On the supposition that lightning strikes twice, the movie industry loves remaking box office bonanzas. There are six Hollywood versions (and one Japanese) of Peter B. Kyne’s short novel, The Three Godfathers (1913). In 1929, when the talkies were taking, if not baby, then toddler, steps, everything clicked.
Americans seem to have a growing obsession with the idea of revenge. Popular culture, which is often a better guide to national attitudes than social surveys, has elevated the avenger to the status of hero, and ever since the 1970’s, films like Death Wish and Dirty Harry have glorified the brave man who defied the law and “did the right thing.”
Steven Bannon’s zany conspiracy theory is just a PR stunt, but the posthuman race has already arrived.
My private statistical analysis shows that the question most frequently asked of a new parent is “Does he sleep through the night?” The true purpose of the question – in essence as rhetorical as any old “How are you?” out there – is to show the parent that his interlocutor is a person of acumen and experience who can speak of child rearing as confidently and competently as he speaks of missiles in Donbas or about vegetable gardening.
Once again, TheRegime got into a mess they had to get the proles to solve. Gov. DeSantis sent the illegal immigrants to Martha’s Vineyard. TheRegime then got the National Guard to haul them to a military base. Just like TheRegime’s mess in Ukraine was solved, so far, by getting the proles in the Regular Army to transship all that expensive equipment profiting the Military Industrial Complex part of TheRegime.
Revenge or vengeance is a personal act of retribution committed against a person who has wrong the avenger or someone close to him. Retributive punishment is normally, at least in civilized societies, left up to what the Italian press like to call “the forces of public order,” but there is no society known to me where revenge, in one form or another, is not sometimes taken by men and women who have been offended.
Months before hostilities started in Ukraine, the liberal press was warning us indirectly about the intentions of the Democrats, thus revealing to the world what was about to happen.
In seeking power from steroids and microchips, we become their slaves, and in losing our freedom we lose at least a part of our humanity.
Some time ago, I abandoned the regular discussion of selected books. The reason should have been obvious. The cause has disappeared, and we can resume. Working on the second volume of Properties of Blood, I need to rewrite the chapters on revenge. This is a good occasion for looking at the classic work of the English stage, The Avenger’s Tragedy….
Chatterton, a late 18th century poet, is more famous as a legend–the teenage poet who died at 17–than as a writer. The Romantics, French as well as English, lionized him. His best known poems are the medievalizing verses he attributed to a 15th century poet, but his talent for painting satiric portraits is evident in “Apostate Will”–a fine sketch of the clergy on the make,
