Category: from the DEPT of I SHIT YOU NOT

BITTER LAUGHS, from the DEPT of I SHIT YOU NOTLeave a comment

SMATTERINGS*

Steven Augustine

*(… sundry head-scratchers, gaspers, sunbeams and ironies collected from books read between dec 2 2019 and jan 21 2020)   1 “… in 1960, highranking Nazi bureaucrat Adolf Eichmann – one the chief architects of the Nazi genocide – was captured in Argentina, kidnapped and transported to Israel, where he was imprisoned while awaiting trial. Incidentally, at some point during his incarceration, one of Eichmann’s guards gave him a copy of the recently published German translation of Lolita, as German Jewish émigré philosopher Hannah Arendt puts it, “for relaxation.” After two days Eichmann returned it, visibly indignant, telling his guard, … Continue reading SMATTERINGS*

from the DEPT of I SHIT YOU NOT, HUXWELLIAN, THINKING TO THE NTH ON THE TOPICLeave a comment

VINTAGE DATA

Steven Augustine

Before the smiley-hopey-huggy-shruggy-lazy-hazy Disney version of “Reality” took over,  even among the so-called Progressives,  thinking types could actually get accurate info from the radio! Imagine! 1972. If you’ve never heard of Mae, or if what you’ve heard about her is character assassination, this is worth a corrective listen. The picture she paints is neither pretty nor untrue. What I keep thinking, as I listen to this,  again,  is how terribly low the level of discourse/ awareness has dropped in the decades since then. When did Duh Masses become such lazy prosecutors of the crimes committed against them? When did they … Continue reading VINTAGE DATA

AND YOU POST-MODERNISTS THINK YOU'RE HOT, from the DEPT of I SHIT YOU NOTLeave a comment

SONTAG’S EASTER SURPRISE: UPDATED

Steven Augustine

Now this IS fun (and of course, of COURSE, SS knew from the very beginning that this would eventually come out and lift her plinth another meter or two). I don’t, for a minute, doubt it.* (And Oh, young people, with your zealously faddy, bandwagoningly superficial polemics!) When I read this “revelation,” this afternoon, it made me think of something I’d read, a while back, in Edward Field’s book “The Man Who Would Marry Susan Sontag and Other Intimate Literary Portraits”  (2005),  a kind of orgiastically-LGBT behind-the-scenes contextualizer for many of Modernism’s Flagship Avatars, and their works, that I found … Continue reading SONTAG’S EASTER SURPRISE: UPDATED

from the DEPT of I SHIT YOU NOT, HIGH QUACKERY, HUXWELLIAN, THINKING TO THE NTH ON THE TOPICLeave a comment

ROSEMARY’S BOWIE & ASSORTED BITS of BLIP & INFO

Steven Augustine

  1. MERCUTIO IN THE HOOD  Rom. Dost thou not laugh ? Ben. No, coz, I rather weep. Rom. Good heart, at what ? When my 7th grade class was led through a detailed reading of (Shakespeare/ Marlowe’s) Romeo and Juliet by old Mrs Shaw, a giggle-wave rippled all the way to the back of the class room as we, of 1971’s South Side of Chicago,  discovered that fictional, 16th century, Veronese Mercutio, Paris, Tybalt, et al, were calling their chums (and  fellow gang-members)   “coz,” short for “cousin”… just like us. Well, to be honest, I don’t remember doing it … Continue reading ROSEMARY’S BOWIE & ASSORTED BITS of BLIP & INFO

ELEPHANT IN THE ELEVATOR, FIGHT THE STUPID, from the DEPT of I SHIT YOU NOT, HUXWELLIANLeave a comment

MAJESTIC IMPERIAL PANOPLY: DIVERS and SUNDRY LINKS/JAPES/GRUMBLES

Steven Augustine

1 IMPERIAL HEADLINES 2017-2018   *Pregnant 19-year-old accused of raping boy, 14 *If a nuclear bomb is dropped on your city, here’s where you should run and hide *Mother and Son Transition to Father and Daughter After Realizing They Are Transgender *Bull gores 11-inch horn up matador’s butt *Reality TV Show Drops People into the Wild for a Year, Doesn’t Tell Them Show is Canceled *Mobile cooling unit used after Ohio county morgue runs out of space *Here’s Video Footage of the Bomb Dropped on Afghanistan *Couple finds out they are biological twins during IVF treatment *Okla. Woman Gets Life … Continue reading MAJESTIC IMPERIAL PANOPLY: DIVERS and SUNDRY LINKS/JAPES/GRUMBLES

