Cazar Moscas: May 13th - 19th 2013

Two hipsters waiting for the train at Union Square station. One pulls a fat, beat up paperback from his shoulder bag. It’s a spy thriller - a mass market paperback you used to find on the book racks in the drug store all those years ago. 

“What’s that?” his friend asks. 

“Just some book I’m reading,” his friend replies. “It’s okay.” 

His friend looks it over. “Why are you reading that?” 

His friend didn’t answer. 

“Is it fun to read, at least?” 

Again, his friend didn’t answer. The one he would give would determine whether or not his cool card would be instantly revoked. 

When we’re children, we are often encouraged to explore, to be curious, to treasure the things that appeal to us. Seeing a child do this is often met with a curiosity of our own, watching what a child gravitates towards and why. And we often encourage them, too, even if the source of fascination is an empty coffee cup, or a tube of lip balm. Too bad when we become adults we can no longer find joy in things, no matter what it may be. We’re simply not allowed anymore - or else be judged, your very being instantly called into question.

The above is typical of any cosmopolitan city across the world - and basically limited to those who see themselves as being “cosmopolitan” or “hip”. The rest of the population, those who struggle to put food on their plates, feed their kids, pay their rent, etc, couldn’t give a shit about any of this, and rightly so. There are far more important things to think about and in some places around the world, it’s just a struggle to remain alive until the next day. The “trials and tribulations” of someone’s reading habits or creative woes doesn't - and shouldn’t - be on the top of their lists of concerns. However it is usually these Urban Cosmopolitans who often see themselves as being “worldly”, being tuned in to “the Zeitgeist”, and all the rest of the nonsense that goes along with being “an artist” - and this is what it is often reduced to; and it isn’t limited to twenty-something hipsters. Adults engage in this too, as I’ve come to know in my personal experience. 

When you take that one step back and see that one’s esthetic choices doesn’t mean anything in the grand scheme of things - especially when you consider what people are actually going through around many parts of this world - you come to realize how silly all this actually becomes. However it does play into something else and that is the individual’s choice to do what makes them happy, what brings them a little joy into a sometimes very harsh existence. A book, a record, a movie, or just about anything else, can often be a reprieve from these horrors, a respite from the daily onslaught of genocide, crime, religious intolerance, political upheaval (I'm sure a displaced family in Syria right now couldn't care less about any of this) and all the other ways we humans think of to divide one another into camps, to reduce to “the other”. So must we, even on an almost trivial level, be subject to the same reduction? 

Life is short and for the time we are here, let’s try to enjoy it and find the things that bring a little light into it. No one really owes an explanation for themselves to anyone. I’ve always said that creative types tend to take themselves just a little too seriously. Art is important, yes. Extremely so in the culture of the world. But in the end, it’s created by human beings - people with something to say who have that natural right to say it. You may not like it, but that’s too bad - the consequences of sharing the planet with eight billion other people. The best thing to do is to ignore what doesn’t appeal to you, move on to what does. And you, I or anyone else, are not “better” than anyone else just because we choose a certain book to read, listen to a particular record, or watch a certain type of film. 

Do what makes you happy, for Christ’s sake. You don’t owe an explanation to anyone. 

Articles of interest: 

The Letters of Italo Calvino, from the New Yorker. 

Henry Miller: Brooklyn Hater, from the New Yorker. 

“The Time is Now” by Jen Sharp, from Sips of Jen and Tonic. 

“Grand Canyon”, a brand new - and amazing - short story by author Garry Crystal, from Expats Post. 

Ludlow Street Massacre: The End of the Lower East Side’s Last Rehearsal Space, from the Village Voice. 

Salvador Dali’s “Alice in Wonderland” Illustrations, from Brain Pickings.

Learning from Carlos Fuentes, One Year On, from The Daily Beast. 

The Shrines of Uyghur China, from the Los Angeles Review of Books. 

Bid to Censor Anne Frank’s “Pornographic” Diary Fails in Michigan, from the Guardian UK. 

The Serious Superficiality of “The Great Gatsby”, from the New Yorker. 

Punk as Fashion, Music and Theory, from the New York Times. 

Gazans Struggle to Reel in a Livelihood, from the Christian Science Monitor. 

On the Trail of the Next Great Crime Novel, from the New York Observer. 

Montalbano: Sicily’s Own Police Inspector: The Writings of Andrea Camilleri, from The Times of Sicily. 

