How Today’s Sex-Related Behavior is Distinguished from that of Other Times

   How sex is expressed or dealt with varies considerably from one time and place to another. I am sure that a huge number of books have been written on the subject—all unread by me. If some historian to more of them have already characterized and described that entire scene in contemporary U.S. I haven’t seen it, but I have read enough to have in idea as to some of the goings-on that will be among its ingredients. So herewith some traits that should appear in a characterization of the current scene. Call the forthcoming some remarks for an historian of current sex-related behavior.

     Perhaps the most notable trait is that women are speaking up. Not very long ago they suffered or gloated in silence, leaving it to a few mostly educated women to speak and write for a much larger number. What they are speaking about is what men do to them that is unwanted—from “mere”talk to rape. Men can no longer rely on a response that is limited to suffering in silence.

   In some ways the behavior of men is similar: they are speaking up; about their wrongful treatment of women in their  past. Nor are these reports limited to confessions; there seem to be plenty of third-person reports about male sexual transgressions.

   So far I have pointed to talk—talk you hear now of which you heard little until recently. But there are also actions. Organizations are getting rid of people with recently revealed dubious records. Levine is no longer at the Met: an amazing jump from Before to After. There’s much more to be said, but I leave that to you.

Language

Burgundy may be fucked. The northern Rhone Valley is partly fucked,

Though many of the great vineyards face away from the sun. The southern

 Rhone is completely fucked.

   The above is a quotation from an article about wine in a recent New Yorker. There are at least two comments to be made about the language used.

   First, that the word “fucked” is to be found in the New Yorker. This is year 2018; I would bet that that would not have been the case as recently as three years ago. The word would have been on a proscribed list, as it probably still is for many publications. Since the New Yorker is a style setter, its use of the word is, call it liberating.

   The meaning here of “fucked” is not what it was—for an eternity—before a fairly recent shift. I’m a member of that earlier cohort and don’t use the word—out of habit, not squeamishness. It then referred to sexual action. No more.

   “Fucked” now means “screwed up.” To be sure that formulation also needs an explanation.

   Next time---maybe.

Obama's Audacity of Hope

   I’m now well in Obama’s second book, The Audacity of Hope. While it is personal, for want of a better term, it is not autobiographical, like his first. The first part is a good presentation by a professor of constitutional law, covering familiar and unfamiliar territory. What comes next is best called a discussion of politics, though not always of a day-to-day sort. It is interesting enough to hold my attention, though it doesn’t evoke comments. 

May 16, 2018

Today

is my parents' ninety-second wedding anniversary. 

Rudy

More Obama

   I’m done with Obama’s immensely interesting Dreams from my Father. I’m not surprised that it spent quite some time on the best sellers’ list. As usual, no review from me, just a comment. Many, many pages, after an account of the earliest years of his life, are incredibly detailed, with a huge cast of characters with accounts of what they did and said. Either the author has a phenomenal memory or he had taken notes about his life for many years. Impressive, in either case. I’ve now conjured his second book into my kindle, but am somewhat doubtful that it will be as interesting as the first. But as I said before: we will see.

Obama

Obama Bio

   I found a “sample” on my Kindle of Obama’s Dreams from My Father and, after starting to read it, promptly conjured the entire book into that for me indispensable device. I’m nowhere done (he’s still in his teens) but I’ve much enjoyed reading it and am learning a lot. Obama  has an unobtrusive style, but it is a style. He wrote the book when he was thirty-three years old and you are made aware that you are reading the  words of someone real, but of course not of a future president. But the combination: of teenage Obama and President Obama is certainly plausible.

On Bitcoin

  I’ve been catching up on NYReview articles, since the mail delivered several issues at once. That led me to “Bitcoin Mania” by Sue Halpern who is identified mostly by a forthcoming novel. It’s quite a long article and I read every bit of it. And while it makes use of a few unfamiliar Fachwörter, the piece is composed in perfectly readable English.

   But I hardly understood any bit of it.  (It’s actually quite a strange experience to read a quite long article in my own language without “getting” any of it.)

   Let me give you a sample which, I assure you, is representative:

Once the validating cryptograhic puzzle for the latest block before and after it by its unique hash, and                       the block and its hash are posted to all the other computers that were attempting to solve the puzzle.

   I have two questions. How many readers of this piece will actually get much beyond its opening? And, more puzzling, how did it get into the NYReview. I hope this is not a sign of things to come under the editorship of Mr. Buruma.

Serenade

   In the late 1950’s Fannia and I were living in New York and tended to go regularly to the ballet. I was not and have never become a true ballet fan (a balletomaniac), but we certainly became fans of Balanchine and went often to see his ballets.

   The subject comes up, because in a fairly recent issue of the NYReview appears a long article on his Serenade. I mostly don’t read about ballet, but I read this piece by Jennifer Homans from beginning to end, surprised all the way through, how her account evoked my recollections of the Tchaikovsky score.