Francis Fukuyama: 'Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment' (2018)

Francis Fukuyama: Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2018.

On this centenary of the end of the First World War, Identity is relevant to an understanding of that conflict and today's world.

"The great struggles in American political history -- over slavery and segregation, workers' rights, women's equality -- were ultimately demands that the political system expand the circle of individuals it recognized as having equal rights." (p. 22)

With identity politics in the 21st century, however, "desire for equal recognition can easily slide . . . into a demand for recognition of the group's superiority" -- for example, among nations, tribes, religious sects and ethnic groups. (p. 22)  

"Individuals come to believe that they have a true or authentic identity hiding within themselves that is somehow at odds with the role they are assigned by their surrounding society. The modern concept of identity places a supreme value on authenticity . . . (p. [25])

The "Arab Spring" begins in Tunisia on December 17, 2010. (p. [42])

Various uprisings sparked by desire for dignity. (pp. 44-48). Scapegoating used by rulers to divide opposition. 

"The desire for the state to recognize one's basic dignity has been at the core of democratic movements since the French Revolution." (p. 49)

Gemeinschaft (village) to Gesellschaft (urban) demographic shift over time, especially since 1900. "The dislocation . . . laid the basis for an ideology of nationalism based on an intense nostalgia for an imagined past of strong community in which the divisions and confusions of a pluralist society did not exist." (p. 65)

Deterioration of "middle-class status may then explain the rise of populist nationalism in many parts of the world in the second decade of the twenty-first century." In the USA, "the working class, defined as people with a high school education and less, has not been doing well over the past generation." (p. 87)

". . . resentful citizens fearing loss of middle-class status point an accusatory finger upward to the elites . . . but also downward to the poor, whom they feel are undeserving and . . . unfairly favored." (p. 88).

"White nationalism has a long history in Europe, where it is called fascism." (p. 121) Ethno-nationalism, ethnic cleansing. Anti-immigrant sentiment is back on the rise due to refugee crises, especially since the Arab Spring, blaming the refugees rather than the causes. 

"National identity begins with a shared belief in the legitimacy of the country's political system, whether that system is democratic or not . . . [It] also extends into the realm of culture and values. . . what it takes to become a genuine member of the community." (p. 126). Diversity. Resilience. Resistance to complete homogenization. (p. 127) 

"National identities can be built around liberal and democratic political values, and the common experiences that provide connective tissue around which diverse communities can thrive." (p. 128)

"Citizenship is a two-way street: it endows citizens with rights that are protected by the state, but it also enjoins duties on them, above all, the duty of loyalty to the country's principles and laws." (p. 148)

Results of the American Civil War. XIII, XIV and XV Amendments. "Identity has to be related to substantive ideas such as constitutionalism, rule of law, and human equality." (p. 171)

A thoughtful book.

Today's Rune: Strength. 

Yi T'aejun, 'Dust and Other Stories' (2018), Part I

Yi T'aejun, Dust and Other Stories. Translated by Janet Poole. New York: Columbia University Press, 2018.

Fascinating glimpse into Korean life, bridging the period between Imperial Japanese dominance (1910-1945) and the Korean War (1950-1953). Publications by Yi T'aejun (1904-circa 1956) were banned in South Korea until 1988. 

Banned books are often the best ones to read, naturally.

From "The Broker's Office:" "Is this world only good to you if you have money?" (p. 58)

"When government officials buy, even country bumpkins notice something's up, don't they?" (p. 59)

From "A Tale of Rabbits:" "His library was not large, but Hyŏn could not help but feel awe whenever he leisurely perused his bookshelves. He could appreciate the saying, 'To see a thousand years at one glance.' Every day new books appear." (p. 88)

"The Hunt:" "At midnight they had a simple but tasty snack of pheasant and buckwheat with a cold radish soup that made their teeth tingle. and then they stayed up past two o'clock sharing stories of goblins that had appeared on midnight trips to eat noodles or go fishing, or on the way home from visiting girls in nearby villages." (p. 100)

