Looking back on the life I’ve lived, I realize that drugs were a dress rehearsal for what we’re going through now. A generation of us took drugs when we were young and didn’t know what life had in store for us, but in my case, at least, taking a little mescaline seemed like a good idea, because what drugs amounted to was self-imposed chaos, and I suspected chaos was on the horizon, if it wasn’t all around us already, albeit in a form that wasn’t beating us constantly about the head and shoulders.
Wow. Chilling and unsurprising, especially for me, growing up in Argentina under a "President" who was elected by its citizens and had a beautiful young wife named Evita. His legacy and Party have ruined a country which was once among the wealthiest countries in the world. Argentina began the 20th century as one of the wealthiest places in the world. Beware, be alert, be quick and for goodness sake, VOTE!
I will use any reference I see anywhere online when possible to link to bios of two brilliant Argentinian writers you undoubtedly have read and appreciated, but too many around this third planet from the local sun have missed, here they are:
Adolfo Bioy Casares (Spanish pronunciation: [aˈðolfo ˈβjoj kaˈsaɾes]; 15 September 1914 – 8 March 1999) was an Argentine fiction writer, journalist, diarist, and translator. He was a friend and frequent collaborator with his fellow countryman Jorge Luis Borges. He is the author of the Fantastique novel The Invention of Morel. ***** {Also not to be missed, rush out and find it right now, in fact! - is his equally fantastic, haunting novel translated into English as The Dream of Heroes}
Julio Florencio Cortázar[1] (26 August 1914 – 12 February 1984; American Spanish: [ˈxuljo koɾˈtasaɾ] (listen)) was an Argentine, nationalized French novelist, short story writer, essayist, and translator. Known as one of the founders of the Latin American Boom, Cortázar influenced an entire generation of Spanish-speaking readers and writers in America and Europe.
He is considered one of the most innovative and original authors of his time, a master of history, poetic prose and short story in general and a creator of important novels that inaugurated a new way of making literature in the Hispanic world by breaking the classical molds through narratives that escaped temporal linearity. *****
Los Premios, translated as The Winners, Blow-Up and Other Stories, Hopscotch, and many others are guaranteed to delight and provoke intense musings on life, love, lost love, lost and found love, betrayal, self-betrayal, travel, remaining rooted in a place despite being thousands of miles away in space and time....
{ "Anyone who does not read Cortazar is doomed."}
***** In 1938, using the pseudonym of Julio Denis, he self-published a volume of sonnets, Presencia,[9] which he later repudiated, saying in a 1977 interview for Spanish television that publishing it was his only transgression to the principle of not publishing any books until he was convinced that what was written in them was what he meant to say.[10] In 1944, he became professor of French literature at the National University of Cuyo in Mendoza, but owing to political pressure from Peronists, he resigned the position in June 1946. He subsequently worked as a translator and as director of the Cámara Argentina del Libro, a trade organization.[11] In 1949 he published a play, Los Reyes (The Kings), based on the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur. In 1980, Cortázar delivered eight lectures at the University of California, Berkeley.[12]
Years in France
In 1951, Cortázar immigrated to France, where he lived and worked for the rest of his life, though he traveled widely. From 1952 onwards, he worked intermittently for UNESCO as a translator. He wrote most of his major works in Paris or in Saignon in the south of France, where he also maintained a home. In later years he became actively engaged in opposing abuses of human rights in Latin America, and was a supporter of the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua as well as Fidel Castro's Cuban revolution and Salvador Allende's socialist government in Chile.[13]
Cortázar had three long-term romantic relationships with women. The first was with Aurora Bernárdez, an Argentine translator, whom he married in 1953. They separated in 1968[14] when he became involved with the Lithuanian writer, editor, translator, and filmmaker Ugnė Karvelis, whom he never formally married, and who reportedly stimulated Cortázar's interest in politics,[15] although his political sensibilities had already been awakened by a visit to Cuba in 1963, the first of multiple trips that he would make to that country throughout the remainder of his life. In 1981 he married Canadian writer Carol Dunlop. After Dunlop's death in 1982, Aurora Bernárdez accompanied Cortázar during his final illness and, in accordance with his longstanding wishes, inherited the rights to all his works.[16][17] *****
Cortázar wrote numerous short stories, collected in such volumes as Bestiario (1951), Final del juego (1956), and Las armas secretas (1959). In 1967, English translations by Paul Blackburn of stories selected from these volumes were published by Pantheon Books as End of the Game and Other Stories; it was later re-titled Blow-up and Other Stories. Cortázar published four novels during his lifetime: Los premios (The Winners, 1960), Hopscotch (Rayuela, 1963), 62: A Model Kit (62 Modelo para Armar, 1968), and Libro de Manuel (A Manual for Manuel, 1973). Except for Los premios, which was translated by Elaine Kerrigan, these novels have been translated into English by Gregory Rabassa. Two other novels, El examen and Divertimento, though written before 1960, only appeared posthumously.
The open-ended structure of Hopscotch, which invites the reader to choose between a linear and a non-linear mode of reading, has been praised by other Latin American writers, including José Lezama Lima, Giannina Braschi, Carlos Fuentes, Gabriel García Márquez, and Mario Vargas Llosa.[citation needed] Cortázar's use of interior monologue and stream of consciousness owes much to James Joyce[20] and other modernists,[citation needed] but his main influences were Surrealism,[21] the French Nouveau roman[citation needed] and the improvisatory aesthetic of jazz.[22] This last interest is reflected in the notable story "El perseguidor" ("The Pursuer"), which Cortázar based on the life of the bebop saxophonist Charlie Parker.[23] *****
But in 1974 Congressional Republicans had integrity when they told Nixon he would be impeached if he didn’t resign. Today the majority of Republicans in Congress bow and scrape before Traitor Tot. They cower before him because they’re afraid he’ll start calling them bad names, and then they’ll be primaried by a MAGGOT.
"But in 1974..." Yes and No. Yes, a few did. No, nowhere close to a majority. Yes. there clearly were enough total votes in the House (230+Ds) to impeach and yes, enough total votes in the Senate (56Ds needing 11 Rs) to convict. When looking at the few votes held during the Hearings only a tiny number of Rs voted with Ds.
