Political Musings - The War on Woke

Here is my monthly political musing following Conservative Political Action Conference and the National Conservatism Conference, both taking place in March. The gist of both was more or less liberals control everything and are destroying the country through “wokeness.”

Wokeness, of course, is the right's new boogeyman. The end of a line that goes abolition, reconstruction, suffrage, the New Deal, communism, civil rights, socialism, gay rights, wokeism. It's sort of used for a unified “left” that hates America which people use to justify their decision to vote for Donald Trump. The times ahead, for them, are a mix of fear and hope, with opponents who are both malevolent and ignorant, countless yet surpassed by "ordinary" Americans. The Republican party's repeated warnings of doomsday in the event of a Democratic victory can only be uttered so many times before their voters stop listening. 

This is all culture-war nonsense. The Tucker Carlson schtick, aka “owning the libs,” requires disregarding the genuine hardships of the world - such as the isolation of a transgender student, the anxiety of the uninsured, or the struggles of a Black man, so forth. It's a manipulative tactic that treats all of life as a ratings game that relies on constant outrage, signaling white identity, and making sweeping generalizations. Conservatives, led by Trump as their culture-war president with limited policy, are fixated on the culture war. However, any conservative worth a shit is contemplating how to move beyond this approach and achieve tangible progress.

Anyway, CPAC and NCC were a lot of projection with CPAC being pro-Trump and NCC being pro-far right with the 2024 hopefuls doing the heavy lifting. The later fancy themselves “Reagan Republicans,” which is more or less the same old shit. Coke Zero to Diet Coke, Carl's Jr. to Hardees, cocaine to crack, so forth. Same means and ends but with different packaging/delivery methods. Trump is pure rage, Reaganites are also full of rage, but smile a little more. 

Some examples of the latter group include Rachel Bovard, Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, and Marco Rubio. 

Bovard got a lot of attention coming out of the conference. Sort of the breakout star. She's a somewhat intelligent/accomplished/young conservative who has worked for various Republican politicians and conservative organizations. She believes that previous generations of conservatives were too naive in thinking that liberals and conservatives had similar goals for America. In her view, the left is actively working to destroy everything the conservative movement stands for. The left does this by controlling every aspect of American society and culture and that they are using their power to dismantle traditional American values and institutions. She is not alone, of course, in such beliefs: 

Cruz: “The left’s attack is on America. The left hates America. It is the left that is trying to use culture as a tool to destroy America.”

Hawley: “Their grand ambition is to deconstruct the United States of America.”

Rubio: “We are confronted now by a systematic effort to dismantle our society, our traditions, our economy, and our way of life.” 

And so forth.

All of this is built on bullshit, of course. From Bovard: “Woke elites—increasingly the mainstream left of this country—do not want what we want. What they want is to destroy us... Not only will they use every power at their disposal to achieve their goal,” they’ve been doing it for years “by dominating every cultural, intellectual, and political institution.” Progressives pretend to be the oppressed ones, “but in reality, it’s just an old boys’ club, another frat house for entitled rich kids contrived to perpetuate their unearned privilege. It’s Skull and Bones for gender-studies majors!” So much for toning it down a bit. 

The left, according to them, is conspiring to undermine America. Not a lot of details on how this is being done but it seems to involve a combination of academia, Hollywood, the news media, and George Soros.

This is how they justify playing dirty and their attempts at doing at exactly what they are accusing the left of, namely destroying their way of life. Leonard Leo, a prominent figure in the Federalist Society, for example, has set his sights on expanding his influence beyond the judiciary and into various sectors of American culture. The guy was a key player in the effort to dismantle Roe v. Wade. Through that bullshit, Leo was involved in the appointments of Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. His aim is to establish a "Federalist Society for everything" to take on such institutions as Wall Street, Silicon Valley, journalism, Hollywood, and academia. Leo believes that the same tactics that worked for the Federalist Society in the legal arena can be applied to other areas, including combating "wokeism" in corporate and educational settings, so-called biased media, and corrupting entertainment.

This is, of course, insane and unlikely to work since wrong to think organized/unified wokeists are taking over all the institutions of American life. Not that they care. It's just their way of justifying what they are doing at the state level. 

The argument, they say, is that since the libs control everything, they have to aggressively use state legislatures to pass laws embracing their values, essentially what’s now happening across red America, including my home state of Indiana. An “unapologetically embrace the use of state power,” is what they are calling it. National conservatism taken to its ultimate end, which involves utilizing state authority to dismantle large corporations while simultaneously resisting coastal cultural norms. The conflict between cultural values and economic classes merged, so they hope, and a new right-wing movement arises in which a group of intellectuals lead working-class individuals in opposing the cultural and corporate elites. Blah blah blah. Putting a lot of faith in pushing money upward, but it's worked so far so why not. 

So what are they trying to do with state power, you ask. Well, if you are Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, for example, a favorite for the Republican presidential nomination by the by, who says that his state “is where woke goes to die,” you use it to obliterate First Amendment Rights. 

A bill growing down there in America's wang is an explicit attempt to undo the 1964 Supreme Court decision, The New York Times Company v. Sullivan. This is a bulwark of First Amendment law that requires public figures to prove a news organization engaged in “actual malice” to win a defamation case. The so-called price of being a public figure decision. This case freed news organizations to pursue vigorous reporting about public officials without fear of paying damages.

The new bill would change the definition of actual malice to include any allegation that is “inherently improbable” or that is based on what it calls an “unverified” statement by an anonymous sourceMostucked up is that it says that all anonymous statements are “presumptively false” for the purposes of a defamation case.

If the bill is enacted, it would create enormous damage which other states will copy, likely with its language verbatim, on the way to the high court, where it will ultimately head. Once there, the conservative Justices will likely give it the okay as they would directly benefit from such a landmark case. Citizens who value free speech should really start raising a shit before the state silences them, just saying. The bill obviously represents a dangerous threat to free expression, not just for the news media, but for all Americans, regardless of their political beliefs. But, you know, for Republicans don't really seem to apply. 

Then, of course, there is the whole transgender rights thing that the Republican Party is actively making their major platform for their base of unhinged bigots. At CPAC, for example, one Michael Knowles advocated for the complete elimination of transgenderism from public life, a sentiment that captures the essence of the right's collective efforts. Although there are numerous bills with varying objectives and justifications, Indiana signed one yesterday, their overall impact is reflective of fuck you if you're transgender. DeSantis (did I mention his national aspirations?), again, is leveraging the issue to bolster his anti-woke political image. Own those libs!