"Evening Sun:" "A stone pagoda stood to the right-hand side as he came out of the station, which bore the contours of a Korean house. . . The cracked and crumbling pagoda was yellowed and bumpy, like the spine of some beast extracted from a layer of earth tens of thousands of years old rather than something made from stone. Surrounded by mountains and stretching out quietly, the streets seemed too fragmented for a town." (p. 109)

"'What kind of feeling could there be without fear?'" (p. 114) 

"'I try not to feel too alone. When you think about it, is there anyone who isn't alone?'" (p. 119)

"The scene evoked the same kind of eternal nihilism as the Five Burial Mounds. On closer inspection there were small hills, woods, twisting roads, winding streams, small villages in the folds of each mountain, rice paddies, and dry fields, and above them all floated the clouds, which cast shadows on the villages and the streams . . . but at a casual glance there was merely the green earth and the misty air, and nothing else." (p. 123)

"Although they stood up quickly, it was already dusk as they walked back down the path. Maehŏn accompanied her to the stations and sent his precious companion away in the dark on the evening train." (p. 125)

"Yi dynasty white porcelain . . . vessels from eternity that provide quiet comfort and refreshment and never exhaust." (p. 128)

Today's Rune: Partnership. 

Georgia O'Keeffe: 'The Flag' (1918)

Last year in October, while checking out a First World War art exhibition at the Frist Art Museum in Nashville, I was fascinated to learn that Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986) had opposed intervention, that she had a brother who died as a result of the war, and that she painted The Flag early in 1918 to indicate her revulsion. 

Since then, I've come across additional details about The Flag and Georgia's brother. Alexius (Alexis) Wyckoff "Tex" O'Keeffe (1892-1930) was an officer in the 32nd Division of the US Army, stationed, along with thousands of other soldiers from his home state of Wisconsin, as well as thousands from Michigan, at Camp MacArthur, in the vicinity of Waco, Texas, starting in 1917. 

Fred A. Gildersleeve, Officers, 32nd Division, Camp MacArthur, Waco, Tex., Dec. 23, 1917. Library of Congress. 

The 32nd Division saw heavy combat on the Western Front in 1918, and Tex was badly wounded by poison gas, not enough to kill him outright (as some accounts erroneously suggest), but enough to cause him to die in his thirties, more than a decade after the war's end, finally taken out by Influenza.

When "Tex" was sent to Waco in 1917, Georgia was teaching at the West Texas State Normal School in Canyon, about twenty miles south of Amarillo in the Panhandle; she was the head of the one-person art department. By October of 1917, she "seethed with impatience over the conformity and pettiness of the Canyon community." (Hunter Drohojowska-Philp, Full Bloom: The Art and Life of Georgia O'Keeffe, New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2004, p. 144).

Georgia came down with a case of the Spanish Influenza early in 1918, and took refuge with a friend at Waring, Texas (about forty-four miles north northwest of San Antonio); she painted The Flag in San Antonio.

Not surprisingly, Georgia's teaching career at the West Texas State Normal School ended in 1918.

The Flag was not shown in public until 1968, during the American War in Vietnam, the year of the Prague Spring and the Paris uprising -- in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Its permanent home is at the Milwaukee Art Museum. For more information, here is a link.

Today's Rune: Signals. 

David Lynch: Mulholland Drive (2001)

David Lynch: Mulholland Drive / Mulholland Dr. (2001). Starring Naomi Watts, Laura Elena Martínez Herring/Harring (Countess von Bismarck-Schönhausen) and Justin Theroux. 

After having seen everything David Lynch at least once, it's easier to go back and reconsider Mulholland Drive.

In short, what a cool, weird film!  Watts is also in Twin Peaks: The Return (2017), and Harring has since enjoyed a strong turn as a lawyer in the FX series The Shield (2006), among other things.  

What is Mulholland Drive?  Are we delving into alternate realities, psychological realms, dreams, feeling-driven memory distortions, alternate state consciousness, hallucinatory experiences, floating through the bardo, a limbo-like state, or a blend of such elements with off-kilter surrealism?  You tell me. The final response will be: "Silencio."

Today's Rune: Possessions. 