Historians painted a rosy and romantic pic of Watergate that never existed. (1) They insisted Ford was brilliant in pardoning Nixon while dismissing the tenet of American jurisprudence of no man is above the law. (2) Used the fallacy of the small number to obscure the fact the vast majority of R members of Congress continued to support Nixon. (3) Most of all ignored what followed, Reagan doubling down on the Southern Strategy, the GOP and conservatives taking up where Nixon left off on demeaning liberals that he began w/McGovern), and most of all rejecting the moderate ideology of Ike while embracing a militant version of conservatism (being on the attack in all ways at all times), and doubling down on expanding Boogiemen (the appeal to ignorance and fear). The cherry on top was Ford's pardon of Nixon meant R presidents were now above the law whether Iran-Contra, all-things W., and of course Trump.
So, Watergate was indeed an inflection point, just not the positive one historians long claimed. Au contraire.
Only now are a few reflecting on their errors. All of which puts Lucian's words in proper context. If there has been a change in the GOP, conservatives, and the entirety of the right wing then it is in degree, not in kind. EDIT/ADD: Best captured as moral, political and physical cowardice.
And like a toddler, he's a hoarder. "Mine, all mine!!" Visualizing boxes and boxes of documents accumulating in the WH residence... can you imagine? No wonder his wife preferred to stay in New York; I don't think her reasons were exclusively related to their son Baron.
There was probably no room in any of the closets for her clothes because the closets were filled with stacks of boxes filled with top secret documents.
What troubles me is the difficulty in having a polite conversation with someone whose views are opposed to mine. Example: In November 2016, I briefly broke up with my beau because he couldn't understand why I was so upset about the election results -- and when he said he'd voted for Trump, I told him not to call me anymore.
Well, he was a persistent son-of-gun and eventually, I agreed to have a chat with him. He trotted out the "he's a businessman" argument and I pointed out that he was a businessman like a particularly obnoxious client of his late best friend -- my ex-boss -- whose business had failed, in large part, because of people who didn't pay their goddamned bills. "He's like Ratso Ron -- runs up a big bill and then declares bankruptcy -- and he's done it more than once. Both of them..."
Finally, we agreed not to discuss politics. However, a year or so later, I asked him (civilly) if he was glad he had voted for Trump and had Trump achieved what he hoped for? His reply was "Well, I hear Joe Biden's going to run for president with Obama as his VP, and if he wins, he'll immediately resign for health reasons and then Obama will be president again..."
(A) A charming idea, but (B) NOT AN ANSWER TO MY QUESTION.
I gave up. Is that our problem? Giving up? I don't know if giving speeches to a crowd will help. People in crowds are often in the group-mindset already. Even talking to a Trumper, respectfully, one on one... ? How do you point out to someone that they are terribly mistaken without implying that they are stupid?
Yes, it's a cult-like commitment for a huge percentage of the Trump supporters, good luck managing to establish a rapport that allows for a carefully calibrated deconstruction of the presuppositions, logical leaps, conscious or unconscious or preconscious ("atavistic") primordial reptile-brain underpinnings of their "undeniably true views about America falling apart before our very eyes while our potential savior, Donald J. Trump, has been meanly cheated out of his rightful position as President-for-Life, damn it!"
The Authoritarian Personality is a 1950 sociology book by Theodor W. Adorno, Else Frenkel-Brunswik, Daniel Levinson, and Nevitt Sanford, researchers working at the University of California, Berkeley, during and shortly after World War II.
The Authoritarian Personality "invented a set of criteria by which to define personality traits, ranked these traits and their intensity in any given person on what it called the 'F scale' (F for fascist)."[1] The personality type Adorno et al. identified can be defined by nine traits that were believed to cluster together as the result of childhood experiences. These traits include conventionalism, authoritarian submission, authoritarian aggression, anti-intraception, superstition and stereotypy, power and "toughness", destructiveness and cynicism, projectivity, and exaggerated concerns over sex.[2][3]
Though criticized at the time for bias and methodology,[4][5] the book was highly influential in American social sciences, particularly in the first decade after its publication: "No volume published since the war in the field of social psychology has had a greater impact on the direction of the actual empirical work being carried on in the universities today."[6]
"Yes, it's a cult-like commitment for a huge percentage of the Trump supporters..."
"Isn't it sad how some people's grip on their lives is so precarious that they'll embrace any preposterous delusion rather than face an occasional bleak truth?" - Calvin to Hobbes
what you say is very true, and I have no solution. I've tried (although, admittedly, not very hard) to have ordinary conversations with people who voted for TFF and I can't. it's sort of like trying to maintain eye contact with a naked person who's walked up to you in the street and asked directions.
so yeah, I'm living in an echo chamber. and it feels lousy, but it'd feel worse trying to forget that the person I'm trying to have a conversation with is, essentially, nuts or stupid or (as is too often true) both.
I've lived here thirty-five years and I've had long friendships with a few neighbors who, I suspect, voted for TFF. since politics has never been something we ever discussed, it's easy to avoid the subject. and I do, religiously.
I'm in contact with pretty much every surviving old girlfriend, but none of them would have ever voted for TFF. well, possibly one, but our communication consists mostly of wishing each other Happy Birthday on FB.
When people say Trump is a business man, I like to point out that the “deep state” has bailed his businesses out of four bankruptcies. He gladly accepted that relief.
"....something far more terrifying to contemplate. Its name is us." Lucian, when I came to the end and read that sentence, I had a chill go down my spine. I felt the hair stand up on my neck. It is true, and it is terrifying.
