, yet again, that he’s not a criminal.)

Lunch. Tea. Banjo.

WALKING IN LITTLE, TINY CIRCLES: MY PATH TO A TEACHING LICENSE (Introduction)

2011-12-14T07:11:00.000-08:00

As my regular readers will know, I’m in the process of obtaining Ohio teaching licensure.

The first step was to pass the Praxis II. I’ve kvetched about this exam, which is obnoxious and pointless in equal measure, here and here.

The next step was to get an FBI background check. Fifteen minutes and sixty bucks. Done.

And now, we reach the final hurdle—one I thought would be easy enough. It’s called the Intensive Pedagogical Training Institute, a sequence of self-paced online classes. The friendly receptionist at the Department of Education informed me that if I really hustled, I could likely complete it in two months.

Yesterday, however, when I finally accessed the website, my heart sank. The modules looked deadening and spiritually abusive. I have a tough time shutting off my brain—which should be a prerequisite for a teacher. But the IPTI will require that I numb myself to the point that I can be fed lessons on what amounts to laboriously, ponderously theorized common sense.

Mind you, my certification ordeal has been tailored by the State to reflect both my M.A. in my discipline and the half-decade I’ve already spent as a teacher. Aspiring teachers starting from scratch must undergo trials that (a) make mine look paltry, and (b) will have them running for the exits if they possess any brains, integrity or sense of what their time is worth.

Anyhow, it was my wife who suggested that, in order to make the process less painful and isolating, I blog the whole ghastly affair.

Ready, comrades? Let me take you on a journey.

As Dante has inscribed over the Gates of Hell: “ABANDON ALL HOPE, YE WHO ENTER HERE.”

A COUNTERBLASTE TO RED LIGHT CAMERAS

2011-12-11T09:15:00.000-08:00

Among the many attractions of a civilized legal system such as ours is its emphasis on sportsmanship. We regularly sacrifice justice for fair play.

Although it would be satisfying to arrest a sixty-year-old for a bank robbery he committed when he was twenty, for instance—we can’t. A marvelous thing exists called the statute of limitations. The aging thief can even admit his crime. But the cop can do no more than tip his hat. Successfully evaded us for forty years? Not bad.

We have double jeopardy, which prevents even a manifestly guilty defendant from being tried for a charge he’s already been acquitted on.

And we have a court system that lets wicked people go left and right. A clumsy prosecution or a deft defense, and the murderer walks.

While all of the above might look like weaknesses in our system, they’re actually phenomenal strengths. The State, which maintains the power to kill or indefinitely imprison, to invade, harass or plunder, restrains itself for the sake of sportsmanship. The game has rules. It isn’t infrequent that an athletic team wins or loses on a technicality.

Although the New Atheists are constantly reminding us how bloody and merciless the Old Testament is, it supplies precedent for this sportsmanship. Jubilee years were declared, when debts were forgiven and slaves were released. Six Cities of Refuge were scattered throughout a tiny territory (the size of New Jersey), where those guilty of manslaughter were guaranteed amnesty.

For the killer or thief, there’s sportsmanship. But for that most heinous reprobate, the motorist who pushes a yellow light too far, there’s the red light camera.

Motorists, especially on deserted roads at 3:00AM, want to run red lights; cops want to write tickets. Agreement will never be reached between the two. It’s a contest, and sportsmanship should keep it an honest one.

Whether red light cameras reduce traffic accidents is a separate issue, and, to be sure, a fraught one. But if accident rates in a particular neighborhood are unacceptably high, it’s the job of the municipality to put more cops on the beat, not contract with companies like Redflex—vast, often multinational concerns that both install cameras and keep an alarming percentage of the revenue harvested.

A few weeks ago in Toledo, I witnessed a red light camera suffering an epileptic fit: every car passing beneath a green light at a busy intersection was bathed in that halogen flash presaging the arrival in the driver’s mail box of a starkly-worded demand for sixty bucks.

Who will the drivers appeal to, and on what grounds?

I just Googled, “Is it illegal to encourage people to destroy red-light cameras?” This brought me to a chat-room thread devoted to the subject. The contributions, though provided by folks apparently lacking law credentials, are terrific. They run the gamut from coolly pragmatic—

If you were to use a quiet air rifle, like the Benjamin Trail XL1100, you could do it, without attracting much attention. Those will shoot a .22 pellet through 3/4" plywood, so a lens should be no match.

—to the fantastical—

That would be cool if some army sniper guy got a ticket and went on a rampage, taking out all of the traffic cameras from like a half a mile away, never getting caught, because he wasn't in the vicinity.

But the sole answer addressing the actual question, how one can legally incite others to destroy the bloody robots, was most appealing:

Just write about it in the form of a fictional novel.

Well, I happen to be a fiction writer. Once upon a time…

ON TECHNOLOGY IN THE CLASSROOM AND THE ROLE OF EDUCATORS

2011-12-05T12:12:00.001-08:00

A few years ago, I found myself chatting with a dynamic—and, in some circles, moderately famous—educator, who I’ll call David. He believed in education as a force that could prevent wars, create a new economic order, encourage individuals to be engaged and compassionate—in other words, change the world.

David was a zealous advocate for the abolition of paper. He believed that school libraries should be converted into computer-based “learning centers”, and that laptops should replace textbooks. I asked why.

“We’ve got to prepare our students for the future,” he replied, “and technology is the future.” He was of the firm opinion that since digital technology does and will mediate all aspects of students’ lives, the job of educators is to prepare them for that inevitable future.

I found it curious that he didn’t recognize the inconsistency of this technological fatalism with his world-beating ideas about educational reform. While David refused to passively accept the world as it is in any other respect, he carved out an exception for technology.

That our species will continue to destroy itself seems far more a matter of destiny than that our students will read Whitman on a Kindle. David would never be uncritical of any oil executive’s pronouncement on anything. But every new stage of Apple’s corporate strategy is greeted as an inevitability to be celebrated.

If The Future is something that educators have a responsibility to help to create (and I believe they do), we must be comprehensive—we have to help create the whole future.

There’s no tidy answer to the question of technology in the classroom. In my own intellectual life, my modem has replaced my library card in a thousand respects. I marvel at my ease of access while simultaneously kicking myself over my shortening attention span, my helplessness during power outages, and my weakness for YouTube videos of raccoons jumping on trampolines. (During the course of writing this brief essay, I’ve watched three pointless videos and ogled photos of a banjo I hope one day to own.)

But whatever road we take, it should be the result of an actual decision rather than a lazy shrug about The Way Things Are Headed. The role of education is to exert some measure of control over things like that.

THREE WORDS

2011-12-05T06:25:00.000-08:00

Today’s dose of edifying, civilized fun from Douglas “Rabbit” Sutherland:

THREE WORDS

America's the only place
In such a sad malaise
That nothing happens 'til it's put
Into a three word phrase.

There's "Yes We Can" and "I Like Ike"
That thrust men to the top;
There's "Just Say No" that parents thought
Would make their kiddies stop.

The magic of Three Little Words
Has spread from shore to shore,
Employing writers coast to coast
To come up with three more.

Both "Hope and Change" and "Where's the Beef?"
Were cries for missing meat.
And "Nine Nine Nine" caused some to wince
And "Occupy Wall Street."

Four words is one too many and
Two words is one too few.
Our lives are often changed by three!--
Most often, "I Love You!"

ANOTHER INDIGNITY

2011-11-20T10:10:00.001-08:00

A few weeks ago, I took the Praxis II. I know I’ve been doing a good deal of cyber kvetching about it. But I can’t help myself. This is from the Praxis website, which I accessed to see if my score was available:

Your official score report will be available online via your My Praxis account on the score release date. (See table above for exact dates.) Your scores will also be sent to up to three institutions/agencies you selected during the registration process.

Online scores are downloadable for 45 calendar days. After 45 days, they will no longer be available and you will need to request additional score reports for a $40 fee (per request). We recommend saving a copy of your score report for future reference.

[…]

Some test takers prefer to access their scores by phone. Scores for paper-delivered tests are generally available approximately four days earlier by phone than by web. There is a $30 fee for this service.

NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND

2011-11-16T13:18:00.000-08:00

My wife and I don’t own a TV. Staying with family for a few days, I’ve had the chance to catch up.

My findings:

1. Two separate networks appear to have reality shows about folks who pursue and capture wild boars.

2. A show with eerily similar aesthetics follows Southwestern cops who pursue and capture illegal immigrants.

3. Reality shows about pursuit and capture, in general, abound. Criminals. Household pests. The Perfect Home. The highest price on old, random household crap that doesn’t appear valuable, but for some reason is.

4. On CNBC, How I Made my Millions (subtext: “The American Dream is still alive.”) directly precedes American Greed (subtext: “Just don’t go too far.”).

5. The History Channel, which I seem to remember as offering slightly tedious (but accurate) documentaries, now airs a flashy show positing that Hitler’s scientists received their propulsion technology from extraterrestrials.

6. Reality shows about prison life are in vogue.

7. An especially sinister commercial pushes collectors’ coins “clad in pure 14-karat gold” in the hopes that nobody knows what “clad” means.

8. A friendly, casually dressed black man wants me to feel better about hydraulic fracturing.

9. News programs are even more preposterous than Jon Stewart would have us believe.

10. C-SPAN is an immense public asset.

11. An unpleasant creature called Kim Kardashian apparently exists. She has sisters, and they’re jointly famous for some reason.

12. The stock of Law & Order reruns is inexhaustible.

Well, there we are. Tomorrow, God willing, we move into our new place.

No TV.

Praise God.

BULLETS HIT WHITE HOUSE

2011-11-16T06:45:00.001-08:00

This, from The New York Daily News:

The Secret Service says a bullet hit an exterior window of the White House and was stopped by ballistic glass.

An additional round of ammunition was also found on the exterior of the White House. The bullets were found Tuesday.

The discovery follows reports of gunfire near the White House on Friday. Witnesses heard shots and saw two speeding vehicles in the area. An AK-47 rifle was also recovered.

The Secret Service says it has not conclusively connected Friday's incident with the bullets found on the White House grounds. U.S. Park Police have an arrest warrant out for Oscar Ortega-Hernandez, who is believed to be connected to the earlier incident.

I’m eager to read additional information on this incident when it’s released. If Mr. Ortega-Hernandez is a Muslim with a violent agenda, the incident will be inexhaustibly interesting to the media.

But Washington’s federal core is within spitting distance of appalling urban despair. (I’ve written about this here.) If the bullets that hit the White House were among the bullets flying around the city on a fairly regular basis, nobody will care, which is a shame; that would be a real story.

SOLIDARITY

2011-11-15T07:33:00.000-08:00

An important action will be undertaken on Thursday. Read about it here.

OBAMA AXES “SILLY” SHIRT TRADITION

2011-11-14T08:48:00.000-08:00

This, from The Daily Beast:

No aloha shirts and seashell necklaces? Former president Bill Clinton had started a “dress-up” tradition at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, where world leaders would wear the indigenous clothing of the host locale. (Clinton handed out bomber jackets in 1993’s summit in Seattle, when it was still the headquarters for Boeing.) Not anymore. “We are ending that tradition,” Obama said during the APEC conference in Hawaii Monday. “I didn’t hear a lot of complaints about us breaking precedent on that one.” Group portraits of the globe’s most powerful people in “silly shirts” used to be a highlight, but the thought of grass skirts probably freaked out people like Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard.

A shame. I rather liked those group photos.

ON CONTEMPORARY CHRISTIAN LITERATURE

2011-11-14T06:33:00.000-08:00

While strolling through a Barnes & Noble last week, I was surprised to discover the vastness and diversity of the “Christian” section. Shelf upon shelf. Christian inspiration. Christian fiction. Christian everything.

“Discovered” is the only accurate word. As someone who gets his book news from places like NPR, I’d have no way of knowing that a parallel publishing world exists—a world that isn’t at all “in crisis”.

The irony is that Educated People read and discuss Christian literature all the time. Your literary schooling is considered badly constricted if you haven’t read Donne, Milton and Waugh. Every secular humanist teaching Victorian literature knows John Henry Newman’s Apologia Pro Vita Sua inside and out.

With contemporary Christian literature, however, we tend to be sneaky in our taxonomical process. A volume of sermons by Martin Luther King likely ends up on the African American History shelf, which is perused by Serious Readers. We consider it an insult to Dr. King to slot his book anywhere near something by…by…You see? That’s the problem. I’m not alone in not knowing the name of a single contemporary Christian clergyman whose sermons venerable cultural bastions such as Slate would have me regard with skepticism.

And whenever Christian publishing is covered in the Highbrow Media, it’s as a “phenomenon” described in nearly anthropological terms. “A strange, marginal tribe of Americans exists,” the subtext consistently runs. “Among their curious rituals is the writing, publishing, selling and reading of millions of books.”

Type “Heaven is for Real”—the title of a Christian bestseller about a boy’s near-death experience; an experience as valid and compelling as any other—into the The New York Times’ search engine.

You’ll get “Celestial Sales for Boy’s Tale of Heaven”:

[…]
Thomas Nelson, the book’s publisher, said it had broken company sales records. The publisher, based in Nashville, began with an initial print run of 40,000 copies. Since the book came out in November, it has gone back to press 22 times, with more than 1.5 million copies in print. On the New York Times best-seller list for paperback nonfiction last Sunday, “Heaven Is for Real” was No. 1. The book remains in the top spot this coming Sunday.