What does all this mean, exactly? I think it means the Republican Party is on some weak bullshit, and they know it. It remains unclear whether right-wing populism is here to stay, but it is clear that it requires an adversary, and opposition to “woke” ideals is a convenient target, although ultimately a one they can't really define. Look at the Federalist Society, for example. Their objective until recently was simple: replace one group of judges with the most ideologically extreme. Having unfortunately succeeded, now they are largely opposed to this concept of being “woke,” which is more or less taking on the entire culture without knowing what it is or means. However, as they are learning, attempting to reverse social progress across all facets of American society is not a simple or attainable goal, especially when lacking an understanding of the root causes of that progress. 

To clarify, to be “woke” originally referred to having an awareness of social issues, particularly pertaining to racism and inequality. It has since evolved to encompass actively seeking education on issues with the goal of taking action to effect positive change. Nowadays, the term is commonly used to describe individuals who are socially conscious, who give a shit about other people, who aren't the raging asshole no one wants to engage with. These are the people that the anti-expression laws are coming for. For now, to the real fucks pushing this stuff, I say, go fuck yourself, you pieces of shit. 

Knock at the Cabin - M. Night Shyamalan - 2023

★★★-Knock at the Cabin. M. Night Shyamalan's latest. Another apocalyptic psychological horror flick with some Christian bullshit at the center. Based on a 2018 novel called The Cabin at the End of the World by one Paul G. Tremblay. 

The stellar cast includes Dave Bautista who is hard not to love, Jonathan Groff from Mindhunter and the new Matrix movie who is phenomenal in everything (including this), Ben Aldridge whom I've never seen, Nikki Amuka-Bird (don't know her either), a little Asian girl named Kristen Cui, Abby Quinn who sort of steals the show, and Rupert Grint who played Ron in the Harry Potter movies.

Gist is an affluent family consisting of two dads, Andrew and Eric (Aldridge and Groff), and their adopted daughter Wen (Cui) are hanging out at their beautiful cabin in rural PA when they get a knock on the door by a stranger named Leonard. He claims that they are the “chosen ones” (sigh) to prevent the impending apocalypse by sacrificing one of themselves. When they refuse, saying these folks are obviously delusional and scamming them for some reason, they kill one of their group, saying “a part of humanity has been judged.” Pretty shitty "knock, knock" joke, am-I-right? Following that the world experiences “a plague.” The doctor, secular dad suspects that the attack is motivated by revenge and he escapes to get his gun and tries to prove that the intruders were lying. Eventually, the family realizes that the intruders represent the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse though I don't really think they line up very well with a few of them but whatever. Also, airplanes generally don't just tumble out of the sky when they crash. They can still glide even if both engines are out. But I digress. In the end, they have to decide if they are going to kill one of their loving family as they decide what they believe. 

Right after I watched it I hated it, however, I can't stop thinking about it though it is a total bummer of a movie with some stuff that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Plus, the acting was out of this world. This Abby Quinn gets trying to act normal when extremely frantic down in the way of the insane I've been around in such a state. That mania in her eyes. Overall, interesting concept but a bullshit movie. Definitely better than Old, and far worse than Split. 

Slow Learner - Thomas Pynchon

Goddamn, I love the work of Thomas Pynchon. This book, early short stories, is no exception. Collected in 1984, the five stories were first published at different times between 1959 and 1964. The New Republic called them “an exhilarating spectacle of greatness discovering its powers.” While I agree, Pynchon does not. This brings me to the by far the coolest thing about the book: Pynchon wrote the introduction.

An extremely private person, he doesn't give away shit about his personal life. He's got the nine books, of course, which can be described as postmodern literary historical fiction. I've read five. Love them all. One enough to inspire my first tattoo, a version of the "muted post horn" that's a symbol for the secret "Trystero" society that's at the center of The Crying of Lot 49. My personalized license plate, WASTE, is also a reference to the book, an acronym for "We Await Silent Tristero's Empire". 

His repertoire also includes essays on the Watts riots, sloth, and Luddites, book reviews and blurbs, introductions to classic works such as 1984 as well as fiction by his friends (these include Donald Barthelme, Jim Dodge, and Richard Farina), and liner notes for albums by bandleader Spike Jones (not to be confused with actor/director Spike Jonze) and indie-rock band Lotion. He has even done a few voiceovers, two for The Simpsons (in one he is shown with a paper bag over his head) and a publicity video for his novel Inherent Vice. These are must views, by the by. His work transcends conventional boundaries, encompassing a wide spectrum of genres, subjects, and mediums, reflecting his versatility, creativity, and multi-faceted talents as a celebrated writer. God, I love him. 

That said, none of this gives us much of anything about his personal life. In fact, he goes to great lengths to remain obscure. This has always been a part of his writing, as he sez he had “an unkind impatience with fiction I felt then to be 'too autobiographical.' Somewhere I had come up with the notion that one's personal life had nothing to do with fiction, when the truth, as everyone knows, is nearly the direct opposite. Moreover, contrary evidence was all around me, though I chose to ignore it,” (p.21). 

This intentional inaccessibility is partly why I'm confident he'll never win a Nobel Prize in Literature. He's been on the shortlist for years, but since they awarded one to Bob Dylan, which is bullshit, in 2016, and then the more deserving poet Louise Glück in 2020, they probably won't award another American for at least a decade or so. Plus the Nobel committee would have a second no-show to deal with since Dylan was absent from the banquet in his honor, saying that he had other commitments. (Of course, some expressed dissatisfaction with Bob Dylan's Nobel. One example at random, this from novelist Rabih Alameddin, who said on Twitter, "Bob Dylan winning a Nobel in Literature is like Mrs. Fields being awarded 3 Michelin stars.” I'm among the said camp.) Pynchon, for his part, never shows up for stuff like this which has caused some uproar. For the 1974 National Book Awards, when he won Best Novel for "Gravity's Rainbow", it was widely known that Pynchon was unlikely to attend. Part of that well-known aversion to public appearances. Instead of Pynchon, his publisher Thomas Guinzburg sent comedian Professor Irwin Corey as a stand-in that was introduced as the writer. Corey's absent-minded professor schtick was known for butchering highfalutin language with bad puns and was an all-around embarrassment for the ceremony. Therefore, I think it's safe to eliminate him from real consideration.