As I forwarded this essay to my family just now, I said it’s us alright. At 76 I don’t want to fall into despair, I’ve seen enough dark days in this life I’ve lived, but I’m not stupid and if what Lucian so eloquently stated, and so many others are warning about, doesn’t scare the living shit out of you, then maybe you are stupid or some other type of person that can’t tell right from wrong. I read the indictment today that the SC drew up, he asked us to read it so I did, it’s not a pleasant way to spend a half hour. What happened is totally within the character of the insipid clown that is our former president, he needs to go to prison for a very long time, if a jury finds him guilty as charged. The indictment is the tip of the iceberg, all of the entities that generated those documents had to sign off on their becoming somewhat public in order to be in the court system, think about what they wouldn’t allow to be used, there is way more here than meets the eye. I think it’s way worse than anyone has been letting on.
like most people our age, I've been struggling with this seeming conundrum and realized a while back that yes, the '60s happened in the middle of a time of great innocence. and that innocence was both good (isn't it better to be "innocent" than "jaded?") and, in many ways, rotten.
but this...I was just telling my friend on the phone that we might not ever get out of THIS. will apartments in the Village ever be affordable again? will colleges ever be free again? will there ever be lots of good jobs for the English majors (like, say, ME)? will there ever be LOTS of English (and Humanities in general) majors again? will we be able to see Broadway shows for under five bucks (or whatever the "equivalent" is now) if we don't mind sitting in the balcony?...these are obviously rhetorical questions.
when friends tell me that we're dying at the right time, I don't disagree (although, speaking for myself, I don't plan on dying EVER, since I OWN this apartment).
and while people like to talk about the '60s ending with Watergate (which has always been my version of things), that might have been the POLITICAL end. but what really kicked everyone's collective ass was the oil embargo. fuck with a person's CAR and you're in trouble, although back then (unlike today) you probably wouldn't get shot for it.
and while it's easy to single out Nixon for all kinds of (much deserved) abuse, it was Reagan who did shit like massively de-funding education, who's a lot more RESPONSIBLE for the way things are today, when very few kids graduate high school with any working knowledge of how the government is supposed to operate. and if you're running for office in either party, it seems necessary to say nice things about Reagan (whose Iran-Contra scheme was every bit as impeachable as TFF's FIRST impeachment offense, if not worse).
oy, now I've gotten myself all wound up.
and all you ever did was Mescaline? if so, you were a lot smarter then than I've ever been...
well no, I guess it's not. I was assuming. but PLEASE, don't remind me that "when you assume, you make an ass of you and me"...the first time I heard it, it was from a crooked used car dealer who'd tried to sell my father a lemon.
Assuming we even knew what the stuff was that we were using. I still wonder about some brown goo smeared on aluminum foil, rolled, and smoked to mild hallucinogenic effect.
The ~people~ have a long history with naturally occurring hallucinogens. Lots of comments on the subject here are killin' me in a good way. Man-made chems are not so funny. Not then and not now.
Quite interesting and consistent with mescaline being very mind-friendly. Have talked some out of the higher end hallucinogens found in the jungles around the globe. Others did not listen, though. Mescaline is often behind what is commonly known as shape-shifting.
Natural occurring hallucinogens have their own scale, potency, and severity similar to alcoholic beverages.
they sure do. although I'm not aware of any naturally-occurring hallucinogens that'll kill you faster than alcohol, which made a pretty good start on killing me before I was 35.
I Laughed Out Loud. I remember a night on which an old friend of mine (who had the moxie to leave NYC with an Aggie degree from Cornell in 1972, go out west and become one of the first really successful growers in CA) insisted he had some sort of psychedelic from an excellent source, etc. we were told to "go easy" on it. it was (I swear to god) MODELING CLAY. which is what it looked and tasted like.
god knows what weird chemicals a good third of my acid trips (which ended with being mildly poisoned by tainted whitefish in 1972 with the other guy in my avatar) really consisted of. there WAS one time in 1970 when the two of us were given something and two things happened. people removed the chair I was sitting in and I remained sitting down (on AIR) and we wrote a song most people who've heard it remember. but it was still ultra-weird.
a couple of loyal subscribers to this Substack were actually THERE.
The hatred has always been there. The people who voted for Donald Trump also voted for George Wallace, hurled nasty epithets at young girls of color, marched against desegregation and vowed to take back their states when they got a chance.
The problem isn't us, as the people in this column who reply to you. It's not you, it's not those who have education, and opportunities that were not for those who blocked people from voting.
There is a class system in our country-it's not defined by where you live (although if you live in certain places, it sure does help) and not by the way you talk-it's the money you make, the people you know and the way you live your life.
The people who voted for Donald Trump know they're not those people who have all those opportunities, and they're pissed as hell that they don't.
They're tired of being of no account for the rest of us, to being our 'inferiors' by living where they live and not where we do.
They used to call us "East Coast Elites" but now they call us "The Libs" and they despise us with a fury that not many can grasp.
They do hate us. Do not think they do not. They refuse to consider that we are worth saving (as in the Covid pandemic, where they scoffed at vaccines and masks) and they sure don't think we should tell them how to vote or who to vote for.
They believe in Trump because he appears to be one of them, but if you ever put him in a room full of his supporters, he'd refuse to shake their hands.
They're of no account to him, but they're never going to understand it-they just like that he says what they think,. and believe. They're racists, and so is he. But they're not rich however he is and that's almost good enough for them to love him.
They've always been at the bottom of the pecking order and they know they always will be-but Trump speaks their language and that's why he's never going to lose their love.
God help us all for Tuesday because Trump's arraignment is going on, and he's already summoned his believers to Miami for the occasion.
I hope the cops and security team in the court house has machine guns because these people are dangerous. Jan 6 was a demonstration of what they're capable of.
That's the biggest difference of all between our growing up time and now-a lot of us got trodden down into the mud hole and haven't come back up. Those people are pissed off and they want their say.
Trump is their spokesperson and I wish he'd never been born. It would have made so much a difference.
thing is, if the people who voted for TFF were JUST the same people who voted for Wallace, we wouldn't be talking about it.
this gavone/buffoon was PRESIDENT.
and I think most of us know that what gave him any real national "credibility" was that fucking "Apprentice" show.
while a lot of folks here (especially me) spend a lot of time watching it, television has a lot to answer for. this country LOVES to embrace new technology without thinking it through for more than five minutes. I think it has to do with money.
I have never understood why people would enjoy hearing somebody say “you’re fired.” Unless they enjoy seeing others “lose.”
Mature people understand that you win some, you lose some. Neither wins nor losses are necessarily deserved. With maturity you can think of what you should do next.
I was going to add our American history of racism against Blacks in my piece below as an accurate indicator of where we are now. I could have also added the Civil War split. In other words, you are so right.
