There’s a peculiar comfort in imagining the companionship of great composers, for it is among them that a child prodigy is at home. Mozart rules the hopeful parent: homeschooled, composing harpsichord minuets at the age of five, playing the Viennese court at six, visiting Johann Christian Bach in London at age eight. He was one of the earliest celebrated child performers, and like Barbara, he was born to the profession—his father was a violin master. Then again, in some arts, there is almost an inevitability to the appearance of prodigies. Pablo Picasso’s charming Bullfight and Pigeons—drawn in 1890, when he was nine years old—can still elicit admiration at exhibitions and wise nodding. Ah, even then his talent shone through. —“Vanishing Act,” Paul Collins, Lapham’s Quarterly
Yes, yes, yes: it’s right to eat my fatty liver!
the barely questionable legality of abandoning your baby;
if real editors ship–where’s my searchable database of decontextualized statistics?
filthy Eighties!
Beyond the policy debates and legislative post-mortems of the DREAM Act defeat, one key issue has been lost regarding Obama and the Democrats’ high-profile failure here. With nothing to show for his high-pain, no reward strategy, President Obama has much to account for, having ordered a catastrophic mass deportation policy large enough to clear out the City of San Jose, California. The incalculable human toll on America’s families, employers, and communities by deporting 800,000 immigrants is breathtaking. Families are broken, employers are scrambling to find critical workers, and entire neighborhoods and towns are desolate. The Administration’s iron-fisted strategy to find support for humanitarian immigration reform brings to mind the old Vietnam war dictum, “To save the town, it became necessary to destroy it.” To obtain a just solution for America’s undocumented immigrant community, the Obama Administration has found it necessary to assail, deplete, and strike fear into its heart. —“To Save the Town, It Became Necessary to Destroy It: Obama’s Politically Inept ‘Deportation First’ Immigration Policy and Epic Failure on DREAM Act,” Daniel Shanfield, Daniel Shanfield, Esq. Immigration Law & Defense Blog
Will they still leave the light on for you when the “City of Homes” finally closes down?
would a CIA honeytrap smell as sweet as one made in which you actually store honey?
memories of plane crash past
Even a “little bad” can be a little admirable, as I discovered while researching the life of Frank Sinatra, when I saw violence momentarily mingle with kindness. One day when Sinatra stopped by his first wife’s house to attend his young daughter’s birthday party, he arrived just as a rambunctious youngster toppled an antique vase from the mantel. Mrs. Sinatra screamed as her precious porcelain shattered to smithereens, and the youngster burst into tears, afraid she was going to be punished. Sinatra walked over and patted her head. “Don’t you worry about it, sweetheart,” he said. Striding to the mantel, he picked up the matching vase and smashed it to the floor. “There,” he said, wiping his hands. “Now let’s get some cake and ice cream.” —“Unauthorized, But Not Untrue,” Kitty Kelley, The American Scholar
