August 21, 2019

A Postcard to Ann
Remembering Ann Snitow (1943–2019)
All articles by this author
August 21, 2019
Remembering Ann Snitow (1943–2019)
November 1, 2018
The deeper the awareness that male supremacy isn’t produced by nature, the higher the degree of panic.
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October 8, 2018
Bird-dogging against Kavanaugh
We are instructed to cheer those opposing Kavanaugh and to confront the people on his side as well as those in the weasel category, “undecided,” as if Flake, Collins, Manchin et al have been scripted by a Magic 8-Ball to say, “Answer hazy, ask again later.” I will see Cruz, who has the painted-on hair of a ventriloquist’s dummy, surrounded by what look like armed guards. I will not see Flake, who is in hiding, as is Collins.
September 21, 2018
How did I make my way to the place I most wanted to be?
I remember the smell of fresh ink on stacks of papers at the office and the thrill of lifting one from a red box on the street and seeing my work there. No one changes a word without consulting you. No one urges you to write like them. We’re depicted by others as a Bruegel scene of manic devils roasting each other’s body parts, and it’s kind of true. More keenly I remember late nights with Richard Goldstein, talking about every variant of sex. Is Beauty and the Beast, in which gorgeous Linda Hamilton hooks up with Ron Perlman, who has the face and mane of a lion(!), the first depiction of interspecies sex on TV? Check, yes. I remember receiving a book in the mail containing hundreds of pictures of vaginas and turning the pages, staggered by the array, while leaning against the wall of mail cubbies. I remember Guy Trebay’s expanding collection of snow globes. Some contain autopsy remains dusted with glitter. (Not true.) One day I pass his cubicle with a spiky hair cut and dangly, dart-shaped earrings, and he says, “Laurie Stone, the oldest living punk.”
Every so often you need an accomplice
Four billion years ago, amino acid molecules set loose by a dying star gathered into macromolecules, matter having a tendency to become more complex. Who asked it to? During the next half billion years, macromolecules evolved into living cells, first without nuclei, then into cells that could reproduce. One minute you’re matter and the next, poof, you’re alive! Has that ever happened to you? You need soup and the right temperature, things your grandmother would know about, but she hasn’t evolved yet. It’s all guesswork in the dark, the serious, falling-in-love dark. These cells develop DNA, a long molecule that encodes all the information an organism needs to survive. Then they go on a rampage. They do not take no for an answer. This is not some ex-boyfriend who keeps calling or Jessica Walters in Play Misty for Me, who has one date with Clint Eastwood and tries to kill his girlfriend. These cells print themselves like money.