Crunch-a-tize the Constitution!

Groovy find of the morning via ectoplasmosis...

YET ANOTHER UPDATE!

A related rss find of the day:

...Nothing wrong with that you might think. At least here in Britain. But in the Bible belt that is South Carolina, writing, and reading, about normal life, which in many people's eyes includes sex, was understood to be "pornographic". Her friendship with Grealy was far too intense, so intense that they had to be lesbians, didn't they? Despite being untrue, this assumption was more than enough cause for censure for some of the open-minded young women at Clemson, since, obviously, it was "not normal".

Patchett gave her talk, along with a bodyguard to protect her from angry parents and righteous 18-year-old boys - asking how often she'd cheated on her husband - and defended the students' right to read anything and not to be protected from supposedly "corrupting" texts. For, as she pointed out, if you start with her book, where do you stop? She mentioned, among others, Anna Karenina (adultery and suicide), The Great Gatsby (adultery, alcoholism, murder) and One Hundred Years of Solitude (incest). As I read the piece, I realised (having once taught a course entitled From Romeo and Juliet to Sleepless in Seattle, about the representation of love) that most of the books I had once studied, and taught, would be off-limits to the protesters at Clemson. Going to my bookshelves, I racked my brains about what I had studied as a teenager. I started Shakespeare with Othello (all that tupping), studied The Outsider in French (murder and nonchalance, which is probably just as much of a sin to some) and learnt all I needed to know about Freud and families by reading Sons and Lovers (where do I start?!). In fact the more I looked, the more I realised that in a world that considered Patchett's book as offering a "deviant sexual agenda", most of my secondary school and undergraduate syllabus would have to be banned. As would most of the books taught in the US...

- When Ann Patchett became unrequired reading

UPDATE: The NSFW Shining Twins post may have freaked some people out a bit, so I've decided to keep anything beyond PG-13 over at Zillow Book (linky is NSFW BTW) and keep this blog wholesome all-American organic sweetness.

Also, for those who have sent Yahoo! messages I seemingly haven't responded to, Yahoo! has been eating my responses again.

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