(Also, that whole Nobel award has a history of trash. It lost its significance long ago, being more political than based on literary excellence. Auden, Borges, Chekhov, Greene, Hardy, Ibsen, James, Joyce, Nabokov, Proust, Roth, Tolstoy, and Twain were all snubbed. All undeniable masters of the craft. Robert Frost and E.M. Forster were up for the prize in 1961 but were explicitly ruled out by the Swedish Academy “because of their advanced years.” Pynchon in his mid-80s is likely considered too old though in 2007 Doris Lessig won at the age of 88, the eldest winner to date. Since its conception in 1901, only seven writers in their 80s have won and two of those came between 1901-1910. Needless to say, criteria other than high art are obviously at play.)

The only exception to his lack of personal detail is the introduction to this collection, which makes this book especially cool. He talks about how he felt re-reading the stories after a long time in his typical humorous way, saying “You may already know what a blow to the ego it can be to have to read over anything you wrote 20 years ago, even canceled checks. My first reaction, rereading these stories, was oh my God, accompanied by physical symptoms we shouldn't dwell upon. My second thought was about some kind of a wall-to-wall rewrite. These two impulses have given way to one of those episodes of middle-aged tranquility, in which I now pretend to have reached a level of clarity about the young writer I was back then,” (p. 3). But he also shares some memories of when he first wrote them! It's the only time he gets a bit personal with his readers and was by far my favorite thing about the book. (One day soon select scholars will get more personal stuff as he sold his archive consisting of letters, notes, drafts, and so forth to the Huntington Library. The papers will provide valuable insights into his work but will include no photographs. I imagine getting access will be next to impossible though, so be warned.) The little tantalizing glimpse we get is of a modest guy that would be fun to party with. It obviously made me love him and want to learn about him even more.

Anyway, on to the book, which consists of five stories: “The Small Rain”, ”Low-lands”, “Entropy”, Under the Rose”, and “The Secret Integration”. Here's a brief rundown. “The Small Rain”, Pynchon's first published work, follows Nathan Levine, an indifferent Army enlistee stationed in New Orleans. Along with his fellow enlisted men, he is tasked with assisting in the cleanup efforts on Creole, a small island devastated by a hurricane. After a grueling day of retrieving dead bodies and sex with a local college gal, Nathan reflects on his uncertain future and contemplates how to move forward, if at all. Think of this as a test run for Gravity's Rainbow with lower stakes. 

”Low-lands” follows one Dennis Flange, a lawyer, who skips work to get drunk with Rocco the garbage man, much to his wife's annoyance. Once his old college friend Pig Bodine, whom the wife loathes, shows up, she kicks them out. For good. They go to the dump where they stay with the caretaker. There Dennis contemplates his life when ominous, unexpected shit starts going down. In the middle of the night, Dennis hears a voice and goes out to meet a three-foot-tall woman identified as a “gypsy” who asks him to marry her. Initially declining, he changes his mind when he sees her child-like appearance and agrees to stay for a while, saying that he always wanted kids. Here we get a lot of counter-culture fringe that could have been at home in The Crying of Lot 49. 

Speaking of counter-culture fringe “Entropy,” the third story of the collection, is possibly my favorite of the bunch (but I would maybe make that claim about the last two as well). It details a wild lease-breaking party hosted by one Meatball Mulligan. Chaos ensues with a mix of guests including cronies, servicemen, jazz musicians, philosophy majors, and sailors. Callisto and Aubade care for a baby bird while contemplating the Laws of Thermodynamics and entropy as a metaphor for society. The whole time the temperature outside remains 37 degrees Fahrenheit, fueling apocalyptic paranoia in Callisto. Among the challenges Meatball navigates there are managing drug use, conversations on communication theory, and an unexpected visit from the FBI, or some other agency. 

Two English spies, Porpentine and Goodfellow, are in Upper Egypt to track down their nemesis, Moldweorp, and figure out what he's up to. They suspect he plans to assassinate the Consul-General, so they travel to Cairo with Goodfellow's new girlfriend, Victoria Wren, her family, and a man named Bongo-Shaftsbury. Porpentine stops Bongo-Shaftsbury from sexually assaulting Victoria's sister and realizes he's an opposing spy. In Cairo, they find Moldweorp and his spies at the opera house, foiling the assassination attempt. A chase ensues, ending at the Sphinx where Porpentine and Goodfellow confront Moldweorp. Porpentine tells Goodfellow to go back to the cab, but Moldweorp shoots Porpentine and escapes. Sixteen years later, Goodfellow is with a new girlfriend, a barmaid who sees him as just an obsessive Englishman with money to spend. The story ends with them hearing rumors of an assassination plot against Archduke Franz Ferdinand, which you should from the history books for its monumental impact on the history of the 20th century. With all this spy stuff, double agents, and depravity whilst traipsing through foreign land, I'm reminded of Gravity's Rainbow, however, the story was apparently reworked into a chapter of his novel V. which I have not read but is probably next on my list. 

In the final story, "The Secret Integration," we are introduced to a cast of characters who would later become familiar faces in 2006's Against The Day, a group that goes by “the Chums of Chance.” Here, the daring youths embark on a mission codenamed “Operation Spartacus.” The ragtag group of boys (Tim, Carl, Etienne, and Hogan [they also have a great doggo, which is much appreciated on my end]) gather in their leader's basement (one Grover Snodd, who is something of a boy genius) to plan their upcoming “Project Mayhem” type mischief on the bigoted folks of Mingeborough, New York. Things are complicated when Hogan (who's been a member of AAA since age seven) receives a call to support a struggling member. They go to a hotel to help an African-American musician named Mr. McAfee whose staying there. Despite their attempts to help, Mr. McAfee is escorted out by the police for belligerence. 

Despite acknowledging the faults of his early stories in the intro as “bad habits, dumb theories,” he does not talk about how exceptionally good they are despite their supposed flaws. These stories show how from the beginning, he was able to transport readers into his wonderful, eccentric imagined worlds through incredible storytelling. An attentive, well-informed observer, he's astute, in-the-know, obsessively alert, zanily comedic. He effortlessly earns the reader's admiration with such qualities.

These brilliant stories are literary treasures that should not be overlooked, tour de force that they are. Still, though, his best work was ahead of him. As he writes at the end of the intro, “What is most appealing about young folks is the changes, not the still photograph of finished character but the movie, the soul in flux. Maybe this small attachment to my past is only another case of what Frank Zappa calls a bunch of old guys sitting around playing rock 'n' roll. But as we all know, rock 'n' roll will never die, and education too, as Henry Adams always sez, keeps going on forever,” (p. 23). 

