Lots of good reads today, if you're killing some time between voting for Uneva Shaw for the second and third time. First, you've probably heard about the Tony Kushner one-act in which Laura Bush argues with an angel about the proper hermanuetics for Dostoyevsky. But have you read it? You should. Yes, it's anti-Bush propaganda, openly so, but it's Kushner, which means it's ridiculously good, blending political diatribe with the subtlest of moral gradations. Take this Laura Bush monologue as an example:
"And because it's genius literature of the first rank, and not some magazine article, your eyes sometimes reblur all over again as you're reading the twisty words, and all of a sudden you don't agree with the Inquisitor, he's the devil again, talking talking, but suddenly something has happened and it's not the people you are used to thinking of as evil totalitarian people who are the evil totalitarian people who are the pals of the Inquisitor and, well, the devil! You think wait a minute, isn't this Grand Inquisitor starting to sound like (whispers) John Ashcroft, who just between us -- (she shudders violently) Cuh-REEPy. You lose track of who is who, your compass is gone all screwy, you started out knowing for sure, and you end up adrift, and the more you think on it the more the clarity of the argument sort of melts like people in 900-degree Fahrenheit heat, and all you can see anymore is pain, pain and more pain, like it's not about ideas anymore, it's just about raw naked SUFFERING, and..."
You really should go ahead and read the whole thing. It'll take you twenty minutes, and if you're a conservative you'll get your blood pressure going for the rest of the day. You'll be all pumped up. It'll be good for you.
No? OK, then try this speech by Michael Chabon at the San Diego Comic-Con, an event that I would never have expected to link to, but there you are. Chabon mourns the shift away from writing comics for kids, then offers some suggestions on how to bring children back to the "greasy kid's stuff":
"Let’s blow their little minds. A mind is not blown, in spite of whatever Hollywood seems to teach, merely by action sequences, things exploding, thrilling planetscapes, wild bursts of speed. Those are good things. But a mind is blown when something you always feared but knew to be impossible turns out to be true; when the world turns out to be far vaster, far more marvelous or malevolent than you ever dreamed; when you get proof that everything is connected to everything else, that everything you know is wrong, that you are both the center of the universe and a tiny speck sailing off its nethermost edge."
Lovely. Man, do I want to write like Mike.
Posted by mesh at August 5, 2004 01:50 PM | TrackBackI have. It's not as coherent as the first piece, but I think it's a more nuanced scene, with some perceptive self-critique. (Thanks for the kind words on your link, by the way. And congratualations on your wedding!)
Posted by: mesh at August 7, 2004 04:43 PM