Anger

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

Page 140 of 447 · 20 per page

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  business; she would work harder than all of them; she would reduce expenditures for the court, sacrificing her own income in the process; and all activity was to be directed toward lifting England out of the hole it had fallen into. She showed early on her superior knowledge of the finances of the country and the tough side of herself in any negotiation. Upon occasion, she would flash her anger if a minister seemed to be furthering a personal agenda, and such outbursts could be quite intimidating. Mostly, though, she was warm and empathetic, attuned to the various moods of these men. Soon they wanted to please her and win her approval. To not work hard or smart enough could mean isolation and some coldness, and unconsciously they wanted to avoid this. They respected the fact that she lived up to her own high standards. In this way, she slowly placed these ministers into the same position that she had found herself in: needing to gain her trust and respect through their actions. Now, instead of a cabal of conspiring, selfish ministers, the queen had a team working to further her agenda, and the results soon spoke for themselves. By these methods, Elizabeth acquired the credibility she needed, but she made one major mistake—her handling of Mary, Queen of Scots. Elizabeth had become somewhat entitled herself, feeling in this case that she knew better than her ministers and that her personal qualms about executing a fellow queen trumped everything else. She paid a price for this policy, as she felt the people’s respect for her draining away, and it pained her. Her sense of the greater good was what guided her, but in this case the greater good would be served by having Mary executed. She was violating her own principles. It took some time, but she realized her mistake. She tasked the head of her secret service to lure Mary into her most far-reaching conspiracy to get rid of Elizabeth. Now with solid evidence of Mary’s complicity, Elizabeth could take the dreaded step. In the end, going against her own feelings for the sake of the country, in essence admitting her mistake, gained her even more trust from the English. It was the kind of response to public opinion that almost no rulers of the time were capable of. When it came to her foreign rivals, particularly Philip II, Elizabeth was not naive and understood the situation: Nothing she had done had earned her any respect or respite from their endless conspiracies to get rid of her. They disrespected her as an unmarried queen and as a woman who seemed to fear conflict and warfare. She largely ignored all of this and kept to her mission of securing England’s finances. But when the invasion of England seemed imminent, she knew it was time to finally prove herself as the great strategist that she was. She would play on Philip’s underestimating of her craftiness and her toughness as a leader.

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  The point of this strategy is to make you feel bad in a way that gets under your skin and causes you to think of the insinuation for days. They want to strike blows at your self-esteem. Most often they are operating out of envy. The best counter is to show that their insinuations have no effect on you. You remain calm. You “agree” with their faint praise, and perhaps you return it in kind. They want to get a rise out of you, and you will not give them this pleasure. Hinting that you might see through them will perhaps infect them with their own doubts, a lesson worth delivering. The Blame-Shifter Strategy: With certain people, you feel irritated and upset by something they have done. Perhaps you have felt used by them, or they’ve been insensitive or ignored your pleas to stop behavior that is unpleasant. Even before you express your annoyance, they seem to have picked up your mood, and you can detect some sulking on their part. And when you do confront them, they grow silent, wearing a hurt or disappointed look. It is not the silence of someone with remorse. They may respond with a “Fine. Whatever. If that’s how you feel.” Any apologies on their part are said in a way (through tone of voice or facial expressions) that subtly conveys some disbelief that they have done anything wrong. If they are really clever, in response they might conjure up something you’ve said or done in the past, which you’ve forgotten but which still rankles them, as if you are not so innocent. It doesn’t sound like something you’ve said or done, but you can’t be sure. Perhaps they will say something in their defense that pushes your buttons, and as you get angry, they can now accuse you of being hostile, aggressive, and unfair. Whatever their type of response, you are left with the feeling that perhaps you were wrong all along. Maybe you overreacted or were paranoid. You might even slightly doubt your sanity—you know you felt upset, but maybe you can’t trust your own feelings. Now you are the one to feel guilty, as if you were to blame for the tension. Better to reassess yourself and not repeat this unpleasant experience, you tell yourself. As an adjunct to this strategy, passive aggressors are often quite nice and polite to other people, only playing their games on you, since you are the one they want to control. If you try to confide in people your confusion and anger, you get no sympathy, and the blame shifting has double the effect. This strategy is a way of covering up all kinds of unpleasant behavior, of deflecting any kind of criticism, and of making people skittish about ever calling them on what they are doing.

