maxwell writes about turning into old people

  Our long national nightmare is- oh for fuck's sake you've got to be kidding me.     Part of Jason's coming-of-age narrative in Black Swan Green is a change in how he views the world. I guess that's a no-brainer. A more mature person's obviously gonna have a more consistent and changed worldview. Of course, that applies to how he views bullies, friends, and et cetera. But that's not the focus of this blog. Because that's no fun to write about. Instead, I'm going to insult the government.  And track Jason's coming-of-age by talking about Margaret Thatcher and Romani people. Really Jason, you're going to read the Daily Mail ? Starting with the Falklands War in "Rocks" Margaret Thatcher frazzled  this twerpy prat in a bow tie on BBC1 this evening. We've got zero            sympathy for the [derogatory term for Argentinian] bastards. Mrs. Thatcher said something like, "The fathers and mothers of our  country did not elect me the p

     This shady practice which I am engaging in sounds familiar. So familiar, that I can name at least one character from a book which I have read who has also engaged in this practice: Bruce Bechdel. Now, calling Bruce's entire housing restoration and his love of embellished decorations a "cover-up" sounds like quite a stretch. And to my knowledge, there's no concrete evidence that this was the intent when Bruce went on his journey of restoring his home to its former glory. But nevertheless, we can see how Bruce's efforts at restoration in effect create a veil, a second identity, which he can use to hide the parts of himself which he does not want to world to see.  Alas, for all the decoration one can do to obscure misdeeds to the wider world... The depth of Bruce's facades still hold no candle to the investigation skills of the IRS  (image neatly and faithfully copied from page 60)  Lies! Slander! Libel! Falsehoods! Trickery!      Alison repeatedly disparage

"'We'll take up where we left off, Esther' ... 'We'll act as if all this were a bad dream.' A bad dream." (Plath 237) Ronald Reagan would be elected approximately 6 years after this speech. Is it a bad dream? Everything? Can all 6 months of Esther's harrowing journey be as fleeting, as ethereal, as...intangible...as a dream?  In the future of Esther's life, how will she see the events of The Bell Jar ? What will it mean to her? How will it tangibly affect her? What happens to the past? --- Is it starting where you left off?      Esther speaks to this idea of "starting, after a six months' lapse, where I had so vehemently left off" (Plath 236), and we know that her mother definitely wants Esther to do that, forgetting about the past and continuing with your life. Pretend that the past six months never happened, and move on down the path which you were originally on.       Yet, we know that can never really happen, as much as some m

You are not immune to phonyism. A warning from Golden Garfield.  Arise all ye honorable fellows! A diabolical foe has stricken our societal core, like a tumor afflicting and draining the very essence of our civilization! This perfidious enemy, this adversary to all things good, free, and American, goes by the name of PHONYISM. As we speak, the battles in the concrete fields of New York and the boarding schools of Pennsylvania have already begun! Out of this struggle, rises a paragon of anti-phonyism. Our bulwark is of course, the most cantankerous, the supremely apathetic, and the uncompromisingly neurotic HOLDEN CAULFIELD! May the anti-phony saints bless this paragon to lead our holy campaign against the prostitutes, phonies, and shams! --- Phonyism...spreading blatant lies...what's the difference? After all, they both have connotations of things not being the way they seem, and dishonesty. And as we know, the famous narrator of The Catcher in the Rye and janitor in Pencey prep, R