Author: Thomas Fleming

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Diary of a Jerk-Hunter / Feature / Fleming

20 Aug, 2016

Diary of a Jerk-Hunter, I: Gold Medal Jerks

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My title is a little misleading.  It’s not as if anyone has to go in search of Jerks.  They are like mosquitoes in a tidal marsh:  They are inescapable. But, like mosquitoes, some species of Jerk are merely annoying, while others carry diseases far more dangerous to society than malaria or zika. Some years ago, I embarked on a project to which I gave the obvious title, Jerks.  My agent thought it was a brilliant idea and loved the initial pieces.  I dutifully spent a good deal of time writing up the outline, prospectus, etc., but nothing I prepared succeeded...

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Best Revenge / Feature / Fleming

19 Aug, 2016

Urbs Aeterna in Carolina

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Summary:  The Bad News is that a bad break has made it impossible to conduct a Greek program in October, but the Good News is that we are doing a little program in Charleston in the Winter.   The Bad News July 10th was a long day, sweltering in my Summer office, otherwise known as the porch.  Too much to do for the Summer Seminar, with far too little time left.  Most of my five lectures were more or less done, though I was embarrassed to realize, several days later, that I had neglected to finish one of them.  No...

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Fleming / On the House

15 Aug, 2016

The Art of Ugliness, Part II

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This is the Conclusion of a piece I first published in 1980 in The Southern Partisan Quarterly Review (please note acronym). Trying to sort out this business of ugliness, I asked an artist friend in McClellanville, why the whole world was getting so ugly.  “Ugly is cheap,” he said.  “Beauty costs,” just the sort of practical remark I have come to expect from a painter.  The new shopping malls and fastfood shops in Chapel Hill are convincing evidence for the proposition.  Located out in no-man’s land or swamps, where acreage is cheap,  these stores and restaurants are built according to...

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Best Revenge / Feature / Fleming

13 Aug, 2016

Writing and Reading Verse, Part III

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A few weeks ago, the Brownlows and some other friends were having lunch with us.  The conversation was lively, inclusive, and hit upon many diverse themes, but, when the conversation turned to versification, I could sense an opiate pall falling upon the table—“as though of hemlock I had drunk”—and in the last column on this subject I fear I have ridden my own hobby-horse, the intricate relations between verse and music—over the hills and far away. Let us return to the main topic, which is learning how to write competent verse, partly as a means to learning how to read...

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Feature / Fleming

12 Aug, 2016

The Art of Ugliness, Part I

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This piece appeared  in the second issue (1980) of the Southern Partisan, which Clyde Wilson and I (along with John Shelton Reed, Sam Francis, and Chris Kopff) had created.  I have corrected a number of errors–including the quotation from the film version of Gone with the Wind–made several small  verbal improvements, and added some bits of  material I have always used in conversation.  These major additions I have indicated by square brackets.   Last month I took a short drive through the midriff of the Carolinas—through Georgetown, Conway, Marion, Latta, and Dillon, right through the middle of Rowland and Pittsboro all the...

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Feature / Fleming

9 Aug, 2016

Properties of Blood, I.5: Revenge, Conclusion

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In our own time vengeance is the predictable plot-device in pulp fiction thrillers and the apparently endless series of films inspired by comic books.  In one series of ludicrous films, the union of superheroes is even known as “The Avengers.” Americans have not confined their dreams of vengeance to popular entertainment.  The newspapers are filled with cases of vengeance-killings.  The rise in cases (both fictional and real) of vengeance is not limited to men killing men or getting even with their ex’s: Feminists have made heroes out of women who killed (as in the case fictionalized in The Burning Bed)...

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Best Revenge / Fleming

6 Aug, 2016

Writing and Reading Verse: A Digression

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I postponed putting up Katherine Dalton’s reply until I had time to make some response.  Although I did finally post her  comment on Part II, it is helpful, I think, to put it here: Ah, poetess.  Makes me feel all be-bluestocking’d and olde quaintee. I have no argument with “since,” but as I read it, the replacement of “it seems” with “since” still leaves four beats in that line—it just makes the line begin with a stressed syllable instead of an unstressed.  SINCE anOTHer FORty-TWO. I had orginally written “It seems another forty Have just arrived today” but I missed the enjambment,...

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Autodidact / Fleming

6 Aug, 2016

Aristotle’s Politics, Book IV

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In Politics IV, he surveys the kinds of constitution other than monarchy, which he treated in III.  His prudent and cautious treatment of democracy and aristocracy are a good antidote to the inflated rhetoric put forward by the proponents of both systems, while his observations on law and custom as the basis of legitimacy should be read aloud to Congress and the President every day.

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Feature / Fleming / From Under The Rubble

4 Aug, 2016

Surprising News

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Everyday the media spring a surprise on the public.  This morning we learn that a knife-wielding Norwegian in London killed an American and wounded several other people.  While British police are not ruling out terrorism, they are saying at this point that mental health issues are involved.  Oh, and by the way, the Norwegian is of “Somali descent.”   What percentage of Somalis are Muslims, you ask.  Just about 99%, but that is irrelevant.  In one sense the cops are right:  Islam would appear to be dangerous to a believer’s mental health. Just a day or two ago, Somalis in Minneapolis-St. Paul...

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Fleming

1 Aug, 2016

Properties of Blood I.5: Revenge, Part E

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The Return of Revenge If we admit to harboring the dark and primitive impulse to take revenge, a priest or minister or professor of ethics, will probably tell us it is an evil desire that ought to be resisted.  We should forgive our enemies and get on with our lives.  After all, living well is said to be the best revenge. It is not always that easy.  Consider the situation in which the hero of Hank Williams, Jr.’s song, “I Got Rights,” finds himself.  The song tells the story of a husband and father who buys a handgun and goes...