Progress is not the practice of those in the business of sweeping success. Progress overawes—but its work is slow and grim. Progress waits on people to die, and more enlightened people to take their place. Progress works even as the unenlightened abound, but find their ranks thinned and their positions exposed.
Specifically, democratic progress is not revolution and can never be the gospel of people who measures success by complete victories achieved in singular life-times. Instead it is reserved for those who are unrelenting in struggle, patient beyond their mortal coil, and willing to wage wars across generations.
Faulkner was a postmaster, Kafka an insurance agent, Brontë a governess. The day jobs of famous authors.
FJP: Journalists can relate. Especially the freelance kind.
This is sort of freaking me out. I might have to throw out the box to be able to eat the cookies.
Memorial Day
via @tempibones
Waits reads Bukowski, “The Laughing
Heart”
The Great Gatsby, strange to say, was not a huge success in the era it so embodies – the first two printings were not exhausted at Fitzgerald’s death 15 years later. Perhaps it saw too clearly: it is a novel about meretriciousness and a vast, backless façade published at a time when America was at its height of confidence. America, like Gatsby, believed in its power to get the money and get the girl, and didn’t quite like the delusion exposed.
Collaborative drawing day with William Downs at {Poem88} Gallery, Atlanta. Here’s his collaboration with my Nora.
Our real first gay president
The new issue of Newsweek features a cover photo of President Obama topped by a rainbow-colored halo and captioned “The First Gay President.” The halo and caption strike me as cheap sensationalism. I realize airport travelers look at a magazine for 2.2 seconds before moving on to the next one. I grant that this cover will probably get Newsweek a 4.4 second glance. I also understand that Newsweek is desperate for sales. Nevertheless, I doubt that the Newsweek of old, before it was sold for a dollar, would have pandered as shallowly.
The caption is a superficial way to characterize an important development of thought that the president — along with the country — has been making over recent years. It is also entirely wrong. Like the mini-furor a couple of months back about the claim that Richard Nixon was our first gay president, the story simply ignores that the U.S. already had a gay president more than a century ago.
There can be no doubt that James Buchanan was gay, before, during and after his four years in the White House. Moreover, the nation knew it, too — he was not far into the closet.
Today, I know no historian who has studied the matter and thinks Buchanan was heterosexual. Fifteen years ago, historian John Howard, author of “Men Like That,” a pioneering study of queer culture in Mississippi, shared with me the key documents, including Buchanan’s May 13, 1844, letter to a Mrs. Roosevelt. Describing his deteriorating social life after his great love, William Rufus King, senator from Alabama, had moved to Paris to become our ambassador to France, Buchanan wrote:
I am now “solitary and alone,” having no companion in the house with me. I have gone a wooing to several gentlemen, but have not succeeded with any one of them. I feel that it is not good for man to be alone; and should not be astonished to find myself married to some old maid who can nurse me when I am sick, provide good dinners for me when I am well, and not expect from me any very ardent or romantic affection.
Tl;dr Newsweek go fuck yourself. We’ve had a gay president before. Stop being a sensationalist piece of shit.
(via seriouslyamerica)
Source: anticapitalist
Full collection of http team jerseys - here’s one for the home team.
I suppose these work best if your team is heavy on errors. I think the “names” can all refer to mental states though.
Full collection of http team jerseys, just for fun.
I sort of like “406 Not Acceptable” for myself.
Source: redbubble.com
$50
If you do full color printing, I recommend PrintingForLess.com.
Use this Coupon Code to get $50.00 off your first order: RP15X2JJZ
Their quality and their customer service is very good. I’ve used them for my wife’s art show postcards, bio cards, and business cards. They actually answer the phone and you can talk to the person working on your order (crazy, I know).
—JRon
Swimming Pool, an amazing and visually confounding installation by Leandro Erlich. (via)
(via conservative-failure)
Source: ruineshumaines
