Category Archives: Politically Incorrect

Any director would aspire to wanting someone to walk out of their film at the movie theatre

24/09/2021 - Horror comes pounding on the doors of San Sebastin with brute force in this film by the Spanish director, which was penned by Carlos Vermut, the winner of the Golden Shell for Magical Girl

We talked genre films with Paco Plaza, whom we have to blame for scaring us senseless with Vernica[+see also: filmreviewtrailerinterview: Paco Plazafilmprofile], Eye for an Eye[+see also: filmreviewtrailerinterview: Paco Plazafilmprofile] and some of the REC[+see also: trailerfilmprofile] saga. Now, for the first time, he is taking part in the competition of the San Sebastin Film Festival, with The Grandmother[+see also: trailerinterview: Paco Plazafilmprofile], an out-and-out horror flick that boasts a storyline written by another filmmaker who has a penchant for exploring uneasy territory: Carlos Vermut (the winner of the Golden Shell for Magical Girl[+see also: filmreviewtrailerinterview: Carlos Vermutfilmprofile]).

Cineuropa: Out of the blue, San Sebastin has chosen a genre film like The Grandmother for its official section, as if it were feeding off SitgesPaco Plaza: Our plan was to go to Sitges, but if youre offered the chance to go to an A-list festival, you cant say no. Having said that, I have the feeling that Ive sneaked in, as there is no tradition of horror films at this festival. I was surprised to receive a call from Jos Luis Rebordinos, its director, but he seemed really enthusiastic about the film. The mere fact that theres a Spanish horror feature in competition is a triumph, and I see it as a gift. Were happy because theyve also picked it for the BFI London Film Festival, and well be going to Sitges as well.

Lets see how people react to it: it could take people by surprise, as its an unabashed horror film and doesnt try to hide it.Genre is not some kind of alibi, not like those movies that are ashamed of being genre films and, deep down, talk about other things instead. No, this is a horror flick: its got witches and vampires. Afterwards, we can read into it what we like, but it makes no apologies for being a genre feature.

Back when you premiered Eye for an Eye, you waxed lyrical to me about Raw[+see also: filmreviewtrailerinterview: Julia Ducournaufilmprofile]. Whats your view on genre films now, in Spain and in Europe?Theyre better than ever. I think the bastion of quality cinema now is genre because within the mainstream, the rest of the films are about superheroes or theyre sequels. Disregarding auteurs and experimental titles, which are out there in their own category, I think that the hopes for quality mainstream cinema are being placed in horror. Titane[+see also: filmreviewtrailerinterview: Julia Ducournau, Vincent Lifilmprofile] won the Palme dOr, and there are many more interesting titles looming on the horizon. And if you look at the Sitges line-up, its crazy, as the quality is so high something thats sorely lacking in any other given genre, where theres a glut of these remixes of Italian and French hits, as each country is making its own version: as if we couldnt dub them! Horror is becoming a bastion for auteurs, and its audience is receptive to more experimental propositions.

Horror films are now even starting to become existential, philosophical and nihilistic, not to mention politically incorrectYes, youve got an excuse to put whatever you want in there: whatever the baddie does, it goes in there. Ive noticed a lack of originality, especially in US films. I liked Nomadland, but it was exactly what I was expecting it to be in other words, it explains something to you, and does so very efficiently, but it doesnt happen the same way as it does in Raw, which makes your head spin round and round. I asked myself: What has this director just been telling me?

The Grandmother begins in complete silence.Yes, no one speaks for the whole introduction. Furthermore, you dont hear the grandmothers footsteps; its as if she were floating. Its like she doesnt weigh anything. These kinds of details can only be truly appreciated in a movie theatre. Thats why, if we want to make features to show in the cinema, we have to offer a different experience from watching it at home. Nowadays, television is so good that it poses a challenge: we have to do something else because in that realm of developing complex characters, over the space of four seasons, thats something youre not going to have in one-and-a-half hours. Its a battle that theyve already won. Are you going to be able to make something better than that? No, so you try to do other things, like Gaspar No did with Lux aeterna. I think those kinds of offerings are missing in Spain (admittedly, France is something of an exception in that regard). Here, not many people would dare to do something different. Well, there is Chema Garca Ibarra, whom I tutored on the Directing course at ECAM. We had some crazy discussions, and I loved his screenplay for The Sacred Spirit[+see also: filmreviewtrailerinterview: Chema Garca Ibarrafilmprofile]: youre not going to see that on Netflix, because Chema is the new Vermut.

To wrap up this chat, has anyone walked out of a screening of one of your films?Yes, a few people walked out of the movie theatre during REC[+see also: filmreviewtrailerinterview: Jaume Balaguer, Paco Plazainterview: Julio Fernndezfilmprofile]. For Eye for an Eye, people were upset by the final shot: some have even told me that they will never forget that image. Its an aspiration worthy of any director to want someone to walk out of the theatre.

(Translated from Spanish)

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Paco Plaza Director of The Grandmother - Cineuropa

The Death of Sex In The Citys Willie Garson Brings Out What Has Happened to This Country

It use to be if you were an actor, you were required to play anything and everything including an ice cream cone. That was part of what the song Nothing from A Chorus Line is about. Then America started becoming woke and if the character was of another sexuality or nationality, it was racist to cast an actor who was not literally of that ilk. Suddenly the question of what is an actor comes into play, but nobody talked about it because it was politically incorrect.

