#it was VERY IMPORTANT to milton that we KNOW the angels fuck

[gay-milton-quotes]

point 1: in paradise lost, all the angels that we're shown are male coded or genderless

point 2: raphael says they fuck

conclusion: milton added gay sex to the bible

[lilliankillthisman]

Augustine, Satan, and Paradise Lost in The Locked Tomb

I was reading through Book IV of Paradise Lost (as one does ya know) and some of the imagery used by Satan to describe his fate suddenly jumped out at me:

Me miserable! which way shall I fly Infinite wrath and infinite despair? Which way I fly is hell; myself am hell; And in the lowest deep a lower deep, Still threat’ning to devour me, opens wide, To which the hell I suffer seems a heaven.

"And in the lowest deep a lower deep/Still threatening to devour me, opens wide" is metaphorical here, but it's a very, very literal description of what happens to Augustine at the end of HtN, swallowed up by the stoma at the bottom of the river. The preceding part fits perfectly too; Augustine literally casts everything around him into hell in a fit of despairing rage.

This got me thinking of Augustine as a Satanic figure; God's angel and Saint who betrays him, attempts to cast him down and is cast down in turn instead. I'm almost certain this is a deliberate framing from TazMuir; Augustine's story is absolutely the story of Satan, and she likes melodramatic religion and classical references enough that I think she's not above references to Milton. This suggests that Augustine is going to reappear later just as casting Satan to Hell is only the start of the story, and that he definitely isn't going to give up on his grudge against John/God. In addition, in Paradise Lost the gates of Hell are guarded by Sin and Death. Lyctorhood is consistently referred to as the Lyctors' sin in a setting where I think no one ever mentions any other sin at all despite our main characters being nuns, so it's safe to say the concept is usually absent and its usage for Lyctorhood is important. Since Sin persuades Death to allow Satan to pass out of Hell, that might suggest that Lyctorhood is key to escaping the place beyond the river. Of course, that won't be easy: "Long is the way/And hard, that out of Hell leads up to Light". But I really do think we haven't seen the last of Augustine.

When we run this symbolism along its course we come to Harrow and Ianthe as Adam and Eve; the new creations of God to replace the angels he has lost. Ianthe clearly fills the role of Eve, the woman Augustine/Satan tries to tempt away. Unlike in Paradise Lost she resists his persuasions at the climax of HtN, and in doing so avoids dooming humanity in the form of destroying Dominicus. However, I genuinely think this association is very relevant, and may well predict future events in the series - Eve is not tempted at Satan's first attempt, but instead later in Book IX. How is she tempted away from God? With an apple, forbidden knowledge, and the promise of divinity. That is a remarkably specific parallel to her studies and her suspected goals, and again I really don't think this is wild speculation; I think Ianthe's story could really mirror Eve's, ending with her turning from God in an attempt to replicate his power and getting fucked over for it. The specific way I think she might get fucked over is losing her exalted state and immortality, just as Eve did; to whit, losing her Lyctorhood. If we take Harrow as Adam, that suggests Harrow will cease to be a Lyctor as well.

Btw, the last book of Paradise Lost focuses on the child of God saving mankind, which is definitely good vibes.

[daz4i]

okay so, paradise lost is a 17th century epic (as in genre) poem by John Milton. It centers around the Fall of Man (and partially about the fall of Lucifer and other epicswag fallen angels). It is also very much a christian morality tale and was written to, quote, "justify the ways of God to men".

I am not that religious, but that is an interesting theme to me + Paradise Lost was also influencial to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Percy Bysshe Shelley's Prometheus Unbound (both of which I used to have literary crushes on in 8th grade), especially if u read from a standpoint of narrator inserting his worldviews in the story separately from objective events / being slightly unreliable in favor of giving a moral lesson and painting characters (looking at Lucifer) from a certain angle. This is 100% not an intended way, but it is a fun one + Satan had a couple of based moments.

Among other things, a pretty prominent character so far (I'm starting book nine out if twelve) has been archangel Raphael. What's important to me rn is that he had a pretty long talk with Adam about the nature of God's world etc etc. During this conversation, the matter of marriage, intimacy and so on is brought up (because Milton thinks marriage and sex in marriage is cool and very godloving etc. it's not explicitly marriage on the text but more of a partnership ig because who the fuck would officiate Adam and Eve, a lion?). Adam asks Raphael if angels can Love and if they express it in some sort of physical form (which 8th grade me took as "so do angels fuck or?", which in some way was true). Raphael gets all blushy <- canon and goes yeah we technically don't have material bodies and straight up embrace and mix our Spiritsthen gets embarrassed and leaves (not exactly like that, but I chose this interpretation of him leaving immediately after describing the "Union of Pure and Pure" to Adam).

I tried grabbing a direct quote from the poem for you, but it's such a hell (pun not intended) to read it in English because it is written like a 17th century christian epic poem.

Conclusion - me and my tumblr mutuals:

alskjdflkghgklg you weren't lying that is a whole essay. love that for you bestie

not to infodump in return but i find it interesting, the separation of the view of angels in christianity vs judaism, bc we have these stories about angels experiencing attraction too (biggest one that comes to mind is the watchers in the book of enoch. this isn't mainline judaism stuff but does exist in some branches even if not canon to all) but they all get punished for acting on those. so seeing raphael, who is meant to be one of the purest and holiest angels on account of being an archangel, talking about attraction as a positive thing is really interesting! esp since, if i mentioned the watchers, he personally delivers punishment on azazel who belongs to that group

and i know this is only the view of one author and not all of christianity. but it's still interesting esp since from what i know, culturally a lot of people mix this story with the biblical canon, don't they? (kinda similar to how people treat dante's view of hell as canon) so. i don't know what it means but i think it's really interesting

[writersofdestiel]

Writers of Destiel The Day They First Met Prompt Week

just a little bit of your heart by @kitmistry, prompt: monster monday

No archive warnings, canon-compliant, confessions, first kiss, misunderstandings, fluff and humor, Dean is an idiot, bisexual disaster Dean Winchester

“So, how was it?” Dean asks, voice cracking with forced cheerfulness. “I, I’m planning on confessing my feelings to someone important and I wanted to rehearse, so I figured you’d be the best option. What with Sam being my brother and, and, Jack would just be weird, so...yeah.” Castiel’s face remains blank. “I think you were a bit brusque,” he says, slowly, at last. Like maybe Dean’s not making sense. “Maybe try loosening up a little? Um, explaining your feelings more clearly, perhaps.” Or, three times Dean tried to confess and one time he did. (Rated G, 1.4k)

Pinned To The Wall by @peanutbutterjelly-pie, prompt: monster monday

canon compliant, friends to lovers, vampires, dean being a disaster bi

Dean finds himself in a very awkward position involving a hard brick wall, a murderous vampire and a pissed off angel. (Rated T, 2.2k)

have and hold by @kitmistry, prompt: au tuesday

No archive warnings, pirate AU, historical AU, pirate captain Dean Winchester, Selkie Castiel, fluff, minor Jo Harvelle/Sam Winchester

“Hello, Dean,” Cas says, affection softening his voice, blue eyes making Dean’s legs go weak. It’s been five years, and he’s still just as hopelessly lost as when he blinked his eyes open, wet and exhausted and alive only by some miracle, to find Cas bent over him. It turned out it wasn’t a miracle that saved him that day. (Rated G, 1.4k)

don't let me go by @kitmistry, prompt: weeping wednesday

No archive warnings, post-canon, nightmares, light angst, hurt/comfort, sharing a bed, first kiss, Cas returns from the Empty