Kim Thúy: 'Ru' (2009, 2012), Take I

Kim Thúy, Ru. New York: Translated from the French by Sheila Fischman. New York: Bloomsbury, 2012; originally published in French in 2009.

This is a lovely short novel, organized as a series of interconnected (but mostly capable of standing alone) short chapters that look on the page like prose poems or flash pieces. 

Ru has the gravitas of a personal nonfiction account. I found it completely absorbing on a first read and can imagine combing through it again soon to see what I missed.  

"I came into the world during the Tet Offensive, in the early days of the Year of the Monkey, when the long chains of firecrackers draped in front of houses exploded polyphonically along with the sound of machine guns." (page 1) 

An Tinh Nguyen, the main protagonist, is born in Saigon. French and Vietnamese culture are strong in her childhood years, even after the American War when the country is unified. Eventually, she escapes with members of her family to Malaysia, until they are taken in by Canadians and relocated to Quebec. 

I appreciate the fact that Ru is mostly neutral on the opposing sides of the war and its aftermath, allowing the reader to focus instead on what it's like to be a war child and refugee. 

Throughout Ru, we are taken as if by the hand to see conditions in Vietnam during and after the American War, in boats and refugee camps, and in a new, unfamiliar land -- Canada. We see the family of An Tinh Nguyen and come to understand something of its structure (Aunt Seven, Step-Uncle Six, Cousin Sao Mai, etcetera), and see what it's like to become accustomed to a new country, while still yearning for the old. 

Deft and memorable. 

Today's Rune: Initiation.  

Donald J. Raleigh: 'Soviet Baby Boomers' (2012), Part V

Donald J. Raleigh, Soviet Baby Boomers: An Oral History of Russia's Cold War Generation (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012).

The Afghanistan War (1979-1989), according to Aleksandr Konstantinov: "'an absurd stupidity.'" (page 263) Olga Martynkina: "'terrible and unnecessary.'" (ibid.)  Gennady Ivanov: '"Besides heroism, it gave us nothing but cripples and drug addicts.'" (page 265)

"Diluted state repression remained an element . . . mostly because it constrained people's choices by switching on their self-censorship. Few Baby Boomers had direct run-ins with the KGBm but all felt its presence." (page 265)

Glasnost. Aleksandr Babushkin: '"You have to understand that any cultured person, intellectual, is able to distinguish between true and false information.'" (page 286)  

Perestroika. Olga Gorelik: "'it gave freedom to several strata of the population, to the intelligenstia, for example. But, on the other hand, it created complicated economic problems. Not everyone can restructure themselves, namely our generation.'" (page 288)

"For some [Soviet] Baby Boomers glasnost meant fulfilling a life-long dream of traveling abroad . . ." (page 295) 

Collapse of Soviet Union. "[b]y 1994, 67 percent of the population had no savings or extra cash . . . murders, suicides, and divorces reached extreme levels . . . Between 1992 and 1997 life expectancy for men fell from 67 to 57 years and for women from 76 to 70 . . . (page [312])

"The emergence of fifteen independent states from the ruins of the former Soviet empire . . . complicated life for the Cold War generation." (page 317)

Religion and Philosophy. Resurgence of Orthodox Church. New Age. Osho (Rajneesh). Buddhism. Scientology. Transcendental Meditation. (page 322)

Robber Barons. Oligarchs. Crime "five times higher" (page 323). "Privatization" gave "rise to a class of rich businessmen, as well as to a cohort of entrepreneurs who had accumulated massive fortunes . . .oligarchs, who acquired enormous holdings through insider trading . . . The resulting social inequality and effrontery of the new rich fed disillusionment with market economics and the democratic political system. Retirees looked back upon the Soviet days with nostalgia." (page 327)

Yelena Kolosova on Boris Yeltsin:  "'He was a massive man who drank, and therefore could be trusted.'" (page 329)

