Comment Archives: stories: Lit & Lectures
Re: “How FDR won the war of public perception”
Good point Shahid. I think in fairness given the context however that the reviewer means "It's hard to imagine anybody saying that today" [ in justifying welfare or social spending]. And it is hard to imagine very many people saying "I agree that it's unconstitutional for Congress to legislate in this field, but damn the Constitution, we have to have that Medicaid expansion now!"
Of course, that is exactly what President Obama is saying about disaster relief in the case of Hurricane Sandy -- whatever the ordinary laws are that may restrict social spending no one believes -- from Chris Christie to Obama and all points in between -- that they should block disaster spending. Christie said this precise thing on Jon Stewart last week, when Stewart pressed him on the distinction between hurricane relief and health insurance. The normally voluble Christie first appeared flummoxed and then said essentially, well this is a hurricane and that's different. People are suffering now.
Of course, that's the trick -- how to make people who are suffering "now" from the lack of insurance or unemployment benefits or safe neighborhoods or good schools appear to be disaster victims so as to have a bit of that "rules off" luster that is bestowed on mudslide victims in the Malibu hills. There, Roosevelt was an unparalleled genius with a lot of lessons for President Obama.
Re: “How FDR won the war of public perception”
Great review on the whole, of a work well worth reading. I quibble with this:
"Necessity knows neither law nor constitution, and never did in this country," said Representative John Follett in 1884, arguing for aid after the Ohio River overflowed its banks. It's hard to imagine anybody saying that today.
Really? Presidents and congressional leaders from both major parties have thrown the Constitution to the wind in the war on terror, laying to waste the First and Fourth Amendments in the surveillance regime, and the Fixth, Sixth and Eighth in the military detention arena.
Of course, the necessity claimed in those cases is often a chimera. Yet even unsupported claims of security-driven necessity routinely trump longstanding rights as fundamental as the right to trial before being indefinitely imprisoned or even assassinated by your own government. Security has achieved such pervasive consensus that, contrary to the author's suggestion, it's hard to imagine an elected official today willing to say that constitutional principles should limit executive fiat.
Re: “Chicago Reader Fiction Issues”
The fiction@chicagoreader.com address is functional now, Kent. Submit away.
Re: “One to watch this fall: Seminary Co-op Bookstore has outlived the superstore assault”
The hyperlink, suggesting it will take you to the Saul Bellow story, doesn't -- but you can find it easily here -- happy reading!
http://gapersblock.com/bookclub/2011/09/21/landmark_seminary_co-op_bookstore_50_years_young_2/
Re: “James O'Shea narrates the Tribune Company's epic collapse”
I'm coming into this very late, but I have to add my opinion here. Ann Marie Lipinski is one of the finest editors of our time. She left the paper because she couldn't bear to fire large percentages of her employees, whom she loved dearly. She did not "abandon" them. She was friends with Bill Pate long before their two companies were at all related. When she saw what Pate and Zell were doing to her beloved paper she quickly ended that friendship and focused on keeping her employees safe. Eventually she had to choose between staying and firing many or leaving with dignity. Regardless of what some little men say in the comments section of a poorly written article, history will remember Lipinski well.
Re: “One to watch this fall: Seminary Co-op Bookstore has outlived the superstore assault”
A correction: construction of our new space is expected to be completed by November 30th, not November 1st -- we hope to move shortly thereafter.
Heather Ahrenholz
Seminary Co-op Bookstore
Re: “A portrait of David Foster Wallace as a midwestern author”
@Quarex Aegis
"my circle of Bloomington-Normal expatriates"
As a Chillicothe expatriate I have to ask: did you move all the way to Peoria?
Certainly I can't understand growing up "in the shit" like you did, but how can any of us truly understand the HELL of growing up middle-class & well-off in a university town in the midwest, the scion of college professors, with the road to the Ivy League school & 1% career of your choice laid out before you for the asking - but FUCK THAT YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND THE REAL ME!!!!!
Oh shit, your post just cracks me up...
Re: “A portrait of David Foster Wallace as a midwestern author”
I'm not convinced. Your focus on the Midwest seems to be just a myopic angle on what Max makes clear was the really important battle of Wallace's fiction and Wallace's life, that duel between what you call the "binary" of irony and sincerity. You don't give much credit to Wallace himself for engaging in this (is it really Karr and Costello, not DFW, that push him "to move past Pynchonian cleverness, to write about something sincere"?), and it's a credit to Max's book that he does his best to flesh out the terms and stakes of this battle—not too difficult a task, of course, given the length at which it crops up in Wallace's writing. He spend a good part of his adult life in the Midwest, a stereotypically anti-irony place, as you point out, but that doesn't mean that there is a necessary causal connection between that and his struggle with irony.
