Open Letter

  Brief Interviews with Hideous Men David Foster Wallace.  B.I. #20 12-96  New Haven, CT  [story within a story: man picks up a "hippie chick" and when she shares with him a story of how she saved herself from dying at the hands of a psychotic killer through vulnerability and not defenses, he is transformed. 1. narrator's relationship to the hippie chick 2. hippie chick's relationship to her psychotic attacker. Many parallels and comparisons are drawn and made.] "...she was going to become just another grisly discovery for some amateur botanist a few day hence unless she could focus her way into the sort of profound soul connection that would make it difficult for the fellow to murder her...I just decided to presume that focus  was her obscure denomination's euphemism for prayer." "And that this was my first hint of sadness or melancholy, as I listened with increasing attention to the anecdote, that the qualities I found myself admiring in her narra...

  Nemeses How To Tell A Dumb American Story *** Mika Matters    Ask Daniel Children of Dave    Who You Gonna Call?    A Small Thing That Gives Me a Tiny Shred of Hope *** Tangle   

Well I finished reading Code Name Madeleine and it brought up a mixture of reactions: part admiration/inspiration and part envy, (not that I would ever necessarily make her choices in my own life), and part reservation. I discussed it with someone who was taking the position of explaining Noor's choice to sacrifice herself as being the most authentic expression of who she was and of everything she believed. Here is my response to that:  <<In fact I do see what you say about Noor. My reservations doubtless have more to do with where I am on my path than with how far along she was on hers. In a sense she lived the perfect life, the life of a martyr who got to "die young" and as a beautiful, pure human being, although she paid a terrible price in suffering to achieve that status. Since that boat has long since sailed for myself, (😂), some part of me refuses to identify with her sacrifice; doubtless the same part which has given up on the idea of transcende...

The Bibi Files

I am a "childless cat lady", 60. White female. My father was a refugee from Hungary during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. My mother was from a small town in Louisiana and taught High School American History. I was raised with a classic secular humanistic background. My father grew up during WW2& the Holocaust. He didn't want us to be typical spoiled "American brats" and inculcated us with awareness of man's inhumanity to man. I studied the Holocaust on my own, almost compulsively, off and on for my entire life. My parents were alcoholic and narcissistic...I found I identified with the children of Holocaust survivors. Their accounts of how their parents manifested the symptoms of trauma were the closest thing I'd read to how my parents behaved. I am a recovering alcoholic and now practice recovery in a 12 Step group called Adult Children of Alcoholics. I am deeply hostile to religion because of how friendly it is with authoritarianism. I took a lot...

Dear _____,  Thank you for writing ________. It is a brilliant book. I am only on p. 281, so if I am anticipating anything you cover beyond that page, I apologize.  I too always yearned for what I thought was "authentic" community, although it wasn't just about religion for me. After many decades, I decided that G-d didn't want me to "lose" myself in something bigger the way I always wanted to. Maybe it is a case described by Leonard Cohen thusly:  "yes you, who must leave everything, that you cannot control." I found it extremely difficult to accept the narrowness, deliberate ignorance, intolerance & bigotry I found in every. single. conservative or traditional religious community I tried be be a part of, and there were many. I NEVER FOUND AN EXCEPTION. Not once. As recently as last year I tried to become involved at our local Chabad. I agree w you that identity or religious practice shouldn't be reduced to a commodity. Yet I was engaging ...