When Sean Hayes was in Promises, Promises people came out after him because he had not publicly announced he was gay, even though he was playing a straight role. Since when does anyone have to tell the world who or what they slept with. Oh yeah, now, instead of watching the actor we have to see who and what they identify as and their pronouns. I could care less about who they identify as, I care about who they portray on stage, so what is this agenda about. Again I ask What is an actor?

This article comes about on the reasons why Willie Garson from Sex and The City had to hide his sexuality, because he was straight and was playing a gay man. His portrayal was so good that due to controversy of playing a gay part and being a straight man had everyone keeping his secret until he died. It was the last thing he revealed.

Why is it that if the role goes to a person of color or a gender non specific person everyone is ok with that, but if like in the case of Garson, it is controversial? Garson like the actor he was, played the role brilliantly despite the fact he was a straight white male. Will his portrayal now been blemished because he did his role well?

We at T2C will miss the talent of Willie Garson and pray that actors can play roles with integrity without having to worry about the politically correct wokeness of it all.

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The Death of Sex In The City's Willie Garson Brings Out What Has Happened to This Country Times Square Chronicles - Times Square Chronicles

In response to last weeks column (on how to split the lunch/dinner bill after a gratuitous meal), a couple of women asked me what I felt about a scenario where a man and woman go out to eat: what is correctitude when it comes to settling the bill? And they dont have to be tentative romantics out on a date to figure whether or not its worth either sides while to take it a notch higher; they may well be old/new friends or colleagues.

Its just the male:female equation: does being a man automatically accord him the privilege (or lack of it, as many would feel) to pick up the tab?

One of my erstwhile colleagues, a very independent-minded girl, who lived on her own, had paid her way through college by doing private tuitions, believed that man and woman are equal, the whole shebang, had a rather off-kilter notion of how things should pan out at a (restaurant) dining table once the meal was done with.

The man should pay.

Now whether he does or not is up to his upbringing a well-brought-up male should be imbibed with that value: when you are breaking bread or sipping caffeine with a lady, you take care of the bill. Im alright splitting the bill, or even paying the whole amount myself but, obviously, Ill think poorly of the man in question.

I reckoned that maybe what she has in mind was not really about who pays for a meal, but that age-old notion called chivalry. Men are supposed to be gallant. Open the door for a lady, stand up when a woman enters the room, offer to carry her bags if they look weighty enough and perhaps pay occasional food bills like it were a courtesy or a curtsy to the one who dons the mantle of the fairer sex.

Chivalry itself has undergone graphic evolution since the medieval times when the knights lived by the moral code of honour. In the 19th century, Louisa May Alcott (in Little Women) wrote: Gentlemen, be courteous to the old maids, no matter how poor and plain and prim, for the only chivalry worth having is that which is the readiest to pay deference to the old, protect the feeble, and serve womankind, regardless of rank, age, or colour.

Today, this paragraph-writer will probably be lynched at the virtual stakes of social media. Protect the feeble? Thats a misnomer straight off the bat other than being hugely sexist and politically incorrect because women, in a fell sweep, are being typecast. Its the same niggle that bothers me whenever I watch Titanic: the minute the ship begins to sink, the public announcement on the runway to the lifeboats is: Women and children first. Okay, I understand children being given a free pass, but why are adult women being considered such doormats and limp failures? Why cant they stand shoulder to shoulder with the men and help out? Maybe they wont be able to lift iron anchors with as much dexterity as the boys, but surely they can pitch in with some effort?

So, I much rather prefer Amy Plums millennial description of chivalrous men. He leaned forward and opened his door, politely standing aside to let me by before following me in. There are some advantages to dating a guy from another era, I thought. Though I am a big believer in gender equality, chivalry scores high in my book.

In One Fine Day, I remember George Clooney telling an extremely harried Michelle Pfeiffer After you as the doorman holds open a door to a building in Manhattan. She was already running late for a meeting, but she insists that he should enter first; in her feminist-hazed mind, she didnt want to appear to be the one who needed quicker passage because she was a woman. No concessions, since I am definitely not the weaker sex here that kind of thing.

At this point, George Clooney says, I insist.

She says, her voice thick with edginess, I insist more.

He gives in.

Later, when the two get together, Im pretty sure she was happy that George did the Lucknowi tehzeeb (refinement, if you want a poor translation, since its a word that cannot be translated to English without losing its potency) act of saying Pehle aap You first. Instead of jostling her in the ribs and getting ahead.

sushmita@khaleejtimes.com

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Men, women and chivalry: Who lays out the rules? - Khaleej Times

Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra

I am not the kind of person who analyses too much. Rather, I go with my gut instinct, which is very strong. Be it my movies or my autobiography The Stranger in the Mirror, I have always listened to my inner voice. While sharing my life and my journey, I did not hesitate before unveiling the truths of my life, savoury or unsavoury. I respond to things at an emotional level. Whatever connects to me emotionally, I simply go ahead and express myself.

Those who are dubbing the book as more about struggle than success are not far from the truth. I think success is a highly overrated virtue and teaches us little, while struggle is the real driver and trigger for things of real value. Thats precisely why I am drawn to stories like that of Milkha Singh. I saw him first and foremost as a man who overcame adversities. Indeed, for the choices that I make, I am often told not to do this or that. Rang De Basanti, I was advised, is politically incorrect. Why make a film on Milkha? or Why question religion in Delhi-6? were other bits of advice I listened to, but finally went with my gut feeling. Secularism has been an integral part of my oeuvre. However, I also believe its a complex word and the way its being practised is complex too in a nation known for religious divide.