Quibbles, but I'm not sure why you referred to Mrs. Thompson without recognizing the name as an alias, and referred to her and the others watching the 9/11 broadcast as "ladies from the church" and not ladies from Wallace's addiction group, as Max points out in the book.
Re: “A portrait of David Foster Wallace as a midwestern author”
Unlike much of America, celebrity has never held any charm for me. I own no autographs, never read People or Us, and rarely read biographies. As such, the untimely deaths of the famous rarely register more than a blase "oh, that's a shame."
However, at approximately 9 p.m. on September 12, 2008, I wept like a child upon reading the Yahoo! News account of DFW's suicide. It was as if I had been punched in the stomach multiple times.
I still can't quite wrap my mind around the fact that I will never again know the exquisite pleasure of reading his work.
Kudos for an excellent article, Mr. Fehrman.
Re: “A portrait of David Foster Wallace as a midwestern author”
Perhaps you will be unsurprised to learn that my circle of Bloomington-Normal expatriates is all abuzz at just how ironic it is that this article does not seem to understand Bloomington-Normal much better than the biography ostensibly does.
Though, to be fair, growing up as a child of academics in Bloomington-Normal, I actually found little familiarity in DFW's infamous Rolling Stone article, either. And considering he should have known how disconnected from reality it is to grow up in such a life, it is a fairly safe bet he knew that he was describing a kind of backward-idyllic vision of the area that is by no means the most common.
(Plus, the idea that Bloomington-Normal's equally-"own" Adlai Stevenson would not have appeared in Newsweek and Time first is borderline preposterous)
Re: “A portrait of David Foster Wallace as a midwestern author”
As the last anecdote makes clear, DFW was generous with his time, which is why I think he moved to a hard-to-reach place. He was a great talker, as a new collection of interviews makes clear: "Conversations with David Foster Wallace," just published by the University Press of Mississippi. It shows that he pretty much answered all your questions.
Re: “A portrait of David Foster Wallace as a midwestern author”
Just learned that D.T. Max talks about his book here at the Book Cellar on October 11:
http://www.bookcellarinc.com/event/dt-max-…
Re: “Spring Books Review”
Are you planning to do a Fall Book Review?
Re: “No Place, U.S.A.”
Ha! Jophus, most art is terrible. I often write about things I like too, though. Here for example:
http://gayutopia.blogspot.com/2007/12/noah…
Re: “No Place, U.S.A.”
Looking through your work here it appears that you're one of the least satisfied people around. It's hard to tell whether your piece is honest or if you can only write well when you are politely shitting on something. Don't make the mistake of assuming that this is hateful; your work reads like one long fatigued exhale ending with a sputter. Is there truth to this or is it all about you?
Re: “Herding authors at the Printers Row Lit Fest”
If you would like to experience a little of the event. Check out http://www.authorsbroadcast.com to watch our monthly "Authors Showcase" program. The July and August episodes are dedicated to the Chicago Lit Fest. See what you missed or review the fun you had.
Re: “Joe Meno's inappropriate answer to the Hollywood rom-com”
TriQuarterly has an excerpt here: http://triquarterly.org/views/excerpt-office-girl
Re: “Fall Books Special: Chicago's Life Story”
I attended school with Alvin Palmer. He was smaller than most of the other senior boys but had started to grow taller. He carried a pocket watch, I think to set himself apart, make himself feel special. When he was murdered, young men both black and white at Farragut HS wanted to go looking for the ones that had killed him. Our principal, Mr. McBride called an assembly and told us not to enter into conflict and violence. We were all so very sad. It was before the time of calling in counselors when some trauma happened at school. At our graduation, Alvin was acknowledged and sympathy extended to his parents. I will never forget that this happened and no one was punished for it.
Kathleen Gunnell Saadat
Re: “Fiction Issue 2012: "Sky Boys"”
I remembered seeing this picture when I was a kid. I wondered why these guys were sitting on this beam so high above the ground. It is almost a bit scary to even look at. I couldn't believe they didn't wear some kind of protective belts. This was a great picture...and shows what heroes these men were for our country. Like soldiers, they put their lives on the line everyday to build America. They represent the hard working blue collar men all across the country. This was an awesome picture and a great story...
Re: “Fiction Issue 2013: “Isn’t that right, Pete?””
West is best