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When I saw Ingmar Bergman's Persona in 1967, I was pretty much baffled. Oh, I understood the translated dialogue, and I understood the general idea that the two women were similar and possiby melding into one, whatever that might mean, but I didn't understand what it all signified, or how the "plot" was related to…
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I listened to an interview with Markwayne Mullin, a new member of the House of Representatives, and had a hard time believing my ears. It wasn't that he was inarticulate or stupid. It was that he was so utterly smug, so absolutely and entirely certain of himself. He has no doubts. He knows exactly what…
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In Which 3-year-old Lola Describes the Structure and Functioning of the Contemporary American Family
"Mommies are parents; daddies are kids."
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The Republicans now draw most of their strength from the former "slave states." Here's the evidence and the map: In 2012, Republicans won only 55 electoral votes from the free states. Obama carried 332. I don't think it's coincidence or merely an association. I think it's a cause. In order to support slavery, a person…
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I was half-way through this neglected Cold War paranoia-mystery-Hitchcocky black-and-white (and noir all over) amnesia movie when I realized that I was watching a lineal ancestor of the Jason Bourne films. It's all there: the trauma, the amnesia, the shadowy organization determined to eliminate the amnesiac, the assassins, the hair-breadth 'scapes, the chases, the murky…
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Grandma (affectionately): "You're a silly duckling." Lola (age 2+): "I'm not a duckling. I'm a people."
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At two-and-a-half, Lola has become very precise. Grandpa: "That's a nice white sweater you're wearing." Lola: "It's a jacket." Grandpa: "You're tired. Why don't you put your head down on the bed." Lola: "It's not a bed; it's a pad." Grandpa: "It's a nice blue pad." Lola: "It's green." All this precision is coupled to idiosyncratic…
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I was almost asleep but semi-conscious and I heard a noise outside. It could have been the wind knocking over a chair, but it might also have been a raccoon, a skunk, or a groundhog. Or even a coyote, a beast that we hear but almost never encounter. Whatever it was, I was immediately electrified,…
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1. No longer possible to die tragically young, with promise unfulfilled. Well, actually, promise can still be unfulfilled, but not because of early death. 2. No longer any need to fuss with contraceptives. 3. Read an entire magazine article while urinating.
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In my daughter's basement I found a dried-up, stained, pages-hanging-out 1959 paperback edition of William Golding's Lord of the Flies. On the cover: "Copyright 1954." "Over 4,450,000 copies in print." "Sixty-second impression." "Now Available For Students And Teachers: the Casebook Edition containing the full text of the novel, critical essays, notes, and bibliography." Lord of…