To those who think Rang De Basanti cant be made today, my response is, why not? The establishment will always try to remain in power; on the other hand, the youth will always be the change-maker. That is what makes Rang De Basanti relevant forever. A dialogue in it goes: Koi bhi desh perfect nahin hota, usse behtar banana padta hai. But can cinema change the world around it? That would be too pompous a suggestion. It can only reflect what it sees. Of course, like all my films, this one, too, draws from the deep wells of my personal experiences. My days in Shri Ram College of Commerce, Delhi, seeing the aftermath of the Mandal Commission unfold before my eyes, my love for revolutionary poets, the poetry of greats like Sahir Ludhianvi; all of it comes through.

Though my book includes some of my poetic verses, I am not a poet-poet. But yes, my poetic sensibility does inform my work. When we celebrated 10 years of Rang De Basanti, Aamir Khan said, Mehra, your film, it is poetry in motion. Frankly speaking, I am more comfortable creating poetry with images rather than words.

When it comes to the business of making movies, I was a rank outsider who knew only a handful of film personalities, like Amitabh Bachchan. So I decided to teach myself the art of cinema and what better way than books on cinema and legendary figures which I found aplenty in bookstores in London, a place I travelled to frequently. It was here that I would skip a meal to buy a book. Books like Something Like an Autobiography by Akira Kurosawa, Bertolucci by Bertolucci and others on David Lean, Richard Attenborough, Federico Fellini, et al made me privy to the inner world of filmmakers. Closer home, I missed having a similar vantage view into the lives of greats, their take on cinema, what went into the making of cult classics like say a Pyaasa, Bandini, Do Ankhen Barah Haath, Guide and many more. There are very few books in India that throw light on how directors saw and perceived their own films, what was going on in their minds, whether the experience was uplifting, disturbing or stirring.

Sure, there is a whole lot of secondary information on film personalities which, I think, gets coloured when others collate information. So, I devoured books by international filmmakers. These readings taught me to stop complaining and realised that life is not going to be a smooth ride. Great masters go through challenging times and convert these into opportunities. It was while browsing through the writings of legends that I got rid of cynicism and was filled with a deep sense of optimism.

Perhaps, that is also the time where the seeds of the book I have written germinated. It has taken four years, but it was in the making since then. As I began writing, along with my co-author Reeta Ramamurthy Gupta, I realised the umbilical cord my films share with my life. If Delhi-6 is about the life of my parents, my parental home in old Delhi, in Bhaag Milkha Bhaag, apart from being a Milkha Singh biopic, it also reflects the stories of Partition I had heard while growing up in Delhi. During my sporting career in Delhi, I was inspired by men like Milkha Singh and Dhyan Chand. When I decided to make a film on Milkha, many dissuaded me with a refrain: who will watch a film on an athlete who did not win an Olympic gold and whose life is not a romantic tale? But, for me, Milkha Singh is at par with the greatest sports achievers in the world ever, and here we are today when sports biopics have become a rage.

Personally, I dont believe in aping others or following fads or keeping an eye on the box office. We all must give ourselves the permission to fail, for when we do that, we do it on our own terms. Besides, isnt success a relative term and how can it be gauged?

At a personal level, the real joy of making a film is not who starred in it or how many crores it minted, the exhilaration comes when I map the film in my head, write the mood of the music, the conflict of characters. While sharing the downside of my life, the biggest takeaway I want the readers to carry home is that the definition of doing well is not absolute. Cinema is a timeless medium and I cant be making films for the coming Friday. So here I am writing my new script, delving into mythology harking back 5,000 years. And just in case you are interested, initially my book was called Interval Picture Abhi Baaki Hai. Only remember, the history of cinema is not written on the box office. Real cinema lives in your heart and in the heart of its makers.

(As told to Nonika Singh)

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Into mind of a filmmaker - The Tribune India

SEPTEMBER 18, 2021

PHILLIP LOPATES NEW ANTHOLOGY, The Golden Age of the American Essay: 19451970, follows swiftly on the heels of The Glorious American Essay: One Hundred Essays from Colonial Times to the Present(2020), a formidable collection that nevertheless left regrets about what had been sacrificed to the cutting-room floor, and thus stimulated two additional anthologies. (The third volume, The Contemporary American Essay, features contributions from the 21st century.)

Golden Age covers that extraordinary quarter-century following World War II when American economic, political, and cultural influence was nothing short of colossal. It was also an era of dramatic social ferment and innovation across the arts, an environment that, not surprisingly, elicited bracing and gauntlet-hurling missives alive with the boundless energy, possibility, and critical passion of the moment. Golden Age boasts a manifestly heterogeneous lineup of leading critics, activists, historians, theologians, and renowned novelists, whose contributions (and outstanding prose style) remain urgently relevant, at times distressingly so, more than 50 years after they were launched into the tumult of their historical moment.

Lopate, professor of Writing at Columbia University, is distinctly well positioned to assemble these offerings and to introduce the contributors and contextualize their manifestos. A distinguished essayist in his own right, Lopate has explored a broad array of themes. His books include Notes on Sontag (2009); Waterfront: A Walk Around Manhattan (2005), which takes its place alongside such classics as E. B. Whites Here Is New York; and Totally, Tenderly, Tragically: Essays and Criticism from a Lifelong Love Affair with the Movies (1998), which includes the extraordinary coming-of-age memoir essay Anticipation of La Notte: The Heroic Age of Moviegoing. A paladin of the personal essay, many of Lopates contributions to this genre have been collected in Bachelorhood (1981), Portrait of My Body (1996), and Portrait Inside My Head (2013).