The Letters of William Gaddis, from the New York Times. 

How Do You Write About Life When It’s Lived on Computers?, from the Guardian UK. 

Is This the End of Fiction’s Genre Wars?, from the Guardian UK. 

Impressions: "Children of the Days: A Calendar of Human History" by Eduardo Galeano

Uruguayan author/journalist Eduardo Galeano is one of my all time favorite writers and each year, I eagerly await whatever he has on tap. I first discovered Galeano while browsing in Revolution Books, the sprawling communist bookstore off 5th Avenue. (It’s since moved from its original location and it’s new digs are much smaller. Even communists are subject to rising New York City rents). The great thing about this store is the treasure of lesser known, mostly non-fiction, politically oriented books. They also carry a decent amount of world fiction and it was in the Latin American section where I first stumbled upon Eduardo Galeano. That book was “We Say No”, a collection of essays he’d written for various newspapers over the years. Then came “Open Veins of Latin America”, his most well known, but it were his other books, those that tackled the history of Latin America (primarily) and the rest of the world, written in an almost literary way that really caught my attention. Books such as “Upside Down World”, the “Memory of Fire” trilogy, “The Book of Embraces”, “Soccer in Shadow and Sun”, among many others that caused me to look at the world in a very different manner that I had before reading them. Galeano writes about people - those forgotten to history, those born on the “wrong” side of the economic divide, those who sacrificed everything - even their lives - to try to bring a little beauty into this world. His poetic, powerful vignettes aim for the heart and soul and hit a bulls-eye nearly every time. Never had so little words have said so much. 

This tradition continues with Galeano’s latest offering “Children of the Days.” Taking its cue from medieval “Book of Days”, Galeano takes each day of the calendar year and writes about events - some well known, others completely lost to history - that more or less coincide with that day of the calendar year. There’s the account of the Brazilian “Smooch-in”, when the military government banned kissing in public; there’s the story of the Persian vizier who kept books safe from war by mounting a traveling library - a camel caravan with more than 117,000 books; there are myths and legends from indigenous peoples of Latin America, Africa and Asia; there is the account of the very first same-sex marriage, conducted in Spain in 1901 by two rebellious women; how the powerful stop at nothing to have their way and those brave souls who stood up to fight them - most of whom the world has forgotten; and of course there are current events, seen through the eyes of “the other”, which gives any thinking person a new way of looking at these events. Those familiar with Galeano’s work will not find anything new as far as style but the substance, what he chooses to explore, only adds to the wealth of knowledge he has already given the world. 

It’s poignant that Galeano often chooses to write about those people who lived on this earth since time immemorial who did what they could to beautify what is often a very harsh existence - because that is exactly what Galeano does with his books and his writing. And perhaps one day, someone will write a little vignette about him that will be just as powerful and as meaningful as those he has written over the course of his life about those history would have otherwise forgotten. 

If you want a chance to see the world in a very different way, read this book. 

Rating: * * * * * 

Impressions: "The Bad Girl" by Mario Vargas Llosa

The story begins in Lima, 1950. The protagonist, Ricardo Somocurcio, a kid in his twenties, meets a young girl who he believes is Chilean at a party. They begin to see one another, however Lilly “The Chilean Girl” - as Ricardo refers to her - is playing the hard-to-get game. Ricardo is smitten and will do anything to win over the Chilean girl’s affections.  A cat and mouse game ensues, then suddenly, without warning, the girl disappears. Turns out Lilly wasn’t from Chile at all, but from the very same Miraflores neighborhood as he. This is the beginning of what would turn out to be a highly tumultuous relationship that will span over the course of 40 years. 

Ricardo has dreams of living in Paris. He has no real goal other than that. He works to secure a job at UNESCO as a translator - not something he aspired to do, but it was just what he needed to get his foot in the door to accomplish his lifelong dream. It is now the early 1960s and Ricardo is now living in the city of his dreams, befriending some of the more radical elements of Paris, including a fellow Peruvian who dreams of heading back to his homeland to start a revolution, taking his cue from his heros Che Guevara and Fidel Castro. Ricardo has or wants nothing to do with this but through his friend’s association, he meets a young woman who’s ready to join the cause, preparing to go to Cuba for her “revolutionary training.” Although under a new guise, it turns out to be the same girl he was crazy about back in Lima years earlier. Once again, “the Bad Girl” slips through his grasp when he learns that she married a wealthy Frenchman, who also happened to be connected to UNESCO. Though they still maintain a sexual relationship, Ricardo is madly in love with her and continually takes her abuse.  

