John Hollander, who died in August 2013, published scores of books, including more than twenty collections of poetry and a superb book on poetic form entitled Rhyme’s Reason. He was an exemplary learned man—inexhaustibly inspiring, witty, charming, and dear. In the obituary in The New York Times, Margalit Fix quoted fellow poet J.D.McCLatchy (several of whose poems were posted on the Dish two weeks ago), “It is said of a man like John Hollander that when he dies it is like the burning of the library at Alexandria.”
Hollander was also a noted anthologist, and his volume War Poems, selected and arranged with great care for the Everyman’s Library Pocket Poets Series, is the source for the poems we’ll post to commemorate Memorial Day this year. In his introduction, he wrote, “War poetry may express sorrow, hope, despair, prophetic vision, moral and philosophical reflection; it may even trespass upon Cupid’s own domain of love.” We’ll begin with a battlefield poem written by Emily Dickinson when she was twenty nine, surrounded by families in Amherst losing sons to both armies of the Civil War.
Success is counted sweetest
By those who ne’er succeed.
To comprehend a nectar
Requires sorest need.
Not one of all the purple Host
Who took the Flag today
Can tell the definition
So clear of Victory
As he defeated—dying—
On whose forbidden ear
The distant strains of triumph
Burst agonized and clear!
The HBO adaptation of Larry Kramer’s “The Normal Heart,” an autobiographical tale of the onset of AIDS and the births of Act Up and GMHC, premieres this Monday. And Larry, visibly aged in the video seen above, was by all accounts as active on set with director Ryan Murphy as anywhere else. Patrick Healy looked into the making of the film (NYT):
Mr. Murphy said that he and Mr. Kramer, in the hospital, worked for months on the screenplay by email. They were determined, he said, to create a movie with “real immediacy” — visually graphic scenes that would pack a punch for New Yorkers who lived through the 1980s and that might motivate those continuing to fight for gay rights today. Harrowing monologues in the play, like the description of one character’s physical disintegration on a cross-country flight, have been opened up into fully rendered moments that show the agony of AIDS.
“I wrote the word ‘true’ on a notecard and put it on my computer,” Mr. Murphy said. “Larry was always trying to be on the right side of the angels, but he can be so abrasive, and he was so hurt by how he was treated by his friends and enemies in the ’80s. I wanted the movie to be true to all sides of him.”
After finding fault in so much, Mr. Kramer found little with the movie, and none with its depiction of his life’s work. “It’s about speaking up, being a buffalo if you have to, being mean if you have to,” Mr. Kramer said. “You do not get more with honey than with vinegar.”
Larry’s comments on Truvada in that interview, I’m sure, will get addressed by Andrew next week. But according to Richard Cohen, the original’s vinegar is still there:
The HBO movie is rough on Reagan and Koch.
They earned it. Reagan had gay friends and associates and was in no way a bigot. But he was clearly afraid of alienating his conservative base. The Moral Majority’s Jerry Falwell characteristically said later that “AIDS is the wrath of a just God against homosexuals.” Reagan did not even mention the word AIDS until the disease was impossible to ignore and his friend Rock Hudson had died from it.
As for Koch, mayor of a city hugely impacted by the epidemic, the movie flat-out declares him to have been a closeted homosexual — afraid to acknowledge the reality of AIDS lest his own secret be revealed. Koch always put his private life off-limits. He was entitled to this — but not at the price of ignoring a public health menace that needed immediate attention. The tendency then and somewhat still today was to blame gay men for their plight. The proposed remedy was to deprive them of their sex life — a remedy some felt was worse than the disease.