Queen Man - Percy Shelley

As I pointed out last time I wrote about poetry, I'm a little out of practice. I can read and write about movies, poetry, and work stuff with no problem. Poetry, I figured it better to go with something super familiar after my Shakespeare foray. Thus Queen Mab by Percy Shelley, whom I once considered myself a disciple of. Now, not so much.

Mab is a long, narrative poem published in 1816. The poem tells the story of a young woman named Ianthe who falls asleep and is taken on a journey by the fairy queen Mab. Mab shows Ianthe a series of visions that reveal the injustices and inequalities of human society, and the need for a new, more just social order.

In the course of her journey, Ianthe witnesses the suffering of the poor and oppressed, the cruelty of rulers and priests, and the ravages of war. She also sees visions of a more ideal society, in which reason and science have replaced superstition and religion. In such a society, human beings live in harmony with nature. I can get on board with that. 

In undergrad I wrote a Marxist critique of the poem. I got a B+, which annoyed me. I thought it was an A paper. The idea behind Marxist literary criticism is that literature reflects the social and economic conditions of the time it was written. Thus my Marxist critique of the poem focused on how it reflects and critiques the economic and social conditions of Shelley's time. The professor's note was that this couldn't be a Marxist text because it was before Marx. Also, Marxism requires violent revolt. You can still read a text through a Marxist lens, I argued, but the professor wasn't having it and is infinitely smarter than me so I'd take what I'm saying for what you will. 

Looking back at the essay, I should have been happy with the B+. As most people know, especially ones that write for a living—gonna borrow, i.e. thieve, something Pynchon said—it is a huge blow to the ego to read over anything you wrote 20 years ago, even cancelled checks. The reaction, for me and Pynchon at least, was oh my God.

My argument still holds up, just hard to read. Also, I had two typos, a frequent issue for me. I had the word “barley” instead of “barely” and, even more horrifying, “veal” instead of “zeal.” Oh my God, plus physical symptoms at this point. 

Anyway, in the paper, I mostly analyzed the poem's portrayal of power and inequality which requires a little historical context. During Shelley's time, England was experiencing rapid industrialization and urbanization. This was accompanied by growing economic inequality and social unrest. In Queen Mab, Shelley depicts a world in which the powerful oppress and exploit the poor and working classes. ound familiar? Ianthe, the poem's protagonist, is a symbol of this oppression, as she is confined to a life of poverty and servitude while the wealthy and powerful live lives of luxury and excess.

I paid particular attention to the poem's treatment of religion. Things like ““What palpable deceit!--but for thy aid,/Religion! but for thee, prolific fiend,/Who peoplest earth with demons, hell with men,/And heaven with slaves!/Thou taintest all thou lookest upon!” (VI.68-72). Shelley was a radical atheist who believed that religion was used by the ruling classes to control and oppress the masses. Shelley criticizes religion as a tool of oppression and calls for its abolition. Speaking to the choir here. 

Something that stuck out for me this reading was the role of the artist in Shelley's vision of a better world. In the poem, he sees the poet as a revolutionary figure who can help bring about social and economic change. The poem itself is a call to action, urging readers to join in the struggle for a better world. Shelley believed that art could be a powerful force for social change, which he lays out in the poem.

According to Shelley, the imagination is the ultimate creative force, and it has the power to transcend the limitations of reality and envision a more perfect world. Art, then, is not just an expression of the human experience, but a means of transforming it. See VIII. 134-144, which reads thus: 

'But chief, ambiguous Man, he that can know
More misery, and dream more joy than all;
Whose keen sensations thrill within his breast
To mingle with a loftier instinct there,
Lending their power to pleasure and to pain,
Yet raising, sharpening, and refining each;
Who stands amid the ever-varying world,
The burthen or the glory of the earth;
He chief perceives the change, his being notes
The gradual renovation, and defines
Each movement of its progress on his mind.

By inspiring the imagination and encouraging people to envision new possibilities, art had the power to shape the course of human history. Shelley believed that the poet had a moral obligation to use the imagination to inspire others and promote social and political progress.

Overall, Queen Mab would focus on the poem's critique of power and inequality, its rejection of religion as a tool of oppression, and its celebration of art as a means of social change. Shelley's doctrine of Necessity comes into play here, “Necessity! thou mother of the world!” (VII. 198), something he goes into detail on in his essay “A Defense of Poetry.” The doctrine posits that the role of the poet is to advocate for social and political change by appealing to the necessity of imagination and the imagination's ability to inspire and create new possibilities. This is borrowed and expounded upon from Enlightenment philosophers like Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Mary Wollstonecraft (mother of his wife, the author of Frankenstein, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley). However, in pure Romantic fashion, he prioritize imagination over reason.

Best American Essays 2022 - Alexander Chee (Editor)

Once an annual read, I picked up the latest edition of The Best American Essays, this for the year 2022. The essays there in diverse, compelling, and wreak of death, these coming out of the pandemic and all. 

The anthology was edited by Alexander Chee, who describes it as "almost an anthology of elegies" in the introduction. He notes that the writers featured in the collection were preoccupied with death and loss, whether related to the pandemic or not, and that the anthology serves as a tribute to those who have passed away.

Here are few selections of the 23 from the anthology that I enjoyed the most... 

Vauhini Vara's essay “Ghost” is a mesmerizing piece about the experience of losing her sister to disease in 2001. She's had trouble working through this loss and decides to use GPT-3, an Artificial Intelligence model, to help her write about it. The result is a mix of nine mini-stories written by her and the AI. She starts with “My sister was diagnosed with Ewing sarcoma when I was in my freshman year of high school and she was in her junior year,” which begins each story, as each takes a different path as she elaborates and lets the AI finish for her. 

I blogged about the essay “The Wrong Jason Brown” by one Jason Brown about a month ago. It's probably the best essay I've ever read. Details sexual abuse the author suffered at the hands of his mother with compassion. It was moving and incredible. If I knew what it was about, I wouldn't have read it. But glad I did. Masterfully done to ease you into this world. It blew my mind.

In his essay for The New Yorker, “My Gentile Region,” Gary Shteyngart recounts his experience of a botched circumcision he suffered as a 7-year-old Russian Jewish immigrant in Brooklyn. It is not for the faint of heart. Shteyngart raises difficult questions about the necessity of the procedure and its consequences. He explores the middle ground between those who take circumcision for granted or as a central aspect of male Jewish identity and those who advocate for male genital integrity, highlighting the enduring impact of his own traumatic experience. 