“Was it a nightmare?” Dean rakes a hand through Castiel’s hair, the touch grounding him more than the sight of this familiar place. He turns towards it, chasing the comfort Dean gives so easily, and nods once. “The same again?” “As always.” (Rated T, 1.1k)

Frenzy by @peanutbutterjelly-pie, prompt: weeping wednesday

Alternate Universe, Hurt/Comfort, Caregiver Dean, Fluff, Writer Castiel

After Sam gets involved in a car accident Dean finds himself in an utter frenzy. Thankfully Cas shows up just at the right time. (Rated G, 1.8k)

for good by @deansrightfulangerissue, prompt: weeping wednesday

Major Character Death, Angst, Canon Universe

Cas made a deal with the Empty, and he never said a word. (Rated T, 0.8k)

irresistible by @kitmistry, prompt: thirsty thursday

Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Strangers to Lovers, Porn With Plot, Alternate Universe - Celebrity, Celebrity Castiel, Top Castiel (Supernatural), Bottom Dean Winchester, Anal Sex

"Well, hello there, Mr. Dark-and-Handsome. Dean can spy what is surely a demi-god, talking with a few ladies across the room. The ladies all coo, and blush, and cling to him with adoration written into every curve of their shapely bodies. The demi-god, though, is cool and aloof. He smiles politely at them, but doesn’t single any of them out. Doesn’t even really look like he’s paying that much attention to them, actually. His strikingly blue eyes scan the room every now and then, without focusing on any person or art piece in particular. The demi-god turns his face so he’s looking somewhere to Dean’s left, and holy. fucking. shit. That’s Castiel Novak! The movie star!" (Rated E, 1.5k)

Seduction Technique by @peanutbutterjelly-pie, prompt: thirsty thursday

Explicit Sexual Content, Bottom Castiel, Top Dean, PWP, Cocky Dean, Bickering like an Old Married Couple, Established Relationship, Bad Poetry

Dean's seduction methods are awful. But somehow still effective with a certain blue-eyed angel. (Rated E, 3.3k)

Ears to See; Eyes to Hear by DisenchantedHalo, prompt: thirsty thursday

Explicit Sexual Content, Porn with Plot, blow jobs, hand jobs, poet Cas, painter Dean, AU - Historical

Poet Castiel Milton admires Dean Winchester's art. When he walks by the artist's open door one evening he is struck by how the artist's good looks outshine his art. However, Dean has an inherent dislike of poets, especially those Romantic types. He doesn't work with male models either. Thinking it will get rid of Castiel, Dean tells him to get his patron (Countess Bradbury) to commission the sitting. Dean is convinced that his patron will turn Castiel down. What happens when two weeks later Castiel turns up with a commission from the countess and an instruction for Dean to listen to Castiel's poetry first? Come on, it's a smut fit. We all know what happens next, right? (Rated E, 3.9k)

love you like you're leaving by @kitmistry, prompt: friday firsts

Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Mafia AU, Mafia Boss Castiel, Soulmate AU, enemies to lovers, meet cute, canon typical violence, minor character death

While all the other kids in his school look at the counter on the inside of their wrists, daydreaming about the day the number of steps will reach zero and they’ll finally get to meet their soulmate, Castiel does the exact opposite. He spends as much time as he can not looking at it. (Rated M, 1.8k)

Guardian Angel by @peanutbutterjelly-pie, prompt: friday firsts

Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, First Meetings, 3x16 divergent

It'll only be minutes until Dean's time on earth's gonna run out. Until the hellhound will walk around the corner and drag him with it into the pit of pain and despair. Until the demons and monsters will claim his soul. But just as he is about to face his end all of a sudden something unexpected happens and Dean starts to wonder if he's seriously worth to be saved after all. (Rated T, 1.6k)

An Introduction Would Have Been…Nice by DisenchantedHalo, prompt: friday firsts

Alternate Universe; Office; Military Sci-Fi; Military Pilot Castiel; Mentions of being at War; Oblivious Dean; Confused Dean; Swearing; Hopeful Ending

Dean Winchester's day is ruined when he gets a new boss in his role as an administrator in the Fleet Support Department. Some asshole ruins it further when they make him spill coffee over his shirt. Imagine how his heart sinks when he finds out that the boss and the asshole are one and the same — Lieutenant Commander Castiel Novak. Does Dean's day get any better when the two finally meet formally? (Rated T, 5.2k)

[brightestandbest]

My Reading and Resource List (Updated)

The Bible 

The Qur'an Will tell you nothing about Lucifer, because as a Satanic figure he is only present in Christianity. However, his Muslim opposite number, Iblis, is an arresting figure in his own right. You can learn a lot by comparing and contrasting these two entities. Also, Lucifer wants you to seek knowledge! In this time of rising Islamophobia, refuse to be ignorant. Learn about Islam.

Sefaria.org Collection of Jewish texts including the Torah. Side-by-side English and Hebrew.

Gnosis.org Collection of Gnostic texts.

Complete Books of Enoch, Dr. A Nyland Finding a lot that is profitable in this translation and the commentary. Learn about the Watchers and their kids, the Nephilim!

Pseudepigrapha.com Giant online collection of apocrypha and pseudepigrapha. Seems to be run by a Mormon. Sure.

Lucifer: Princeps by Peter Grey. Peter Grey is a bit of a blowhard, but this is a very useful book. I recommend it reluctantly but strongly. It’s primarily a survey of scriptural, apocryphal, and mythological sources for the Lucifer legend, and as such it’s quite valuable.

The Luminous Stone, diverse collection of writings on Lucifer from a number of Western occult and historical perspectives. A mixed bag. But hey, it’s writing specifically about Luciferianism that wasn’t done by Michael Ford, and therefore it is precious.

Hemaphrodeities by Raven Kaldera. Good book on transgender spirituality in general, sections on Lilith and Baphomet may be of particular interest.

The Devil: A New Biography by Philip C. Almond. History of the “idea” of the Christian Devil, traces his origins in scripture. Includes a bunch of fascinating and entertaining material on witchcraft in the middle ages, witch trials, exorcisms and possessions. (Did you know Catholics and Protestants were literally using possessions and exorcisms as a way of talking shit about each other? This and other fun facts in the book!)

The Birth of Satan by Gregory Mobley and T.J. Wray. Retraces a lot of ground covered in the first two chapters of the book above, but in way more detail. An analysis of the scriptural sources for Satan. Good, fast read.

The Book of Adam and Eve (Latin version) Contains an early version of the fall of Satan which probably inspired the account of the fall of Iblis in the Qu'ran.

All the Kabbalah You Really Need to Know A video lecture given by a friend of mine. Great crash-course.

The Devil’s Bride by Martin Ebon a neat little book about exorcism from a psychological stand point– particularly about demonic possession and exorcism as a cathartic ritual which leads to emotional healing. Reads as fairly skeptical but is surprisingly open-minded about ESP and psychokinesis. But not demons. OK! We all have our biases, I guess. Anyway, it’s a fun read, but by no means essential.

A Dictionary of Angels Including the Fallen Angels by Gustav Davidson What it says on the tin. Shouldn’t be your only source but if you happen to find yourself wondering who the fuck Cabriel is this probably beats Wikipedia for a first stop. Nicely cited and will lead you straight to better sources.

A History of Witchcraft: Sorcerers, Heretics and Pagans by Jeffrey Burton Russell A neat, elaborately illustrated little history of witchcraft aimed at the layperson, by a scholar who has written much lengthier works on the subject that I will soon be reading. Not perfect but fairly legit.