21st century. Vladimir Putin. Chechnya. "Russian liberals and others backing a free market system believed political freedoms remained as important as a strong leader; however, Russian Communists, nationalists, and supporters of Putin's umbrella organization, Unity, stressed the need for an authoritarian order in the country." A blueprint for Donald J. Trump in the USA: "Either Russia, will be great, Putin pronounced, or it will not be at all."  However, unlike Trump among Americans, Putin enjoyed "the backing of almost 75 percent of the [Russian] population." (page 334)

Lyudmila Gorokhova on Putin: "'Although he's not handsome, he has a great deal of charm. . . His range of interests is indisputably wide, and he's intelligent.'" (page 336)

A Russian doctor: "'I believe today's youth are awful. . . the wars contribute a lot. We see many Afghan vets, and many more after the wars in Chechnya. Military action has a very negative effect on people. As a rule, they become apathetic and depressed." There is "widespread alcoholism." (page 343)

Youth are adrift and slack in the mind; what happened to intellectual curiosity?  Vladimir Kirsanov: "'In the past, we had to get hold of information on our own by reading books, and by researching something, and this always makes the brain work more actively, but now information is absorbed passively. This is the main thing that distinguishes the two generations. Today's students don't like to read.'" (pages 344-345)

Anna Lyovina: '"The future is with people who have seen the world, analyzed things, compared, and took what they liked that was good and interesting, from wherever.'" (page 348)

A summary of the Soviet dream: pages 360-361. There was in Soviet society a double-consciousness, the projection of a public persona and the development of a private person. Raleigh doesn't use this term, but it seems equivalent: "there were two truths 'one for everyone, and the other that's inside you.'" (pages 366-367). This is how life is everywhere, to varying degrees up and down the spectrum. But would you rather live in Amsterdam, or Pyongyang?  

Today's Rune: Signals. 

Donald J. Raleigh: 'Soviet Baby Boomers' (2012), Part III

Donald J. Raleigh, Soviet Baby Boomers: An Oral History of Russia's Cold War Generation (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012).

Strange phenomenon: making "primitive 78-rpm recordings on used X-ray films." (page 140)

Aleksandr Galich, Bulat Okudzhava, Vladmimir Vysotsky, the latter's songs included "And All Is Quiet in the Cemetery." (pages 142-143)

Voice of America, Deutsche Welle (German Wave) broadcasts (pages 146-147).

Beatles, Rolling Stones, Jazz Hour, etcetera (page 148)

BBC better than Voice of America, to Yelena Kolosova (pages 149-150)

Cuba as romantic inspiration: many of the interviewed Soviet Baby Boomers thought that Castro and the Cubans were cool (just like hepcats and beatniks in "the West" did). "'Cuba, my love, island of crimson dawns.'" (page 151)

Split with China over Cultural Revolution and Damansky / Chenpao Island crisis (page 153), late 1960s. Ready for war, if needed. "'[P]eople think the Chinese are strange.'" (page 155)

As in "the West," Soviet Baby Boomers mostly ignored "the Developing World."  "In 1966 Soviet citizens harbored 'unequivocal disinterest in the 'Third World,' whereas 91 percent of those surveyed were interested in America and admired its technological progress and living standards. Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy were enormously popular, and many believed Americans were much like Russians." (page 158) 

The assassination of JFK was felt as a tragedy and "calamity." Yelena Kolosova: "'Since the assassination, I've had a fierce hatred of Texas. The first time I flew to Dallas, I couldn't overcome that ominous feeling that the tragedy had taken place there.'"  (page 162)

"The Baby Boomers came of age at the zenith of Soviet socialism, only to see the system crumble some three decades later. Ironically, much of this had to do with the Soviet system's very success at effecting social change, whose byproducts included rapid urbanization and a rise in the number of educated professionals." (page 169)

1968 was a turning point of sorts, after the Prague Spring was crushed; things were worsened by the Afghanistan War (1979-1989).

Interesting gender statistics. "In 1970, 86 percent of working-age women were employed (the figure was 42 percent in the United States): 71 percent of the country's teachers were women, 70 percent of its physicians . . ." (page 190). 

Also as of 1970, the divorce rate in the Soviet Union was second only to that in the USA. "Soviet women initiated divorce more than men . . ." (page 201).

Today's Rune: Fertility. 