• From On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous (2019)

  I saw all the blocks in our city you were too busy at work to know about, blocks where things happend. Things even Trevor, having lived all his life on this side of the river, the white side, the one I was now riding on, never saw. I saw the lights on Asylum Ave., where there used to be an asylum (that was actually a school for the deaf) that caught fire and killed half a ward back in 18-something and to this day no one knows what caused it. But I know it as the street where my friend Sid lived with his family after they came over from India in ’95. How his mom, a schoolteacher back in New Delhi, went door-to-door, hobbling on her bloated diabetic feet selling hunting knives for Cutco to make ninety-seven dollars a week—cash. There were the Canino brothers, whose father was in jail for what seemed like two lifetimes for going seventy on a sixty-five in front of a state trooper on 91. That and the twenty bags of heroin and the Glock under his passenger seat. Still, still. There was Marin, who took the bus forty-five minutes each way to work at the Sears in Farmington, who always had gold around her neck and ears, whose high heels clacked like the slowest, most deliberate applause when she walked to the corner store for cigarettes and Hot Cheetos, her Adam’s apple jutting out, a middle finger to the men who called her faggot, called her homomaphedite. Who’d say, holding their daughter’s or son’s hand, “I’m gonna kill you, bitch, I’m gonna cut you, AIDS gonna take you out. Don’t sleep tonight, don’t sleep tonight, don’t sleep tonight. Don’t sleep.”

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  Annie introduced me to all her people who’d traveled up to Buffalo for the wedding. She stayed on my atm the whole time. I met Cousin Wilma. She flashed an evil smile. “How wonderful it was of you to agree to come with Annie today.” Annie squeezed my arm like a tourniquet. “It’s my pleasure.” I put my hand on Annie’s hand which was cutting off the circulation in my arm. Without taking my eyes off Annie’s I told Wilma, “It isn’t everyday that a woman as strong and beautiful as Annie will give me the time of day.” Wilma turned on her heel, and Annie chuckled into my shoulder. “Get us a bottle of champagne,” she said. I did. “How many glasses, sir?” the bartender asked me. “One.” I picked up a small bottle of club soda. “Can I have this?” The bartender nodded. “What’s that for?” Annie wanted to know. “Hell, somebody’s got to drive us home.” She kissed me so tenderly right then and there under the tent that not a man or a woman within eyesight didn’t stare wistfully. Annie and I found a shady place under a tree where we could watch all the goings-on. She kicked off her shoes. I put my suit jacket down for her to sit on. Annie shook her head. “Your momma sute taught her little boy some mannets.” She gave me the lowdown on all her folks: who was a closet drunk, who beat ot cheated on their wife and who was giving it to the milkman. “That fag,” she said contemptuously. I was stunned at the hatred in her eyes. She was glaring at a man in his early fifties. His arm was around the shoulder of one of the many aunts who roamed the reception. “Who let that queer in here?” Annie hissed. “Ts he really gay?” I asked her. “You bet. Probably fuckin’ all the children in the family.” “Jeez, Annie.” My blood ran cold. “How can you hate somebody just because of who they love?” She looked at me with shock. “You like faggots?” I shrugged. “We aren’t all the same, Annie. So what?” She shook her head and spat on the ground. “I wouldn’t let a faggot near my daughter.” I thought before I spoke. “Annie, if anybody was gonna fuck with Kathy it would probably be a straight guy, not a gay man.” “Yeahr” she yelled. Annie stood up and gripped the champagne bottle tightly at her side. “Well, I ain’t lettin’ no funny men around my daughter. I left my own husband ’cause I caught him molesting Kathy. I tried to kill the man with my bare hands. No fucking fags are coming near my girl, you understand?” I did understand that this conversation could go no further. Annie kicked up some dirt and grass with her pumps and then sat down again. “Aw, shit, what’re we wasting our time talkin’ about queers for anyway?”

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  In the US., the media works around the clock to “justify” covert and overt wars for economic and geo-strategic advantage—from threatening “regime change” through fomenting and arming reaction and counter-revolution, lynching leaders of other countries, psychological operations, overwhelming military force, troop occupations, formations of mercenary armies, and emboldening fascist forces. LESSONS OF THE PINK TRIANGLE As a white, working-class, Jewish, transgender lesbian revolutionary, I too have studied the historical lessons of the rise of fascism in Germany, Italy and Spain— attempts to save capitalism for the 1%. These lessons inform my life’s direct action. ... I see that the Kolektiv Queer Beograd, the Belgrade Pride organizers, and “Antifa in Action” are 345 Stone Butch Blues showing great bravery and steadfastness in the face of attacks and threats from fascist forces, with reported state and police collusion. FIGHTING RACISM, FASCISM & WAR FROM INSIDE THE USS. Domestically in the U.S.—during this period of capitalist economic crisis—apartheid passbook laws are being written into law; undocumented workers are being rounded up, detained and face mass deportations; Muslims are targets of this state “war of terror’; and white supremacist, fascist shock troops are receiving arms and funding. Racist, fascist massacres targeted Black people in Tulsa, Oklahama—the second anti-Black massacre in the city’s history—and took the lives of Sikhs at a temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. Police gun down people of color with virtual legal impunity. Youth of color in the U.S. are facing no jobs, no recreation centers, no education or massive student debt, police “stop and frisk” actions, racist passbook laws, the school-to-prison pipeline, homelessness, lack of health care, no place to gather, and curtailed freedom of travel due to curfews—official and unofficial. 346 = Leslie Feinberg The rise of fascist bullying has led many opptessed youths to end their own lives. Others are organizing, and winning activist support from all generations, to fight back! ‘FREE CECE NOW? A war against transwomen—particularly women of color—is claiming lives from Oakland, California; to Chicago, Illinois; to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. But CeCe McDonald survived! CeCe McDonald, a young Black (trans)woman, and her friends were violently attacked by a group of whites who identified themselves as fascist by their actions, slurs, and swastika tattoo. CeCe was badly cut at the onset of the attack, in which one fascist died. Today, CeCe is in prison, and her friends have reported ongoing racist, fascist harassment. CeCe McDonald’s courage and tenacity has inspired liberationist currents in the U.S. political struggle, and in countries around the world. I took direct action on June 4, 2012—on the one-year anniversary of the attack, and the day CeCe McDonald was sentenced to prison. I wrote the peoples’ verdict on the jailhouse wall: “FREE CECE NOW!” As a journalist, author and proud member of the National Writers Union/UAW Local 1981—I’m most proud of writing those three words.