Much of the book’s success has been fueled by word of mouth, since it did not begin with the usual best-seller channels: there has been no elaborate book tour, big-name publisher or brand-name author. But it has gained traction with a few well-placed appearances on the morning show “Fox & Friends,” “The 700 Club” and CNN.
[…]

No “big-name” publisher, only Thomas Nelson—the sixth largest American publisher. Beneath the Times’ starchy prose is bafflement that a book it never bothered to review could become so decisive a cultural force.

Multiculturalism, which aims to evaluate the fruits of all cultures on their own terms, doesn’t extend to Christians. And Christians are justified in resenting this.

In fairness, I doubt that NPR, Slate, The New York Times, et al., even recognize they have this bias. They’d do well to address it, however. The intellectual trustworthiness that is the bread and butter of these institutions includes at least some assumption of inclusiveness—that their fleet of reviewers has sampled all and brought me reports of the best.

But the odd dearth of Christian literature in the Times suggests that they’re not out there sniffing out all possible leads. I’m as curious about the experience of American Christians as I am of any culture I seldom interact with on more than a superficial level.

And it’s often a trustworthy reviewer who shows me the way.

TODAY’S SMILE-INDUCING VIDEO

2011-11-13T05:50:00.000-08:00

Today’s smile-inducing video:

THIS IS NOT INTELLIGENCE

2011-11-12T11:41:00.000-08:00

This, from the New York Post:

Two students at a Great Neck yeshiva are suspected of paying someone smarter to take their SAT tests, according to a ballooning probe that has ensnared 35 kids at five Long Island high schools, sources told The Post.

Of course, these are some naughty boys. But it’s remarkable how deeply the superstition has penetrated that SAT scores have anything to do with intelligence.

EGGNOGGIN

2011-11-09T10:11:00.000-08:00

Today’s dose of edifying, civilized fun from Douglas “Rabbit” Sutherland:

EGGNOGGIN

Our weathered old democracy
Is like a fragile egg
We somehow left atop the car
While racing for a keg

To take to some wild party where
Our friends were getting high
And zigged and zagged through traffic where
The egg refused to fly

And land smack on the blacktop to
Just break and fall apart
But rolled around in peril and
Came close to losing heart

But never left the car top though
Its shell was badly cracked
And somehow kept its balance and
Its center well intact

'Til, out of gas, we finally stopped,
So frightened no one spoke,
Astonished, as we each caressed
Its still undamaged yolk!

OCCUPY CORPORATE LANDOWNERS!

2011-11-09T08:55:00.000-08:00

My wife and I just returned from Columbus, where we were apartment hunting. The last long-term lease we had was for a place on the jagged seam where OSU’s rowdy undergraduate neighborhood met two separate and equally grim slums. Searchlights from police helicopters occasionally raked the area. Garbage pickers did their rounds in the alleys. And once, a stray bullet penetrated my study window while I was working at my desk, coming within feet of killing me. (As it happens, I’ve fictionalized this incident in a book available here.)

We agreed that it was time for an upgrade.

The apartment we ultimately selected is in a complex in an affluent section of town with good schools, low crime and ample greenery. The rent is reasonable—$800 per month for a two-bedroom townhouse.

Like many complexes of its type, ours is owned by a large, out-of-state property management firm. In an age of high-speed communication, feudal lords don’t need to live on hilltops overlooking their holdings. An office tower anywhere will do.

The most surprising part of our apartment hunting expedition was the renters’ application we were required to submit to corporate headquarters. The very first salvo of questions was meant to establish that we’d never been evicted, foreclosed upon, bankrupted or had any brushes with the law.

While these questions are unarguably relevant, I found them troubling.

$800 isn’t an awful lot of money. It’s well within the realm of possibility that someone born into poverty could work his way up to being able to afford it. But these questions serve to highlight the scars on the records of many folks who were once poor.

When I taught at the community college, I had a student who I’ll call Deja. She inhabited one of Columbus’s bleaker ghettos. At 25, she already had three daughters. No father figure was in evidence. One of her brothers was living—or, I should say, dying—with her and her kids. His HIV had bloomed into AIDS largely due to insufficient treatment.

Her other brother was there too, in the sense that his ashes were on the coffee table. He’d been murdered a few years previously under murky circumstances.

A sister was in jail for stabbing someone in the neck.

Deja is an extremely hard worker, holding down multiple jobs, attending college and juggling a complex and demanding home life. Although I don’t know the details of her finances, I’m fairly certain that she’s a great tenant. I bet she never misses rent and that she’s accountable to—and supportive of—her neighbors.

The neighborhood she lives in is not much less expensive than the one we’re moving to. Moving into our complex could potentially make a huge difference for someone like Deja. Her daughters could spend the same hours per day in schools, but superior ones that give them a shot at advanced degrees and beating the cycle of poverty. And her brother would be right on the bus line to the hospitals.

But those questions on the renters’ application render this contingency remote. Deja’s application wouldn’t be accepted. She probably doesn’t have great credit, and she probably gets government assistance of some kind, and there are scary words like “convictions” that might apply to a member of her household, her brother. But he’s too sick with AIDS by now to be inclined toward mischief.

Deja knows this better than anyone. She wouldn’t even consider applying.

DORMROOM CASSANOVAS, TAKE NOTE: CAST DOWN THAT GUITAR FOR A SUPERIOR TOOL!

2011-11-02T08:14:00.000-07:00

For too long, guitar playing has been the primary musical means by which young men attempt to woo girls. I will here argue for my male readers to lock away that Ovation acoustic they acquired from their Cool Older Cousins, and pick up the 5-string banjo.

The banjo is preferable for the following reasons:

1. It’s easy. With open tuning and only four strings to worry about, you’re much more likely to stumble upon the song you’re trying to play. First string, third fret…and presto, G7!—among the more seductive chords out there.

2. It looks difficult. Learn a half-dozen chords and a few picking patterns, and it’ll really seem as though you’re some sort of prodigy.

3. Visually, it’s a much more convincing phallic surrogate than a guitar. Enough said.

4. When seated with a guitar, it covers your body in such a way that projects insecurity. But the banjo says, “I’m at home in my own skin; I’d be pleased to show it to you at any hour of your choosing.”

5. It can sound sweet. Much of the banjo playing you’re familiar with sounds like a sack of cicadas being walloped with an aluminum baseball bat. But the banjo, especially the open back variety, can sound like an angelic harp. For every one these, there’s one of these.

6. A banjo is so sensitive that it tunefully vibrates to whatever sound is being made in its proximity. So while you’re trying to impress a girl with your fatuous observations about Proust, it’ll back you up in G-major.

7. While a guitar is roughly strummed (especially if you’re a beginner), the banjo is played with just that perfect balance of finesse and force. One masters the thing while handling it with appealing delicacy. Is this not precisely the message you want to send?

As with everything, of course, there are tradeoffs. Yes, a banjo case has less surface area than a guitar case. But there’s still plenty of room for bumper stickers advertising political causes you don’t entirely understand.

And, until the banjo craze I’m proposing takes off to the point of influencing pop music, your repertoire of dormitory hits will be somewhat limited. But won’t this give you an opportunity to distinguish yourself?

I’m taking a brief vacation from teaching. But when I return, I hope to see every melancholy, sensitive young man leaning against a tree with a banjo, its head gently mottled with sweat, cheap wine and cigarette ash. The birds will chirp, the ladies will swoon.

SOLIDARITY

2011-11-01T08:48:00.000-07:00

This, from Occupy Oakland:

We as fellow occupiers of Oscar Grant Plaza propose that on Wednesday November 2, 2011, we liberate Oakland and shut down the 1%.

We propose a city wide general strike and we propose we invite all students to walk out of school. Instead of workers going to work and students going to school, the people will converge on downtown Oakland to shut down the city.

All banks and corporations should close down for the day or we will march on them.

While we are calling for a general strike, we are also calling for much more. People who organize out of their neighborhoods, schools, community organizations, affinity groups, workplaces and families are encouraged to self organize in a way that allows them to participate in shutting down the city in whatever manner they are comfortable with and capable of.

The whole world is watching Oakland. Let’s show them what is possible.

THE PROBLEM OF PURITANISM: OR, HERMAN’S PEE-WEE

2011-11-01T08:29:00.000-07:00

Since I don’t know much about Herman Cain, yesterday’s revelations about his past couldn’t prompt me to do much more than yawn. As Politico reports, his campaign “enters Tuesday facing a full-blown political crisis, now that the Republican White House hopeful has struggled for more than 24 hours to respond to allegations of sexual harassment dating to his time as president of the National Restaurant Association.”

It did, however, get me thinking again about the perverting effect that our Puritanism has on the political discourse. In America, bad sexual judgment is considered more enduringly scandalous than any other ethical lapse. When the revelation surfaced that Rick Perry’s HPV vaccine mandate was signed only after the drugmaker essentially bribed him, clucking over the financial misdeeds abated long before the chatter over whether young women should be protected from HPV and cervical cancer. To the extent that the scandal endured at all, it was only because the political whirlwind around the HPV vaccine centers around…sex.

“Sexual harassment” can mean just about anything. Even if Mr. Cain’s sins fall on the mildest extremity of the Sexual Harassment Spectrum, they will remain the topic of inexhaustible chatter.

Coverage of the scandal did incidentally teach me something interesting about Cain’s background: he was president of the National Restaurant Association. This unleashed in my mind a salvo of questions. What is the National Restaurant Association? Who do they represent? Which lobbyists do its bidding in Washington? What’s its record of political engagement? Does it influence agricultural policy in ways we should know about?

Were the media to do some civically useful digging, I’m sure they’d turn up choice specimens of that colorful and foul-smelling fungus that thrives wherever Big Business slouches moistly on Government.

Since the electorate would much rather gasp about sex, however, there’s little reason for the media to exert itself.

OCCUPY EDUCATIONAL TESTING SERVICE!

2011-10-31T11:08:00.000-07:00

Next week, I’ll be parting with $200 in exchange for the opportunity to take the Praxis II—the exam trusted by the State of Ohio to evaluate a would-be teacher’s mastery of his discipline.

Near the end of the sample test I’ve been working on, the following passage from T.S. Eliot’s magnificent “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” appears:

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.

I grow old... I grow old...
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

And then, this question:

Which of the following is the best interpretation of the poet’s meaning in this excerpt?
A. Prufrock is paralyzed to act, specifically to eat a peach.
B. Prufrock is contemplating murder, like Hamlet.
C. Prufrock is afraid of growing old.
D. Prufrock is a man in love with a mermaid.

I snorted while filling in the bubble sheet, prompting my wife to ask what was the matter. After reading her the passage, I explained (or fumed, actually) that C. is probably what the examiners are looking for. But it’s not the correct answer, since the question is premised upon so simple an understanding of the poem.

“Prufrock is afraid of growing old” is like “Raskolnikov has a hard time thinking through the long-term consequences of his actions” or “King Lear has family issues.” In the Praxis II, the operatic themes of human existence are refracted through a lens of prim, constricted assumptions such that there is a tidy—and right—answer for every pointlessly asked question.

I found this Prufrock question representative of the entire test. The Praxis II for secondary English rewards people who don’t really understand literature, which is bad, or who can pretend not to really understand literature, which is worse.

This Praxis II business also made me realize the extent of ETS’s control. Educational Testing Service designs, administers, grades and often prepares students for the SAT, GRE, AP, TOEFL, Praxis, Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT), College Level Examination Program (CLEP), Test of English for International Communications (TOEIC), Test de français international (TFI), California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE), the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and the Examen de Admisión a Estudios de Posgrado (EXADEP).

A student preparing for the SAT (which is a far more disgraceful American export than cheeseburgers or Friends) works under the guidance of someone who has passed both the GRE and Praxis. If that student ever wants to become a teacher himself (an unlikely contingency, given a thousand factors that deserve enumeration in a separate blog post), he’ll have to pass the GRE and Praxis.

The circle is complete—a circle of pointless busywork.

And as competition grows among foreign students to attend American universities, ETS’s reach expands further still. The Princeton Review, a pilot-fish enterprise to ETS, now operates in 22 countries. Substantial testing fees are coaxed from students on every inhabited continent. Brows of all ages crenellate in bafflement and disgust over Scantron sheets from Pennsylvania to Paraguay.

Standardized testing is a global industry meriting the sort of scrutiny that the Occupy Wall Street movement is making refreshingly fashionable.

NEW MUSIC

2011-10-24T12:15:00.001-07:00

Here are some tunes I put together for an old friend’s new baby. All were recorded by Ben Langlois of Old West End Records. Enjoy!

Mail Myself To You by Jacob Leib Cohen

Lecha Dodi by Jacob Leib Cohen

Your Cluttered Bedroom by Jacob Leib Cohen

Heady Down (Lullaby) by Jacob Leib Cohen

“WE’RE COMING FOR YOU”

2011-10-22T14:38:00.001-07:00

This veteran's message to Corporate Fascists all over the world: "Expect us, because we're coming for you." In honor of all the courageous Americans camped out at New York City participating in Occupy Wall Street.