Donald J. Raleigh: 'Soviet Baby Boomers' (2012), Part II

Donald J. Raleigh, Soviet Baby Boomers: An Oral History of Russia's Cold War Generation (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012).

"Soviet teachers were among the strongest believers in socialist values." (page 94)

From the Young Pioneer manual: "'It will be the best, the most just and the happiest society on earth.'" (page 110)

"influence, connections, and pull -- blat in Russian." (page 118)

Soviet schools: "They instilled in their charges basic human values that would be appreciated in most societies." (page 118)

A Soviet Baby Boomer about living in the 1960s: "'We always had decent food; we went to the theatre, to the movies, to the circus, and to whatever else was of interest. We didn't differ from other average people of our time.'" (p. [120]).

Many Soviet Baby Boomers developed an "identification with a larger global youth culture;" guys in particular tinkered with space-related themes (page 121).

"Many female Baby Boomers loved theatre, ballet, dancing, reading, hanging out with friends . . . Olga Gorelik liked to read, draw, go to the movies, and spend time with her girlfriends." (page 122) 

Many enjoyed sporting events. Pioneer palaces gave people places to hang out. (pages 122-124) Kids loved to play in apartment courtyards (dvor), too. (page 125)

On social relationships, Raleigh notes: "Friendship lacks a definition that works for all times, places, and peoples, because the phenomenon is a cultural and historical one that changes over time: the type of society determines the nature of friendships." (page 126) Soviet friends provided emotional and practical support for each other, and they could counter or at least alter government and family controls (pages 126-127). A fair number of high school friends remain friends for life. (page 127)

"The Soviet Union prided itself in being the 'most reading' nation," and many continue to read heartily long after the collapse of the USSR. Friends traded books and they also utilized libraries, like many sensible people still do wherever they are available. "Reading conferred status" (page 129). During an interlude in the 1960s, Mikhail Bulgakov (Master and Margarita), Solzhenitsyn (One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich) Kafka and Kierkegaard were published (pages 130-131). Samizdat (underground writings produced in the USSR) and tamizdat (things smuggled into the country from the outside) also made the rounds (page 131) -- and made reading all the more exciting, no doubt. Eventually, photocopy machines sped up the process of underground writing production. (page 132)

Movies opened up portals to other worlds (as T. Bone Burnett, an American Baby Boomer, has put it, after growing up in conservative Fort Worth, Texas). These were real social events: "it was always something you simply had to see. . . not only so that you could take part in conversations but also because they really were worth seeing" (such as Andrei Arsenyevich Tarkovsky films) . Through cultural diffusion, in came American jazz, Western fashion and music, and exotic tastes. (page 135)

"'[B]ut it was difficult to get hold of such things. . . and we need to "get hold of" them. The meaning of the very "get hold of" is probably uniquely Russian' . . . it means acquiring something with great difficulty." (page 136)

Tape recorders became popular when they were made available -- music could be recorded and shared, especially underground material: "'forbidden fruit is always sweet.'" (page 140)

[To be continued.]

Today's Rune: Possessions.

Halle Butler, 'Jillian' (2015), Part I

Halle Butler, Jillian. Chicago: Curbside Splendor, 2015.

I read this twice in a row, first to see what happens and secondly, to see how things happen. 

Musing on Butler's style and substance, I had a vision of Diablo Cody (Juno, Young Adult, Tully) working with Werner Herzog (Cave of Forgotten Dreams, Bad Lieutenant) to create a variation on Charles Schulz's Peanuts. It's wacky, sad and right on.

The setting is not overplayed, but there are clues that the location is Chicago (North Side, Far North Side, Northwest Side, Palatine or thereabouts), and the time is the 21st century, with lingering vestiges of the 20th (an office fax machine, for instance).

If you approach the main characters with the Dalai Lama's discussion of Compassion in mind, you will truly empathize with them. "To be genuine, compassion must be based on respect for the other, and on the realization that others have the right to be happy and overcome suffering, just as much as you. On this basis, since you can see that others are suffering, you develop a genuine sense of concern for them." (The Essential Dalai Lama: His Important Teachings, edited by Rajiv Mehrotra, New York: Penguin, 2005, p. 22).