Jesus Quintero's essay “Anatomy of a Botched Assimilation” is another great one. This one hilariously/heartbreakingly details an experience he had in childhood. As an immigrant in elementary school, his parents put a lot of pressure on him to make something of himself. Instead, he fucked around at school and was forced to work with the janitor after school as punishment, keeping all this from his parents. One day, the janitor, who doesn't speak Spanish, comes to his house and makes Jesus translate for him. “Tell him that you are the worst. Ready?... Go ahead. Tell them in Spanish. You're a piece of shit.” Afterwards, his dad kicks the shit out him in the backyard while the neighbors look on with enjoyment. All the while the dad says stuff like “Why can't you be like them, huh? The white people,” and “Don't be like me. I'm nothing.” 

Some other great ones include “At the Bend of the Road” by Aube Rey Lescure (about secular pilgrimages she went on in Portugal alone while listening to 2666 on audio book, freaking out about violence, when she is attacked and has to fight for life), “If You Ever Find Yourself” by Erika J. Simpson (her rules for living dirt poor and how her and mother survived on love and hope though they had nothing), and “The Lost List” by Ryan Bradley (about a list he started during Covid about lost things, places, people, ideas, so forth, where he meditates on and interviews a couple experts about being lost and what it teaches us). 

Jared From Subway: Catching A Monster - Sam Miller - 2023

Warning: This review and the program include talk of child sexual abuse.

Jared Fogle. Former spokesperson for Subway. Lost 245 pounds on what became known as the “Subway Diet.” Fucking sick fuck. Lover of child porn and sex with kids. Fucking fuck. Amidst the sea of true-crime content, “Jared From Subway: Catching a Monster” stands out as exceptionally repugnant.

This limited series follows his fall from grace. It was a very difficult watch. I couldn’t sleep I was so disturbed. The three-part series is available on ID and Discovery+, if you so desire. You’ve been warned. Multiple times now.

It all started in 2007 at a school event where Jared was talking to kids about living a healthy lifestyle or some such bullshit, when he leans over to tell journalist/radio host there with him, one Rochelle Herman-Walrond, how hot middle schoolers are to him. Horrified and freaked out over the potential implications of him saying that shit, she realized that as a motivational speaker at schools, he had easy access to children. To ensure the safety of children, she decided to Record him being a perv, reasoning that she needed some evidence for Sarasota‘s finest/the Feds to take her seriously. They informed her that she committed a crime by recording him without permission and that she would have to work for them now, which is crazy. 

So for the next four years she has to have these fucking crazy disgusting conversations with this sickening individual. At one point he asks her “Will you let me see your kids naked?” of her then-10-year-old daughter and 11-year-old son, and to install a webcam in her children's rooms so he could watch them. She was basically like “yeah, I don’t know about that shit” but also said “I feel as though I died that day.” He also tells her shit like he likes children because of their “nice, pure bodies,“ and that they should watch child porn together. He even brags about having sex with “a little boy” in Thailand. Of the encounter he says, “It was amazing … Oh, it was so hot, baby. It was so, so fucking hot,” before asking her if she would rather have “a little boy or a little girl pleasure [her].” Some stomach turning shit, man.

Jared eventually got tired of incriminating himself over the phone and her dodging him whenever he was in the area wanting to molest her children and stopped talking to her. What’s nuts is that in the end nobody does anything with the information either because everybody involved law enforcement wise seems to be worthless. He got caught when the Indianapolis Police Department arrested the Executive Director of the Jared Foundation for child porn and found all the shit that he was doing for Jared. Probably the worst thing is that he and his wife had secret cameras in his step kids rooms recording them in the shower and in bed and stuff. Their mom was also involved in this. Not only were they helping Jerry get his rocks off, they were into that shit too.

Eventually they all got time. The mom 33 years. The subway foundation guy 22 years. Jared 15 years. Obviously, he lost his job at Subway, the company completely severed ties, and the Jared Foundation got shut down. I bet Subway knew about that shit.

The thing I liked maybe the most in the documentary was how they talk to people he went to high school with in Indianapolis. They were basically all like, “he was a total fat embarrassing loser in high school. Sitting with him at lunch would have been social suicide.” When he got famous, they said, “oh, that huge loser from high school is famous now. He’s still a loser!” In the end, they were back at, “I knew he was a fat fucking loser.” High school cool kids are brutal, man. They’ll be tooling on him the rest of their lives, but he deserves it.

Spare - Prince Harry

Spare. Not terrible. Super interesting and well written, I did finish it. Maybe, at times, a little whiny, hard to follow, and unrelatable. But overall a fascinating read, coming from someone who doesn't give a flying fuck about the royal family. 

The dominant theme of the book is Harry's resentment of being the "spare." Covers his early life, his mother's death, Princess Diana, education, royal duties, military service, and relationships with his family members, Prince William, and his father, King Charles III, including the latter's marriage to Camilla Parker Bowles. Also, he provides insight into his courtship, marriage, and eventual decision with Meghan to step back from their royal roles as well as becoming a parent. 

Critically, some praised Harry's candor, while others criticized the book for divulging too many personal details. It's gotten pretty mixed reviews though it did break the record for the fastest-selling non-fiction book of all time, according to Guinness World Records.

Early on, dude recounts being born as the spare to William and how his father, Charles, referred to him as such. What a guy, am-I-right? He also discusses his mother's death and questions the investigation into it. He alleges corruption and cover-ups, and reveals his plans with William to ask for the investigation to be reopened. He even talked to psychics and shit. 

He reveals that he experimented with drugs at a young age, taking cocaine at 17, cannabis, and magic mushrooms at a party in 2016 where he hallucinated and spoke to a trashcan and toilet like they were old pals. Been there, my guy. He also recounts a humiliating experience of losing his virginity to an older woman in a field. Cool cool. 

Probably one of the most controversial parts of the book is when he talks about how he flew on six missions in Afghanistan that killed 25 Taliban members. He says he saw them as "chess pieces" rather than people. While the number of deaths did not make him feel super dope, they also did not make him feel ashamed.

This led to a shitstorm of criticism on Twitter in Afghanistan and Pakistan, who branded him a "murderer" and a "crusader." The Taliban regime's Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson, Abdul Qahar Balkhi, even issued a statement responding to the claims, calling it a "microcosm of the trauma experienced by Afghans at the hands of occupation forces who murdered innocents without any accountability." Taliban commanders also condemned Harry's comments, describing him as a "big mouth loser." 

