tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33799571456470431252024-03-21T21:57:49.555-03:00Mutant JournalismJeff Sharlethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15022718202781473768noreply@blogger.comBlogger141125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3379957145647043125.post-7519374509418631412017-04-24T15:55:00.003-03:002017-04-24T15:55:25.537-03:00Notes for a talkI'm to give a talk to a big group of prospective students at Dartmouth College, where I teach creative writing. Here are links to some images and sound I may share. Guess what I'm talking about.<br />
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1. <a href="http://www.jeremyriad.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/mutter-museum-skull-wall-CU.jpg">Mutter Museum, wall of skulls</a><br />
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2. <a href="http://www.flightnetwork.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Mutter-museum.jpg">"Calvinist, Hussar, Deserter, Guerilla"</a><br />
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3. <a href="https://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/60/business-of-death?act=1#play">Thomas Lynch reading from the "The Undertaking.</a><br />
(Start 3:36, end 16:22)<br />
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4. <a href="https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/65/ff/b6/65ffb6c70c3452f407d102aa29d0f69d.jpg">Spirit photography 1</a><br />
<a href="http://www.photographymuseum.com/pontiacl.jpg">Spirit photography</a> 2<br />
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5. <a href="https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/08/dd/60/08dd60849b53c4a366898d86dcb79be0.jpg">Henri Robin, magician</a>Jeff Sharlethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15022718202781473768noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3379957145647043125.post-67226600689283645072016-06-23T12:55:00.000-04:002016-06-23T12:55:10.617-04:00Notebook, April 2016Harvesting the little notebooks I often carry, filled with scribbles of words -- some mine, some others -- that seemed urgent and then are forgotten until I return to a stack of the notebooks, looking for something I can't quite remember. Was this it? This? <i>This</i>?<br />
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Notes from a little yellow pocket notebook I carried during April 2016.<br />
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: "...a place for the profane as a theological weapon..." -- my friend <b>Rev. Osagyego Uhuru Sekou</b>, visiting my friend Aimee Bahng's #BlackLivesMatter class, talking about protesting in Ferguson -- putting his body into police power to keep his soul free.<br />
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: "The Pascalian wager of attempting to prick the conscience of a state that might not have one." -- Sekou.<br />
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: "Working within the illusion of constitutional restraints" -- Sekou, on the protest as a means of imagining state power curbed.<br />
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: "Behomithic" -- a word invented by <b>John Comerci</b>, a student in the advanced literary journalism course I teach at Dartmouth<br />
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: "When you're confronted with absence you can make a world of it." -- Sarah M. Broom, visiting my "Raising the Dead" class to talk about her forthcoming book, The Yellow House, built around her New Orleans family house destroyed by Katrina.<br />
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: "A fact is not a story." -- <b>Sarah M. Broom</b><br />
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: "A house is like a child." -- Sarah M. Broom<br />
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: My thesis student, <b>Mary Liza Hartong</b>, writing a comedic novel talks with me about improv shortly after I return from reporting on several Trump rallies. Mary Liza thinks Trump's doing improv. Improv as demonstration of confidence, confidence not undermined but <i>proven</i> by the comedian's ability to roll past "jokes" that fall flat. Confidence demonstrated by the display of vulnerability inherent to improv. As if Trump says, I'm so powerful I can be vulnerable in front of you -- even my vulnerability is invulnerable. Or: Listen close, true believers, because you'll get what outsiders won't: Here I am, power incarnate, giving you my intimacy.<br />
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<br />Jeff Sharlethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15022718202781473768noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3379957145647043125.post-88777929527386078652015-12-19T04:08:00.001-03:002015-12-19T04:26:21.313-03:00Fifty States of BooksHere's a splendid way to avoid real work: A literary map of the United States. That is, selecting a book for each state. Like a state bird. (Vermont's is the hermit thrush.) <i>Brooklyn Magazine</i> made such <a href="http://www.bkmag.com/2014/10/15/the-literary-united-states-a-map-of-the-best-book-for-every-state/">a list</a>, and although theirs was good, I decided to make my own. For no good reason at all. This is a terrible waste of time.<br />
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Not the best book from each state, but simply the book by which I best know that state. <i>Brooklyn </i>favored novels; mine's equally weighted toward literary journalism.<br />
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<b>1. Alabama</b>: No contest: <i>Wallace</i>, by Marshall Frady. Oh, what am I saying? It's a tie, of course: <i>Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, </i>James Agee and Walker Evans.<br />
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<b>2. Alaska: </b>I tepidly agree with <i>Brooklyn</i>: <i>Into the Wilderness</i>, by Jon Krakauer.<br />
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<b>3. Arizona: </b><i>Brooklyn'</i>s choice, Cormac McCarthy's <i>Blood Meridian,</i> is a good one, but that's just a story. I'm going with the real deal, <i>Blood Orchid</i>, by Tucson's late genius, Charles Bowden. Runner-up: <i>Slow Lightning, </i>by Eduardo C. Corral.<br />
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<b>4. Arkansas</b>: <i>Sing Out Warning! Sing Out Love!: The Collected Writings of Lee Hays </i>-- the oversized gay pornographer who wrote "If I Had a Hammer" and made "Goodnight, Irene" an American standard.<br />
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<b>5. California</b>: <i>Brooklyn</i>'s choice is inspired: Paul Beatty's overlooked <i>White Boy Shuffle</i>, one of the funniest books I've ever read. So I'm seconding it. Runner up, obviously, is Didion's <i>Slouching Toward Bethlehem</i>.<br />
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<b>6. Colorado</b>: The author of the <i>Brooklyn </i>list is a writer named Kristen M. Iversen. So I'm choosing Kristen Iversen's investigative memoir of growing up near the nuclear waste of Rocky Flats, <i>Full Body Burden. </i>Tie with Norman MacLean's <i>Young Men and Fire</i>.<br />
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<b>7. Connecticut: </b><i>Cold New World</i>, by William Finnegan, a quarter of which is a harrowing account of growing up in the New Haven slums overshadowed by Yale.<br />
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<b>8. Delaware: </b>I have nothing.<br />
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<b>9. Florida</b>: So many possibilities! But I'm going with Zora Neale Hurston's great study of Eatonville, Florida storytelling, <i>Mules and Men</i>. Runner-up: Paul Reyes, <i>Exiles in Eden</i>.<br />
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<b>10. Georgia: </b><i>Brooklyn</i>'s choice, Jean Toomer's <i>Cane</i>, is pretty great, but I'm going with Melissa Faye Green's <i>Praying for Sheetrock.</i><br />
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<b>11. Hawaii: </b>This book my friend JoAnn Wypijewski has long been saying she was going to write.<br />
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<b>12. Idaho: </b><i>Housekeeping, </i>by Marilynne Robinson, despite the fact she more or less libeled me in her much inferior <i>When I Was a Child I Read Books</i>. That's how much I love her.<br />
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<b>13. Illinois: </b><i>1001 Afternoons in Chicago</i>, by Ben Hecht, recently rereleased in a beautiful edition by U Chicago Press.<br />
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<b>14. Indiana: </b><i>The Solace of Leaving Early</i>, by Haven Kimmel. Runner-up: <i>The Used World</i>, by Haven Kimmel. Second runner-up: <i>A Girl Named Zippy</i>, by Haven Kimmel.<br />
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<b>15. Iowa: </b>Yes, <i>Gilead</i>, by Marilynne Robinson.<br />
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<b>16. Kansas: </b>NOT <i>In Cold Blood</i>, a terribly overrated and dull book. <i>The Wizard of Oz</i>, by Frank L. Baum. Runner-up: <i>PrairyErth</i>, by William Least Heat-Moon.<br />
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<b>17. Kentucky: </b><i>Watches of the Night</i>, by Harry M. Caudill, a sequel of sorts to his better known <i>Night Comes to the Cumberlands</i>.<br />
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<b>18. Louisiana: </b>Zora Neale Hurston takes first prize for two states -- and noncontiguous ones! -- with one book, <i>Mules and Men</i>. Runners-up: <i>Five Days at Memorial</i>, by Sheri Fink, and <i>The Awakening</i>, by Kate Chopin.<br />
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<b>19. Maine: </b><i>The Beans of Egypt, Maine</i>, by Carolyn Chute.<br />
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<b>20. Maryland: </b><i>The Corner</i>, by Ed Burns and David Simon. Yes, it's better than <i>The Wire</i>.<br />
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<b>21. Massachusetts</b>: <i>A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God in the Conversion of Many Hundred Souls in Northampton</i>, by Jonathan Edwards. This might be the first American novel <i>and</i> the first work of literary journalism <i>and</i> the great-great grandfather of every Stephen King scary New England story.<br />
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<b>22. Michigan:</b><i><b> </b>Rivethead: Tales from an Assembly Line</i>, by Ben Hamper.<br />
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<b>23. Minnesota: </b><i>The Things They Carried</i>, by Tim O'Brien.<br />
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<b>24. Mississippi: </b>I know it's obvious, and I know it'd be better if I could modernize my understanding of this state, in particular, but it's unavoidable to me: <i>A Light in August</i>, Faulkner. (It used to be <i>Absalom, Absalom, </i>and before that <i>As I Lay Dying</i>: "My mother is a fish.")<br />
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<b>25. Missouri: </b>Another predictable and problematic choice: <i>Huckleberry Finn</i>.<br />
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<b>26. Montana: </b><i>Winter in the Blood</i>, by James Welch.<br />
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<b>27. Nebraska: </b><i>Great Plains</i>, by Ian Frazier.<br />
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<b>28. Nevada: </b>Although I find it maddening at times, I'm going to say <i>About a Mountain</i>, by John D'Agata, paired with <i>Lifespan of a Fact</i>, by D'Agata and his factchecker, Tim Fingal.<br />
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<b>29. New Hampshire</b>: <i>The Dogs of March</i>, by Ernest Hebert<i>. </i>An overlooked masterpiece and the beginning of Hebert's life work, the seven volume Darby Chronicles, about the fictional town of Darby, NH. Runner-up: <i>The Painted Drum</i>, by Louise Erdrich.<br />
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<b>30. New Jersey: </b>When my wife finishes it, it's going to be <i>The Fixers</i>, by Julia Rabig. Until then,<i> </i>Philip Roth's <i>Portnoy's Complaint</i>, so much better than all that late career political sanctimony cloaked as iconoclasm.<br />
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<b>31. New Mexico:</b><i style="font-weight: bold;"> </i><i>Ceremony</i>, by Leslie Marmon Silko.<br />
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<b>32. New York: </b>An impossible choice, so I'll choose a book about the impossibility of ever finishing a story: <i>Joe Gould's Secret</i>, by Joseph Mitchell. And then I'll add some ties: <i>Go Tell It On The Mountain</i>, by James Baldwin; <i>Edie</i>, by Jean Stein and George Plimpton. And upstate: <i>A Fan's Notes</i>, by Frederick Exeley, and <i>World's End</i>, by T.C. Boyle.<br />
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<b>33. North Carolina: </b><i>Blood Done Sign My Name</i>, by Timothy B. Tyson.<br />
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<b>34. North Dakota: </b><i>Love Medicine, </i>by Louise Erdrich, who has created as rich an imagined North Dakota world as Hebert has New Hampshire or Faulkner Mississippi. Runner-up: Erdrich's <i>Tracks</i>.<br />
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<b>35. Ohio: </b><i>Beloved</i>, by Toni Morrison.<br />
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<b>36. Oklahoma: </b><i>Killing Floor</i>, by Ai.<br />
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<b>37. Oregon: </b><i>Modern Viking</i>, a biography of evangelist Abraham Vereide by Norman Grubb. Terrible book, but it's the book that got me to go to Oregon for the first time, and to research Northwest history.<br />
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<b>38. Pennsylvania: </b><i>Brothers and Keepers</i>, by John Edgar Wideman.<br />
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<b>39. Rhode Island: </b>I have nothing.<br />
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<b>40. South Carolina: </b><i>Bastard Out of Carolina</i>, by Dorothy Allison. Runner-up is the anti-Allison, former state first lady Jenny Sanford's <i>Staying True</i>, which I read with strange fascination when working on a chapter in one of my own books involving Jenny's no-good husband Mark.<br />
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<b>41. South Dakota: </b><i>Dakota</i>, by Kathleen Norris.<br />
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<b>42. Texas: </b><i>The Last Cowboy</i>, by Jane Kramer. Runner-up: Charles Bowden again, <i>Down By The River</i>. Second runner-up: <i>The Killer Inside Me</i>, by Jim Thompson. There's a theme, here.<br />
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<b>43. Tennessee: </b><i>A Death in the Family</i>, by James Agee.<br />
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<b>44. Utah: </b><i>Executioner's Song</i>, by Norman Mailer.<br />
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<b>45. Virginia: </b><i>Jesus Saves</i>, by Darcey Steinke.<br />
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<b>46. Vermont: </b><i>Getting Schooled</i>, by Garret Keizer.<br />
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<b>47. Wisconsin: </b><i>Wisconsin Death Trip</i>, by Michael Lesy.<br />
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<b>48. Washington: </b><i>Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven</i>, by Sherman Alexie.<br />
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<b>49. Wyoming: </b><i>Close Range</i>, by Annie Proulx.<br />
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<b>50. West Virginia: </b><i>The Stories of Breece D'J Pancake</i>, by Breece D'J Pancake.<br />
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<br />Jeff Sharlethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15022718202781473768noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3379957145647043125.post-51524318296421042142015-07-23T14:11:00.000-03:002015-07-23T14:11:03.303-03:00Art as Moral FailingFriend writes: "Remind me hat the phase of writing nonfiction where you think everything is shit
and bears no similarity to what you had so beautifully in your mind is
not the end of the story?"<br />
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Current thinking: Kill your darlings, and then you get to kill the shit phase, too. It's
not the end of the story, but over the years I've come to believe you
can mostly excise it from the story. Now I just get a cold feeling
toward work that's not good or just ok -- mechanical, like it's
something that just has to be removed, not like it's my moral failing. I
think what a lot of people experience as artistic failing is really a
sense of moral failing, the idea that you have failed at beauty or its
equivalent, which is to say that you have failed at good, and therefore
you must be bad, and vain, to boot, for thinking you could be otherwise.