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  “It’s just so fucking dangerous for you to go back to the life,” I argued. “Don’t you remember why you quit?” That last thing I said was a big mistake. I realized it when she picked up the nearest dish and sent it sailing across the room in my direction. I ducked. “You condescending, motherfucking son-of-a- bitch,” she shouted. “Don’t you think I know the life better than you do, you bastard?” We were both quiet for a moment. I decided to do the dishes. Milli leaned up against the kitchen counter with her arms folded across her breasts watching me. “T just can’t stand the thought of any guy, anybody hurting you.” I said it as quietly as I could. Milli grabbed a dishtowel and started drying the dishes. It was a good sign. “How do you think I feel,’ she asked, “when you’re bouncer at the bar on the weekends and there’s a fight?” She got herself all worked up again. “For christsakes what’s the fucking difference between you being a bouncer and me working as a hostess?” “A dancer,” I clarified. “You know I’d be wortied every fucking minute you were late from your shift.” “Well, fuck you then. That’s your problem, baby, not mine.” Milli did a double take at me and dropped her gaze. I thought maybe she was sorry she had said that. “T’m sorry,” she told me. “It’s just I can’t stand it when someone does this moral thing with me.” “Goddamn you!” Now I was yelling. “Ever since you met me you’ve been waiting for me to make one fucking mistake, say one wrong thing about you being a pro.” “An ex-pro,” she said sarcastically. “It’s no goddamn joke. I never laid any bullshit on you about it. You know that. But every time we have a fight you’re lying in wait, just hoping you'll make me so mad I'll make a mistake. Then you could leave.” Milli smiled for the first time since I came home and told her I’d been laid off. “What’s so funny?” I asked sullenly. Stone Butch Blues W5 “T like you,” she said softly. I turned back to the sink and shook my head so she could see that I was exasperated. She turned me around. There was a teally warm look on her face. She kissed me on the mouth. I kissed her back. Then I turned around to finish the dishes. She turned me around again. “We have to pay the rent. It’s just for a while. I don’t like it any better than you do.” I laughed. “Bullshit!” She raised one eyebrow, daring me to pursue it. “There’s parts of the life you like a lot,’ I told her. “I know that.”

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  His father never quite recovered from her early death and passed away two years later. Now, at the age of nineteen, young Howard was alone in the world, having lost the two people who had been his closest companions and who had directed every phase of his life. His relatives decided they would have to fill the void and give the young man the guidance he needed. But in the months after the death of his father, they suddenly had to confront a Howard Hughes Jr. they had never seen before or suspected. The soft-spoken young man suddenly became rather abusive. The obedient boy was now the complete rebel. He would not continue college as they advised. He would not follow any of their recommendations. The more they insisted, the more belligerent he became. Inheriting the family wealth, young Howard could now become completely independent, and he meant to take this as far as he could. He immediately went to work to buy out all of the shares in the Sharp-Hughes Tool Company that his relatives possessed and to gain complete control of the highly lucrative business. Under Texas law he could petition the courts to declare him an adult, if he could prove himself competent enough to assume the role. Hughes befriended a local judge and soon got the declaration he wanted. Now he could run his own life and the tool company with no interference. His relatives were shocked by all of this, and soon both sides would cut off almost all contact with each other for the rest of their lives. What had changed the sweet boy they had known into this hyperaggressive, rebellious young man? It was a mystery they would never solve. Shortly after declaring his independence, Howard settled in Los Angeles, where he was determined to follow his two newest passions—filmmaking and piloting airplanes. He had the money to indulge himself in both of these interests, and in 1927 he decided to combine them, producing an epic, high-budget film about airmen during World War I, to be called Hell’s Angels . He hired a director and a team of writers to come up with the script, but he had a falling- out with the director and fired him. He then hired another director, Luther Reed, a man who was also an aviation buff and could relate better to the project, but soon he quit, tired of Hughes’s constant interfering in the project. His last words to Hughes were “If you know so much, why don’t you direct it yourself?” Hughes followed his advice and named himself the director. The budget began to soar as he strove for the utmost in realism.

