Free speech and a grab bag of reviews
A Washington Post article uses Strikethrough, among other incidents, to discuss the difficulties of defining and protecting free speech online. It's interesting that the article, while clearly free speech-friendly, turns the suspended LJs into "fiction," eliding the fan element. That makes sense--it's yet another thing that would have to be explained, detracting from the larger story--and yet I can't help wonder what other flattening has gone on in the other stories of suppression recounted.
David Sedaris, When You Are Engulfed in Flames: I found Me Talk Pretty One Day really enjoyable, but I’m not sure I smiled more than once at this similar book of autobiographical essays. Sedaris writes about horrible neighbors, quitting smoking, and learning Japanese, and I just felt bad most of the time he was being nasty about other people-he’s so good at describing cringeworthy details, and I just imagined myself in their place. The compassion I found in Me Talk Pretty seemed to lurk in the background here, and without it, I just felt sad. As for the quitting narrative, I expected more of a focus on the attractions of cigarettes, but he referred to those attractions without ever really describing them in a way that engaged my empathy. I’ve never smoked, but I think I can imagine the pull of an addiction like that; Stephen King has made me feel it in the past, but not Sedaris.
Jeannine Hall Gailey, Becoming the Villainess: Superheroine-themed poetry! Okay, so I didn’t get much out of it beyond that initial stab of coolness. Making the connection between modern and older myths, there are also a bunch of poems about Greek myths, particularly Philomel. Often the women are modernized-Persephone a woman who’s moved to someplace like Seattle. Female victimization and power ebb and flow in the poems; the superheroines of today are redressing wrongs done for thousands of years. There’s a fair amount of sympathy for the villainesses, e.g., “Conversation with the Stepmother, at the Wedding,” which ends, “They never blame their father/who brought me here, to a house/full of strangers, where even the servants/worship images of the dead./I say, make room for the new.”
Christopher Buckley, Boomsday: Cassandra Devine, a young PR exec, has a side passion: blogging about the Social Security disaster that Baby Boomers’ greed is bringing on us. Her proposed solution: Transitioning, or paying older folks to commit suicide. When Senator Randy Jepperson takes up her cause, sparks fly-especially since most people think that the two of them were having sex in a Bosnian minefield when a mine exploded, costing Jepperson his leg and Devine her military commission. Buckley is arch enough, but I have the same reaction here that I did to the last book of his that I read-satire of American politics is another casualty of the last eight years. You can’t get over the top. I’m not even sure there is a top. I’ll stick with The Daily Show.
David Sedaris, When You Are Engulfed in Flames: I found Me Talk Pretty One Day really enjoyable, but I’m not sure I smiled more than once at this similar book of autobiographical essays. Sedaris writes about horrible neighbors, quitting smoking, and learning Japanese, and I just felt bad most of the time he was being nasty about other people-he’s so good at describing cringeworthy details, and I just imagined myself in their place. The compassion I found in Me Talk Pretty seemed to lurk in the background here, and without it, I just felt sad. As for the quitting narrative, I expected more of a focus on the attractions of cigarettes, but he referred to those attractions without ever really describing them in a way that engaged my empathy. I’ve never smoked, but I think I can imagine the pull of an addiction like that; Stephen King has made me feel it in the past, but not Sedaris.
Jeannine Hall Gailey, Becoming the Villainess: Superheroine-themed poetry! Okay, so I didn’t get much out of it beyond that initial stab of coolness. Making the connection between modern and older myths, there are also a bunch of poems about Greek myths, particularly Philomel. Often the women are modernized-Persephone a woman who’s moved to someplace like Seattle. Female victimization and power ebb and flow in the poems; the superheroines of today are redressing wrongs done for thousands of years. There’s a fair amount of sympathy for the villainesses, e.g., “Conversation with the Stepmother, at the Wedding,” which ends, “They never blame their father/who brought me here, to a house/full of strangers, where even the servants/worship images of the dead./I say, make room for the new.”
Christopher Buckley, Boomsday: Cassandra Devine, a young PR exec, has a side passion: blogging about the Social Security disaster that Baby Boomers’ greed is bringing on us. Her proposed solution: Transitioning, or paying older folks to commit suicide. When Senator Randy Jepperson takes up her cause, sparks fly-especially since most people think that the two of them were having sex in a Bosnian minefield when a mine exploded, costing Jepperson his leg and Devine her military commission. Buckley is arch enough, but I have the same reaction here that I did to the last book of his that I read-satire of American politics is another casualty of the last eight years. You can’t get over the top. I’m not even sure there is a top. I’ll stick with The Daily Show.