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Friend Of The Sun

Friend Of The Sun

Selected Poems

On The Virtues Of Distrust

An Interview With Andrei Codrescu

I wouldn’t call it [my world view] cynical, I would go beyond that. I would call it a total distrust of all the cherished notions we have of progress and history — and that’s a Balkan characteristic. We can’t believe that things are going to get better, because we know from our history that they never do.

The Hill

A New Astonishment

Notes On Television Watching

In the context of my pessimism, the problem with television is that it can serve as a propaganda device for the most cynical people in our society. Television is not just another neutral household object with a function disconnected from the affairs of our democracy. We may playfully call it the boob-tube, but that is only because the television industry promotes its own silly image, like a clown working the crowd while his partner picks your pocket.

Through The Eyes Of A Citizen Diplomat

Russians are better informed about Americans than Americans are about Russians. They study this country more systematically than we do theirs. There’s much more news on Soviet television about life in the U.S. than there is news in the U.S. about life in the Soviet Union. A lot of it comes through the propaganda filters of the Soviet bureaucracy, but that’s offset by the direct experience that Russians have when they meet Americans. They may be told in political cartoons that the American system is out to get them, but they make a distinction between the American government and the American people.

A Christmas Message

Questions Of Lifestyle

Voluntary simplicity has gained popularity since the late Sixties. Of course the idea is at least as old as the first religions, but nowadays voluntary simplicity is not practiced for overtly religious reasons. A cynic might say that a sense of reparation for damages done is driving some to practice a new spirit of self-denial. It touches most strongly, after all, the descendants of the adventurous, progressive pioneers from Western Europe who invaded this country a few centuries ago. In any case, exploitation is a touchstone by which many of us gauge our use of toilet paper, gasoline, rubber, washing machines, nylon, coffee, newspaper and on and on.

The Reader Behind The Writer

A great masterpiece might sit there beside some obscure and shoddy effort. Schools and universities told you what books were great and worthy and famous; a library sat there mutely and let you decide.