• From The History of Christianity II: From the Reformation to the Modern Megachurch (2017)

  16 The History of Christianity II õ The key factor is that Luther said the pope did not have the control over Purgatory that he claimed to have. Only God could grant forgiveness. When the pope at the time, Pope Leo X, got wind of this, he wasn’t too concerned at first. He only started to worry when Luther began gathering followers all over Germany and seriously cutting into his profits from indulgences. õ The 95 Theses are famous, and the day Luther made them known, October 31, 1517, is commonly called Reformation Day and marked as the start of the Protestant Reformation. But the insight that truly caused Luther to break from the Catholic Church was a personal revelation. õ Luther’s personal revelation, which came after studying the Bible for hours and days on end, was this: Good works alone can’t earn you a place in heaven. Luther concluded that when we believe that Jesus is our savior, then God decides to view us differently, even though we remain as sinful as ever. We can sum up Luther’s idea with the slogan sola fide , meaning “by faith alone.” Following the law doesn’t save people, but faith, which is a gift by God’s grace, does. õ Luther found this liberating. He gave up the monastic life and married a former nun—he noted, as many reformers did, that there was nothing in the Bible saying priests had to be celibate. And he let his dirty mouth run wild, insulting his targets with colorful language. õ Luther taught that the priesthood is a profession just like any other; clergy are not special. Catholic theology elevated priests and monks above laypeople, but according to Luther, priests were just as depraved as everyone else, and if works don’t save people, then there was no longer any rationale for monasticism at all.

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  She dropped her eyes. “I’ve done something terrible. Jess, I was just trying to help. I let myself in next door and found the name of the company where you work on the check stubs you keep on the kitchen table. I thought if I called you in sick, you might be able to keep your job. I told them you got mugged and you’d be out for a week or two. Jess, I referred to you as she. I wasn’t thinking. They heard it. ’m so sorry. I know it means I lost that job for you.” 288 = Leslie Feinberg Ruth touched my face. “I know you must be really mad at me.” I shook my head. It was a mistake, that’s all. I thought about Duffy, the union organizer who'd done the same thing, and I forgave him in retrospect. I fluttered my hand to ask for something to write with. Ruth came back with a pen and paper. My right hand was stiff and sore, but the words I wrote were legible—the message life had given me another chance to deliver. Ruth read the words out loud: Thank _you for your love. And then we cried together. I visited the graphic arts employment agency in person and wrote down that I was looking for work. I started a new job the same night. That’s when I realized ’'d become a valuable typesetter. Christmas was a month and a half away and the third shift could hardly handle the volume of work the ad agencies were sending over. I took all the overtime they offered. I wanted a chunk of money, fast. At night I lived inside the coding strings, my face illuminated by the ghostly light of the terminal. The code phrases became my poetry. The curves of type against space sang to me: the melody meant everything, the words meant very little. At dawn I worked out at the gym, pausing only when the throbbing in my head frightened me. I moved my will to live down deeper into my body. Since my rage and frustration couldn’t escape through my clamped jaws, I screamed through my muscles. I thought I might explode with rage. At first working out at the gym reduced the pressure, but after a while the frenzied workouts became part of it. I was a time bomb, ticking, ticking, moments away from detonation. I didn’t sleep very much, just a few hours in the morning and late afternoon. I feared losing consciousness, afraid ’'d never find my way back. Ruth seemed worried about how much time I spent away from the apartment. I could tell by the relief on her face every day when I knocked on her door to check in with her. “Where do you go?” she’d sigh as she poured me a protein shake. I could tell she didn’t expect an answer.

• From The History of Christianity II: From the Reformation to the Modern Megachurch (2017)

