Current Wisdom
Jackasses, Assorted
CURRENT WISDOM The Great Books Series Hugh Prather, the Marcel Proust of yuppiedom, in a new introduction to the twentieth-anniversary edition of his Notes to Myself, gibbers in the first person...
...There is blood in the painting...
...One of the most significant differences I see between the right wing and the left wing is that in this country, the right wing's fanatical assassins—they have better aim...
...Anthony Lewis demonstrates in his nationally syndicated column that in American political commentary the maniac can still be gainfully employed: History is closing in fast on Ronald Reagan...
...others merely tolerate it...
...We have a good sex life and two healthy children...
...The small painting depicts Kahlo's mother in bed with the sheets folded back over her head...
...April 17, 1990] PETA News From the newsletter of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, evidence that out there in the countryside there are still Carter loyalists ready to follow their man back to Washington, chickens (and who knows what else) on their heads: Do you know what shams those smiling chicken pictures in supermarkets are...
...He denies that he's a homosexual...
...Now Ms...
...only dollar signs come out...
...Still, he feels guilty...
...Hugh Prather, Notes to Myself: My Struggle to Become a Person, Bantam Books, $8.95] Movies USA Mr...
...Sitting in a coffee shop and talking about it is not committed...
...There is anger there...
...Of course there are a good many Americans who are still contented that Ronald Reagan was President...
...and recently he joined a group called the Creative Coalition, formed by actor Ron Silver in New York...
...He sighs, "I talk about these things because I'm committed and when I'm done I feel kind of disgusted with myself...
...My guess is that history will be not much kinder to Reagan than it has been to Harding...
...More than four billion chickens in America each year do not have a single happy moment in their lives...
...Fifteen months ago he left office in a glow of public affection...
...Jim Finley, a humorist, engages once again in the satire that has made him a living legend on the faculty of the College of the Mainland in Texas City, Texas: Johnson, however, was no aberration...
...Alec Baldwin, star of The Hunt for Red October, reveals the workings of his marvelous mind...
...May 1990] Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star More proof of male inferiority, this time from Miss Marilyn Geewax: Rep...
...After you understand more, you will be able to talk to your husband calmly and work out what you want to do...
...Now, as well as talking to [my wife] Gayle and using a diary to sort things out, I sometimes talk to our two boys, Jordan, six, and John, who is ten...
...O000h, and then I go into Wall Street," she wails, "O000h, I go into all those trader buildings...
...In a box in his dresser, I found a hoard of women's underwear, stockings, high-heeled shoes, a wig, and lots of makeup—all his...
...Without hesitation he answered, "Do what you say...
...Remember, there are many much more terrible things to discover about the people we love than some fantasy in the bottom of a drawer...
...Today he is increasingly identified with greed, corruption and conspiracy...
...Schroeder is suggesting the United States use trade sanctions against countries that refuse to protect women from violence by husbands and other family members...
...Here again is the example that even at a very young age we can all sense the way home...
...Occasionally when I fill in on farm chores Butterscotch leads the way, a perky, knowing little guide...
...Otherwise, violence against women is just another cultural tradition like doing the polka or eating sushi...
...What's wrong with him...
...She has taught me that chickens are sensitive individuals with their own special intelligence...
...Oh no, the men say...
...Patricia Schroeder, D-Colo., was criticized earlier this year for suggesting that female soldiers be allowed to volunteer for combat...
...March 19901 Smart What urban sophisticates read when their cocaine dealer is unavailable for a commercial transaction or while they are seated in the waiting room prior to electric shock treatment: So just as Iran-Contra became the 011ie North story, Panama became the Manuel Noriega story...
...000h, and I cut off your balls and you don't even bleed...
...The process of deglamorization has begun...
...In going over each passage, I can remember almost every thought I had when I wrote it—and here's something that is interesting to me—I can remember whether I was being dishonest while telling myself that I wasn't...
...I tried to confront him about it, but he won't discuss the matter or get rid of these things...
...January 19901 Los Angeles Times Book Review Prof...
...That is why, aside from some editing and a few additions, I have left the book essentially as it was...
...Some wives actually enjoy their husband's cross-dressing...
...Baldwin gestures ruefully...
...Really put my ass on the line...
...We can't interfere with the cultural customs of other countries...
...He is no different now from the man you married, and the important things about him are as true as they always were...
