Anyone who’s taken the time to listen to Arcade Fire’s “Normal Person” will hear lyrics pertaining to middlebrow culture forever seeking its zone of comfort (i.e., “And they will break you down ’til everything is normal now”; think — for instance — of the running critique of how The Daily Show and The Colbert Report may satirize X or Y, but they never actually change X or Y)…
I don’t think Rand Paul is going to be President, so I don’t think a piece of sharp moral dudgeon defending the integrity of thought is going to be of much use to anyone.
I had reached the point at which the indifference or hostility of an audience wasn’t of personal consequence.
I probably wouldn’t have even been able to hide from Michael Williams, let alone Omar, or I would’ve decided on doing something extravagant and clumsy — like ducking into a barbershop to go from fully bearded to clean shaven in the blink of a 10-minute eye.
A backstreet chase whipsawing into the open air in front of the Calçada da Vandoma.
??The point here isn’t the speech or the L.A. Riots, but the fact that Dan Quayle invoked Murphy Brown in reference to the L.A. Riots. Instead of talking about a specific locality and community — predominantly Hispanic, Korean, and African-American — worn down by things not being what could and should have been, Dan Quayle invoked an imaginary white lady.