A dedicated contrarian, Lopate wrote the dissenting chapter What Golden Age? in When the Movies Mattered: The New Hollywood Revisited (2019), edited by Jonathan Kirshner and Jon Lewis. The following interview about The Golden Age of the American Essay was conducted via correspondence.

JONATHAN KIRSHNER: In selecting the essays for this volume, were you at times pointing the reader to the current moment? For example, some passages of George F. Kennans The Sources of Soviet Conduct seem even more relevant today than when he wrote his legendary missive in the late 40s. Characteristically cautious and sober, Kennan concludes, To avoid destruction the United States need only measure up to its own best traditions and prove itself worthy of preservation as a great nation. Of course, recent history suggests that we are at a considerable and receding distance from living up to our best traditions. Similarly, including Richard Hofstadters The Paranoid Style in American Politics must have been with a purpose.

PHILLIP LOPATE: Certainly, I was eager to show that the crises of our moment have their roots in earlier times and repeat circularly. Americans need not feel particularly cursed that we have these problems today; we have had them in the past, dealt with them, and somehow survived. In the case of the Kennan essay, I was well aware that it is held in a bad odor by the left, who sometimes accuse him of being responsible for starting the Cold War; but that sentence that you think would give readers pause was his attempt to say that military action was not necessary or advisable in containing the Soviets: the United States need only live up to its shining promise of liberty, equality, and opportunity to win over uncommitted nations. Of course, easier said than done! We have certainly fallen short of that goal as a nation. But as regards Kennan, above all I wanted to expand our notions of the essay as a form so that it could include not only belletrists like Emerson and Thoreau and E. B. White, but also authorities in other fields, such as history, religion, biology, and political science, whose writing impacted society. Hence, my inclusion of Kennan and Hofstadter, both of whom wrote essays that presciently addressed conundrums we still face today.

More generally, in choosing an essay for canonization, substance presumably plays a role. Every essay in this volume, I think, is more than just an example of graceful prose it has something to say. Do you have a rule of thumb in this regard, or were these choices more instinctive?

First of all, I dont think I was necessarily putting forward a canon, which sounds highly presumptuous. I mean, who am I, Harold Bloom? What I wanted to do was start a conversation about the varieties of essay writing, to include the usual suspects but also those who had been lost in the shadows of American amnesia. Meanwhile, Ive always been drawn to essays that had something to say because I am not such an aesthete who can be contented with the felicities of prose style alone. Form and content can never be separated, in my mind; graceful prose can only take a piece so far: it has to make a point, or points, that register deeply and stirringly.

You note that [t]he twenty-five years that followed the end of World War II (19451970) were an exceptionally fertile period for American essays. The same could be said for theater, film, and popular music, among other arts. Do you see any synergy or inter-relationship between this flowering of the American essay and other art forms?

I do see a flowering of other art forms during this period. Much of it I view as flowing from cities on both coasts specifically, New York and San Francisco and as an unapologetically urban expression. Modern jazz was a breakthrough that influenced every other art form: bebop, the birth of the cool, Bird, Dizzy, Monk, Miles, Mingus, Bud Powell, Billie Holiday, etc. provided the soundtrack for the era. Poet Robert Creeley said that he was more influenced by Charlie Parker than any contemporary poet. Modern dance and ballet (Merce Cunningham, Balanchine, Yvonne Rainer, Paul Taylor) started incorporating walking-around movements drawn from the streets. Abstract Expressionism (de Kooning, Pollock, Kline) can be seen as an attempt to put on canvas that explosive simultaneity that Frank OHara celebrated in his walking-around poems. The Beats (Kerouac, Ginsberg, Corso, Ferlinghetti) went in for a first-thought/best-thought jazzy expression that downplayed the demands of classical literary composition. Rauschenberg and Johns both employed a finding-stuff-in-the-street aesthetic, as did photographers like Garry Winogrand, Helen Levitt, and Lisette Model, while John Cage wrote pieces that attuned audiences to the actual sounds around them. The New American Cinema (John Cassavetes, Shirley Clarke, Morris Engel) all took their cameras into the street. Critics like Edwin Denby gloried in the higgledy-piggledy, impure mixture of architectural styles of New York avenues that had previously been seen as a blight. All these aesthetic approaches seemed to stem from a discovery of what was vital in the American popular scene, that jolie-laide admixture, regardless of its resistance to the previous demands of high art. Meanwhile, the essayists of the time drew inspiration from these art movements and also sounded an alarm about the rise of the middlebrow and consumerist culture.

The Glorious American Essay offers 100 essays drawn from four centuries. Eleven of those are from 1945 to 1970, with the result that five authors appear in both books: Baldwin, Didion, King, Mailer, and Sontag. I am curious to hear more about this distinguished five.

