My representative in Congress, John Shimkus (R, Illinois-15), has announced that he will not seek reelection. This is the same John Shimkus who has declared that we don’t need to worry about rising sea levels (because of a divine promise not to destroy the world with a flood), who has unwittingly — and favorably! — compared a Republican gubernatorial candidate to Benito Mussolini, who has wondered whether prenatal care should be part of the cost of men’s health insurance, who has called the separation of children from parents at the border an “unfortunate result” of a “broken immigration system,” whose response to a war of tariffs is to say “I’m just a legislator,” whose sole response to a mass shooting is to tweet that “Violence and hate are never the answer,” who fails to show up for debates, and who refuses to meet his constituents in town halls and advises fellow Republican members of Congress to do the same.
Good fucking riddance.
Related reading
All OCA John Shimkus posts
[If you’re reading in a reader, you’ll most likely not see the point of the post title. There’s a line through the name: Shimkus.]
Friday, August 30, 2019
Shimkus
“Who takes what anyone says seriously anyway?”
His Grace the Imperial Liege-Count Leinsdorf is troubled by recent developments in the Parallel Campaign, the public-relations project to celebrate Austria and the Emperor Franz Joseph:
Robert Musil, The Man Without Qualities. 1930–1943. Trans. Sophie Wilkins (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995).
This dark passage is the last excerpt from The Man Without Qualities I’m posting. Now that our household has read what was published of the unfinished novel, we have twenty further chapters (withdrawn in galleys) and various drafts and fragments to go. Worth it? Yes.
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All OCA Musil posts (Pinboard)
“What’s an ethos?”
General Stumm von Bordwehr just struggled with the idea of will. Now it’s ethos:
Robert Musil, The Man Without Qualities. 1930–1943. Trans. Sophie Wilkins (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995).
Related reading
All OCA Musil posts (Pinboard)
Will
We last saw General Stumm von Bordwehr trying to instill order into the discussion of great ideas. He’s still struggling:
Robert Musil, The Man Without Qualities. 1930–1943. Trans. Sophie Wilkins (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995).
Related reading
All OCA Musil posts (Pinboard)
Zippy Meadows
Audrey Meadows appears in today’s Zippy. Zippy thinks that her face says “Rage on, Ralph, nothing you do can penetrate my kabuki mask.” Exactly.
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All OCA Honeymooners posts : Zippy posts (Pinboard)
Thursday, August 29, 2019
Ben Leddy hosts The Rewind
Here’s the latest episode of WGBH’s The Rewind, “Turn In, Burn In,” hosted by our son Ben. The episode is devoted to film footage of a 1967 anti-draft protest at Boston Common and Arlington Street Church. Bonus: a Steenbeck machine.
“Apparition in Agathe’s head!”
Robert Musil, The Man Without Qualities. 1930–1943. Trans. Sophie Wilkins (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995).
The mere ten pages of Proust that Musil professed to have read must have included the madeleine moment of Swann’s Way. When Proust’s narrator recognizes the taste of madeleine dipped in lime-blossom tea, the world of his childhood appears before him; “all of Combray and its surroundings” emerges, “town and gardens alike,” from his cup. Musil offers a grimly comic version: Emma Bovary, this is your life!
Related reading
All OCA Musil posts (Pinboard)
[Rudolfsgymnasium: not a typo. Quotations from Swann’s Way from Lydia Davis’s translation (New York: Viking, 2002).]
Found in an old pocket notebook
Two details from a talk by Eva Kor:
She outwitted Josef Mengele by taking the thermometer from under her arm to reduce her temperature, gradually, over three weeks.
Near the end of the war, she looked across a frozen river at a girl with braids and a schoolbag.
Wednesday, August 28, 2019
A compliment
“I see the two of you walking all the time. You both slimmed up tremendous.”
“Thank you!”
We are conspicuous in our walking, because not enough people walk.
“Quantities of genius”
Robert Musil, The Man Without Qualities. 1930–1943. Trans. Sophie Wilkins (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995).
See also William Carlos Williams and Wallace Shawn on powders, pencils, mountains, and cigars. And this hardware store, this drugstore, and this other drugstore. Density!
Related reading
All OCA Musil posts (Pinboard)