Jillian Bradley is, on the surface, recklessly optimistic, while her office co-worker and foil Megan is heedlessly cynical. Both are unmoored, lost, nearly alone (socially alienated, trapped in their own minds) as they deal with contemporary life, complete with its endless economic constrictions, demands and expectations. The raucous humor of Butler's approach underscores the daunting realities of their lives. It's a bit like Ulysses through the scrim of two 21st century adult female workers who must deal with the indignities, absurdities and possibilities of daily life. 

Another post will delve into additional details, but the main things to keep in mind for now are that Jillian has a young son, Adam, and she adds a dog, Crispy, to the volatile mix of her household economy; while Megan, depressed and cutting -- wickedly so, at times -- has a dubious paramour, Randy, and even more dubious frenemies to contend with. It is through their interconnecting social -- and socio-economic -- relations that Jillian and Megan must operate, and with which many readers will undoubtedly relate. 

Today's Rune: Harvest. 

Jon Meacham's 'The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels' (2018), Part I

Jon Meacham, The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels. New York: Random House, 2018.

A thoughtful overview and discussion that helps put crazy times in perspective. Well-documented. 

In the introduction, Meacham brings up Richard Hofstadter's concept of "the paranoid style in American politics," a phenomenon even more widespread in 2018 than it was in 1963. There is always grand conspiracy, the End Times approach! "Time is forever running out." (page 17)

Just a few days ago, I came across a perfect example of the paranoid style in American society: TV evangelist Jim Bakker (born January 2, 1940), now broadcasting from Branson, Missouri. 

Jim continues to shriek about the End Times, but meanwhile, audience, send lots of money, buy containers of dried food, buy books and recordings. 

It doesn't add up. Bakker claims that Christians are persecuted and suppressed in the USA, even while he continues broadcasting away, one of legions of dedicated channels that spotlight tax-free Trump-supporting Christian evangelicals. 

Bakker's show is a perfect combination of paranoid, crazy, greedy and delusional, and somehow it's also crudely entertaining.

In The Soul of America, Meacham provides plenty of excellent quotations. Here's a snippet of Ike Eisenhower: "you do not lead by hitting people over the head. Any damn fool can do that, but it's usually called 'assault' - not 'leadership' . . . I'll tell you what leadership is. It's persuasion -- and conciliation -- and education -- and patience. It's long, slow, tough work." (page 39). 

From Robert Penn Warren: "a crazy man is a large-scale menace only in a crazy society." (page 53).  That's Trump in a tiny American nutshell.

One of the most perceptive of American thinkers that Meacham cites is Frederick Douglass (1818-1895), who comes across as more 21st century than 19th century in his outlook. Douglass' analysis of Robert E. Lee and Abraham Lincoln within an American context is brilliant. 

The current president, thinking Douglass still among the living, claimed early last year that "Frederick Douglass is an example of somebody who's done an amazing job and is being recognized more and more, I notice."

Early on Douglass came to understand the value of reading and learning -- a good role model for all. Meacham gets it, too, even if a man named Trump never will. 

Today's Rune: Wholeness.    

Sally Rooney: 'Normal People' (2018)

Sally Rooney, Normal People (London: Faber & Faber, 2018). Rooney's second novel is even better than her first. 

Again, no dialogic quotation marks. Again, simple character names: Marianne; Denise (Marianne's oddball mother); Alan (Marianne's violent, weirdo brother); Connell Waldron; Lorraine (Connell's mother); Rachel Moran; Eric; Rob; Helen; Gareth; Joanna; Colleen; Niall; Elaine; Peggy; Jamie; Lukas; Yvonne, and others. The most playful name in Normal People must surely be Sadie Darcy-O'Shea's.

The nature of Marianne and Connell's interconnecting relationships to themselves and others provides the main dynamic of the novel, which is again mostly, but not always, set in Ireland, particularly in Dublin and in County Sligo, with interludes "outside Trieste" (page 157) and in Sweden. 