But such sentiments evaporate when you give up the romantic ideal of
art as good -- aka redemptive -- in the first place. And the idea that
it endures. It isn't, it doesn't, and thank God. It's just something we
do. Sometimes some other people get something out of it, for awhile, and
then something else happens. <br />
<b> </b>Jeff Sharlethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15022718202781473768noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3379957145647043125.post-29337821539393215332015-02-19T01:32:00.002-03:002015-02-19T01:45:02.816-03:00New WorkSome recent work: <b><a href="http://blog.longreads.com/2015/02/17/a-resourceful-woman/">"A Resourceful Woman,"</a></b> an Instagram essay published on <i>Longreads</i>. This is the work I've been most invested in these past couple of months, the kind of reporting that brought me to the genre of literary journalism in the first place, the kind of reporting that's almost impossible in most magazines.<br />
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I published six related shorter Instagram essays, installments, in a sense, in a larger essay called "#Nightshift," in a number of venues: <i>Longreads</i>, <i>GQ</i>'s blog, <i>Killing the Buddha</i>, and <i>Hobart</i>. This one, also called <b><a href="http://blog.longreads.com/2014/10/01/nightshift-excerpts-from-an-instagram-essay/">"#Nightshift,"</a></b> is itself a two-parter, the second part of which makes the case for "snapshot journalism."<br />
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<b><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/25/magazine/instagrams-graveyard-shift.html?_r=0">"Instagram's Graveyard Shift," </a></b>a short essay that is, in an indirect sense, about instagram essays, in <i>The New York Times Magazine</i>. I also contributed a short essay on <b><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/12/25/magazine/2014-the-lives-they-lived.html?_r=0#pete-seeger">Pete Seeger</a></b> for <i>The New York Times Magazine</i>'s annual "Lives They Lived" issue.<br />
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The March issue of <i>GQ </i>will feature a long in-the-works report titled (by the magazine), <b>"Are You Man Enough to Join the Men's Rights Movement?"</b> Subscribers should receive it any day. I'll post a link when it's online. </div>
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A <i>GQ </i>story I published last year, <b><a href="http://www.gq.com/news-politics/big-issues/201402/being-gay-in-russia?printable=true">"Inside the Iron Closet,"</a></b> just won the <a href="http://www.magazine.org/industry-news/press-releases/asme-press-releases/asme/national-magazine-awards-2015-winners">National Magazine Award for Reporting</a>, which made me inordinately happy.<br />
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Because of that story, I was asked to write an introductory essay for Misha Friedman's new photo book, <i><b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Lyudmila-Natasha-Russian-Misha-Friedman/dp/1620970236">Lyudmila and Natasha: Russian Lives</a></b>.</i> The essay isn't online but I can't recommend the book enough.<br />
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Jeff Sharlethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15022718202781473768noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3379957145647043125.post-1707085370192036152014-07-15T21:43:00.000-04:002014-07-16T14:52:31.973-04:00The Creation Myth of 20th Century Fundamentalism<i>The other day I met the head of the local chapter of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, who told me about a talk they'd hosted, a biologist skewering creationism in comic fashion. I admire AU, but I told her I don't find the secular response to creationism very interesting. It misses what's usually at stake -- class -- and ignores the real history of the famous 1925 Scopes "Monkey Trial." What did I think that history was, she asked. As it happened, I'd written about it briefly for my</i><i> 2008 book </i>The Family<i>, but I ended up cutting it. I always meant to come back to it.</i><br />
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Times; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The oft-told tale of the 1925 Scopes “Monkey”
trial, the creation myth of 20<sup>th</sup> century fundamentalism, is usually taken as the last stand of a know-nothing faith from a vanished
America. It’s true that a few old Bible thumpers retreated to their prayer
closets never to re-emerge, that the death knell of prohibition was rung eight
years before the fact when the judge in Dayton, Tennessee banged his gavel on
the close of this case of antique epistemology, that the charms of mass media
would thereafter seduce nearly every American, fundamentalists included. But
these were not fatal wounds for fundamentalism. The faith healed quickly and grew
stronger after Scopes, remaking itself not along the old lines of moral
propriety but those of a social movement, a cultural wave, the third Great
Awakening of America—a revival so vast and enduring that we are living in it
still. That secular America did not see it at the time—that secularism cannot
see it now—has much to with the post-Scopes split of American fundamentalism into two,
parallel movements, one quiet and elite, the other popular and steadily
increasing in volume with the decades.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> In
1925, the newly-formed American Civil Liberties Union, seeking a test case with
which to overthrow Tennessee’s anti-evolution law before it spread to other
states, persuaded a small town school teacher named John Scopes—a robust
“parlor socialist” who took the cause on for a lark as much as for politics—to
break the law by teaching evolution. The stage was set, and on it strutted two
of the greatest public speakers of the times. For the prosecution, William
Jennings Bryan, a bow-tied balloon of a man with the lungs of a whale and a
monkish fringe of grey hair on his giant black-browed dome. For the defense, Clarence
Darrow, a stony-faced courtroom killer with a wit so quick he had talked his
way into the national life of the country with the kind of radical views that
got less-glib men sent to jail for “subversion.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> The
tiny courthouse of Dayton, Tennessee could hardly hold all the locals who
crowded in for the fight, much less the massive clot of reporters eager to file
dispatches from the battle between “science” and “religion.” So the court
borrowed a get-up used by traveling revivalists and convened on the most
crowded days out on the front lawn, beneath a blister-hot Tennessee sun that
set the big man Bryan to sweating as lean Clarence Darrow danced around him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> But
neither Darrow nor Bryan was as nimble as the famously acid H.L. Mencken,
writing for <i>The Baltimore Evening Sun</i>. Mencken, who called
Tennesseans “yokels” and much of the rest of the American public “boobs,” and
who had five years previous defined Puritanism—by which he meant Christianity
in general—as the “haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy,” hardly
represented conventional wisdom. But his commentaries on backwoods behavior
were so funny and ferocious that they tended to set the tone for reporters of
lesser abilities. “Poor half wits,” he called Dayton’s local Christians. That
was Mencken being sweet. Of a holiness camp meeting, he wrote that it achieved<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">such heights of barbaric grotesquerie that it
was hard to believe it real…. The leader kneeled, facing us, his head
alternately thrown back dramatically or buried in his hands. Words spouted from
his lips like bullets from a machine gun…. Suddenly he rose to his feet, threw
back his head and began to speak in tongues—blub-blub-blub,
gurgle-gurgle-gurgle. His voice rose to a higher register. The climax was a shrill,
inarticulate squawk, like that of a man throttled.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_ednref1"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3379957145647043125#_edn1" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: _ednref1;"><sup><span style="color: blue; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">[i]</span></sup></span><span style="mso-bookmark: _ednref1;"></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: _ednref1;"></span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> A
“squawk”—that was the sound of fundamentalism to secular America, and Mencken’s
rendition of it, slightly diluted, was the only story that came out of Dayton,
the last gurgle-gurgle of a religion no longer relevant to a nation enraptured
by the “New Nakedness,” the Jazz Age fashions of that year. Summoned to
the stand as an expert witness on the Bible, Bryan, decades past the heyday of
his oratorical powers, could give no better account of his faith than could
Mencken’s preacher speaking in tongues. It was Darrow who shot words like
bullets. Instead of asking Bryan about evolution, he demanded that the old man
explain the literal truth of the Book of Joshua, in which God is reported to
have made the sun stand still. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Bryan
had no good answers, and the questions kept coming. Darrow was killing the old
man. Bryan’s ideas were old, his mind was slow, his words lacked strength. By
the end of Darrow’s attack even Bryan’s supporters guffawed at him. Five days
later, Bryan died in his sleep. “Well,” Mencken remarked on hearing the news,
“we killed the old son-of-a-bitch.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> The
Scopes Trial was the moment at which reason put old-timey religion in its
grave—or so goes the official story. That myth has been burnished for decades,
in the press of 1925 and in movies and plays and novels and even now, in the
pages of thoughtful magazines that reprise the wholly fictional 1955
drama <i>Inherit the Wind</i> as if it was history. A
myth’s power lies not in its details but in its meaning, and the essence of
this story was so immediately plain that even fundamentalists conceded its
central claim: Something had indeed been lost in Dayton, even as their
champion, Bryan won the trial (a detail often forgotten).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 13.5pt;"> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: Times; font-size: 13.5pt;"> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 13.5pt;">Maybe it was
Bryan himself who had been lost. Victorious judgment in hand, he stood alone in
the minutes after the gavel sounded, as the crowd—<i>his</i></span><span style="color: black; font-family: Times; font-size: 13.5pt;"> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 13.5pt;">crowd, rural
folk, believers—flocked around Darrow. Bryan had won the trial but Darrow had
won the war, tricked Bryan into stumbling over his own doctrine, into revealing
his faith for what it was: the confused ranting of an old fool, his
once-beautiful trombone of a voice honking and sputtering, unable to answer
simple questions.</span><span style="color: black; font-family: Times; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 13.5pt;"> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: Times; font-size: 13.5pt;"> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 13.5pt;">Then he
died. Silly supernaturalism breathing its last, announced the press, pleased
with the tidy ending. But Bryan’s death didn’t mean the end of fundamentalism.
It was Bryan’s faith that expired. “The Great Commoner,” the man who as the
Democratic nominee for president in 1896 ran the most radical major party
campaign in history, declaring miners and farmers and factory workers the real
“business men” of America and decrying capitalism’s “cross of gold” on which,
he roared, honest laborers were crucified: Bryan was the last champion of
fundamentalism’s now-forgotten justice tradition. He hated evolution not
because he feared science but because he feared its applications; particularly
its political ones. The high school textbook that provoked the trial, George
William Hunter’s</span><span style="color: black; font-family: Times; font-size: 13.5pt;"> </span><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 13.5pt;">Civic Biology</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 13.5pt;">, taught eugenics as evolution’s logical
extension and offered a cure for criminality, mental retardation, and even
epilepsy: “If such people were lower animals, we would probably kill them off
to prevent them from spreading.”</span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_ednref3"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3379957145647043125#_edn3" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: _ednref3;"><sup><span style="color: blue; font-family: Times; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">[ii]</span></sup></span><span style="mso-bookmark: _ednref3;"></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: _ednref3;"></span><span style="color: black; font-family: Times; font-size: 13.5pt;"> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 13.5pt;">Bryan saw in
such prescriptions not a foreshadowing of Hitler—who could have known?—but a
cheapening of life. In our times fundamentalists restrict the term </span><span style="color: black; font-family: Times; font-size: 13.5pt;"> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 13.5pt;">“life” to
fetal concerns, but to Bryan <i>life</i> meant the right to earn a living, and “a
living” was not simply a wage and a store to spend it in but an equal standing
before God</span><span style="color: black; font-family: Times; font-size: 13.5pt;"> </span><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 13.5pt;">and</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: Times; font-size: 13.5pt;"> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 13.5pt;">mammon for
both the weak and the strong.</span><span style="color: black; font-family: Times; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 13.5pt;"> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: Times; font-size: 13.5pt;"> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 13.5pt;">The second
half of that ambition faded from fundamentalism after 1925. The movement split
in two, one visible and seemingly weak, the other invisible and strong. One
fundamentalism—the movement of the masses, the revivalists, the
“yokels”—retreated, backed up into the hills, and in the safety of its own
enclaves began rebuilding. The other fundamentalism—the key men, the educated
men, the rich men—stepped over Bryan’s body and moved on, quietly, free of his
concerns. The Monkey Trial was like a rock in the river, the point at which the
movement divided. The elite tradition and the populist tradition went off on
different courses. Both flowed rightwards.</span><span style="color: black; font-family: Times; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">
</span><br />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_edn1"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3379957145647043125#_ednref1" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: _edn1;"><sup><span style="color: blue; font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">[i]</span></sup></span><span style="mso-bookmark: _edn1;"></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: _edn1;"></span><span style="color: black; font-family: Palatino; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> H.L. Mencken,
“Mencken Likens Trial a Religious Orgy, With Defendant a Beelzebub,” <i>The
Baltimore Evening Sun</i>, July 11, 1925.</span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_edn3"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3379957145647043125#_ednref3" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: _edn3;"><sup><span style="color: blue; font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">[ii]</span></sup></span><span style="mso-bookmark: _edn3;"></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: _edn3;"></span><span style="color: black; font-family: Palatino; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Quoted in Larson,
Edward L. <i>Summer of the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America’s Continuing
Debate Over Science and Religion</i> (Harvard University Press, 1997), p.
27. Larson’s book is the most accessible and thorough account of the trial. A
more nuanced and provocative reading of Scopes, however, is found in
anthropologist Susan Friend Harding’s examination of the narrative strategies
at work around the trial in <i>The Book of Jerry Falwell: Fundamentalist
Language and Politics</i> (Princeton University Press, 2001), a brilliant
and lively study of how fundamentalism constructs meaning. Extensive selections
from the trial transcripts and the press coverage of the period are also
available online, allowing almost anyone to interpret the case to their own
satisfaction – an outcome of which I imagine Bryan would approve.</span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Jeff Sharlethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15022718202781473768noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3379957145647043125.post-53264816785717399432014-06-11T12:07:00.003-04:002014-06-11T12:07:59.987-04:00Don't Be a Book KillerAnd another thing: It's time to say no to Amazon. It was time years ago, but because so many of us are dense, Amazon's been making it easy for us by putting on a <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/06/08/amazon-s-fight-with-hachette-strands-an-author-in-the-crossfire.html">black hat</a>, <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/10/news/companies/amazon-hachette-author/">smoking a cigar</a>, and <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/10/technology/writers-feel-an-amazon-hachette-spat.html?_r=0">twirling its mustachios</a>. That is, by waging war on a publisher, Hachette -- one of my publishers -- through attacks on its authors. I'm ok, but a friend of mine has a new book coming out from a Hachette imprint, a big one for him, and Amazon has taken down his page. That's just one of the thousands of horror stories now emerging from this thug of a corporation. Amazon is a book killer.<br />
<br />
"Yeah, I know, but they'll mail it to me, and I don't live near a bookstore..." Etc. I've bought books from Amazon, too. But the line has been drawn. I mean, it's been drawn with a paintbrush, and then underlined, and then Amazon put arrows pointing to it, with a neon side that blinks, "Which Side Are You On?" That is: Do you believe authors and people who make books should be gouged so that Amazon can sell more electronics? Do you want to abandon stories for discounts on blenders?<br />
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Or do you like books? Would you like them to continue to be made?<br />
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Indie bookstores will mail your books to you, too. A decently-paid human being, invested in the success of a small bookstore serving its community, will take your book off the shelf and mail it to you. It will cost more. Because books cost more. When you pay less, you're not saving money; you're ripping off the author. Don't be a book killer.<br />
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Tonight I'm reading at my local bookstore, Norwich Books, in Norwich, Vermont. I hope you can come, but you're probably nowhere near Norwich. So I hope you'll buy my new book, <i><a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/05/04/jeff-sharlet-s-radiant-truths-how-religion-shaped-american-literary-journalism.html">Radiant Truths</a></i>. And I hope you'll <a href="http://www.norwichbookstore.com/book/9780300169218">buy it from Norwich Books</a>. It will cost you more. But instead of doing <i>evil</i>, you'll be doing <i>good</i>. Sometimes, it is that simple.Jeff Sharlethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15022718202781473768noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3379957145647043125.post-15323918410916468602014-06-11T11:24:00.002-04:002014-06-11T11:24:49.012-04:00I'm reading tonightVermonters, New Hampshirites -- I hope you'll join me if you can tonight at Norwich Bookstore in Norwich, VT, at 7 pm, where I'll be reading from my new book, <i>Radiant Truths</i>.<br />
<br />
Here's a <a href="http://www.norwichbookstore.com/event/611-jeff-sharlet-radiant-truths-essential-dispatches-reports-confessions-and-other-essays-amer">link to the store</a>, from which you can buy the book, or other books.Jeff Sharlethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15022718202781473768noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3379957145647043125.post-6286929512392943732014-05-24T18:52:00.001-04:002014-05-24T18:52:24.198-04:00The Snowden Prophecy, 1991My father, preparing to move, has been sending me boxes of old papers. Today's prescient find: a nonfiction story I wrote for Michael Lesy's literary journalism class at Hampshire College in 1991. 1991--23 years ago, 22 years before Edward Snowden's revelations.<br />
<br />
The prescience isn't mine but that of a college friend I'll call "Kyle." Kyle, Lorraine, Steve, and I had driven several hours north to what we thought was going to be a sizable drug deal, several pounds of pot that'd transform our lives. But it didn't work out that way.<br />
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"I don't like this," Kyle said, lighting another cigarette. "The FBI have aerial surveillance. They could be watching us right now, waiting for us to buy the pot so they can bust us." </blockquote>
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"Christ," I said, "why would they care?" </blockquote>
