Archive for July 2024
White trash elegy
by David Benjamin “How much of our lives, good and bad, should we credit to our personal decisions, and how much is just the inheritance of our culture, our families, and our parents who have failed their children? How much is Mom’s life her own fault? Where does blame stop and sympathy begin?” —J.D. Vance,…
Read MoreThe “creative type”
by David Benjamin “Every good joke contains an element of the riddle—it may be childishly simple, or subtle and challenging—which the listener must solve. By doing so, he is lifted out of his passive role and compelled to co-operate, to repeat to some extent the process of inventing the joke, to re-create it in his……
Read More“Good afternoon, good evening and good night”
by David Benjamin “An entire human life recorded on an intricate network of hidden cameras, and broadcast live and unedited, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, to an audience around the globe. Coming to you now from Seahaven Island, enclosed in the largest studio ever constructed, and along with the Great Wall of…
Read MoreThe disembodiment of little Bobby Shaftoe
by David Benjamin “Some eighth graders … had set up fake TikTok accounts impersonating teachers… “… In the days that followed, some 20 educators—about one quarter of the [Great Valley Middle] School’s faculty—discovered they were victims of fake teacher accounts rife with pedophilia innuendo, racist memes, homophobia and made-up sexual hookups among teachers. Hundreds of…
Read MoreThe query trap
The querying of an agent or publisher is essentially the process of presenting a fake persona to a coldblooded and impatient personnel manager who is concealed behind a false front of cordial empathy. (The cover of The Voice of the Dog is the work of photographer Max Kleinen.) by David Benjamin “Outside of a dog,……
Read MoreThe light from the tomb in the Temple of Doom
by David Benjamin “What can I add that has not already been said? A person that thinks those who defend their country in uniform, or are shot down or seriously wounded in combat, or spend years being tortured as POWs are all ‘suckers’ because ‘there is nothing in it for them.’ A person that did…
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