For the rest of the novel we follow Ricardo’s expatriate life as he travels the world due to his work and no matter where he seems to go, the love of his life is there, under yet another assumed name, and the cycle of abuse continues. He’s obsessed with her, unable to remove himself from the spell she casts upon him. And it’s painful to watch Ricardo, who at heart is a really good guy (and often continually ridiculed as such by the love of his life). No matter how badly she treats him, he can’t let go and he continually goes back for more and more abuse. 

It is also through Ricardo’s eyes we see his love’s life trajectory, veering off on an extremely destructive path as she continually pursues her dream of living the high life, often using men for her own ends. And it could only end very badly. As a reader - and as a man - you want to see Ricardo finally stand up for himself and stop taking the abuse from this psychologically and emotionally damaged woman but no matter what happens, he cannot let go. 

As we watch him go through his life, living through some of the more tumultuous times of the 20th century, I was reminded of the plot line in Winston Groom’s “Forest Gump”, and there are some similarities here, particularly when you compare how Ricardo continues to carry a flame for this one particular woman throughout his life much as Gump did for his beloved “Jenny” as they navigated the upheaval of mid-twentieth century America. Both novels play with coincidences and happenstance and the conclusion of this dysfunctional love story is very similar as well. 

Overall, it’s a novel about the danger of obsession and how it can often be confused for “love” since, personally, I couldn’t see anything to love about his woman. Pity her, perhaps. Understanding of her obviously psychological and emotional problems, but I think every man has met a woman like this at least once in their lives, where what they want to see is far different from the reality staring them right in the face. It can be a maddening read as you watch Ricardo put himself through all this, especially over virtually the entire course of his adult life; and as the novel concludes you can’t help ask yourself whether or not it was all worth it. There are other questions you’ll be asking as well and this is what makes this novel the good one that it is. Aside from Vargas Llosa’s wonderful prose, it has a story that will suck you right in, aggravate you at times, but you will never want to get off the ride. 

Rating: * * * * 

Cazar Moscas: May 6th - 12th 2013

I’ve been a life long reader. Literally; and being that today is Mother’s Day, I have to credit that love for reading to my mother. I can remember how she used to read to me and my sisters when we were very very young, about four years old, I remember. She would sit on the couch in the living room and my sisters and I would sit cross legged on the floor and listen as she read stories from an old, battered copy of children’s stories, which was the very book that her mother read to her when she was a child. There were some very old stories in that book - many of which are considered too “Politically Incorrect” to be read to children today - which is absurd, in my view - but it is what it is. We also had this huge collection of fairy tales in the house - these big, illustrated books drawn from different parts of the world. Add to that, those old orange colored “Young Students Encyclopedias” I used to rifle through on a nearly daily basis. (The one interesting thing I remember was always looking through the Yearbook editions that would come via the mail every year. It began in 1973 and I think we stopped receiving them by the end of the decade. In them, aside from recalling the important events of that particular year, always had a “future” section, which would try to imagine what the 21st Century would be like. Not even close. I remember thinking then that I was going to be 34 years old in the year 2000, and that seemed so far away it was impossible to imagine what life was going to be like. If you would have told me that everything pretty much looked the same - save for the technology - I wouldn’t have believed you. Yet 2000 came and there were no hovercrafts, moving sidewalks or robots. I mean there were but not how they envisioned “the World of Tomorrow”). 

Throughout my childhood, I literally lived in the library. In grammar school - especially by the 4th grade - we were tasked to do a “Book Report” at the end of every week; the teacher I had at the time encouraging us to read at least one book a week. It had to be non-fiction though. As to why, I don’t know, but I clearly recall all the books I used to take from the school library every week - biographies (Johnny Bench, Hank Aaron, Geronimo, Chief Joseph, various Presidents), History (“Guadacanal Diary” and various other World War II books), and naturally books on Dinosaurs and other things of that nature. For fiction, I remember reading the Hardy Boys, Encyclopedia Brown, and pretty much anything else that came my way. I read all the time. By the time I reached the 6th grade, I was able to read books well beyond my age group and I recall my 6th grade teacher - the bitch that she was - confiscating my copy of “Helter Skelter” because she deemed it “inappropriate” for an 11 year old to be reading. My mother had to come to school to retrieve it and she told my teacher that I was allowed to read whatever I wanted to. My teacher protested, naturally, but that was tough shit on her. 