  116 The History of Christianity II õ Copernicus’s Christian interpreters were careful to label his inconvenient discoveries as hypotheses. That way church authorities could let them slide. This sort of equivocation irritated Galileo. Galileo was a pious Catholic, but he also thought the church could not hold a doctrine that contradicted science. õ In 1615, he marched off to Rome to make his case. The pope’s consultants called Galileo’s work “foolish and absurd in philosophy, and formally heretical.” It was because of Galileo’s fuss that they decided to put Copernicus’s book, On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres, on the index of prohibited books—more than 60 years after it was published. Inquisitors summoned Galileo and demanded that he recant and promise to quit making trouble, which he did. õ But pretty soon he was back to his old ways, now obsessed with working out a theory to explain the oceanic tides by linking them to the earth’s revolution. In 1632, he published a book called Dialogue on the Two Chief Systems of the World , which was basically one long diatribe against the medieval view of the universe and a vindication of Copernicus. õ Galileo was nearly 70 years old at this point, but Rome was sufficiently worried about this ornery old man to summon him again. The inquisitors forbade him from all teaching and publishing and placed him under house arrest for the rest of his life. õ Even if Galileo went looking for trouble, the Vatican authorities behaved pretty shamefully. But too often people take the wrong lesson from this episode. They come away thinking that the Catholic Church saw scientific learning as the work of the devil, to be stamped out wherever it appeared. This is not true at all. õ In Galileo’s time, there was no greater sponsor of scientific research than the Catholic Church. Several holy orders, particularly the Jesuits, considered such work part of their vocation. The Jesuits sported among their ranks the notable inventor and polymath Athanasius Kircher. 117Lecture 12—The Church and the Scientific Revolution One scholar examined all the papers contributed by priests to the periodical of the Academy of Sciences in Paris up to the year 1720 and found that most of them concerned math and astronomy. õ As long as scientists paid lip service to the church’s authority and didn’t go out of their way to emphasize discrepancies or errors they found in church teaching, they could do their work without too much trouble, and even use Rome’s money to do it, all in the name of exploring God’s creation.

• From The History of Christianity II: From the Reformation to the Modern Megachurch (2017)

  õ Both men challenged the authority of the pope, and they both believed that with proper guidance, humans didn’t need a king—they could govern themselves. Pico and Savonarola wanted to see the Catholic Church change. Savonarola wrote letters to kings across Europe calling for a council to depose his nemesis, Pope Alexander. He called the pope “an illegal vicar of Christ” who sold church offices and “led an immoral life and was an unbeliever.” õ Pico also called on the pope to reform moral behavior throughout the church, warning against the institution’s corruption. The point here is not that either man wanted to break apart the Catholic Church. But they do show us that powerful criticism of the church predates the Reformation. õ The next 500 years of Christian history showed that the friendship of Pico and Savonarola was not a fluke. It was just one small example of how these paradoxical impulses are woven together: Christians in many times and places have appealed to both reason and divine charisma, and have tried to purify their churches while also drawing on the ideas and cultures they find around them. A BAD ENDING õ The ends of these two friends’ stories are not pretty. Pico fell ill when he was just 31 with a mysterious sickness. When the king of France heard about it, he sent his best doctors to Italy to try to save him, but they arrived too late. Historians now think that he died of arsenic poisoning. A goon of the Medici family probably killed him. The Medici family had started to become tired of Savonarola and were irked at Pico for defending him. Lecture 1—Prophets of Reform before Protestantism 9 õ As for Savonarola, in the spring of 1497, Pope Alexander excommunicated him from the Catholic Church for continuing to spread “pernicious dogma.” (Alexander was also angry because Savonarola had refused to steer Florence into joining the pope’s political alliance against France.) õ The pope warned that anyone who had contact with Savonarola would get excommunicated too. He even threatened to place Florence under interdict if they kept supporting their hometown prophet; this would have forbidden celebrating Mass and other sacraments at most churches in the city. The excommunication helped give Savonarola’s enemies the upper hand, and the following spring, a Florentine court found him guilty of heresy, schism, and “preaching innovation.” 10 The History of Christianity II

• From The History of Christianity II: From the Reformation to the Modern Megachurch (2017)

  õ On the other hand, he taught that secular vocations like barkeepers and merchants could be a way of serving God. This was a simple but powerful message that lent Luther’s theology much of its popular appeal. RELIGION AND POLITICS õ Luther began reforming the curriculum at the University of Wittenberg, where he taught, because he wanted to change the way young men were learning the core ideas of Christian theology. But his message was not confined to the classroom. õ In 1524, German peasants took up Luther’s teachings as part of their revolt against upper-class landlords who treated tenants unfairly. They reasoned that if Luther is right, and the church hierarchy is wrong, then perhaps the economic hierarchy is wrong too. Their violent uprising is known as the German Peasants’ War. õ Luther was displeased and wrote a pamphlet in which he accused the peasants of doing the devil’s work; he urged their landlords to go ahead and kill them “in good conscience.” We can’t dismiss the violence of his language here, but Luther was working out a broader political theology. He drew on an old Christian idea called the two kingdoms doctrine. He believed that there is an earthly kingdom and a spiritual kingdom, and liberation in Christ, in the spiritual kingdom, does not mean political liberation. õ Luther didn’t want to rock the social boat. He realized that working with secular princes who controlled much of Germany was to his advantage if he wanted local churches to start doing things his way. õ Luther was conservative in several ways: He wanted to maintain a church hierarchy with bishops. He also saw the value of icons in promoting piety, and he wanted to maintain a fairly formal liturgy (the order of the rituals performed in a religious service). Lecture 2—Luther and the Dawn of Protestantism 17