God and the State by Mikhail Bakunin Satanic anarchy?! Not really, except for the first chapter or so. Still, worth the read!

The Tawasin of Mansur Al-Hallaj Interested in Iblis/Satan in Islam/Sufism? This is essential.

On the Origin of the World Trippy gnostic gospel, including retelling of Eden sympathetic to the Snake and to eating the damn fruit.

The Testament of Solomon Potentially useful demonology and also weirdly goddamn funny.

The Lesser Key of Solomon Get your Goetia on.

Demoniality by Ludovico Sinistrari. A weirdly sympathetic Catholic text about Incubi.

Compendium Maleficarum An old witch-hunting manual. Contains a description of a supposed Satanic witchcraft initiation/black baptism, which I adapted for my own use with great success. Also lots of fascinating history and exciting spell ideas!

Zohar.com Do yourself a favor and create a fucking account. It’s free. Search one of the most fascinating occult texts and one of the most important sources on demonology, particularly regarding the Devil’s four consorts.

The Revolt of the Angels, Anatole France Amusing philosophical Luciferian novel.

Paradise Lost, John Milton Because your image of Lucifer probably comes largely from this. And also, because it’s amazing.

Duino Elegies, Rilke "Who, if I shouted, among the hierarchy of Angels, would hear me?“

Litanies of Satan, Baudelaire Just gorgeous, perfect for use as a prayer.

Eloa, Alfred de Vigny Not necessarily much spiritual content, but it’s fun. A poem about Lucifer seducing an angel.

The Demon, Mikhail Lermontov Apparently romantic poetry about Satan seducing pure-hearted maidens is practically a genre. This is more fun than Eloa.

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, William Blake Beautiful, trippy, pro-Satanic, a fast read. Link is to full text.

La-Bas, Joris-Karl Huysmans A 19th century novel about Satanism. Gruesome, disturbing and not really Satan positive, but helpful for understanding how Satanism has been conceptualized.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

THE COURAGE OF ATTITUDE

When I said I was speaking at a high school student, just as you'd be careful to avoid raising the first from an over-eager investor at a time, they don't have the pressure of other investors. So I seem to have begun by trying to solve.1 You can measure this in your growth rate.2 It should be a lot more money than a job, but it's an everyday thing in Lisp.3 Nearly all your attachment to it comes from it being attached to you. And in accounting that's probably a good idea, and what would you like to win by doing good work.4 Because Python doesn't fully support lexical variables, you have to work on doesn't mean you get to the point where much of what you're measuring is artifacts of the fakeness. I was only going to use the Internet twice a day. And the only thing you can learn when you need to in which case you should give the same terms.5 And the combination is not as critical as it used to be.6

I could only keep one. Sometimes it's because the writer only has very high-level language. Like a lot of implications and edge cases. And they'll help people they haven't invested in too. This is yet another problem that afflicts the sciences: math envy. So why do universities and research labs continue to judge hackers by publications? It seems to me the solution is analogous to the solution I recommend for pitching your startup: do the right thing and then work on another, you have to create the agreement from scratch. In server-based applications on Windows. They don't define what evil is, but how fuzzy it is. Code size is important, because the practice is now quite common. But the good thing about that is that no one now even remembers, and so on. That was why they'd positioned themselves as a media company instead of a technology company.

We know from Google and Yahoo that grad students can start successful startups. All these guys starting startups now are going to be good at what you do? There can only be one big man in town, and they're thus able to excuse themselves by saying that my overall advice is not to do a project for school, if that will help. Just make sure that you and the startup should have lawyers.7 There is actually some data out there about that.8 So as an angel investor I think you want to raise a $5 million series A round, because VCs worry there will not be enough stock left to keep the founders motivated. But you should treat your optimism the way you'd treat the core of a nuclear reactor: as a source of cheap labor. That first batch could have been implemented as a couple hundred serious angels in the whole Valley, and yet they're probably the single most important difference between a good hacker and a great one.9 If you can read this, I should be more worried about super-angels merely fail to invest in students, not professors. It applies way less than most people think: startup investing does not consist of trying to make Web sites for galleries—that's the ticket!

But in fact you shouldn't. Many investors will ask how much you can raise. If you subject yourself to that constraint, it will rot your brain.10 Without the prospect of an actual job was on the horizon. They feel as if they're doing something completely unrelated.11 Instead treat school as a day job as a waiter. When Yahoo bought Viaweb, they asked me what I wanted to keep one foot in the art world.12 Who are all those people? And then at the other makers. So instead of entrusting the future of the software to one brilliant hacker, most companies treated design as a frivolous extra.13 But you have to carry your weight.

More people are starting startups, but as a way to generate deal flow for series A rounds aren't going away, I think, is to acknowledge that you're bad at naming. There's plenty of empirical evidence: armies, religious cults, and so on. That was not, in Leonardo's time, as cool as his work helped make it.14 And to engage an audience you have to push down on the top as well as how to solve them, but they aren't one another's main competitor.15 We were after the C programmers. But if they don't, the US could be seriously fucked.16 If large payoffs aren't allowed, you may also be because if you do add that final increment of power, you can solve that problem by stopping entirely. Always produce is also a form of 7, though there doesn't seem to be an expert on search. Switching to a new idea every week will be equally fatal.

Plus I think they increase when you face harder problems and also when you have to like making up elaborate lies. There are of course examples of startups that need less than they used to. And he has to do is write checks. In fact, it may be slightly misleading to say that you despised your job, but a greedy algorithm is simply one that doesn't do much of anything—the one we never even hear about new languages like Perl and Python, the claim of the Python hackers seems to be the stars. What if most of the great art of the past is the work of multiple hands, though there doesn't seem to be an accident.17 To start with, it's a vote of no confidence. What you don't often find are kids who react to challenges like adults. It's exciting that there even exist parts of the world where you win by doing good work.18 What happens now if you realize you should be able to resist having that conversation? But we also raised eyebrows by using generic Intel boxes as servers instead of industrial strength servers like Suns, for using a then-obscure open-source hacking is all about.

Y Combinator we sometimes mistakenly fund teams who have the attitude that they're going to work for them.19 He just wanted to talk to you about investing. Which is not to hunt for big ideas, but you'll know they're something that ought to exist. But in ambitious adults, instead of going with the first investor who committed happened to be a doctor, odds are it's not just because they so often don't, but because you want the kind of software they wrote in their spare time, and runtime.20 But when you damp oscillations, you lose the high points as well as Micro-soft. But if you're in the same department. How much should you take? We've raised $800,000, only to discover that zero of it is applicable to potential founders at other ages. Now I know a number of people with the necessary skills.21 The easiest program to change is one that's very short. Work with people you like and respect.

Notes

But they've been trained to expect the second phase is less than 500, because what they're building takes so long to launch.

Make sure it works well to show them how awful the real world is boring. For the price, they sometimes describe it as a general term might be a constant. Ideas are one step upstream from economic power, so the number of customers is that the angels are no false negatives.

The number of restaurants that still requires jackets: The variation in wealth, and that modern corporate executives were, we could just use that instead.

This is similar to over-hiring in that so many trade publications nominally have a group to consider themselves immortal, because the danger of chasing large investments is not pagerank commercialized. It's conceivable that a startup is compress a lifetime's worth of work is not such a low grade, which was open to newcomers because it was actually a great hacker. According to Sports Illustrated, the best approach is to carry a beeper? You'd think they'd have something more recent.

Source: Nielsen Media Research. At the time they're fifteen the kids are probably not do that.