And of course, all that reading drove me to begin writing my own stories - silly things, of course - but I enjoyed sitting in my room with the old manual typewriter my parents bought me for my 10th birthday so I could tap these things out at all hours of the night. Although music was to take the front seat of my interests over the course of my life, I was always writing something - filling those now familiar black and white “marble” notebooks and then typing them up on that little manual. It was fun - very fun - the way it should be. 

Of course, as time goes on, and the more serious you get about it, you become involved in little “scenes” and other artistic circles who suck all that fun out of it and turn everything into a situation where you are no longer encouraged, so to speak, but stamped down, demoralized, discouraged and all the rest of the silliness that often comes along with “getting serious” about what you love to do. It took many years for me to shake all that off and remember - remember what it was that built this foundation for my love of reading, writing and learning - and begin to return to a place where I was then, when none of the theory and other bullshit mattered much. Of course, I’m simplifying things here but I think you get the point. When we’re very young we are exposed to a great many things - things that we look at with wide-eyed wonder and a desire to take in and experiment and learn and grow and fill our minds and souls with things that enhance our lives, our being, long before the naysayers and theorists step in and ruin everything with their sometimes soul crushing ways. We lose that “innocence” so to speak and in a way lose that joy which drove us to do what we do in the first place. Picasso once said, “Every child is born an artist. The trick is to remain one when you grow up.” And I put my love of books, reading, writing squarely in the hands of my mother, who took the time to open up the world of stories and a world of infinite possibilities. 

So with that, Happy Mother’s Day, Mom. And Happy Mother’s day to all the mothers out there. 

Articles of interest:

Walmart Destroys Mexico’s Cultural Heritage, from USLive.org. 

Samar Yazbek on how the Syrian conflict changed her as a writer, from the Guardian UK. 

On Italian author Giuseppe Tomasi de Lampedusa, from The Independent UK.

First ever Western paintings of Native Americans discovered at The Vatican, from Hyperallergic. 

Japanese author Haruki Murakami on his new novel, from Asian Correspondent. 

Review of Eduardo Galeano’s “Children of the Days”, from The Independent UK. 

Review of Anthony Marra’s “A Constellation of Vital Phenomena”, from the New York Times. 

J.D. Salinger documentary on the way, from the New York Times. 

On photographer/model Lee Miller, from Hyperallergic. 

Albert Camus: The Algerian Chronicles, from the New York Times. 

Poetry and Hurt: On Greek Poetry, from the Los Angeles Review of Books.

Offstage Projects - Visual and Performing Arts

In keeping with the greater good of the universe - as a good friend of mine often says - I hope to lend a hand in helping support this wonderful project. Offstage Projects - Visual and Performing Arts is a UK based company that is looking for support from artists and art lovers everywhere. 

The group’s mission is to: “provide performance and exhibition opportunities; create an environment where visual and performing artists will have time and space to make new work and to interact with one another; encourage the creation of new collaborative, cross-disciplinary work; provide exposure, publicity and resources to artists; encourage creative partnerships between artists and larger community by bringing together the audience who want to share their skills and abilities and make them a vital part of the projects; to involve them into process of art and performance-making during all stages of production together with professional artists.” 

You can find more information at IndieGoGo.  Drop by and have a look and check out their website by following the link above. I’m sure they’d be grateful. 

Help support the arts - wherever it may be.

COMING SOON! "EUROPA" - JULY 2013

On December 21st 1989, while making what was to become his last speech, Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu faced a people who simply had enough. It began with calls for him to “shut up!” and references to Timisoara, the Romanian city in which the rebellion began. The dictator stopped mid-sentence, not expecting this eruption of defiance and bravery. They were no longer afraid. The hated dictator had suddenly become impotent - the fear clearly etched on his face for everyone to see. 

What became abundantly clear on that cold December day was that the power of a dictatorship can only survive so long as there are those who are willing to submit; and this dominant - submissive relationship often reaches beyond political boundaries and into people’s every day lives, where every moment is governed by the fear that just one wrong move will cause them to lose everything they hold dear - their jobs, their marriages, their relationships, their children, their lives.    

Sooner or later, someone has their “Ceausescu Moment.”   