The answer to that question takes me back to the original premise, which was to select a one-volume anthology that would encompass the whole arc of American history. After I had completed my initial research, I found that my desired inclusions so far exceeded the permissible page count that there would have to be two more volumes. As it happened, I was particularly intrigued by the postwar period, 1945 to 1970, and many of the pieces that found their way into Volume Two were originally slotted for Volume One. In a world without limits, I could have put in two or more pieces by the same author, as I had in The Art of the Personal Essay (1994), but that would not be possible given book-binding restrictions. Baldwin, Didion, and Sontag I thought of as no-brainers: they belonged both in any selection of the most important American essayists, as well as in any compendium of the years 19451970. In the case of Martin Luther King Jr., I became enamored of his eloquent writing style, and his incomparable stamp on American history, and liked the idea of including a speech of his in one volume and a letter in the other, as examples of the plasticity of the essay form. With Mailer, I simply felt that he has been underrated as an essayist, that he is one of our best nonfiction writers, and that he is in danger of being forgotten by younger generations or reviled for his politically incorrect positions. I would have loved to include his controversial essay The White Negro, which is both stimulating and appalling, but did not have the courage.

You observe that the eras greatest novelists tended not to be our finest essayists, whereas the greatest of the latter group, and here I think Mailer is an exemplar, did their most lasting work in essays and extended non-fiction. Can you elaborate on this? I understand, for example, that you hold this view with regard to the relative primacy of your own essay writing.

Fiction has always enjoyed a higher status than essay writing in this country, so its not surprising that Susan Sontag, Mary McCarthy, James Baldwin, Joan Didion, and Norman Mailer all tried to excel primarily as novelists. Being creative artists, they were also naturally drawn to every possible narrative expression (Mailer and Sontag directed movies, Baldwin wrote plays, Didion did screenplays). Its just my opinion that Mary McCarthy never wrote a novel as strong as Memories of a Catholic Girlhood (1957) or a character as rich and complex as her narrator in that book; Baldwins novels, while competent, did not reach the heights of Notes of a Native Son (1955) and The Fire Next Time (1963); Joan Didions novels paled when compared to her essay collections Slouching Towards Bethlehem (1968) and The White Album (1979); similarly, Sontags only decent novel was The Volcano Lover (1992), but I doubt we would still be talking about her were it not for her nonfiction; and Mailers best book was The Armies of the Night (1968). Mailer is the one disputable case, given the power of his uneven novels, although his other masterpiece, The Executioners Song (1979), was a hybrid work of fiction and nonfiction.

Mailers essays were clearly stronger than his fiction he was utterly brilliant in his ability to see through people and power structures in the midst of tumultuous moments. He was also an active presence in those essays (similar to Baldwin and unlike the often-distant Sontag). As someone who is closely identified with the personal essay, how do you see the contributions of Mailer (and others) in this context?

Mailer was not only a brilliant essayist, with an acute sensitivity to the way individuals were impacted by historical crises, he was also able to make himself into a vivid character in his essays. He did it with humor, self-mockery, and a playful awareness of how he would be judged an egomaniac anyway by those who didnt get the joke. Baldwin, too, had an innate ability to dramatize his Jimmy character with complexity, rue, and honesty: just take a look at his wonderful Equal in Paris, which I included in Glorious. Sontag, on the other hand, had a disdain for autobiographical writing, and generally did not go to the trouble of developing a persona as an active presence in her texts. But we still come away with a very sharp sense of who is this person behind her pronouncements, by virtue of her judgments and preferences.

In a book of 38 essays, you feature two about Lolita (1955), one by Nabokov and one by Lionel Trilling (The Last Lover). Am I reading too much into the fact that, surely, Lolita would be unpublishable today, and Nabokov just as surely cancelled for writing it?

Lionel Trilling was a professor of mine, and Ive always admired his thoughtful, ambivalent way of going about circling a problem in his literary criticism. When I test-drove some potential pieces with my graduate classes at Columbia, I was surprised that a number of students objected to the Trilling essay on the grounds that no one should find anything positive to say about Lolita. I dont think Im alone in regarding Lolita as still a very fine novel, one well worth reading. So, my stubbornness kicked in, and I decided in the end to include the Trilling essay. I was well aware that Nabokov had volunteered that he disliked his hero, Humbert Humbert, and was by no means trying to justify him. As for the Nabokov essay, it was a rarely encountered literary bauble that I stumbled upon and included for another reason: my desire to foreground the contributions of American migr authors.

Im going to speculate that the choices of these essays also say something about you. In my view, youve always positioned yourself at a friendly but critical distance from some of the social movements of the 60s, especially those associated with college-age students, who were in that decade a good handful of years your juniors. The longest essay in the collection, by far, is Harold Rosenbergs The Herd of Independent Minds, a critique of the narrowness of then-fashionable liberal thought, an essay that has affinities with Irving Howes This Age of Conformity. You also, and I took this personally, have Joan Didion as the sole voice to summarize the decade. In On the Morning After the Sixties, she writes: If I could believe that going to a barricade would affect mans fate in the slightest I would go to that barricade, which is quite a thing to say about a decade that witnessed the Civil Rights movement, opposition to the obscenity of the Vietnam War, and the struggle for the equal treatment of women.

There is no question that the choices of these essays also say something about me (how could they not?) but not in the way you infer. They speak to my taste for analysis, thinking against oneself, contrarianism, skepticism, all aspects that are associated with the essay as a form. In a way, I came to regard The Golden Age of the American Essay as a debate about liberalism, and so the pieces by Harold Rosenberg and Irving Howe fit that idea perfectly. They were cross-examining what Lionel Trilling had called the liberal consensus then ruling American intellectual life. As for Didions piece, I gave her the last word because her essay fell at the last chronological point, 1970, though I hardly think her take was the only one to summarize the 60s, since many pieces from the era preceded it and articulated a very different vision from hers. I liked her essay because I thought it was honest and, in its own way, modest. Myself, I often went to the barricades in the 60s, demonstrating every chance I got against the war in Vietnam, getting arrested, put on trial, beaten by pro-war demonstrators, etc. Nor do I think I was especially critically distant from college-age students in that era who might have been younger than me. If anything, I have been critically distant from the young man I was, in retrospect, more than the younger students who marched with me.