ELEPHANT IN THE ELEVATOR, from the DEPT of I SHIT YOU NOT, it's okay, kids, i'm black, TASED BY TRUTHLeave a comment

21 UNFORGIVABLE ONE-LINERS

Steven Augustine

    Let’s keep wrapping our heads around the spectacle of McCarthyite Lefties until it feels right! Let’s empower Women by saying that a Woman can be any Man who feels that they are a Woman; can we do the same fun thing with Race? How can young girls being mercilessly bombarded on all media fronts, 24/7/365, with the diametrically-opposed messages to both A) snack for social fun and status and B) get skinny to be sexy (for social fun and status) have actual eating disorders…  what are their underlying issues we can struggle to understand? Let’s keep encouraging kids … Continue reading 21 UNFORGIVABLE ONE-LINERS

CORPSE-GREEN CAT SHIT, ELEPHANT IN THE ELEVATOR, from the DEPT of I SHIT YOU NOT, the lash or the cuddle: reviews, THINKING TO THE NTH ON THE TOPIC12 Comments

REVIEWS, POLEMICS, PANEGYRICS & TINGLY FANCIES of the SCHADENFREUDE GAZETTE

Steven Augustine

  1. UPSTATE, by JAMES WOOD: a GLOATING REVIEW from a LONG TIME HATER   With the doggedly cheeky defiance that often passes for self-belief,  Yuppie Book Club Bouncer James Wood has submitted his second completed assignment toward earning his certificate as a Fledgling Novelist. Wood’s first effort, the meticulously soporific The Book Against God, was a forgivable failure which left unanswered the question of whether this unnecessary book was a novelist’s first failure, in essence,  or that of an overreaching critic’s. Was James Wood’s first completed long-form fiction assignment, The Book Against God,  the inevitable dud of a dabbler? … Continue reading REVIEWS, POLEMICS, PANEGYRICS & TINGLY FANCIES of the SCHADENFREUDE GAZETTE

CORPSE-GREEN CAT SHIT, CRUSH THIS MEME, DUMB AS A RUBBER LADDER, from the DEPT of I SHIT YOU NOT, FUCKING SHIT I REALLY REALLY HATE, HUXLEY ORWELL INC, MURKKA, THINKING TO THE NTH ON THE TOPIC, WEBBY TITTERSLeave a comment

ANOTHER PICTURE FORMS in the CRACKLING FLAMES of these LITERARY ENDTIMES

Steven Augustine

Every Age has its signature follies: from 15th century Europe’s infatuation with the codpiece to the early-20th century radium craze (radium-filled chocolate bars, toothpastes and suppositories were once quite in), historical hindsight eventually makes a fool of every decade, dynasty, century and/or reign. What will “we” be known and mocked for by the super-sophisticates of the 23rd century? It’s always difficult to know as it’s happening  (eg, I’m quite sure I felt that elephant-bells and cork-heeled platforms  were fundamentally sound, at the time), but some trends are so fucking jaw-droppingly moronic that they sort of… stand out. Sticking, for the … Continue reading ANOTHER PICTURE FORMS in the CRACKLING FLAMES of these LITERARY ENDTIMES

ELEPHANT IN THE ELEVATOR, from the DEPT of I SHIT YOU NOT, FUCKING SHIT I REALLY REALLY HATE, REQUIRED READINGLeave a comment

BUT THE DOUGHNUTS ARE CHEAP and the PORN IS FREE, SO…. (a quick aggregation of Horrors)

Steven Augustine

Think of the worst, most violently selfish and dangerous people you’ve ever known or heard about and realize that those are the types in control of The Planet.  It is irrefutably so. Logically speaking, how could decent, peace-loving, compassionate people hope to stand a chance in the struggle for power when the struggle pits them against people willing and able to lie, cheat, manipulate, dissemble and kill… and do all of the aforementioned with great pleasure and consummate skill, often? The psychopaths always win (and they always hire a nice thick layer of smiling, attractive actors to put a chummy, sexy … Continue reading BUT THE DOUGHNUTS ARE CHEAP and the PORN IS FREE, SO…. (a quick aggregation of Horrors)