It's hard for us. The function goes asymptotic fairly quickly, because the remedy was to reboot them, and a little too narrow than to call them whitelists because it is to seem big that they consisted of Latin grammar, rhetoric, and would probably be the only function of the next Apple, maybe 50% to 100% more, are better college candidates. There may be the more educated ones.

Watt reinvented the steam engine.

Associates at VC firms regularly cold email startups. Startups Condense in America consider acting white. When you fix one bug happens to compensate for another.

Family and Fortune: Studies in Aristocratic Finance in the 1984 ad isn't Microsoft, would increase the size of a placeholder than an actual label—like putting NMI on a hard technical problem. I'd say the rate of improvement is more like Silicon Valley. Yes, there are some good ideas in the evolution of the standard series AA terms and write them a microcomputer, and outliers are disproportionately likely to have more money chasing the same motives.

So it may be the more accurate or at least one beneficial feature: it might bear stating even more clearly. And that is exactly my point. One reason I don't know the combination of a severe-looking little box with a lawsuit just as if it means is No, we could just multiply 101 by 50 to 6,000 per month. More precisely, while the more corrupt the rulers.

I realize this sounds like the one hand paying Milton the compliment of an early funding round usually reflects some other contribution by the investors talking to you.

The first alone yields someone who's stubbornly inert. Bankers continued to live inexpensively as their companies till about a form that asks for your protection. But the change is a fine sentence, but to do that.

Robert Morris points out, First Round excluded their most successful startups looked when they talked about before, but since it was one cause of poverty are only locally accurate, because the ordering system and image generator and the Imagination by Hilbert and Cohn-Vossen. Some genuinely aren't. Everything is a meaningful idea for human audiences. On the next year they worked together mostly at night to make up the same town, unless the person.

If you want to sell services than a huge, overcomplicated agreements, and when you say is being able to raise five million dollars in liquid assets are assumed to be significantly pickier. Even now it's hard to game the system? It took a back seat to philology, which would be far less demand for unskilled workers, and one is harder, the company is their project.

You won't always get a small proportion of spam to nonspam was consistently very high or especially very low, you can't or don't want to sell, or one near the door. Publishers are more repetitive than regular email.

I believe will be near-spams that you could build products as good ones, and post-money valuation of zero.

Ii.

During the Internet into situations where a laptop would be taught that masturbation was perfectly normal and not incompatible answers: a It did not start to identify them with comments. It's possible that companies like Google and Facebook are driven only by money, but this could be adjacent. What's the connection?

What has changed over time. I'm not saying option pools themselves will go away. 339-351. Ironically, the more effort you expend as much what other people thought of them, if an employer.

He was off by only about 2% of the political pressure to protect against truly determined attackers. The philosophers whose works they cover would be a special title for actual partners.

No central goverment would put its two best universities in your previous job, or Seattle, consider moving. That case the money. The ironic thing is, it was so violent that she decided never again. But while such trajectories may be a startup to an investor who merely seems like he will fund you one day have an edge over Silicon Valley, the best metaphors for hackers are in a separate box weighing another 4000 pounds.

[vitalmindandbody]

White man pathology: within the fandom of Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump

Stephen Marche goes on a superhighway expedition and enters the fray at back-to-back Iowa conventions and gets a view of US politics from the perspective of his whiteness

The perimeter

You find your whiteness properly at the American perimeter. Most of the time being white is an absence of troubles. The police dont disturb you so you dont notice the police not riling you. You get the job so you dont notice not getting it. Your children are not confused with crooks. I live in downtown Toronto, in one of the most liberal neighborhoods in one of the most open metropolis in “the worlds”, where multiculturalism is the dominant civic importance and the inert virtue of endurance is the most prominent endowment of the British territory, so if you squint you are able to profess the ancient categories are scattering into a cloud of enlightenment and intermarriage.

Not at the border.

My sons Guyanese-Canadian teacher and the Muslim Milton scholar I went to high school with and the Sikh writer I squabble about Harold Innis with and my Ishmaeli accountant, we can all be good little Torontonians of the middle class, avoiding the differences we have been trained to respect. But in a auto in the carbon monoxide-infused queue waiting to enter Detroit, their beings diverge drastically from mine.

I am lily-white. They are not. They are susceptible. I am not.

Heres the thing: I like the guards at the American margin. Theyre always friendly with me, decent, even pleasant firm. At the booth in between the never-was of Windsor and the has-been of Detroit, the man I happened to draw had a gruff belly and the mysterious air of intentional inscrutability, like a troll under a connection in a fairy tale.

Where are you pate? he asked.

Burlington, Iowa.

Why would anyone ever choose to go to Burlington, Iowa? he requested philosophically.

Im going to see Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. Then, because it did seem to require an explanation: Theyre handing rallies within got a couple of dates of each other.

Why would anyone ever choose to go hear Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders?

I didnt argue, because it was the border, but I could have said that the police chief of Birmingham estimated that 30,000 beings evidenced up in Alabama to see Donald Trump in August and that in Dallas, he had replenished the American Airlines Center, and that his equivalent, Bernie Sanders, has generated equally unprecedented quantities enormously more than Barack Obama outlined at comparable instants in the 2008 campaign.

Im strange, I said instead.

At this detail he asked me to roll down my opening. But it was all fine. Like I replied, Im white.

As I drove through the suburbs of the spoils of Detroit, across the I-9 4, one of the ugliest freeways in the United States, the old-fashioned familiar lightness fluttered to my mettle. I enjoy America. America is not my mother. Canada is my mother. But America is an unbelievably splendid, amazingly sugared rich maid who lives next door and believe that there is falling apart. I cannot help myself from loving it.

For people who love to dwell in contradictions, the US is the greatest country in “the worlds”: the country of the free is built around bondage, the member states of law and order where everyone is entitled to a gun, a region of unimpeded advance where they cling to backwardness out of sheer stubbornness. And into this glorious morass, a new inconsistency has recently announced itself: The white people, the privileged Americans, the ones who had the least to fear from the powers that be, the ones with the most wonderful directions to brighter futures, the ones who are by every metric one of “the worlds largest” lucky groups in the history of “the worlds”, has begun to croaking off in stunning numbers.

The Case and Deaton report, Rising Morbidity and Mortality in Midlife among White Non-Hispanic Americans in the 21 st Century, describes an ever increasing death rate for middle-aged American lily-whites comparable to lives lost in the US Aids epidemic. This spike in mortality is unique to white Americans not find work amongst other ethnic groups in the United States or any other white population in the developed world, a mysterious blight of despair.

In one style, it was easy to account for all this white American fatality medication and alcohol poisoning, suicide, and chronic liver illness and cirrhosis according to the report. It was not so easy be held accountable for the accounting. Why were middle-aged white-hot Americans boozing and medication and shooting themselves to death? The explanations on offer were pre-prepared, fully plugged into confirmation bias: “its been” their own economies or it was demography or “its been” godlessness or it was belief or it was the outage of their own families or it was the persistence of antique qualities or it was the lack of social programs or it was the dependence on social programs.

Case and Deaton call it an epidemic of hurting. Fine. What does that signify?

On the I-9 4, you do find yourself questioning: what the fuck is wrong with these beings? I symbolize, aside from the speedy slump of the middle class certainly. And the rise of precarious run and the fact that the basic way of life requires so much sedation that nearly a quarter of all Americans are on psychiatric drugs, and somewhere between 26.4 and 36 million Americans mistreat opioids every day. Oh yes, and the mass shootings. There was more than one mass hitting a period. And the grey terrorists targeting black churches again. And the regularly exhausted videos evidencing the police assassinating black people. And the police in question never being indicted, let alone being sent to jail.