The comments sparked concerns that this part of the book could have serious repercussions for veterans at upcoming events like the “Invictus Games” which Harry championed. They also, of course, put target on his back and potentially exposes his family to danger. Some military figures were critical of Harry's description of military training and his comparison of opponents to chess pieces, which they believed could be exploited by Jihadist propaganda. Others questioned why he felt the need to share such details with the public, with some suggesting that he may be processing the trauma associated with his service. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a bitch, after all, and not something I can comment on, especially as someone who never served. Course saying shit like this is always tasteless and doesn't not show respect for those who had been killed. But I feel that if he left that stuff out, people would have been upset by that, too. 

Eventually, though, he gets into the really juicy bits, i.e. the confrontations between him and his family members. One such incident happened in 2019 when Prince William allegedly confronted Harry about Meghan, calling her "difficult," "rude," and "abrasive." The argument escalated, and William allegedly grabbed Harry's collar, knocking him to the ground. In another encounter, following Prince Philip's funeral, Prince Charles urged Harry and William not to make his "final years a misery." Harry also shares his father's concern about Meghan's popularity overshadowing him and how he was surprised to lose his state-funded security after stepping back from royal duties. We are only getting one side, but they both come off like real pieces of shit. 

Also, I had no idea how fucked up the media in the United Kingdom is. While the royal family shit is entertaining, the British media are the villain of the book. He is super critical as he takes aim at the media, especially when it comes to Rupert Murdoch. He calls him "evil" and criticizes his politics and the harm he does to objective facts. Can't argue with anything there. Murdoch, who is known for his ownership of a vast network of media, Fox News, has been a frequent target of Harry's criticism for profiting off of salacious stories and photos about the royal family. The prince is also critical of paparazzi and top editors at tabloids owned by Murdoch, whom he blames for damaging people's sense of reality. One incident he talks about is being chased by Murdoch's henchmen through the streets of LA, if I remember correctly, illustrating the prick of a media mogul's lack of morals. No argument from me there either. 

His overall take on the media is that they've shown him pretty much nothing but racism, sexism, and bullying over the years. They've also perpetuated fake news and misinformation, calling for greater accountability and responsibility from media outlets. Thus his mental health has been negatively affected by their constant scrutiny. No shit. In addition, he has expressed concern about the impact that the media's coverage can have on public opinion and has called for more responsible reporting.

A total one-of-one, you don't get this kind of hot gos very often. Definitely worth a read even if, like me, you can't even name most of the people he is talking about. Probably the most relatable and intriguing part to me is how candid he is about his struggles with mental health and his struggles with the media.

The Sound and the Fury - William Faulkner

 

The Sound and the Fury. Hoe-lee shit. William Faulkner's fourth novel. Published in 1929. This is now one of my favorite books of all time. It is a goddamned masterpiece of experimental form. I fucking love a novel with a distinctive style, distinguished by unconventional punctuation, sentence structure, stream-of-consciousness, and frequent shifts in time and narration. It rightly holds its place in the canon of American lit. As I said in my bit on Wise Blood, I read very little Southern fiction in school. I've been very much deprived of this beautiful, complex sub-genre of literature. A real shame and failure of my education, which on paper is considered stellar. 

Anyway, the novel follows the decline of the Compson family in Jefferson, Mississippi, during the early 1900s, spanning 30 years. The family is dealing with the decline of their status and the breakdown of their reputation as former Southern aristocrats. Sort of reminded me of Sir Walter Scott's The Bride of Lammermoor in that way. In that time, the family experiences financial ruin, loss of religious faith, and the erosion of their standing within the community. This all comes to a head and everything really goes to shit as the novel concludes. 

The title comes from act 5 of Shakespeare's Macbeth, the character's most famous soliloquy:

“Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage

And then is heard no more: it is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.”

It's divided into four distinct sections with very different styles. The first section, written from the perspective of Benjy Compson, an intellectually disabled 33-year-old man, takes place on April 7, 1928, his birthday. The narrative style here is disjointed and marked by frequent chronological leaps. The second section, written in stream-of-consciousness, focuses on Benjy's older brother, Quentin Compson, a Harvard student, and the events leading up to his suicide on June 2, 1910. The third section, which occurs on April 6, 1928, is written from the cynical perspective of Jason, Quentin's younger brother. This dude is a real piece of shit. The final section, set on April 8, 1928, is written from a third-person omniscient point of view and centers on Dilsey, one of the Compsons' black servants, and her relationship with Jason and "Miss" Quentin Compson. The section provides insight into the thoughts and actions of the entire Compson family. We really see Jason lose his shit in this section.

Benjy, the first narrator, is the youngest child of the Compson family. He was originally named Maury, but when it became apparent that he was mentally slow, Mrs. Compson (this bitch) renamed him Benjamin to avoid disgracing the Bascomb name. Benjy has the ability to "sense things" but is unable to communicate his knowledge to others. He knows when his pattern of existence is violated, when Caddy has been promiscuous, and when his brother Quentin committed suicide. His section is a difficult read with his bouncing around in time based on his thoughts. As he thinks of something that happened long ago, the reader is flung into that time period. Some critics see Benjy as a Christ figure, who represents Christ's failure to save the modern world. His inability to speak and his castration, not gonna get into that, symbolize the impotence of Christ's message in the modern world. He functions as the moral reflector of the novel and helps the reader evaluate other characters based on how they interact with him.

The character Quentin is a type of Hamlet in that he is plagued by indecisiveness and contemplation, ultimately leading to his suicide. Despite his reluctance to attend Harvard, his mother insists that he go there for his education. I mean, it is fucking Harvard. However, his time at the prestigious institution is an unhappy one as he longs for his family and the familiar way of life he left behind. Quentin is the only Compson who is concerned with honor/love. He searches for meaning in life in the face of the absurd. However, he is constantly reminded of his father's nihilistic philosophy, which seems to be reaffirmed by the world around him. Mr. Compson's beliefs have a profound impact on him. According to Mr. Compson, life is meaningless and devoid of any inherent value beyond personal pleasure and the pretense of gentlemanly behavior. He espouses determinism and fatalism, viewing man as the product of his misfortunes and suggesting that no action can truly hold any significance. This makes it difficult for Quentin to find any sense of purpose or meaning in his own life. He's also obsessed with Caddy's virginity. A weird thing to obsess over, your sister's chaste. In the end, he tragically takes his own life by drowning in the Charles River, near the campus. His suicide is his attempt to hold on to his grief and avoid the meaningless existence that would result from forgetting it.

