Well. . . that didn't take long. Less than a week. Now there is outrage over dead Cormac McCarthy's affair with Augusta Britt. He is already being cancelled. A female prof and McCarthy scholar at UNC now refuses to teach or write about him or his work. It doesn't matter to them that Britt was and still is in love with the memory.
What a world where sensible people are caught between Trumpers and the New Puritan Woke.
"What happened, honey? Why are you so upset?"
"He did sex to her!"
"Was it rape?"
"Practically."
O.K. I'm traveling a narrow, dangerous road here. Let's take a dogleg for the moment. My conservative friend, the secret Trumper, sends me provocative texts daily. Climate change, plastic, electric cars. . . anything to get under my skin.
So yesterday, I get, "Global Warming, Heart Problems, Small Penis…. SO so much to worry about."
I wrote back: "You rich guys never worry. Poor people are your canaries in the coal mine. But yea—you had Covid, so. . .your cock shrunk. That’s a fact."
There's my keeper--poor people are rich people's canaries in the coal mine. It's true, isn't it? As the shit rises, it is going to hit the poor long before it touches the wealthy, and they figure with enough money, they will escape somehow. Being somewhere in between, I only have enough time to see what is about to happen to me.
Eat the rich!
In Texas, they have made it official--the Bible will be taught K-5. Oh, man. . . let me teach!
Okey, dokey, kids. Gather 'round. Today I am going to teach the Bible.
The daughters of the biblical patriarch Lot appear in chapter 19 of the Book of Genesis, in two connected stories. In the first, Lot offers his daughters to a Sodomite mob; in the second, his daughters have sex with Lot without his knowledge to bear him children.
In 2 Samuel 11-12, King David commits adultery with Bathsheba, who becomes pregnant. David tries to cover his sin by having Bathsheba's husband killed in battle.
It is good to be Christian, see? According to the Bible, Jesus' blood on the cross covers all sins, including infidelity, and can be forgiven through repentance. In Islamic doctrine, adultery is considered an unpardonable sin, and the Prophet said that Allah will punish nations where adultery is rampant.
I need to be more careful, I know, but there is something in me that can't quit it. I never could.
I was tempted to read a new book about Wallis Simpson by a man named French. The review started off well and sounded promising.
“Her Lotus Year,” by Paul French, refocuses attention on the year she spent living in China. She was 28 years old and married to her first husband, the American Navy officer Win Spencer.
Later, after she began her affair with the Prince of Wales, this period would become an endless source of lurid speculation. It was widely believed that British intelligence had compiled a “China Dossier” on Simpson, which alleged that she had had an abortion, posed for pornographic photographs, seduced husbands, conducted an affair with an Italian fascist, smoked opium, gambled and worked for Chinese gangsters.
One particularly outré rumor — that Simpson learned a trick from sex workers called the “Shanghai grip” — was happily repeated by enough lords and ladies that it has appeared in at least two biographies.
Jesus--one can only hope! Who wouldn't want to read about that?
None of this is true, maintains French.
Well, then, fuck him and his book! His next work is going to debunk Santa Clause, Bigfoot, and the Loch Ness Monster. What good is a world without such things? Some people just want to take all the color out of life.
After a marvelous Thursday on which I have reported, Friday wasn't all that. Great weather and the like, but I did nothing with it. After a visit with my mother, I took myself to that wonderful Italian restaurant for a big bowl of their amazing seafood stew--grilled squid, steamed mussels and clams, scallops, shrimp, and salmon in a red wine sauce over pasta noodles. The evening was becoming chilly as the sun went down. I sat at the bar alone. I ate. I drank. Facing the street looking out over the sidewalk through the open windows, I watched the pretty passersby. When I got home, the cat was waiting for her second feeding. Her boyfriend joined her. She gets closer to me all the time now, and when I feed her, she brushes her tail against my leg. I fed them each, he just a tiny bit, and decided to have a drink on the deck. The sun was down, and I listened to the far off wail of a Friday night. People would be able to dress up in their autumn layers tonight. The bars of the Boulevard would be busy with excited, happy people. It was the season.
Eventually the cats left, first the neighbor's cat, then the stray. The temperature continued to drop and I retreated to the house. I looked up at the clock.
6:00 p.m. "!?!?! WTF?!?!?!
What was I going to do for the next four hours before I went to bed? I called my mother to tell her my silly tale and to make her laugh. Then I decided I needed ice cream. That would cheer me up.
When I woke up, it was 9:30. What happened? I thought I had watched something on t.v. but couldn't remember. Whatever. I got up to prepare for bed. I did my ablutions and took a sleep aid.
Somewhere in the late night or early morning, I had a very vivid dream. Given the moral climate, I best not report it in any detail here, but it excited me and made me very happy. I lay there in a semi-conscious state remembering what I had just dreamt. It all came back to me, every detail. Maybe it was the McCarthy thing that inspired it. I don't know. It wasn't until this morning that I was aware of the negative outcry over the Vanity Fair article.
I love misdeeds, wrongdoing, and the sensual life, I'm afraid. And yet. . . my life is pretty much a solitary bore. What strength I can muster some days dissipates the next. So it seems. My luck runs hot and cold. . . and cold and cold .
Is having loved and lost better than never having loved at all? I don't know if I really believe the old poets.
That's nice, but I'm betting there were days when Shakespeare looked in the mirror and simply said, "I'm getting old," too.
I'm not sure, but I am pretty sure the rules about "certain things" are still different in West Virginia. It's hillbilly country, you know.
No comments:
Post a Comment