Speaking of the world of books…
The Weekly Standard’s Harry Siegel attended a rally of some of our most famous writers in New York:
‘America’s most celebrated writers are against . . . well, it’s hard to tell what exactly they are against. War, to some degree. President Bush, to a considerable extent. But, mostly, New York’s literati gathered at Cooper Union’s Great Hall last Thursday to announce that they were firmly, immovably against whatever anybody suggests being against. Republicans in the White House, American soldiers in the Persian Gulf, evangelical Christians in the heartland: There must be a wrongness somewhere deep at the root of the world to allow such things to exist, and whatever that wrongness is, the nation’s hippest writers are against it. They said so, over and over again, and over and over and over again–until the mind dissolved in the deeply felt emptiness of it all.’
They were all there–Salman, Wendy, everybody cool.
“The hideous Gary Indiana, decked out in a Red Army Fraction T-shirt and a bizarre scarf, read a poem ‘inspired by Mel G’ called ‘Why I Took It Up the Ass from Twelve Apostles’ (incredibly, the poem was in even worse taste than the title suggests), which was received with raucous laughter.”
Unfortunately, Siegel’s report is available only to Standard subscibers. But if you are one, be sure to read this dispatch from lit land.