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"Because," Kyle said with complete seriousness, "it's a war on drugs. They can track down anybody. The CIA stole this software that tracks dissidents. They can use it to keep tabs on anybody, anywhere." </blockquote>
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"That's ridiculous. How can they track you on a computer if you don't use a computer?" I asked. </blockquote>
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"You don't have to use a computer! Wherever you go you leave traces. Phone conversations, bank transactions, receipts; they have access to all the video cameras filming you when you go into a store! You can't exist in this society without them knowing. If you're a dissident, they'll find you anywhere." </blockquote>
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"Shut up," Steve said.</blockquote>
Kyle smoked a lot of weed, ate a lot of acid and read a lot of Philip K. Dick. I didn't believe him that day, or awhile later when he tried to describe something called "the web." When he withdrew from college to deal with some mental health issues, I thought the verdict was in: just crazy talk, all of it.<br />
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Sorry, Kyle. You saw it coming.Jeff Sharlethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15022718202781473768noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3379957145647043125.post-3500064755447802392014-05-05T21:16:00.001-04:002014-05-05T21:16:39.249-04:00My New Book, Radiant Truths<div class="separator tr_bq" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: large;">My new book, <i>Radiant Truths</i>, </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">published April 29 by Yale University Press</span></div>
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Read an excerpt, <a href="http://killingthebuddha.com/mag/exegesis/this-mutant-genre/">"This Mutant Genre."</a><div>
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0300169213/ref=s9_simh_gw_p14_d0_i1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=0BHR72S9FQXJCGVH6NMD&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=1688200382&pf_rd_i=507846">Buy the book</a>.<br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Rare is the collection of other people’s writing that coheres into something new and original; and rarer still is the one that takes on meaning because we read it through the eyes of the collector. <i>Radiant Truths</i> is exactly that rarity."<br /> <a href="https://lareviewofbooks.org/review/believe">--Jonathan Kirsch, <i>Los Angeles Review of Books</i></a></blockquote>
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<i>Radiant Truths</i> an important book. I know people say that a lot about all kinds of books, but this one really is important, particularly if you take into account a couple influential trends in American culture.... <i>Radiant Truths</i> features some of America’s best writers, well known and not, at the top of their game, attempting to explain the unexplainable. And Sharlet is an excellent guide showing how, in almost every case, the writers he showcases get close to that impossible goal of literary journalism, "perfect representation of reality, visible and otherwise. <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/05/04/jeff-sharlet-s-radiant-truths-how-religion-shaped-american-literary-journalism.html">--Jonathan D. Fitzgerald, <i>The Daily Beast</i></a></blockquote>
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Sharlet assembles a highly literate potpourri of writings about religion, faith and other manifestations of “the production of social life.” </blockquote>
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The phrase, notes the author in his introduction, is a commonplace of cultural anthropology, describing the narratives that enable us to live in the world: Jesus died for our sins, America is an exceptional nation blessed by God, and so forth. Interestingly, Sharlet’s chief criterion here is to gather pieces that speak to “what happens when we say ‘religion’ out loud.” The collection begins and ends with Walt Whitman: At the start, he is praying and singing with wounded Union soldiers in a Washington hospital, while at the end, writer Francine Prose is moved to tears on seeing his words, “I am large, I contain multitudes,” on a sign above the Occupy Wall Street encampment, inspired to resist “the awful isolation and powerlessness of knowing we’re being lied to and robbed on a daily basis.” Between those Whitmanesque braces are numerous pieces that are not widely enough known, such as pioneering journalist Abraham Cahan’s report from the streets of New York on the suicide of a Jewish man at Purim... Meridel Le Sueur’s almost supernaturally charged account of the Minneapolis strike of 1934, a Woody Guthrie song come to life (“the walking, falling back, the open mouth crying, the nostrils stretched apart, the raised hand, the blow falling, and the outstretched hand drawing me in”); and H.L. Mencken’s dismissive analysis of the fundamentalism that propelled the Scopes Monkey Trial: “Divine inspiration is as common as the hookworm.” </blockquote>
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...Readers will find plenty here to sustain questions—and perhaps even a few answers—of their own. --<i><a href="https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/jeff-sharlet/radiant-truths/">Kirkus</a></i></blockquote>
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<blockquote>
Sharlet is an astute commentator on and questioner of American writings that investigate belief and disbelief, popular culture, and the meaning of religion and politics in American life. Here he gathers and comments on pieces composed from the Civil War through Occupy Wall Street. The collection is eclectic, in the best sense, and includes works from a broad spectrum of writers such as Walt Whitman, Henry David Thoreau, Mark Twain, Meridel Le Seur, Zora Neale Hurston, Mary McCarthy, James Baldwin, Norman Mailer, John Jeremiah Sullivan, Francine Prose, and others to discuss "things unseen" and the meaning of an engaged conversation about religion. </blockquote>
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VERDICT: Sharlet's important and thought-provoking book is highly recommended for readers who are interested in our country's culture (both religious and political), creative and literary nonfiction, and well-written, well-argued writing.—Pam Kingsbury, Univ. of North Alabama, Florence --<i>Library Journal</i></blockquote>
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Jeff Sharlethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15022718202781473768noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3379957145647043125.post-65203962608669945552014-05-04T21:18:00.001-04:002014-05-05T11:36:37.913-04:00How to Read Wisconsin Death Trip<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The following are reading notes I made for my Dartmouth College course "Raising the Dead," a creative writing and reading course in experimental nonfictions. I teach one of the books that introduced me to the genre, <i>Wisconsin Death Trip</i>, by Michael Lesy, who taught me as an undergraduate 20 years ago. Back then, my classmates at Hampshire College and I were puzzled by the book, enthralled by it. I remain both puzzled and enthralled. First time I taught it at Dartmouth most of my students dismissed it out of hand. "It doesn't make sense," they said. "True," I agreed. "That doesn't make sense, either," they said. The problem, I came to suspect, was that they had little experience with a text without a plot, a text without an argument, a poem that does not look like a poem.</div>
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So I made these reading notes, about one of the first images in the book. This horse. The first time we see the horse, we get only the body. Emphasis on the mane. Emphasis on the phallus. Turn the pages, and the whole emerges. How to account for this? There are many possibilities. These are a few of them.</div>
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We begin with a horse. Or rather, a cropped photograph of a
horse, a picture of part of a horse. Which part? Not the head, not the eyes -- the
part of every animal we look to first. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Instead, a dichotomy: the mane and the phallus. The mane, an
extraordinary mane, can’t be ignored; the phallus, meanwhile, has been made the
focal point by the cropping of the image. So we look first at the mane and
tally the obvious: long, white, wavy. Perhaps Rapunzel comes to mind. As for
the phallus, there’s nothing so whimsical; just the fact of it. <o:p></o:p></div>
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In the text that follows, Lesy alerts us to his interest in
archetypes. So we can read his cropped photo, his <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">selection</i>, in “traditional” terms: the mane is the feminine, the
phallus is the male.<o:p></o:p></div>
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If that seems too simple, too reductive—as it should—just
wait. <o:p></o:p></div>
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We read the introduction. We learn that there will be
photographs of horses because the photographer, Charles Van Schaick, was paid to take photographs of
horses. We learn that the photographer’s intentions were banal; at least, the
ones he knew about. We learn that Lesy believes we have more intentions than we
know about. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Then we turn the page, past the big numeral one—and again,
the horse. Same picture. Right side of the page. Just the horse and nothing but
the horse and not even the whole horse. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Look
at this horse!</i> says Lesy. Because, after all, it seems to be a remarkable
horse. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I mean, have you ever seen a horse like that?<o:p></o:p></div>
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“The thing to worry about,” Lesy has just told us, “is
meanings, not appearances.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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Perhaps you, like me, are worrying about meanings. Perhaps
you’re worrying, looking at this strange horse, that you don’t get it. <o:p></o:p></div>
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So you turn the page.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Ah! The whole horse. The horse depicted as a horse should be depicted,
standing in profile, its most wonderful feature – that mane! – restored to its
proper place as the focal point of the image, no longer in tension with the
phallus. Now we know where to look and how to read the picture. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Nice horse.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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But what’s with this horse on the next page? </div>
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Cropped, again. (In the book, we see just the body.) The whole head chopped off. (A horse head? <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Godfather</i>?* When did that come out? To Wikipedia: 1972. And <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Wisconsin Death Trip</i>? 1973. Is it possible? That connection? But to
what end? The horse head: chopped off. A warning?) <o:p></o:p></div>
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What’s left: Ribs. A reflection of the white horse’s mane, a
photo negative. The glorious flamboyance reflected as bone against flesh.
Mortality. Lesy’s told us what to look for: Life and death. Here we have it. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Turn the page. (Same image, cropped even tighter.) Closer now, the ribs, mortality, death, but
the “camera” – Lesy’s cropping, our gaze – moves, up toward the head, almost to
the head, almost to the eyes. Almost but not quite. Almost to the eyes looking
toward the text, the page, our destination. Our eyes move there; we complete
the horse, become the horse, the horse’s ribs become our ribs, the white
horse’s mane our beauty, and now we’re in, animal observers of the stories that
follow.<o:p></o:p></div>
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But how to read these stories? NOT STRAIGHT THROUGH. You’d
die of terror or boredom or numbness. It’s worth paying attention to the title:
A death trip. The drug allusion is deliberate: The book is a product of its
times even as it stands outside of normal time. Now, I know <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">none of us</i> have any experience with
mind-altering drugs, but we’ve seen the effects in the movies, so we know the
experience isn’t linear or even narrative, precisely. <o:p></o:p></div>
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It may help us to turn to the definition of the “lyric
essay” offered by Deborah Tall and John D’Agata, champions of the form: “Lyric
essays forsake narrative line, discursive logic, and the art of persuasion in
favor of idiosyncratic meditation. . . . [The lyric essay] might move by
association, leaping from one path of thought to another by way of imagery or
connotation, advancing by juxtaposition or sidewinding poetic logic.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“Sidewinding poetic
logic.”</b> A poetic logic by which we give attention to repetition and
pattern; a sidewinding logic in which we look for these patterns not by plowing
from A to B to C but by jumping from A to K to G.<o:p></o:p></div>
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In other words, read enough of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Wisconsin Death Trip</i> straight through to start picking up <u>patterns</u>;
then start jumping around. <o:p></o:p></div>
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And I do mean jump around – that means you jump backwards as
well as forwards. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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But all along, you're paying attention to the text to which Lesy calls our special attention. The passages of his writing – the full page
italics, the conclusion, the boxed prose poems of themes in various years – and
the passages of his commentators, as defined in his introduction. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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The clippings are just that, clippings, no more no less.
Read them, but not all of them; mark them not for information but for the
moment when <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">juxtapositions </i>begin to
make sense.<o:p></o:p></div>
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ONE LAST PIECE OF ADVICE: Return to the pictures. That’s the
death trip. Note Lesy’s manipulations, his commentary in the form of line
drawings. Don’t try to decode them; try to inhabit the pictures and the mind of
this strange person, “Michael Lesy,” who has gathered them for us.<o:p></o:p></div>
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* You
may be wondering what <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Godfather</i>
is. That’s ok. That’s how allusion, intended and accidental, works: not by
directing us only to texts we’re familiar with but by sending us off toward
texts we don’t know, by developing a context, a landscape. It’s ok if we don’t
catch all the allusions. They’re just there. Or they’re not.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br />Jeff Sharlethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15022718202781473768noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3379957145647043125.post-38149509939232803992014-02-07T14:35:00.000-03:002014-02-07T15:16:58.582-03:00Moscow & St. Petersburg: Queer Pictures<br />
<i>GQ </i>hired a first-rate photojournalist, <a href="http://noorimages.com/photographer/kozyrev/">Yuri Kozyrev</a>, to take photographs to accompany my story in the February 2014 issue, <a href="http://www.gq.com/news-politics/big-issues/201402/being-gay-in-russia?currentPage=1&printable=true">"Inside the Iron Closet."</a> As a form of notes, I took snapshots with my phone. Following are a few of them, along with some of the stories I couldn't fit into the magazine<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
***</div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi24rZQckbwQdzc76yT4VPdxm0c196FdUJpnhCJKzVTcVZbyoywHTlDbclOi6qJ0oZSwG7Vova3ysBzz1FCxtv2vWzbYNqG-42h7Wuwvl9bR3wBYg5CgWCPY_wLe3yp0Nfy6TnawioaqjA/s1600/IMG_1825.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi24rZQckbwQdzc76yT4VPdxm0c196FdUJpnhCJKzVTcVZbyoywHTlDbclOi6qJ0oZSwG7Vova3ysBzz1FCxtv2vWzbYNqG-42h7Wuwvl9bR3wBYg5CgWCPY_wLe3yp0Nfy6TnawioaqjA/s1600/IMG_1825.JPG" height="640" width="480" /></a></div>
<br />
My translator, Zhenya, and I met Nikolai at a small basement gay club called Ice. Sometime soon I'll publish our whole conversation, but I was able to get this much into the magazine:<br />
<em><br /></em>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<em>I don't think there is homophobia in Russia," he says, "because I always carry a gun."</em><em>The logic takes me a moment. He means they can't hurt him, because he will hurt them first. His father, a "criminal," he says, found Nikolai on a Grindr-like app once. He said he was coming to kill Nikolai. Nikolai wrote back: "I'm waiting for you." His father never came. Nikolai is waiting. He taps one side of his head and then the other, to show the path of the bullet he'll put through his father's skull.</em></blockquote>
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<!--StartFragment--><!--EndFragment--><span style="font-family: 'Bell MT';">But I couldn't include as much as I wanted to about the next club we went to that night:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Bell MT';"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Bell MT';">“I’m
going to Secrets,” says Nikolai. Another club. He says it’s 20 minutes away.
“Will you give me money for a car?” If he’ll take us with him. It’s around 2 am
and the street’s empty, but we flag down an old Soviet rustbucket and Nikolai
haggles until the driver waves us in. It’s a long ride down small streets and
smaller, until Nikolai directs the driver into a deeply rutted dirt alley. At
which point Zhenya says maybe we shouldn’t be here. “Da!” says Nikolai. “Da!
Da!” I’m looking at his puffy coat. I don’t really see where he could have a
gun. Then we come around a bend and Nikolai says, “There.” He points. A small
black metal rectangle tied to an iron gate with a piece of wire, “SECRET”
written on it in plain English letters.</span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqn-vY54ToE_gVoyoT0kRO2HP-r9vKBPE1kbDFcYVj2F2rbPgRPC8o0aCKHtEgaQUm1ourvYo0DupVIcoV4NuewLnA1iDlqFAAIm1UFccsSWG7KXsPal-5-YflXLcqCtXax7p1rxuWS9s/s1600/IMG_1808.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqn-vY54ToE_gVoyoT0kRO2HP-r9vKBPE1kbDFcYVj2F2rbPgRPC8o0aCKHtEgaQUm1ourvYo0DupVIcoV4NuewLnA1iDlqFAAIm1UFccsSWG7KXsPal-5-YflXLcqCtXax7p1rxuWS9s/s1600/IMG_1808.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Bell MT"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Beyond it, a beat-up parking lot that’s
a study in night colors: a row of fluorescent-lit windows in another building
turning the lot green beneath a cloudy city-lit sky bruised purple and yellow,
in the corner of the lot one of the branches of a leafless tree incompletely
wrapped in Christmas lights, red as a wound. Beneath it, an open door into what
looks like a shanty, a corridor glowing redder. The corridor twists and turns,
a big man in a black suit pats us down leaving no margin of error—Nikolai
checks his coat first so I still don’t know about the gun, I never will—and
then we come around another corner into the club.</span></div>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN0B8koCZOBxaG6s4vKCZB3bo8FI3czxsSPWdhTmw4huByyXGpR3x8HFVPjZQ9s5R6l1Nb93ZMJtPxqq00-qK1Yi-6K0HPncHcdPQanG5PQIpuQBDjiuYD9l0KGtVOhTzyKF2zcYdASn0/s1600/IMG_1809.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN0B8koCZOBxaG6s4vKCZB3bo8FI3czxsSPWdhTmw4huByyXGpR3x8HFVPjZQ9s5R6l1Nb93ZMJtPxqq00-qK1Yi-6K0HPncHcdPQanG5PQIpuQBDjiuYD9l0KGtVOhTzyKF2zcYdASn0/s1600/IMG_1809.JPG" height="640" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: 'Bell MT'; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 22px;">And it’s kind of wonderful. Three times as crowded as Ice, girls and boys, some of them chiseled and rippling and beautiful, some of them fat and pimply and gorgeous, all of them dancing together or dancing alone if they want to, the music loud but not fully club-loud, we can hear the shouted greetings as Nikolai’s friends gather round and hug him. There’s a big banner across the back wall that says “Secret Lives” in an English font transported from the ’80s, <i>Flashdance </i>sans serif. Only there was a hiccup in translation, so it says “Secret Lifes,” which is even sweeter.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Bell MT'; font-size: 11pt;">It is a place not so much of secrets as of compromises, hiding and not-hiding at the same time. Zoya Blanche, the 29-year-old halter top cop go-go girl dancing on a platform dressed as a sexy policewoman, lives with her parents, who know what she does for a living—she’s a pro, in every sense of the term—and accept it so long as when she leaves the apartment and when returns she’s a man. “So long as they don’t see me,” she tells me afterwards, relaxing by the dark room.</span></div>
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<!--StartFragment--><span style="font-family: "Bell MT"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">We
meet a boy, Kirill, who says he’s 18 and out to his family and his friends.
