Literary and Ethical Thoughts from a Weekend of Solitude

The Rocky Horror Picture Show
This film (and the stage show) is a great work of art. It is about the celebration of the abandonment of social sexual boundaries, and it treats this theme in the only way it can be authentically handled: with camp. It’s for fun, for laughs, for outrageousness.

Poetry
While reading some poems by Ted Hughes and Robert Frost, I’m struck by the difficulty of really “thinking” about some poetry. Some of the English language’s best poetry defies the very concept of interpretation. Many of Hughes’ and Frost’s best poems are to be experience, to be felt, not to be analyzed.

Vegetarianism
I no longer feel comfortable eating mammals, and I don’t eat fish because of the mercury. I still eat lots and lots of chickens. However, in our society, for some reason it is acceptable for one to call oneself a vegetarian even while eating fish. It would seem completely inauthentic, however, for me to call myself a vegetarian while still eating chicken. Why is that? While I’m an existentialist who believes individuals may define themselves, if all people define the terms of ethics however they choose, we make a mockery of the very idea of ethical terminology. The current president may as well call himself a pacifist. This doesn’t mean that individuals must be limited by their ethical definitions, of course; a lot of Europe’s intellectual pacifists came to support WWII. But something still seems amiss in this terminology.


Looking at Flipper, Seeing Ourselves
By FRANS de WAAL

Ravished by Shakespeare
By WALTER KIRN

Why should Booker winners stay in print?
By John Crace

Anglicans, reform yourselves
By Theo Hobson

Not So Godless After All
Scott Jaschik