Marianne and Connell: "as if they were acting out an argument in which both sides were equally compelling, and they had chosen their positions more or less at random, only in order to have the discussion out." (page 174)

There are many simple sentences that stick to mind. Such as: "The cherries glow dimly on the trees." (page 179)

There are plenty of arguments, varying in their intensity. 
Helen: "Why do you have to act so weird around her?"
Connell: "How I act with her is my normal personality . . . Maybe I'm just a weird person." (page 214)

Marianne responds to a Facebook feed in her mind: "What did these messages, these advertisements of loss, actually mean to anyone? What was the appropriate etiquette when they appeared on the timeline: to 'like' them supportively? To scroll past in search of something better?" (page 226) Indeed, what is the aim of social media on a daily basis, in the service of communicating with others?

And finally: "Who were you? she thinks, now that there's no one left to answer the question . . . Her mother and brother are at work all day and Marianne has nothing to do but sit in the garden watching insects wriggle through soil." (page 227)

But plenty of stuff does happen, well beyond watching insects. Rooney gets at it all quite well. 

Today's Rune: Signals.  

Sally Rooney: 'Conversations with Friends' (2017)

Finished Sally Rooney's Conversations with Friends (London, New York: Hogarth, 2017; originally published by Faber & Faber, 2017) and Normal People (London: Faber & Faber, 2018) back-to-back. At the conclusion of the latter, my mind remained absorbed with it throughout the night. Both novels look closely at -- feel closely -- the intricate workings of social relationships.  

In Conversations with Friends, the main characters are Frances, Bobbi Connolly, Nick and Melissa. Other characters include Philip; Frances' divorced parents; Evelyn; Derek and Marianne. Much of the action takes place in Ireland, but not all of it. 

In the swirl of her intense relationships with Bobbi and Nick, Frances sometimes recoils. "I was a very autonomous and independent person," she tells herself, and her readers, "with an inner life that nobody else had ever touched or perceived." (page 275)

Sometimes Frances seems to be Waiting for Godot. "Gradually the waiting began to feel less like waiting and more like this was simply what life was: the distracting tasks undertaken while the thing you are waiting for continues not to happen . . . Things went on." (page 276)

Bobbi is sharp, "an active listener" (page 289) and engaged thinker/doer: "Who even gets married? said Bobbi. It's sinister [there are no quotation marks to delineate dialogue]. Who wants state apparatuses sustaining their relationship? (page 291) . . . Calling myself your girlfriend would be imposing some prefabricated cultural dynamic on us that's outside our control. You know?" (page 292). 

Exactly! Who, indeed? Rooney makes her writing seem simple, and maybe it is. But as in war, in writing even the simplest things are complex (see Marie and Carl von Clausewitz).

Today's Rune: Journey. 

John Coltrane, 'Both Directions at Once: The Lost Album' (1963, 2018)

Anyone even remotely a fan of John Coltrane and/or jazz will dig Both Directions at Once: The Lost Album, tracks recorded in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, on March 6, 1963, and just recently released. 

On the jacket of my double CD version of the release, there's an apt quip about it made by Sonny Rollins: "This is like finding a new room in the Great Pyramid." (Original in all caps)

This was recorded in the same studio -- Rudy Van Gelder's -- that Coltrane used to record A Love Supreme on December 9, 1964.

The main players (The John Coltrane Quartet) are the same on both recordings, too: Trane on sax; McCoy Tyner on piano; Jimmy Garrison on bass; Elvin Jones on drums. 

Track listing on CD1 and CD2, from "UNTITLED ORIGINAL 11383 (TAKE 1)" to "ONE UP, ONE DOWN (TAKE 6)." Some will sound more familiar than others.

I've listened to this about a dozen times so far, and will give it another hundred spins before my next birthday, no doubt. 

Today's Rune: Possessions. 

Michelle Tea's 'Against Memoir: Complaints, Confessions & Criticisms' (2018)

Michelle Tea, Against Memoir: Complaints, Confessions & Criticisms. New York: Feminist Press at the City University of New York, 2018. 

An eclectic collection of essays and memoir, or anti-memoir. The CONTENTS may give some idea of its scope.