“Absolutely everybody knows,” he tells us over drinks at a little table on the
second floor. Kirill’s built like a giraffe, long spindly legs and an even longer
neck, unblinking dark chocolate eyes. “Everybody is talking about homophobia,
but when I walk down the street I don’t feel it.” He shrugs. “I haven’t heard
of these laws, but I think it’s fine. We don’t need gay pride here. Why do we
need to show our orientation?” He’s heard of the torture videos popular online,
the gangs that kidnap gays, the police that arrest gays, the babushkas with
their eggs and their stones. But he hasn’t seen them. He doesn’t need to. “All
of my friends talk about it and everybody wants to emigrate, but not me.” He
shrugs again; it’s like a tic. “I love Russia. I love Moscow. This is their
experience, not mine.” </span><br />
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Bell MT"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">It is too late
for Harry Ben’Ka to hide. He has been out since he was 15, and now he is 17,
which means our conversation in a little café near the center of the city is
probably illegal: Propaganda to a minor. But Harry would just confuse the
police. He is not homosexual, he says, he is asexual, currently biromantic. In
short, a sweet, queer kid who loves everybody. He calls the organization he
started, a network of about 70 Moscow teenagers like him, Typical Queer. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Typical</i>; <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">normal</i>; it’s that very modest ambition again. Very modest, very
brave. Harry realized he wasn’t straight when he was 13. He had two fun years,
he says, of being a party boy. Then, at 15, he began to take up his
responsibilities. He heard about a meeting of an organization called the
Rainbow Association. There were maybe a dozen activists there, Harry by far the
youngest. They thought that was cute. This was before the law, which makes it
illegal. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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attacked the activists. Nothing serious, says Harry. He smiles, a real Chesire
Cat grin, this one, and sips his tea. He has bleached blonde hair and four
silver studs beneath his lip, tight red jeans and a scarecrow’s frame. He sits
most comfortably folded like origami, his long legs twisting and his skinny
arms reaching across one another. But there is nothing defensive about his
manner as he explains to me his typical queer life: his early fascination with
anime, learning how to sneak into clubs, boyfriend trouble; leaving home and
finding couches to sleep on, learning how to evade police, discovering that
with numbers, sometimes, maybe, he can stand his ground. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Bell MT"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">He has plans
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be queered. More typical stuff, a group of teens taking over a diner or a café.
Typical anywhere but here. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Bell MT"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Harry is writing a fantasy novel about an imaginary
city that sounds a lot like Amsterdam, but he doesn’t want to leave. He still
feels like he has just arrived. “As long as they don’t kill me,” he says, “I’m
going to keep living here.” He smiles. This, to him, is a happy thought.
Standing his ground. “It is not yet ours,” says Harry of the café he plans conquer.
“We have not occupied it.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Bell MT"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">I want to ask him to take us to</span><span style="font-family: "Bell MT"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Bell MT"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">his<span style="background: white;"> club that is not yet a club, to let us help him
occupy this little piece of his dream, but his long answers are growing
shorter, his hands rising from his lap to make a point and then collapsing.
It’s time to go. I’ve saved the most difficult question for last. It’s about
the grey scars and long red scabs figure skating around his left arm.</span></span><span style="font-family: "Bell MT"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Bell MT"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">I fumble the question. “I can’t help but notice,” I say,
smiling like an idiot, dipping my chin in the direction of the wounded arm,
which happens to be lying across his crotch. Harry looks confused. He has
already told me has had only one lover, and he has been coy about him; maybe
just a boy with whom he fooled around. And he has already told me that there
will be no more of that, at least for the time being. He has told me his heart
is broken. I can see his brow wrinkle, his mouth begin to twist.</span><span style="font-family: "Bell MT"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Bell MT"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">I try to clarify, “I wanted to ask”—and I point at the
scars, at his lap. Harry looks at Zhenya. Does the stupid American think the
damaged queer youth of Russia are souvenirs?</span><span style="font-family: "Bell MT"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Bell MT"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Zhenya, thank God, understands. He tells Harry in Russian
that I’m trying to ask—and then Zhenya also balks. There is an easier way. He
pushes up his sleeve and points to the white stripes welted across his wrist
like barricades.</span><span style="font-family: "Bell MT"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Bell MT"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Oh! Now Harry understands. He laughs, and waves his hand
and his own red stripes. No, he reassures us, his are not a matter of suicide.
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Bell MT"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">“A little while ago,” he continues, “at an event for
Typical Queer. I was not there, but my friends were. And so were some Nazis.
And the Nazis were asking for me!” They asked for him by name. <i>Harry
Ben’ka! Where is Harry Ben’ka?</i></span><span style="font-family: "Bell MT"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Bell MT"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Not long after that they caught Harry on the street. He
grabs the collar of his own jacket as if to hoist himself up. They pinned him
to a tree, shook him, slapped him, shouted at him. Once Harry realized this
bunch wouldn’t going to kill him, he began to smile. “I felt like a V.I.P.,” he
says. He waves the thought of fear away with his red-slashed arm. “I think
these Nazis,” he says, “they have showed their weakness.” They weren’t willing
to kill him. So for now, Harry wins.</span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 200%; text-align: center; text-indent: 0.5in;"> * * *</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYxsfaQWj0NjbiRxH0OJtrgvxZpZHcKbeby7SNJ9b7AAEAatYnGcAJUQUGJyhWlNccWvGGuEmXpebGAexlG2dIFibJzqLJBDSLvNBqeXVVOhHl5lUaRMAw2mBiqDmoNfk3sxh_EPdX3_o/s1600/IMG_2014.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYxsfaQWj0NjbiRxH0OJtrgvxZpZHcKbeby7SNJ9b7AAEAatYnGcAJUQUGJyhWlNccWvGGuEmXpebGAexlG2dIFibJzqLJBDSLvNBqeXVVOhHl5lUaRMAw2mBiqDmoNfk3sxh_EPdX3_o/s1600/IMG_2014.JPG" height="400" width="300" /></a></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="line-height: 200%; text-align: center; text-indent: 0.5in;">From "</span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“To Slavik,” by Dmitry Kuzmin, one of Russia's very few out writers -- out since the last days of the Soviet Union and the early days of the "New Russia," when he edited a queer literary magazine that doesn't exist anymore.</span></div>
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In April 2013, six agents of the Russian Justice ministry, all men, raided the tiny offices of Coming Out St. Petersburg under the pretext of a new law that allows the government to investigate and prosecute any NGO suspected of being a "foreign agent." Anna Anismova was there with a coworker. The agents began tearing the office apart. And they began flirting, Anna says, who by then was alone with them. "Making dirty jokes." <i>We must protect the children, </i>they'd say, rifling through Coming Out's brochures for LGBT parents. <i>Why do you homosexualists need children? </i>They laughed. <i>For this! </i>they said. They might as well have pointed at their crotches. <i>They</i> knew what lesbians <i>really</i> want. </div>
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Anna wanted to scream, but she laughed. "<span style="text-align: center;">I was trying to behave very like an easy person and making jokes as
well with them. Behave as if nothing serious is happening. That I'm not
scared." She couldn't stop them from taking Coming Out's records, but of herself, her true self, she would give them nothing. They stayed for seven hours. After they left, "I went home and cried." </span></div>
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I wrote <a href="http://www.gq.com/news-politics/big-issues/201402/being-gay-in-russia?currentPage=1&printable=true">a great deal</a> about the astonishingly courageous Elena Kostyuchenko -- one of the steeliest journalists I've ever met, who'd be a human rights hero for life-on-the-line reporting even if she wasn't an LGBT activist, too. I wish I'd had room for this, too:
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<span style="font-family: "Bell MT"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Elena is not a
believer, but when she was nine, in the cancer ward, she tried to make a deal
with God. What she wanted was to walk once more on the boulevard. Just the one
outside the hospital. When she could still get out of bed, she’d enjoyed
sitting by the window, watching the women in their summer dresses. She wanted
to go get some yogurt. Also, if possible, she would like to be admitted to
heaven. Her friend Yulia in the next bed, with whom she’d played a game of
plucking flower petals, loves me, loves me not, had gone before her. Elena
wanted to follow. She thought if she if she made her request small God might
listen. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Bell MT"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“We were scary
and we were dying,” Elena would write years later in her journal, sometime in between
Lisunov’s beating and the attacks that have followed. “Why write this now?” she
mused. She wanted to remember the Christian children who brought her the
flowers, not Roman Lisunov, not the babushkas who shriek <i>Sodom</i> and rip her dresses. She prefers the flowers, she holds on to
the flowers. She will not hide in her anger. “No <i>fucking</i> way,” she says. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Bell MT"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Only it’s
Zhenya who says it like that, in English, adding italics. She grins, because
what she has said is so much more vulgar. Literally, “no dick,” but that
doesn’t get the half of it. There is nothing outside of Russian, Elena and
Zhenya agree, that can capture her meaning—the depth of her determination. “It
is so beautiful,” says Elena, repeating this vulgar phrase, both of them
giggling. “No <i>fucking</i> way!” says
Zhena. He slaps the table. Elena applauds. No <i>fucking </i>way. It’s 3, 4 in the morning, we’ve been talking for hours
and we’re giddy. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Bell MT"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 150%;">That’s not
right; what we’re feeling, Zhenya and I will agree later, is relief. Because
Zhenya and I, man, we’re tired, we’ve been doing this for a week already! Collecting these sad stories. And it’s a real
burden for us, listening to other people describe all these beatings.
Especially if, like Zhenya, you have beatings of your own. “The badge of the
gay,” he said my first night in Moscow, grinning and pointing to his broken
nose, and Igor Iasine—remember him? The broken jaw?—sitting next to him, a
stoic man, Igor smiled and pointed to own. It’s sort of what brought them
together. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Bell MT"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 150%;">No <i>fucking </i>way! It’s fucking joyous. </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVQ0p7TCHwXp0v_sJ9cIUGKKCx74qPIRxxhw7YE5LHJ_0_CPQBiH50PhPuITdM-9LS0doAudhBLe8OrpJFA_omrEDOXzShITy_gTZn1kjv4l80gP3N7DBugsAeldnTsf75xxkiUOeUCKY/s1600/IMG_1997.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVQ0p7TCHwXp0v_sJ9cIUGKKCx74qPIRxxhw7YE5LHJ_0_CPQBiH50PhPuITdM-9LS0doAudhBLe8OrpJFA_omrEDOXzShITy_gTZn1kjv4l80gP3N7DBugsAeldnTsf75xxkiUOeUCKY/s1600/IMG_1997.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
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I was going to post some of my photographs of the "bad guys" -- oh, hell, they don't need scare quotes, they're very scary people -- but I think I'll leave it there, with this happy picture. Or maybe, actually, with this video Elena pulled up on her phone shortly after it was taken.</div>
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It begins with video of a demonstration at which a queer activist who'd had enough of the homophobic goons who'd showed up to attack him decided to throw a punch of his own. The hater on the receiving end is outraged! He is a victim! He says, Zhenya translated for me, "I am a simple Russian guy! Attacked by a homosexualist!" Two queer kids thought that was so funny they turned it into a song. It was around 3 am when we watched it in this cafe -- right around the corner from one of Pussy Riot's old hideouts, as it happens. There were still a few customers left, but we thought it was so funny we played it over and over, and then we began to sing, pounding the table, "I am a simple Russian guy! Attacked by a homosexualist!" Elena -- whose childhood dream had been to be the next Alla Pugacheva, the Madonna of the USSR -- stood up and belted it out, Zhenya and I collapsing in laughter. It really was fucking joyous.</div>
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So I'm ending this with the bad guys, after all -- reduced to proper size.</div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/kSOaAYRs0qo?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
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<!--EndFragment-->Jeff Sharlethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15022718202781473768noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3379957145647043125.post-14698988484910017892014-02-06T18:19:00.001-03:002014-02-06T18:57:06.050-03:00Two Liberal Questions About My Story on Russian Queer LifeIn response to a recent story in <i>GQ</i>, <a href="http://www.gq.com/news-politics/big-issues/201402/being-gay-in-russia?currentPage=1&printable=true">"Inside the Iron Closet,"</a> on being queer in Russia, I've heard two questions more than once.<br />
<br />
1. Why Russia? The most honest answer is because readers are willing to think about these matters now in relation to Russia because of the Olympics. Then there are two variations: "Isn't it worse in, say, the American South?" And: "What about Uganda/Nigeria/Saudi Arabia?"? (I got the same question when I reported on homophobia <a href="http://harpers.org/archive/2010/09/straight-mans-burden/">from Uganda</a>.) The answer is: If you're getting beat up, or kicked out of your home, or fired from your job, it doesn't matter whether you're in Vladivostok, Alabama, Kampala, or Manhattan: It's horrible. These things happen to queer people everywhere. But Russia matters now because it is the biggest, most powerful state by far to enthusiastically embrace (by a vote of 436-0 in the Duma) official homophobia. And they back it up with a state media apparatus that's like Fox News, all around the dial. Does that mean we should just call Putin bad names and ignore homophobia in the U.S.? Does that mean we have to accept Glenn Beck, "championing" LGBT rights as part of an attempt to reactive the Cold War? Of course not. We can't do much about Putin. We might be able to do something about what's happening here. But we need to have as broad a grasp as possible of what's at stake. Telling stories is a very limited form of solidarity, but it's better than a blind eye or left nationalism.<br />
<br />
2. Why <i>GQ</i>? Bunch of lefty friends and acquaintances were puzzled by my "decision" to publish the story in a men's fashion magazine, the February issue of which offers as its biggest selling point on the cover Katy Perry's breasts. There's a literary answer -- <i>GQ </i>has been publishing <a href="http://www.gq.com/news-politics/big-issues/201311/drone-uav-pilot-assassination">great</a> <a href="http://www.gq.com/news-politics/newsmakers/201211/truck-stop-killer-gq-november-2012">longform</a> <a href="http://www.gq.com/news-politics/big-issues/201109/texas-gang-rape-11-year-old-girl-story">narrative </a><a href="http://www.gq.com/news-politics/newsmakers/201202/burning-man-sam-brown-jay-kirk-gq-february-2012">nonfiction</a> in with the fashion spreads and the sex advice for years now -- but the more relevant answer is that <i>GQ </i>was the magazine with the resources to make such a story possible. And it was the magazine that decided to dedicate the resources to this subject. It costs money to go to Russia, it costs money to work with translators. And, yes, it costs writers money to drop everything else they're doing and work around the clock on a story.<br />
<br />
I should say I got help from one of the more identifiably left corners of the media world, <a href="http://www.theinvestigativefund.org/">The Nation Institute Investigative Fund</a>, which paid for some of the background research that made this story possible. But too many liberal and lefty media outlets are squandering their resources on a shotgun approach. Instead of investing in the expensive work of longform investigative journalism, some publications dribble out their resources on a sprinkling of clip jobs and quickie phone-reported stories. It's not the journalists' fault; that's what publications that are always hedging their bets will pay for.<br />
<br />
And maybe the literary answer is important, too, after all: Unlike some other wealthier slicks my pals probably subscribe to, <i>GQ </i>didn't ask me to busy up my story with "expert" talking heads or "the view from nowhere," aka the view from the elites who are used to talking to media. Don't get me wrong -- there's great, important journalism along these lines. My grief isn't with the journalists who write those kinds of stories -- it's with an elite media landscape that can "see" a story only when it's presented in those terms.<br />
<br />
Shorter version: Why Russia? Because it's there. Why <i>GQ</i>? Because they paid for me to go there.Jeff Sharlethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15022718202781473768noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3379957145647043125.post-1256033450115590862014-01-18T16:02:00.001-03:002014-01-18T17:48:17.682-03:00Medium-Type Friends <div class="section">
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Bell MT";"><b>My review-essay on Aman Sethi's<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>A Free Man</i><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>in the context of other recent
literary nonfiction about India appears in the Fall 2013 issue of<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i><a href="http://www.ialjs.org/?page_id=34">Literary Journalism Studies</a></i>.
It's available free online as a<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.ialjs.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/135-161_Book_Reviews-revised-1-15-14.pdf">PDF</a>,
but I'm posting it here for accessibility. I really want people to read
Sethi's book, and in making the case for it I get a little closer to my own rag-and-bone theory of the genre.</b><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Bell MT"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br />
* * *<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Bell MT"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br />
Halfway through this subtle heartbreak of a book, Muhammad Ashraf, the “free
man” of the title, phones Aman Sethi—author and co-protagonist, attentive ego
to Ashraf’s titanic id—to tell Sethi that Satish is sick. Who is Satish? The
one who is sick, of course. Why must you ask so many questions, Aman<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>bhai<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></i>(brother). And just like that,
Sethi’s profile of Ashraf changes direction for thirty pages, becoming an
account of sick Satish, whom Ashraf expects Sethi to look after. That’s the
price of following Ashraf; sometimes Ashraf’s story is someone else’s story.