It is the twilight of a continent. After centuries of exploration, innovation, invention and colonial conquests it now faces bank failures, high unemployment and economic collapse. In a cold, blustery corner of Europe - the city of Budapest - a group of misfits are trying to navigate through the changing times. 

There’s Ferenc - a would-be poet, librarian and “recreational drug user” whose one mistake will alter the course of his life; Istvan - Ferenc’s loyal friend who, in spite of his reclusive nature, is willing to help Ferenc through his troubles, that is, if he can put down the drugs and drink; Bianka - a poet/artist who thinks of absolutely nothing but her own sexual pleasure; her boyfriend Imre - a football loving grease monkey who’s grown tired of the changing nature of his country - and of Europe as a whole; Bozsi - a lonely prostitute who thinks she may have finally found the love of her life; and Jaelle - a mysterious, self-proclaimed feminist, communist Gypsy who’s seeking love in all the wrong places. 

Meanwhile something ugly is taking place. A rash of anti-semitic, ethnic and religious violence is occurring around the continent, spearheaded by a hate group with a very unique way of remaining in the shadows - and has a controversial secret of its own. 

Well, there it is - my latest offering which will be coming your way in July 2013 - to be available in paperback and eBook editions. I really enjoyed writing this book and it was a lot of fun to live with these characters for a while. It was born out of my love for Eastern European writers such as Milan Kundera, Ismail Kadre, Tadeusz Konwicki, Jerzy Andrzejewski, Gyorgy Conrad, amongst others, as well as my interest in Post-War Eastern European history. I will not go as far as saying that this is as well written as the authors who inspired me, but it is more or less my “nod” to them, although this book has a more “contemporary” feel and it is far less intellectual than anything those fiction masters have offered the world. Nevertheless, it was the engine that drove this story. Although set in Budapest, this story could have been set anywhere - people are people no matter where they live, no matter where they come from. But it is my exploration into the sometimes dysfunctional nature of human relations, how the tendency to want to control, to have absolute power over “the other” is ever present, whether in political life or in our day to day personal lives. I can only hope you will enjoy this book as much as I enjoyed writing it. 

Once again I must thank the kind folks at Exit Strata (Lynne Desilva Johnson and Douglas Wright) and Budget Press Review (Johnnie B. Baker) for their editorial assistance as well as for allowing me to preview this novel in their respective journals. An abundance of thanks and gratitude to all three of you. 

Impressions: "The Patience Stone" by Atiq Rahimi

In Islamic legend, “The Patience Stone” is a rock which absorbs all the anguish one confesses to it. In this very simple, very sparse novel by Afghan author and filmmaker, Atiq Rahimi, he uses the metaphor of the Patience Stone to craft a very intense story. 

Set almost entirely in one room of an Afghan woman’s house during the civil war, in the years after the withdrawal of Soviet troops. Her husband, presumably a fighter for the Mujahideen, lies gravely injured and in a coma, his eyes open. His young wife cares for him and speaks to him, with the hopes that he will emerge from his coma and return to her. But the longer he lies there, the longer the frustration mounts and soon her inert husband becomes something of a “patience stone” to which she confesses all the sins and secrets of her life. 

While she confesses her sins, her secrets, her sexual desires, the truth of her family life, her true feelings about the husband she barely knows, the war rages around her. Her confessional is often interrupted by gunfire outside her home, exploding shells (which forces her - and the couple’s two young daughters to take shelter in the basement), along with unwanted visits from the local Imam and the old water bearer, who speaks in gibberish. There are also other uninvited guests - prowling Mujahideen who are looking to make off with people’s belongings as well as a sexual conquest or two. 

It is during one of these visits where the woman is accosted by a Mujahideen fighter and nearly raped - until she convinces him that she is a prostitute. But this doesn’t seem to matter to a very young fighter, who drops by the home more often than once to sleep with her. Does she do so out of pity, frustration or to take revenge on her husband? The more the woman confesses, the more light is shed on their marriage. All of this leads to a very explosive ending. 

It is a very short novel - more like a novella - but within its 130 pages is a glimpse of the lives of many Afghan women and how they struggle to navigate their personal needs and the patriarchal culture in which they are a part of.  It is the first time in her life where she can speak freely, uncensored. The effect is that of a woman losing her mind but for the first time in her life, she sees things much clearer than she ever had before. It is a brave act, one that many women of this culture feel but are unable to express. Here is a glimpse into the mind and soul of an Afghan woman. Recommended.  