THE WARS

2011-10-22T13:09:00.000-07:00

Today’s dose of edifying, civilized fun from Douglas “Rabbit” Sutherland:

THE WARS

You'd think we'd learned a lesson from
That dust-up with the Cong.
But, clearly, we've not learned a thing:
We've got this war thing wrong!

We lost the war on poverty,
We lost the war on thugs;
We lost the war on bigotry;
We lost the war on drugs.

We lost the war on porno shops;
We lost the war on froth;
We lost the war on global heat;
We lost the war on sloth.

We lost the war on ignorance;
We lost the war on speed;
We lost the war on usury;
We lost the war on greed.

I think it’s in the Bible so
I doubt if it's a sin:
Let's wage a war against Wall Street,
And, for a change, let's win!

TUMBREL REMARKS

2011-10-15T11:31:00.000-07:00

In 2008, Christopher Hitchens wrote:

I count myself as something of an expert on what writer Joyce Cary once called "tumbrel remarks." A tumbrel remark is an unguarded comment by an uncontrollably rich person, of such crass insensitivity that it makes the workers and peasants think of lampposts and guillotines.

Does this, as reported by The Daily Beast, count?

Anita Perry said Friday that she can “empathize” with the unemployed because her son had to resign from his job to work on Rick Perry’s campaign. "He resigned his job two weeks ago because he can't go out and campaign with his father because of SEC regulations," she said, adding later, "My son lost his job because of this administration.” Perry’s son, Griffin, worked at Deutsche Bank, and it’s unclear which regulations his mother was referring to. Still, she said his situation made her better understand the unemployed. "He has a wife... he's trying to start a business. So I can empathize."

ON OCCUPY WALL STREET

2011-10-11T09:10:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I spoke with an old friend who’s active in the Occupy Wall Street movement. Here’s what he wrote on his placard:

BETTER TO CHANGE NOW WITH A [peace symbol]
THAN LATER WITH A [anarchy symbol]

I found this slogan humane and perceptive. And it got me thinking.

As Senate Bill 5, which proposed to neuter public employee unions, wended its way through the Ohio State House, protests were fierce and prolonged. I was teaching at the junior college campus near the epicenter.

One of my students, who I’ll call Dave, is a firefighter. He’d conservatively arranged his entire middle class existence (marriage, mortgage, children, etc.) according to promises that were now threatened with obliteration. He visited me before class one day to request an excused absence so that he might join the protests. As this otherwise self-possessed firefighter tearfully explained what SB 5 would do to his family, it occurred to me how easily I could imagine him committing violence against politicians or bureaucrats keeping him from his due.

Among the victories of our society is that it’s almost never disrupted by political violence. And that, in America, wicked lawmakers don’t consider even the possibility of meeting the same end as their counterparts in less developed countries. We’re too lazy to steam broccoli, much less stage a revolution. Our irony makes us uncomfortable with operatic gestures of any kind. The citizenry shrugs, and the ship, as cumbersome, spluttering and leaky as it is, somehow manages not to sink.

As proud as we should be of our stability, however, it creates a feeling of smug invincibility among the members of our ruling class. This lack of accountability has brought America to a tipping point. Thousands are now gathered in lower Manhattan to protest a failed government based on failed economic ideas and outright corruption.

Our politicians need to know about Dave, and what he might do if ever he were pushed too far. And they need to fear him. With every foolish piece of legislation that passes, with every reform measure that’s defeated or caveated out of relevance, the number of Daves swells.

Washington should be anxious. And so should Columbus.

Thankfully, we’re not like Egypt or Libya; we don’t need to build civic institutions from scratch. Ours are superb, if badly soiled. Their purification is inevitable. Violence helps no one. We can only hope that the political and business classes act with sufficient virtue and speed so as to prevent it.

YOM KIPPUR

2011-10-06T06:54:00.000-07:00

With Yom Kippur on our doorstep, some appropriate music:

UNEMPLOYMENT RATE

2011-09-30T15:52:00.000-07:00

Today’s dose of edifying, civilized fun from Douglas “Rabbit” Sutherland:

UNEMPLOYMENT RATE

Excuse me, Mr. President,
I have some more bad news.
The unemployment rate is wrong,
And something of a ruse.

You say it's nine percent or so--
Some places twenty-four.
Well Sir, you've missed the mark by miles!
Believe me, it's much more!

I'm no kind of a math whiz, but
I've counted on my toes
(I see them clearly since I sold
My shoes and all my clothes);

Percentages were not my strength
But, horse-sense takes me far
(The number that's correct is clear
Without my house or car)!

So, Mr. President, sit down--
Right here, inside my tent--
And you will see, I'm unemployed
One-hundred damned percent!

BEANS, BACON & GRAVY

2011-09-24T05:35:00.000-07:00

A Depression-era classic performed by Cohen, Langlois & Co. on the front porch in Toledo:

Beans, Bacon and Gravy by Jacob Leib Cohen

THE T.P. MYSTERY

2011-09-23T08:24:00.000-07:00

Today’s dose of edifying, civilized fun from Douglas “Rabbit” Sutherland:

THE T.P. MYSTERY

Whenever floods or hurricanes
Or monsoons plague the sky,
Why toilet paper is the thing
That everyone must buy

Has been the burning question for
Well, maybe, fifty years!--
Whenever storms are forecast, why
Do shoppers perk their ears

And hurry off to Walmart in
The fear they could get caught
Without a case of Charmin or
Of Northern or of Scott

To face the overflowing dikes
Without a thousand rolls?--
The question I've been asking is,
"Just why these T.P. goals?"

I finally learned the answer in
A broadcast to those mired:
"Complete evacuation may
Be total and required!"

ON ACHIEVEMENT

2011-09-19T12:21:00.000-07:00

Driving from DC to Ohio on Saturday, my wife and I were listening to a Freakonomics podcast about what economists can tell us about raising high-achieving children. Interesting stuff. What remained uninterrogated, however, was the assumption that achievement, as it’s now understood, is a worthy thing in the first place.

I wonder if achievement is among the things we’ve stuffed into the vacancy left after genuine piety fell from fashion.

I also wonder if I’m only asking this question because I’ve never really achieved anything.

The Economist’s Guide to Parenting | Freakonomics Radio

WE’RE BACK!

2011-09-19T06:49:00.000-07:00

Okay, I’m back…and with a very exciting announcement. Over the next few weeks, I’ll be recording a children’s album with Ben Langlois of Old West End Records, one of the most dynamic labels in the Midwest. A weird multicultural salad of songs, it’ll swerve through English, Hebrew and Spanish.

Stay tuned for updates.

THE JACOB-LEIB-COHEN-OSPHERE TO GO DORMANT. AGAIN.

2011-09-12T06:03:00.000-07:00

Dear Readers—

Over the next few days, as my wife and I move to Toledo (long story), I’ll be suspending regular posting in order to devote my full energies to schlepping. Just because your favorite blog is going dormant, however, it doesn’t mean you have to. Please consider purchasing your copy of The Spill: Six Stories; this can be initiated via the link in the left margin of this page.

Best,

Jacob Leib Cohen

BLACK HOLE

2011-09-12T05:58:00.000-07:00

Today’s dose of edifying, civilized fun from Douglas “Rabbit” Sutherland:

BLACK HOLE

I'm sunk! I'm doomed! I'm falling fast!
I feel it in my soul!
But, it's not love that's sucked me in!
It's Medicine's Black Hole!

You know the drill; it's biblical:
One pill begets two more,
Then four, then eight, and in three weeks
I'm popping twenty four!

And, when I read the "Side Effects,"
It makes me catch my breath;
In every single one, I see,
"...And may result in DEATH!"

Then, countless radiologists
Conspire to crease my brow,
Subjecting me to scary tests
With acronyms like, '"MEOW!"

I'm nothing but a microbe in
A swirling toilet bowl,
Defenseless, as I disappear
Down Medicine's Black Hole!

TODAY’S SMILE-INDUCING VIDEO

2011-09-08T20:36:00.000-07:00

For my Hebrew-speaking readers, today’s smile-inducing video:

THAT LONESOME VALLEY

2011-09-08T08:17:00.000-07:00

Appearing exclusively here, a new short story, “That Lonesome Valley”. Please scroll to the very bottom of his page. Feel free to download and share.

SOME NOTES ON THE SOPRANOS

2011-09-05T13:05:00.001-07:00

My recent visit to my New Jersey hometown was slightly extended by the hurricane. Staying with my mother, there was little to pass the time. Something about the atmosphere in a sterile, suburban condo makes serious reading, writing and thinking impossible.

So there was nothing for it but to watch The Sopranos on-demand, episode after episode.

The series is set in my part of North Jersey, and much of it was filmed there—on location in my home turf. So there’s something surreal about watching The Sopranos in Soprano country. It offers a striking counter-vision of my old stomping grounds.

Deservedly, it’s among the few TV shows subjected to the sort of analysis typically reserved for literature. And so, grounded by a hurricane, I had time to contemplate what made the series so popular.

My theory is this:

Modern Americans often feel helpless. We spend great chunks of our lives in submission—to customer support machines; to banks and pharmacies; to the IRS, the DMV and Parking Enforcement; to credit reporting agencies under the mistaken impression that (a) you ever had a Victoria’s Secret Angel Card, and (b) you stopped paying your balance in 1994. Everywhere we look, there’s a tangle of queues, protocols and penalties—most of it unspeakably petty, but able, in aggregate, to burden a life.

The Sopranos supplies a deeply satisfying vision of America in which folks are empowered. The characters enjoy all of our suburban comforts without having to whimper before faceless systems.

Tony has a psychiatrist. But do we ever see him waiting to have his Prozac prescription filled by some somnolent CVS cashier whose computer has mysteriously erased all record of his existence? Paulie Walnuts drives a nice car. But do we ever see him undergoing the byzantine, afternoon-consuming process of having his registration renewed or modified?

The tacit (and deeply dispiriting) moral of The Sopranos is that only through violence, or the credible threat of it, can we be free. No cop will ticket you if he’s on your payroll. No functionary will subject you to the slightest hassle if he knows you might put a bullet in his thigh.

Of course, they’re ruthless murderers. And they have troubles of their own: by the end of season six, nearly everyone is dead.

Commenting upon the final episode, William F. Buckley (yes, you heard correctly) writes:

“That was the genius, the parable, of the most successful television drama in history, giving the viewer hour after hour, year after year, exploitation of sex, exhibitionism, murder, sadism, cynicism and hypocrisy. And, according to David Chase, we are to remember that such is as it is. There was no pictorial, no dramatic end to The Sopranos because its point was to depict life (a) as practiced by the Mafia, and (b) as tolerated, and in fact swooned over, by the viewing public.”

If Mr. Buckley ever had to wait on hold for thirty minutes while some office cog drowsily attempted to discover why the co-pay for his upper endoscopy was retroactively tripled sixteen months after the procedure, I think he, too, might have joined the swooning.

CREATIONISM PROVED

2011-09-04T08:37:00.003-07:00

Today’s dose of edifying, civilized fun from Douglas “Rabbit” Sutherland:

CREATIONISM PROVED

I know it sounds ridiculous,
But stay with me a while,
And see the vast potential that
Arises with a smile.

They're tossing out the science books
In grades from one through nine,
Replacing Evolution with
"Intelligent Design."

They say the science is a scam--
A vast conspiracy--
To hide Divine Perfection from
From the likes of you and me.

But their behavior proves they're right!
Their straits are not so dire!
No need to run around and throw
Those textbooks in the fire!

Had we evolved from chimps and apes
With our opposing thumb,
There is no chance on God's great Earth
We'd ever act this dumb!

IN WHITMAN’S FOOTSTEPS

2011-09-01T17:23:00.000-07:00

The National Portrait Gallery, where I spend my days writing, was once the Patent Office. During the Civil War, it served as a military hospital. Walt Whitman, volunteering as a nurse, spent a good deal of time there. Here’s his account.

***

February 23.—I MUST not let the great hospital at the Patent-office pass away without some mention. A few weeks ago the vast area of the second story of that noblest of Washington buildings was crowded close with rows of sick, badly wounded and dying soldiers. They were placed in three very large apartments. I went there many times. It was a strange, solemn, and, with all its features of suffering and death, a sort of fascinating sight. I go sometimes at night to soothe and relieve particular cases. Two of the immense apartments are fill’d with high and ponderous glass cases, crowded with models in miniature of every kind of utensil, machine or invention, it ever enter’d into the mind of man to conceive; and with curiosities and foreign presents. Between these cases are lateral openings, perhaps eight feet wide and quite deep, and in these were placed the sick, besides a great long double row of them up and down through the middle of the hall. Many of them were very bad cases, wounds and amputations. Then there was a gallery running above the hall in which there were beds also. It was, indeed, a curious scene, especially at night when lit up. The glass cases, the beds, the forms lying there, the gallery above, and the marble pavement under foot—the suffering, and the fortitude to bear it in various degrees—occasionally, from some, the groan that could not be repress’d—sometimes a poor fellow dying, with emaciated face and glassy eye, the nurse by his side, the doctor also there, but no friend, no relative—such were the sights but lately in the Patent-office. (The wounded have since been removed from there, and it is now vacant again.)

