Salt City Sinner

posted on 2/7/2019 by the Salt City Sinner The towering influences of writers like Shirley Jackson, Edgar Allen Poe, and Mary Shelley extend well beyond the boundaries of horror and into the wider realm of literature proper, a point that has been belabored enough that I don’t need to make it again here. Less explored (and perhaps more interesting) are the occasions on which writers who are well-loved and respected outside of the cobwebbed graveyard of macabre literature have slipped through the gates of that cemetery for a midnight jaunt. My favorite example might be the short story “the Comet” by William E.B. DuBois , a brilliant writer not usually known for his ghost stories. “The Comet” can be read as many things – an early science fiction story, a sharp-eyed tale about race, class, and American society, and – with its necropolitan flair -- an excellently-crafted horror tale. I think it is best understood as all and none of these, and a great example of how fluid and arbit...

I've written a bit about the People's Library at #OccupySLC's Base Camp. In addition to having an excellent selection of take-one-leave-one books on a variety of topics, the Library also has a big box of zines, also with a take-one-leave-one policy. I've even been sort of "following" the Portland Gospel, a small #OccupyPortland zine that has, by some bizarre underground railroad of #Occupants, shown up weekly at #OSLC's Library. I mentioned in my last post that a lot of the anti-fed stuff I had seen packing the literature table had been gloriously replaced by a fresh bloom of anarchist leaflets. I thought I would show a few of them here, along with one interesting publishing identifier - but we'll get to that. First off, none of the following should be taken as representative of #Occupy, #OccupySLC, #OccupyWallStreet - hell, of anything, really, beyond an open forum where people can drop of leaflets that provides us with a brief snapshot of...

My tovarish J Scrivner has launched a blog. It is worth reading. Here it is.

Andrew Sullivan , reflecting on conservativism in the 1990s: A society able to devote itself to the core question of perjury in a civil suit and to enjoy Seinfeld and the Simpsons: isn't that kind of era what conservatives really want? Not all of them, I found out. For those conservatives deeply troubled by modernity and its pleasures, for those who see war and conflict as key motivators for civic virtue, a society pretty happy with itself, and a government actually running a surplus with no wars, is a problem. It saps "national greatness"... There are conservatives who are always girded for war or suspect all peace as some kind of hidden war; and those who are happy at peace, grateful for its blessings and hopeful that it will last. This split in the character of conservativism sounds strangely familiar ... Now is the winter of our discontent Made glorious summer by this sun of York; And all the clouds that lour'd upon our house In the deep bosom of the ocean buried....