Talking White

Regular readers, to the extent that there are any, know that I have been amusing myself in recent months by writing about various skirmishes in America's on-going culture wars.

With respect to literature, the conflict is mainly an attack on the status of whites, and particularly white males, as being inappropriately in control of how writing should be crafted -- what is good, what is bad; what is noteworthy and what is not; what should be included in "the canon."

The other day, I stumbled on another skirmish, from which I will present an excerpt without comment.

Cruelty and The Human Condition

My previous post reported on the latest annual "greats" issue of T, The New York Times Style Magazine,  in which one of the chosen seven was South Korean filmmaker Park Chan-Wook.

According to T editor Hanya Yanagihara, "greats" are people who have made an impact so significant that the rest of us of us begin to categorize their field of art in terms of what came before them and what came afterward.

Identity Defined by Sexual Practices

In an earlier post, I talked about how Maggie Nelson, a current darling of intellectual feminism, defines herself by the nature of her sexual practices.

Today I saw "How to transcend a happy marriage" at Lincoln Center in Manhattan, a play by Sarah Ruhl where, among other things, the same theme arises.

George Saunders & Katie Kitamura: One Thing In Common

What do George Saunders and Katie Kitamura have in common apart from having just published highly regarded novels?  It turns out they both like a book called "The Argonauts" by Maggie Nelson which revolves around .... well, anal sex.

Saunders, whose debut novel "Lincoln in the Bardo" currently qualifies as Book-of-the-Moment, was asked in a recent "New York Times" interview "what's the last great book you have read?"

An Interesting Notion About Uncertainty

Uncertainty is the condition of being in doubt, or being in possession of imperfect information. Which fork in the road leads to one's destination?

I'm speaking metaphorically because in the age of smart phones, one can generally easily determine the correct geographic route.

Many of us experience from time to time, if not perpetually, an uncertainty about life -- if not its fundamental meaning at least how we should go about living, or what exactly we should do to accomplish something.

This can be very frustrating for some, but perhaps actually rewarding for others.

"I think people give a lot of spiritual credence to uncertainty, to not knowing," contemporary author Maggie Nelson said in an interview with The Creative Independent. "That's exactly how it should be, but it doesn't mean that not knowing is easy," she went on  to say.