Mary Hilton, my comments to you seem to be attached to another contributor. I’m not sure why. Your analysis seems exactly right to me. Hank (trying to clarify here)
"The brutal reality of politics would probably be intolerable without drugs." - Hunter S. Thompson
"We look back at the resignation and arrest of Vice President Spiro Agnew in October of 1973 for taking bribes in his White House office with a kind of nostalgia at this point." Rachel Maddow did a deep dive called 'Bagman' about Agnew. (https://www.msnbc.com/bagman, down past the book adverts,)
I remember watching Nixon resign on television in the dining room at Camp Kern, a YMCA ranch camp and hearing about Agnew resigning on a transistor radio walking down Joyce Ann Dr on my way to Shiloh Elementary School.
It never fails to strike me Mr. Truscott, how your writing elicits memories of events I've not thought of sometimes in decades. Thanks again.
For some reason any time I see a reference to Spiro Agnew, I think of two phrases he used: "nattering nabobs of negativism,:" and "impudent corps of effete snobs."
A more literate and verbally sophisticated expression of Trump's nasty politics, but that's about it - and Spiro, a corrupt pol in the old style, was forced out and convicted; it's not clear that if Trump somehow gets elected again, we won't spiral into some kind of civil war. The scope and intensity of it, unknowable as of now, of course.
that phrase was the work of William Safire, who never tired of letting the public know he'd written it. Agnew's crookedness was so old-fashioned, there was something a little refreshing about it.
Thank you for writing this. I have been writing an article most of this evening that encompasses similar themes. I have to stop for the night and it will come out tomorrow, but your article reminded me of how I grew up until I entered high school and our school district was ordered to desegregate. I was part of the first desegregated class to complete all of high school together. It was a defining point in my life. Our class was about a quarter each of African American, Mexican American, Asian American and Whites. It was magical. So was University, and later my time in the military. Thank you again.
Lucian, you sure brought up some 50’s and 60’s stuff that I reminisced completely about. When we finally got our first tv where everything was in “living color”, my dad never abandoned the old black and white. In fact, he would put it on top of the color tv console and watch both in the early morning hours. I think two of the national news stations ran the ticker tape on Wall Street. We would know what kind of mood he was in by those tapes. Anyway, my very first election I voted in was Nixon vs. McGovern. I had turned 21 and it was 1972. I just sobbed when McGovern lost by a landslide. I thought to myself “Can’t anyone tell that when Dickie’s jowls move that he’s a lyin’ SOB?”. Same with Fake 45 and now look at the mess we are in. Yep, it’s all on us and because of us.
My 1st vote was 1968. And I worked on Eugene McCarthy’s campaign in NY state. I truly felt that if he were President, my 2nd Lieutenant husband would not have to go to Vietnam. McCarthy WON the NYS primary. At the convention in Chicago, the great Empire State of NY nominated...Hubert Humphrey. WHAAAAAT!? Obviously, I lost in ‘68 and ‘72. And my dear husband did go to Vietnam, and thankfully returned unscathed. UNTIL Agent Orange exposure gave him OTHER issues later in life.
Me too. Those were the days when we HAD to do the right thing whether we felt abused or not. I would never ever vote for either crook: the one from 55 years ago OR the one NOW!
that was also the first presidential election in which I voted.
the really craziest thing about Watergate was that at no point was there any possibility Nixon wouldn't win...that boneheaded stunt was completely unnecessary.
So many good points here. As an 87 year-old, 1954 high school grad and college class of 1958? I find myself out of whack with your analysis, misaligned to a degree yet largely in agreement.
The drugs you admit to taking were a mistake. One of my sons died at the tender age of 51 with all sorts of brain disorder and physical addictions. Smoking marijuana at the age of 12 onward with an incompletely developed forebrain? One hundred hits of LSD? Self-medicating for schizophrenia? HIV? Returning hatred for the deep love brought up with by his family and father--c’est moi. Not good.
Semi-wonderful Ruth Bader Ginsburg had one foot of clay. She should have resigned when Obama could have replaced her. Hubris? And how come she was so palsy-walsy with Antonin Scalia, the elitist hunter who couldn’t decipher the plain English of the Second Amendment--hinging on the word “militia.” His originalism theory not only ignores all subsequent historical developments but is akin to Biblical fundamentalism in its unimaginative literalism. Actually, I’m pissed; it’s downright stupid.
the Scalia thing was about their mutual love of fishing and opera. she hated his ideas, and said so every chance she got.
I personally couldn't have as cordial a relationship with someone I disagreed with so thoroughly, but I count that as a personal flaw on my end. but I honestly believe that the Ginsburg/Scalia thing was as innocent as she said it was.
I've found myself applauding wildly at the opera ( a passion since I was ten and my grandmother took me to see "Rigoletto" at the old Met) while noticing people applauding just as wildly on whom I wouldn't piss if they were on fire.
I am 10 years younger than you. I was never exposed to drugs as I was sheltered through boarding school and college. But having nearly “lost” our son when he was 19, I cannot imagine the pain. We were just lucky that the intervention was a success. I blamed the state of the Supremes on RBG as well and I liked her!
Walt Kelly presciently observed through his friend Pogo, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”
Excellent essay.
Wow. Chilling and unsurprising, especially for me, growing up in Argentina under a "President" who was elected by its citizens and had a beautiful young wife named Evita. His legacy and Party have ruined a country which was once among the wealthiest countries in the world. Argentina began the 20th century as one of the wealthiest places in the world. Beware, be alert, be quick and for goodness sake, VOTE!
Si, claro!
I will use any reference I see anywhere online when possible to link to bios of two brilliant Argentinian writers you undoubtedly have read and appreciated, but too many around this third planet from the local sun have missed, here they are:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolfo_Bioy_Casares
Adolfo Bioy Casares (Spanish pronunciation: [aˈðolfo ˈβjoj kaˈsaɾes]; 15 September 1914 – 8 March 1999) was an Argentine fiction writer, journalist, diarist, and translator. He was a friend and frequent collaborator with his fellow countryman Jorge Luis Borges. He is the author of the Fantastique novel The Invention of Morel. ***** {Also not to be missed, rush out and find it right now, in fact! - is his equally fantastic, haunting novel translated into English as The Dream of Heroes}
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julio_Cortázar
Julio Florencio Cortázar[1] (26 August 1914 – 12 February 1984; American Spanish: [ˈxuljo koɾˈtasaɾ] (listen)) was an Argentine, nationalized French novelist, short story writer, essayist, and translator. Known as one of the founders of the Latin American Boom, Cortázar influenced an entire generation of Spanish-speaking readers and writers in America and Europe.
