‘Did we really massacre Indians, enslave Africans and poison rivers for this hellhole ?’

/did-we-really-massacre-indians-enslave-

  • ‘Did we really massacre Indians, enslave Africans and poison rivers for this hellhole ?’
    https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/did-we-really-massacre-indians-enslave-africans-and-poison-rivers-for-th
    https://www.irishtimes.com/image-creator/?id=1.3938286&origw=1440

    You mean we massacred the Indians, enslaved the Africans, cut down all the trees, poisoned all the rivers and imprisoned all the animals for THIS, this hellhole of bombast and hamburgers and opioid addictions and cardboard-box houses and pretend ideas?

    You mean we used up all the oxygen on 4th of July firecrackers and forcing kids to pledge allegiance to the flag every day, drank Coke till we choked, spat tobacky till we puked, fought cancer (but only for ill people with lots of money), nestled in Nestlé’s, slurped slurpees, burped burpees, handed on herpes, Tasered the wayward, tortured a million billion chickens (then fried and ate them), just so people can drive around and shoot each other, and create GoFundMe sites to pay the hospital bills?

    And yet Americans still blather on about how “great” the place is. They’ll salute it until the whole shebang’s awash in radioactive waste. They’ll be clinging to the roof, barbecuing steaks up there, talking god and cars and rape fantasies until there’s nothing left alive but a few DDT-resistant bugs.

    They seem weirdly oblivious to the past and future. Also, the present. Are they indifferent, intentionally unaware, or just too damn busy makin’ a buck? Consumed by consumerism, they wallow in their plasma screens, coveting the next dynamite Apple doodad or the ultimate in ugly trainers. They have ruined the Earth, without a qualm, all so that they can drink beer, make Sloppy Joes, watch football, listen to incessant rock music, wank away on their air guitars, object to the public display of bare female nipples, worry about whether the mailman shut the mailbox properly, and choose a new euphemism yearly for going to the toilet.

    eh bah voilà : #Lucy_Ellmann , qui n’a pas l’air d’une moitié de mitraillette.

    Men couldn’t oppress women any better if they really did get together in an underground bunker and plan the whole thing out. (Which I still half-suspect they do. How else can they all agree on high heels and what size breasts or arse are currently de rigueur?)

    Ducks, Newburyport : One extraordinary sentence 1,000 pages long

    https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/ducks-newburyport-one-extraordinary-sentence-1-000-pages-long-1.3925688?

    Lucy Ellmann has produced one of the outstanding books of the century so far

    Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann review – Anne Tyler meets Gertrude Stein
    https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/jul/04/ducks-newburyport-by-lucy-ellmann-review

    This 1,000-page monologue of an angst-ridden US homemaker fretting about love, loss and the state of the nation is an unabashed triumph