Rating: * * * *

Cazar Moscas: April 29th - May 5th 2013

The Greying of Generation X

I just happened to spot it as I was taking money out of the ATM at Duane Reade. Crushed at the very bottom of the newspaper rack was the latest edition of the New York Observer - a newspaper I hardly read (although it isn’t a bad paper, to be honest). “Bring Back The Generation Gap!” the headline read, and it was accompanied by an illustration of a youthful looking, conservatively dressed kid pushing his greying, sneaker and t-shirt wearing dad in a baby stroller. I immediately scooped it up, being that this particular subject has been of great interest of me as of late. I always wondered what happened to “Generation X”. 

Back in the early 1990s, there was a sudden interest in people my age and this interest was spawned by sociologists and cultural theorists all over the country. Suddenly the then “twentysomething” generation was getting a lot of press - most of it, I suspect, coincided with the abrupt change in the pop cultural landscape (Nirvana, Grunge, etc) and the election of a new President (Clinton) which seemed to signal, in some way, the end of the Reagan Era and the true beginning of the post-Cold War world. There were a flood of articles, books - and eventually films - that explored the mentality of this generation born in the 1960s and 1970s suddenly “coming of age” at about this time period. “Generation X” it was dubbed, contrasting it with the rapidly aging “Baby Boomers” (who were just about hitting 50 at this time). I found it all fascinating, personally, especially since I was in my early to mid twenties at the time myself. 

Then without warning, all the interest, studies, articles, opinion pieces, books, films, etc vanished without a trace. Poof! - like the disappearance of a genie, stuffed back into its bottle. Kurt Cobain was dead, the music got generic  and co-opted by the corporate machine (as did the films, books, etc), and there were new faces popping up on the cultural landscape - a fresh faced, younger and seemingly more “happier” youth. The “Millennial Generation” (or what came to be known as “Generation Y”) burst on the scene along with their new sensibility. The nihilistic, dark, angry rebellion was suddenly replaced by bouncy tunes, “bling” and the insatiable desire to become a “celebrity”. It was around this time that I had already turned and zoomed past 30 years old and just as suddenly, I started not to “get” what all the fuss was about. And that’s a good thing. It’s supposed to be that way. 

But that didn’t stop many of my peers (and by “peers” I mean my age group, not my personal friends) for still clinging to the pop cultural thread that was rapidly unraveling in their aging hangs. Despite many getting married, getting settled in their careers, having children - the natural progression of things - they just couldn’t let go; and it was painful to watch these now thirtysomethings desperately trying to remain “relevant” as this new barrage of youth swept us all aside and replaced all our “angst” with their happy, celebrity worshipping, party time, pop cultural esthetic. In what seemed like a blink of an eye, everything changed and the faces unfamiliar. I moved on and pretty much ignored all this stuff. Didn’t appeal to me in the least. Didn’t get it. I found myself moving into another orbit altogether. 

In 2006, I turned 40. Not a painful transition for me at all. Age is merely a number, as the cliche rightly points out. I no longer cared about remaining “relevant” (whatever that’s supposed to mean) and I began to explore different avenues: different forms of music, art, literature and cared less and less about the new pop cultural dynamic. But I didn’t feel the least bit “isolated” or even “alienated” by this new generation coming up behind me. I honestly felt more relief than anything else and thanked the Gods every day that I wasn’t born later than I was - something I’m sure every generation feels as they look upon their juniors. Now it’s 2013 and I’m creeping towards 50 (will be 47 this summer) and I can say, without embarrassment, that I have absolutely no clue as to what’s “hip” anymore nor do I even care. I don’t bat an eye when I admit that I have no idea what band is currently popular, or who the actor is that appears on the TV talk shows, or what trends are currently “the big thing.” And - again - that’s the way it’s supposed to be. Time to move on. Grow old gracefully. 

But the article seemed to articulate this sense of panic, which I found amusing. It spoke of us greying Gen Xers as an age group that refuses to let go, becoming our version of the aging hippies we used to mock when we were in our twenties. There was even a book written not too long ago about the “Alternadad” - that creature of the semi-suburban “hip neighborhoods” who still want to show the world how “with it” they still are, wrapping their toddlers in Ramones and Black Flag t-shirts (nothing wrong with that per se - it can be quite funny, actually if you don’t take it too seriously) but underneath all this so-called pressure to remain “relevant” belies a distinct fear of “getting old”. 