He is considered one of the most innovative and original authors of his time, a master of history, poetic prose and short story in general and a creator of important novels that inaugurated a new way of making literature in the Hispanic world by breaking the classical molds through narratives that escaped temporal linearity. *****
Los Premios, translated as The Winners, Blow-Up and Other Stories, Hopscotch, and many others are guaranteed to delight and provoke intense musings on life, love, lost love, lost and found love, betrayal, self-betrayal, travel, remaining rooted in a place despite being thousands of miles away in space and time....
{ "Anyone who does not read Cortazar is doomed."}
***** In 1938, using the pseudonym of Julio Denis, he self-published a volume of sonnets, Presencia,[9] which he later repudiated, saying in a 1977 interview for Spanish television that publishing it was his only transgression to the principle of not publishing any books until he was convinced that what was written in them was what he meant to say.[10] In 1944, he became professor of French literature at the National University of Cuyo in Mendoza, but owing to political pressure from Peronists, he resigned the position in June 1946. He subsequently worked as a translator and as director of the Cámara Argentina del Libro, a trade organization.[11] In 1949 he published a play, Los Reyes (The Kings), based on the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur. In 1980, Cortázar delivered eight lectures at the University of California, Berkeley.[12]
Years in France
In 1951, Cortázar immigrated to France, where he lived and worked for the rest of his life, though he traveled widely. From 1952 onwards, he worked intermittently for UNESCO as a translator. He wrote most of his major works in Paris or in Saignon in the south of France, where he also maintained a home. In later years he became actively engaged in opposing abuses of human rights in Latin America, and was a supporter of the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua as well as Fidel Castro's Cuban revolution and Salvador Allende's socialist government in Chile.[13]
Cortázar had three long-term romantic relationships with women. The first was with Aurora Bernárdez, an Argentine translator, whom he married in 1953. They separated in 1968[14] when he became involved with the Lithuanian writer, editor, translator, and filmmaker Ugnė Karvelis, whom he never formally married, and who reportedly stimulated Cortázar's interest in politics,[15] although his political sensibilities had already been awakened by a visit to Cuba in 1963, the first of multiple trips that he would make to that country throughout the remainder of his life. In 1981 he married Canadian writer Carol Dunlop. After Dunlop's death in 1982, Aurora Bernárdez accompanied Cortázar during his final illness and, in accordance with his longstanding wishes, inherited the rights to all his works.[16][17] *****
Cortázar wrote numerous short stories, collected in such volumes as Bestiario (1951), Final del juego (1956), and Las armas secretas (1959). In 1967, English translations by Paul Blackburn of stories selected from these volumes were published by Pantheon Books as End of the Game and Other Stories; it was later re-titled Blow-up and Other Stories. Cortázar published four novels during his lifetime: Los premios (The Winners, 1960), Hopscotch (Rayuela, 1963), 62: A Model Kit (62 Modelo para Armar, 1968), and Libro de Manuel (A Manual for Manuel, 1973). Except for Los premios, which was translated by Elaine Kerrigan, these novels have been translated into English by Gregory Rabassa. Two other novels, El examen and Divertimento, though written before 1960, only appeared posthumously.
The open-ended structure of Hopscotch, which invites the reader to choose between a linear and a non-linear mode of reading, has been praised by other Latin American writers, including José Lezama Lima, Giannina Braschi, Carlos Fuentes, Gabriel García Márquez, and Mario Vargas Llosa.[citation needed] Cortázar's use of interior monologue and stream of consciousness owes much to James Joyce[20] and other modernists,[citation needed] but his main influences were Surrealism,[21] the French Nouveau roman[citation needed] and the improvisatory aesthetic of jazz.[22] This last interest is reflected in the notable story "El perseguidor" ("The Pursuer"), which Cortázar based on the life of the bebop saxophonist Charlie Parker.[23] *****
...and many more...highly recommend the movie Argentina 1985, while you are at it! Thank you for your comments and recommendations!
Wow, just wow. I do believe that this is one of the most powerful pieces you have written for Substack and I am in awe of your skill.
But in 1974 Congressional Republicans had integrity when they told Nixon he would be impeached if he didn’t resign. Today the majority of Republicans in Congress bow and scrape before Traitor Tot. They cower before him because they’re afraid he’ll start calling them bad names, and then they’ll be primaried by a MAGGOT.
"But in 1974..." Yes and No. Yes, a few did. No, nowhere close to a majority. Yes. there clearly were enough total votes in the House (230+Ds) to impeach and yes, enough total votes in the Senate (56Ds needing 11 Rs) to convict. When looking at the few votes held during the Hearings only a tiny number of Rs voted with Ds.
Historians painted a rosy and romantic pic of Watergate that never existed. (1) They insisted Ford was brilliant in pardoning Nixon while dismissing the tenet of American jurisprudence of no man is above the law. (2) Used the fallacy of the small number to obscure the fact the vast majority of R members of Congress continued to support Nixon. (3) Most of all ignored what followed, Reagan doubling down on the Southern Strategy, the GOP and conservatives taking up where Nixon left off on demeaning liberals that he began w/McGovern), and most of all rejecting the moderate ideology of Ike while embracing a militant version of conservatism (being on the attack in all ways at all times), and doubling down on expanding Boogiemen (the appeal to ignorance and fear). The cherry on top was Ford's pardon of Nixon meant R presidents were now above the law whether Iran-Contra, all-things W., and of course Trump.
So, Watergate was indeed an inflection point, just not the positive one historians long claimed. Au contraire.
Only now are a few reflecting on their errors. All of which puts Lucian's words in proper context. If there has been a change in the GOP, conservatives, and the entirety of the right wing then it is in degree, not in kind. EDIT/ADD: Best captured as moral, political and physical cowardice.
Ford’s pardoning of Nixon was very controversial, and the Democrats are/were extremely angry.
Agree, Ds were not for Nixon walking and did not buy into "for the good of the country" as messaged and sold by Rs, the media, and historians.
Essentially Ldr. McConnell repeated Ford's error by allowing Trump to walk (2nd Impeachment). Rs/cons seldom if ever learn or unlearn. So be it.
Ruth Marcus (WaPo) agrees with your characterization. She calls Trump "The eternal toddler. The papers are his toys."
And like a toddler, he's a hoarder. "Mine, all mine!!" Visualizing boxes and boxes of documents accumulating in the WH residence... can you imagine? No wonder his wife preferred to stay in New York; I don't think her reasons were exclusively related to their son Baron.
There was probably no room in any of the closets for her clothes because the closets were filled with stacks of boxes filled with top secret documents.
I was visualizing stacks of boxes along the walls of the suite just as we've seen in the bathroom, storage closet and ballroom stage.
What troubles me is the difficulty in having a polite conversation with someone whose views are opposed to mine. Example: In November 2016, I briefly broke up with my beau because he couldn't understand why I was so upset about the election results -- and when he said he'd voted for Trump, I told him not to call me anymore.
Well, he was a persistent son-of-gun and eventually, I agreed to have a chat with him. He trotted out the "he's a businessman" argument and I pointed out that he was a businessman like a particularly obnoxious client of his late best friend -- my ex-boss -- whose business had failed, in large part, because of people who didn't pay their goddamned bills. "He's like Ratso Ron -- runs up a big bill and then declares bankruptcy -- and he's done it more than once. Both of them..."
Finally, we agreed not to discuss politics. However, a year or so later, I asked him (civilly) if he was glad he had voted for Trump and had Trump achieved what he hoped for? His reply was "Well, I hear Joe Biden's going to run for president with Obama as his VP, and if he wins, he'll immediately resign for health reasons and then Obama will be president again..."
(A) A charming idea, but (B) NOT AN ANSWER TO MY QUESTION.
I gave up. Is that our problem? Giving up? I don't know if giving speeches to a crowd will help. People in crowds are often in the group-mindset already. Even talking to a Trumper, respectfully, one on one... ? How do you point out to someone that they are terribly mistaken without implying that they are stupid?
There's literally no way to convince these people so you are not giving up so much as recognizing reality.
absolutely correct. and you said it so ECONOMICALLY.
Yes, it's a cult-like commitment for a huge percentage of the Trump supporters, good luck managing to establish a rapport that allows for a carefully calibrated deconstruction of the presuppositions, logical leaps, conscious or unconscious or preconscious ("atavistic") primordial reptile-brain underpinnings of their "undeniably true views about America falling apart before our very eyes while our potential savior, Donald J. Trump, has been meanly cheated out of his rightful position as President-for-Life, damn it!"
See also:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Authoritarian_Personality
The Authoritarian Personality is a 1950 sociology book by Theodor W. Adorno, Else Frenkel-Brunswik, Daniel Levinson, and Nevitt Sanford, researchers working at the University of California, Berkeley, during and shortly after World War II.
The Authoritarian Personality "invented a set of criteria by which to define personality traits, ranked these traits and their intensity in any given person on what it called the 'F scale' (F for fascist)."[1] The personality type Adorno et al. identified can be defined by nine traits that were believed to cluster together as the result of childhood experiences. These traits include conventionalism, authoritarian submission, authoritarian aggression, anti-intraception, superstition and stereotypy, power and "toughness", destructiveness and cynicism, projectivity, and exaggerated concerns over sex.[2][3]
Though criticized at the time for bias and methodology,[4][5] the book was highly influential in American social sciences, particularly in the first decade after its publication: "No volume published since the war in the field of social psychology has had a greater impact on the direction of the actual empirical work being carried on in the universities today."[6]
"Yes, it's a cult-like commitment for a huge percentage of the Trump supporters..."
"Isn't it sad how some people's grip on their lives is so precarious that they'll embrace any preposterous delusion rather than face an occasional bleak truth?" - Calvin to Hobbes
what you say is very true, and I have no solution. I've tried (although, admittedly, not very hard) to have ordinary conversations with people who voted for TFF and I can't. it's sort of like trying to maintain eye contact with a naked person who's walked up to you in the street and asked directions.
so yeah, I'm living in an echo chamber. and it feels lousy, but it'd feel worse trying to forget that the person I'm trying to have a conversation with is, essentially, nuts or stupid or (as is too often true) both.
I've lived here thirty-five years and I've had long friendships with a few neighbors who, I suspect, voted for TFF. since politics has never been something we ever discussed, it's easy to avoid the subject. and I do, religiously.
I'm in contact with pretty much every surviving old girlfriend, but none of them would have ever voted for TFF. well, possibly one, but our communication consists mostly of wishing each other Happy Birthday on FB.
again, I wish I had an answer.
When people say Trump is a business man, I like to point out that the “deep state” has bailed his businesses out of four bankruptcies. He gladly accepted that relief.
It’s willful ignorance. They choose lies over truth because it fits their beliefs.
"....something far more terrifying to contemplate. Its name is us." Lucian, when I came to the end and read that sentence, I had a chill go down my spine. I felt the hair stand up on my neck. It is true, and it is terrifying.
As I forwarded this essay to my family just now, I said it’s us alright. At 76 I don’t want to fall into despair, I’ve seen enough dark days in this life I’ve lived, but I’m not stupid and if what Lucian so eloquently stated, and so many others are warning about, doesn’t scare the living shit out of you, then maybe you are stupid or some other type of person that can’t tell right from wrong. I read the indictment today that the SC drew up, he asked us to read it so I did, it’s not a pleasant way to spend a half hour. What happened is totally within the character of the insipid clown that is our former president, he needs to go to prison for a very long time, if a jury finds him guilty as charged. The indictment is the tip of the iceberg, all of the entities that generated those documents had to sign off on their becoming somewhat public in order to be in the court system, think about what they wouldn’t allow to be used, there is way more here than meets the eye. I think it’s way worse than anyone has been letting on.
a really powerful piece, Lucian.
like most people our age, I've been struggling with this seeming conundrum and realized a while back that yes, the '60s happened in the middle of a time of great innocence. and that innocence was both good (isn't it better to be "innocent" than "jaded?") and, in many ways, rotten.
