Clarissa's Blog

Dude is not making the point he thinks he’s making:

pic.twitter.com/7TXkI0IaCA

— Robert Reich (@RBReich) August 1, 2024

I can’t even imagine a bureaucracy this size. It needs to be, if not eliminated, then “rightsized” to about 10% of what it currently is.

Among other things, Emiko Jean’s Mika in Real Life is an immigrant novel. This is as formulaic a genre as it can possibly get. In it, immigrant parents always want their children to be successful and marry somebody from the same immigrant community. The children always see this as a terrible imposition and resist because they want to be free and American, which for some undefined reason always translates into being a lazy layabout who is mega unsuccessful in one’s personal life. One would think America was made so attractive for immigrants by the efforts of infantilized and unattached pothead couch surfers.

Ethnicity and culture are talked up a storm in these books with characters feeling invariably aggrieved that theirs are somehow mysteriously disrespected in America. What culture means to them is limited to a few words in their parents’ language and a few consumer choices. “My adoptive parents never even took me to an ethnic grocery store!” complains a US-born daughter of a Japanese woman and a white man who was adopted by a white couple at birth. The readers are invited to assume that she would have had a mystic experience of heightened ancestry woo-woos in the presence of packaged “ethnic” foods. Since the girl is half-white, one gathers she has white ethnic raptures every time she finds herself in Walmart but that fascinating topic is never explored in the novel.

Jean’s protagonist Mika Suzuki is a faithful rendering of this formula. She feels persecuted by the unquenched racism of white men, yet reacts with horror to her mother’s efforts to introduce her to Japanese dating prospects. At the same time, Mika throws herself at every white dude in existence, and it’s clear that her daughter will take the same path.

Mika’s Japanese parents are portrayed as emotionally stunted, and this is typical of the genre. Overall, immigrant novels do no favors for immigrants, making them look whiny, tedious, and unable to contribute anything beyond a long list of vague grievances.

Men beating up women for the enjoyment of the public is now an Olympic sport.

Italian athlete Angela Carini had to abandon the boxing ring after 46 seconds of being pummeled by a male boxer.

He didn’t say anything about her, just hit her in the face with all the physical advantage a man has over a woman. We don’t care as much about actions as we do about words, so this will not cause nearly as much outrage as when somebody said something vaguely unpleasant.

We are on track to watching a man kill a woman during a sporting event, and we’ll smile and call him “she” because it’s all about what one says, not what one is or does.

Mika is 35, single, broke, jobless, and quite comically woke. She can’t keep a job or a boyfriend and relies on her parents to pay the rent every time she’s fired from yet another badly paid gig. She’s stuck in eternal adolescence where having a good time means going to a costume party at a gay bar where “dudes dance in cages” and she can drink herself into a stupor.

Neither Mika nor the author who created her realize that Mika’s misery is the result of her worldview. She fails at building a life for herself because she’s convinced that she deserves a lifestyle of endless travel, undefined career achievements, rich boyfriends who’ll accept that “she’s just not ready yet” for marriage at the age of 35, and complete freedom from any obligation. Things don’t work like that, and spending your life in incessant prattle about “dead white men” and a lack of “inclusivity” that are somehow to blame for your failure to launch leads to penury and sadness.

There is one saving grace in Mika’s life. When she was 19, she gave birth to a baby girl whom she gave up for adoption. Mika loves the daughter she hasn’t seen in 16 years with luminous intensity. Neither the fact that the girl is a child of rape nor their lifelong separation diminish Mika’s conviction that Penny, her daughter, is what gives her life meaning. When Penny suddenly contacts Mika, this prompts the woman to realize how little she has to offer to a teenager. Penny has a lot to offer to the mother who abandoned her, however. As Mika finally allows herself to be a parent, she begins to figure out what matters and setting her life at least somewhat right. And since she finally starts to inscribe herself into the natural order, all sorts of unexpected gifts come her way.

Emiko Jean is not a great writer. Her grammar is deplorable, her writing style pre-adolescent, and her penchant for left-wing sloganeering tedious. But when she writes about a mother’s love for her child, there are glimmers of talent in her. She could develop into a good writer if she let her instinct, instead of her immature political leanings, guide her. One could argue, of course, that Jean is slathering on the slogans to hide the deeply pro-life message of her novel. I don’t believe that is the case but I wouldn’t place large bets against this possibility.

This is an airport read, so there’s a somewhat tortured sex scene and an implausible happy ending. But there are moments of beauty in the novel, such as when Mika tells her daughter, “My body had a purpose and it was you”, and that makes Mika in Real Life not a waste of time.

My Uber driver is “known for great conversation”, and why, God, why, and hasn’t this injury that prevents me from driving been punishment enough already?

The only great conversation with a stranger is the one that never took place. I want my grumpy, solitary life back.

A bunch of Q&As came in, and I want to use a single post for them because 2 of the 3 won’t have long answers.

Dude, you are sick. No, rape is never “legitimate.” And you shouldn’t need me to tell you this. I don’t know who this Saul dude is but if he’s telling you rape is OK, then maybe you should stop following him. Also, hullabaloo? Are you all right? Because nothing in this question is remotely normal.

Never heard of it, sorry. Does anybody else have an insight?

