Well, pilgrims. It’s that day once again when the poisoned blankets of history are celebrated with turkey and squash. And I want to get all excited with you about Delmore Schwartz, and rave a while about how you should be able to listen to the rhythm of his narrative with an almost painful wistfulness for the days when poets were rockstars (even poets with given names like Delmore), and I’d love to get enthusiastically and prattily didactic about the structural inventions in this story and where they allowed fiction “to go” and so on etc ad blatherium. But then I remember: it’s That Day Once Again, and if I get you all excited about a story you might just suffer from some sort of post-tryptophanic hemorrhage before getting to the pumpkin pie, and that would be a disaster.
So maybe instead you should just sit back, undo the button on your bluejeans (but, uh, not in -that- way) and have a quiet listen.
I object to the conceit with which you begin your remarks. “Poisoned blankets” indeed. You may think a poseur rogue like Ward Churchill is a scholar, but that’s your misfortune – or miseducation.
To educate you with the facts and to prevent you from issuing other gratuitous slanders on the US which others may innocently absorb, I refer you to “The Ten Big Lies About America,” by Michael Medved.
Instead of the introduction you wrote, why not point readers in the direction of more reading? Inform them that Saul Bellow modeled the protagonist in “Humboldt’s Gift” on Delmore Schwartz. That would be a service – and the truth.
The story, of course, was excellent.
The problem is that someone will have to write a book now entitled, “The Eleven Big Lies About America”, adding Medved’s book to the list.
Well, that’s rich, coming from a guy whose contribution to the republic is ‘fear + hate = power.’
Now we just need Hank Moore to moderate the comments on this blog, preferably at their source.
Well, Mike, Medved’s school of revisionism is not one I’d recommend to friends, family, or listeners, but de gustibus, right? I mean, there are no paucity of forums for airing our political wings, but it’s pretty clear that ours are dissimilar. And as for my introduction… well, it -is- my site!
That said, I couldn’t be more glad that we agree about Delmore Schwartz. And if you subscribe to the podcast feed in iTunes, you can listen without the cage-rattling effect of my intros. Hope you enjoy.
xo
— Mtte.