• From In the Dream House (2019)

  Things that you remember sparked her anger: the time you made popcorn with your cousin and sprinkled parmesan cheese on it; the time you and your cousin tried to make watercolors out of flower petals at your grandmother’s house; the time you started to describe the movie Return to Oz to your cousin. (It was too scary, apparently, even though the same cousin had read, and described to you in great, horrifying detail, the entire plot of Needful Things the night before as you clutched your stuffed dog and stared at her in the darkness.) In middle school, when you were always fighting with your mother, your aunt told you over AOL instant messenger that if your parents got divorced it’d be your fault, and she threatened to cut your father’s balls off. (Years later, after your parents’ toxic, miserable marriage came to an end, you traced back to that moment as the first time you felt the tiniest twinge of sympathy for your aunt, who had gone through a divorce of her own and never remarried.) Your mother explained away her behavior with any number of facts. Your aunt was a single mom, she said, a nurse who worked very hard to support her kids. She had a disease called endometriosis and was often in pain. (Years later, when the condition bloomed in your own body, you observed that you managed to get through the worst of it without screaming at small children, or anyone for that matter.) Your aunt met the woman from the Dream House, once. Your cousin, her daughter, was graduating from college in a nearby midwestern town, and the two of you attended a party thrown in her honor. Your aunt was stiff and polite, your cousin utterly delighted. Later, you felt ugly with regret: Why was the only girlfriend you took to Wisconsin the one who’d reinforce all of your conservative Catholic relatives’ perceptions of queer women? After that, when your grandmother passed away, you went for a drive with your scary aunt and your mother. Your scary aunt said, apropos of nothing, “I don’t believe in gay people,” and from the back seat—empowered by adulthood—you said, “Well, we believe in you.” Your mother said nothing at all.18 [image file=image_rsrc2K0.jpg] 17. Thompson, Motif-Index of Folk-Literature, Type S72, Cruel aunt.18. Thompson, Motif-Index of Folk-Literature, Type S12.2.2, Mother throws children into fire.Dream House as World BuildingPlaces are never just places in a piece of writing. If they are, the author has failed. Setting is not inert. It is activated by point of view.

• From Love & Sex: A Christian Guide to Healthy Intimacy (2018)

  “By the time I joined the military at eighteen, I was angry and filled with hatred for authority. I had a burning need to outrun the anxiety and depression that haunted me—the memories, the trauma. I stayed high on my adrenaline and fueled it with my anger and aggression. I was always ticked off and messed up every relationship I had with a woman. I overreacted to everything and pushed everybody away who tried to get close to me. I was defensive and needed to be right; if anybody intimidated me, I gave it back tenfold. I was a real success at boot camp. I did my fair share of running extra miles, getting my rear end chewed out by the sergeant, and, basically, having a horrible time. Until I decided I wanted to win and get even and be at the top of the heap. “Somewhere along the line, I had the idea I was going to be a pilot and be the best fighter pilot the military ever saw. I would prove everyone wrong. Yeah, my dreams came true, but I was miserable. Until I met a girl. She has been my wife for nearly forty-five years. If it wasn’t for her, I would probably be dead. She loved me for some crazy reason. I wasn’t good to her. But she is the one who showed me the love of God and led me to the Lord. An older woman mentored her and it was this woman who helped me grow up and get sober from the alcohol I abused and the porn I was hooked on. I went on to get my Ph.D. in psychology and have spent my life helping other guys like me find redemption. “Buckle your seat belts gentlemen. I have seen hundreds of men healed from this drug called porn, but I have also seen plenty of guys who thought they could whip this dragon by themselves crash and burn up everything that mattered to them. “Here’s what we are going to do, gentlemen. We are going to tell our stories. The reason we do this is that your story will uncover what happened to you and why you do what you do. You didn’t just fall off of a turnip truck and end up hooked on porn and acting out in ways that aren’t good for you. Your history has impacted you, just like mine did me. Most men want to deny it and believe if they just ignore it all, it will just go away. Everything is fine. Baloney. It doesn’t work that way. And so we are going to look at your story from every side, because if you have a pebble in your shoe and you don’t remove it, eventually it tears a hole in your foot and lodges itself in your flesh—then it gets infected and inflamed.

