Filed Under: Essays
April 13, 2010
Slavery is the most common system of organized labor in human history. That it persists today in all its forms is a testament to its usefulness and success. That it exists at all in the United States today would be a surprise to most readers of this essay.
It may come as a further surprise to some that we are all going to die. Some sooner than others. And a few other matters might be pertinent. Most of what people think they know is wrong. Life is not fair, nor will it ever be. Right and wrong are not arbitrary, nor are they absolute. The first thing they should be worried about is their own ignorance. The second thing to worry about is the ignorance of the person who will determine what happens to them next.
The subject here is slavery, the forcible enslavement of one human being…
Filed Under: Essays
April 6, 2010
The Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution states, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” This was adopted in 1865, seventy-four years after the first ten amendments—a full lifetime–and at the cost of far more than the 620,00 lives recently lost in the Civil War.
Slavery, the forcible enslavement of one human being for the purpose of another, is variously defined as bondage, servitude, and thralldom–all aspects of ownership, subjection, control, and captivity.
Now the question arises: what part of this idea, if any, do you not understand today?
Let’s make this personal. Speaking at the safe remove of the third person is a waste of breath and ink or ether. I am personally interested in the answer. What is your difficulty with…
We can assay the weight and substance of a given work and argue its merits, but essentially the value of the thing is in its power to move us and hold us and remain in our minds long after the event of our first reading. For example, Tarzan of the Apes is a silly work in almost any critical regard except in the way that matters.
When art and craft are brought to a work that has that power to endure, we have the transcendent experience of stepping beyond our petty concerns into other places, in other times, and living larger lives than what we have managed by ourselves.
Not every great work is a Moby Dick, or should be. Not every reader has the stamina, or the need for the quest of a…
There was the St. Louis Post Dispatch, “Turmoil over the book price war took a new turn today when the Justice Department was asked to investigate what a booksellers group called ‘illegal predatory pricing’.”
The New York Times, “(Reuters) The American Booksellers Association has asked the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate a recent price war on books sold online between such retail giants as Wal-Mart Stores Inc, Amazon.Com Inc and Target Corp ahead of the holidays.”
The Washington Post noted, “The plot really began to thicken Monday when Target got into the game. It also began selling eight of the books offered by Wal-Mart for $8.99. Not to be outdone by its chief competitor, Wal-Mart on Tuesday beat Target’s price—by a penny.”
And the Wall Street Journal said, “Wal-Mart triggered the online skirmish Thursday when it began selling the 10 most anticipated hardcovers for $10 apiece…
I was recently asked to contribute to the Powells Books website as a guest blogger for the week of Monday, Oct. 19 through Friday the 23rd. Powell’s has kindly given me permission to repost my entries here.
In olden times they had simpler methods. They tied one end of a rope to each of your limbs and then attached the other end to four individual horses pointed in different directions and made the horses giddyup all at once. Today they make you stand in front of a gathering of potential readers and explain why the hell you asked them to show up at their local independent bookshop instead of staying home to watch Jeopardy.
I’ve noticed I am not the only reader who watches Jeopardy.
I have done three readings now (not counting the short spiel I gave during a ‘speed dating’ event to eleven tables filled with mystery lovers during the Bouchercon in Indianapolis). To my great regret and perhaps that of most of those who attended, I don’t think I am improving enough with each ordeal. I have difficulty modulating my voice. My…
Back in March of 2009, Terry Teachout wrote an excellent appraisal of one of my favorite authors, Flannery O’Connor, for the journal Commentary. This article was in turn written upon the publication of Brad Gooch’s biography Flannery: a Life of Flannery O’Connor. As it happens, I only read Mr. Teachout’s critique this morning when I stumbled across it in the course of another attempt to come to terms with my disdain for so much of twentieth century literature within the confines of essaying here.
No. Disdain is too mild a term.
When a body of literature so wholly beggars an art form of such importance, disdain does not quite sum up my feeling. The reputations of such luminaries as Styron, Bellow, Ellison, Mailer, Salinger, and Capote fade quickly before our eyes as the new century roars. A command of style alone does not reach beyond the page. In…
Speechify. It might surprise some of you that this is an actual word, well defined in the Webster’s Third International, Random House, and American Heritage dictionaries. It goes back to at least the early 1700’s and has been commonly used in America ever since. My North Carolina mountains grandfather used it more than once in my presence. And looking up this word to confirm its legitimacy is just the kind of thing I will do a hundred times between now and that fateful evening when I have to give a speech of sorts to a small gathering (hopefully not too small, but then again, not too large either) of friends and the merely curious who appear at my first ‘reading’ for the novel HOUND. Looking up words and doing ‘research’ has always been a good ploy to avoid harder work–like practicing aloud before a mirror.
The first and last time…
HOUND is at the printer and soon to be shipped! Anyone interested may ask their local bookshop to order copies for them, or you may order it directly from Avenue Victor Hugo Books: $24 (Massachusetts residents must pay 6.25% tax–$1.50) plus $3.25 media mail shipping–no extra shipping charge on additional copies. I will happily sign each copy ordered directly unless forbidden to. Order from: books@avenuevictorhugobooks.com. Checks or Paypal accepted.
Filed Under: Poetry
August 20, 2009
The million-folded tyrannies
Of forever damaged families–
Youth soiled and casually twisted
In the flicker of this mordial dark,
Drinking tear fed memories
Of stolen dreams and borrowed themes,
Quick cut from a television life–
A punch line, no joke, a lie, a kiss,
Lost trust, now murder, and revenge—again.
All re-torn fabric that will not be re-sewn,
Nor helped by the documented kindness
Of our paper-built bureaucracies.
They mean well, we all do, want the best
We can, and spend as little as we might
To get by, to get–what is it we want again?
While generous with our time and money—
Just not now, later. I’ll call. Why me?
We buy heaven on a stick and lick,
Voting for promises and believing lies—
Not what you said it was I…