Sometimes it’s Sethi’s.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Bell MT"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br />
A chronicle of the “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">mazdoor<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">ki
zindagi,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span></i>or laborer’s
life, in Delhi” (226),<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>A Free
Man<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></i>will inevitably be
compared to Katherine Boo’s third-person omniscient account of Mumbai poverty<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Behind the Beautiful Forevers,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></i>winner of the National Book Award
in 2012. But<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>A Free Man—</i>wittier<i>,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></i>candid in its confusion, written
in a style that might be called “first-person flummoxed”—is a far more intimate
book, a romance of sorts. It earns its clichés: Ashraf and Sethi, subject and
author, were made for each other; they complete one another. The book they made
together is a love story, a document not just of “life and death in Delhi,” as
the subtitle holds, but also of the power that inevitably flows back and forth
between the narrator and the narrated—freely given and taken, sometimes
resented, longed for when it disappears.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Bell MT"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br />
A homeless day laborer, Ashraf claims to have a “business-type” mind. But deep
into a bottle of his spirit of choice, a rotgut aptly called Everyday, he
sounds more like Joe Gould, the genius crank documented by Joseph Mitchell across two decades at<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>The New Yorker.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></i>In<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>A Free Man,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></i>Ashraf narrates his own oral
history of the contemporary world, just as deceptive as Gould’s but seen from
Bari Tooti Chowk, an intersection in a Delhi market that passes as Ashraf ’s
home. Sethi tries to write it all down. And Ashraf—unlike narcissistic
Gould—tries to redirect him. “For you this is all research,” he scolds his
biographer. “A boy tries to sell his kidney, you write it down in your notebook.
A man goes crazy somewhere between Delhi and Bombay, you store it in your
recorder. But for other people this is life” (114).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Bell MT"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br />
Like Gould, Ashraf can talk longer than Sethi can listen. Like Mitchell, Sethi
sometimes dodges him. Fortunately, Ashraf has Sethi’s cell number. When he
calls one night about Satish, Ashraf does not need to ask for help. Sethi’s
obligation is implicit. Sethi, </span><span style="font-family: 'Bell MT'; font-size: 15px;">“</span><span style="font-family: 'Bell MT'; font-size: 11pt;">Aman</span><span class="apple-converted-space" style="font-family: 'Bell MT'; font-size: 11pt;"> </span><i style="font-family: 'Bell MT'; font-size: 11pt;">bhai</i><span style="font-family: 'Bell MT'; font-size: 11pt;">,</span><span style="font-family: 'Bell MT'; font-size: 15px;">”</span><span style="font-family: 'Bell MT'; font-size: 11pt;"><span class="apple-converted-space" style="font-style: italic;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: 'Bell MT'; font-size: 11pt;">has become at least a “medium-type
friend,” one who loans rather than gives aid. It is not a matter of stinginess
but of mutual respect. “‘Get it?” Ashraf asks Aman</span><span class="apple-converted-space" style="font-family: 'Bell MT'; font-size: 11pt;"> </span><i style="font-family: 'Bell MT'; font-size: 11pt;">bhai.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></i><span style="font-family: 'Bell MT'; font-size: 11pt;">“You’ll</span><span class="apple-converted-space" style="font-family: 'Bell MT'; font-size: 11pt;"> </span><i style="font-family: 'Bell MT'; font-size: 11pt;">lend<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></i><span style="font-family: 'Bell MT'; font-size: 11pt;">it,” help, that is, “and I’ll</span><span class="apple-converted-space" style="font-family: 'Bell MT'; font-size: 11pt;"> </span><i style="font-family: 'Bell MT'; font-size: 11pt;">return<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></i><span style="font-family: 'Bell MT'; font-size: 11pt;">it. So it’s contractual” (65).
That way neither is ever forced to feel like a</span><span class="apple-converted-space" style="font-family: 'Bell MT'; font-size: 11pt;"> </span><i style="font-family: 'Bell MT'; font-size: 11pt;">chootiya,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></i><span style="font-family: 'Bell MT'; font-size: 11pt;">a “pussy,” even if one is a
“pavement dweller” and the other a</span><span class="apple-converted-space" style="font-family: 'Bell MT'; font-size: 11pt;"> </span><i style="font-family: 'Bell MT'; font-size: 11pt;">presswallah,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></i><span style="font-family: 'Bell MT'; font-size: 11pt;">a journalist with a press card and
a motorcycle.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Bell MT"; font-size: 11.0pt;">But a motorcycle is no way to take the sick
friend of a friend to the hospital. To get to Bara Hindu Rao, where Satish
needs to go, you take a bus of the damned or, at least, severely distressed,
their open wounds unbandaged, their skin fungus festering. “The driver plays
his part in enforcing the no-talking rule; the person breathing down the back
of his neck could be a pukka tuberculosis case” (134). That’s the problem here,
“the two dark sails of Satish’s lungs” (141), revealed by X-ray to be afflicted
by lesions. So it’s off by auto rickshaw to the tuberculosis hospital, an
eighty-rupee ride. Extra for the risk of disease. How to win a bed once you
arrive? Sethi assembles a chorus of nameless voices to answer: bring relatives,
come alone, cry, don’t cry. It works! Satish is in.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Bell MT"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br />
Bhagwan Das, the barber, will shave him. His story begins with “the pipe, the
pipe” (147), the one through which he had to piss for three years, installed by
doctors after the minivan ran him over. A situation like that makes a man
think, and while Bhagwan Das was laid up in bed, Ram Babu was there to help
him. Who’s Ram Babu? A “virtuous man” (151). Perhaps a figment of Bhagwan Das’s
imagination. But that’s not what’s important. Just like a<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>presswallah<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></i>to try to pin down the facts that
don’t matter instead of the truths that do—such as Bhagwan Das’s divine calling
as tuberculosis hospital barber. Ten rupees a customer for a shave and five
minutes of friendship, eighty to 100 customers a day. Not a bad way to make a
living, so long as you don’t catch tuberculosis and die. Satish does die. Poor
Satish! We never really knew him. “Now there is only Singh Sahib in Bed 56.”
Who’s Singh Sahib? Don’t ask. The sheets, meanwhile, “still bear unwashable
traces of their many previous occupants. A man-sized sweat stain darkens the
length of the bedsheet—a trailing afterimage of countless coughing, sweating,
retching bodies” (157).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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* * *<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Bell MT"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br />
I know; you see what I just did there. I aped the free-associating style of<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>A Free Man.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></i>That’s usually a cheap trick in a
book review, but here I mean it differently, or differently enough, I hope.
Mimicry, in the practical rather than theoretical sense, has long been a
strategy of particular importance to literary journalism, one of the means by
which writers establish their own contractual relationship with readers. The
writer-as-mimic proposes a kind of authenticity or, at least, fluency. The
writer-as-mimic says, “Look how well I speak the local language. That means
you can trust me.” At its worst, as in, say, Tom Wolfe’s “Mau-Mauing the Flak
Catchers,” it borders on minstrelsy. At its best, as in Zora Neale Hurston’s<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Mules and Men,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></i>it becomes a form of crossing over
into the world of the subject, still intact as one’s self and yet identified as
a worthy student of another’s life, not as ethnographer but as a “creative”
writer whose loyalty—to her own story—is made clear.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Bell MT"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br />
<i>A Free Man<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></i>belongs in this
latter category. The book begins with Sethi sitting in while Ashraf shares a
joint with his chief cronies, Lalloo and Rehaan. Sethi, determined to keep his
wits about him, has imbibed heavily as cover for not taking a toke. Now his
wits are gone and it’s his turn. “This joint,” he writes, “like everything else
that follows, shall be for research purposes only” (5). It’s a gonzo beginning,
seemingly in the tradition of Hunter S. Thompson, but Sethi takes a hit and
then veers outward to context. The background that in a more formulaic book
would constitute the second chapter gets a page and a half here: Sethi had
met Ashraf in 2005 while reporting for<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>The
Hindu<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></i>on a proposed health
insurance plan for construction workers. “Ashraf had been a terrible
interview,” Sethi writes (6). Instead of answering Sethi’s questions, he told
stories, spun theories, pronounced on the world. Sethi knew what to do: Get
himself a fellowship and a book deal and return to Ashraf, this time to listen.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Bell MT"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Sethi spent much of the next five years in
the company of Ashraf and his friends. He gets high with them, yes, and drunk,
and once almost arrested. He loans money and on one occasion borrows it. He
confesses to dutifully asking “undeniably boring questions” (37) and revels in
those moments when Ashraf rescues him from his dutiful but shallow pop sociology with an
implausible story. “I often toy with the idea of verifying Ashraf ’s stories,”
he writes toward the end, “but why should I? How would that change anything
between us, except convince Ashraf that I mistrust him and that his story is
more important to me than he is?” (195)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Bell MT"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br />
Of course, the story is more important to Sethi than Ashraf is; we wouldn’t have this book before us if Sethi had not
ultimately given his loyalty first of all to<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>his<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></i>story; not Ashraf ’s but rather the one
Sethi tells about him. Sethi crosses over into Ashraf ’s world, but he never
pretends to be Ashraf. He learns a great deal from Ashraf about telling stories
through digression and distraction, but he mixes Ashraf’s methods with his own
and those of the literary journalists who come before him. Hunter Thompson,
sure; and probably Joseph Mitchell. (Sethi spent a year in the midst of his
research at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, over which
Mitchell justly looms.) There are echoes of Ben Hecht’s<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>1001 Afternoons in Chicago<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></i>here, too, in the way Sethi folds
his stories-within-stories up into bittersweet fables that end abruptly. But
perhaps that’s Ashraf’s influence: He is a master of the unresolved vignette.
Sethi is his understudy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Bell MT"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br />
Together, Ashraf and Sethi return many times to Ashraf’s self-styled creation
myth, his almost-life as a medical student. His mother, a widow, had taken work
in the house of a Dr. Hussain. “Depending on which interview tape I consult,
Ashraf came to Dr. Hussain’s house when he was five/eight/ten,” Sethi writes
(24).<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>No,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></i>the reader can imagine Ashraf
saying as he peers over Sethi’s shoulder, watching him type.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>LISTEN, Aman bhai.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></i>Aman<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>bhai<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></i>does. For a page he writes as if
watching teenage Ashraf, sent to school by the good doctor, attend to his
lessons. Then comes the book’s only real villain, the doctor’s tenant, a
gangster named Taneja, who tries to steal the doctor’s house from him and in so
doing, Ashraf speculates, sets into motion the chain of events that led him to
Bara Tooti Chowk.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Bell MT"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br />
“Of course,” writes Sethi, finding the right rhythm for the story, a series of
rapid-fire point-of-view shifts. “Ashraf knew all along that Taneja was not to
be trusted. Because Ashraf knows everything. ‘I told Dr. Hussain when they made
out the lease: never trust Punjabis. But no one? listens to me.’ Except for me,
it seems” (27). First, we are with young Ashraf; then, in the present,
with all-knowing Ashraf, who is mildly mocked by Sethi. Ashraf speaks to Sethi;
Sethi speaks in an aside to the reader.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>A
Free Man<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></i>spirals out to Bara
Tooti Chowk and beyond in similar fashion, through the days and nights of
Ashraf and his friends, some of them seemingly born to lose, others tragic
heroes, none left with much of a chance.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Bell MT"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Through their eyes—or rather, through the
eyes of Sethi, sitting beside them, we see medicine, market, and law, Delhi
from the bottom up. This is not how the other half lives, it’s how these men
live, no more, no less. Sethi writes neither with the telescope of theory nor with the calm gaze of the journalist observing. His view is
close-up and blinking. What he sees changes shape before his eyes. He attempts
to construct a timeline of Ashraf’s life, but not until he has known Ashraf for
several years does Sethi realize that Ashraf had led a respectable life until
his late twenties—until, that is, he was as old as Sethi is at the time of
writing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Bell MT"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br />
Could Sethi wind up like Ashraf? It seems a reasonable question. And if Sethi
were a less-honest writer, or a more paternalistic one, he might let us wonder.
But<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>A Free Man—</i>in<span class="apple-converted-space" style="font-style: italic;"> </span>ways that Boo’s resolutely
third-person<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Behind the
Beautiful Forevers<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></i>can never
be—is a book about class. Not the underclass, but class as a current in every
relationship, class as a press card, a book contract, a reluctance to taste
Everyday liquor and the ability to see Satish through to the hospital. It is a
matter of wit—how one tells a story, how one disassembles a building, how one
tells another to go to hell—and, of course, resources. When Ashraf is robbed he
must borrow two rupees from a friend to use a pay toilet; when a pickpocket
steals Sethi’s wallet, Ashraf spots him some tea money until he can connect
with a family friend who loans him 6,000 rupees.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Bell MT"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br />
That we see these negotiations is what sets this book apart from Boo’s
magisterial narrative. That Sethi resists drawing conclusions about a “new
India” is what sets<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>A Free Man<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></i>apart from much of the recent wave
of big-picture Indian literary journal- ism—Siddhartha Deb’s<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>The Beautiful and the Damned,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></i>Atash Kapur’s<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>India Becoming,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></i>Suketu Mehta’s lyrical<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Maximum City.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></i>Fine books, all. But each is bound
to its time as<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>A Free Man<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></i>is not. Even when Sethi gives
voice to his anger in a passage on the geography of the Delhi of the poor—the
name of each neighborhood followed by a drumbeat, “before it was demolished by
the Municipal Corporation,” “before it was demolished,” “before it was
demolished” (66)—it’s not so much a sociological indictment as a roll call of
the missing, neighborhoods razed,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>chootiyas<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></i>gone.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Bell MT"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br />
In the end, only Ashraf survives. Maybe. One scheme after another collapses for
Ashraf and we begin turning pages with the expectation of coming upon his dead
body. Instead, thankfully, Sethi loses sight of him. His vanishing is a
blessing; the entire book turns out to be a vignette without resolution.