Caddy, the only sister among the Compson clan, is a really interesting character that we only see indirectly through the memories of Benjy, Quentin, and Jason. Readers generally approach the novel by examining each brother's relationship with her. Through these memories, we can infer Caddy's significance to each of her brothers. From an early age, Caddy played a maternal role for Benjy, who developed a strong attachment to her. As Caddy grows older, she becomes disillusioned with the superficiality and hypocrisy of the Compson family and rejects their values by engaging in promiscuous behavior. She does not enjoy these relationships but views them as deliberate forms of rebellion against her family's oppressive influence. Caddy believes that the Compson family is cursed and is willing to violate societal norms such as incest or suicide in order to assert her own individuality. Through Caddy, Faulkner explores the themes of familial and societal expectations.

Looming over the whole novel, drifting in and out of each narrative is Mrs. Compson, an extremely unpleasant hypochondriac. She greatly contributions to the Compson family's downfall throughout. She is a self-absorbed, neurotic woman who cannot provide the love and care that her children need. Her whining leaves no room for the love that the children require, except for Jason. She is unable to understand Benjy's needs and only causes him to bellow louder when she attempts to help. She prefers Jason to her other children, despite him being a complete prick who deserves no love at all. In the final chapter, she reveals her belief that her aristocratic status gives her special privileges in the eyes of God, saying “Whoever God is, He would not permit that. I’m a lady. You might not believe that from my offspring, but I am.” She is obsessed with the concept of family and ancestry, but she shows no capacity to love or care for her children, who are the last hope she has for maintaining her legacy.

In the final section of the novel, Jason justifies his pursuit of Miss Quentin, who stole back the money he had been thieving for the last 15 years, money her mother, Caddy, was sending to her. His dependence on the stolen money pisses him off, and he ultimately realizes he will never succeed because he never takes responsibility for being an asshole. This just pisses him off more though, nearly leading to him getting murdered when he fucks with the wrong carney. 

He explains everything to the sheriff in the best possible light in the hope of getting the $3000 back. But the sheriff and everyone else in Jefferson know he is full of shit and he is basically told to fuck off. The sheriff is mostly concerned with what Jason would do to Miss Quentin if he finds her, telling him not do anything crazy and that he knows Jason's been stealing the ducats. “I wouldn’t lay my hand on her,” Jason responds. “The bitch that cost me a job, the one chance I ever had to get ahead, that killed my father and is shortening my mother’s life every day and made my name a laughing stock in the town. I wont do anything to her.” Bitter and resentful, as usual, this is Jason's default setting. He laments the loss of the bank job promised by Herbert Head, whom he blames Caddy for divorcing forever ago. Ironically, his declaration that he will not harm Miss Quentin is accurate since she is already gone, intensifying his rage.

Most of the novel is set during the Easter weekend of 1928, a time associated with death, but also the hope of renewal and resurrection. The South and religion, oof. This placement is significant as it mirrors the weekend of Christ's crucifixion on Good Friday and resurrection on Easter Sunday. Dilsey, the Compson family’s long-serving cook, is the subject of the last section of the novel, which takes place on Easter. She represents a moral and humane force. Her love for all creatures is unwavering, and she treats each member of the family with equal compassion. “I seed de beginnin, en now I sees de endin,” she says when shit has hit the fan. Amidst the Compson family's downfall, she stands out as a source of hope, embodying another Christ-like figure who has endured suffering and hardship throughout her life while maintaining values of hard work, endurance, love of family, and religious faith. She is the only character who has successfully resurrected these abandoned values amidst the crumbling Compson family.

Dilsey does not dwell on the past, instead choosing to focus on how she can help the family in the present. Her steadfast loyalty to the Compsons is rooted in her long history with them, and she is the only character who successfully resurrects the values of hard work, endurance, love of family, and religious faith that the Compsons have lost. On Easter Sunday, amid the chaos of the Compson household, Dilsey brings order and peace, offering the reader a glimpse of hope for redemption. Dilsey’s insight into the Compson family tragedy and her ability to see it in the context of a greater cycle reveal her conviction and faith in her own vision of eternity, which is entirely free of worldly concerns. Her acceptance of the passage of time and her ability to remain focused on the present make her a calming and comforting presence in the midst of the family’s disintegration.

The Compsons have no one to blame but themselves for the sorry state they find themselves. Ther corruption of Southern values results in a household devoid of love, the force that once bound them together. The parents are distant and ineffectual, and Caddy, the only child who shows an ability to love, is disowned. Quentin's love for Caddy is obsessive and overprotective, and none of the men experience true romantic love. Dilsey is the only character who maintains her values without the corrupting influence of self-absorption, making her the only hope for the renewal of traditional Southern values in an uncorrupted form. She represents the torchbearer for these values and the only hope for the preservation of the Compson legacy. Faulkner suggests that the problem is not necessarily the values of the old South but the fact that these values were corrupted by families like the Compsons, and they must be recaptured for any Southern greatness to return.

So that is my take on The Sound and the Fury, a work of art among the greatest of American novels. Without it, no way Faulkner receives the 1949 Nobel Prize in Literature. A true literary achievement. Gonna have have to dive in to the rest of his work, it seems. 

Indiana HB 1608 - Transphobic Legislation Comes Home

Late last month, the Indiana House passed HB 1608. The legislation prohibits discussion of LGBTQ children in schools and discloses transgender students' identities. One of the shameful “Don't Say Gay” clones that are being passed in red states. It passed with minimal discussion. The bill will now advance to the Senate where it too will pass. 

ACLU of Indiana Advocacy and Public Policy Director, Katie Blair, issued the following statement: 

“HB 1608 is a disgraceful piece of legislation that targets LGBTQ kids by censoring conversations about LGBTQ families in schools and forcing teachers to out transgender students. Every parent hopes our laws will ensure children’s safety, protection, and freedom. But the Indiana legislators supporting this bill are rejecting those values and targeting LGBTQ kids for bullying and mistreatment, just because of who they are. Our schools should protect all students—including LGBTQ students—so they can learn and thrive in a safe environment. The legislators behind HB 1608 are trying to force schools to violate that most basic trust. LGBTQ families in Indiana will not be erased and we will be out in force if and when this bill is heard in the Senate.” 

I've seen the wingers with the prion disease argue that it is necessary to protect kids from woke teachers turning them gay or transgender. Others say that we need it to protect five year olds from learning about complex sex stuff. 

One I got into it with, on the internet, said (paraphrasing and cleaning it up):

“Don't expect parents to buy into your delusions of K-12 students not being abused in recent years. Instances like Drag Queen Story Hour, a transgender girl assaulting a biological girl in two separate school bathrooms, administering puberty blockers without parental consent, after-school programs where teachers encourage students to lie to their parents, kids being taken away from their parents for not using preferred pronouns, and books like 'Gender Queer' portraying sexual acts such as rape and fellatio have been found in numerous schools. This bill's aim is not political, but to safeguard children from malevolent, twisted individuals who wish to harm them.”

