Navigation

Archive | Country Matters

Death to the Cockocracy

December 12, 2016 in Country Matters, Etiquette Matters, Feminist Matters

Twice this weekend I was in a restaurant–one time in Soho; the other in Williamsburg–when a pack of youngish white guys–bearded, casually expensively dressed–grew so loud and rowdy that nobody else could hear themselves, let alone their companions. One group was clearly comprised of bankers; the other, hipsters who may even have considered themselves progressive. To me, they were equally offensive. I take this kind of rudeness very, very seriously, since white male entitlement is on a continuum that goes all the way to the oligarchy subsuming our country and our planet. You can argue that people are entitled to have a good time, that “boys will be boys,” but I am beyond tired of the privileging of this swath of humanity over the ears, needs, lives of everyone else. Bottom line: I’ve come to find bro culture violent in all its forms. If you are a white straight dude hanging out in public with your pals, check yourself.

Social Change and Sci-Fi: 5 Authors to Heed

December 7, 2016 in Book Matters, Country Matters, Feminist Matters, Listing

Science fiction has always best served those not served by their current reality. Utopias proscribe alternatives to a reality increasingly hostile to many; dystopias highlight destructive elements while we still can change them; and all speculative tales offer metaphors that double as handy tools in the fight for social change. Alas, not all sci-fi advocates for social justice; some only focuses on wish fulfillment, whether it’s consequence-free sex with mega-hotties or a mastery of the fourth dimension (time). But by marshaling imagination and innovation, the best sci-fi authors grant us a better understanding of ourselves, our world, and all the selves and worlds we can be. Is it any wonder that the genre holds the greatest appeal to those of us who in one way or another are labeled “other” or “in-valid” (with a nod to the 1997 film “Gattaca)? With a bona-fide dystopia now serving as reality, it’s time to explore visions of how else we can live. Here’s a primer of five authors that make a great start. Continue Reading →

Green Men and Women

December 6, 2016 in Art Matters, City Matters, Country Matters, Weather Matters

the-flowered-dressI want to resist wherever resistance is possible, to stay alert to the idiocracy of greed and hatred building in our nation. But I don’t want to let it debilitate me, nor blind me to the beauty that flourishes all around us. On a day like today in NYC, when a cold rain poured down upon our heads and most of Manhattan was held hostage by our new oligarch, it was fine art that I found most healing. This painting by Édouard Vuillard—really, his whole body of work—fills my heart whenever I gaze at it. Olive and pine, lapis and beryl, sea moss and sky marine: these are life colors, Mother Earth colors. Good colors. Some people consider the Jewish Frenchman a mere society painter, but I see him as subverting gentile gentility by casting their machinations in colors they never could’ve imagined, let alone seen. It’s a thin line between dissociation and self-flagellation, and somedays that line is every shade of green.

"All, everything I understand, I understand only because I love."
― Leo Tolstoy