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Tony Christini  Partisan Fiction
New Orleans resident displaced by hurricane Katrina, author Tom Piazza notes that after the hurricane, he wrote his partisan non-fiction book "Why New Orleans Matters in five weeks — too quickly to think about it." He adds that: "If I was lucky, maybe its style is some kind of amalgam of the nonfiction stuff I have found most compelling, most of which was written by fiction writers — Orwell, Didion, Mailer, and Hemingway, especially. I wish more fiction writers would tithe a certain amount of their energies to writing about politics and current events. If they are good they have tremendous evocative power at their disposal. I admire Denis Johnson and ZZ Packer for doing it. Sometimes, of course, it can go wrong. But fiction writers, because of the primacy they give to voice and point of view, tend to have more power available than your average reporter — more leverage on the objective events about which they report."

Apparently outside the realm of thought is that “fiction writers should tithe” or otherwise devote “a certain amount of their energies to writing about politics and current events” in their fiction itself, as partisan fiction that might have substantial effect in the world, including issue-based socio-political effect. In doing so, authors would run the risk of producing works that might virtually ensure their immortality, works such as Aristophanes’ anti-war play Lysistrata, Jonathan Swift’s anti-economic-exploitation story A Modest Proposal, and Harriet Beecher Stowe’s anti-chattel-slavery novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a risk it seems most authors would, otherwise, consider taking. [An article on The Lysistrata Project: A Theatrical Act of Dissent - another here.]

Roland Barthes: "Then comes the modern question: why is there not today (or at least so it seems to me), why is there no longer an art of intellectual persuasion, or imagination? Why are we so slow, so indifferent about mobilizing narrative and the image? Can't we see that it is, after all, works of fiction, no matter how mediocre they may be artistically, that best arouse political passion?" Not that Lysistrata and A Modest proposal are mediocre artistically. Nor are significant parts of Uncle Tom's Cabin - especially, interestingly enough, some of the most overtly topical and political passages.

Grady Hendrix  Zombies Attack George Bush - Joe Dante's Brilliant Anti-war Horror Show
Just when things looked like they couldn't get any worse for President Bush, here come the zombies to vote him out of office. They arrive courtesy of Joe Dante's Homecoming, a one-hour movie made for Showtime's "Masters of Horror" series that airs tonight and tomorrow and will be rebroadcast throughout December. One part satire of soulless Beltway insiders, one part gut-crunching horror flick, Homecoming kicks off when the flag-draped coffins of soldiers killed in Iraq burst open and the reanimated corpses of dead veterans hit the streets, searching for polling places where they can pull the lever for "anyone who will end this evil war."

Michael Bérubé  "Die Hard" Diehard Catching Flak for Epic Iraq Flick  [note the date]
Variety, May 1, 2008—According to insider reports, action star Bruce Willis is drastically over budget and cannot decide on an ending for his pro-war Iraq film, Mission Accomplished. 

“He’s spun completely out of control,” said one member of the crew, who spoke on condition of anonymity.  “He’ll spend a month filming the ‘democracy’ ending, but no one knows what that’s supposed to look like, and then he decides it’s ‘too boring anyway.’ So we’ll spend another month on the ‘fighting terrorism’ ending, where we wipe out an entire city, then another month on the ‘civil war’ ending, featuring a bunch of Shiite death squads, then another on the ‘revenge’ ending with these incredibly gory Abu Ghraib scenes, then another on this bizarre ‘call in the bombers’ ending that reads like it was written by Sy Hersh.  And then he’ll just spend days alone in his trailer, blasting this turgid crap by The Doors and painting his body from head to toe.”

Willis has assured his initial backers, Passion Media, formerly known as Pajamas Media, formerly known as Open Source Media, formerly known as Pajamas Media, that he will finish the film “when it is done,” but has refused to set any timetable for its completion.  Lead screenwriter Roger L. Simon defended Willis’s refusal, issuing a terse press release, “cowards yell ‘cut’ and run, action figures never do.”

Industry analysts note that the cost of Mission Accomplished now exceeds $200 billion, but few of the cast or crew are willing to speak on the record, fearing reprisals from Willis, who demands complete and unquestioning loyalty from everyone working on the film.  “It’s way beyond what happened with Coppola,” said one of the film’s producers, “not that there are any parallels with Vietnam or anything.  But I think we’re past the worst moments of last fall, when Bruce was insisting on doing this Twelve Monkeys in Iraq bit where he travels back in time to find weapons of mass destruction.  Honestly, most of us wish that Bruce had stuck with the first ending, where Bush lands on the aircraft carrier in a flight suit.  Everything tells us that’s the ending with the biggest box office.”

Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman  All Things Bright and Beautiful
The first lady today announced the theme for the 2005 holiday season at the White House.
It is this: All Things Bright and Beautiful. 

        "This year's holiday decorations bring nature's beauty to the White House."

White phosphorous.
Bombs bursting in air.
2,100 American dead. 

        "Simple, yet elegant, decorations highlight creations from the natural world."

Exploding oil pipelines.
Suicide bombers.
Death and destruction.

"Another fact overlooked, though it is finally beginning to leak, is the immense corruption under the CPA, beside which anything attributed to the UN pales in insignificance. Plenty of information has been readily available, but only tidbits were reported here."

"One can go on. But the major and crucial point overlooked is the judgment of Nuremberg, declaring that aggression is "the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole." All of the "accumulated evil." Also overlooked are the stern words of the US Chief Counsel Justice Jackson: "If certain acts of violation of treaties are crimes, they are crimes whether the United States does them or whether Germany does them, and we are not prepared to lay down a rule of criminal conduct against others which we would not be willing to have invoked against us... We must never forget that the record on which we judge these defendants is the record on which history will judge us tomorrow. To pass these defendants a poisoned chalice is to put it to our own lips as well." Until at least this is recognized, all other discussion is merely footnotes, and shameful ones."

Bob Hoover  NEA Urges Bee Season For Poetry
"Norman Mailer is 82 and Lawrence Ferlinghetti 86. Their sizable contributions to the nation's literature were duly noted with medals at the National Book Awards ceremony Nov. 16 in New York, Mailer for his lifetime achievements as an author and Ferlinghetti for his support of literature. Both in traditional tuxedoes, they delivered the same message in their speeches: Literature is dying. Novels will become "a footnote to our technological and advertising age," warned Mailer. "Literature is an endangered species," intoned Ferlinghetti. An old message from old guys. Is it true, and if so, what's to be done? While the anecdotal evidence is impressive, the statistical data that serious books are passe is a bit sparse. The National Endowment for the Arts last summer issued its "Reading at Risk" census survey that charted a nationwide decline in the reading of novels, short stories, poetry and plays between 1982 and 2002. It dropped about 10 percent overall, with the biggest fall -- 28 percent -- among the 18-to 24-year-old group. It's the only major attempt I've seen to quantify what Mailer and Ferlinghetti are claiming.... The messages of Mailer and Ferlinghetti and a few others reveal a serious condition -- a culture that is growing blinder to the intangible rewards of literature to the heart and soul. Poetry isn't about becoming a better public speaker or winning a scholarship, and a novel is not just something to build community goodwill around. They can help, but their real values are in the understanding, the compassion, the sympathy and the wisdom they can bring to a life."

John Freeman  'Beasts With No Nation' by Uzodinma Iweala
"In mid-2004, an estimated 100,000 children were involved in armed conflict in Africa. According to one advocacy group, many were between the ages of 14 and 18. Some signed up because they were orphaned, others because they were hungry. A portion of them were forcibly abducted as young as age 9. Uzodinma Iweala's debut novel takes up the story of Agu, one such boy and gives him a powerful and haunting voice."

Nathan Lee  Two Young Radicals and Their Dovetailing Destinies — Exist: Not a Protest Film
"The ironies of "Exist: Not a Protest Film" begin with the title. This is a protest film insofar as it addresses a subject all but ignored by mainstream culture: the personal and political struggles of young radical activists. By dramatizing their lives with candor, sympathy and a healthy strain of skepticism, the director, Esther Bell, offers an antidote to the whimsy and solipsism endemic to much of what passes for independent filmmaking. Nic Mevoli stars as Top, organizer of a Philadelphia squatter community devoted to left-wing causes...."

Gary Hart  "Terrorism Expert...." - The Scorpion's Gate
"Some of us have learned to listen when Richard A. Clarke has something to say. As the longtime White House counterterrorism chief, he warned the U.S. Commission on National Security for the 21st Century in 1999 that terrorists were coming. We listened, but when we passed the warning on to President Bush, he did not. Now Clarke comes with a novel that, even if you swallow only a portion of it, will keep you awake at night. It's basically about turmoil in the Middle East, threatening to lead to World War III between the United States and China involving -- guess what? -- oil.... Some readers of ``The Scorpion's Gate'' will happily settle for a rapid-deployment plot and political intrigue high and low. Airport sales should make it a success. But a more thoughtful audience will find itself required to give some thought to what the United States is and is not doing in the most volatile region in the world. If Clarke does nothing else but cause some readers to question our ludicrous reliance on unstable oil supplies, wonder whether we have even begun to understand Islamic culture, begin to demand a more subtle and layered approach to the Middle East, doubt our ability to export democracy at the point of a bayonet, or gain maturity in foreign affairs, he will have done a service. On his book's jacket, the author says: ``Fiction can often tell the truth better than non-fiction. And there is a lot of truth that needs to be told.'' As co-chair of the U.S. Commission on National Security for the 21st Century, I am often asked what caused us to predict terrorist attacks on the United States months before Sept. 11, 2001. More than any other factor, Clarke's chilling briefings of our commission persuaded us. Perhaps he is trying to persuade us of a truth yet again."

