Not much to report.
I read a little this morning. Then I worked a little on revising "Blue Eyes Flashing Doom".
Let me show you the limits of my imagination, the idea that Oscar Wilde's grandson was still alive in 2006 astounds me: After Oscar by Merlin Holland review – Wilde’s grandson on the legacy of a scandal.
I read Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent while in prison; Thornfield Hall has an interesting perspective on the novel with the post The Destruction of the Nuclear Family: Joseph Conrad’s “The Secret Agent”. For those of you who stopped reading Conrad with The Heart of Darkness, I recommend The Secret Agent (and also Under Western Eyes!)
I love movies, I know who Billy Wilder was, and found much that was interesting in Billy Wilder, The Art of Screenwriting No. 1, even if I didn't learn much about screenwriting.
More troubling was My Last Day as an Accomplice of the Republican Party (The Bulwark). It seemed to me emblematic of what drove the Republican Party into its madness, a careerist not paying attention to the effects of their ideals, and the limitations wordly affairs put on one's conscience. Parallels with Nazi Germany came to mind - those who see good things in their ideals, make rationalizations of the uglier effects of those ideas and people they are following.
I thought this documentary about Led Zeppelin would talk about how Jimmy Page supposedly kept The Yardbirds obscured, but it was an eye-opener anyway about Led Zep's early days:
Morning music:
I had lunch, a bath, and then I thought a nap might be of use. Yeah, that took up almost 3 hours of my afternoon and into my evening. The past three hours have not been very productive, either. It seems I've got an ear infection. When I poured peroxide into my ear, it went fizzing like mad. Some time, I need to make a fun out of the apartment, Sooner better than later, it is going on 8 pm.
I finished off the last of my chicken stew while reading The Psychology of Portnoy: On the Making of Philip Roth’s Groundbreaking Novel. The one Roth novel I knew of as a teenager (although not of its content) and the one I have never read. I am not even sure I have seen it in print for a very long time. I need to take a look.
I got a rejection for "No Ordinary Word":
Thank you so much for your submission to the 20th issue of WayWords.The editors have decided not to include your piece, "No Ordinary Word", in this issue. While they enjoyed your work, they felt the theme of messy wasn't as strong in this piece.We appreciate the courage it takes to send your work into the world and invite you to explore other Writer's Workout opportunities:Writer's Games, an annual competitionWrite Track, a three-part competition with biannual rotationFiction Potluck, a quarterly competition (open now)future quarterly issues of WayWords (open now)and Tales, our annual anthology (opening in 2026).Catch up on our free 2025 conference and prepare for 2026, March 23-29.We wish you luck on your writing journey.-The WayWords Team
Sidney Blumenthal writes in Abraham Lincoln’s 1859 Lesson for Some 2028 Democrat:
Lincoln carried his logic to its conclusion, that the impulse to repress free speech and democracy would lead to more terrorist acts. He posed the question: “How much would you gain by forcing the sentiment which created it out of the peaceful channel of the ballot-box, into some other channel? What would that other channel probably be? Would the number of John Browns be lessened or enlarged by the operation?”
***
Lincoln turned to speak to his fellow Republicans. First, he said, “Even though much provoked, let us do nothing through passion and ill temper.” Then, he explained the depth of the political problem that they faced. They would be continually put on the defensive. Even if the territories were “unconditionally surrendered” to the South, that would not satisfy them. Even if there were no more “invasions and insurrections … yet this total abstaining does not exempt us from the charge and the denunciation.”
His lessons were clear—to frame the central political issues as a defense of democracy and the Constitution, to repudiate smears by exposing the political motives behind them, to focus on winning elections by standing firmly on the fundamental questions rather than being provoked into sideshows, to understand that nothing but abject prostration before their enemies would satisfy their will to power, and to assert that the politics of fear must be met with confidence.
At last, Lincoln delivered his conclusion, disdaining deference and apology, freed from ambivalence and ambiguity, rising above vilification and bullying, to defend the Constitution, vindicate his party, and emerge as its standard-bearer. “Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the government nor of dungeons to ourselves. Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.”
Also from The New Republic: Republicans Should Be Afraid—Just Look at Who Joined No Kings Protests.
But much to the chagrin of the GOP, the No Kings rally in Washington, D.C., was not unhinged, not very far left, and entirely peaceful. The atmosphere was extremely energetic and family friendly for both young and old. People walked slowly, often with kids in tow. Countless attendees wore large inflatable costumes, inspired by the Portland frog. There was live music, tabling, and speeches by Bill Nye, Mehdi Hasan, and Senators Bernie Sanders and Chris Murphy, among others. And while the event was massive, the vibe was closer to that of a lively farmers market on a nice Sunday morning than it was to whatever the right was trying so desperately to convince people it would be.
But perhaps equally upsetting for Republicans: The 200,000 people who are estimated to have shown up in D.C.—of the roughly seven million protesters nationwide—represented an expansive contingent of Americans. Many of them seemed to care quite a bit about those “foundational truths” Johnson pretended to be so worried about.
And exactly what I saw in Anderson and Muncie.
Trump dumped feces on No Kings. I should be outraged? That seems to be the message I got in some messages today. I cannot. Disgust is the best I can do. All the President's actions say the same thing: a mentality shrunken and narrowed into a childishness that knows only how to wreck, not build; an embarrassment to the country and proof of how many Americans share the same destructive, selfish mentality.
No, I prefer At Least We Owned the Libs by Ginny Hogan.
CC called, I got perked up, but not enough to do anything but finish off this post.
sch.