The Rumpus.net » george bush

Notes on Susan Sontag, Yasir Arafat, and George Bush

Stephen Elliott — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 19:01:35 +0000

I’m returning from doing readings upstate, once more along the Hudson. Worrying about my coffee spilling onto the brown leather shoes of the man next to me reading Susan Sontag’s Regarding The Pain of Others. Sontag, the public intellectual. What does that mean? It means smart and beautiful. It means she’s not afraid to build a theoretical framework for enjoying trash culture but then also heaving her mighty intellect not just against the meaning of fame but on suffering, and guilt, and dying. Not afraid to engage, not worried what her father thinks. She said she stopped dating men as she get older because she couldn’t stand to be with someone who wasn’t beautiful and as she aged a beautiful man would no longer have her. I remember her essay in the New Yorker after 9/11, the essence of which was, We brought this on ourselves. I was livid. There is no justification for flying a plane into a building. You can’t say this is our fault just because, as a nation, we’ve done horrible things. What nation hasn’t done horrible things, given the chance? She was speaking of noble savages, proud and beautiful and as dumb as they were stateless. It was a serious underestimation. There were flags out in front of the buildings and I thought, this is comfortable; we’re comforting each other. Not everybody like the flags, but I thought it was appropriate. Of course, there’s a time to put the flag away, when the attack is long ago and Osama bin-Laden has already achieved his goals, a super-powered individual, a billionaire’s son. There’s a moment when the stars and stripes whip one way, and then the other, and comfort turns to nationalism and 9/11 becomes a rallying cry for death cults.

Then there was Afghanistan. I live in San Francisco so of course we had protests and among the protesters Israeli flags with lines drawn through them, pictures of Arafat as if he was a hero when even Arafat knew which side the bread was buttered on. And I didn’t march because I thought, well, we have to go in Afghanistan. I’m not against every war, much as I’d like to be. I was aware of the conflicts in the Middle East, much more than I am now. I had returned from Palestine only a week or two before the attacks, I was up to date on the international news. I had spoken with Uzi Landau, the Israeli Minister of the Interior, and a Palestinian General near the bombed out police station in Rafah. They both complained to me about the lies that were told in the New York Times. It was the height of the second Intifada and Arafat was playing catch-up, Hamas was making their move. I’d been shot at in Gaza, a friend had lost his hearing when a bomb blew through the windows of Sbarro’s in downtown Jerusalem.

And then we decided to invade Iraq, and that was an obvious mistake. We’d already given our surplus away to the richest Americans, there were still weapons inspectors on the ground, and we were nowhere near finished in Afghanistan. On the television was Condi Rice holding pictures of mushroom clouds drawn by children on construction paper* when there should have been documentaries about Field Marshall Schlieffen and the strategy of annihilation, and the difficulty of waging war on two fronts. There’s a great quote in The Assassin’s Gate when a senior official in the Bush administration tells George Packer, I will never, till the day I die, know why we invaded Iraq. In other words, not just that he didn’t know, but that it was unknowable.

You can’t take it back. There are no “If Onlys”. In high school I stood with some punks on a street corner south of Devon. Phil Hamrick was there, and George Hernandez, who was sleeping with Phil’s mom. And some other kid, who referred to himself as Assyrian but was part of the wave of Kurds that arrived in West Rogers Park when Saddam Hussein came to power. It was a bad corner, a place for buying drugs and getting in fights, a place for kids like Brian O’Shey casually strolling by with weapons hanging from their belt loops, on the verge of some horrible act that would put them away for good. And the Assyrian said he was moving to California because college in California was free. And college in California could still be free, but it isn’t. The state is bankrupt, the jails are packed, the infrastructure is entering a dangerous state of decay. I mean, I remember a kid telling me he was moving to California because the colleges were free, and they were the best state schools in the country. And the people who said the Iraq invasion would pay for itself are the same ones saying we can’t afford healthcare, the same ones who thought all Iraq needed was a strong dose of privatization, and it goes on and on.

