John Steinbeck, East of Eden

'To Dean the struggle was significant, young, cheerful; to Gordon it was dismal, meaningless, endless.”

Want to read a great short story set on May 1 about America clashing over issues of foreign war, class + capital? F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1920 'May Day:'
americanliterature.com/author/f-scott…

It’s actually really bad that the far right operates with somewhat organized paramilitary formations with solid law enforcement relationships and the American left publishes zines.

When the center breaks, well

R.I.P. Paul Auster.

'If nothing else, the years have taught me this: if there’s a pencil in your pocket, there’s a good chance that one day you’ll feel tempted to start using it.' In a piece from 1995, Auster answers the question 'why write?'

newyorker.com/magazine/1995/…

Here we are, yet again ...

Marx said a lot of stupid shit but that quote he has about history repeating itself first as tragedy and later as farce was pretty money

(see what I did there)

'“It was an indelible image of the waste of it all. The dead, the wounded, the money, the psychic energy and the moral energy […] just everything.” — Tim O'Brien on the Fall of Saigon, forty-nine years ago today

lareviewofbooks.org/article/forty-…

Something has changed and whatever it is, I like it.

Lately I’ve been thinking of an episode and a person specifically. August 2020, peak of Black Live Matter protests. A group of protesters harass a woman sitting at a restaurant, aggressively demanding she raise her fist in solidarity. She did not. 🧵twitter.com/KunkleFredrick…

We see this rhetoric on Gaza too : A day at the beach? Who goes to the beach during war? We saw it on Mosul when ISIS controlled the city :A family goes out for a picnic? How dare they try to be normal?
It always comes from the crowd who have never been close to conflict.

For people who clearly haven't experienced conflict, war zones mean you have no life, you must be in a bunker, everything is completely destroyed, and it's always constant carpet bombing.

Aaron Gwyn Wallace Stegner describing Robert Stone: “Stone writes like a bird, like an angel, like a circus barker, like a con man, like someone so high on pot that he is scraping his shoes on the stars.”

(pulled from this essay on Stone by mattgallagher0 )
lithub.com/robert-stones-…

RIGHT NOW in 1975, the American radio station in Saigon begins broadcasting Bing Crosby's 'White Christmas.' The song is the pre-arranged signal for all U.S. personnel to assemble for the final evacuation of South Vietnam.

“Dada?”

“It’s bedtime, son.”

“Just one question. It’s important.”

“Okay. Go ahead.”

“What does - what does groovy mean?”

1968 really has returned.

At the end of Band of Brothers, Winters says: Lew Nixon had tough times after the war, but in 1956 he married…and it all came together for him

It took 11 years to get straight. Ever feel like things won’t get better? Remember Lew Nixon. Extend yourself some grace. It takes time

Oh boy, they did it. The fucking Gaza Strip did it. I have to write another fucking MRE thread. I hope you motherfuckers are happy. Here we go.

We would make these for fun. 'MRE bombs' are almost completely harmless and almost everyone in the military knows how to make one.

1/6

Ulysses Grant’s birthday. The finest soldier to ever wear US Army blue. Captured three armies - Fort Donelson, Vicksburg, Appomattox. Destroyed slavery, “the cause and pretext for the rebellion.” Saved the United States and democracy.
Huzzah!
#Grant

I know our politics is dysfunctional but I’m counting on America to reject puppy murder as a tool for electoral advancement

Surely there’s a bottom somewhere