Michiku Kakutani  The Scorpion's Gate
"Why has ["former U.S. counterterrorism czar"] Mr. Clarke turned to fiction as a venue for his arguments? No doubt it's a way to say - or imply - things about the Bush administration that he can't quite come out and say in an essay, as well as a way to satirize the intelligence bureaucracy and neo-conservative policy making. It's also a way for Mr. Clarke to dramatize his arguments and try to reach a broader audience....

"Here is the plot of the former counterterrorism czar Richard A. Clarke's new book, "The Scorpion's Gate": there is trouble again in the Middle East, and the United States is on the verge of getting involved in another war. An arrogant, gung-ho secretary of defense and his eager-beaver under secretary are intent on regime change in a certain Arab country with huge oil reserves. They charge that this nation's government has ties with Al Qaeda and is on the verge of acquiring nuclear weapons. The "SecDef," who has a taste for pre-emptive wars and a simultaneous desire to reconfigure the armed services, is regarded with skepticism by many members of the uniformed military, but he enjoys the confidence of the president. When it becomes clear that intelligence estimates do not support the SecDef's theories - and in fact suggest that his invasion plans could further destabilize the Middle East - a small band of intelligence analysts and military officers decide to see if they can thwart the rush to war. In his much-discussed 2004 nonfiction bestseller "Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror," Mr. Clarke criticized the Bush administration's handling of the war on terror and its willful determination to go to war against Iraq, but this time he is not talking about real events - he is writing fiction. Though Mr. Clarke's fast, twisty plot could easily be turned into an implausible Tom Cruise action-adventure movie, "The Scorpion's Gate" is less interesting as a Tom Clancy-esque thriller than as a kind of parable. Indeed its often absurd plot is primarily a vehicle for its author to lay out his views about the current Iraq war (and its role in further radicalizing the Arab street), the precariousness of the current Saudi regime and the dangers posed by Iran - a country, Mr. Clarke argues, that not only benefited from the American invasion of its neighbor, but also embodies the very threats the Bush administration lodged against Iraq (i.e., its support of terrorism and its alleged pursuit of nuclear capabilities). The story Mr. Clarke tells in these pages takes place several years in the future...."

Paul Street  Antonio Gramsci on Sesame Street
The hegemonic ideology of the ruling class, Antonio Gramsci once observed, becomes all too much like the "air we breathe." It comes to define the "common sense"of ordinary daily consciouness and experience, with tragic consequences all around.  Here is a small and childish example.  Flipping through the television clicker one morning, I recently I happened upon "Sesame Street" (SS), the venerable educational PBS series for pre- and early grade-school children. The morning's lesson was on the just and inviolable nature of socioeconomic inequity and the sanctity of private property and possessive individualism.  At the point I clicked on the program, two very concerned and mature adults --- a black man and a black woman, both in their 40s it appeared --- were listening with raised eyebrows to a blue puppet animal ("Cookie Monster" perhaps) who had just designated himself "Cookie-Hood." "Cookie-Hood" was a play on Robin Hood.  "Cookie Hood" had just come to the alarming (for him) realization that "some people have lots more cookies than they need" while "other people have no cookies at all."

Lee Siegel  "Better Than Fiction" - The Boondocks
"You have no idea what a relief it is for this critic to watch "The Boondocks"' psychologically accurate lampooning after trying to read dozens of contemporary novels a year. The art of reproducing, through words, plausible people with credible psychologies seems about as lost to history as the technique used to raise the giant slabs at Stonehenge.... Encountering in the pages of a novel a cartoon when you expect to find a character numbs the faculties, all the more so when the novelist really has no inkling of what he's created, or failed to create. But to encounter a cartoon nourished by insight and imagination, a cartoon working itself into a character--that's a different story.... "The Boondocks" is a about a poor, elderly black man named Robert Freeman ("Granddad") who moves from the South Side of Chicago to a wealthy suburb when he comes into an inheritance. He brings with him his two teenage grandchildren, Huey and Riley, the former an angry nihilist with a sharp intellect and a fantasy of revolution; the latter a gangsta-wannabe and general mischief-maker.... With animation like this, who needs the stasis of the contemporary novel?"