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  Always being rational can be tiresome. But for some people, this makes them terribly uncomfortable. They experience this primitive thinking as softness, as mysticism, as contrary to science and technology. Everything must be clear and analytical in the extreme. They become devout atheists, not realizing that the concept of God cannot be proven or disproven. It is a belief either way. The repressed, however, always return. Their faith in science and technology has a religious air to it. When it comes to an argument, they will impose their ideas with extra intellectual heft and even a touch of anger, which reveals the stirring of the primitive within and the hidden emotional need to bully. At the extreme, they will indulge in a love affair that is most irrational and contrary to their image—the professor running off with the young model. Or they will make some bad career choice, or fall for some ridiculous financial scheme, or indulge in some conspiracy theory. They are also prone to strange shifts in mood and emotional outbursts as the Shadow stirs. Bait them into just such overreactions to prick their bubble of intellectual superiority. True rationality should be sober and skeptical about its own powers and not publicize itself. The Snob: These types have a tremendous need to be different from others, to assert some form of superiority over the mass of mankind. They have the most refined aesthetic tastes when it comes to art, or film criticism, or fine wines, or gourmet food, or vintage punk rock records. They have amassed impressive knowledge of these things. They put a lot of emphasis on appearances—they are more “alternative” than others, their tattoos are more unique. In many cases, they seem to come from very interesting backgrounds, perhaps with some exciting ancestry. Everything surrounding them is extraordinary. Of course, it later comes out that they were exaggerating or downright lying about their background. Beau Brummell, the notorious snob and dandy of the early nineteenth century, actually came from a staunch middle-class background, the opposite of what he peddled. The family of Karl Lagerfeld, the current Chanel creative director, did not inherit its money but made it in the most bourgeois fashion, contrary to the stories he has told. The truth is that banality is part of human existence. Much of our lives is spent doing the most boring and tedious tasks. For most of us, our parents had normal, unglamorous jobs. We all have mediocre sides to our character and skills. Snobs are especially sensitive about this, greatly insecure about their origins and possible mediocrity.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  THEOPHYLACT. Or each one of the people is the vineyard, each likewise is the husbandman, for every one of us takes care of himself. Having committed then the vineyard to the husbandmen, he went away, that is, he left them to the guidance of their own judgment. Hence it follows, And went into a far country for a long time. AMBROSE. Not that our Lord journeys from place to place, seeing that He is ever present in every place, but that He is more present to those who love Him, while He removes Himself from those who regard Him not. But He was absent for a long time, lest His coming to require His fruit might seem too early. For the more indulgent it is, it renders obstinacy the less excusable. CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA. Or God took Himself away from the vineyard for the course of many years, for since the time that He was seen to descend in the likeness of fire upon Mount Sinai, He no longer vouchsafed to them His visible presence; though no change took place, in which He sent not His prophets and righteous men to give warning thereof; as it follows, And at the time of the vintage he sent a servant to the husbandmen, that they should give him of the fruit of the vineyard. (Exod. 19.) THEOPHYLACT. He says of the fruit of the vineyard, because not the whole fruit, but part only, He wished to receive. For what does God gain from us, but His own knowledge, which is also our profit. BEDE. But it is rightly written fruit, not increase. For there was no increase in this vineyard. The first servant sent was Moses, who for forty years sought of the husbandmen the fruit of the law which he had given, but he was wroth against them, for they provoked his spirit. Hence it follows, But they beat him, and sent him away empty. AMBROSE. And it came to pass that He ordained many others, whom the Jews sent back to him disgraced and empty, for they could reap nothing from them; as it follows, And again he sent another servant.

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  As he went deeper and deeper into these stories night after night with his staff, he reminded them that this past was still very much alive. The old enemies were still at work against him. There was CBS correspondent Daniel Schorr, who seemed to hate Nixon with unusual zeal. His reports from Vietnam always managed to highlight the worst aspects of the war and make Nixon look bad. There was Katharine Graham, the owner of the Washington Post , a newspaper that seemed to have a personal vendetta against him going back many years. She was the doyenne of the Georgetown social scene, which had snubbed him and Pat for years. Worst of all, there was Larry O’Brien, now the chairman of the Democratic Party, who as a key adviser in the Kennedy administration had managed to get Nixon audited by the IRS. As Nixon saw it, O’Brien was the evil genius of politics, a man who would do anything to prevent Nixon’s reelection in 1972. His enemies were everywhere and they were relentless—planting negative stories in the press, procuring embarrassing leaks from within the bureaucracy, spying on him, ready to pounce on the slightest whiff of scandal. And what, he would ask his staff, are we doing on our side? If his team did nothing to respond to this, they would have only themselves to blame. His legacy, his ambitions were at stake. As the stories began to pile up of antiwar demonstrations and leaks about his administration’s Vietnam War effort, Nixon became red-hot with anger and frustration, the talk with his staff heating up on both sides. Once, as Colson talked about getting revenge on some particularly nettlesome opponents, Nixon chimed in, “One day we will get them—we’ll get them on the ground where we want them. And then we’ll stick our heels in, step on them hard and twist—right, Chuck, right?” When informed that many of the staff at the Bureau of Labor Statistics were Jews, he felt that was probably the reason for some bad economic numbers coming from there. “The government is full of Jews,” he told Haldeman. “Most Jews are disloyal.” They were the mainstay of the East Coast establishment that worked so hard against him. Another time he told Haldeman, “Please get me the names of the Jews, you know, the big Jewish contributors to the Democrats. . . . Could we please investigate some of the cocksuckers?” Auditing them would be in order. He had other harsh ideas for how to hurt Katharine Graham and embarrass Daniel Schorr. Nixon also began to feel increasingly anxious about his public image, so critical to his legacy. He badgered his staff, and even Henry Kissinger, to promote to the press his strong leadership style. In interviews, they should refer to him as Mr.