Sethi’s American publisher has categorized the book as biography, but that
slights its great achievement as a book made to honor a free man. It is
anti-biography, a book that feels closer to life itself than to the
after-the-fact business<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>presswallahs<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></i>and critics like to call a
story. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Jeff Sharlethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15022718202781473768noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3379957145647043125.post-84940176316780373292013-12-24T09:54:00.000-03:002013-12-24T09:54:13.234-03:00Fundamental Assumptions"Generic differences are not simply formal differences. They are cultural constructs and reflect those most fundamental assumptions about the nature of reality, including the nature of the person and the nature of language."<div>
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--Vincent Crapanzano, <i>Tuhami: Portrait of a Moroccan</i> (Chicago, 1980). I wish I'd remembered this statement when I was trying to explain "creative nonfiction" in my tenure statement.</div>
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Jeff Sharlethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15022718202781473768noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3379957145647043125.post-32190469958656019932013-12-21T12:32:00.001-03:002013-12-21T12:32:12.639-03:00On Filing, 2013A note I wrote last night:<br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">Tonight I'm putting to bed a long reported essay on Russia's vicious state anti-gay crusade. This morning I woke to the news that four years after I reported on Uganda's so-called Kill-the-Gays Bill--inspired by Americans--it has finally passed. No death penalty; "just" life imprisonment, and a license for vigilantes. This week India, home to a far more vibrant LGBT community than Russia's, went a step further and recriminalized homosexuality. It's time to recognize that a global homophobic movement has emerged. Each country is distinct; but the rhetoric is strikingly similar. I've reported firsthand on this from Uganda, Russia, Kenya, and the U.S. I keep coming across the same crooked statistics, the same obsession with Soros money, the same conflation of homosexuality with pedophilia. It's not a conspiracy. I'll say it again: It's not a conspiracy. It's worse. It's a movement, a monstrous one.</span>Jeff Sharlethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15022718202781473768noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3379957145647043125.post-75994903884804265992013-10-04T02:58:00.000-03:002013-10-04T02:58:49.244-03:00Voice and Hammer, Virginia Quarterly Review, 2013I didn't think <i>Virginia Quarterly Review </i>would post my latest essay, "Voice and Hammer," online, but <a href="http://www.vqronline.org/articles/2013/fall/sharlet-belafonte/">they have</a>.<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Belafonte was first. First black man to win a Tony; one of the first to star in an all-black Hollywood hit (<i>Carmen Jones</i>, 1954); first to star in a noir (<i>Odds Against Tomorrow</i>, 1959—“best heist-gone-wrong movie ever made,” says James Ellroy); first to turn down starring roles (<i>To Sir, With Love</i> ; <i>Lilies of the Field</i> ; <i>Porgy and Bess</i> ; <i>Shaft</i>) because, he said, he’d play no part that put a black man on his knees or made of him a cartoon. We’re here in this screening room to watch a forgotten hour of television for which he won the first Emmy awarded to a black man for production, for being in charge. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
When I found the show in the archive, I thought it would be more of what I believed I already knew about Belafonte. The albums I’d bought were labeled “easy listening” or “folk,” as in harmonizing trios who wore matching sweaters. Then I watched. My eyes went wide. I started shaking my head in disbelief. I think I gasped. I was wearing the archive’s cheap headphones, sitting at a monitor in a dark room. Other researchers hunched over screens, all our faces flickering blue. I laughed. I slapped the desk. My eyes watered. Goddamn. I felt like I was watching a different past, one in which the revolution <i>had</i> been televised.<i>Goddamn.</i> As if that was what TV was for. A signal. <i>This</i>, I thought, <i>this</i>. </blockquote>
<a href="http://www.vqronline.org/articles/2013/fall/sharlet-belafonte/">Read more</a>. It's a great issue, the first under the new editorship of W. Ralph Eubanks working with my old pal Paul Reyes as well as Allison Wright, Jane Friedman, and Jon Peede. I haven't received my hard copy yet, but the essay I'm most excited about is "Love is Here and Now You're Gone," by one of my favorite living nonfiction writers, Garret Keizer. There's also work by some other favorites of mine -- Francine Prose, Jack Hitt, Lawrence Weschler, and Kevin Young, and fascinating literary journalism by Emma Rathbone, on the man who prosecuted Mandela, and Elliott Woods, reporting from Nebraska on the fight against the Keystone Pipeline. So, really, you should probably <a href="http://www.vqronline.org/issues/2013/fall">just buy it</a>. If you're too cheap to <a href="http://store.vqronline.org/products/subscription">subscribe</a>, that is.<br />
Jeff Sharlethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15022718202781473768noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3379957145647043125.post-36754156128839956222013-09-23T16:17:00.002-03:002013-09-24T14:46:17.089-03:00In (Very Mild) Defense of Walter White / New Work / Werner Herzog / Charlie Rose [UPDATED]I've just published some new essays.<br />
<br />
The one I'm proudest of, "Voice and Hammer," a long profile of Harry Belafonte in old age for <i>Virginia Quarterly Review</i>, probably won't be online. So you should <a href="http://store.vqronline.org/products/subscription">subscribe</a>. It's not just the best literary journal in the U.S., it's one of the best periodicals of any kind. It was great under Ted Genoways, and it's great now under my old pal Paul Reyes and Ralph Eubanks, Jon Peede, Jane Friedman, and Allison Wright.<br />
<br />
There's another work of literary journalism, <a href="http://killingthebuddha.com/mag/dogma/ditto-boys/">"Ditto Boys,"</a> published by my friends at <i>Killing the Buddha</i> as well as <i>Salon</i>. It's a return -- my last, I think -- to the fundamentalism of <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Family-Secret-Fundamentalism-American/dp/0060560053">The Family</a></i>.<br />
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And then there are three review-essays that together stand as my current thinking about literary journalism and documentary art in general. The longest is <a href="http://harpers.org/archive/2013/10/the-blazing-facts/">"The Blazing Facts,"</a> a review of two new documentary films about being queer in Uganda, for <i>Harper's Magazine</i>. For <i><a href="http://bookforum.com/inprint/020_03/12188">Bookforum</a></i> I wrote about the anti-narrative narrative of Sheri Fink's excellent new <i>Five Days at Memorial. </i>And for <i>Literary Journalism Studies</i> I wrote about Aman Sethi's brilliant digressions in <i>A Free Man</i>.<br />
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Last, a recap, by twitter. I'm increasingly persuaded that recaps are the most interesting critical art of the moment. I've never done one. This isn't really one, but there are spoilers, so if you haven't watched the penultimate episode of <i>Breaking Bad</i>...<br />
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<span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;">All this talk about the inhuman monstrosity of Walter White is itself monstrous.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Watching the latest episode, I thought of Werner Herzog's death row documentaries. His refusal to blink at the humanity of the monsters.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The desire to declare Walt inhuman is the desire to set the limits of humanity as those of decency.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;">It's akin to Gretchen Schwartz' smug insistence that Walter White is dead, replaced by Heisenberg. It's white hat/black hat BS.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;">"But Heisenberg DOES wear a black hat!" you say. Black hat on a man called White = grey = grey matter. Walt = Elliot = greed.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;">And greed isn't the opposite of desire. Only its close cousin.</span><br />
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<a class="account-group js-account-group js-action-profile js-user-profile-link js-nav" data-user-id="372175334" href="https://twitter.com/cindynorth1" style="color: #999999; text-decoration: none;"><strong class="fullname js-action-profile-name show-popup-with-id" style="color: #009999; text-decoration: underline;">Cindy North PhD</strong> <span class="username js-action-profile-name" style="direction: ltr; font-size: 12px; unicode-bidi: embed;"><s style="color: #bbbbbb; text-decoration: none;">@</s><b>cindynorth1</b></span></a><small class="time" style="color: #bbbbbb; float: right; font-size: 12px; margin-top: 1px; position: relative;"><a class="tweet-timestamp js-permalink js-nav" href="https://twitter.com/cindynorth1/status/382215537398255616" style="color: #999999; text-decoration: none;" title="2:51 PM - 23 Sep 13">23m</a></small></div>
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<a class="twitter-atreply pretty-link" dir="ltr" href="https://twitter.com/JeffSharlet" style="color: #009999; text-decoration: none;"><s style="color: #66c1c1; text-decoration: none;">@</s><b>JeffSharlet</b></a> Where would avarice fit in there?</div>
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<span class="username js-action-profile-name" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><span style="color: #009999;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><u>@</u></span></span><a class="account-group js-account-group js-action-profile js-user-profile-link js-nav" data-user-id="15268600" href="https://twitter.com/JeffSharlet" style="color: #999999; font-size: 12px; text-decoration: none;">JeffSharlet</a></b></span><small class="time" style="color: #bbbbbb; float: right; font-size: 12px; margin-top: 1px; position: relative;"><a class="tweet-timestamp js-permalink js-nav" href="https://twitter.com/JeffSharlet/status/382216583679975424" style="color: #999999; text-decoration: none;" title="2:55 PM - 23 Sep 13">19m</a></small></div>
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<a class="twitter-atreply pretty-link" dir="ltr" href="https://twitter.com/cindynorth1" style="color: #009999; text-decoration: none;"><s style="color: #66c1c1; text-decoration: none;">@</s><b>cindynorth1</b></a> Avarice is only a degree of greed. Greed, avarice, desire, love -- it's a spectrum & it includes Walter White.</div>
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<span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;">So ask yourself: Do I desire? Anything -- are you a Buddha or are you human? If it's the latter, Walter White isn't so alien, after all.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Werner Herzog, in his death row films, speaks for the vastness of humanity. The spectrum includes monsters. Monsters are human things.</span><br />
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<a class="account-group js-account-group js-action-profile js-user-profile-link js-nav" data-user-id="14122787" href="https://twitter.com/kaeti" style="color: #999999; text-decoration: none;"><strong class="fullname js-action-profile-name show-popup-with-id" style="color: #333333;">Kaeti</strong> <span class="username js-action-profile-name" style="direction: ltr; font-size: 12px; unicode-bidi: embed;"><s style="color: #bbbbbb; text-decoration: none;">@</s><b>kaeti</b></span></a><small class="time" style="color: #bbbbbb; float: right; font-size: 12px; margin-right: 5px; margin-top: 1px; position: relative;"><a class="twitter-atreply pretty-link" dir="ltr" href="https://twitter.com/JeffSharlet" style="background-color: white; color: #009999; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; white-space: pre-wrap;"><s style="color: #66c1c1; text-decoration: none;">@</s><b>JeffSharlet</b></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> I've always appreciated that about Herzog. Humanity isn't let off the hook; it must reckon with its extremes.</span></small><small class="time" style="color: #bbbbbb; float: right; font-size: 12px; margin-right: 5px; margin-top: 1px; position: relative;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></small><small class="time" style="color: #bbbbbb; float: right; font-size: 12px; margin-right: 5px; margin-top: 1px; position: relative;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></small><small class="time" style="color: #bbbbbb; float: right; font-size: 12px; margin-right: 5px; margin-top: 1px; position: relative;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></small><small class="time" style="color: #bbbbbb; float: right; font-size: 12px; margin-right: 5px; margin-top: 1px; position: relative;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></small><small class="time" style="color: #bbbbbb; float: right; font-size: 12px; margin-right: 5px; margin-top: 1px; position: relative;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></small></div>
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<span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;">I feel more pity & empathy, for Walt the more monstrous he becomes. Not the sad sack on the phone; the monster watching Charlie Rose.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Of course, watching Charlie Rose can easily drive anybody to terrible thoughts.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Have people already been speculating that the surprise ending is that Walt kills Charlie Rose?</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;">***</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;">UPDATE:</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;">I posted a link to this on Facebook and was rewarded with a great conversation with a <i>Breaking Bad</i> expert, Lindsay Beyerstein, a terrific investigative journalist who is also the <a href="http://inthesetimes.com/community/profile/4940/"><i>Breaking Bad</i> recapper</a> for <i>In These Times</i>. We were joined by arts writer Jakki Spicer and documentarian Nora Connor.</span><br />
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<a aria-haspopup="true" aria-owns="js_95" class="UFICommentActorName" data-ft="{"tn":";"}" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/hovercard.php?id=509803249&extragetparams=%7B%22hc_location%22%3A%22ufi%22%7D" data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30523953}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][0]" href="https://www.facebook.com/beyerstein" id="js_96" style="background-color: #fafbfb; color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">Lindsay Beyerstein</a><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30523953}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][2]" style="background-color: #fafbfb; color: #4e5665; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;"> </span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30523953}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3]" style="background-color: #fafbfb; color: #4e5665; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30523953}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30523953}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[0]">Jeff, are you arguing that Vince Gilligan is portraying Walt as a deeply flawed human being and viewers are misinterpreting him as a complete monster?</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #4e5665; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<a class="UFICommentActorName" data-ft="{"tn":";"}" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/hovercard.php?id=653301962&extragetparams=%7B%22hc_location%22%3A%22ufi%22%7D" data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524062}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][0]" href="https://www.facebook.com/jeff.sharlet" style="background-color: #fafbfb; color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 14px; text-decoration: none;">Jeff Sharlet</a><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524062}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][2]" style="background-color: #fafbfb; color: #4e5665; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;"> </span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524062}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3]" style="background-color: #fafbfb; color: #4e5665; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524062}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524062}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[0]">Umm -- is that the subject of your commentaries? I know you write a lot about Breaking Bad. But no, not exactly: I don't know nothing about Vince Gilligan, and I'd say yes, he's a complete monster, as humans can be, and that although the question of whether I can relate to a character is not important to me, I do relate to Walt. I'd go further and say that all the analyses of Walter White based on race and class privilege, while persuasive, ignore that he's not demanding white man's privilege but that he's driven by an outsized desire for basic human dignity, to pursue his talents and to be fairly rewarded for it. Since that's not gonna happen, he desecrates his talents and is wildly rewarded and punished for it. Am I just repeating what folks are saying? I haven't read a lot of recaps. Couple of yours, though, which were great.</span></span></span></div>
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<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524062}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3]" style="background-color: #fafbfb; color: #4e5665; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524062}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524062}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[0]"><br /></span></span></span></div>
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<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524062}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3]" style="background-color: #fafbfb; color: #4e5665; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524062}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524062}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[0]"><a class="UFICommentActorName" data-ft="{"tn":";"}" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/hovercard.php?id=509803249&extragetparams=%7B%22hc_location%22%3A%22ufi%22%7D" data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524215}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][0]" href="https://www.facebook.com/beyerstein" style="color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Lindsay Beyerstein</a><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524215}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][2]"> </span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524215}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524215}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524215}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[0]">I haven't written anything in that vein so far, but it's a view that I'm sympathetic to. The writers have done a lot to keep Walt human, even in his late Heisenberg period. The scene where he carefully strings his wedding ring around his neck because he's too emaciated to keep it on his finger was really touching. In his phone call to Walt, Jr., it's obvious that he really loves his son and wants to help him. And Walt's on the point of giving himself up to go home and really take the fall for Skyler, like Saul urged him to do before he got whisked off to Nebraska. As for what people are saying, yes, a lot of recappers and fans are saying that Walt is a pure monster at this point. The fans who still love Walt are saying something quite different from what you're saying, Jeff. By and large, they're convinced he's an unassailable badass who can basically do no wrong. No critics are saying anything like this, AFAIK, just vocal fans. To me Walt's a very unsympathetic character to me, but unlike some viewers, I think he has at least a few decent instincts left. Though, Walt may have squandered his last chance at atonement with his impulsive decision to go after Gray Matter rather than going home to save Skyler.</span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524062}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3]" style="background-color: #fafbfb; color: #4e5665; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524062}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524062}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[0]"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524215}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524215}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524215}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[0]"><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524062}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3]" style="background-color: #fafbfb; color: #4e5665; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524062}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524062}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[0]"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524215}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524215}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524215}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[0]"><a class="UFICommentActorName" data-ft="{"tn":";"}" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/hovercard.php?id=653301962&extragetparams=%7B%22hc_location%22%3A%22ufi%22%7D" data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524623}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][0]" href="https://www.facebook.com/jeff.sharlet" style="color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Jeff Sharlet</a><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524623}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][2]"> </span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524623}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524623}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524623}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[0]">To me the most moving scene was of Walt's monster call to Skyler, the tears on his face in contrast to the monstrosity of his words, clearly intended -- I think -- to save Skyler. Of course they were tears of self-pity, but I find that less revolting than these high minded critics and Breaking Bad fans who think themselves above self-pity. And more revolting yet are Walt fanboys. I find even Walt fan gear -- Heisenberg bumper stickers, t-shirts, mugs -- really genuinely repugnant. In Breaking Bad Gilligan and Cranston have made a portrait of a monster, yes, but consider it akin to a war criminal's love for his family. I'd no more wear a Heisenberg t-shirt than I would a Pinochet one, but I do want to understand the monstrosity of Pinochet. What I'm LEAST interested in is Walt's atonement: this ain't no Christian show. it's not about that. But that said, his decision to go after Gray Matter -- if that's really where he's headed -- was a moment of deep humanity. When he sees those smug, rich bastards on TV writing pathetic Walter White out, he vows revenge. Revenge, of course, is on a spectrum with dignity. They're not the same thing, but they're related.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524062}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3]" style="background-color: #fafbfb; color: #4e5665; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524062}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524062}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[0]"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524215}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524215}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524215}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[0]"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524623}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524623}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524623}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[0]"><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524062}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3]" style="background-color: #fafbfb; color: #4e5665; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524062}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524062}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[0]"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524215}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524215}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524215}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[0]"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524623}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524623}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524623}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[0]"><a aria-haspopup="true" aria-owns="js_95" class="UFICommentActorName" data-ft="{"tn":";"}" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/hovercard.php?id=509803249&extragetparams=%7B%22hc_location%22%3A%22ufi%22%7D" data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30525019}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][0]" href="https://www.facebook.com/beyerstein" id="js_98" style="color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; font-weight: bold;">Lindsay Beyerstein</a><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30525019}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][2]"> </span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30525019}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30525019}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30525019}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[0]">Revenge is sometimes consistent with asserting dignity. But being obsessed with petty slights is not dignified, especially not when someone's choosing to settle scores rather than attend to his real responsibilities. As Saul wisely suggested, Walt could go home, save Skyler, and maybe even see his kids a few more times before he dies. As far as we know, he's passing up his last, best shot to protect his children's future, all because Gretchen and Elliott distanced themselves from him, a meth lord fugitive, on television? Whether he's going to get revenge on them directly or pull off some huge caper just to "show them" he's a genius, it's not a good look. I can't look at Walt's struggle for dignity without considering his relative privilege. Most people could hold their heads high if they had a job as a school teacher, a loving wife, a home, and two great kids. Sure, Walt had to work a crummy part-time job under an abusive boss and he couldn't pay for his cancer treatments. Those are burdens, but unlike most people in the world with similar problems, Walt had a very comfortable "out" that he refused. Gretchen and Elliott were prepared to pay for his treatment and give him a better job that would allow him to be recognized for his scientific genius. It would have been a blow to Walt's ego to accept his friends' charity, but it wouldn't have been an affront to his basic human dignity. I can't imagine a mother in Walt's position turning down that offer. The early G&E scenes are written and acted to make it seem like G&E care about Walt and want to help him. They are very gracious towards him and he repays their overtures with contempt. The writers make it pretty clear that Walt's attitude goes beyond the normal human desire for respect into something downright unreasonable. Walt doesn't just want self-respect, he wants the adulation that he thinks he's entitled to in virtue of his genius. Walt feels incredibly slighted by whatever happened at Gray Matter all those years ago. Maybe we'll learn that he broke with G&E over a truly horrific betrayal. But all the foreshadowing we've seen so far suggests that it was a mundane love triangle in which Gretchen chose Elliot over Walt and Walt sold all his shares for a pittance because his pride was wounded.