Alan Riding  In France, Artists Have Sounded the Warning Bells for Years
"So life often imitates art. Yet with the recent uprisings in some French immigrant neighborhoods, this cliché came with a new twist: art, in the form of movies and rap music, has long been warning that French-born Arab and black youths felt increasingly alienated from French society and that their communities were ripe for explosion.... Where fiction has an advantage portraying reality is in giving individual faces to well-documented social and economic problems. Banlieue movies have also proved more effective in analyzing these problems than have newspapers and politicians, who, of late, have variously expressed shock and surprise, as if the riots were as unpredictable as a natural disaster."

Lakshmi Choudry  When Boys Will Be Jarheads
"Sam Mendes' film version of Anthony Swofford's Gulf War memoir succeeds in airbrushing the harsh reality of war while obscuring the tragedy."

Reporters Without Borders  Editor of Literary Review Gets Three Years in Prison 
"Reporters Without Borders today condemned the three-year prison sentence passed by a court in Kashgar, in the Uighur autonomous region of Xinjiang in northwestern China, on Korash Huseyin, the editor of the Kashgar Literature Review, for publishing a fable supposedly alluding to the region’s harsh laws. Huseyin, who is married and has three children, was convicted for publishing a story last year called “The Wild Pigeon” by Nurmuhemmet Yasin, who was sentenced to 10 years in prison in February for supposedly inciting Uighur separatism." [via Moorish Girl]

Henry Chu  Home Is Also a Public Library: Illiterate Man Seeks Books So Poor Can Read
"Carlos Leite can barely read a word, but books revolutionized his life. Two years ago, he was doing construction work for a man who was about to toss out six thick, red encyclopedias. Leite asked if he could have them instead. Thus, a dream was born. Within days, he hit the pavement, knocking on doors, begging people for more unwanted books. No contribution was too small, too big or too arcane. Skeptical members of Leite's bicycling club were dragooned into helping him collect donations. His texts quickly multiplied. The original six volumes turned into 100, then 1,000. Soon, his humble home was bursting with 5,000 books of all types, worn classics, chemistry textbooks, dog-eared thrillers. To Leite, though, nearly all the books are mysteries. Born into a poor family, he dropped out of school after third grade and, at 51, is functionally illiterate. But books, he knows, are the gateway to a life of greater possibility and more promise than his own. It might be too late for me, a working man, he reasoned, but not for others. So bloomed the passion that has consumed Leite's free time over the past two years: transforming his home into a public library, free and open to all in this poverty-stricken neighborhood outside Rio de Janeiro. The streets here are unpaved and unweeded, daily life is a struggle and even a single book is an enormous luxury costing up to half a week's wages. To visit Leite's abode now is to see kids doing homework in what used to be his bedroom. Adults browse titles in what was once the foyer. Rainbows of donated paperbacks and hardcovers on almost every imaginable subject, some in crisp condition, others falling apart, cover every available bit of wall space, jammed together so tightly that a knife edge would have trouble passing between them. Leite's collection now stands at an astonishing 10,000 volumes, many still packed in boxes or piled in corners waiting to be sorted and shelved. Space is at such a premium that Leite and his companion, Maria da Penha, have had to move into a back alcove with all their belongings, which aren't much."

David Twiddy  Doonesbury Still Feisty After 35 Years [Garry Trudeau]
Not long after the dust settled from the Iraqi explosion that took "Doonesbury" comic strip character B.D.'s left leg last year, the Pentagon was on the phone. The frequent target of "Doonesbury" creator Garry Trudeau, the Defense Department offered the satirist extensive access to soldiers wounded while fighting in Iraq and the doctors and caregivers trying to put their bodies — and psyches — back together.... Most recently, he has relentlessly hammered the war and President Bush, who's depicted as an asterisk wearing an increasingly battered Roman helmet. "Well, it's a humor strip, so my first responsibility has always been to entertain the reader," Trudeau said in response to e-mailed questions from The Associated Press. "But if, in addition, I can help move readers to thought and judgment about issues that concern me, so much the better." ... Trudeau, who describes his politics as "stone dull moderate," said he's supported Republicans in the past but has felt compelled to go after "mindless ideologues like the ones who've had a stranglehold on power the past five years."

Cate McQuaid  Art Gets Angry
"Political art comes in waves. The last one of note was in the late 1980s and early 1990s, which encompassed artists’ response to the AIDS crisis and what became known as ‘‘identity art,’’ which plumbed multiculturalism.... Welcome to the next wave — socially conscious art...."

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