Sunday, February 25, 2018

Beleaguered Castle Asteroid Shield

The murder of Andrew Petrie, ex-United States senator, changes the lives of his wife, Yvonne, and two brothers, artist Hugh and the mystic Stephen. Here's a brilliant analysis of relationships that miss, of introspection and misunderstanding, and of repercussions.-- a sympathetic reviewer


 It was disconcerting to realize only in mid-sentence that I was disagreeing with Joyce Carol Oates about the alleged non-action of the Parkland security officer when I scrolled search under the literature section. 



The sheer volume of her output is rather daunting, rivaling that of King, even if she is too cerebral and literary to have King’s popular appeal. I know when I’m out-gunned, and wouldn’t have responded to her point at all had I caught myself, but I am not really an aficionado of her novels. A section of The Assassins scored beneath my undergraduate breast. Oates was up there, one of her central characters silenced by a respirator, undermining my expectations, and I am always down here, in the mucus mudpies, getting nigger fucked over every time I try to restore my work and submission routine, waiting on another visitation by a woman who until recently tended my hospice downgrading stepmother. More than Victoria herself, I want to sink to my knees and beg her fiancé, who claims he can convert anything, to restore my files. Even if the alchemy of how we react to the famous is somewhat integral to our own psyches, a star like Woods doesn’t faze me in the digital distance, but Oates does, even if longevity has dimmed her shine. Her celebratory profile of Mike Tyson was too convenient and self-serving, Blonde was a mixed bag, and tapping her for a White Oleander jacket blurb was in questionable taste. First time women novelists coming out of MFA culture have considerable lag time, and nothing White Oleander’s author did felt authentic to me. The main character was like a watered down Lolita with a flat tire. It came, went, movie deal, hackneyed as anything else.
Oates’s impassioned liberalism doesn’t leave much room for air, but I still feel she’s wrong. Cruz was on a rampage and had significant fire power, but security officers are hired to face such risks, and this officer might have done something short of martyrdom to save lives. That is the role for which they get paid. The actual instructors themselves should not have to function as police too. There are enough accreditation hurdles teachers face just to teach; having them armed in class has predictably bad outcomes. It may not be an impending world’s end, but Trumpian brinkmanship has increased my anxiety even as my range eclipses in this unstable meteorological shift of season. I need to stop punishing myself with procrastinating despair and get back to work while I wait to fix and upgrade technology, but I’m near breaking point, not sure how to scale down to adjust. Marie’s family is contemplating an exodus from the city due to taxes. This is radical for this branch of my family. It may be too late for me, the cruelty and paces Presbyterian Homes, constriction and loss of independence, my tonnage caving in my birdlike shoulders, catching up with Oates’s wrinkled visage.

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