I Judged About A Zillion Awards This

Cool Is Spent. Cool Is Empty. Cool Is Ex Post Facto. When Advertisers And Pundits Hoard A Word, You Know It's Time To Retire From It. To Move On. I Want To Suggest, Therefore, That We Begin To Avoid Cool Now. Cool Is A Trick To Get You To Buy Garments Made By Sweatshop Laborers In Third World Countries. Cool Is The Triumph Of The Will. Cool Enables You To Step Over Bodies. Cool Enables You To Look The Other Way. Cool Makes You Functional, Eager For Routine Distraction, Passive, Doped, Stupid.

There’s Something Really Rich And Powerful In Not Talking About What You Need To Talk About Sometimes.

People Know That Pain Is Part Of Our Nature, That It Cannot Be Avoided And That It Should Not Be Avoided. But Capitalism In This Country Is Focused On The Idea 1) That Life Can And Should Be Absolutely Beautiful; 2) That Beauty Can Be Defined According To An Ironclad Objective Standard; 3) That Beauty Can Be Held Onto Forever If Only You Do The Right Things Perfectly Enough; And 4) That It Can Be Purchased.

I Am In Boston Right Now, In Fact, To Do Work At The New England Historical Genealogical Library, Where I'm Trying To Finish Up Tracing My Lineage Back To The Seventeenth Century.

Maybe When I'm Sixty-five I'll Talk About My Literary Life.