John Cheever once said, I truly believe that a well-crafted sentence can change the world.But W. H. Auden insisted that Poetry changes nothing.What effect do you think essays can have?

Some essays have had a very strong effect on the world.I am thinking of several I included in The Glorious American Essay and The Golden Age of the American Essay. The suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stantons The Solitude of Self certainly resonated with feminists of the next hundred years and beyond; Rachel Carsons essays regarding the lasting effects of DDT and other poisons led to legislation prohibiting them; Frederick Douglasss, W. E. B. Du Boiss, and James Baldwins essays inspired African American leaders in the struggle for civil rights; the aforementioned George F. Kennans warnings about the Soviet Unions plans were taken very seriously in the Pentagon; Audre Lordes writings have inspired a new generation of LBGTQ activists, just for starters.Then there were provocative essays like Leslie Fiedlers Come Back to the Raft Agin, Huck Honey! that shook up English and American Studies departments, or Clement Greenbergs opinionated writings that challenged traditional art criticism.Often the first shot in a public debate was fired by an essayist.So, essays may not bring about a total revolution or cure social injustices permanently, but they do stir things up.

Jonathan Kirshner is professor of Political Science at Boston College. He is author of numerous books, includingAmerican Power after the Financial Crisis,Hollywoods Last Golden Age: Politics, Society and the Seventies Film in America,An Unwritten Future: Realism and Uncertainty in World Politics, and the novelUrban Flight.

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A Very Strong Effect on the World: A Conversation with Phillip Lopate - lareviewofbooks

SPRINGFIELD, Vt. Conservative speakers at a Springfield forum about Critical Race Theory denounced such diversity education curriculums as politically-driven indoctrination and cultural totalitarianism ahead of Thursdays school district discussion about the use of diversity, equity, and inclusion education in Springfield schools.

About 30 people gathered at Commons Park in Springfield on Tuesday for a one-hour presentation by opponents to controversial diversity-focused school curriculums such as Critical Race Theory, which will be discussed in larger scope on Thursday at Springfield High School.

Katie Parent, a Springfield resident and parent, organized Tuesdays forum to educate residents about the dangers of Critical Race Theory, a field of study that examines racism as a social construct.

Parent said that these curriculums are designed with heavy political biases and stoke division rather than unity.

We need to come together and find a better, human approach, Parent said. We are all humans, and that is the way it should be. I dont want children to be biased or taught biased information.

The forum presenters three of whom were founders of representatives of political action groups emphasized that curriculums like Critical Race Theory are designed to indoctrinate students into a politically extreme and authoritarian ideology, one that originated in university academia culture and is now trickling into K-12 education.

This is Orwellian [or] Clockwork Orange, said John Klar of the Vermont Liberty Network. We are going to use schools to reprogram children for a white supremacy that you are going to conclude they have on the virtue of their white skin.

Citing conservative author Thomas Sole, Klar equated the aim of Critical Race Theory proponents to Naziism or eugenics, calling the shaming and scorning tactics of extreme anti-racism activists a dangerous campaign to cull unwanted views from society.

Several presenters said the teachings in these curriculums go against conservative principles like meritocracy and equal rules for everyone.

Gregory Thayer, founder of Vermonters for Vermont, said he particularly objected to the term equity, or the belief that society should adjust rules to account for the fact that people are born into differing advantages or disadvantages.

Equity is not equality, Thayer said. Equity is the lowest common denominator for an outcome, bringing achieving students down to a low level or holding them back so that other kids can catch up.

Thayer advocated for a curricular approach outlined by the nonprofit organization Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism (FAIR), whose philosophy includes treating everyone equally without regard to skin color or other immutable characteristics and applying the same rules to everyone.

Savannah Coelho, a field representative for Turning Points USA, a nonprofit liberty defense group, expressed her concerns about the hostility and intolerance she encounters on college campuses, which she believes feeds the mentality behind Critical Race Theory.

Ive had my [materials] stolen or destroyed, Coelho said. And I am exposing it, which is great. But if this has been happening at college campuses for this long, what do they think will happen at the public schools?

The believed indoctrination in schools goes further than the teachings about race, according to the Critical Race Theory opponents. Coelho digressed into concerns about vaccinations and school mask policies. Thayer blasted the schools for teaching sex-education. A book of concern by Parent included writings about climate change and gender identity. One presenter drew attention to a teachers pro-union views.

Only one presenter, Scott Frye, shared from his personal experiences as a Springfield parent and former substitute teacher. Though like other presenters, Frye said that schools should concentrate on the qualities that connect people as humans rather than noting their differences.

Instead of talking about oppression and guilt, provide opportunities for students to mentor, assist and tutor one another, said Frye reading from the Springfield groups mission statement. Instead of focusing on the hate in our nations past, focus on how far we have come and where we want to go.

Some people in attendance vocally disagreed with the presenters.

Springfield resident Pattrice Jones, who had formally studied Critical Race Theory, distributed a fact sheet at the forum to correct common misrepresentations by critics about the study. Some incorrect claims include the belief that Critical Race Theory teaches that all white people are racist or that some races are superior or inferior to others.

