Soho: The Afterlife

Written by Douglas Davis on May 15, 2001. Posted in Breaking News, Posts

Soho: The AfterlifeSoho is a place where the heroic heady talk of self-creation is to be performed.–Steven Koch, "Reflections on Soho," SOHO: Downtown Manhattan (catalog, Akademie der Kunste, Berlin, 1976) My principle of collectivism–running the cooperatives not necessarily in a legalistically correct way, but in a way to benefit the collective good.–George Maciunas, The Fluxhouse
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Joking Matters

Written by Douglas Davis on September 5, 2000. Posted in Breaking News, Posts

Last Friday, Google.com listed 16,100 Gore jokes, compared to 11,700 for W; and among the veeps, Lieberman took Cheney 461 to 274. If you believe the Sigmund Thesis, the volatile up-down quality of our political mood is best tracked this way. Just before the Democratic convention, for example, W began to challenge Gore in both
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Norman Podhoretz’s My Love Affair with America

Written by Douglas Davis on August 8, 2000. Posted in Books, Posts

My Love Affair with America by Norman Podhoretz (The Free Press, 248 pages, $25) Not that long ago my teenage daughter inadvertently flagged this hot issue. Five times she has organized her classmates to leave school and demonstrate against police brutality at One Police Plaza. "Dad," she said one day, "why don’t I ever see
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Hey, Stupid, It’s the Culture!

Written by Douglas Davis on June 20, 2000. Posted in Breaking News, Posts

Young George W. Bush and his allies have figured this out far ahead of the hip liberals, the Greens, the anarchists, maybe you and (almost) me. Have you noticed how we’re being deluged with feature stories building the case–again–for W’s coronation? All this summer you’ll probably see a variant of the king-in-waiting story at least
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2001: An Anti-Futurist Manifesto

Written by Douglas Davis on February 22, 2000. Posted in Breaking News, Posts

In the first months of the new millennium, a large blimp will rise silently from a private airstrip in southern England, drift upward for several miles, then begin beaming high-speed Internet signals to a laboratory below. Big as it is, the blimp will only be the small, initial test model for the fleet of 250
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Un-Stiffing the Mystiques

Written by Douglas Davis on December 21, 1999. Posted in Books, Posts

For a few hours I am scared, on cue. Just the day before I’d been on the phone with Susan Faludi, whose latest book sets out to convince me the old ideas of virility and maleness are in danger. She called it Stiffed, as in failed, not victorious (William Morrow & Company, 662 pages, $27.50).
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Why Did Augustine Really Hate Sex?

Written by Douglas Davis on October 19, 1999. Posted in Books, Posts

Behold the "vital fire" [male erection] which does not obey the soul’s decision, but, for the most part, rises up against the soul’s desire in disorderly and ugly movements…. –St. Augustine, "Contra Julianum," c. 429 AD We must conclude that a husband is meant to rule over his wife as the spirit rules the flesh.
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Phallus Rising

Written by Douglas Davis on September 1, 1999. Posted in Breaking News, Posts

Phallus Rising Or, The Prisoner of Joy The phallus, we must always keep in mind, is an idea, not a body part. –Susan Bordo, The Male Body: A New Look at Men in Public and in Private (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 358 pages, $25). The contemporary system of self-control blends with its multitude of goods
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