Chad Eagleton's Blog, page 29

The White Moderate

Unfortunately, the white moderate is still the problem.

“First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens Councillor or the Ku Klux Klanner but the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which...

Not Every Blank is X

It's no coincidence that the truths that make us feel the most uncomfortable are the ones so many of us feel the need to try to soften or outright deflect with phrases like, "Not every blank is X." You see, we don’t like to deal in truth as humans. The truth is messy and uncomfortable and scary, and it often means accepting that our march through life takes place contrary to our wishes and fantasies. We tend to spend a lot of our lives wanting and acting like something or someone is a particu...

Rotten Fruit at The Fall Creek Review

I have a lengthy essay up at The Fall Creek Review. "Rotten Fruit" reexamines Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange...but I also talk about Stanley Kubrick, Shane Stevens, the gang novel, juvenile delinquency, and class warfare. If you have a minute, hope you’ll check it out.

ROTTEN FRUIT

Shane Stevens At Criminal Element

I’m at Criminal Element today discussing (surprise, surprise) Shane Stevens’s By Reason of Insanity. If you have a minute, click-thru and share your thoughts.

Tell Them Robin Sent You

I nearly wrote this very lengthy post, an essay really, about what Robin Williams meant to me and the impact he had on my life.

I talked about how when I was a child and sitting home alone all day while my parents were at work, my two best friends were my dog and Mork (thanks to back to back episodes shown in syndication.)

Nanu nanu.

You cannot begin to fathom the impact of Dead Poets Society on my life, how many different formats I’ve owned that film, or how many times I’ve seen it. It lead me...

A Dirty World Full of Dirty People

I’m a longtime John D. MacDonald fan, honestly still in his awe of the quality of his prodigious output. Years ago, coming out of a lengthy Travis McGee bender, I read The Red Hot Typewriter: The Life and Times of John D. MacDonald by Hugh Merrill.

Starting at the bottom of page 71, Merrill reprints a funny spoof of Mickey Spillane that JDM sent Dick Carroll, his editor at Gold Medal, following their publication of The Brass Cupcake:

"It was one of those afternoons when the greasy sunshine floo...

That Kind of Disappointment

I remember vividly when I was in elementary school going to music class. Twice a week or so, we’d gather around Mrs. Perry’s piano to be instructed on the basics of music, sing songs like "America the Beautiful" and "Oh! Susanna," or learn to play the recorder.
I can still fumble through a yowling-cat-in-heat version of "Hot Crossed Buns."
But I really really liked going to music class when I was a kid. My brother Nathan was killed in a car accident when I was in kindergarten. I also have a cle...

Your Christmas In July: Tomorrow Is Always Better

The biggest liar you know is your memory.

That thought got me thinking about nostalgia today which, in turn, reminded me of a particular quote from Jean Shepherd in reference to his work in general and A Christmas Story in particular:

“‘I think nostalgia is one of the great sicknesses of America,’ Shepherd declared. ‘What my work says is: If you think it’s bad now, you should have seen it then. You’ll notice that nothing works out for the kid. He gets hit with the gun, the furnace blows up, the...

Don't Make Fun of Him, Be Appalled

So many things annoy the hell out of me about Gov. Perry and his bullshit photo ops with machine guns at the border.

First, let's be honest, the Border Crisis he keeps talking about is in reference to children. He’s got the National Guard staked out at the border to stop children from crossing. Yes, I know he’s given some bullshit about how all these resources being diverted to dealing with the children are allowing some Invasion U.S.A. style influx of criminal aliens, but it’s just that--bul...

Pretty Deadly

Pretty Deadly is a creator-owned comic series from Kelly Sue DeConnick and Emma Rios.
And it’s amazing.
Fucking seriously. I’m not going to bother with some fancy write-up because I couldn’t do the comic justice. Pretty Deadly is a beautiful, violent, magical realism, manga spaghetti western. A mythic, glorious story with breath-catching prose and artwork I want tattooed on my bare arm.
Highly, highly recommended.