DONORS THINK BACHMANN IS JEWISH

2011-08-30T09:30:00.000-07:00

This, from The Daily Beast:

“File this one under ‘implausible’: the New York Post reports that an anonymous fundraiser for Mitt Romney says the former Massachusetts governor is having trouble winning Jewish support because donors mistakenly believe Michele Bachmann is Jewish. The fundraiser said his campaign has been shocked to hear donors say they’d rather support the ‘Jewish candidate’—even though Bachmann is openly and famously an evangelical Christian. ‘It's a real problem,’ the fundraiser said. ‘We're working very hard in the Jewish community because of Obama's Israel problem. This was surprising.’”

***

How is this possible? Perhaps the Jewish donors in question were deploying that famous Jewish irony? I’d like to think—I need to think, for the sake of whatever cultural chauvinism I have left—they were groping for a witty way to decline invitations to support a silly opportunist like Mr. Romney.

WASHINGTON NOTEBOOK

2011-08-21T08:21:00.000-07:00

I spend my afternoons reading and writing in the National Portrait Gallery’s magnificent atrium. A Victorian courtyard covered in a canopy of undulating glass, air-conditioned and full of comfortable seating, it’s the most pleasant place simply to exist that I’ve found in D.C.

At five-thirty, I walk north on Seventh Street to meet my wife at NPR, where she works. This is Chinatown, but a very strange Chinatown. The street is lined primarily with upscale restaurants, few of them Chinese, but all, owing to some ordinance, bearing bilingual signage. The sleek cocktail joints are filling with young professionals wearing badges around their necks identifying them as belonging to the Defense Department or the Brookings Institution or some lobbying outfit. These laminated talismans are so sacred that they can be permitted to obscure $150 neckties. Meanwhile, the family restaurants are filling with tourists laden with cameras, maps, backpacks and children.

There’s the black supremacist soapbox near the Chinatown Metro station, where a dozen men clad in studded leather aprons like postmodern gladiators scream with hair-raising, pace-quickening ferocity about violent revolt against the White Man.

They must need careful monitoring. I’ve never seen any length of street, even in East Jerusalem at the height of the Intifada, so clotted with security personnel. There’s Capitol Police, Metropolitan Police, Metro Transit Police and private guards hired by business establishments.

But the air is somehow electric with another, more elusive tension. Poor blacks congregate in the area. Because of various societal factors, there are, it’s assumed, many idle hands here for which the Devil is eager to find work. But the real tension isn’t between rich and poor. They scarcely acknowledge each other’s existence. Rather, it’s between poor blacks and those hired to surveil them—mostly black themselves, and likely from the same neighborhoods. It’s as if a giant wall arbitrarily came down. One side was assigned to be the Intimidating Rabble; the other, Enforcers of Order. Neither cohort appears totally at ease in its role.

There’s a beggar at least every twenty feet.

I wait to cross Massachusetts Avenue. The Washington Historical Society is ahead to my left, a handsome Neo-Classical building that’s been boarded up. Ambitious renovations were planned, and even begun, before the money ran out. A park surrounds it. The homeless sleep there on the dying grass.

To my immediate right is the headquarters of Blackboard Inc., the software developer responsible for the dominant web-based learning platforms. They’re integral to the machinery of political pressure, market forces, pedagogical theory and downright fad that makes higher education increasingly impersonal, flaccid and disposable—all the while congratulating itself for being the opposite. I peek through the plate glass window into the reception area. Everything’s sleek and plasticized, like a ‘70s daydream about what suburban homes will look like in the Future.

Finally, I reach NPR, where the whole of American highbrow thought is harvested, winnowed, sifted, condensed, processed, packaged, quality-controlled, and then dispatched for consumption.

As I wait outside for my wife to emerge, I reflect that if I’d walked the same distance south of the National Portrait Gallery, I’d be in Washington’s federal core. It’s our showcase capitol. Everything there is grand, sterile and militarized.

***

As I said, I spend my afternoons at the National Portrait Gallery; it doesn’t open until 11:30. My mornings are spent at the Martin Luther King Library, across the street. I’m there just before opening time, waiting with the homeless who need a place to pace, sleep or clean themselves in the bathroom sink.

As the doors are unlocked and we advance into the lobby, I pass an elderly black janitor, down on his knees, polishing the marble column supporting Dr. King’s bronze bust. The lobby is huge and stark, like New York’s Port Authority. Never have I been in so big a room that feels so airless.

I knew that upholstery could stink of piss and spiritual brokenness. At the Public Library, however, I discover that piss and spiritual brokenness are powerful indeed; they can seep into concrete and stone.

They can seep into a country, too.

COOL LETTER MAN

2011-08-20T06:05:00.000-07:00

Your video of the day:

ON THE CONTRADICTIONS OF THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

2011-08-16T15:47:00.001-07:00

I paid my first visit to the Library of Congress yesterday. After being processed by an elaborate (and predictably unpleasant) security apparatus, you’re admitted into a room of Versailles-level grandeur. Climb to the second floor, and gasp at the lobby. Every inch bulges with ornament. Most arresting are the inscriptions etched into large, gilt tablets. Some favorites:

MAN RAISES, BUT TIME WEIGHS

THE TRUE UNIVERSITY OF THESE DAYS IS A COLLECTION OF BOOKS

THERE IS NO WORK OF GENIUS WHICH HAS NOT BEEN
THE DELIGHT OF MANKIND

BEHOLDING THE BRIGHT COUNTENANCE OF TRUTH, IN THE QUIET
AND STILL AIR OF DELIGHTFUL STUDIES

THEY ARE NEVER ALONE THAT ARE ACCOMPANIED WITH NOBLE THOUGHTS

VAIN, VERY VAIN, THE WEARY SEARCH TO FIND
THAT BLISS WHICH ONLY CENTRES IN THE MIND

What’s being affirmed here is a terrific imagination of democracy. In America, the inscriptions cumulatively declare, loftiness of mind and soul are things we can all strive for. While true learning is non-utilitarian (i.e. the “delight”—rather than the enhanced job prospects—“of mankind”), you’re incomplete if you don’t propel yourself into worldly exertion. Every “bliss” requires connection to the universe beyond your own skull.

Naturally, I was eager to dive into the books. But I was stymied. The various “reading rooms” were actually museum exhibits, full of loud tourists and gaudy interactive displays. The iconic Main Reading Room was visible only from a soundproof glass cube bolted into the balcony. The academicians could be seen down below, hard at work. It felt a little like the tour I once took of the Jelly Belly factory in California.

Dismayed, I asked a guard if there’s any place to, you know, sit and read in the Library of Congress. I didn’t even need to use one of their books, if the procedure for doing so was too demanding. I had Chesterton’s Orthodoxy in the backpack that was so thoroughly excavated by security personnel at the First Street entrance. The quiet and still air of delightful studies! Lead me to it!

He looked at me as though I might be benignly mad. If I were a scholar, I’d need to apply for a special ID card in the Madison Building. Hm. Obligingly, I walked over and found that, upon showing my passport, I could be photographed for an ID card that names me as a “verified reader”.

The only other thing I had to do was to identify my reason for needing to use the collection. I wanted to point up at the inscriptions, but none of those invocations were in the drop-down menu. “Citizen wanting to do some reading and thinking” wasn’t an option either. So I chose “Other” and was issued my plastic card.

I did this in twenty minutes, which did give me access to the entire complex (a shocking percentage of which is underground, and frankly hideous, I was disappointed to discover).

But the whole experience revealed some intriguing contradictions in the democracy we practice.

Grand inscriptions are well and good. But who would really benefit from all the dêmos exercising the kratos to wander the whole building, frenetically snapping pictures, making noise and disturbing the few folks who have the cultural grooming needed to appreciate the largest library on Earth? No one.

The rhetoric of those inscriptions seems to be in conflict with the realities of modern life—with the ability of the majority of citizens that come through the door to engage with what’s housed there.

For them, there’s “Creating the United States.”

“This exhibition,” the brochure says, “offers a remarkable opportunity to learn in a fresh new way how the founding documents that emerged from this period were forged out of insight, invention, and creativity[.]”

Meanwhile, the handful of citizens who’ve been educated into insight, invention and creativity toil “in the quiet and still air”.

ROOF PROOF

2011-08-14T09:03:00.000-07:00

Today’s dose of edifying, civilized fun from Douglas “Rabbit” Sutherland:

ROOF PROOF

I wake up countless mornings when
The markets crash and burn,
When brokers leap from bridges, and
I cry, "Why can't they learn"?

Regardless of the NASDAQ or
The S&P or Fed,
My money never shrinks a bit!--
I'm never in the red!

I've never put a dollar in
Securities or stocks;
Instead, I stack it neatly in
My little Money Box!

It fits the bills precisely and
It has a wooden weight
That presses down to flatten them
And keep their corners straight!

My system isn't elegant
Or worldly or aloof.
But, every time the markets tank,
I don't jump off my roof!

CHABAD RABBIS BAN AVRAHAM FRIED CONCERT

2011-08-11T09:43:00.000-07:00

Since I’ve written lately in these pages about Avraham Fried, readers might be interested in this tidbit from Failed Messiah:

“Slamming Avraham Fried's concerts which lack gender segregated seating, Chabad rabbis from northern Israel ban an upcoming Fried concert as immodest. Fried is himself a Chabad Chasid, and is the brother of Chabad's English language modesty expert, Rabbi Manis Friedman.”

Here’s the decree:

JACOB LEIB COHEN ANNOUNCES PRIZE FOR BRUTALITY IN LITERARY CRITICISM TARGETED AT HIMSELF

2011-08-07T14:00:00.000-07:00

OVERVIEW:

Reviews of The Spill: Six Stories have been unanimous: “If you have a taste for Stephen Fry or Colbert Report type humor, you'll likely gobble this book down like candy”; “An ‘incandescent debut’ indeed!”; “Cohen has won a fan in me. I want more. Join us, brave reader!”

The fanfare has been so excessive, so unrelenting, that it dissolves into a vaguely irritating white noise. It’s time to spice things up. There must be something in my book that’s loathsome. And the world needs to hear about it. Otherwise, the critical consensus will harden to the detriment of honest literary debate everywhere.

I challenge you, dear Reader, to write the most unsparing, elegantly scornful review of The Spill you can muster. Don’t be vulgar or flippant. Jacob-Leib-Cohen-is-a-douchebag stuff will not suffice. The Spill needs to be eviscerated with the panache, precision and cool aloofness that are so essential to our critical tradition.

Consider Robert Buchanan’s review of D.G. Rossetti’s Poems (1871). After quoting a lascivious stanza, he writes:

“Passages like these are the common stock of the walking gentlemen of the fleshly school. We cannot forbear expressing our wonder, by the way, at the kind of women whom it seems the unhappy lot of these gentlemen to encounter. We have lived as long in the world as they have, but never yet came across persons of the other sex who conduct themselves in the manner described. Females who bite, scratch, scream, bubble, munch, sweat, writhe, twist, wriggle, foam, and in a general way slaver over their lovers, must surely possess some extraordinary qualities to counteract their otherwise most offensive mode of conducting themselves. It appears, however, on examination, that their poet-lovers conduct themselves in a similar manner. They, too, bite, scratch, scream, bubble, munch, sweat, writhe, twist, wriggle, foam, and slaver, in a style frightful to hear of.”

For a more recent example, consider this famous passage from Tibor Fischer’s review of Martin Amis’s Yellow Dog (2003):

“Yellow Dog isn't bad as in not very good or slightly disappointing. It's not-knowing-where-to-look bad. I was reading my copy on the Tube and I was terrified someone would look over my shoulder (not only because of the embargo, but because someone might think I was enjoying what was on the page). It's like your favourite uncle being caught in a school playground, masturbating.”

Or consider ninety-nine percent of book reviews by Theodore Dalrymple.

* * *

CONTEST GUIDELINES:

1. Reviews must be at least two hundred words in length;

2. Reviews must be posted on the author’s blog, website or other piece of online real estate;

3. In order to submit your review for consideration, cut and paste the link into the Comments section of this post by October 15, 12:00PM;

4. The winner will be announced on November 1;

5. He or she will receive a bottle of extra strength Mylanta, autographed by me, to cure the indigestion that The Spill: Six Stories has caused.

Good luck to all!

A TALE OF TWO CITIES

2011-08-06T17:45:00.001-07:00

Like all clichés, it’s true: there are two Washingtons. One is the gleaming capitol of a vast empire; the other, a poor Southern city.

I’m writing from the magnificent atrium of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. To my left, a trio of Scandinavian tourists is drinking overpriced coffee. Fashionable young professionals, all wearing impressive ID tags around their necks, are eating the lunches they’ve taken out from some nearby café. On the smooth marble bench surrounding one of the well-tended gardens sits a woman with flaming red hair and a baby carriage. She’s talking into her phone in Hebrew. I’m guessing her husband is a diplomat.

Directly across Ninth Street, however, is the central branch of the District of Columbia Public Library, which I visited earlier today. It has all the charm of an urban bus terminal. The lobby air is heavy with the distinctive, sour smell of homelessness. It’s no exaggeration to say that the overwhelming majority of the patrons were there simply because they had nowhere else to go. During my brief visit, I saw at least three people talking to themselves. When I disembarked from the elevator on the fourth floor, a security guard was readying himself to arrest someone causing a disturbance in one of the drab reading rooms.