And while the article tended to focus more on the pop cultural landscape, that isn’t really the problem here. Every generation embraces the music, art, films, books, of their youth. It’s what they grew up with and it’s natural. The problem - at least the way I see it - is more behavioral. Not only have many of my peers refused to get off the damn train already and move on pop culturally, but psychologically; and there’s nothing more disgusting to me than watching a near 50 year old who still stands by looking down their noses at their fellow generational cohorts with the same smug, hipper-than-thou attitudes they had when they were teenagers and their twenties. Really? Does any of this shit matter anymore? When is enough enough? The article tends not to get into that and that in and of itself is a curious thing to me. 

Face it, my fellow Gen Xers. We’re getting old - and there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s okay to maintain an affection for the things of your youth and Lord knows, I still do, especially the music of my youth. But with the recent string of movies (mainly of the Apatow variety) which explore the “existential angst” of Generation X growing into middle age, the army of those grey-haired “alterna-dudes” still trying to remain “culturally relevant”, and the “hipper-than-thou” crowd who are starting to contemplate their aging prostates, I say it’s high time to let the kids care about all the rest of that bullshit and move the fuck on, already. No one cares anymore, nor should they. I always felt that our generation does have something unique to offer, something different to say to the world today, especially when one considers how many of us grew up. We could offer something other than showing how “hip” we still think we are. What the hell are we waiting for? 

Articles of interest: 

No Sleep ‘Til Brooklyn? Beastie Boys plan to pen memoir, from the Los Angeles Times. 

Digital Truths Publishers Don’t Want You To Hear, from the Guardian UK. 

Five Authors who Prove It’s Never Too Late, from LitReactor. 

A Remarkable Discovery - Middle Eastern Art, from The Economist. 

The World’s Smallest Film, from Hyperallergic. 

A Century of Proust, from the New York Times. 

Writers Call on China to Respect Freedom of Expression, from the Guardian UK. 

The End of Happily Ever After, from LitReactor. 

The Journey of the Traumatized Hero: Kerouac and Gandhi, from The Psychiatric Times. 

Impressions: "Days of Fear" by Daniele Mastrogiacomo

This is not a novel. This - unfortunately - is a true story, an account of Italian journalist Daniele Mastrogiacomo’s abduction by the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2007. It is a harrowing read but also a fascinating one, and it will keep you engaged throughout. It is a testament to how some people’s conception of “certainty” can lead to some very horrific events. 

Mastrogiacomo, a veteran journalist who has covered stories in some of the world’s most dangerous places, is afforded the opportunity to interview a Taliban commander in the southern region of Afghanistan. Accompanied by his interpreter Ajmal and their driver Syed, they arrive at the pre-arranged meeting point only to discover - to their horror - that they were being abducted, taken prisoner. “If you’re spies, we’ll kill you,” the Taliban tell him. “If you’re journalists, we’ll exchange you for some of our comrades in prison” and thus begins a two week odyssey of terror. 

Constantly on the move, imprisoned in one makeshift “cell” to another, Mastrogiacomo begins to learn about his captors and what this “Quranic Student Movement” is really all about. Not knowing from one moment to the next whether or not he will live or die, the reader is brought along on this frightening experience. One moment they are attentive, almost treating him like a “guest”, while the next he is being beaten with rubber hoses by his captors, forced to make video pleas to Italian officials and journalists, all the while not ever knowing what his fate will ultimately be. 

But during his capture he comes to learn a lot about these (mostly) very young self-proclaimed “warriors”. He learns of their customs, their belief systems, their absolute willingness to lie and more frighteningly, their compunction to kill without batting an eye - as he is witness to the brutal beheading of their driver Syed. He tries to maintain his courage in the face of those whose belief systems are in direct opposition of his own and he does try to understand them, regardless of these differences. He has no sympathy for them and during the narrative he makes that abundantly clear; but all his notions of the “rules of engagement” are thrown out the window as his captors play psychological warfare with him throughout his captivity. 

The narrative propels forward like a suspense novel and you will be gripped by this - and you will also get a better understanding about how dangerous those whose “certainty” about the world - and the universe as a whole - can be. When “God is on your side”, life on this earth means very little, especially when there’s the promise of eternal rewards awaiting you. 

A must read for anyone who wants to understand the psychology behind what the world came to know as a very, very dark movement. 

Rating: * * * * *