Emily Nussbaum reflects on the importance of the movie:
There are grittier routes to the history of this period, including excellent documentaries such as “gay Sex in the 70s” and “How to Survive a Plague.” There are more expansive books, like Randy Shilts’s “And the Band Played On,” and more richly philosophical plays, like “Angels in America.” Yet there’s something implacable and pure about “The Normal Heart,” not despite but because of its message-in-a-bottle specificity. Not for nothing was a 1994 book by Kramer titled “Reports from the Holocaust”; as a gay Jew, he saw one identity as a metaphor for the other, with a built-in warning system. When people began dying, the choice was clear: you could be the Warsaw resistance or you could be the American Jewish Congress, beggars who stayed behind the scenes, lobbying for help that never came. Even in 1985, Kramer knew the effect of this obsession on others. “All analogies to the Holocaust are tired, overworked, boring, probably insulting, possibly true, and a major turnoff,” Felix says. “Are they?” Ned replies.
In 2014, AIDS and gay identity are no longer tied together in a three-legged race. The idea of making real change through the system is no pipe dream, either: each day, more Bens switch sides, now that gay rights has become a safe, default liberal perspective. But Murphy’s adaptation is a useful time machine. It’s a corrective to complacency, a reminder of a period when rage itself was a necessary tonic, a caustic application that could burn through the misery of shame and isolation. What’s the use of an alarm, after all, if it’s not loud enough to wake people up?
I remember sitting with a copy of And The Band Played On in high school, pairing Larry’s characters with their real-life counterparts. That interest must have, on some level, been triggered by growing up with my own stories of the Jewish Holocaust: To borrow Larry’s analogy, it made sense to remember this one, too.
And yet, a time machine may just be needed. The other day I asked a friend, a gay man in his mid-20s, whether he would watch the film version of the play with me. “Sure,” he replied. “What’s that about?” One of the film’s stars, Matthew Bomer, is just a decade older. It’s telling that his experience with the story is so different:
There’s a headline that keeps circulating from a quote that you gave, where you said, “Larry Kramer probably saved my life.”
Yeah. I’m sure he did. At the time I first read it, my first sexual relationships were with women. But even then he put the fear of God in me! (Laughs) He educated me in a lot of ways. It was a very useful fear. But it was also the education to be smart and be safe, and that carried over into my later relationships and also when I started to have relationships with men.
But I think he saved me on a more profound than practical level. Even at 14 when I still didn’t know who I was when I read this piece—I was still figuring out who my most authentic self was—to have this voice that was such a firebrand and so honest and so authentic, to know that that reality was out there, even though it was nowhere near my immediate experience in suburban Texas, to know that somewhere it was out there gave me a sense of hope. And I think I knew on some level that a part of me that hadn’t been acknowledged yet was going to be OK.
Read Andrew’s look back at Act Up here, and Larry’s response here.
The Weapon of Choice project portrays visual manifestations of verbal abuse:
Called Weapon of Choice — to represent the abuser’s choice to use these words to harm — this project was a collaboration between photographer Johnson, make-up artists and victims of both verbal and physical abuse. The images imply the verbal abuse is inextricably tied to physical abuse, because that is what Johnson found to be the case with many of his subjects.
“While listening to the stories from participants who had suffered abuse, we discovered how closely physical abuse followed verbal abuse,” he writes. “Where we found evidence of one, we found evidence of the other. When the abuser chose to inflict harm, verbal abuse was just one of the weapons in the arsenal.”
Sabra, the company you may know but not necessarily love for their prepackaged hummus, is asking the government to create a standard definition of their signature product:
The Food and Drug Administration already does this with some other products like cream cheese (which must be 33 percent milk fat for manufacturers to market it as cream cheese). Sabra argues the hummus market has run amok; its time for Uncle Sam to step in. “Some products labeled as ‘hummus’ are made entirely from legumes other than chickpeas,” Sabra wrote in its filing with the Food and Drug Administration. “Because these products substitute other legumes, the marketing of these products as “hummus” undermines honesty and fair dealing.”
As a traditional Middle Eastern dip, hummus has two crucial ingredients: chickpeas and tahini (the latter being a paste made from ground sesame seeds). Sabra has surveyed the market and, in documents submitted to the FDA, finds these two ingredients decidedly lacking in many purported hummus products today. … “The marketing of a ‘hummus’ product made from legumes other than chickpeas is akin to the marketing of guacamole made with fruit other than avocados,” Sabra argues.