I suggest that some brave community organizer round up these unfortunate souls, and lead them across the street. The Smithsonian is a very pleasant place to spend time. There are plenty of comfortable chairs, spacious restrooms, and, on the third floor, unlimited free coffee.

Not only could the poor folks see the art, but the affluent visitors, especially from foreign lands, could see the poor folks. They could see what our country is really all about.

TODAY’S SMILE-INDUCING VIDEO

2011-08-03T15:41:00.001-07:00

Today’s smile-inducing video:

SPITBALL

2011-08-03T14:44:00.000-07:00

Today’s dose of edifying, civilized fun from Douglas “Rabbit” Sutherland:

SPITBALL

Well, God has lost His fastball and
His sinker brings Him tears,
But, hey, the Dude's been pitching for
Like, twenty-million years

And throwing all those curveballs it's
High time He lost His edge,
And though He's God Almighty and
You figure He could hedge

By throwing spitballs, still, He's God,
And plays an honest game,
And hopes nobody notices,
But, frankly, why they came

And paid outrageous prices for
Cold hot dogs and warm beer
Is clearly just because they know,
Or, possibly, they fear

He'll lose control completely and
Destroy the Universe,
But they would have a bleacher seat!
(By God, things could be worse!)

DANCING THE WHORE-A: ON THE DC SLUTWALK

2011-08-02T18:08:00.001-07:00

Okay. So let’s say I grow out my beard, don a skullcap and caftan and assume the appearance of a Chassid.

I visit some godforsaken village in Mississippi, where I parade up and down Main Street, dancing a one-man hora and singing in Yiddish. Odds are, I’d be safe. But I might just get the crap beaten out of me. My assailants would be breaking the law, of course; the justice system would be required to punish them. But the prosecutor probably wouldn’t have much sympathy for me. Nobody would have much sympathy for me. Although, in the abstract, I have the right to wrap myself in a tallis and trill the chorus of “Mein Shtetele Belz” wherever I damn well please, common sense usually intervenes.

On August 13, socially conscious Washingtonians will march from Lafayette Square to the towering marble phallus commemorating the city’s namesake, in our very own SlutWalk. The SlutWalk phenomenon started because of a statement made in January by the Toronto Police, advising undergraduate women not to "dress like a slut" when going out on the town.

The police didn’t say they’d decline to prosecute anyone who’d sexually assaulted a sluttishly attired woman. They said, simply, that it’s not a good idea to dress that way. Outrage was immediate, and predictably hysterical. SlutWalks have since occurred worldwide—where women dress in their skivvies, call the news cameras, and, with all the righteous eagerness of suffragettes, march through town.

Although I’m a good socialist, on this issue, I find the conservative emphasis on personal responsibility and common sense far more useful than the liberal approach. A certain genus of conservative grouses against rights- (as opposed to responsibility-) based thinking. They bemoan a society in which we all keep a deck of “rights” in our head as cards to play at whim. They fear that it makes us whiny and solipsistic. They say that such thinking freezes people in an attitude of permanent grievance. In this case, it makes people strip to their underwear, gather in the shadow of the White House and demand the unconditional freedom to dress suggestively, step into the presence of two hundred simian frat boys, potentially get comatose with drink and emerge with their virtue intact.

There’s legitimate debate about whether campus rape statistics are grossly inflated. Assuming they’re not, so many essays I’ve read about the phenomenon posit a sort of theoretical campus that’s unlike any I’ve ever seen. In it, the undergraduate woman is strong and confident. She decides to attend a party. Having arrived, she has a jolly, chaste time.

But then, from some shadow emerges the Predator, who cunningly plies her with intoxicants. The woman was utterly unaware that she could possibly be considered as a sexual object. But the Predator has carefully prepared his attack. He leads her to his lair. And the worst of it is this: he will strike again. Next Saturday night is only a week away. Meanwhile, the Predator goes about his usual collegiate routine. He’s in our midst, anonymous.

Of course, personal responsibility and common sense should also animate men. While SlutWalks are merely risible, drunken frat boys are downright frightening. As a male, even I avoid them.

And I don’t deny that women experience unique difficulties in going about their normal business without men seeing sexual invitation where there is none. Any female jogger will tell you this.

And yes, there’s a tremendously unfair double standard that continues to applaud sexual adventurism in men, while stigmatizing it in women.

And finally, I want to be clear that rape, as it’s traditionally understood, is a crime of unique barbarism. If anything, SlutWalks trivialize rape.

Since the beginning of time, however, men have exercised the greatest creativity in trying to get women into the sack. Thanks to the legal and social protections that feminism has, ehem, erected over the past fifty years, today’s women enjoy a diversity of tools to avoid and repel these advances.

One of them, I’m afraid to say, is to refrain from dressing like a slut.

VH1 Reality Show Bus Crashes In California Causing Major Slut Spill

TRY YOUR BEST

2011-07-29T18:27:00.000-07:00

The most irritating admonition given to kids, always with an encouraging smile, is “Try your best.” Even as an eleven-year-old, I found it problematic. When I attempted to ventilate my concerns with my mom, she’d scrunch her brow in affable, suburban confusion, and suggest I take it up with my shrink. (Yes, I’ve had shrinks since I’ve been in long pants.) Unfortunately, though, my shrink, a gentle old lady who saw patients in the library of her Victorian home, wasn’t much help, either.

Try your best. I always aced history exams without much effort. Should I feel guilty about not trying my best in situations that don’t actually require my best?

What if there’s a task that’s demanding, but I feel is unworthy of my best, like those bullshit vocabulary exercises? Remember those? Every week you learn a list of new words, and then demonstrate your facility by doing ten pages of crossword puzzles and sentence fill-ins. I’ve always learned words easily, and for that very reason found those exercises pointless—and difficult, actually, because they removed the words from the realm of normal human usage.

Adults never said “Try your best” when it came to stuff they didn’t care about, like my boyhood hobby of collecting newts.

Is that how it works, this trying-your-best thing? You’re to try your best at any task that any adult insists is important? It’s a tool of control, then.

My biggest objection, however, was that no person can fully know what his best actually is. Therefore, were you committed to achieving it, you were also committed to a spiral of lacerating self-doubt. To try your best is inherently masochistic. There’s profound darkness there. Even as a kid, I saw it.

And it goes without saying that my mom, who’s the kind of woman who regards Oprah as a serious moral authority, God bless her, found me indescribably frustrating.

The humane alternative to trying your best is to figure out what’s being expected of you, and to do it. That’s often sufficiently difficult. Over my years of teaching, it’s what I’ve told my students. And it guides me in my own life. If it’s possible to cut some corners without conspicuously undermining things, go for it. Whether I’m sweeping the floor (a rare occurrence, sadly, as my wife will tell you), completing a job application or, well, whatever. What’s being expected of me? That’s the question.

The only exception is my fiction writing. My stories give me nightmares, or some part of my subconscious cultivates nightmares in order to fuel my stories. Though I get a full night’s sleep, I’m exhausted and panicked.

“Compress the panic,” I tell myself. “Compress it, and put it in the story. Put everything in the story. You’ll die tomorrow; make the story count. Only the fiction matters. Can’t sell the finished product to a magazine? Receive some insult that cuts to the core? Work harder. Brew tea. Nicotine. Xanax. Shitty merlot. Red meat. Push, push, push.”

My mom still occasionally tells me to do my best. These days, it’s because she’s latched onto some mundane challenge of mine that she can relate to—like fighting a parking ticket. She doesn’t know I’m a writer. But at least now I can say with some knowing:

“I’ve been trying my best.”

AVRAHAM FRIED: AN APPRECIATION

2011-07-28T17:31:00.001-07:00

The ah-ha moment in my thinking about Avraham Fried was when I recently learned that he took an active role in the arrangement and production of his own material. Before, I thought of him as the world’s best singer of Hebrew and Yiddish religious music, who’d been lassoed by some aesthetically bankrupt handler into schmaltzy orchestral arrangements, the occasional English number that’s indistinguishable in any relevant respect from bad Christian rock, and album titles like No Jew Will Be Left Behind (1981).

My relationship with him was complicated. On the one hand, his voice is almost unbearably expressive, versatile and effortless. There’s power in it. It’s what Lorin Sklamberg of The Klezmatics would sound like if he had just a smidgen more testosterone. It’s the kind of voice that could make an atheist reconsider.

But on the other hand, those arrangements, dear Lord. Their shallow Broadway grandeur. The brassy orchestras. The cheap tricks. Even when enlisting the traditional clarinet and accordion, they come out smooth, flaccid, rehearsed and over-sweetened. I often toyed with the idea of writing him, and volunteering to help out. You do the singing, Avi; I’ll do everything else—I need to save you.

After all, it’s only the arrangements that keep his popularity so narrow, even within the Jewish community. Only the Orthodox have heard of him. Avraham Fried could become the world’s premier interpreter of the Yiddish and cantorial repertoire. Educated people with multicultural curiosity would attend his concerts, as they do Cheb Khaled’s or Earl Scruggs’s. He’d be the subject of a slightly-too-long profile on NPR’s Weekend All Things Considered. He’d show up on Putumayo compilations.

But, according to a 2010 interview with the blog Vos Iz Neias, this is precisely how he wants it. He’s a perfectionist with an oddly calibrated vision of perfection.

My relationship with Avraham Fried is still complicated. But I get it now. There was a Divine clerical error in March of ’59, and the soul of a Broadway diva was sent to inhabit the body of a Chassidic male. And this is the result. It has the unavoidable beauty of all big things undertaken intentionally, with heart and undeniable talent.

Still, though, the voice is key. At every flourish, my brow crenellates with How-The-Hell-Does-He-Do-That? wonder. Avraham Fried is like a precious gift that’s wrapped in unnecessarily extravagant paper and ribbons.

For the uninitiated, the best place to start is with Yankel, Yankel (2009) and “Preparing for Shabbos”, “Techiyas HaMaisim” and “The Thirteen Ani Maamins” from Yiddish Gems, Vol. 1 (1992). All are on iTunes.

And by the way, if you’re reading this, Avraham, I’m available.

WHAT READERS ARE SAYING

2011-07-28T09:01:00.000-07:00

An especially satisfying Amazon reader review of The Spill: Six Stories:

Often I hear the term "wish fulfillment" and let it go as a cliche not worth picking up. As I type this review, I recall other struggles with truths which go by cliche. As another reviewer notes on Cohen's vernacular, this is the vehicle that buoys the reader up above the surface of these various true things. At times the reader will feel as if standing on the solid truth holding up thoughts, events, etc., that we often take for granted, even reaching deftly into phantasm.

So, the characters seem to have made wishes, and they are seeing them fulfilled, ready or not as they come to realizations either by narration or of themselves, or together. For instance, the phrase "hopeless romantic" comes to mind for myself. I had never paid credence to that phrase until now. And yes, I feel like I am standing on the substance of it, free from the noise of the tired phrase itself, apprehensive and hopeful that the solid substance of it keeps me up and out of a perturbed realm that I may not understand, though it understands me.

I think of Coetzee's novel, "Disgrace." Cohen has won a fan in me. I want more. Join us, brave reader!

THE WOUNDABLES

2011-07-27T08:48:00.000-07:00

Today’s dose of edifying, civilized fun from Douglas “Rabbit” Sutherland:

THE WOUNDABLES

Hello! We are the Woundables.
We whine and moan and pout.
Our tragic lives are worse then yours.
Of this we have no doubt!

Our temperatures in winter are
Far colder than your own;
Our snow is much, much deeper which
Is why we growl and groan!

Our air is more polluted so
Our asthma is much worse;
Our weeds are far more toxic which
Is why we cough and curse!

Our summers are more humid and
Our temperatures more hot;
Our heatstroke strikes more often while
You don't give it a thought!

We suffer great injustices
Which pound us to the floor,
While you slide by in comfort in
Your house, right there, next door!

TODAY’S SMILE-INDUCING VIDEO

2011-07-18T11:54:00.000-07:00

Today’s smile-inducing video:

FOR HIRE: DESPERATE, UNSKILLED, USELESS INTELLECTUAL

2011-07-17T16:01:00.001-07:00

I’m looking for jobs; it’s not going very well. In a spasm of desperation, I typed “jobs for useless intellectuals” into Google. The first thing to come up was the following Craigslist classified posted by someone named Michael in 2003. If you’re out there, Michael, I’d be eager to hear how things turned out.

***

Seriously, someone please hire this utterly, utterly useless man.

I'll do pretty much anything, although something requiring copious amounts of physical labour would probably not be advisable since I'm relatively weak. I am able and willing to work the following hours:

9:00am - 11:00pm, Saturday, Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday
3:00pm - 11:00pm, Friday

And by willing and able to work, I mean I will work straight from 9am to 11pm if that's what you need and I won't sue or anything. In January this will mostly likely change to exclusive swing shift hours (3pm-12am) seven days a week. Despite being fairly useless, I do have a few skills, all of which are, of course, also fairly useless (there are others not listed here, feel free to ask):

1) Knowledge of UNIX administrative programming in a number of languages (most shells, Perl, some Python, Tcl/expect)

2) Communist and Post-Communist studies, including Africa and Central Asia

3) Various aspects of Political Science, including but not limited to: American government, political theory, politics of the European Union, international relations, comparative politics, etc.

