Addressing the United States Congress in February 1990, newly-elected Czechoslovak President Vaclav Havel said his “one great certainty” is that “consciousness precedes being, and not the other way around, as the Marxists claim.” It is this idea that is debated and ultimately upheld in Tom Stoppard’s Rock ‘n’ Roll.
Christmas in February
Fr. Frechette, a doctor and priest (and hero of our time) who’s worked for a generation in Haiti, wrote this Christmas reflection last December, but it will always be in season.
Boom
George Trow sent us the following squib lampooning Tina Brown and her circle as he was composing “Is Dan Mad?” for First back in 1999. It shouldn’t be confused with his more serious “media studies,” but it’s not quite a throwaway either. Trow’s New York Times obituary gave Tina Brown the last word when it invoked his feud with her over the celeb-mongering turn at The New Yorker during her editorial tenure. This gives Trow a chance to talk back…
A Free Woman: A Tribute to Ellen Willis
When the radical feminist and new journalist Ellen Willis died last fall, a black rock critic mourned her as “the Mother of us all.” Another well-known black writer – and notorious macho man – referred to Ellen as “God” when she was editing his pieces at the Village Voice. Ellen may have come to be identified with a distinctive bohemian nexus in the Village, but her work worked on people outside the Downtown milieu. Someone once compared Ellen’s 60’s talks pushing second wave feminism to the Howling Wolf tour of the UK that inspired a generation of British rockers.
Boom
George Trow sent us the following squib lampooning Tina Brown and her circle as he was composing “Is Dan Mad?” for First back in 1999. It shouldn’t be confused with his more serious “media studies,” but it’s not quite a throwaway either. Trow’s New York Times obituary gave Tina Brown the last word when it invoked his feud with her over the celeb-mongering turn at The New Yorker during her editorial tenure. This gives Trow a chance to talk back…
Gone Country
Your parents had a third parent – television. If you went back to 1952, you would be surprised. Many people – of all kinds and conditions – had just two parents.
George W.S. Trow
You Are You
‘I am me.’ Pessoa.
Born in the U.S.A.
Mark Dudzic is the Labor Party’s National Organizer. This summer he summed up progress made by the Party during the past decade. It’s a perfect time now to take stock as the Party has just concluded its successful effort to establish the first state Labor Party in South Carolina. (See Dudzic’s account of the campaign below.) Last month, the South Carolina Election Commission officially declared the Party has the right to run candidates on its own ballot line. The South Carolina Labor Party held its founding meeting in September. To find out more about the national Labor Party (and the South Carolina Campaign) go to http://www.thelaborparty.org. You can also contact the Party (and make a donation) at P.O. Box 53177, Washington DC 20009.
Five Years On
We asked our writers and readers for their reflections on the 5th anniversary of 9/11. Here are 13 ways of looking at that day.
Timothy Clark’s Day Off
Retort Afflicted Powers: Capital & Spectacle in a New Age of War. New Edition, 2006. Verso
Live Lessons
Amiri Baraka has been getting in the groove again during the past year, though as he says to those who wonder why he’s “back on the music”, “I never did go nowhere. Somewhere just runned away from the boy…”
The Uses of Benjamin DeMott (Part 1)
Benjamin DeMott began writing about American culture in the 50s and he was a quickening agent in it for 50 years until his death in 2005.