And I was listening to Marc Maron and someone asked why he didn’t do politics anymore and he said he was tired of yelling. The people on your side cheer you on but the people listening to Glenn Beck don’t care about your argument. The difference between humans and apes is that humans can rationalize their desires. An ape doesn’t need to explain an appetite for sex or violence. Now imagine an ape flying a plane into a building.

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The Exile and the Nomad Are Cousins: The Rumpus Original Combo with Ana Menendez

Amy Letter — Wed, 27 May 2009 21:00:31 +0000

Ana Menendez’s new novel, The Last War, deals with Iraq, infidelity, self-deception, and exile. The Rumpus’s Amy Letter reviews the book, and interviews the author in this literary extravaganza we call The Rumpus Original Combo.

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The Rumpus Review of The Last War

Ana Menendez’s new novel, The Last War, follows the path laid by her previous books into new, darker territory. Her first book, In Cuba I Was a German Shepherd, gave us a glimpse into the Cuban exile community, treating its characters with care while revealing their vulnerabilities: the lies exiles tell themselves and others, the tangled webs of memory and desire complicated by regret and frustration. Menendez took these themes deeper in Loving Che, in which an exile discovers notes and photos that document her mother’s torrid love affair with Che Guevara.

The Last War is also about exile and memory, desire and regret and frustration. It also centers around photographs, and a letter with words as destructive as C4—powerful enough to blast apart a city, or a life. In this novel Menendez shows that “the exile experience” is not a function of ethnicity or nationality, but of choices—often bad choices—and our perverse but entirely human need to hold onto the ugliness of our pasts.

Who among us has not played this stubborn pantomime of grief? Away from home, alone, we stroll the streets, keeping our sour thoughts to ourselves. We write angsty notes, drink too much, delight too much in our drinking too much. It is self-indulgent and ridiculous, but we persist. I myself spent months in Arkansas writing bad poetry in imitation of Ovid’s Tristia, the poems he wrote at the Black Sea while in exile from Rome. I spent one drunken night in Reading, England recopying Oscar Wilde’s “Ballad of Reading Gaol” with a Sharpie on the walls of my room—yes, you see, because my room there was like his prison.

In The Last War, an American war photographer waits in a comfortable apartment in Istanbul for permission to enter Iraq. Her husband, a reporter, is already there. Wonderboy and Flash sound like the names of a cartoon crime-fighting duo, but they are merely a modern power couple: Wonderboy is the straight-laced and hawkish reporter addicted to war; Flash is the artistic and ambivalent photographer who married him and wound up living in his world. In time, Flash’s life on the Bosporus becomes as much an exile as Ovid’s life on the Black Sea, a sad purgatory soaked in bad wine. But she is not exiled because of war or politics or nationality—Flash’s exile comes from within.

The extent of her alienation only becomes clear in the novel’s long and breathtaking epilogue—it is a daring move, an epilogue that through careful revelation of detail recasts the entire novel, and especially its main character, in a murkier, more troubling light. The Last War haunted me for days after I read it, details that seemed small in the initial reading (she does not notice, until told, that her doorman lives in a windowless closet) suddenly taking on a fresh, bitter taste. Events that once evoked pity for the main character (her upstairs neighbors make noise at night to wake her on purpose) came to seem like just deserts. And tics in the telling (an obsession with drinking coffee, drinking red wine) fell into relief as a sort of self-mocking, the narrator revealing the absurdity of her own suffering through repetition.

Funny America: IF THE SHOE FLIES, HURL IT

Will Durst — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 19:47:56 +0000

The President of the United States looked into the sole of another foreigner- twice- as a pair of shoes was flung at him during a Baghdad press conference on a surprise visit to Iraq. And though a lame duck, he proved to be one hell of a ducker. Some might say “the mother of all duckers.” The biggest shock may be how well he went to his left. And thank god it WAS a surprise visit or the assailant might have had time to assemble an arsenal more potent than his size 10s. Any half way decent computerized re-enactment would surely show size 13 Timberlands clipping their intended target.