but this...I was just telling my friend on the phone that we might not ever get out of THIS. will apartments in the Village ever be affordable again? will colleges ever be free again? will there ever be lots of good jobs for the English majors (like, say, ME)? will there ever be LOTS of English (and Humanities in general) majors again? will we be able to see Broadway shows for under five bucks (or whatever the "equivalent" is now) if we don't mind sitting in the balcony?...these are obviously rhetorical questions.
when friends tell me that we're dying at the right time, I don't disagree (although, speaking for myself, I don't plan on dying EVER, since I OWN this apartment).
and while people like to talk about the '60s ending with Watergate (which has always been my version of things), that might have been the POLITICAL end. but what really kicked everyone's collective ass was the oil embargo. fuck with a person's CAR and you're in trouble, although back then (unlike today) you probably wouldn't get shot for it.
and while it's easy to single out Nixon for all kinds of (much deserved) abuse, it was Reagan who did shit like massively de-funding education, who's a lot more RESPONSIBLE for the way things are today, when very few kids graduate high school with any working knowledge of how the government is supposed to operate. and if you're running for office in either party, it seems necessary to say nice things about Reagan (whose Iran-Contra scheme was every bit as impeachable as TFF's FIRST impeachment offense, if not worse).
oy, now I've gotten myself all wound up.
and all you ever did was Mescaline? if so, you were a lot smarter then than I've ever been...
Uuuuuhhhh...as for your last question, that's not what I wrote.
well no, I guess it's not. I was assuming. but PLEASE, don't remind me that "when you assume, you make an ass of you and me"...the first time I heard it, it was from a crooked used car dealer who'd tried to sell my father a lemon.
You are so right about Reagan. Shall we all list the psychedelics we used in the 60’s and 70’s? Groovy! Far out!
Assuming we even knew what the stuff was that we were using. I still wonder about some brown goo smeared on aluminum foil, rolled, and smoked to mild hallucinogenic effect.
The ~people~ have a long history with naturally occurring hallucinogens. Lots of comments on the subject here are killin' me in a good way. Man-made chems are not so funny. Not then and not now.
Mescaline taught me something useful: how ultimately alone we are in the world, and that it's just up to us, no one else.
Quite interesting and consistent with mescaline being very mind-friendly. Have talked some out of the higher end hallucinogens found in the jungles around the globe. Others did not listen, though. Mescaline is often behind what is commonly known as shape-shifting.
Natural occurring hallucinogens have their own scale, potency, and severity similar to alcoholic beverages.
they sure do. although I'm not aware of any naturally-occurring hallucinogens that'll kill you faster than alcohol, which made a pretty good start on killing me before I was 35.
well, that's a pretty good lesson, I'd say.
and yes, ALWAYS useful. and so easy to FORGET.
I Laughed Out Loud. I remember a night on which an old friend of mine (who had the moxie to leave NYC with an Aggie degree from Cornell in 1972, go out west and become one of the first really successful growers in CA) insisted he had some sort of psychedelic from an excellent source, etc. we were told to "go easy" on it. it was (I swear to god) MODELING CLAY. which is what it looked and tasted like.
god knows what weird chemicals a good third of my acid trips (which ended with being mildly poisoned by tainted whitefish in 1972 with the other guy in my avatar) really consisted of. there WAS one time in 1970 when the two of us were given something and two things happened. people removed the chair I was sitting in and I remained sitting down (on AIR) and we wrote a song most people who've heard it remember. but it was still ultra-weird.
a couple of loyal subscribers to this Substack were actually THERE.
Hilarious. And they say if you remember you weren't there! The Cornell degree to become a grower may be the funniest.
😂😂😂
America appears to be becoming a nation of heavily armed third graders with credit cards.
That is a good one.
it really is. can I steal it? with appropriate attribution, of course.
Absolutely!
The hatred has always been there. The people who voted for Donald Trump also voted for George Wallace, hurled nasty epithets at young girls of color, marched against desegregation and vowed to take back their states when they got a chance.
The problem isn't us, as the people in this column who reply to you. It's not you, it's not those who have education, and opportunities that were not for those who blocked people from voting.
There is a class system in our country-it's not defined by where you live (although if you live in certain places, it sure does help) and not by the way you talk-it's the money you make, the people you know and the way you live your life.
The people who voted for Donald Trump know they're not those people who have all those opportunities, and they're pissed as hell that they don't.
They're tired of being of no account for the rest of us, to being our 'inferiors' by living where they live and not where we do.
They used to call us "East Coast Elites" but now they call us "The Libs" and they despise us with a fury that not many can grasp.
They do hate us. Do not think they do not. They refuse to consider that we are worth saving (as in the Covid pandemic, where they scoffed at vaccines and masks) and they sure don't think we should tell them how to vote or who to vote for.
They believe in Trump because he appears to be one of them, but if you ever put him in a room full of his supporters, he'd refuse to shake their hands.
They're of no account to him, but they're never going to understand it-they just like that he says what they think,. and believe. They're racists, and so is he. But they're not rich however he is and that's almost good enough for them to love him.
They've always been at the bottom of the pecking order and they know they always will be-but Trump speaks their language and that's why he's never going to lose their love.
God help us all for Tuesday because Trump's arraignment is going on, and he's already summoned his believers to Miami for the occasion.
I hope the cops and security team in the court house has machine guns because these people are dangerous. Jan 6 was a demonstration of what they're capable of.
That's the biggest difference of all between our growing up time and now-a lot of us got trodden down into the mud hole and haven't come back up. Those people are pissed off and they want their say.
Trump is their spokesperson and I wish he'd never been born. It would have made so much a difference.
thing is, if the people who voted for TFF were JUST the same people who voted for Wallace, we wouldn't be talking about it.
this gavone/buffoon was PRESIDENT.
and I think most of us know that what gave him any real national "credibility" was that fucking "Apprentice" show.
while a lot of folks here (especially me) spend a lot of time watching it, television has a lot to answer for. this country LOVES to embrace new technology without thinking it through for more than five minutes. I think it has to do with money.
and now with AI, god help us.
I have never understood why people would enjoy hearing somebody say “you’re fired.” Unless they enjoy seeing others “lose.”