For Jones, having open conversations about racism is important. Jones said she has heard black Springfield students share about aggressive behaviors, including being called a racial slur in the school hallway.

Springfield was the first town in Vermont to have a Ku Klux Klan chapter, Jones said. And if we arent allowed to teach our kids about racism, then whatever led that [chapter] to become true in Springfield will keep on persisting year after year.

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Springfield parents opposed to CRT host rally in park - eagletimes.com

Review at a glanceE

very comedian needs a catchphrase and Ricky Gervais finally has one. That wont get in. He said it last night every time he delivered a risque riff that he thought would not make the Netflix version of this show. Gervais is a terrific stand-up, but, boy, does he push things to the limit at times.

He set out his position early on, with a tirade against woke comedy. What he said he would rather watch than woke jokes it involved disgraced comic Louis CK and a sex act was one of many quips that kicked hard against modern sensibilities.

Gervais, in trademark black top and jeans, repeatedly found the humour in provocation. It would be easy to lift a simple swipe, about dead babies or transgender issues, out of context. He is a combination of Jonathan Swift, cheeky musical hall icon Max Miller and Jimmy Carr, cutting as close as possible to the bone to make his points.

Elsewhere he was on gentler ground singing the praises of cats and dogs. The show is called SuperNature because of his love of the natural world, but in the two years since he first started touring this the material has evolved. There is less about nature and more about the nature of offence and humour as an escape valve.

Occasionally the subject matter veered towards low hanging fruit. Like most comedians of his age, Gervais has gone through the indignity of a rectal examination and he mined it for plentiful laughs here, recalling an awkward conversation mid-probe. He steered clear of politics though, apart from a brief digression to suggest that Boris Johnson is out of his depth, possibly his least contentious remark of the night.

While he is often politically incorrect and, at times utterly childish, this is a consistently funny show in which he wears his University of London philosophy degree lightly. There are not many stand-ups that reference psychologist Jean Piaget and also tell smutty stories about naked men in gyms. At 60, Gervais is the oldest kid on the block. Leave your woke-ometer at home and enjoy him.

It helps that he plays low status, admitting, for example, that he is overweight but loves wine too much to do anything about it. Unlike the star this is a lean show, running at a tight 75 minutes. If he is correct about his edgier material being excised when SuperNature is filmed for Netflix that iteration may be substantially leaner.

Tonight, then September 23 - 25, 30, October 1, 2, November 11-13. SSE Arena, Wembley, November 19 (0844 576 5483, ticketmaster.co.uk). Ricky Gervais will be speaking at the Evening Standard Stories Festival, in association with Netflix, September 26. Tickets here: stories.standard.co.uk

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Ricky Gervais at the Palladium review: Risque riffs that kick hard against modern sensibilities - Evening Standard

There is a short-lived but hilarious Jack Black and Tim Robbins starrer series called The Brink. Be warned. It is not for the faint of heart. Or for those who were tragically born without a sense of humour. While the plot involves a nuclear crisis in Pakistan, the writers of the series time and again prove equal opportunity offenders. Americans are shown to be of loose moral character and faulty judgment, Pakistanis mostly mad, the British and Israelis weird and Indians extremely insecure and quick to take offence. You must have seen mind benders before but probably never realised that your mind could bend in so many politically incorrect ways. I have no intention of divulging more plot points. The Indian bit, however, is intriguing because it tragically resonates with my personal experience of Indian diplomacy under Modi. When a satire so meticulously designed to be as far from reality as possible accidentally rhymes with reality, the fate of such works is sealed.

This February when the DGMOs of Pakistan and India agreed in principle to uphold the 2003 ceasefire agreement, I sent out a few tweets. Call me old fashioned but I have seen many good peace initiatives being jinxed and sabotaged for the crime of building too much expectation prematurely. So, my message was simple. Be cautiously optimistic. And given that Pakistans Foreign Office had repeatedly presented evidence that India was attacking Kashmiris on our side of the LoC with cluster bombs and the world refused to see, it was probably advisable to sensitise the Indian diaspora about the Kashmiri ordeal. I tweeted and moved on. But a few days later, an Indian friend half teasingly sent me a link to an article. The author of the article claimed to have unearthed a Pakistani conspiracy to undermine Indias interests. The only evidence she could find to support her case was the above-mentioned set of tweets. I did not know whether to be flattered or offended. On one side I was characterised as the devils spawn, on the other author had attributed too much power to this scribe. If you know anything about the twenty-five years of my work you will instantly realise that I have perfected the art of shouting in the void. If someone wants to listen, they are welcome to it but I do not go out of the way to advise any policymaker. In fact, until invited to an interaction in the public eye I seldom volunteer for any sidebars. But here we were, with this writer assuming I was in on a conspiracy and channelling Pakistans high and mighty. Initially, I thought that it might be a rookie clutching at straws to get published but then was dismayed to learn that the writer was a noted academic. Ever such a fan of delayed gratification, I have decided to lay out my case today.

I brought up this episode and am presenting my case to Indias diaspora because there is ample evidence that something has gone horribly wrong in their country since Modi came to power. And that it directly affects their safety abroad. Bear with me as I show you how.

