“Why,” I asked my husband, “would anyone want to waste time watching a bad movie?” “Because it’s fun,” he replied, as though this should be obvious. “No. A good movie is fun, even if it is wrenching. A bad movie is just sad. Pathetic, even. An insult to filmmaking. It…
The St. Louisan who preserved Timothy Leary's work—and should have been famous too.
Few of us as Americans believe honestly that we are equal in democracy. We only believe that it is better to believe so, rather than do so through policy and programs that will result in strife and arguments. Equality, or as de Tocqueville expressed it, the quality of being “almost the same,” exists mostly in our collective imagination. But if it does not reside, there it might not live anywhere at all.
Neighbors who had always been kind, with food and celebrations shared, went cold overnight, then flamed into a murderous rage.
People worried sick about bigotry used to murmur, “Our hope is the young people.” Now the opposite is true.
The skies are gray, but a drive from St. Louis this week through the windswept fields and windmill farms of Illinois was pleasant, as was the cinnamon-scented fellow at the front desk of a River North hotel in Chicago, who welcomed us to town.
Sometimes we come across news reports so sad, photographs so jarring, or art and speech so moving, that we know we should, could, or might cry or scream in response. But we cannot. Instead, we cry or scream because we know we cannot, or will not, cry or scream. On some level, this means that Patti Smith has penetrated my soul despite assertions to the contrary. Perhaps that is what makes her “punk.”
Making sounds in unison tells the world we are united; it reminds us of what we share, not where we differ. It also releases enough endorphins to smooth over any doubts.
He understands “the impossible human experience of just trying to get through the day with everyone you love being somewhat OK at the end of it.”
Wanting answers, we create reductions: I am. She was. The administration will.