Originally posted on April 18th…
Culturewatch
I Will Keep You Alive (Excerpt from the Levins’ “Cardiovascular Romance”)
Bob and Adele Levin’s I Will Keep You Alive: A Cardiovascular Romance is this husband and wife’s joint account of Bob’s heart attacks and recoveries. The Levins’ write-ups of their own emotional states, as well as their angles on vagaries of our country’s healthcare system, make their book a national resource – a map of the future for countless Americans fated to cope with hearts gone wrong.
Quintessential Mesopotamian Protests
My old friend Charlie Keil emailed me–“See why you like Kanan Makiya. Love those lions.”–after he read Makiya’s recent piece in the Kenyon Review, “The Dying Lion.”
i’m a simple man by Nature
from my “subject position” or point of view Don’t Compare Identify
Omar and the Magic Jew
Is Ilhan Omar an anti-Semite? I don’t know. I can tell you that some of the things she’s written and said resonate with anti-Semitic tropes, and those who deny it should know that very well. But Omar may not have understood why images of Jews as disloyal, unjustly wealthy, or vested with magic powers that can “hypnotize the world” are bigoted. After all, she spent the formative years of her youth in Somalia, where such ideas linger below the surface of awareness.
James Card: Bright Light in Darkened Rooms
In the wake of Jonas Mekas’ death, First is reposting Bruce Jackson’s tribute to the great film preservationist James Card.
Against “Affirmation”
Nathan Osborne’s empathetic angles on yearnings of this generation of “teentwenties” reminded your editor to check 4thWaveNow–a website that provides a forum for parents and other allies who resist the credo of “affirmation” that pushes young people with gender trouble to pursue medical “solutions” to their problems.