Down with Harry Potter

Since I’ve pissed off several friends already by forwarding this critique of Harry Potter, it’s time to troll it up on the blog. I hereby admit that I feel nothing but revulsion for Harry Potter and everything he stands for. I wanted to articulate why one day, and then I came across A.S. Byatt’s fantastic [...]

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A Brief Summary of Ian McEwan’s Saturday

Begin day. Pre-day. Brain Surgeon awakes suddenly “some hours before dawn.” Opens window on London square from fancy big apartment. Condescending observation of square peons. Sees a distressed plane and its trail of fire cross the sky to an unknown fate in the west. Fears terrorism. Biologically reductive reveries about terrorism and religion. Nature, nurture, [...]

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Poetry Friday: Hungover a Line (a sonnet)

My latest on wellreadchild:
Ms. Tullo asked me to write a sonnet. So I did.
Hungover a Line
by Wes
Hungover a line, to dry the crime
I wring out little droplets of regret
Last night dissolves below me, in the brine
Today flies upward with my darkening head
These sparking thoughts make way from cloud to cloud
In search of what I committed [...]

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When “Experience” is Conformity, and “Toughness” Insecurity

When I talk to friends who are worried about an Obama candidacy and possible administration, I hear the following:

Americans will not elect a black man
Obama is inexperienced and soft
The optimism of Obama and his supporters seems dangerously naive
Obama is simply a politician, like the rest, and no more like to put principle ahead of political [...]

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The Viability of Obama, Part II — The Meaning of Toughness

A year ago I wrote a post called The Viability of Obama, in response to to friends who thought that the United States was not ready to elect a black president (and long before Obama was thought of as anything but a foil for Clinton). So yes, I’m here to congratulate myself. In part. For [...]

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We Hard Working, White, Statistical Falsehoods (Obama’s Demographic Problem: The Elderly, not Whites)

Clinton: I, but not Barack Obama, have the support of
working, hard-working Americans, White Americans
Some … call you swing voters, I call you Americans
(Where “hard-working” means uneducated enough to have voted for Bush twice).
The common interpretation among pundits is that it is an unwise but innocent statement of fact. But it is neither factual nor innocent.
First, [...]

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Poetry Friday Challenge: The Aubade

Today’s WellReadChild post:

We’ve done the aubade, and Wilbur, so I thought I’d combine them and turn it into a challenge.
In Richard Wilbur’s “Late Aubade,” the morning departure of a lover has already been staved off. It’s just a matter of how long he can sustain the post-coital languor. Love has a [...]

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