The trigger for this piece is a dossier on the Indian war crimes in Kashmir under its occupation that the Pakistani Foreign Office recently released. It is not an ordinary document. It painstakingly documents the human rights abuses that have reached terrifying proportions under Modis installed junta in Jammu and Kashmir. Some of the pictures and clips included are unbearable to watch. You do not need to take my word for it and can check it out by visiting the link https://mofa.gov.pk/iiojk. But even if you do not, I am sure you have come across some of the excruciating pictures that the Indian media was quick to normalise. A man strapped to a military jeeps hood ostensibly as a human shield. A toddler sitting nervously on the chest of his grandfathers corpse after a fake encounter. And on.

The Kashmir dispute, since the inception of the two countries, has worked as an endless reservoir of victimhood and national outrage that the extremists of the two sides have banked on. Pakistan has been to hell and back but the great Indian tragedy has only begun unfolding. For decades, Indias far-right treated Kashmiris as subhuman terrorists. If your body came in the way of my bullet, you are a terrorist deserving no due process. As it went on, Indias secular elite and some in the diaspora looked the other way. But now it is reaching their homes. The Indian ruling party today openly treats the countrys minorities and lower castes as subhumans. Just look up Dr Subramanian Swamys interview given to Vice. He is a member of the Indian upper house of the parliament, a PhD who taught among other places at Harvard and yet seems emboldened enough to state on record that the Indian Muslims cannot be treated as equal citizens. And the problem keeps growing.

The natural allies of the BJP-RSS collective in the west are the hate groups with white nationalist inclinations. No wonder then that the Indian flag was the only foreign flag among many that were carried by the January 6 insurrectionists. They may find common cause against the liberals and Muslims but in the end, the white nationalists always see non-whites as subhumans. So, this growing monster can come back to haunt everyone.

When the dossier was released, it failed to find any serious coverage by the international press. Indias clout abroad routinely has a chilling effect on the coverage of the right-wing extremism in the country. Ask the makers of Quantico, an ABC TV series with an Indian lead, that had to be cancelled because of this clout.

It is in the interest of the Indian diaspora that the permanent changes Modi seeks to bring in the Indian society are offset, that the ties between Indias far-right and the western far-right are broken and that a major source of radicalisation, the Kashmir dispute, is amicably brought to closure as soon as possible. It is a temporary intervention and an important avenue for us to cooperate. No one is asking you to turn on the country of your origin. In fact, it may help you to salvage it. Once normalcy is restored, we go our separate ways. Or better still, we manage to convince Islamabad and New Delhi to be allies and partners. Stranger things have happened. Meanwhile, the content of this dossier deserves everyones precious time and attention.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 18th, 2021.

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The Indians in the lobby - The Express Tribune

A New York Times/CBS News poll from late June 2011 found that voters considered the budget deficit and the national debt to be the second most serious problem facing the nation. Admittedly, that answer (7 percent) was dwarfed by those worried about economy and jobs (53 percent).

The 2011 debt ceiling fight illustrated how much politics back then was dominated by green-eyeshade concerns about the deficit. In poll after poll, voters were more concerned that raising the debt limit would increase federal spending (incorrect) than were rightly worried that a failure to act would send the nation into default.

These days, deficits have all but disappeared from the national conversation. The trillions blur on both Capitol Hill and in the minds of the voters after the unfunded Trump tax cuts and the massive spending necessary to cushion the economy at the height of the pandemic.

In August, Gallup asked voters in a poll to name the most important issue facing the country. Government spending and the national debt were mentioned by only 2 percent of those surveyed.

Where once the GOP was seen as the party of fiscal restraint, now neither party has an edge on the issue. An Associated Press/NORC survey in mid-July found that the Democrats and the Republicans were each judged by 27 percent voters as the most trusted to handle the budget deficit. Another 28 percent skeptically said neither.

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The world has moved on from debt ceiling gamesmanship - Roll Call

Democrats can blame the filibuster, gerrymandering, even the basic structure of the Senate for their inability to fulfill their New Deal wishes and Great Society dreams. But one problem they have is more fundamental: They are trying to enact big programs with historically small majorities.

The party held no fewer than 59 Senate seats and north of 300 House seats when the major New Deal legislation was passed. Democrats enjoyed a 68-32 Senate majority and a 295-140 edge in the House at the height of the Great Society. Democrats held roughly three-fifths majorities in both houses of Congress when they passed President Bill Clinton's 1993 tax increase and ObamaCare, even if both prevailed only by small margins.

Democrats are trying to pass a slew of liberal legislation, anchored by a $3.5 trillion spending package, with a 50-50 Senate and just four seats more than a bare majority in the House. They feel justified in doing so not only because they think their majorities should rightfully be bigger without the structural inequities mentioned above, but also because they are sure Republicans would usher in the conservative equivalent under the same circumstances.

After all, Republicans pushed through three conservative Supreme Court justices including one just before an election polls showed they were likely to lose without the filibuster. They passed the 2001 Bush tax cuts through reconciliation in an equally divided Senate, although 12 Democrats joined in, and the 2003 sequel 51-49 in the same chamber.

Democrats find themselves in a position similar to Republicans in recent years: Their majorities are small by historical standards, but more ideologically homogeneous than before. They have a faction that is so intent on ensuring purity that they are willing to sink legislation, assuming the Congressional Progressive Caucus is truly willing to use its leverage in a Freedom Caucus-like manner. And because majorities are so small, the moderates remain a faction that can disrupt all the carefully laid plans (even if they normally cave).

The political conditions facing Nancy Pelosi are not all that dissimilar from those of John Boehner, the man who tearfully handed her the gavel the first time she became speaker. Time will tell whether Democrats have more to show for their majorities in the end.

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Democrats are governing like Republicans - The Week Magazine