A message for the person you become while you’re reading:
I have two things! New things! A short story of mine is up on a new site called Works Progress which publishes short fiction “about things bigger than the author” - in this case I wrote a story that morphs a fantasy situation into something larger….
Read my story! Here is the link! or if you prefer images:
Second thing: I’m COMING TO CHICAGO to do a reading!!
If you live in Chicago - please come! There’s no charge, and it’s August 7th at 6pm local time. In person. On the Magnificent Mile!
I’m going to read a reimagined Lithuanian folk tale and then be interrogated by the multi-talented writer Ben Tanzer, probably a lot about Lithuanian stuff, since I’ll be in the Lithuanian museum, but who knows, he’s a creative and fascinating guy who hosts a podcast called “This Podcast Will Change Your Life” so truly he might ask me anything—come watch me squirm! It’s free and there will be snacks!
I recommend buying the collection before next week - like right now - because I will have very limited copies available there.
ALSO: if you have already read or purchased this collection, please write a quick one-line review of it on Amazon. They’ve raised the number of reviews you need to 50 to be recommended and I have slightly more than 35. What do we think about that?
What’s the name of this newsletter again? Yep.
(I am deeply indebted to the 35 of you who already reviewed the book - it is actually truly incentivizing to have only 5-star reviews. Makes me want to write more good stuff.)
And that’s the subject of today’s newsletter: praising Caesar.
I saw a hilarious Shakespeare/farce/musical/meta work in progress this week - The Yellow Stocking Play - which lampooned underfunded theater productions, where budgets frequently force actors to play mulitple roles. It was charming and the music was clever. An old-school new musical “like they used to make.”
So Shakespeare was rattling around in my head
“The evil that men do lives after them, the good is oft interred with their bones.”
This is not really true anymore, is it?
People keep examining known villains and looking for the good in them.
Even typing that sentence just now, I felt like I was betraying innocent people by suggesting that evil be recognized for what it is - Why is this? Obviously we know there are a LOT of flaws in both the legislative and judicial…and enforcement. We are not naive. But isn’t there some value to catching guilty parties and trying to be fair in meting out justice?
(I watched the movie VICE this week for the first time ever, and wow. I highly recommend it to everyone who has ever asked “what happened to American politics.”)
My thoughts on politics aside, I think there is a lot of value in trying to reward good deeds. And in trying to reward good work. Maybe most importantly: in trying to reward sincere attempts at doing the right thing, at attempted nobility, honor, dignity…. Basically I see value in trying to reward people for being ethical and for doing the hard work of rejecting “the easy way out.”
But most of our media is now focused on the opposite.
All Disney villains have full movies created to justify and explain their villainy and a plethora of their descendants who wear amazing outfits and occasionally lift a finger to try to do valiant things—they’re no worse than the good guys.
There is also a heartrending backstory to nearly every Marvel and DC supervillain, from Harley Quinn to Nebula.
We don’t even say movies are violent anymore—when the heroes are the ones exacting buckets of gore, the film is called “action-packed.”
Is it surprising that our film heroes have become as vicious as our villains?
Is it surprising that this practice extends to living people?
Part of the answer showed up on 53rd Street this week in NYC. A lobby of people were heading home from boring air-conditioned offices and someone from Nevada decided they needed to be the hero of their own movie - and in current movies, our heroes shoot the bad guys.
Who the bad guys are depends on what version of the story you believe.
An action-packed thriller is not a genre of movie that humans should be aching to recreate in reality. Let’s ruminate a bit on blending entertainment and reality and what that is doing to our reality.
Also go watch Vice. I want to hear what you think of it.
KEEPING THE ARTISTIC FLAME ALIVE
I already told you! Read my new short story! (Despite the prompts, you do NOT have to upgrade to paid to read the whole thing through the link.)
Go see me in Chicago August 7th or tell your friends to go! I’ll be there for a week. Am eager to see as many friends and colleagues as I can fit into seven days.
I posted a series of photographs of people looking at Jack Whitten’s art at MoMA. I dunno. I was inspired.
RANDOM FINAL THOUGHT
I liked Yellow Stocking Play also! Glad you mentioned it.