4) Ability to speak in very slow, broken German or French, though an ability to read a bit more quickly in the same

5) Typing, filing, faking decent phone voice, anything for which one would normally hire a temp worker

6) History of 20th Century United States, Europe/Russia, and China, mostly Cold War studies, though knowledge of general world history

7) Ability to ejaculate and therefore donate sperm if need be (although cancer and depression run in my family, just as a fair warning)

8) Ability to nitpick people over grammatical mistakes in everyday speech

9) Extensive knowledge of the musical works of Bob Dylan, Neil Young, the Beatles, and a few others, as well as the ability to play songs by the same when provided with a guitar (left handed) or, in some cases, piano (harmonica left to your discretion)

10) Ability to teach these skills to someone else if so desired (except for the ejaculation; if you can't do that, you're on your own)

Just so you know, I can also be drunk and do all these things in case you wanted to hire me for ambiance in your bar or something. My past employment includes stints as a UNIX systems programmer, a web designer, tutoring at City College of San Francisco for various subjects (largely history, political science, and economics) as well as private, one-on-one tutoring for history and political science. Some jobs I believe I would do well based on past experience or job offers:

1) Private tutor in history or political science

2) Research assistant, or writer for your graduate thesis (I won't tell)

3) Governor of the State of California

4) Retail at an independently owned toy store that doesn't sell those G.W. Bush action figures

5) Disaffected record store guy, although without piercings

6) General monkey/whipping boy/whore for adult website (when the job was offered to me, I believe it was a bondage website, but I'll take anything I don't find reprehensible)

7) Teacher as long as you don't mind lack of a degree

8) Street musician

9) Writer for a sitcom no one understands

10) Carrying a sign around imploring people to impeach various public figures (hey, Frank must have a sick day every now and then)

So, yeah, I need a job. The girlfriend is going to UCB and doesn't really have the time to work. Deal is, I keep her alive for the next two years, then she pays for me while I finish my degree and go to law school or something. That's really none of your concern, but in case you were wondering why I am so incredibly desperate. So, yes. Please hire me. Please?

Resume (written more seriously than this), references, endorsements, recommendations, and pictures of my cute, loving, adorable cat who will starve to death if I don't find a job available upon request. San Francisco location preferred.

--Michael

Nota Bene - No, I will not engage in sexual acts for pay... however, you are welcome to buy my time and, well, what happens during that time is completely up to me... ahem...

HOLOCAUST COMMEMORATION AS SEX

2011-07-17T12:46:00.000-07:00

I visited the United States Holocaust Museum this past weekend with my wife and father. After two hours of viewing gruesome exhibits, we emerged into the central atrium, and my father guiltily admitted: “I don’t know if I felt it as much as I did during my last visit.”

I was thinking the same thing. That day, I had an irritable stomach. While viewing a scale model of the gas chambers, HOW CLOSE IS THE NEAREST TOILET? occupied a blasphemously substantial percentage of my mental real estate. I, too, felt guilty. It should have been a consuming moment of aftermath, of descent from intense experience. And yet my mind was elsewhere. WHOLE GRAINS—IF I EAT MORE WHOLE GRAINS, THIS STOMACH THING WILL PASS. BUT I DON’T LIKE WHOLE GRAINS, ESPECIALLY IN PASTA FORM. HM.

In other words, I’d gone through the motions.

Holocaust commemoration is like some dark parody of sex. Like sex, Holocaust commemoration has a finite number of, shall we say, postures—a finite number of ways it gets done. The heaps of human hair or decaying shoes. The ruthlessly exact blueprints of death factories. The uniform survivor testimony.

Like sex ed., Holocaust commemoration is undertaken dryly at school, and more colorfully at the cinema. Both are also politically fraught.

And like sex, there’s incredible anxiety about whether you’ve experienced it correctly. There are scholars like Norman Finkelstein who are proud to experience it incorrectly—they’re subjected to the type of disgust otherwise reserved for sexual deviants.

Standing in that central atrium, I felt guilty. Or did I? Perhaps I felt guilty about not feeling guilty. To be frank, I’m exhausted by the Holocaust. I’ve been Holo-accosted since very early childhood. Teachers were showing us photos of Jewish corpses years before we’d even begun to conceive of mortality. We were targeted by an unrelenting, carefully plotted campaign to burden us with a sort of vicarious trauma. This wasn’t about sharpening us up to defeat anti-Semitism. It simply didn’t exist in North Jersey. This was trauma for trauma’s sake. To return to my earlier metaphor, this trauma was like sex; it needed no external justification.

What’s a kid to do with this? We made glib jokes about crematoria. In my Jewish high school, some of us, the grandchildren of survivors, would greet each other in the hallways with the Nazi salute, and then giggle. To this day, my emotional reflexes are deformed. My wife, a Midwestern Gentile, will cry if a movie is too nihilistically violent. As the innocent civilians are pointlessly machine-gunned or disemboweled, I, however, shrug—and sometimes laugh.

A similar blowback is occurring among scholars and novelists; Holocaust educators should take note. Norman Finkelstein’s The Holocaust Industry (2000) was a bestseller on most inhabited continents. Tova Reich’s My Holocaust (2007) is a savagely irreverent farce about the Holocaust Museum’s fundraising ploys. Reviewing it for The New York Times, David Margolick writes:

“As if to insulate herself from such criticism (and, presumably, remind us of her seriousness and sincerity), Reich awkwardly throws in Auschwitz factoids. Did you know, for instance, that Jews were burned in open pits when the four working crematoria, designed to process 132,000 corpses a month, could no longer handle the load? Under any other circumstances, I’d welcome such information; the world needs to know it. But sandwiching it between satire so crude is repugnant. Ditto for gratuitously naming a few of Auschwitz’s child victims. It would have been more respectful to let theirs and a million other Jewish souls rest in peace below Auschwitz’s ashen muck than to resurrect them for such frivolous purposes.”

I hope that Mr. Margolick is braced for Shalom Auslander’s forthcoming book; it’s apparently a comic novel about genocide.

Were the Jewish ear for irony as finely calibrated as we’ve been told, the professional Holocaust commemorators would have figured out long ago that they are their own worst enemies.

WHAT READERS ARE SAYING

2011-07-15T05:08:00.000-07:00

An especially satisfying Amazon reader review of The Spill: Six Stories:

“I enjoyed these stories tremendously. Take a gander at the back and you'll see our man Cohen has the good sense to skip the sick marketplace of literary credit mongering—it's all the empty endorsement that you'd expect with nary a marginal (oh, but ‘respected’) author's name confusing one's judgment of its actual worth. Such a worthy gesture on J.L.'s part bodes well—after all, he opted for the natural sign (smarts, balls) over the conventional.

“What you find inside are great, tight stories that will make you feel just bad enough. He might strain a simile etc once in a while, but more often than not his flourishes are dead on. There's a depth here—but not too much, not too much, thank God! No joy, but plenty of laughter with satisfaction and disorientation in equal measure. These are well-scored; there is a musical development, a deft handling of counterpoint in many of the stories plot-wise, content-wise, culture-wise. Oh, and a delicious nastiness—a meanness born of empathy—churning at the heart of it all, but domesticated by a confident, capable narrative voice. In only one story do you feel any tenderness towards the author, touched...but Mr. Cohen doesn't try to touch us inappropriately, thank God! A bit of decorum from an author for once! An ‘incandescent debut’ indeed!”

JOHN AND AMANDA

2011-07-15T04:36:00.000-07:00

Today’s dose of edifying, civilized fun from Douglas “Rabbit” Sutherland:

JOHN AND AMANDA

"Republicans have got no brains,
The Democrats, no balls!
They talk and talk and talk and talk,
And everybody stalls!"

So said my Friend, Amanda, who's
A bright politico.
Reminds me of a letter from
Two hundred years ago.

John Adams wrote to Abigail,
"My Dearest Friend," he said.
"I'm stuck down here in Washington;
I'd might as well be dead!

"I'm quite surrounded by great men;
I'm silent but I gawk!
They haven't done a thing in months
But talk and talk and talk!"

One basic thing has changed since then:
No one these days will bend!
Amanda says that statesmanship
Has finally met its end!

DREAMS: A LAMENT, AND AN INVITATION

2011-07-08T18:01:00.001-07:00

Job-hunting over the last few months, I’ve had occasion to reflect on the two foundational clichés fed to all suburban kids of my generation: (a) Follow your dreams; and (b) If you want it badly enough, you’ll get it. Of course, nobody ever took this literally. If my dream were to be, say, a linebacker for the Minnesota Vikings, I’d quickly run up against Reality.

But Baby Boomer parents weren’t just making this stuff up, or getting it beamed down to them via some Central Propaganda Office. They really believed it, or at least considered it a healthy and responsible message for their children, who were growing up in a world of unprecedented opportunity. My great-grandfathers were penniless refugees; my grandfathers, lower-middle class; my father, a doctor. The trajectory was obvious.

In the decade since I graduated college, however, I’ve seen most of my dream-following comrades come to grief: a scholar, fluent in six geopolitically important languages—now a middle manager at a shipping company; a trailblazing poet and small-press entrepreneur of great erudition and charisma—now a school librarian; an interdisciplinary genius who should be working for the Brookings Institution—now a common office cog in Long Island City. I know entirely too many waiters.

I’ve never relinquished my dreams, but not because of integrity. At this point, I’m begging to sell out. It’s just that nobody will have me.

In selecting jobs to apply for, I have three basic criteria: It must be something I’m more or less qualified for, something I stand some chance of actually getting, and something that doesn’t require me to do anything morally repugnant, such as preparing PR copy for Halliburton or fundraising for the Anti-Defamation League.

A pretty low bar, if you ask me. And a far cry from those undergraduate dreams of tenure-track professorship. Of the Life of the Mind. My collegiate cadre wanted to find some niche (however modest) in Academe, and then begin the noble labor of gradually shifting the zeitgeist. I, at least, fantasized about a glorious panel discussion in which we’d all participate as old men. The event would be moderated by an NPR radio host who’d be pleasantly surprised at how casual and self-deprecating we all were.

Now, I’m facing the absolute impossibility of becoming Technical Editor at something called The Logistics and Engineering Solutions Business Unit. Christ.

A pretty low bar, indeed—but apparently not low enough. In an economically enfeebled America plagued by degree inflation, personal debt, Human Resources orthodoxies, a sense that effort is futile, I wonder what new clichés parents will begin chirping into their children’s ears.

If your thwarted dream was to become a race car driver, pop singer or United States Senator, I can’t help you. But, but, if your thwarted dream was to find some fulfilling outlet for your creativity, to think, and to have that respected, to write, paint, sculpt, compose, teach, debate…if you believe that life is short, and shouldn’t be squandered in a cubical, if you believe that you have a mark to make, let’s talk. While I’m no hazy-headed hippie, some alternative must be possible. If you find the prevailing climate unacceptable, get in touch.

Just imagine it: America’s entire Useless Intellectual class awakening one morning, quitting its crappy jobs proofreading PR memos or serving coffee, and appropriating some moribund town in Poland or Idaho or Cyprus. Thousands of us. Spouses. Children. Music in the streets.

I’m dead serious.

READY, SET…RANT!

2011-07-07T10:18:00.000-07:00

In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve started permitting readers to comment below my posts. Get that invective ready!

SAVE THE WORLD, CATCH SOME RAYS

2011-07-06T18:18:00.000-07:00

Writing about the recently thwarted Gaza solidarity flotilla, Christopher Hitchens muses in Slate: “It seems safe and fair to say that the flotilla and its leadership work in reasonably close harmony with Hamas, which constitutes the Palestinian wing of the Muslim Brotherhood. The political leadership of this organization is headquartered mainly in Gaza itself. But its military coordination is run out of Damascus, where the regime of Bashar Assad is currently at war with increasingly large sections of the long-oppressed Syrian population. Refugee camps, some with urgent humanitarian requirements, are making their appearance on the border between Syria and Turkey (the government of the latter being somewhat sympathetic to the purposes of the flotilla). In these circumstances, isn't it legitimate to strike up a conversation with the ‘activists’ and ask them where they come out on the uprising against hereditary Baathism in Syria?”

According to the flotilla website, nearly all of the passengers were American citizens. What annoys me about the whole endeavor is the activists’ desire to have their cake and eat it, too. Attempting to cruise into a warzone, they implicitly, blithely expect the protections of American citizenship, while simultaneously dressing themselves up as potential martyrs for peace. Take a look at some of the flotilla videos circulating on YouTube. This isn’t revolution; it’s some perverse form of tourism.

These flotillaniks demonstrate the same imperial arrogance, solipsism and simplicity of thought they claim to abhor. “We’re invincible!” the whole undertaking screams. “Foreign authorities, bow before us. Now, if you’d please get out of our way, we’ve got photos to take of each other distributing food-packets to brown people, and uplifting the savage rabble.”

Not useful.

Even less useful if, God forbid, they were to be killed in action. Can you imagine that? An entire boatload of Rachel Corries. (Ms. Corrie, you’ll remember, was the silly American girl who somehow stumbled into the misapprehension that a pretty WASP from Seattle can sit in the direct path of an oncoming Israeli bulldozer with impunity.)

As the birthplace of the great monotheisms, the Holy Land already has plenty of martyrs. And since all religions are essentially dense knots of symbolic gestures, of rituals, there’s no shortage of that, either.

The plain fact is this: martyrdom is easy. Flotillas are easy. The stuff we need to do to bring peace to the region, however, is difficult. We need to elect folks who’ll advance an uncompromising peace agenda, and be able to withstand the slurs that’ll be heaped upon them by reactionary demagogues and the “pro-Israel” lobby. We need money. We need credible public platforms. We need seasoned political and diplomatic arm-twisters. We need Washington goons just as slick and ruthless as the ones we’ve got, but who will work for the honorable side. Though academic boycotts and divestment campaigns are counterproductive (marginalizing precisely that Israeli demographic we should be seeking solidarity with), they’re orders of magnitude more useful than the brand of activism exemplified by this most recent flotilla.

In addition to hearts, we need heads and hands—not tanning opportunities in the Levantine sun.

AMERICA EATS TAVERN: A REVIEW

2011-07-05T17:19:00.000-07:00

Last night, we attended the grand opening of a fascinating DC restaurant here profiled by The Washington Post:

“Fresh from being named Outstanding Chef by the James Beard Foundation in New York, [Jose Andres] plans to replace his Latin American-themed destination in Penn Quarter with a radically different flavor: America Eats Tavern and a menu of iconic U.S. dishes will coincide with the [National] Archives’ forthcoming exhibit, ‘What’s Cooking, Uncle Sam? The Government’s Effect on the American Diet.’”

[…]

“America Eats Tavern will start on the ground floor with a cafe serving lobster rolls, hot dogs and the star chef’s signature cheesesteak. Upstairs, a more formal restaurant will introduce shrimp and grapefruit cocktail, Brunswick stew and, in a nod to Vermont, maple syrup drizzled over ‘snow’ coaxed from pulverized ice. The menu will include short descriptions explaining the stories behind the dishes’ recipes, which were culled from such diverse sources as a manuscript penned by a chef for President Washington and the first edition of ‘The Joy of Cooking,’ says Andres.”

***

America Eats urges us not to feel insecure about our culinary legacy. “We have one, damn it,” the place declares. “It’s legit. And it’s good.” Alongside slightly haute renditions of perennial standards (lobster rolls, jambalaya, fried chicken, crab cakes, grits, etc.) are forgotten treasures Andres thought worthy of resurrection, such as pickled oysters and abalone with foamy lemon sauce. A wide variety of vinegars and ketchups are made according to Colonial-era specifications. The place is like a massive, walk-in PhD dissertation.

Just like the country itself, America Eats is an engaging mixture of high and low, rarified and demotic. The background music is obviously calculated to reinforce this, swerving from Pete Seeger to Ira Gershwin to Snoop Dogg. And just like the country itself, America Eats is daring, informal, spacious and expensive.

My only marginal disappointment was with the wine list, which seemed largely exempt from the menu’s organizing principles. The wine selection is extensive; the sommelier, knowledgeable. But still, it would have been nice to enjoy Thomas Jefferson’s favorite shrimp dish with his favorite wine, or something close.

That said, I fervently recommend America Eats. Take your kids. If your dining-out budget is too slim, you can dip into their college fund with a clear conscience; this restaurant offers an education.

***

Here’s Jose Andres discussing his enterprise on The Kojo Nnamdi Show:

AN EDUCATED, DESPERATE YOUNG MAN

2011-07-01T14:01:00.000-07:00

As many of you know, we’ve been attempting to raise the cash we need for our next project via Kickstarter. Fifty-two days to go until the funding window closes. Here’s the project description we’ve prepared. If this sounds worthy, we invite you to click the poet icon in the left margin, and do your part.

***

“What stands out from first page to last is [Cohen’s] style: a confident, brash, witty vernacular that never drops a line or skips a beat. [Cohen] writes with an explosive comic brio that combines the raconteur’s unerring feel for pace and rhythm with the novelist’s sharp eye for the telling detail.”
—Mark Shechner, Up Society’s Ass, Copper: Rereading Philip Roth

An Educated, Desperate Young Man chronicles the picaresque exploits of Naftali Herz Imber, the nineteenth century Hebrew poet best known (indeed, only known) for having penned the lyrics to what would become the Israeli national anthem. Spanning forty years and half the globe, it follows Imber from his impoverished youth in modern-day Ukraine through his travels in Romania (where he writes his famous poem), Istanbul (where he becomes enmeshed in a preposterous feud with devotees of Shabbatai Sevi, the seventeenth century false messiah), Ottoman Palestine (where he endeavors to unearth the telephone wires erected by King Solomon), London (where he lectures textile workers on how Moses discovered electricity) and New York’s Lower East Side (where his drunken shenanigans strain the tolerance and generosity of the Philadelphia judge who supports him). Things come to a head at the First Zionist Congress in Switzerland, where Theodore Herzl (a fastidious, failed Viennese playwright) articulates a plan to establish an independent Jewish polity in a sun-scorched backwater of the Ottoman Empire.

An Educated, Desperate Young Man is a bawdy, irreverent tour through fin de siècle Jewish history, a rollicking counter-narrative of early Zionism and a tender, merciless, hilarious tale of art and madness.

Priapic Marmot Press will be able to publish this piece of daring fiction—but only with your help. We need funding for the quality editing, cover design and typesetting which readers have come to expect from us.

THE "C" FACTOR

2011-07-01T13:12:00.000-07:00

Today’s dose of edifying, civilized fun from Douglas “Rabbit” Sutherland:

THE "C" FACTOR

"Just what the hell is wrong with you?"
She screamed into my face!
"There's something clearly haywire and
It's more than a disgrace!"

"Of course there's something wrong," I said.
"It's all right here on view:
I'm short and fat and ugly, ma'am,
And old and stupid, too!

"And, that's the stuff that's obvious;
I'm much worse deep inside
With flaws of moral bankruptcy
Not even smiles can hide!

"I lie and cheat and steal each time
I know I won't get caught;
I'm greedy and corrupt and I
Can easily be bought!

"I'm dreadfully insensitive;
I'm nothing but a brute!
But, I can be elected, ma'am,
Because, of course, I'm cute!"

TSA MAKES CANCER PATIENT REMOVE ADULT DIAPER

2011-06-27T05:46:00.001-07:00

This, from The Daily Beast:

“Queue up another round of security-check outrage: A daughter has accused the TSA of making her 95-year-old, cancer-stricken mother remove her adult diaper as part of a security pat down in Florida. The daughter says agents asked the woman to remove the diaper after finding that it was ‘wet and firm.’ She and her mother went to a bathroom then to take the diaper off. TSA has defended its agents actions, saying in a statement that ‘our officers acted professionally and according to proper procedure.’”

***

There was a whole lot of justified outrage about these pat downs…until, well, there wasn’t. A broad campaign seemed to be mounting. Sadly, it seems to have disappeared.

SAVED

2011-06-26T08:07:00.000-07:00

Stumbling upon a trio of street preachers yesterday in downtown DC, I found myself reflecting upon the chances of the following dinner table conversation occurring somewhere in the greater Washington area:

“I’ve got big news.”

“Oh?”

“I’ve accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior.”

“How’d it happen? I’ve given you leaflets. I’ve appealed to your reason. Your emotions. Even your vanity. What changed your mind?”

“Well, I was just walking out of a very good Thai restaurant near the Historical Society—I really recommend the calamari—, when I saw three gentlemen standing outside the Fuddruckers, screaming themselves hoarse about Christ. The first shoved a tract into my hand. The second got up in my face, and bayed uncontrollably.”

“And the third?”

“Oh, he didn’t do much; he just paced in circles, looking mildly autistic.”

“Hm.”

“And as I wiped this godly preacher’s foamy spittle from my cheek, it just…what can I say? It just hit me.”

“Hallelujah!”

***

These preachers are like those guys who somehow expect to obtain sexual intimacies by leaning out of their car windows and screaming, “Show me your tits!” at passing joggers.

TABOO, POSTSCRIPT

2011-06-24T18:56:00.000-07:00

POSTSCRIPT:

Robert Lindner’s Must You Conform? (1958) is currently #4,684,365 on the Amazon ranking; The Spill: Six Stories is #3,213,585.

Eh? Not bad. Not bad at all.

TABOO

2011-06-24T18:26:00.000-07:00

Here in Washington DC, we’re subletting an apartment from an author, which means I have access to a very, very good private library. This morning, I stumbled upon a first paperback edition of Henry Miller’s Tropic of Capricorn, published by Grove Press in 1961. Grove, of course, is the famous independent publishing house that issued the sort of stuff that nobody else would touch. Burroughs’s Naked Lunch. The unexpurgated version of Lady Chatterley's Lover. After Doubleday retreated from The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Grove stepped in.

Anyhow, there are some terrific advertisements in the back. One is for Grove’s Evergreen Review. “Have you ever heard about Beckett, Ionesco, Robbe-Grillet, but never read their work?” it asks. “Have you meant to read Kerouac, Miller, Burroughs, but didn’t know where to find them?”

And then, there are the advertisements for books. Some examples:

MUST YOU CONFORM? by Robert Lindner * A challenge to America, and to the demon of conformity, by the brilliant psychoanalyst Robert Lindner, author of The Fifty-Minute Hour and Rebel Without a Cause.

THE HOLY BARBARIANS by Lawrence Lipton * Sympathetic and intimate account of the “Beats,” delving into the midnight world of sex, drugs, and jazz to extract the meaning of their revolt.

THE SACRED FIRE: THE STORY OF SEX IN RELIGION by B.Z. Goldberg * The connection between sex and religion are traced in clear, bold language in this pioneering work. “Mr. Goldberg has given us what seems to be the first comprehensive study of the sex motif in religion.”—St. Louis Globe Democrat

CHRISTMAS IN AUGUST: THE STORY OF A PROSTITUTE. A novel by Anne Estock * How a girl got started in “the life,” the shocks that unhinged her mind and emotions, and the sordid life she led as a hustler.

***

Pretty daring, this. It’s impossible to be so daring today, not because we lack courage, but genuine taboos to puncture. I wonder how long it’ll take American writers and artists to fully come to terms with the nearly taboo-less society. Ours is still a renegade posture—but now it’s a meaningless posture. Such taboos as remain can only be violated by people like Julian Assange.

SPECIAL OFFER

2011-06-23T11:31:00.001-07:00

From now until July 4, the complete text of The Spill: Six Stories will be available for viewing and download at no cost. Just scroll down to the very bottom of this page. If you like what you see, we hope you’ll consider clicking the cover icon, and buying your own copy. Small, independent publishing enterprises such as ours cannot keep afloat without your support.

WHAT THE CRITICS ARE SAYING

2011-06-22T04:53:00.000-07:00

This, from Eric Gelsinger’s review of The Spill:

“If you have a taste for Stephen Fry or Colbert Report type humor, you'll likely gobble this book down like candy. It's both a smart and easy read—perfect for an overeducated reader to take on a plane, or to read piecemeal on commutes or work breaks. The six stories usually star a small constellation of failures from diverse backgrounds: a failed academic, a failed truck dispatcher, a crippled war vet and his waitress wife who goes back to school . . . The characters are not always sympathetic, but their unfortunate lives are always presented with humor as they intersect, often with a twist. And though you might not like all the characters, you're by the end left feeling compassion and identification. All the stories deal with a common plight: contemporary reality vs. the American dream. Failed ambition, failed suburbs, failed cities, failed universities—but life! And humor all the way.”

See for yourself what the fuss is about. Click the link in the left margin of this page, and get your own copy of The Spill: Six Stories today.

THE GAME: A SHORT STORY

2011-06-21T05:06:00.001-07:00

Simon Freilich slouched beneath the weight of his backpack. He stared into the downward-sloping lawn that terminated at the school, whose doors would be opened in fifteen minutes. Despite the frosted grass, the building’s bricks looked warm.

Simon’s fellow seventh-graders threw Nerf footballs and climbed all over each other—“getting it out of their system,” as teachers would say. Though Simon could never figure out what “it” was, he had the uncomfortable certainly of its total and congenital absence in his system.

Scanning his classmates, he found himself engaged in a mental game he’d devised. If the continuance of life on Earth demanded a human sacrifice, and the choice was between Kevin Levitz and me, and Abe Spiro was High Priest, who would he spare? Or how about if the choice was between Abe and me, and Miriam Goldberg was High Priestess? Simon considered every possible combination. And each resulted in him strapped to the pyre.

Not every possible combination, actually. Mike Shenkin and Ilya Khananyayev were best friends. Each would spare the other over anyone. Simon didn’t get involved with friendships. His aim was to imagine controlled senarios where a random classmate would have to choose between someone he was fundamentally indifferent towards, and him.

Sometimes, he even enlisted family. If his grandmother had to spare either him, or the Senior Center’s bingo announcer?

God.

Simon once asked his father what “soulmate” meant. Somehow unconvinced by all that vague blather about Love and Destiny, he considered it for a while, and finally contrived his own, much more restrained definition:

Your soulmate was the one person on earth who’d rather have someone else die than you.

***

WANT TO READ MORE? BUY THE SPILL: SIX STORIES BY CLICKING THE ICON ON THE LEFT MARGIN OF THIS PAGE!

UNTRUSTWORTHY

2011-06-20T05:12:00.001-07:00

Don’t trust anyone over thirty, the saying goes. If it’s true that there’s some peculiar cistern of wisdom and judgment to which only the young have access, then today I shall have my pass revoked. On June 20, 1980, at 10:32PM, my mother gave that decisive heave, and, well, I’ll spare you the details.