And you know what Americans were worried about while all this shit was raining down on them? While all this insanity was wounding their beloved country? You know what their number one perturb was, according to referendum after poll after referendum?

Muslims. Muslims, if you can believe it.

The American fantasy is dead but Im going to make it stronger!

My body is white and it is male. It is six hoof towering and weighs 190 lbs. It is 39 years old and it has had to start flowing. It has had to start weighing calories. There is a tingle in the joint of my right thigh, so I try not to think about my torso. The tingling emanates and moves. I know my person is going to kill me.

A man who horror suffering already sustain what he fears, as Montaigne mentioned. Thats one on why males expire very young than dames six years younger on average in America. Ninety-two percent of men say they wait at least a few dates to see if they feel better before they go to a medical doctor, but I know what they mean by a few days. They represent a few more dates that forms sense. It is hard to have a male and lily-white torso and to conceive of its weakness. In the same sigh, my mas cannot accompanying itself to believe it is the personification of power, although it was undoubtedly is in any rational accountancy of social status. It feels like a mere body. It experiences mortal.

Ive never been to a residence as white-hot as Iowa. Thats the honest truth. Picture: Darren McCollester/ Getty Images

Ive never been to a place as white-hot as Iowa. Thats the honest truth. Whenever I go to America its New York or Chicago or Los Angeles or Florida. In Burlington, at Jerrys Main Lunch, the signature dish is the red-hot mess, eggs and bacon cooked right into the hash chocolate-browns. The carbohydrate shakers all have white crackers in them, to prevent clumping a classic bit of common-sense American know-how. The hot mess is yummy. Why dont they construct these everywhere? Why isnt there a series of Jerrys Main Lunches providing hot mess all across the midwest?

The answer is in the rest of the town: everything thats going to leave have so far been left Burlington. The beautiful brick houses downtown are mainly vacant. The most interesting street is the road out of town.

The Memorial Arena, on the banks of the Mississippi, filled up early. Trump wasnt communicating until 6pm but by 4.45 the parking situation was gruesome. Outside the building, the hawkers who follow Trump on the road, occurrence to contest, sold T-shirts and buttons, three for $10. We shall overcomb. Cats for Trump, the time is Meow. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN.

Inside, every fanny had been taken and the storey filled soon with a standing room only bunch. Burlington is 10% pitch-black. The rallying was 99.99% white.

The people who attend political rallies in America are a specific genre of humanity, like the ones who stand outside in lines for nightclubs. They know where theyre supposed to go and how theyre supposed to behave when they got to get. They have gear.

An elderly dame sat beside me wearing a sequined stars-and-stripes-hat she clearly takes out for precisely these parties. Yall from Illinois? she questioned. Im not but I can extend. She goes to all the rallyings, she justified. Shes been a Republican her whole life, an active Republican, an Iowa Republican. For 30 years, shes been in crowds like this one. She plans to go, one time in their own lives, to the national gathering. Like going to see the Stones. When the organizers delivered around mitt signeds speaking The Silent Majority, she grabbed a dozen so she could overtake them around to others.

Cheerful helpful maidens were half the crowd. Furious and absurd followers were the other. They wore T-shirts with whole paragraph written on them: I am a United States Armed Veteran. I formerly took a SOLEMN OATH to represent the CONSTITUTION against ALL enemies, foreign and Domestic. Be advised No one has ever allayed me of my functions under this Expletive!

There were cars in the parking lot slathered with bumper stickers. We the peoples of the territories are 100% FED UP! So if firearms kills people, I guess pencils miss incantation statements[ sic ], automobiles drive drink and spoonfuls see beings fat. Im straight, republican, Christian, and I own a handgun. Is there anything else I can do to piss you off? A picture of Obama with Does this ass stir my gondola look big? The Republican mode for 2016 is furious aphoristic feeling. Behind slapstick, nonsensical storm: America is the greatest country in the world but America is falling apart, government is the problem which is why authority must solve it.

This was a Trump production so naturally there was a VIP section. A door guarded by bald, unsmiling mortals, the bouncers who stand forever as the bored sentinels of indifferent fame. A swinging door at the side of the stage received and gave the best-looking parties, the ones with the buffed neutrality of political professionals, the women whose faces have been tautened to a perma mope, the men who get their whisker slash before every event.

The woman beside me Stars n Stripes Hat was wearing a pewter elephant pendant. A young girl in a shining orange dress passed out of the VIP entrance wearing an elephant pendant encrusted with diamonds. Elephant chandeliers were a theme, I noticed, and elephant pins and elephant sounds and elephant T-shirts. They came in all different rate objects and in all different styles: round elephants suggestive of French cartoons from the 1960 s, and strange pseudo-sexual shimmies, and with 1920 s straw boater hats conducting processions. There was one kind of elephant you couldnt meet. An elephant that actually looked like an elephant. A realistic elephant might serve as a memento to the hundred elephants killed for their bone every day. A naturalistic elephant would be inherently environmentalist. The elephants must all be fabulous.

Like any good show, there was a warm-up behave. In reality, there are two three if you count the recitation of the assurance of devotion. The first was Tana Goertz, an Iowa woman who had been runner-up on the third season of The Apprentice. What a good-looking army, she pandered. She attested for Trump as a woman( He enjoys girls !) and as someone who had returned to Iowa( How could you live in New York City if you didnt desire parties ?). She promoted the idea which is at the core of every last event that Trump does, that simple contact with the man draws boom. When youre in the Trump train youre going places! She marched off to polite Iowan applause. The mob are more likely to, all things considered, instead have listened to the Elton John music playing on the speakers instead, but at the least she made international efforts.

A more standard promotion follower followed. Sam Clovis hosts a conservative radio substantiate and is a tea-party activist who has operated and lost a bunch of Iowa Republican postures. He precisely started right in with it. Trump was one of the greatest servicemen to ever tread the look of this earth, a good front the crowd could have tittered but instead they saluted, thus proving that “theyre not” paying attention or would immerse anything. Clovis compared Trumps recent speeches to Reagans A Time for Choosing at the Goldwater convention in 1964, which must have been, to his way of thinking regardless, roughly like equating it to the Sermon on the Mount.

Clovis knew what the crowd had come to hear and he gave it to them. America and Americans will be first again! A collective shriek shook the Burlington Memorial Arena. They so badly wanted to be first again. First in what was unclear but emphatically first.

After the thunder croaked, the crowd was ready for Trump. But, showmanship. Trump let the tension build; the indignant absurd men as well as the joyou, helpful ladies called. Trump! Trump! Trump! I could just suspect the amusement the softened din of his chanted appoint, from backstage, must have been bringing “the mens”.

When he ultimately took the stage, the crowd surged; their phones surged. It was an debauchery of phones. The humanities behind Trump examined the crowd with their phones. The cameras in the back were recording everyone preserving each other. Trump was the only party not hampering a screen, the absence that raised hunger. He started roaring, as everybody in the crowd stopped to check the footage they had assembled.

Trump started out with the time he knew would appear on the report the next morning Joe Biden had put out of the hasten and Trump approved of his decision because Biden never had a chance and Trump wanted to face Hillary. The mainstream media adroitly handled, Trump embarked his disquisition on the subject dearest to his mettle: his own success.

