Kerouac and Anthony
"I felt like a million dollars; I was adventuring in the crazy American night." That was a Jack Kerouac Tweet. Alright, Kerouac didn't Tweet it, of course, since he died in 1967, which was, what, two years before Twitter, but I saw it yesterday on the Kerouac Twitter feed. If you're in my hometown tonight, stop by for my Kerouac lecture. I've promised attendees to keep it light . . . and informal . . . and short. I'm anticipating a 20-minute lecture. I'll have one drink before I start, one drink during it, and one drink during the Q&A. I oughtta drink more (we're talking the Beats, after all), but I gotta keep my wits about me in case, you know, any reactionary, Nixon types show up.
Feast day of St. Anthony the Great, the father of desert monasticism. He gets a shout-out in this piece about St. Macarius the Great that I wrote nearly 20 years ago.
I'm glad I don't eat fish: Americans consume fish caught with slave labor. Literally, slave labor: captured Burmese who are forced to work, like LeVar Burton captured in Africa. Granted, these modern slaves are captured by fraud, but basically the same thing, if that article is to be believed.
A must read: "Dangerously outdated gender norms are not what make it difficult to say no to sexual advances; contemporary gender norms have confused these already fraught situations. Traditional mores set the default for premarital sex at 'no,' at least for females. This default recognized the different sexual drives of males and females and the difficulties of bargaining with the male libido. The default 'no' to premarital sex meant that a female did not have to negotiate the refusal with every opportuning male; it was simply assumed. She could, of course, cast aside the default assumption; that was her power and prerogative. But she did not have to provide reasons for shutting down a sexual advance." Link.