An international outcry has arisen over the actions of Muntadhar al Zaidi the irate Iraqi TV reporter slash shoe- flinger. Not because of his “if the shoe flies, hurl it” philosophy, but because his aim was so ducking bad. And he stopped after two shoes. That’s right. For the first time in what may be recorded history, a person is the recipient of worldwide scorn for not being a centipede. A female centipede. Because then chances increase tenfold he would have had a matching handbag or fifteen to lob as well.

Another remarkable aspect of this bizarre incident is the response of the Secret Service, which was slower than a mail- in- rebate check from a Bulgarian internet provider. Is that the normal practice during a transition? To guard the outgoing President by throwing the ‘B’ team in there? Obviously they have to train the new guys some how, but you’d think they could bone up on a Deputy Secretary of the Interior or something.. Maybe the ever ducking VP. However, closing ranks is one thing our intelligence community does know how to do, so don’t be surprised to hear the CIA back up the Secret Service by confiscating all video footage and floating a single shoe theory.

The best way to honor George W Bush might be to adopt his free market attitude and think of this as a shopportunity. To help get this country back on its feet again by encouraging future footwear tossers to support our domestic shoe industry and buy and heave American. I can see the newest Nike Ad: Al Zaidi winds up. He begins to throw. Freeze frame. Zoom in on a photo- shopped Swoosh on the side. Lower sixth simple Helvetica: “Just Do It..”

And doubt not there will be future footwear tossers. At every public function, every so called speaking engagement, every shopping mall opening; sandals and sneakers and boots and broughams and pumps and wing tips and stilettos and slippers and especially loafers will rain down on the 43rd President of the United States like taunts upon the Yankees right fielder from the bleachers of Fenway. A pelting that should be sufficient to discourage him from visiting the Netherlands for pretty much ever.

You won’t even have to actually propel anything to knock him off stride. It’ll be enough to disrupt any security detail to swiftly bend down and take off one shoe, quickly rise with it, then leisurely remove a stone or pick some gum off the tongue or restring the laces. Of course, if certain liberal factions get their way, this will just be the first in a long line of items being chucked at the W, in the hopes that eventually somebody throws the book at him and it sticks.

- Will Durst

Don’t forget the BIG FAT YEAR END KISS OFF COMEDY SHOW XVI. Will Durst, Johnny Steele, Jim Short, Steven Kravitz, Debi Durst, Michael Bossier and Arthur Gaus. 6 cities. 6 nights. 769 laughs. willdurst.com or 415.820.9628

Final Bush Christmas Video, Unedited

Stephen Elliott — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 16:08:23 +0000

George Bush: No Soul Compromising Necessary

Stephen Elliott — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 16:40:33 +0000

“What do you expect? We’ve got a major economic problem and I’m the president during the major economic problem. I mean, do people approve of the economy? No. I don’t approve of the economy. … I’ve been a wartime president. I’ve dealt with two economic recessions now. I’ve had, hell, a lot of serious challenges. What matters to me is I didn’t compromise my soul to be a popular guy.” …read more

The Rumpus.net » george bush

Notes on Susan Sontag, Yasir Arafat, and George Bush

Related Posts:

The Exile and the Nomad Are Cousins: The Rumpus Original Combo with Ana Menendez

**

The Rumpus Review of The Last War

Related Posts:

Funny America: IF THE SHOE FLIES, HURL IT

Don’t forget the BIG FAT YEAR END KISS OFF COMEDY SHOW XVI. Will Durst, Johnny Steele, Jim Short, Steven Kravitz, Debi Durst, Michael Bossier and Arthur Gaus. 6 cities. 6 nights. 769 laughs. willdurst.com or 415.820.9628

Related Posts:

Final Bush Christmas Video, Unedited

Related Posts:

George Bush: No Soul Compromising Necessary

Related Posts: