by Katrin Trüstedt

Political debates in Europe these days seem to have only one subject. At one point or another they all turn to the issue of migration, Islam, and a danger to “the West”, which are presented as essentially synonymous. Germany’s political future seems currently to hang in the balance over the so-called “migration master plan” by German secretary of the interior Horst Seehofer. The polemical campaign of the CSU to win back voters from right wing parties threatens to blow up the German government and thereby endangers the future of Europe. In a time when it is increasingly difficult to deny the immense scale of suffering both in the places from which a majority of the refugees escape to Europe, and in the border areas they find themselves in, the construct of a “Fortress Europe” is being strengthened not only by physical and political, but also by rhetorical barriers. Returning to stereotypes of foreign invasions overrunning a weakened West, mainstream debates are drawing on old images already used in anti-Semitic propaganda of the early 20^thcentury.

Michel Houellebecq’s novel Submission, which recently re-entered the German discourse in form of a movie adaptation, seems to offer the apt allegory for the current phantasma. Perhaps its biggest accomplishment lies in foregrounding the strong but mostly implicit connection of this type of xenophobia with issues of gender and sexuality. The weakened West is depicted here in terms of the decline of the male, bored, and sexually frustrated protagonist who shows uncanny features of an Incel, and to whom the Islamic Other taking over France seems to offer a model for a renewed masculinity putatively under attack in post-feminism Europe. Ultimately, the only solution for the protagonist is a submission to the spreading Islam in order to restore patriarchy and repair his unsettled and offended masculinity with the vision of underage virgins. In all its absurdity, the novel points to an implicit thread of the new right wing discourses presently targeting Islam as the privileged enemy: that of a threatened masculinity. Informed by images of young Islamic men overrunning a decadent West unable to protect itself, the European discourse on refugees is deeply gendered and sexualized. Read more »

“…shimmering through the leaves and out beyond the black lines
of her neighbors’ chimney pots were the stars, beacons whose light
left them long before there were eyes on this planet to receive it…”
…………………………………………….. — archeologist Jacquetta Hawkes

Tripping on Curbs

we who live in deep space and trip
on curbs looking up at stars bound in a mesh
of interstices of lightyears through which
seas of breath and blood pass,
in which muscles are bound by mystic ligaments
to armatures of bone . . .
we’re always mystified by what seems a
phenomenal disconnect,
mindsparks shine here and there,
filaments of personal matter,
electric turns of tissue and dreams,
tiny conscious blips to which
oldest light comes, goes, scatters
and everything is it.
so it may not matter
if shimmering it
will or will not
shatter
.

Jim Culleny
11/04/16

by Brooks Riley

by Amanda Beth Peery

by Gabrielle C. Durham

“In receiving this award, I thank my parents, Zsa Zsa Gabor and Mr. T.”

This is my twist on the importance of the serial or Oxford comma, the comma that should follow “Gabor” and precede “and.” I was indoctrinated at a young age, which as we know is the best time for a spongy brain to take in nebulous rules that will dictate the rest of one’s life. The catechist was grammar and its incumbent style guide. Style guides rule the world. They frame the content you read, no matter if you notice it. You probably only become aware of it if the framing is inadequate or a convention is broken.

In a just and decent world, everyone would use the Chicago Manual of Style. That august association does not give me any money, but I would give (and have given) them some for the joy and clarity that publication and its website have bestowed upon me. If you’re looking for some syntactic comedy, check out their reader comments. It’s not a Chris Rock special on premium cable, but you might have a titter.

Chicago has everything. If you cannot find an answer in Chicago, either you did not phrase it correctly or it is not worth asking. Even a worthless question, the magnanimous souls at CMS will find a way to answer and give solace to the asker’s weary mind. Read more »

Blowing Her Lungs Out into a Clay Oven

Mother leans
against the island
in the nanosecond kitchen
at Farouk’s home
in New Rochelle,
marveling
at a Miracle Icemaker
as half-moons
tumble
into a glass bowl.
She spins

a Lazy Susan
with glee,
clicks the fire
fountains on & off.
“Atomic food
makes stomachs ache,”
she warns,
alarming
the microwave.
“I remember,”

she says,
“squatting
in front
of a clay oven
blowing
my lungs
into a slim steel pipe
to light a fire,
my smoke-singed eyes,
your father’s anger—
She pulls out

an empty tray
from the oven,
whispers,
“For 50 years
I created
a home
only to see
your father’s
new wife
inherit
it.”

by Rafiq Kathwari / @brownpundit

by Brooks Riley

by Max Sirak

Long before it ever even occurred to me to be a writer, I accidentally adopted the quirks and habits of one…

If one sits in my dining room, they can see it. There is literal writing on my wall. What once stood empty, with its deep red paint, is now plastered with Post-Its. My dining room features a Word-of-the-day wall. It took over five years to complete and started as many things do, by chance, during a drunken game of Scrabble.

Word-of-the-day-wall aside, there’s another writerly habit this column pertains to.

I can’t honestly tell you when I started my notes. Soon after college is all I’ve really got. Many moons ago I began highlighting passages in everything I read and typing them up. It’s a labor of love born in hopes of retention.

I learned at university that if I wanted to commit something to memory I needed to do more than simply read it. Remembering, for me, requires an action element. So, in the name of not forgetting everything I was learning from books, I started my notes.

Weighing in at damn near three-quarters of a million words, over 1,500 pages, and spanning 200 different entries, my notes are the closest thing to a life’s work I’ve got. Read more »

Subway Haiku

Five times doors open
And five times they quickly shut
The Speaker crackles

Crossroads of the world
Four languages on my bench
Train to JFK

Many tired folks,
Long hours and they can’t rest yet,
“start spreadin’ the news”

Every type of eyes:
Closed, squinting, staring, empty,
Downcast, roving, hard

Dude: Yankees’ cap,
Whitest sneakers known to man,
Brand names head to toe

“No way” says a kid,
Mom grabs his DS away,
He stares silently.

Man wears a kuf,
On his neck: Star of David,
Eating some pork rinds

Man in uniform,
Knows how important he is,
And now you do, too

Women gently sleep,
The train lurches to a stop,
They ain’t sleeping now. Read more »

by Brooks Riley

by Dave Maier

So Sam Harris, Jordan Peterson, and a number of other brash rebels daring to challenge the stifling intellectual status quo, in which one is not allowed to criticize anyone from other cultures, because multiculturalism or Marxism or something, are part of, I am not making this up, the Intellectual Dark Web. Fine, whatever. It’s not that there’s no such thing as lefty orthodoxy, obviously, especially on campus, but these best-selling authors look pretty petty presenting themselves as somehow being silenced.

Anyway, that’s not what I want to talk about. In the New York Times piece telling us about all this, I ran across the following exchange:

After [Harris’s] talk, in which he disparaged the Taliban, a biologist who would go on to serve on President Barack Obama’s Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues approached him. “I remember she said: ‘That’s just your opinion. How can you say that forcing women to wear burqas is wrong?’ But to me it’s just obvious that forcing women to live their lives inside bags is wrong. I gave her another example: What if we found a culture that was ritually blinding every third child? And she actually said, ‘It would depend on why they were doing it.’” His jaw, he said, “actually fell open.”

It’s not unprecedented, or even unusual, that Harris should commit a philosophy fail. But in detaching ourselves from error, we have to be careful about where we end up. It’s not even clear, for example, that his point in the context is threatened by his futile sally. So I’ll be defending him as much as diagnosing his (all too common) error. Maybe I should be on the IDW too. Help, I’m being silenced!

Okay, enough japery for now. What did Harris do wrong here, and why may his main point survive the stumble? Read more »

by Michael Liss

Celebrate with me. 

May is graduation month, and my children are among the graduates.  My son marched two weeks ago for his Masters, and, if you are reading this on Memorial Day, it might be at the very same time I watch my daughter receive her Bachelor of Music. Go get ‘em, kids.  

Perhaps your joy need not be vicarious—you have your own family skittering across the podium. One of the special pleasures of this time of year is that so many of your friends and relations are also submerged in a sea of caps and gowns, blurry pictures, hugs, and the dreaded Elgar Pomp and Circumstance Earworm. They announce themselves with each vibration from your iPhone, a kaleidoscope of happy, and occasionally goofy, images. Can we all stipulate that the whole outfit looks a bit silly?

Graduation also reminds you that time passes (way too fast). Your kids’ time, and your time. You’ve changed, just as has the five-year old who came bouncing out of her room, a huge grin on her face, ready for the first day of Kindergarten. You are a little older (just a little) and a little more “robust,” and your times in the Road Runners races are “moving” in the wrong direction.  

It doesn’t matter.  There are your children, not looking little at all, promising you a peculiar type of immortality. They are going to go do things, great things, going to change the world. They are the discoverers, the communicators, the creators. They will wash away any imperfections you’ve left and build things bigger and better. They really are the future.

You’ve celebrated with me. Now, indulge me. Read more »

Toby Mulligan. Portrait, January 2018.

More here, here, and here.