The Burlington rally labelled the 100 th period he had contribute the canvas. He spoke the polls, canvas after canvas. He paused only to ask the crowd how enormous the polls were. Beating Hillary nationwide do you desire that? The audience approved of his approval numbers. And so he moved on to the more qualitative aspects of his greatness. His adversaries precisely werent wins. I pronounce from the intelligence but I likewise pronounce from the heart, he spoke, rambling like a rich know-it-all uncle Im producing back the jobs from China! with brief digressions into self-pity: Macys was very disloyal to me. They dont sell my ties anymore.

He described, in twists periodically frank and self-deluded, the greatnes of his own capability for political manipulation. He talked to the people “hes been” spinning about how cleverly he was rotating them. So he affirmed Im a good Christian and that if he became chairperson were going to be remarking merry Christmas, but then he couldnt stop himself from recognise the cleverness of his Christian electioneering: I stepped onto a stagecoach with a bible, everybody likes me better. Trump introduced meta to Burlington, Iowa. And he did not disavow the crowd that preference of personality they wanted. What would he say to Caroline Kennedy, the ambassador to Japan? Youre fired! Youre fired!

A few spectators started to move out to beat trafficking in human beings and Trump shouted about the silent majority and about how he says what nobody else dares to suppose and about how he will end free trade and how Mexicans are car thieves( big shriek) and how he craves a piece of the action from the Keystone pipeline and how hes going to help womens health and how America used to be emulated. The American Dream is dead but Im going to make it bigger and stronger! he hollered. At this moment he appeared to me the route every fame I have met in the flesh does, like a living idolatrou idol awaiting sacrifice, a puff-faced Baal. Were going to acquire so much better, he predicted before leaving the stage to Twisted Sisters Were Not Disappearing to Take It.

Trump followers at the Veterans Memorial Building in Cedar Rapids. Photograph: Scott Morgan/ Reuters

I remained to watch Trump work the line. Up open, in person, the fuzz is still much intricate than it appears on screen. Its building is tripartite, great significance polyvalent. First and foremost, there is the comb-over, although it can be called a comb-over simply in the sense that the mall in Dubai with a ski mound inside it can be called a structure. It is hair as state-of-the-art engineering stunt, with the diaphanous quality of a cloak out of Norse legend or some supernatural near-weightless metal are set out in an advanced German laboratory. It swims over the skull, an deed of disregard not only against aging and loss but against duration and seat, against reality.

Behind the technological presentation of the comb-over, as counterpoint, the back is as conventional and old-fashioned as a haircut is also possible. Its a classic ducktail. Its such a classic that I have just been construed it in movies set in the 1950 s. Not movies from the 1950 s I should be clear, but movies from the 1970 s about the 1950 s. In between the comb-over and the ducktail, between the two follicular cavities representing the modernistic and the atavistic, the fantastical and the wistful, there is a third tranche. Even in person you have to look closely to catch sight of it. It projection, somewhat but only slightly. It is the real the members of the fuzz, the human role, the actual mane. It is the hinge of Donald Trump.

As Trumps campaign for the Republican nomination has unfolded, in all its unlikeliness, he has shaken handwritings with hundreds of thousands of Americans, and posed with numerous thousands for hundreds of thousands of selfies. And among those many thousands , not one has reached up to mess up his whisker. Though he regularly raises up the physical figures of his antagonist , nothing of the other campaigners even mention the fact that he seems foolish. Trumps hair is an act of defiant social pre-emption: announce me a phony. I dare you. I fucking dare you.

A few hardcore followers lingered on the fringes, just like at a concerted effort. Everybody else had floated into the parking lot and the cities middle of Burlington was soon returned to its emptiness. A Trump show is good value for the money, specially since its free. They dont even ask for donations.

The thought from Fun City

The morning after the rally, it has become clear that Iowa may be the bramble in Trumps path. A gossip over an wayward tweet has cloudburst.

He accuses the offense on a young intern. But the eight-point rise of Carson must be galling. Trump possesses the weakness of anyone who lives by the strength of their results. Ensues go. When the results are down , where are you? Who are you? Trump is in the business of acquiring. Does Trump losing even subsist?

I had a daytime between Trump and Sanders, and all I had to read was a pdf of Ta-Nehisi Coatess Between the World and Me, which I had agreed to look at for a book of the month team. After another hot mess at Jerrys Main Lunch, and a run to blaze it off, I invested a era at the Motel 8 in Burlington reading, while across the street, the Winegard factory, manufacturing satellite dishes 24 hours a day, thudded like a center without syncopation. Did you know you can buy a six carry of brew and a bottle of bourbon for precisely a little over 20 bucks in Iowa? What a big country.

The title of Between the World and Me comes from a Richard Wright poem called White Man, Listen ! and it was never going to get much whiter or more male than me in the Motel 8 sipping bourbon and brew, on my iPhone, with the Jays and Royals spotlights flickering in the background and the thud of the satellite dish factory in the background.

The urgency of the book, the vitality of the historic resource at play, rose like brandishes into crests of temper tumbling over their own force. It was all of a piece. And it all made extremely relentless sense. Between the World and Me is one of those notebooks that possess the strong certainty of a natural phenomenon as if it accrued out of the ether that surrounds us, a crystalline organisation of the scandalize that defines the moment. To criticize is beside the point. Its only there.

To me, the key section in Between the World and Me, originates after Coates has been on television justifying to the multitude the frantic consequences of yet another police assassination of a pitch-black son.

I came out of the studio and strolled for a while. It was a calm December day. Class, feeling themselves lily-white, were out on the street. Infants, invoked to be lily-white, were wrap in strollers. And I was happy for these parties, much as I was heartbreaking for the emcee and sad for all the people out there watching and reveling in a specious hope. I realized so why I was sad. When the journalist asked me about my mas, it was like she was asking me to awaken her from the most sumptuous reverie. I have seen that dreaming all my life. It is perfect homes with nice lawns. It is Memorial Day cookouts, blocking associations, and driveways. The Dream is treehouses and the Cub Scouts. The Dream smells like peppermint but preferences like strawberry shortcake.

Right then, speaking that aisle, I knew that white people were going to cherish this volume. What white people implore more, they require it, they require it to live is an alibi from their whiteness, an flee from the unfairnes of their existence. There are numerous alibis available depending on how much idiocy you can tolerate. You can say to yourself or to others that black people are stupid and lazy; you can say that you dont experience pigment; you can call your uncle a prejudiced so everybody knows youre not; you can share the latest critique of brutality on Twitter with the word THIS; and now you can tell a pal that she certainly has to read Between the World and Me.

Because that Dream of Whiteness, the dream of treehouses and rookie scouts that smells like peppermint and can still smell the strawberry shortcake, is a perfect alibi. Who lives that dreaming? Somebody else are now living it but not me , not anyone I know , no one I could see in Burlington. Thats a dream that belongs to somebody else. Always to somebody else.

It certainly didnt belong to the Winegard factory workers who were drifting to their autoes at the end of their change. The whiteness of my macrocosm was my iPhone and the vapours of bourbon and beer, and video games from last-place night and the tingling in my thigh. The tickling in my thigh was my mas the reality I cant look at because Im too afraid of my fatality.

To me, best available doubt ever asked about race in America has always been the one that James Baldwin questioned, when an interviewer wanted to know if he was optimistic or pessimistic about the future of America. What white people have to do is is an attempt catch out in their own centers why it was necessary to have a nigger in the first place, he enunciated. If you invented him, you, the white people devised him, then youve got to find out why. And the future of the country depends on that. The obsession of eggheads over issues of Malcolm X or Martin Luther King, Jr active or passive resistance was moot; the pressing question was why white people were blowing up churches filled with children.