I love my long-term readers, also known as the most patient, tolerant, and open-minded people in existence. How you put up with my… erm, exuberance for this long is an object of admiration.

It’s true that I have departed from the terminology of autism because it has not led to any interesting insights in years. I’m still the same person, though, with the same neurological complexities as ever. There’s definitely a tension between this neurological state and being a parent. For one, you can’t spaz out. You’ll get interrupted constantly, and it feels like being hit on the head every time it happens. It’s physically painful.

Another thing is that one has to dial down the need to keep saying, “Please explain exactly what you are feeling and why?” The frustration of not being able to rationalize the emotions of a two-year-old is strong. On the positive side, I now have a child who has an awareness of her emotional states and the capacity to analyze them verbally that many adults would wish to have.

One area where I’ve failed completely is to relate to other moms. I tried but it’s hopeless. They are excellent moms and great human beings. I’m not blaming anyone here. The problem is entirely on my side. Every time I tried to hang out, I’ve felt as out of place as a giraffe in the Arctic. It’s torture, people, torture. We are a small town, and all the other moms in our school are from around here. Which is great for them but I have no idea what they are on about most of the time, and whenever I say something about myself, people are weirded out. I know I’m weird but having it constantly confirmed is not something I can force myself to seek.

Being mad that VP Harris is forgoing bad policy positions in favor of better policy position that are more proximate to their own is such a classic anti-anti vibe.

— Sarah Longwell (@SarahLongwell25) July 31, 2024

Here’s the thing. I believe in changing one’s mind. God knows, I’ve changed mine pretty dramatically and will continue to do so. I do not, however, trust that Harris’s pivot is sincere. It looks very much like an electoral strategy that will be discarded once the goal of getting elected is achieved.

A real change of mind is slow and painful. It’s triggered by something other than a need to get elected. People who can pivot on the drip of a hat when a presidential nomination looms are hardly sincere. They’ll say anything to get elected and then forget all about their promises the moment you vote for them.

“Yes, but Trump lies, too!” He does, and that’s why I’m not voting for him, thank you.

Political partisanship is a mental defect. If you can’t see your candidate or party in a clear-eyed way, you’ll be had over and over again.

I’ve decided, folks. I’m going to do my own literary translation of Vynnychenko’s Song of Israel and then publish it. I’ll bring both sides of my ancestry together in this project. The National Library of Israel says they can photocopy the original for me and it will cost all of $14.

The only existing translation was never published and it’s very word-for-word and plagued with mistakes. Vynnychenko’s biggest thing is the beauty of the language, and it deserves to be translated well. Of course, readers of this blog will not have to wait for publication. I’ll send the translation to everybody who is interested.

“Weird” was always a high compliment on the left. “Keep Portland weird” isn’t a reference to Portland being conservative, and everybody knows that. Bumper stickers of “Keep XYZ weird” usually appear on vehicles with Bernie stickers, hippie signage, and “be kind to cats.” Pink hair, piercings, unusual lifestyles, drag queens – this was all a hallmark of the left.

Three days into the Kamala campaign, though, the weird has become bad and quirkiness is ridiculed. Instead, the campaign features corporate drones on Zoom calls who chirp motivational slogans at thousands of tiny squares – pun intended.

Between having sex with furniture and sitting on a Zoom call, would anybody with an ounce of common sense choose Zoom? It’s unexpected that between being weird and going corporate the grandchildren of Woodstock chose corporate.

Why not, though? Democrats became the party of Wall Street and austerity, so why not the party of “bash the weirdo”?

Natalia is the daughter of a Russian aristocrat in the early years of the twentieth century. Aaron is the son of a Jewish tailor. In the Russian Empire, Jews lived in the Pale of Settlement and experienced every abuse and degradation one can imagine. The animosity towards Jews was stoked by the imperial authorities, which led to horrific pogroms in 1905. People like Natalia and Aaron belonged not only to different but to actively warring tribes.

But in Vynnychenko’s play The Song of Israel, they meet and fall in love. Their families oppose their union but the young couple stands strong in defense of its feelings. “All we want is to be persons. Human beings,” they say. “We don’t want to be Jews or Russians. We don’t want anything to do with religion, tradition, culture, or tribe. We are simply individuals.”

Finally, Aaron and Natalia manage to buckle their families’ will and get married. Of course, Aaron has to convert to Christianity first because it was still the Russian Empire, and only religious marriages counted. But they do get married, and have a cute little baby, and Aaron becomes a famous musician, and they are rich. Yay, right?

No, not yay. Blank-slatism was as stupid in 1922 when Vynnychenko wrote the play as it is today. Natalia’s and Aaron’s version of “imagine there’s no countries… and no religions, too” lasts them less than 2 years. They discover that they are not empty vessels for rootless, self-generating personhood. Religion, tradition, culture and tribe are inside them and always will be. Their plan to be “just people and not part of anything” becomes a source of tragedy not only for them and others.

Vynnychenko spent his life trying to bring about the “no countries and no religions” dream of socialism. But as an artist, he knew it was all bunkum. We are the continuation of the story of our family, tribe, and culture. And that’s a good thing.

Yes, there is an English translation of the play, and I’m holding in my hands what I believe is the only copy of it in existence. I want to figure out a way to scan, edit, and make it public. It needs major editing.