Strictly on the merits, they are correct here—the word “hummus” actually means chickpeas—though I find some irony in a company founded by Israelis demanding that the American government standardize the definition of an Arabic word. Of course, this move has nothing to do with the merits and everything to do with regulating competitors out of existence. Tim Cavanaugh sees right through it:
If Sabra wants to sell a chipotle hummus, more power to them. Consumers have spent millions of dollars on the company’s dry, bland, plastic-tasting product, and nobody was forcing them. But this FDA petition is about hobbling rivals, not helping restore the consumer’s “confidence in the food supply.” Only the excellent Tablet magazine even hints at the possibility that Sabra, which has about 60 percent of this rapidly growing market, might be looking to lock out competitors.
The phenomenon is called “regulatory capture,” and the reason you almost never hear about it is because the public and the media have fully internalized the language of good government. When big companies exert political influence, they are not trying to end regulation of their industries: They’re trying to create it so that competitors have a harder time completing. Notice how no company ever agitates for stronger regulations before it becomes the dominant player.
Ali Wyne reviews Robert Kaplan’s new book, Asia’s Cauldron, which explains the South China Sea’s centrality to Pacific politics:
He emphasizes three points. First, Chinese primacy in the South China Sea “would go a long way toward making China more than merely the first among equals of Eastern Hemispheric powers.” Second, the principal risk for China’s smaller neighbors is not invasion, but “Finlandization.” The growing gravitational pull of China’s economy doubles as a carrot—your economy will continue to flourish if you keep yourself open to our exports and investments—and a stick—you will endanger an increasingly important component of your economy if you take actions that undermine our national interests. Behind that dual-use instrument is an increasingly capable People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Given its aspiration of achieving a peaceful rise, China would prefer that its smaller neighbors accommodate themselves to its perspectives on the territorial disputes that are roiling the region (essentially, Kaplan explains, “give in without violence”). Third, the US “must be prepared to allow, in some measure, for a rising Chinese navy to assume its rightful position, as the representative of the region’s largest indigenous power.”
Posner analyzes China’s escalating disputes with Vietnam and the Philippines over maritime borders and islands in the sea:
One question that arises is why China and its neighbors are suddenly having so many conflicts that are violent or near-violent. The conflicting territorial claims have existed for decades but violence has been sporadic until recently (aside from the China-Vietnam War).
M. Taylor Fravel argues that China seeks to “consolidate” its claims by keeping other countries out of disputed areas. That would explain why China reacts aggressively–by sending in ships and planes–typically after the neighbors pass some law or take other actions that make clear that they consider their claims valid. But why are those countries provoking China in this way, and why now?
As Fravel suggests, China’s strategy is one of delay while claiming that the disputes are unresolved. The neighbors, by contrast, claim that there is no dispute and their claims are valid. China’s strategy thus seems more passive. And the reason is surely that time is on China’s side. China has grown more rapidly than all of its neighbors and looks likely to continue to do so for the near future, at least. As it becomes more dominant–both economically and militarily–its neighbors will be in a worse position to counter its claims in their shared waters.
Hugh White suspects that Beijing’s recent aggressiveness is also meant to limit American influence:
By using direct armed pressure in these disputes, China makes its neighbours more eager for US military support, and at the same time makes America less willing to give it, because of the clear risk of a direct US-China clash. In other words, by confronting America’s friends with force, China confronts America with the choice between deserting its friends and fighting China. Beijing is betting that, faced with this choice, America will back off and leave its allies and friends unsupported. This will weaken America’s alliances and partnerships, undermine US power in Asia, and enhance China’s power.
This view of China’s motives explains its recent conduct.
It’s that time of year again. Dish Publishing LLC is seeking an all-purpose intern to handle both administrative tasks and contribute to the editorial process. The admin side of the job will include: dealing with press inquiries and permissions, helping with support emails, managing the staff calendar, taking notes during meetings, making travel arrangements, and generally assisting the executive editors and me with sundry tasks. Strong organizational skills and attention to detail are musts. You need to be self-starting and pro-active in getting shit done.