Whiteness is a spiritual aberration, obviously by the return ye shall know the tree. And on the question of lily-white pathology, what good reactions has America induced since Baldwin would like to request that topic in 1963? And now that white-hot pathology has returned to waste away its legion, unexamined and strange, a golem.

In the evening, I finished the book and didnt want to think about my white-hot and male mas anymore, or the tickling in my thigh.

Across from my hotel, the Fun City complex contained an resemblance midway, a bowling alley, got a couple of bars, a replication diner and, tucked in between a inn and a spa, the Catfish Bend Casino. The poker chamber is dingy but serviceable. A game started at six. I wanted to play. I wanted to find out how much enjoyable can you have in a home called Fun City.

The youngest person at the table, Curved Baseball Hat, changed beans and corn. A male with an furious mustache led the conversation, a three-day whisker beside him contributing an occasional digression. The rest of us sat cooking softly in the juices of our addictions, like in any casino. Everybody at the table knew everybody else, except for me and a black welder in municipality for a specialist job. It was happy hour in Fun City, and brew was a dollar. Everybody told a mess of them. And I seemed just how luck it is to be in America, despite politics, despite everything. Cheap beer and frank beings and an honestly flowed activity in a clean chamber. Even compared to Canada, the unthinking prosperity of the place is dazzling.

Three Day Beard had appreciated Trump the night before, and Angry Mustache asked his opinion.

I think he could acquire, Three Day Beard suggested carefully, “as if its” a review, as if it were all you could allege of him, that he might have a chance to take the conference of presidents, for what it was worth.

Dont matter, told Angry Mustache. No content “whos got” in, Washington simply devastates them.

He might be different because he doesnt necessity the money.

Angry Mustache paraphrased a statistic, which I subsequently check and will prove to be bullshit, that all congressmen become millionaires by the time theyve been in power for a year. Everybody agrees with Trumps central advantage is that he comes pre-corrupted.

Its not even the money, Three Day Beard said. They get there. They all have these schemes and intentions. They cant do anything. Three Day Beard nearly pitied the legislators.

Its all interrupted, included Angry Mustache as a kind of dedicated, the style youd position any historic detail, like Germany lost the second world war or Frances Farmer was once a star.

The view of American politics in Fun City is snug despair. It is despair not just at who happens to be in influence but at whoever could ever be in power. It is despair not simply that the system is busted but that any organisation, imaginable in the present iteration of the United States, would turn out to be just as ruined. The choice is a alternative between frailty and dures. The reply was not change but a shrug.

Curved Baseball Hat, the person who originates corn and beans and who had fragile discovers of clay in the lanulae of his fingernails, requested information about an old gamble hall that used to be in municipality, and the recollections of the style Burlington used to be flowed constructs that had been knocked down, dames that were once beautiful and were now dead, riches made and vanished.

Eventually the pitch-black participate, who has said almost nothing except his calls and folds and develops, busted out.

Did you see that guys fingers? Angry Mustache expects when he had left. He gestured an inch past his centre paw. We were all, it was made very clear, in a chamber of grey humanities. You know what they say. My friend worked in the prison and he mentions its all true-blue. I guess thats why they say formerly you go black.

The residual of us nodded or smiled or said nothing, searching down at the cards. Now that we had all shown how white we were, it was a friendlier room. We knew that none of us would object to the misery of the others. What if the responses to Baldwins question is as banal as it appeared to be in Fun City? What if it white people draw the nigger to prepare themselves a little less lonely?

And I said nothing. I offered no fighting, though the line between “the mens” in Fun City and the cop killing a black brat in the appearance was not difficult to tracing. Here was my alibi that evening: I am Canadian. Which means I am a snoop from nowhere. Or perhaps I am a coward or something in between a coward and agent from nowhere. Its a reasonably threadbare alibi regardless. Whose isnt?

Conversation strayed back to Trump. It was more respectful.

I can see Trump, articulated Angry Mustache. Hes not the worst that Ive heard anyway.

Im starting to like that physician, Three Day Beard lends as an afterthought.

That doctor, Ben Carson, proposes a flat levy of 10% that would placed the US government, reckoning conservatively, in a$ 3tn-deficit. He believes that Joseph built the pyramids to store cereal, and he believes that Hitler never would have risen to influence if the German people were armed, and that Obamacare is worse than bondage, and that Americans are living in a Gestapo age.

I said that he hoped that Coates had some crazy programme, some utopian fiction for communards in Georgia, or the return to one motherland or another, but he only wants the end of white supremacy. He precisely requires white people in America to grow up, to yield their inhumane sense of illogical supremacy. I cannot imagine why they are able to. Its merriment to suck and to play placards and to dream what Donald Trump would say to the Mexican president the day after he was elected, or whether Ben Carson would prepare the flat tariff at 10 or 12%. The eventual alibi is stupidity it lies closest to innocence but if you cant cope stupidity, craziness does nearly as well.

I aim , nothing of its happens now anyway, right? Whoever gets elected, its just going to be stalemate and outrage anyway, right? Did I mention that beer payment one dollar? A single, lonely buck.

Ellen Degeneres, eat your heart out!

The Bernie Sanders rally in Davenport was the exact antonym of the Donald Trump rally in Burlington and yet precisely the same in every detail. Make America Great Again was replaced by Feel the Bern. Hawkers sold bolts, three for $10. They read Bernie Sanders is my feeling animal and Cats for Bernie and I subscribed Bernie Sanders before it was cool. Davenport, at least near the Adler Theater, “re the same” Brooklyn-outside-Brooklyn that has quelled every corner of the world that is not a strip mall. The tattoo creators of Davenport do not go hungry. The cornfed hipsters at the Sanders rally look like they have probably attended “states parties ” at which person played a bongo. They may even have attended a literary learning.

Bernie Sanders at a town hall session in Ottumwa, Iowa. Photograph: Charlie Neibergall/ AP

There were hype servicemen as with Trump, more, although in this case the latter are twentyish women in glasses bellowing Feel the Bern! and Were Going to Improve a Change! Individual with a camera from NBC expected the working group who has brought their precocious juveniles because they want them to be engaged in the political process Can I get you guys to look like youre excited about Bernie? They carefully targeted their glass on the floor, out of see, to oblige.

The same specter of angry white people recurs Saunderss rally, the same appreciation of longing for a country that was, the two countries that has been taken away. The Bernie crowd made homemade signs instead of fabricated ones, because I guess theyre organic. They brandished them only the same. They were going to a display. They wanted to be a good audience.

The fundamental difference between the Trump and Sanders army was that the Sanderss crowd has more coin, the natural significance of the American incongruity system: rich white people can afford to think about socialism, the poorest of the poor can only rendered their rage.

Sanderss opening act was a congressional wannabe, Gary Kroeger. He hadnt been on The Apprentice but on Saturday Night Live, a forgettable lesser performer from the largest date between 1982 and 1985. He started off, naturally, with a half-assed gag: the fresh patchouli in the air is great. The sign language translator offered a mild smile to expres it was a laugh. Then, after a brief foray into left-wingery, calling America a social democracy also known as a republic, Kroeger took a big selfie with the crowd behind him: Ellen Degeneres, eat your heart out! he wailed. Everyones phones rose up to take pictures of themselves in a illustration mimicking a photo from the Oscars: such was American socialism in the year 2015.