Mature people understand that you win some, you lose some. Neither wins nor losses are necessarily deserved. With maturity you can think of what you should do next.
I was going to add our American history of racism against Blacks in my piece below as an accurate indicator of where we are now. I could have also added the Civil War split. In other words, you are so right.
Mary Hilton, my comments to you seem to be attached to another contributor. I’m not sure why. Your analysis seems exactly right to me. Hank (trying to clarify here)
That's all right. At least you read them and replied.
Your comments on racism and American treatment of blacks are exactly on target.
There will always be such insanity
Your analysis is sad but true. Very true. How do we find a way out of this awful mess (if even there is anything for us if we do)?
Cohen, Halston and Trump
Interesting
Wonder if they met in clothing store dressing rooms?
you've put that picture in my mind and my mind is not likely to forget it, possibly ever.
Sorry
no apologies necessary. I was being (at least) half facetious.
actually, thinking about the whole thing is extremely amusing...
"The brutal reality of politics would probably be intolerable without drugs." - Hunter S. Thompson
"We look back at the resignation and arrest of Vice President Spiro Agnew in October of 1973 for taking bribes in his White House office with a kind of nostalgia at this point." Rachel Maddow did a deep dive called 'Bagman' about Agnew. (https://www.msnbc.com/bagman, down past the book adverts,)
I remember watching Nixon resign on television in the dining room at Camp Kern, a YMCA ranch camp and hearing about Agnew resigning on a transistor radio walking down Joyce Ann Dr on my way to Shiloh Elementary School.
It never fails to strike me Mr. Truscott, how your writing elicits memories of events I've not thought of sometimes in decades. Thanks again.
For some reason any time I see a reference to Spiro Agnew, I think of two phrases he used: "nattering nabobs of negativism,:" and "impudent corps of effete snobs."
A more literate and verbally sophisticated expression of Trump's nasty politics, but that's about it - and Spiro, a corrupt pol in the old style, was forced out and convicted; it's not clear that if Trump somehow gets elected again, we won't spiral into some kind of civil war. The scope and intensity of it, unknowable as of now, of course.
that phrase was the work of William Safire, who never tired of letting the public know he'd written it. Agnew's crookedness was so old-fashioned, there was something a little refreshing about it.
just wow
Cowards for sure
Thank you for writing this. I have been writing an article most of this evening that encompasses similar themes. I have to stop for the night and it will come out tomorrow, but your article reminded me of how I grew up until I entered high school and our school district was ordered to desegregate. I was part of the first desegregated class to complete all of high school together. It was a defining point in my life. Our class was about a quarter each of African American, Mexican American, Asian American and Whites. It was magical. So was University, and later my time in the military. Thank you again.
Lucian, you sure brought up some 50’s and 60’s stuff that I reminisced completely about. When we finally got our first tv where everything was in “living color”, my dad never abandoned the old black and white. In fact, he would put it on top of the color tv console and watch both in the early morning hours. I think two of the national news stations ran the ticker tape on Wall Street. We would know what kind of mood he was in by those tapes. Anyway, my very first election I voted in was Nixon vs. McGovern. I had turned 21 and it was 1972. I just sobbed when McGovern lost by a landslide. I thought to myself “Can’t anyone tell that when Dickie’s jowls move that he’s a lyin’ SOB?”. Same with Fake 45 and now look at the mess we are in. Yep, it’s all on us and because of us.
My 1st vote was 1968. And I worked on Eugene McCarthy’s campaign in NY state. I truly felt that if he were President, my 2nd Lieutenant husband would not have to go to Vietnam. McCarthy WON the NYS primary. At the convention in Chicago, the great Empire State of NY nominated...Hubert Humphrey. WHAAAAAT!? Obviously, I lost in ‘68 and ‘72. And my dear husband did go to Vietnam, and thankfully returned unscathed. UNTIL Agent Orange exposure gave him OTHER issues later in life.
My mom volunteered for the McCarthy campaign. On Election Day she came home crying, “I voted for Humphrey.”
Me too. Those were the days when we HAD to do the right thing whether we felt abused or not. I would never ever vote for either crook: the one from 55 years ago OR the one NOW!
Yep, my hubs is a Vietnam vet too. Has PTSD and possibly Agent Orange, if he would get checked by the VA but he has such disdain for them.
that was also the first presidential election in which I voted.
the really craziest thing about Watergate was that at no point was there any possibility Nixon wouldn't win...that boneheaded stunt was completely unnecessary.
So many good points here. As an 87 year-old, 1954 high school grad and college class of 1958? I find myself out of whack with your analysis, misaligned to a degree yet largely in agreement.
The drugs you admit to taking were a mistake. One of my sons died at the tender age of 51 with all sorts of brain disorder and physical addictions. Smoking marijuana at the age of 12 onward with an incompletely developed forebrain? One hundred hits of LSD? Self-medicating for schizophrenia? HIV? Returning hatred for the deep love brought up with by his family and father--c’est moi. Not good.
Semi-wonderful Ruth Bader Ginsburg had one foot of clay. She should have resigned when Obama could have replaced her. Hubris? And how come she was so palsy-walsy with Antonin Scalia, the elitist hunter who couldn’t decipher the plain English of the Second Amendment--hinging on the word “militia.” His originalism theory not only ignores all subsequent historical developments but is akin to Biblical fundamentalism in its unimaginative literalism. Actually, I’m pissed; it’s downright stupid.
the Scalia thing was about their mutual love of fishing and opera. she hated his ideas, and said so every chance she got.
I personally couldn't have as cordial a relationship with someone I disagreed with so thoroughly, but I count that as a personal flaw on my end. but I honestly believe that the Ginsburg/Scalia thing was as innocent as she said it was.
I've found myself applauding wildly at the opera ( a passion since I was ten and my grandmother took me to see "Rigoletto" at the old Met) while noticing people applauding just as wildly on whom I wouldn't piss if they were on fire.
I am 10 years younger than you. I was never exposed to drugs as I was sheltered through boarding school and college. But having nearly “lost” our son when he was 19, I cannot imagine the pain. We were just lucky that the intervention was a success. I blamed the state of the Supremes on RBG as well and I liked her!