...He is a transvestite, or cross-dresser—that is, a man who may desire women, but who is stimulated by the sensuous feel of women's apparel or the thrill of feminine glamour...
...Perhaps in later volumes Caro will recognize Lyndon Baines Johnson as a legitimate descendant of the American experience, as a child of America's cultural hegemony...
...Last week I was putting the six-year-old to bed, and referring to all my burdens I said, "Jordan, how can I live a happy life...
...I love him as much as ever, but now I'm sickened and confused...
...It's especially these little dishonesties that I have corrected...
...They go immediately from shell to hell...
...The disturbing questions about the relationship between means and ends raised by the life of Lyndon Johnson are similar to those invoked by this nation's rise from 13 weak colonies to the world's most awesome economic and military power—a rise built upon Indian slaughter, black slavery and expansionist wars...
...For many, the idea of putting a woman into a violent situation is repugnant only if the woman happens to be holding a gun and has a chance of fighting back...
...When I visit her farm, she runs down the path to meet me and makes little hops up and down at my feet until I pick her up...
...I think once or twice a month I lie in bed at night and think how I'd like to find a militant organization—like some Black Panther or IRA equivalent—that revolved around some important cause and go out and blow up some chemical plant...
...and as the Bush Administration consolidates the Reagan Revolution, Mr...
...I know chickens are capable of happiness because of a little tan and yellow hen named Butterscotch...
...If somebody doesn't like this painting," Madonna says, "then I know they can't be my friend...
...Oh no, some men in Congress said...
...I must be really babbling...
...That would be barbaric...
...All that can be seen of the mother are her opened legs, the head of the adult Kahlo painfully emerging from her mother's gaping vagina...
...February 1990] Chicago What passes for a pleasant evening at the theater in Chicago: A Constant State of Desire, the three-part piece Finley brought to Chicago this fall, features a now-notorious passage in which she strips down to panties, slathers raw egg all over her body, showers herself with glitter and paper boas, and launches into a hilarious, dead-serious jeremiad against yuppies and their culture of voyeurism, egotism, and exploitation...
...We can't allow women to face violence...
...He has stumped for the Democrats at colleges...
...Kevin Sesums, trapped in Madonna's cave and discoursing on a unique seascape of Frida Kahlo, the Mexican artist and bomb-thrower: In the entrance foyer is another Kahlo, titled My Birth...
...Many transvestites are happily married...
...Sorrow...
...In many of the passages I was guessing, but because I was trying hard to be honest with myself, I sometimes guessed right...
...Largely ignored were the facts that without Iran-Contra there would be no Panama and that George Bush, as the former dictator's longtime employer, is just as guilty if not more of some of the things Noriega is guilty of...
...A. Your husband is probably telling the truth when he says he isn't homosexual...
...April 3, 19901 New York Times As the Reagan Administration recedes into history leaving democracy in Central America and in Eastern Europe, a dramatic relaxation of tensions between Washington and Moscow, and steady, uninterrupted economic growth across the great Republic...
...To the contrary, when one peers through larger lenses from a greater distance, Johnson materializes as America's true native son, embodying not only many of this country's dominant historical values but its pathological traits as well, from narcissism and materialism to unbridled ambition...
...But Warren G. Harding was popular, too...
...March/April 1990] Cosmopolitan A New Age exchange in the pages of Cosmo, where lingerie advertisements are to be encouraged: Q. After fourteen years of marriage, I've made a shocking discovery about my husband...
...April 1990] 42 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR JUNE 1990...
...I suggest you try to do that as well, for your husband's sexual quirk is really quite an innocent one...
...and, surely, you all remember the hordes of right-wing assassins: Baldwin is more than passionate about his politics...
...he journeyed to the Democratic Convention with Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden...
...Then she snuggles into my arms, contented as any cat I've ever held, and looks up at me as if to say, "Isn't this cozy...
...CURRENT WISDOM The Great Books Series Hugh Prather, the Marcel Proust of yuppiedom, in a new introduction to the twentieth-anniversary edition of his Notes to Myself, gibbers in the first person singular to his anal-retentive audience: Notes to Myself was essentially a stack of yellow sheets (which I called my diary) where I went to sort things out, where I put down my pains and problems, and my very deep longing to break through to some truth...
...March 18, 19901 Vanity Fair Notes on the sublime and the beautiful by a Mr...
Vol. 23 • June 1990 • No. 6