The editorial side of the job will consist of ransacking the web for smart and entertaining nuggets, maintaining our social media presence, working on larger research projects, and helping the team guest-blog when yours truly takes a vacation. We prefer individuals who can challenge me and my assumptions, find stuff online we might have missed, and shape the Dish with his or her own personal passions. Reporting experience is also a big plus as we try to deepen our coverage. Someone with a background in web entrepreneurialism could catch our eye too.
The full-time internship pays $10 an hour, includes health insurance, and lasts for six months. The position is based in New York City. Since the Dish doesn’t have an office, most of the work will be done from home, but the staff meets regularly for lunch and coffee meetings and social gatherings. I want to emphasize that this is an intense job for the intensely motivated, and one that can get a little isolating at times. But it’s a pretty unbeatable chance to learn what independent online journalism can be as an integral part of a close-knit team. We’ve decided to pare down to one intern to keep our lean budget under control, which means the one individual really does have to be special. You have to already know what we do here and care deeply about the Dish. And a sense of humor is a real asset.
We are hoping to hire very soon, so don’t delay if you’re interested. The cutoff for applications is next Friday, May 30, at midnight. The start date is July 7, but we are flexible. To apply, please e-mail your resumé and a (max 500-word) cover letter to apply@andrewsullivan.com.
Sarah Cashmore considers the perils of mourning via social media:
[A] colleague of mine at University of Toronto recently completed a study where she investigated whether online grieving has implications for the bereaved or the memory of the loved one. They found that certain features of Facebook’s platform can actually create an environment of competition among mourners. This leads to the concern that users could inadvertently negatively affect the memory of their loved one, which I think is very important. …
I think the issue of using social media to bereave a friend points to a problem that goes for any cultural institution: as soon as you institutionalize a way of doing something, you open a possibility for responses to become artificial very quickly. For this reason, I don’t think there should be one way of bereaving a friend online. I think the lesson to be learned here is that the Internet needs to be open, and that we need to stay free to create our own spaces and new ways of communicating, on our own terms.
Tamara Kneese looks into one novel way people are managing their legacies online:
Today, multiple companies provide QR codes that attach to physical headstones and link family members and friends, but also random graveyard visitors, to memorial websites or other information about the deceased. Children can now learn all about the grandfather they never met while visiting his gravesite. In fifty or even one hundred years, so the idea goes, people will be able to scan QR codes with their devices and learn more about the people buried in a cemetery.
(Photo: The grave marker of Michael S. Hart, “inventor of the e-book, founder of Project Gutenberg, very dear friend, still digital from beyond.” By Flickr user Benjamin sTone)
I was rejected by the FBI because of pot! I applied to be a special agent shortly after 9/11. I had two major complaints about the process.
First, I had just finished two years of service in Morocco with the Peace Corps, and I thought I could leverage my language ability in Arabic. However, the only Arabic that they could test 0r give credit for was “FousHa”, or the educated version of Arabic that would be nearly unintelligible to uneducated Arabic speakers. No credit was available to speakers of dialects.
Second, they said I would have to make several certifications, including (if memory serves), “I have not used marijuana more than three times in the last five years,” and “I have not used marijuana more than 10 times in my life.” Since most of my marijuana experience was from a few trips to Amsterdam, I asked if it was relevant that I never smoked marijuana in violation of US law, or if I had never done so in violation of any law (I would have had to look a bit more carefully at Dutch law before certifying to that last one). Answer: Nope – look for another job.
I think the FBI recruiter said the marijuana policies were even more strict before Bill Clinton’s administration – the logic, perhaps, being that President Clinton wouldn’t want policies that would have excluded him. I left thinking, with all due respect to the FBI, that they didn’t have a clue of what they were recruiting for. The Arabic they were testing for would be useless to anyone trying to understand spoken Arabic in any country, and they were excluding otherwise qualified candidates on the basis of insignificant and lawful recreational pot use. So, no surprise here that they’re having trouble hiring hackers.
The Dish 
