Le incel d’origine?
From Flaubert’s Sentimental Education, page 77 of the Penguin Classics edition, translated by Robert Baldick. “He envied pianists their talent and soldiers their scars. He longed for a dangerous illness,…
Two Versions of “Tenth of December”
I have read two different versions of the “Tenth of December.” Don’t misinterpret — I did not find a unpublished, alternate version of this George Saunders story, where both Robin…
Grim Afterlife
Yeesh, a very grim imagining of what we could encounter in the great unknown, from Iain Reid’s I’m Thinking of Ending Things: “What if it doesn’t get better? What if…
Picking “Grapes of Wrath” out of “The Getaway”
I did not realize the soil in Jim Thompson’s “The Getaway” was so rich that it sprouted “The Grapes of Wrath”: Doc knew people; and … he knew this kind…
The Star Wars Name Blender
Jyn, Cassian, Baze Malbus, Bistan, Chirrut – just a few of the Rogue One characters, a blitz of names that reads like the fevered output of a Star Wars Galaxies random…
Dispatches – Get Ready…
Get ready for more conversations like the following… “I read a story about a story about Trump? That he paid some Russian to pee on him…?” “I heard that. But…
Graham Greene, Power and the Glory
“Hate was just a failure of imagination.” (The Power and the Glory, Penguin ed. pg. 131) – only slightly more inspiring than the words of Dr. Ben Carson: “It will…
Dispatches – Save a Job, Save the World
These days, while wading into the great American slog, there are many opportunities to overhear and even participate in compelling conversations on the state of our nation and the world,…
Think about it, AJ
Looking at “Pizzagate” and 9/11 from the conspiracy perspective.
What’s this about political butts?
John Wyndham was correct that we are fucked as a species: the seas will rise, and plants will hunt us for food and sport. But I’ve read this sentence from…