I've take a page out of a brilliant and thoughtful lawyer friend of mine's playback when dealing with stuff like this. I ask where they got this info. When they come back with a dubious blog post or whatever, I then breakdown into journalist mode. Explaining that sources matter and so forth, which I did in this case. Radio silence since then, which is not really the point. 

Thinking about this longer and harder than I have on any right-wing bullshit for a while now, this is what I've come up with. The first thing these lawmakers do is point say the bill aims to prohibit sexual education for students in third grade and below. That is not an appropriate topic for young students. “I don't my tender, naïve third grader exposed to sexualized concepts!” Well, yeah, no one wants that and it isn't happening. No Indiana students are not currently learning sex education in those grades. 

So what is this really about? Who are these “Don't Say Gay” bills really for? Seems that they are mostly for angry male chauvinists. The goal is obviously to prevent teachers from being able to support LGBTQ students. A way to own the libs at the cost of their (or other people's) children. That's really sweet of them. I thought you people didn't like hearing “we are from the government and we are here to help.”

Which brings me to another point, you can't really have a reasonable, rational conversation with conservatives about matters of race, gender, sexuality, so forth. These are issues deeply entrenched and people on the right are offended when asked to consider another viewpoint. 

What I'm seeing here on social media is pointing out a problem that demands attention, and people on the right using this as an opportunity to shout her down, condescend, deride, and ignore. Such is the way. 

But, really, we can read between the lines. Just say you hate gay people. Be like the Dilbert guy and say the quite part out loud. 

Shakespeare's Sonnets - William Shakespeare

William “fucking” Shakespeare. Read the 154 sonnets that were together in the 1609 quarto. I'm out of practice reading poetry. Pretty much all I did to get my degree. But you use it or lose it, I guess. Still. Turns out this Shakespeare character is pretty good at writing. 

A little background here. The collection is regarded as an extension of the sonnet legacy that emerged during the Renaissance period from Petrarch in 14th-century Italy. The form was introduced to 16th-century England by one Thomas Wyatt and then given its rhyming meter and division into quatrains by Henry Howard. 

Although adhering to the stylistic form, Shakespeare's sonnets deviate significantly in content. These departures appear to be a rebellion against the well-established traditions that had lasted for two centuries. Unlike the works of Petrarch, Dante, and Philip Sidney, which expressed worshipful love for an unobtainable female love object, Shakespeare's sonnets introduce a young man and the Dark Lady. 

The sonnets encompass various subjects, including the progression of time, love, unfaithfulness, envy, attractiveness, and death. Bucking tradition, he delves into themes such as lust, homoeroticism, misogyny, infidelity, and acrimony. 

Three characters emerge throughout. They are generally referred to as the Fair Youth, the Rival Poet, and the Dark Lady. The first 126 sonnets are directed toward a young man, while the final 28 allude to or directly address a woman. The speaker adores the Fair Youth's beauty and, if one reads the sonnets as published chronologically, has an affair with the Dark Lady before the Fair Youth does. Scandalous However, it is unclear if the characters and poems are fictitious or autobiographical. Scholars who support the autobiographical interpretation have attempted to link the characters to historical persons. Gonna ignore all that here though. 

The ones that jumped out to me are 18, 71-74, 94, 106, 144, and 146. 18 is the one that starts out “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? / Thou art more lovely and more temperate.” This is undeniably the most well-known and probably the most popular lyric poem in the English language. Up there with “To be or not to be” and “Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?” as the most famous of Shakespeare's lines. It's straightforward adoration of his dude who has his enduring place in literary history thanks to “The Bard.” This was what Shakespeare was setting out to do with this piece as the first 17 sonnets urge the guy to procreate. In this one, Shakespeare concludes that the young man's beauty, his "eternal summer", could be preserved for “generations” through his poetry, rather than through some dumb kid. “So long as men can breathe or eyes can see," the sonnet will live on, granting everlasting life. Pretty cool. 

Really like Shakespeare's moodier sonnets, like the connected group of 71-74. The sequence shows the poet's fear of death and his desire to leave a lasting legacy that will keep the youth's memory alive. The tone grows increasingly mournful as he confronts his own mortality, as a good poet does. Sonnets 71 and 72 see him urging the young man not to mourn or even praise him after his death, expressing concern for the youth's reputation and self-denial. In Sonnet 73, he uses metaphors of autumn leaves, twilight, and dying embers to reflect on his approaching death. Still, he desires the young man's love, of course. Sonnet 74 marks a significant shift as the poet asserts the worth of his poetry, claiming it will serve as a memorial because it contains images of the youth's soul. More of that everlasting life stuff. 

Skipping way ahead here to Sonnet 144. Here the poet departs from his usual focus on either the Dark Lady or the young man and instead analyzes their relationship with some detachment. This is in the form of the old devil, the Dark Lady, on one shoulder, and the angel, the youth, on the other. However, his cynical and mocking tone suggests that he is tormented by uncertainty about the situation. The sonnet follows a familiar pattern of setting up an antithesis between the two lovers, with the young man representing selfless love and the Dark Lady representing shameful lust. Oh, for shame. Symbolically, they represent the poet's inner conflict between these two types of love. However, the poet is now merely a spectator and fears that the young man may be tempted by the Dark Lady. The uncertain outcome of their relationship is the only certainty for the poet, who ends the sonnet with the ominous phrase "until my bad angel fire my good one out," leaving the true meaning open to interpretation. This is my favorite poem of the bunch. Sonnet 146, is a close second though. 

In 146, the poet contemplates why his soul spends so much time pursuing earthly desires instead of striving for immortality. The woman he desires is symbolized by the "fading mansion," which contrasts with the promise of eternal life in Psalm 23. The poet urges his soul to learn from the rejection of the body by the woman and to focus on earning salvation instead. He emphasizes that the soul should prepare for death and ensure its immortality. In the final couplet, the metaphor of “Devouring Time” suggests the urgency of this preparation, as the soul becomes eternal once it secures its immortality.

By the by, dude does a pretty good job of making the most of his time. I took four fucking classes on in him college, for example. People devote their whole lives to studying his work. Shit, I think about the guy every day. Some shit that hits home is when questions why his soul wastes its time on temporary pleasures when life on earth is so short. This is some shit I ask myself every fucking day.