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On poetry.
We recently had the good fortune of being invited to Ross Gay‘s book release for his new volume of poetry. So we bundled N into her spacesuit, braved the cold, and went — thank you, Ross, for a wonderful evening! His new poem “To the Fig Tree on 9th and Christian” is spectacular, so kind and…
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On violence against women.
This is the first in a series. Read the second one here. Quick caveat: this essay will be unpleasant. Given the title, you can probably guess the nature of the impending unpleasantness. So, if you think that’s a topic you shouldn’t be reading about right now, then you should skip this. But it’s something I…
Against Our Will, ancient sexual assault trials, Bible, Christianity, consensual kissing does not imply consent to further physical affection, cultural relativism, dueling to let God dictate which party to a trial is more honest, ellusive justice, erasure, feminism, Homer, Kampan versus Valmiki Ramayanas, making fiction less horrible than reality so that readers aren’t too upset, Martin Van Creveld, Oliver Fallon, rape, removing charms before a duel, sexual assault, sexual assault trials, sexual violence as social control, silenced text, silenced voices, Susan Brownmiller, The Death of Ravana, the oppression of fear, underlying misogyny of various religious traditions, Valmiki, was Supranakha punished for sexual empowerment, who writes history, women shackled to rotten husbands
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On deficit spending.
I generally like Paul Krugman’s opinion pieces. I think he does a good job of explaining economic concepts in terms that the average reader can understand, and I like that his biases — because economics is a sufficiently squishy subject that your preexisting biases could lead you to diametrically opposite conclusions even when analyzing the…
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On memory (part 1).
Memory plays an important role in my book. Because, yeah, it’s fascinating, but also, you guessed it, because it’s important in the Ramayana. One way to tell the story of the Ramayana would be to say that it’s about the gods’ effort to stop Ravana: dude practiced mighty austerities and so the gods were forced…
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On the origins of war.
Recently someone suggested Barbara Ehrenreich’s “Blood Rites” as a companion piece to read alongside Karen Armstrong’s “Fields of Blood” (see a recent post inspired by the latter here). Which seemed reasonable enough; both works attempt to explain war and where it comes from. And although I hadn’t expected to be overly fond of Armstrong’s work…
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On civil forfeiture, racial profiling, and outlawing self-harm.
I spent most of breakfast today blathering about civil forfeiture. So K claimed I should write an essay about it. I thought that sounded ridiculous, because I figured everyone already knew about it. Indeed, a brief internet search revealed that even John Oliver did an extended piece on it; sure, we don’t have a television,…
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On Kerry Howley’s excellent “Thrown” and author as jerk.
Kerry Howley’s “Thrown” is the most fun I’ve had reading in a while. And so, right, I’m writing a little essay. But I’ve gotta warn you in advance: the essay is going to be bad. I’m sloppily dashing it together – the whole reason for this essay to exist is so that I’d have an…
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On free will.
I like thinking about free will. Talking about it. Writing about it. Even though it’s a waste of time. And really kills parties. Try it sometime, if you don’t believe me… wait until you’re hanging out with some people, having a great time, talking, laughing, and then try to mire everybody in a pedantic discussion…
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On elegant sledgehammering.
Here’s a tiny piece of Paul Dunbar’s “An Ante-Bellum Sermon.” You can read the whole poem here , or, if you like listening more than reading, there are a couple renditions up on Youtube. An’ de lan’ shall hyeah his thundah Lak a blas’ from Gab’el’s ho’n. Fu’ de Lawd of hosts is mighty When…
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Frank Brown Cloud 