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524062}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3]" style="background-color: #fafbfb; color: #4e5665; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524062}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524062}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[0]"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524215}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524215}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524215}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[0]"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524623}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524623}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524623}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[0]"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30525019}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30525019}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30525019}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[0]"><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524062}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3]" style="background-color: #fafbfb; color: #4e5665; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524062}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524062}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[0]"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524215}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524215}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524215}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[0]"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524623}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524623}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524623}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[0]"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30525019}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30525019}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30525019}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[0]"><a class="UFICommentActorName" data-ft="{"tn":";"}" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/hovercard.php?id=509803249&extragetparams=%7B%22hc_location%22%3A%22ufi%22%7D" data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30526081}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][0]" href="https://www.facebook.com/beyerstein" style="color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Lindsay Beyerstein</a><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30526081}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][2]"> </span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30526081}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30526081}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30526081}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[0]">Now that I think about it, we still don't know exactly why Walt left Gray Matter. IIRC, Walt abandoned Gretchen on vacation and Gretchen only took up with Elliott after Walt left her.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524062}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3]" style="background-color: #fafbfb; color: #4e5665; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524062}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524062}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[0]"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524215}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524215}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524215}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[0]"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524623}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524623}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524623}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[0]"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30525019}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30525019}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30525019}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[0]"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30526081}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30526081}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30526081}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[0]"><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524062}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3]" style="background-color: #fafbfb; color: #4e5665; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524062}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524062}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[0]"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524215}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524215}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524215}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[0]"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524623}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524623}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524623}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[0]"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30525019}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30525019}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30525019}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[0]"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30526081}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30526081}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30526081}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[0]"><a aria-haspopup="true" aria-owns="js_99" class="UFICommentActorName" data-ft="{"tn":";"}" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/hovercard.php?id=657011184&extragetparams=%7B%22hc_location%22%3A%22ufi%22%7D" data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30526669}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][0]" href="https://www.facebook.com/jakki.kate" id="js_100" style="color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; font-weight: bold;">Jakki Spicer</a><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30526669}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][2]"> </span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30526669}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30526669}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30526669}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[0]">It seems to be this is precisely not a Christian show, as you mention, </span><a class="profileLink" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/hovercard.php?id=653301962&extragetparams=%7B%22hc_location%22%3A%22ufi%22%7D" data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30526669}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[1]" href="https://www.facebook.com/jeff.sharlet" style="color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Jeff</a><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30526669}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[2]">, but more ancient, in the Greek vein. What always puts Walter on the road to monstrosity is hubris, pride. His belief that he is on the side of the gods, free from the weaknesses of mortals. Thus he is the one that knocks--the one that rules fate, not the one who is ruled by fate or the will of others. And it is this belief, if we're going to view this through a moral lens, that inexorably takes him one step closer to ruin--of himself and everything he cares about. Will we achieve catharsis? Tune in next week to find out!</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524062}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3]" style="background-color: #fafbfb; color: #4e5665; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524062}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524062}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[0]"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524215}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524215}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524215}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[0]"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524623}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524623}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524623}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[0]"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30525019}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30525019}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30525019}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[0]"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30526081}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30526081}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30526081}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[0]"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30526669}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30526669}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30526669}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[2]"><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524062}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3]" style="background-color: #fafbfb; color: #4e5665; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524062}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524062}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[0]"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524215}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524215}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524215}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[0]"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524623}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524623}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524623}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[0]"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30525019}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30525019}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30525019}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[0]"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30526081}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30526081}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30526081}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[0]"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30526669}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30526669}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30526669}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[2]"><a aria-haspopup="true" aria-owns="js_101" class="UFICommentActorName" data-ft="{"tn":";"}" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/hovercard.php?id=545317525&extragetparams=%7B%22hc_location%22%3A%22ufi%22%7D" data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30527235}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][0]" href="https://www.facebook.com/nora.connor" id="js_102" style="color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; font-weight: bold;">Nora Connor</a><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30527235}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][2]"> </span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30527235}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3]"><span class="UFICommentBody" data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30527235}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30527235}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30527235}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[0].[0]">I was enraged on Walt's behalf watching the Charlie Rose bit with Gretchen and Elliott, but I think there have been plenty of signals that Walt screwed up that initial partnership (and his love affair/relationship with Gretchen) due to his own raging d</span></span><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30527235}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[3]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30527235}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30527235}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[3].[0].[0]">iscomfort, insecurity and class-based resentment--the same resentment that sets him off on whatever crazy train he's about to get on, after seeing them on TV. Whatever that rage is is pretty out of proportion, and I think is what has made Walt consistently screw himself (over decades, not just the time we're seeing on the screen). I think that's what the "white man's rage" reviewer is getting at, even though that diagnosis might be a little off the mark.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524062}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3]" style="background-color: #fafbfb; color: #4e5665; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524062}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524062}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[0]"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524215}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524215}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524215}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[0]"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524623}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524623}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30524623}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[0]"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30525019}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30525019}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30525019}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[0]"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30526081}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30526081}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30526081}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[0]"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30526669}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30526669}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30526669}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[2]"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30527235}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3]"><span class="UFICommentBody" data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30527235}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30527235}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[3]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30527235}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30527235}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[3].[0].[0]">J<a aria-haspopup="true" aria-owns="js_104" class="UFICommentActorName" data-ft="{"tn":";"}" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/hovercard.php?id=653301962&extragetparams=%7B%22hc_location%22%3A%22ufi%22%7D" data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30529130}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][0]" href="https://www.facebook.com/jeff.sharlet" id="js_105" style="color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; font-weight: bold;">eff Sharlet</a><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30529130}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][2]"> </span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30529130}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3]"><span class="UFICommentBody" data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30529130}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30529130}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30529130}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[0].[0]">I should say I didn't mean to suggest that Walt's vengeance is dignified. It's not, not at all. It's grotesque. Rather, I meant to say that I see his desire for vengeance coming from the same root place as the desire for dignity. We see this literally </span></span><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30529130}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[3]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30529130}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30529130}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[3].[0].[0]">tragic figure (as Jakki writes above) grasping for dignity and finding himself only capable of clinging to vengeance. It's "not a good look," as Lindsay writes, but part of the power of the show resides in what a true look it is. Walt's debased pursuit of dignity is anything but reasonable. It is, of course, monstrous; but THAT is his humanity. There is no atonement for Walt -- like Ahab, he spits on it -- but there is a deeply unchristian redemption: our recognition. In the old Greek sense and in the contemporary world of capitalism we grasp for dignity and as often as not come up wanting. Yes, the reasonable thing to do is to accept our lot, to be grateful to be teachers (as Walt is, at the beginning), to be glad that a beneficent billionaire might be willing to lend a helping hand when what is due, and not just to white men but in a better world as a human right -- decent health insurance, the ability to support one's children by doing the noble work like teaching -- is wanting. That's the reasonable thing to do, but Walt, like Ahab, refuses. Fool! And hence our recognition. His monstrosity is profoundly human in that, as Jakki, suggests, he rejects fate's control; he rejects the gods. Walt IS humanism, and humanism, as my fundamentalist friends are fond of pointing out, is in the vast history of the world a monstrosity, an abomination: people rejecting the long the history of cowering before gods or God. Hubris! Well, the fundamentalists are half right. Humanism does breed monsters like Walt. But I think he is a monster not because he goes beyond "normal human desire" but because he so absolutely, completely, embodies it. Not its loveliest manifestations, to be sure; but ugliness is as true as beauty. That's our Heisenberg! Our Walter White, ourselves. Breaking Bad gets better and better because it is narrowing down to an exploration of this singular, awful, human possibility.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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cursor: pointer; font-weight: bold;">Nora Connor</a><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30529488}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][2]"> </span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30529488}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3]"><span class="UFICommentBody" data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30529488}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30529488}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30529488}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[0].[0]">Well then it's a question of what is the 'root place' of a passionate attachment to either vengeance or dignity--is this 'humanism' or (capitalist) 'individualism' (I'm not so sure with Walt, where all this comes from). And more specifically, it's a qu</span></span><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30529488}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[3]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30529488}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30529488}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[3].[0].[0]">estion of what either the human imagination or the primal urge (root place) is aiming at and can imagine as fulfillment. What if you take both modern (Judeo-Christian) AND older (Greek?) Gods out of the equation? What's the metric for 'normal human desire' then? Now we're getting into Freud, another type of God, though more diffuse. </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30529665}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[0]" style="background-color: #fafbfb; color: #4e5665; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30529665}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[0].[0]">also--walt isn't your typical high school teacher and thus the reasonableness of our culture's demand to 'accept and be grateful for your lot' doesn't apply to him as a character at all, right from the start. walt is in the 1%, intellectually, and coul</span></span><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30529665}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[3]" style="background-color: #fafbfb; color: #4e5665; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30529665}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[12mhg].[1][4][1]{comment10151896069156963_30529665}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[3].[0].[0]">d or should have been in the 1% financially and socially. he should have been not a teacher, but the person whose theories and achievements are taught by elite teachers to elite students. He let all that slip, at least that's how the show lets us feel walt views it. he's not an everyman--he's an exceptional man (or at least exceptional chemist/intellect) who hasn't gotten what he might have been able to have. i think that's an important distinction.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>Jeff Sharlethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15022718202781473768noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3379957145647043125.post-45170347900493883552013-08-06T09:08:00.001-04:002013-08-06T09:20:05.492-04:00Tweets Against The "Tipping Point"<br />
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<small class="time" style="color: #bbbbbb; float: right; font-size: 12px; margin-top: 1px; position: relative;"><a class="tweet-timestamp js-permalink js-nav" href="https://twitter.com/JeffSharlet/status/364726260762554368" style="color: #999999; text-decoration: none;" title="8:34 AM - 6 Aug 13">27m</a></small></div>
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Just on a radio show w/ some smart liberal (not left) activists. They kept talking about the "tipping point" toward Dem victories. <a class="twitter-hashtag pretty-link js-nav" data-query-source="hashtag_click" dir="ltr" href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23tipsy&src=hash" style="color: #009999; text-decoration: none;"><s style="color: #66c1c1; text-decoration: none;">#</s><b style="color: #009999; text-decoration: none;">tipsy</b></a></div>
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Thing is, "tipping points" aren't actuall *things.* It's a marketing slogan for Malcolm Gladwell. History doesn't work like that. </div>
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The "tipping point" is age-of-globalization speak for the Cold War concept of a paradigm shift. That turned out to be faulty, too.</div>
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The mythical "tipping point" is a rhetorical escalation from the Cold War "paradigm shift": It's a subtly apocalyptic narrative</div>
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To screeching of GOP--world as we (read: white people) know it is ending--dem "tipping point" narrative says, "Yr world is ending!" </div>
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For Dems to claim "tipping point" based on demographic changes is to conflate ideology & issues. RW issues will change; ideology, no.</div>
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So conservatives & liberals both claim a coming "tipping point." Meanwhile, the center slouches rightward, whoever's in office. </div>
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<a class="account-group js-account-group js-action-profile js-user-profile-link js-nav" data-user-id="11731592" href="https://twitter.com/JayAckroyd" style="color: #999999; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="" class="avatar js-action-profile-avatar" src="https://si0.twimg.com/profile_images/901819454/VSSSmalllogo_normal.jpg" style="border-bottom-left-radius: 5px; border-bottom-right-radius: 5px; border-top-left-radius: 5px; border-top-right-radius: 5px; border: 0px; float: left; height: 48px; margin-left: -58px; margin-top: 3px; width: 48px;" /><strong class="fullname js-action-profile-name show-popup-with-id" style="color: #009999; text-decoration: underline;">JayAckroyd</strong> <span class="username js-action-profile-name" style="direction: ltr; font-size: 12px; unicode-bidi: embed;"><s style="color: #bbbbbb; text-decoration: none;">@</s><b>JayAckroyd</b></span></a><small class="time" style="color: #bbbbbb; float: right; font-size: 12px; margin-top: 1px; position: relative;"><a class="tweet-timestamp js-permalink js-nav" href="https://twitter.com/JayAckroyd/status/364728870575931397" style="color: #999999; text-decoration: none;" title="8:45 AM - 6 Aug 13">19m</a></small></div>
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<a class="twitter-atreply pretty-link" dir="ltr" href="https://twitter.com/JeffSharlet" style="color: #009999; text-decoration: none;"><s style="color: #66c1c1; text-decoration: none;">@</s><b>JeffSharlet</b></a> By "center" you mean the DC ruling elite, right? Not some collection of policy views widely held by the electorate, right?</div>
