I try to be amused…
When troubles arise, better people have a line of poetry to soothe the moment. Primitive that I am, I default to: “I used to be disgusted, now I try to be amused.”
It’s the intro to “Red Shoes,” a long-forgotten Elvis Costello song about a bad break-up. He considers ending it all. But instead he tries, not altogether convincingly, to be amused.
Profound? No. Poetic? Helpful? Not really. But when it comes to public affairs and rank culture, it can help.
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Only SOMETHING like treason?
I thought I had settled on a good book title. Among other things, however, it also seemed to produce an apparently irresistible urge for people to ask, “why was it only something like treason.” World War II was well before…