"ART & MUSIC
On Valerie Solanas; Andy Warhol's Self-Portrait; Times Square; On Erin Markey; On Chelsea Girls; Gene Loves Jezebel; Purple Rain; Minor Threat; Sonic Youth's Magic.

LOVE & QUEERNESS
Transmissions from Camp Trans [and the Michigan Womyn's Music Fest]; How Not to Be a Queer Douchebag; Polishness; Hard Times; HAGS in Your Face; How to Refer to My Husband-Wife.

WRITING & LIFE
The City to a Young Girl; Pigeon Manifesto; Summer of Lost Jobs; Telling Your Friends You're Sober; Sister Spit Feminism; I Had a Miscarriage; Baba; Dire Straits; Against Memoir."

In the first section, Tea, though she's younger than I am, covers music, movies and books with which I'm mostly familiar. At some point in my early twenties I even picked up a copy of the soundtrack to Times Square, from a cutout bin for maybe a dollar or two, though to this day I haven't seen the movie yet. 

From "Times Square:" "We queers, artists, activists, intellectuals, misfits, know with the instinct of any migrating animal that we must go to the city to find ourselves, our lives, and our people. Times Square shows beautifully what is lost to us when we lose our cities, our scruffy, scuzzy, cheap, and accessible cities; our inspiring, cultured, miraculous, dangerous, spontaneous, surprising cities."  (pages 37-38).

In the second section, I found two pieces particularly interesting, "Transmissions" and "HAGS in Your Face." 

From "HAGS in Your Face:" "'We always wanted to be next to each other.'" (page 180). A nice turn of phrase.

In the final section, all are absorbing to varying degrees. "Pigeon Manifesto" is just plain sweet. 

From "The City to a Young Girl:" "I'm feeling it, the purpose and point of our political writings, our personal struggles. It's not to change the world that can't or won't be changed. It's to leave traces of ourselves for others to hold on to, a lifeline of solidarity that spans time, that passes on strength like a baton from person to person, generation to generation." (page 234). Amen to that. 

From "Sister Spit Feminism:" "The thing about being a poet, a writer, an artist, is, you can't be good. You shouldn't have to be good. You should, for the sake of your art, your soul, and your life, go through significant periods of time where you are defying many notions of goodness. As female artists, we required the same opportunities to fuck up and get fucked up as dudes have always had and been forgiven for; we needed access to the same hard road of trial and error our male peers and literary inspirations stumbled down . . ." (page 268). 

Can you dig? 

Today's Rune: Partnership. 

Spike Lee: 'BlacKkKlansman' (2018)

When all the smoke clears from our current Trump era, Spike Lee's BlacKkKlansman (2018) will endure as a cultural document, a permanent indictment of White Power racism and other forms of atrocious stupidity. At some point, Trump will be long gone and the world will be looking back aghast and in amazement. In the meantime, this film is well-worth seeing on the big screen for maximum impact here and now.

With BlacKkKlansman, there's a lot to respond to, but for the time being, here are only a few observations. One is digging the way Lee shows consciousness raising in the 1970s. During a Black Power meeting featuring Kwame Ture (aka Stokeley Carmichael, played by Corey Hawkins), we see "floating faces" absorbing Ture's incisive analysis of race relations and power imbalances. In its sequel, Stallworth (John David Washington) and Dumas (Laura Harrier) advance in the direction of a burning cross, pistols drawn, ready for direct action as needed. (I've seen the latter technique referred to as a "People Mover" shot).

Also, we see a range of White Power behavior, institutional (as Ture termed it) within the Colorado Springs Police Department and personal; we also see a range of intensity of commitment and engagement in both the White Power and Black Power movements. Within the KKK, there's a local men's club figurehead, a clown, and a terrifying psycho (played by Ryan Eggold, Paul Walter Hauser and Jasper Pääkkönen, respectively). Somewhere in between these three at the national level is David Duke (Topher Grace). There are other characters to consider, too, such as the one played by Adam Driver (Flip Zimmerman). Dig it! 

Today's Rune: Possessions.