Don’t trust anyone over thirty. Since I won’t be there for another few hours, I wanted to take advantage of my quickly narrowing window of trustworthiness, and issue some proclamations:

* The wickedest thing a man can do in the course of normal life is to piss on a public toilet seat. I mean, Jesus.

* John Milton had a more expansive imagination, greater technical facility and deeper understanding of human nature than William Shakespeare.

* Seafood of all kinds should be fried in butter.

There. I’ve done it.

PRIMORDIAL REDUX

2011-06-19T14:19:00.000-07:00

Today’s dose of edifying, civilized fun from Douglas “Rabbit” Sutherland:

PRIMORDIAL REDUX

The rampant state of "sexting" is--
At least, it seems to me--
Persuasive evidence all males
Should back into the sea

And give this evolution thing
Another college go,
Emerging from the ancient slime
To see if they could grow

A brain so clever and so smart
We'd fly off to the moon
And come up with the Internet
And stuff to make us swoon

But stop just short of telephones
With integrated chips,
Allowing men to thumb out stuff
That shouldn't pass their lips--

Those smartphones with the eyeball that
Make women drop their jaw
At photographic evidence
Of evolution's flaw!

TWELVE GATES TO THE CITY

2011-06-16T19:07:00.000-07:00

Me, after slightly too much wine:

Twelve Gates to the City by Jacob Leib Cohen

PORN STAR DIDN'T SEXT WEINER

2011-06-16T08:46:00.000-07:00

This, from The Daily Beast:

“Now that Anthony Weiner will reportedly resign, the days of awkward Weinergate press conferences are numbered. In case you missed it Wednesday, porn star Ginger Lee wanted you to know that she didn't send the congressman any nude photos.”

***

According to Adult Video Universe, Ms. Lee’s oeuvre includes “Pretty Pussies Please”, “Doctor Do Me”, “Moms [sic] a Cheater” and “Young as they Cum”.

Clearly, Ms. Lee’s is a refined, sensitive soul. The very insinuation that she’d compromise her dignity in any manner is offensive. How dare they.

Here’s the press conference:

ON CHARISMA

2011-06-14T15:50:00.000-07:00

I hereby propose that a new requirement be instituted for all presidential candidates: each must prove that he possesses no charisma whatsoever. Even more than moneyed interests, charisma undermines the political process. The country would be in immeasurably better shape were it run by folks who’d look silly modeling cardigans for LL Bean. Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barak Obama—disqualified.

I want candidates with swollen guts and thinning hair. A facial tic wouldn’t hurt. I want someone who looks painfully out of place among those marble columns. I want someone who, in the weeks before his sitting for his National Gallery portrait, will give his portraitist pangs of despair. “Jesus Christ,” I want the artist to sigh, pouring his fifth drink of the evening. “I have to make this schlub look like the Leader of the Free World?”

For the 2012 race, I want to see Obama replaced by someone like Barney Frank. Or perhaps Dennis Kucinich. Though Eliot Spitzer has that epic posture and powerful jawline, there’s something in the way he carries himself that’s just a little gawky and uncomfortable. I like that. Don’t forget the embattled Anthony Weiner, who resembles a hyper-caffeinated rodent.

And the Republicans should nominate Newt Gingrich or Ron Paul. I’m a big fan of Condi Rice, as it happens; she’s competent, intelligent, articulate—and entirely unable to rouse a crowd or credibly drink a beer with West Virginia coal miners.

Mandatory boringness would be good for the country.

Firstly, it would lower voter turnout. Those who did turn up would be voting for the right reasons.

Secondly, it would reorient television news coverage of executive affairs in ways we can’t even predict—but must be an improvement. In purely theatrical terms, it would be impossible for CNN to cover a President Ron Paul as it does Barak Obama. Some kind of new paradigm would be necessary.

Since I now live in Washington, I plan to file this proposal with the relevant offices.

Hell, I might even run myself. I’ve plenty of experience being boring; my students over the past half-decade can vouch for this. I look unmemorable in a suit, and, owing to mild scoliosis, walk with a slight limp. I have no control whatsoever over my face. When I’m about to have a panic attack, you know it. My pockets are so full of Xanax, acid reflux pills, caffeine tablets and nicotine lozenges that I sound like a maraca when I trip over my own feet, which occurs often. And I’m phobic of cockroaches, bats and abrupt noises of any kind.

I’d be terrific. JACOB LEIB COHEN FOR PRESIDENT! Just what this country needs.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

2011-06-14T10:03:00.000-07:00

This little clip can’t fail to warm you a bit.

HOAX, EXPOSED

2011-06-12T16:49:00.000-07:00

This, from The Daily Beast:

“The blog A Gay Girl in Damascus got the attention of the entire world last week by claiming that its author, a Syrian lesbian named Amina Arraf, had been kidnapped by government security forces. But the story, ostensibly posted by Arraf's cousin, began to break down when other bloggers figured out a photo of the supposedly kidnapped girl was a fake. Now, the man behind the ‘gay girl’ blog has made a full confession: He invented the persona and the kidnapping story. Tom MacMaster, an American from Georgia, and his wife are both students at the University of Edinburgh, in Scotland, and share an interest in Syrian issues. ‘While the narrative voıce may have been fictional,’ he wrote, ‘the facts on thıs blog are true and not mısleading as to the situation on the ground. I do not believe that I have harmed anyone—I feel that I have created an important voice for issues that I feel strongly about.’"

Just wait until they find out that Jacob Leib Cohen is a graphite wholesaler from La Paz.

A METAPHOR FOR MY CAREER?

2011-06-11T15:52:00.000-07:00

A METAPHOR FOR MY CAREER?

A MOVING STORY

2011-06-10T13:57:00.000-07:00

Today’s dose of edifying, civilized fun from Douglas “Rabbit” Sutherland:

A MOVING STORY

Your deep frustration troubles me--
The way you sob and pray!
And, so, I have decided that
You must move out today!

I know. I know. The house is yours--
The yard and garden, too;
The furniture, the dogs and cats--
They all belong to you!

The wall-sized HD TV screen
Can never be replaced;
The DVDs and music are
A tribute to your taste!

I'm doing you a favor so
Take only your good luck,
But don't forget the mortgage and
The payments on my truck!

I know you'll miss me lounging on
Your terrace, sipping rum.
So visit on occasion but
Just call before you come!

WEINERGATE

2011-06-07T12:00:00.000-07:00

This, from The Daily Beast:

“After admitting to lying about posting lewd photos to Twitter and engaging in inappropriate, sexually charged communications with women he met online, Rep. Anthony Weiner's political career appears to be in dire straits. Sources say he spoke with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi on the phone before his press conference and said he would not resign. But after the conference, Pelosi made moves to launch an ethics probe, and other Dems are now backing the investigation. Rep. Steve Israel, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, called Weiner's behavior an embarrassment to 'himself, his family, and the House,' and said he stood behind Pelosi's inquiry.”

In other words, Pelosi, a preposterous, desiccated joke of a lawmaker actually wants to instigate a frivolous, potentially career-ending probe against one of the most dynamic liberals in Congress. My dear Democrats, learn something from the Republicans: circle the damn wagons!

When it comes to legislative challenges of national urgency, the Democrats dither. But for nonsense like this, Pelosi is right on the case. God help us.

Rep. Weiner didn’t enrich himself, evade taxes, sexually harass his staff, or indeed take advantage of his authority in any way. He simply made a very great fool of himself.

Case closed.

THE JACOB-LEIB-COHEN-OSPHERE TO GO DORMANT

2011-05-30T08:00:00.000-07:00

Dear Readers—

Over the next few days, as my wife and I move to Washington DC, I’ll be suspending regular posting in order to devote my full energies to schlepping. Just because your favorite blog is going dormant, however, it doesn’t mean you have to. Please consider purchasing your copy of The Spill: Six Stories, and support Priapic Marmot Press’s next endeavor. Both of these can be initiated via links in the left margin of this page.

Best,

Jacob Leib Cohen

MEMORIAL DAY

2011-05-30T05:01:00.001-07:00

If you love your Uncle Sam…

Bring em home - bruce springsteen by runawaydream

READING LIST

2011-05-29T11:21:00.000-07:00

A student of mine flattered me this past Friday by asking me to draft a list of books I’ve found useful over the years, so that she could read them. Here’s the list. It’s pretty chaotic, and I’m sure I’m leaving a good deal out, but it was fun to compile.

ASSORTED NONFICTION:

Thomas De Quincey, Confessions of an English Opium-Eater
Matthew Arnold, Selected Essays
Tony Judt, Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945
John Henry Newman, Apologia Pro Vita Sua
Pete Seeger, The Incomplete Folksinger
Theodore Dalrymple, Life at the Bottom
The Confessions of Saint Augustine
The Autobiography of Malcolm X
Oscar Wilde, “The Soul of Man Under Socialism”
Michael Oren, Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East: 1776 to the Present
Thomas Paine, Rights of Man
Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France
John Donne, Selected Prose
WH Auden, The Dyer’s Hand and Other Essays
David Foster Wallace, Consider the Lobster
David Foster Wallace, A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again
C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
Albert Jay Knock, Memoirs of a Superfluous Man
Henry Adams, The Education of Henry Adams
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table
Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola
Walter Benjamin, Illuminations
Walter Benjamin, Reflections
Rodger Kimball, Tenured Radicals
John Carey, Intellectuals and the Masses: Pride and Prejudice Among the Literary Intellegencia, 1880-1939
Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind
Noel Annan, The Dons: Mentors, Eccentrics and Geniuses
Stefan Zweig, The World of Yesterday
Richard Feynman, Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!
Christopher Hitchens, Love, Poverty, and War: Journeys and Essays
Russell Kirk, The Conservative Mind from Burke to Eliot
Jack Spicer, The House That Jack Built: The Collected Lectures of Jack Spicer
Ezra Pound, ABC of Reading
TS Eliot, Selected Essays

POETRY

Philip Larkin, Selected Poems
WH Auden, Selected Poems
Walt Whitman, Selected Poems
John Donne, Selected Poems
George Herbert, Selected Poems
Gerard Manley Hopkins, Selected Poems
Dylan Thomas, Selected Poems
Robert Browning, Selected Poems
John Keats, Selected Poems
Hart Crane, Selected Poems
TS Eliot, Selected Poems

LONG POEMS

John Milton, Paradise Lost
Dante, The Inferno

FICTION

Paul Bowles, The Sheltering Sky
Philip Roth, Portnoy’s Complaint
Philip Roth, Operation Shylock
Philip Roth, Everyman
Philip Roth, The Breast
Philip Roth, The Plot Against America
Herman Melville, Moby Dick
Peter De Vries, The Blood of the Lamb
Peter De Vries, The Mackerel Plaza
Aleksandar Hemon, The Lazarus Project
The Complete Prose of Woody Allen
Jack Kerouac, On The Road
William S. Burroughs, Cities of the Red Night
Earnest Hemingway, For Whom The Bell Tolls
Truman Capote, In Cold Blood
Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five
Kurt Vonnegut, Cat’s Cradle
Gary Shteyngart, Super Sad True Love Story
Mark Helprin, Freddy and Fredericka
Vladimir Nabokov, Pnin
Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita
John Kennedy Toole, A Confederacy of Dunces
Sinclair Lewis, Elmer Gantry
Sinclair Lewis, Arrowsmith
Nathan Englander, For the Relief of Unbearable Urges
Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer
Mordecai Richler, Barney’s Version
Raymond Federman, Smiles on Washington Square
Saul Bellow, Seize the Day
Saul Bellow, Ravelstein
Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man
Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited
Evelyn Waugh, A Handful of Dust
Evelyn Waugh, The Loved One
P.G. Wodehouse, The Code of the Woosters
George Orwell, Burmese Days
George Orwell, Keep the Aspidistra Flying
Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Grey
Graham Greene, The Power and the Glory
Mary Shelly, Frankenstein
Kingsley Amis, Lucky Jim
Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
Ian McEwan, The Cement Garden
Ian McEwan, The Comfort of Strangers
Sheridan Le Fanu, In a Glass Darkly
George Eliot, The Lifted Veil
Hector Hugh Munro, Collected Short Stories of Saki
Stephen Fry, The Hippopotamus
Martin Amis, Time’s Arrow
James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Thomas Hardy, Jude the Obscure
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment
Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground
Nikolai Gogol, Dead Souls
Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita
Ivan Turgenev, Fathers and Sons
Leo Tolstoy, The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Other Stories
Anton Chekhov, Selected Short Stories
Mikhail Lermontov, A Hero of Our Time
Jorge Luis Borges, Collected Fictions
Franz Kafka, Selected Short Stories
Etgar Keret, The Bus Driver Who Wanted to Be God & Other Stories
Etgar Keret, The Nimrod Flipout

DRAMA

Shakespeare, King Lear
Shakespeare, Hamlet
Shakespeare, Macbeth
Shakespeare, Othello
Christopher Marlowe, Faustus
Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest
Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot
Samuel Beckett, Krapp’s Last Tape
Aristophanes, Lysistrata
S. Ansky, The Dybbuk
A.C. Cawley (ed.), Everyman and Medieval Miracle Plays