Monday Hit & Run Blogging

October 29, 2007

Oh damn, the coffee got the best of me this morning. Too much, too soon. And I’ve learned that it’s better to blog while jittery than run a chainsaw. So, deal with it. Ready. Set. Blog.

Book Review Goodies: Did you happen to notice the shakeup at the New York Times Book Review’s “best sellers” yesterday? Yep, Stephen Colbert’s new book unseated Clarence Thomas’ book at the top of the list. How weird is that? So, for just a brief moment, liberal irony defeats right-wing lunacy. At this point, I’ll take the “victories” wherever I can find them. And I’ll quickly change the subject before I let myself think any further about this nation’s very strange reading habits.

Speaking of reading habits, those of us who are feeling guilty about the growing pile of largely unread books on our nightstands got a bit of psychic relief yesterday from the noted French intellectual, Pierre Bayard. In his interview with the Sunday Times Magazine’s increasingly controversial Deborah “I’ll arrange the interview any way I’d like to” Soloman, Bayard assures us that skimming books is just fine – even necessary. Whew. Thank you, Pierre. Now I can put some of them on the shelf and, hopefully, they’ll stop making me feel like shit for skimming them.

Here, for your entertainment, are the books I’m skimming now:

J.M. Coetzee’s “Inner Workings;” Denis Johnson’s “Tree of Smoke;” Dave Eggers’ “What is the What;” Hugh Brogan’s biography of de Tocqueville, and Paul Auster’s “Travels in the Scriptorium.”

I did, however, just finish a wonderful collection of Melville’s short stories, including the fantastic “Bartleby the Scrivener.” Read it if you can. Skim it if you must. And then just try to tell me that you don’t fantasize about telling your boss what Bartleby does over and over again when given orders: “I’d prefer not to.” Priceless. And one hell of a long way from today’s passive aggressive workplaces, huh?

And while we’re on the subject of arts and letters, did you catch the news a couple of weeks ago that New York’s famous independent radio station, WBAI, was too worried about FCC punishment to air Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl” on the fifty –year anniversary of the court ruling that the poem was not “obscene.” Yep, fifty years ago the poem was ruled not obscene but today the chill in the air over free speech is preventing the poem from being read over the public’s airwaves. Oh America, what’s happening to your dreams?

I’ve been thinking about Ginsberg of late as I venture back into the antiwar activism waters. And I keep asking myself: Where are today’s Ginsberg’s? Where are the bards and the artists who can interject so much drama and life into the otherwise drab world of political discourse?

In a private email exchange with a friend last night, I was asked, “what’s changed since the ‘60s?” It was a question asked out of the understandable frustration over public’s lethargic response to the war and other political disasters of our times. And here was my response:

The difference between now and the ’60s? Art, as in: music, drama, poetry and general creativity. The movement needs a (metaphorical) big fat joint and some good lyrics by modern day Ginsbergs and Lennons in order to forge a bond between politics and culture. Somehow, the culture and the creativity have been washed out, leaving a deathly monotonous and wholly uninspiring brand of politics that is easily ignored and/or avoided.

What do you think? How would you have answered that question? Before you answer that, imbibe in this video tribute to Ginsberg as he reads his poem, “America:”

Speaking of activism, the ever-entertaining NTodd has posted his photos of his trip to Boston over the weekend to protest the war. You can check them out here. And then make sure to give NTodd the reading love that he deserves by visiting his other site here.

Plame to Vermont: I know everyone’s trying to make a big deal out of Valerie Plame coming to Vermont but I’m having trouble with that bandwagon. Sorry, but I can’t quite leap over the fact that she was a CIA agent. It makes it kind of hard to feel sorry for her getting outed. Sure, the outing was outrageous and against the rules that the Bush clowns love to flaunt but…Plame was playing in the CIA environment. I wonder, for example, how much sympathy Ms. Plame had for the people she was lying to and otherwise screwing over when she was in “good CIA standing?” Before we go too far in making her another shallow-partisan-hero, how about some explanation about what she really did while flacking for an agency that lives in the shadows and has a terrible human rights record? What, for example, does she think about overseas CIA torture? And, remember, she agreed to have her book vetted by the CIA before it was published. I’ll take a pass on this “hero.”

Enough already. Besides, I think it’s now safe to operate the saw.

Posted by M. Colby | Filed Under blog