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<a class="account-group js-account-group js-action-profile js-user-profile-link js-nav" data-user-id="15268600" href="https://twitter.com/JeffSharlet" style="color: #999999; text-decoration: none;"><strong class="fullname js-action-profile-name show-popup-with-id" style="color: #009999; text-decoration: underline;">JeffSharlet</strong> <span class="username js-action-profile-name" style="direction: ltr; font-size: 12px; unicode-bidi: embed;"><s style="color: #bbbbbb; text-decoration: none;">@</s><b>JeffSharlet</b></span></a><small class="time" style="color: #bbbbbb; float: right; font-size: 12px; margin-top: 1px; position: relative;"><a class="tweet-timestamp js-permalink js-nav" href="https://twitter.com/JeffSharlet/status/364729236180836352" style="color: #999999; text-decoration: none;" title="8:46 AM - 6 Aug 13">18m</a></small></div>
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.<a class="twitter-atreply pretty-link" dir="ltr" href="https://twitter.com/JayAckroyd" style="color: #009999; text-decoration: none;"><s style="color: #66c1c1; text-decoration: none;">@</s><b>JayAckroyd</b></a> Yes. I should have put "center" in scare quotes. Another mythical beast.</div>
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The the problem w/ "tipping point" narratives, left or right: They all perpetuate a reactionary idea of history. <a class="twitter-hashtag pretty-link js-nav" data-query-source="hashtag_click" dir="ltr" href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23tipsy&src=hash" style="color: #009999; text-decoration: none;"><s style="color: #66c1c1; text-decoration: none;">#</s><b style="color: #009999; text-decoration: none;">tipsy</b></a></div>
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Establishments *like* "tipping point" narratives. They're sort of like singing "The Sun'll Come Out Tomorrow!" Well, yes, and...?</div>
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Establishments also like "tipping point" narratives because they *seem* populist even as they depend on a theater of the elites.</div>
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I don't blame people for believing in "tipping points." The idea seems to make so much sense! Sort of like the "good ol' days."</div>
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All kinds of activists want to believe in "tipping points"; idea is like megaphone booming at people living in ordinary flow of time.</div>
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Idea of a "tipping point" erases radical dissent. Replaces the work of an ideological break w/ illusory tide of demographic change.</div>
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The "tipping point" narrative isn't just neoliberal: It's a kind of social darwinism, an idea of politics as ultimately "natural."</div>
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Off twitter: That seems like a heavy charge, but the problem with viruses such as Gladwell's "tipping point" narrative is that you can carry them without knowing it. Liberal "tipping point" apostles aren't deliberately preaching social Darwinism, and they're legitimately excited about demographic shifts in the U.S. population that will, we hope, bring an end to the still ingrained culture of subtly supremacist whiteness. But that doesn't mean reactionary politics will disappear. Backwards-looking conservatism and capitalist neoliberalism will take new forms -- and appeal to new demographics.<br />
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Not because they're a natural part of some generalized "political mind," but because they're there, and ideas don't change themselves. They need changing. That's long, slow work, the kind of work Christian conservatives began undertaking in the 1930s to achieve their victories of today.<br />
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Some liberals will say, "What? The Christian Right is dead!" Tell that to women in the rapidly increasing number of states that are legislating Roe v. Wade out of existence. The anti-abortion movement is finally winning, not through a big sweeping law but by telling its stories, over and over, for decades. There was no "tipping point"; rather, a political, cultural, moral narrative piled up on top of the truth bit by bit until it grew as big as a mountain.</div>
<br />Jeff Sharlethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15022718202781473768noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3379957145647043125.post-60629805637892837822013-06-19T00:21:00.002-04:002013-06-19T00:22:13.318-04:00Michael Hastings, An Honest Reporter, 1980-2013<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Tonight comes the terrible, terrible news of the death of Michael Hastings, 33, one of those incredibly rare investigative journalists gifted with anger, honesty, and the courage to genuinely challenge -- and in one great instance, topple -- power. Hastings put himself in both physical danger and at risk of the subtler kind of career-crushing that destroyed Gary Webb, but it was, apparently, a simple car crash that killed him. </div>
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I corresponded with him once or twice, but I didn't know him. I'm not writing as a friend but as a colleague -- we both wrote for <i>Rolling Stone</i> -- who looked at his brilliant<a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-runaway-general-20100622"> expose of Gen. Stanley McChrystal</a> with an admiration so great it subsumed envy. I've been in some similar places. I know how hard it is to resist the mindfuck of power, to write down not what power says officially but its actual burps, its trivial hisses, the tiny little snarls that reveal it for what it is. </div>
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And I'm writing as just an ordinary citizen -- there's not much hope in the news, but what Hastings did was inspiring. What he did was actually pretty ordinary, too -- he reported what the general said. What he actually said. And that was enough to damn the general. It didn't end the war, it was barely a bump in the path of empire, but Jesus, even that -- it was beautiful. As was the outcry of a thousand hacks crying foul because Hastings did what they couldn't do: he reported the facts. Hastings drew them out into <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/lara-logan-you-suck-20100628">the open</a>. So, really, it was a double expose -- of the general and the press corps that made him.</div>
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That was Hastings' biggest scoop, but there was much, much more to his career. Tim Dickinson at <i>Rolling Stone</i> offers a good summary, including links to many important stories -- McChrystal, Hastings' drone expose, and this stunning profile of <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/americas-last-prisoner-of-war-20120607">"America's Last Prisoner of War"</a> -- and <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/michael-hastings-rolling-stone-contributor-dead-at-33-20130618">a send off to a brave reporter</a>. There were "stories burning inside him," says his editor there, Will Dana. That's something. </div>
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As it happens, I had this issue of <i>Vermont Life</i>, with Hastings as cover boy -- that must have made the parents who raise him in Burlington immensely proud -- on my nightstand to read. I'd been surprised to see such a tough cover on the magazine. It immediately made me think that I wanted to invite Hastings to come speak at Dartmouth, where I teach, just across the river. Get him some Ivy League cash, blow some student minds -- and I'd get to talk to him, too. I missed my chance. </div>
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What a sorry day for all of us.</div>
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<br />Jeff Sharlethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15022718202781473768noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3379957145647043125.post-80896664759193282382013-05-15T11:09:00.003-04:002013-05-15T11:09:54.288-04:00Help Me Teach James Agee's Let Us Now Praise Famous MenI'm teaching James Agee's and Walker Evans' <i>Let Us Now Praise Famous Men</i> to my undergraduate students in my "intermediate" literary journalism class at Dartmouth College tomorrow. My problem: Too many of them loathe this masterpiece. Or, rather, they think they do. That's where I want your help.<br />
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A colleague of mine teaches <i>Let Us Now Praise Famous Men</i> in a course on American prose. Students encountering the book as an object of critical inquiry are exhilarated by it. But I've discovered that students here at Dartmouth, at least, encountering the book in a creative writing course, are quick to dismiss it. Every critique they level at it -- overwrought, grandiose, "unreadable," self-absorbed -- is dead on, of course. But there's more, too, so much more.<br />
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This is my second time teaching the book. The first time their contempt for it caught me by surprise. This time, I'm planning all kinds of strategies to help them open their minds to it.<br />
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This one is crass: I'd like to hear from other writers what <i>Let Us Now Praise Famous Men</i> means or meant to them. I want to highlight for my students the discrepancy between their certainty that this book is "bad" or somehow simply "wrong" and its ripple effect among writers.<br />
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So if the book matters to you, or mattered to you, will you comment below or send me a note about how or why at jeff dot sharlet at gmail dot com?Jeff Sharlethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15022718202781473768noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3379957145647043125.post-9768086486132453402013-05-13T12:59:00.004-04:002013-05-17T12:00:16.592-04:00Fetishizing Dialogue<br />
I'm interested in the way the rough shape of an essay can emerge from a set of tweets. Here's one from this morning prompted by a Harvard Crimson <a href="http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2013/5/3/divided-dartmouth/">editorial</a> criticizing anti-rape and anti-hate protests at Dartmouth College, where I teach.<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Palatino, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 24px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Harvard Crimson scolds Dartmouth protesters for failing to pursue "dialogue." Student self-repression.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Palatino, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 24px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The assumption that "dialogue" solves all problems is profoundly paternalistic -- & naive.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Palatino, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 24px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The fetish for "dialogue" above all -- including legit anger & actual inquiry -- is a politics of presumption.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Palatino, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 24px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Fetish for "dialogue" assumes those you disagree w/ lack only your insight; assumes they want to "compromise." As if they have no agency.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Palatino, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 24px; white-space: pre-wrap;">I hear this from students all time; they forgive bigotries on assumption bigots lack approp "culture." Cant believe hate can be chosen.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, Palatino, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 24px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>David Creech, a religious studies scholar at Loyola University Chicago, wrote: </i></span></span><span style="background-color: #f6f6f6; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;">What alternative to dialog do you propose?</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Palatino, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 24px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Demand for alternative to "dialogue" assumes solutions always at hand. Sometimes whats needed is diagnosis, nt prescription.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Palatino, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 24px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Student fetish for "dialogue" a form of technocratic optimism based on free market myth of "exchange" as end in itself.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Palatino, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 24px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Creech wrote: </i></span><span style="background-color: #f6f6f6; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Dialog for me implies also listening, the possibility that I might be changed by your insight and experience.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Palatino, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 24px; white-space: pre-wrap;">That's great when it's an option. But it assumes a desire for common ground. Which is a form of paternalism.</span><br />
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<i style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Palatino, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 24px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Creech: </i><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Desire for common ground as paternalism... Intriguing suggestion... I will have to chew on that for a bit.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Palatino, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 24px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The desire for common ground isn't paternalim; the assumption that others share it is.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Palatino, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 24px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Take the example of Uganda's "kill-the-gays" activists. Some assumed they needed dialogue. They thought that funny. 1/2</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Palatino, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 24px; white-space: pre-wrap;">2/2 because they knew the arguments against homophobic genocide. Knew them & rejected them. Not looking for my "insight."</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Palatino, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 24px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Defenders of "dialogue" as end in itself see only other option as brutality. They fail to imagine possibility of open-ended problem.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Palatino, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 24px; white-space: pre-wrap;">A perfect example of chosen bigotry: Heritage Foundation's Harvard-powered, race-based, anti-immigration <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/05/08/heritage-study-co-author-opposed-letting-in-immigrants-with-low-iqs/">"study."</a></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Palatino, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 24px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Well-intentioned liberals always ask how we can "educate" haters. Elite haters don't need "education"; they need to be challenged.</span>Jeff Sharlethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15022718202781473768noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3379957145647043125.post-72147329935743678332013-04-14T14:16:00.001-03:002013-04-14T14:24:03.465-03:00Sally Tweets; or, Beating the Essay<i>Essay: A loose sally of the mind.</i><br />
<i>--From Samuel Johnson's Dictionary, as quoted too often.</i><br />
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<span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;">From a real review of a real book: "Traces the story of a relationship--or does it? For X, ambiguity is the point." Dude.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;">& what I mean by "dude" is that talk of "the essay" has devolved into stonerisms.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;">I'm wary of abstract nouns preceded by articles. "The Essay." "The People." There are people & there are essays. That shld be enough.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Maybe my problem is that I don't need to "essai" to recognize that what I write - "The Journalism" - can never be anything but an attempt.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;">But what if we did put an article b4 journalism? The Journalism? Wld that make Walt Whitman, Zora Neale Hurston, & others ok again?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Robin Hemley, in a recent essay, mocks the essayistic tendency of arranging "facts" gleaned from a google, w/ the pretense of library time.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The pretense of library time shld clue us in to the idea that too much of the current "essay" is style. Sort of bibliographic steampunk.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Like most longform journalists I know, I spend *a lot* of time in the library. If that search is part of the story, great. if not, fine.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;">But I trip myself up w/ use of "story." Some essayists insist that's conservative. Only if you have a conservative idea of what a story is.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The fetishization of form, *at the deliberate expense of story,* is a greater conservatism. It's the old "Art," plaything of aristocrats.</span><br />
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<a class="account-group js-account-group js-action-profile js-user-profile-link js-nav" data-user-id="93361828" href="https://twitter.com/xlorentzen" style="background-color: #f6f6f6; color: #999999; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; text-decoration: none;"><strong class="fullname js-action-profile-name show-popup-with-id" style="color: #009999; text-decoration: underline;">Christian Lorentzen</strong> <span class="username js-action-profile-name" style="direction: ltr; font-size: 12px; unicode-bidi: embed;"><s style="color: #bbbbbb; text-decoration: none;">@</s><b>xlorentzen</b></span></a><br />
<a class="twitter-atreply pretty-link" dir="ltr" href="https://twitter.com/JeffSharlet" style="background-color: #f6f6f6; color: #009999; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; text-decoration: none; white-space: pre-wrap;"><s style="color: #66c1c1; text-decoration: none;">@</s><b style="text-decoration: underline;">JeffSharlet</b></a><span style="background-color: #f6f6f6; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Sounds like you're beating a straw man there, bro. Who actually does that?</span><br />
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<a class="twitter-atreply pretty-link" dir="ltr" href="https://twitter.com/xlorentzen" style="background-color: white; color: #009999; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; text-decoration: none; white-space: pre-wrap;"><s style="color: #66c1c1; text-decoration: none;">@</s><b>xlorentzen</b></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> You wouldn't understand, you dirty journalist. (But no, not a straw man at all. As an Essai-iste, I refuse to name names.)</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Do we need essays to tell us "ambiguity is the point"? We already knew we can never really know. The "point" is to try, anyway. To essay.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;">To "essay" -- to try -- means to experiment. & yet increasingly the academic creative essay is inadvertent parody. Replication.</span><br />
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<a class="account-group js-account-group js-action-profile js-user-profile-link js-nav" data-user-id="1013971375" href="https://twitter.com/LucasWMann" style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #999999; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; text-decoration: none;"><strong class="fullname js-action-profile-name show-popup-with-id" style="color: #009999; text-decoration: underline;">Lucas Mann</strong> <span class="username js-action-profile-name" style="direction: ltr; font-size: 12px; unicode-bidi: embed;"><s style="color: #bbbbbb; text-decoration: none;">@</s><b>LucasWMann</b></span></a><br />
<a class="twitter-atreply pretty-link" dir="ltr" href="https://twitter.com/JeffSharlet" style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #009999; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; text-decoration: none; white-space: pre-wrap;"><s style="color: #66c1c1; text-decoration: none;">@</s><b style="text-decoration: underline;">JeffSharlet</b></a><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> I think you just need to take your mind out for a good, loose sally.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sally Tweets; or, Beating The Essay. </span><a class="twitter-timeline-link" data-expanded-url="http://jeffsharlet.blogspot.com/2013/04/sally-tweets-or-beating-essay.html" dir="ltr" href="http://t.co/l1LHdnOQer" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #009999; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; text-decoration: none; white-space: pre-wrap;" target="_blank" title="http://jeffsharlet.blogspot.com/2013/04/sally-tweets-or-beating-essay.html"><span class="invisible" style="font-size: 0px; line-height: 0;">http://</span><span class="js-display-url">jeffsharlet.blogspot.com/2013/04/sally-</span><span class="invisible" style="font-size: 0px; line-height: 0;">tweets-or-beating-essay.html</span><span class="tco-ellipsis"><span class="invisible" style="font-size: 0px; line-height: 0;"> </span>…</span></a><br />
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Jeff Sharlethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15022718202781473768noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3379957145647043125.post-72916656888491133232013-03-31T21:03:00.003-03:002013-03-31T21:03:51.539-03:00I teach, students decideThis anonymous student evaluation, essentially comparing me to a hallucinogen, is probably the best review I'll ever receive:<br />
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<span style="background-color: #f2f5f9; color: #3c3c3c; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: left;">You will find yourself at the end of the term, lying in bed, delirious from eight hours of sleep out of the last seventy-two, floating in a moment of clarity. A moment when everything he ranted on about -- bodies, liberation, time, entertainment, wit -- puzzles together. </span><br />
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Jeff Sharlethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15022718202781473768noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3379957145647043125.post-62540104967344367762013-03-17T22:24:00.000-03:002013-03-17T23:02:04.394-03:00Literary Journalism on Women at Work: A Too-Short ListToday I'm looking for literary journalism, or creative nonfiction, or lyric essays -- or mutant journalism -- on women at work. I'd like to add some of these pieces to a syllabus for a creative nonfiction course I teach at Dartmouth College called "Whose Story Is It?" For one section of the course, I want writing about ordinary people writing. Not memoir; writers going out into the world and trying to account for what they find. What they tend to find, when it comes to work, is men. There are notable exceptions, but not enough. So I'm making a list. It's very short so far. What can you add?<br />
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Katherine Boo, "Swamp Nurse"<br />
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Katherine Boo, <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/03/29/040329fa_fact?currentPage=all">"The Churn"</a> (factory worker)<br />
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Leslie T. Chang, <i>Factory Girls</i><br />
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Edwin Dobbs, <a href="http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2013/03/bakken-shale-oil/dobb-text">"The New Oil Landscape"</a> (dirty water hauler)<br />
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Barbara Ehrenreich, <i>Nickel and Dimed</i><br />
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Wendy Ewald, <i>Magic Eyes</i><br />
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Sonia Faleiro, <i>Beautiful Thing </i>(bar dancer)<br />
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Zora Neale Hurston, <i>Mules and Men </i>(hoodoo practitioner)<br />
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Sarah Jaffe, <a href="http://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/trickle-down-feminism">"Trickle-Down Feminism"</a> (valuable critical essay on work)<br />
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Tracy Kidder, <i>Among Schoolchildren </i>(teacher)<br />
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Jeanne Marie Laskas, <a href="http://www.oprah.com/spirit/Shannon-Sputter-Smith-Female-Truckers/print/1">"Joy Ride"</a> (truckers)<br />
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Jeanne Marie Laskas, <a href="http://www.gq.com/sports/profiles/200712/nfl-cheerleaders-behind-the-scenes?printable=true">"G-L-O-R-Y!"</a> (NFL cheerleaders)<br />
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Sarah Leonard, <a href="http://jacobinmag.com/2012/12/she-cant-sleep-no-more/">"She Can't Sleep No More"</a> (Silicon Valley)<br />
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Mac McLelland, <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/02/mac-mcclelland-free-online-shipping-warehouses-labor">"I Was a Warehouse Wage Slave" </a><br />
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Tracie McMillan, <i>The American Way of Eating</i><br />
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John McPhee, "Travels in Georgia" (biologist)<br />
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Susan Orlean, <a href="http://www.outsideonline.com/adventure-travel/La-Matadora-Revisa-Su-Maquillaje-The-Bullfighter-Checks-Her-Makeup.html?page=all">"The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup"</a><br />
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Jeff Sharlet, "The Rapture" (new age healer)<br />
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Jeff Sharlet & Peter Manseau, "Crestone, Colorado" (witch)<br />
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Diane Simon, <i>Hair</i><br />
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Maureen Stanton, "Good Guys" (nuclear plant painter)<br />
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Sallie Tisdale, "<a href="http://realweb.ifastnet.com/articles/weabort.html">We Do Abortions Here"</a><br />
<br />Jeff Sharlethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15022718202781473768noreply@blogger.com