Juneteenth.

I recall that at the time I was one of the many unimpressed by the selection of Elfriede Jelinek for the 2004 Nobel Prize in Literature. Given the recent crime that came to light in Austria, wherein a father kept his daughter imprisoned in a cellar for 24 years and had seven children by her, I am coming to the uncomfortable conclusion that my opinion may have been influenced by a) internalization of patriarchal norms; b) literary parochialism; c) lack of knowledge of Austria; d) false ideals about the Nobel. In any case, Jelinek was right, and she's been right all along. (Side comment: Good on the Nobel committee for picking up on this.) Nicholas Spice, writing in the London Review of Books, provides a forceful reappraisal of her works, while Ritchie Robertson in the TLS situates the crime within Austrian literary tradition (taking some excellent shots at Freud along the way; psychoanalysis was founded on the wrong principles!) and finds a disturbing trend within it. So, yes, you know, Austria. I'd be lying if I said I didn't like it quite a lot when I was there, and damn fine coffee, too. But the country's co-opting classical music for its identity agenda and whitewashing its violent (Nazi) past are not exactly things which should be overlooked, though of course, as always, engagement is the way, and I would like to go back to Austria.  (P.S. Spike! You have to get great at German so you can read Jelinek's novel Gier in the original!)

In the meantime, this post from the New Yorker's book blog about Ayn Rand's thoughts on a woman President prove once again than Rand was, in the deepest, most gender-neutral sense of the term, a dumbass. Or, if you prefer, a selfish, self-aggrandizing moron. I really do hate objectivism, and Rand herself doesn't rate very highly in my book either. This is all to say that I am happy to support Barack Obama, despite being a former fervent Hillary supporter, and you should be too. I was reading about Michelle Obama's style in the Sunday Styles section and contemplating the fact that she should soon be First Lady. I suppose in the meantime that will be enough of a revolution to settle for. Although I hate settling. And women are pressured to do it all the time (I'm thinking here of Bananas, Beaches and Bases and its account of how women's rights always take a backseat to nationalist concerns, and how women's rights are often painted as "foreign" and "inauthentic" in developing countries, particularly historically. J. Scott Masker be praised for making us read that book).

We saw the article about the thing in Akihabara. Yet more reason never to go back their again, not that I needed another. Althogh the unfortnate truth is that, while Japan is truly very safe, it really could happen anywhere.