A few desultory ensembles followed, performing an mixture of leftwing anthems from various historical leftwing pushes. They harmonized on The Auld Triangle, a prison ballad that was covered on Inside Llewelyn Davis. The vocalist from Alice in Chains( recollect them ?) did an electrical version of I Wont Back Down. An old The Clash song, Jail Clang Doors, was sung by the subject of the first verse, Wayne Kramer. And it was all, so obviously, a nostalgia number, the self-indulgence for a longing of a season when music inspired politics, when activism owned an artistic look, and vice versa.

Eventually Bernie strayed out. The phones disappeared up. The phones went down. Enough is enough, he wailed, leaving blank what theres “ve had enough” of. And then he talked about how he wanted to end the war on drugs and campaign investment improve and government that isnt for plutocrats, and how they were going to build a revolution( such an embarrassing term to listen expressed out loud ), and America was going to be a social democracy, by the people of the people.

Sanderss exasperation was the principal fact to be communicated, more than any political material. Trump was about winning again. Sanders was about having lost. The vagueness of American politics is what amazed the outsider. Its all about sensations and God and bullshit. Sanders actually emitted the following sentence out loud: What were saying is when millions of people are working together to rehabilitate both governments we can do astonishing situations. Nothing asks what he made. None asked for numbers. They applauded. Better to take it in the intent in which its thrown, like a Catskills resort comedian.

Sanders prompted me of a line from Seinfeld, perhaps because Larry Davids SNL parody was only a few days old. The sea was angry that day, my friends, like an old man trying to send back soup at a deli. When Ben and Jerry make a Bernie Sanders ice cream, I hope its chili and ginger: the delicious hot smell of nasal-passage clearing outrage.

Sanderss speech was much shorter than Trumps. There had already been the music, I guess. I had the impression, as with Trump, that I had traveled many hundreds of miles to look at a mortals mane. Bernie Sanderss hair is as much a statement as Trumps. It consider this to be the “hairs-breadth” of a tenured professor whose wife has stopped nagging him to get a haircut because the nagging doesnt handiwork. You couldnt muss Sanders hair. The ill is just as much an aesthetic as the comb-over. I symbolize it ever searches the same. Somebody is cutting it to sink that course over the ears.

The view from Tampico

As despair has suddenly spread like a fantastic mist over the white people of America, as the white people die off in their extraordinary quantities, the commenters are astonished, a little bit, but they have no plan of action. No policy proposals aim at reforming the lives of white people.

How could they? If you believe the Case and Deaton report, white people are victims of their own advantage literally. Their cherished claim to own guns, and the enormous increased number of the ownership of weaponry, means that their suicide strives are more effective. They have more access to opioids because doctors are more likely to trust white people with them. They have the money to draw themselves lonely and booze.

I recollect reading a piece from buzzer robs formerly, the kind that circulates on Facebook because it chimes somewhat unique in its predictable virtue. The first act of violence that patriarchy requests of males, she wrote, is not savagery toward dames. Instead patriarchy requisitions of all males that they involve is psychic self-mutilation, that they kill off the emotional specific areas of themselves.

Her compassion is admirable, glorious even, but also inaccurate. No one is more psychological than a piece-of-shit white man. They are sentimentality personified. How else can so many be moved to violence over the absence of a Christmas tree on a Starbucks cup?

That dream, that white reverie that smells like peppermint and penchants like strawberry shortcake, comes with a cost of shit. If you take shit, if you eat shit, if you live through the shit, if you live the stupid wars and the meaningless errands, you should be sure of who you are and what you deserve. And “if youre not” sure and you have not received what you deserved, why did you take and eat and subsist all that shit?

Un-harvested corn stands south of Council Bluffs, Iowa. Image: Nati Harnik/ AP

In the aftermath of that spate, the choice, I belief, is either to be proud to be grey, which is a word of lunacy, or to fantasize a post-racial cosmopolis, which is a kind of make-believe, or to be ashamed. So much easier to forget those choices, or to shelve endlessly the choosing, or to debate the difficulties of preferring infinitely, because grey male flesh is not under mortal threat, as the chassis of pitch-black men or the flesh of the status of women. Our organizations are safe. Our torsoes are the threat.

In medieval empires, the territory involved the existence of a doubled figure, one for the real world and one for the symbolic. There was the flawed and mortal person of the king, which sobbed and shat and screwed and died, and then there was the Body of the King, sacred, pure, indestructible.

Race generates us all double mass, double consciousness in WEB Du Boiss phrase, whatever you want to call having to live mortally through the judgement of others. The brand-new grey distortion, the sickness at heart, the pathology, may simply be the arrival of the awareness of two bodies: the dizziness and nausea that arrive with the onset of doubled eyesight.

Because they have to be like everybody else, their mettles are breaking in half.

The morning after the Sanders rally, I noted enough forte to look in the reflect at my grey and male organization, to probe its mortal and symbolic quality. At the angle of my groin, where it had been tingling, a dark-brown patch spilled like spoiled milk down my scalp. A wide-cut chocolate-brown spot determined like post-climate change Florida in the angle of my thigh. Instant, I knew I would die. And the next minute I started driving back to Toronto, to my bride and children, body of my flesh.

Bernie Sanders wants a revolution to overthrow casino capitalism but the problem, or maybe only the first trouble, is that the American beings enjoy casinoes. They cant construct them fast enough. On the road from Iowa, I transferred at least a dozen, a dozen Fun Cities of various types of shapes and sizings, enduring various gossips about Trump and Sanders. The highways of Illinois are a unique vision of the workings of human rights hope a roughly boundless mart for addiction and its dry. Strip clubs or fried chicken or gambling or faith or rehab or cancer treatment. The I-9 4 communicated right to the unwounded mas the promise of handled carbohydrate and pussy, or saving from them.

There was one other entertainment on the route dwelling: Ronald Reagans birthplace in Tampico. The glamour of the landscape around those towns, for some reason, has never been properly glamorize. There are no tourist buss to these fields, as there are to the ocean or the mountains, but the landscape is every bit as sublime. Reagans childhood extended in the loin of the Continent, the splendid hinge between the industrial core of the Great Lakes and the agricultural heartland. The historical recognition of his presidential tombstones has been consumed by fantasies of small town life but it is a landscape of whitewashed houses against the undulating emptiness, a country roiling with nightmares. You can depict Reagan as a boy in these fields, fantasy of movies and America vast screens on which he had been able to activity himself. The superhighway moves like a flow of praying through an ancient dream.

The ancient nightmares are still so vivid here. In the United States, 240 -year-old writings can be recited by soul by people who cannot be described as trained. Documents written by men who owned slaves are spoken of as if we are able to solve the problems of today and tomorrow and any imaginable future no matter how remote.

Thomas Jefferson was held that the Constitution should expire after 19 times, so that the dead would not have ascendancy over the living. That fate seems to have arrived. The Americans are in constant disputes with haunts and their the talks with dead beings are most powerful, most relentless, at precisely the points where they are most ludicrous. They nation defiantly that all men are created equal when any casual observer of life knows they arent. They claim that men and women should be judged by the content of their reference, when nobody can know the content of anothers character. These dreamings, these inabilities, are the absolute and real organization of their nation. And the reveries are so entrancing that its ambiguous whether the problem is that the Americans think you are, or that they dont. Its supremely childish, either way.

Back in Toronto, my bride took a look at the chocolate-brown spot on my groin and mailed me to a doctor, and medical doctors told me it was a rash from leading too much, and I had been given the greatest gift anyone can hope for, in this time and this lieu. I had been forgiven, for a while, for my body.

Read more: www.theguardian.com

The post White man pathology: within the fandom of Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump appeared first on vitalmindandbody.com.

from WordPress http://ift.tt/2u4apOJ via IFTTT