Bovary and the Beatles
Near the end of Madame Bovary, by Gustave Flaubert, in the translation by Geoffrey Wall, there is a line, describing Charles’s inability to cope with the loss of his wife:…
Rage against…Something
Wisconsin’s Supreme Court cleared the way for Scott Walker’s anti-union law to go into effect. At the same time, legislation against unions – namely teachers and firefighters – is spreading…
Two Paragraphs Abandoned in “The Blue Caves of Austin”
There is a dangerous appeal to being the last. Maybe we do violence to the future so that the present won’t outlive us. Then perhaps the lack of visitors from…
A Worthy Quote from Borges
From “The Immortal,” by Jorge Luis Borges, translated by Andrew Hurley: “I have noticed that in spite of religion, the conviction as to one’s own immortality is extraordinarily rare. Jews,…
It All Starts with Sturgeon, sort of…
Science fiction took a big step toward modernity (actually postmodernity) with Theodore Sturgeon’s “Unite and Conquer,” which I read recently in the collection A Way Home. Within that story, the…
Sweat of (Something’s) Brow
There has been much criticism over the recent Supreme Court ruling in the case Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. Unfortunately, critics have a fundamental misunderstanding of what the Court…
We are all Morton Downey Jr.
Remember that girl, during the 2008 presidential election, who faked an attack from an ardent Obama supporter? She scratched a backward B on her cheek, as one might do if…
Welcome to the New Apocalypse – Same as the Old Apocalypse
Would anyone be surprised to wake up in the midst of a zombie apocalypse? Or are our minds conditioned to expect any deep sleep, any extended hospital stay, carries at…
What can we learn from the Texas Rangers?
“One of the [baseball] teams has never been in the World Series. That’s the Texas Rangers. A team once owned by George W. Bush, who sold them back in 1998….
How quickly we forget…
In a recent interview with Christopher Nolan, the first question asked was, “Where did you get the idea of being able to invade the dreams of others [the concept for…