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  equivalent of a gold rush—the recent discovery of rich veins of oil in nearby western Pennsylvania. In 1862 a young Englishman named Samuel Andrews—an inventor/entrepreneur who had known Clark in England—visited their offices and pleaded with Clark to become partners in the oil business. He bragged of the limitless potential in oil—the lucrative series of products that could be made out of the material and the cheapness of producing them. With just a little capital they could start their own refinery and make a fortune. Clark’s response was lukewarm—it was a business that experienced tremendous ups and downs, prices continually rising and falling, and with the Civil War now raging, it seemed a bad time to commit so fully. It would be better to get involved on some lower level. But then Andrews gave his pitch to Rockefeller, and something seemed to spark to life in the young man’s eyes. Rockefeller convinced Clark that they should fund the refinery—he would personally ensure its success. Clark had never seen Rockefeller so enthusiastic about anything. It must mean something, he thought, and so he relented to the pressure from the two men. In 1863 they formed a new refining business called Andrews, Clark and Company. That same year, twenty other refineries sprouted up in Cleveland, and the competition was fierce. To Clark, it was quite amusing to watch Rockefeller in action. He spent hours in the refinery, sweeping the floors, polishing the metal, rolling out barrels, stacking hoops. It was like a love affair. He worked well into the night trying to figure out ways to streamline the refinery and squeeze more money out of it. It had become the principal generator of profit for their firm, and Clark could not help but be pleased that he had agreed to fund it. Oil, however, had become Rockefeller’s obsession, and he constantly bombarded Clark with new ideas for expansion, all at a time when the price of oil was fluctuating more than ever. Clark told him to go more slowly; he found the chaos in the oil business unnerving. Increasingly, Clark found it hard to hide his irritation: Rockefeller was getting a bit puffed up with the success of the refinery. Clark had to remind the former bookkeeper of whose idea it had been all along to start their business. Like a refrain, he kept telling Rockefeller, “What in the world would you have done without me ?” Then he discovered that Rockefeller had borrowed $100,000 for the refinery without consulting him, and he angrily ordered Rockefeller to never go behind his back again and to stop looking to expand the business. But nothing he said or did seemed to stop him. For someone so quiet and unassuming, Rockefeller could be annoyingly relentless, like a child. A few months after Clark had berated him, Rockefeller hit him with another request to sign for a big loan, and Clark finally exploded: “If that’s the way you want to do business,

• From In the Dream House (2019)

  People keep asking who you are. You grin and place your hands in front of your eyes, the Weeping Angel’s signature pose. No one gets it. “What is she?” someone asks, pointing to your girlfriend. “A Dalek.” “What’s that?” “The most evil aliens in the entire Doctor Who universe. They committed genocide against the Time Lords, and the Time Lords against them. They basically destroyed each other.” You are definitely the most uncool person ever to attend this MFA program. The woman from the Dream House, as a Dalek, can barely move through the crowd. People keep knocking into her costume.21 You want to tell her a joke—“Start yelling ‘Exterminate!’ People will move!”—but she wouldn’t get it. You watch her down one drink, then another. After an hour, she walks home drunk and furious. You follow her for blocks, watching her bump along ahead of you, not certain what to do because you have the keys to your house. She has a colander on her head, like a conspiracy theorist—a true tinfoil hat. You’d been angry with her before, but there is something so tender and vulnerable about a grown woman, in a disintegrating costume of a character from a show she does not watch, stumbling back to a house in drunken anger. You think, this will be a good story, one day. A wasted undergrad happens across your path. “A ghost,” he says, his eyes widening. “A ghost!”22 He tries to touch you. You tell him to go fuck himself, dip away from his grasp, and unlike that time in Savannah, she does not rescue you. When you get to the house, she is kicking the door. The knobs of her Dalek costume are falling off into the grass. You approach her. “I have the keys,” you say, wearily. She jumps, and then begins to scream. “Why would you scare me like that? What the fuck is wrong with you?” She is still yelling as you go inside. “Why did you want to make such a fancy dinner?” she says. “You fucked everything up, this whole night you fucked up. We just have this weekend together and you have fucked everything up.” She is still yelling as you begin the laborious process of washing your face, your skin emerging in patches through the makeup. “What the fuck are you supposed to be, anyway?” She is still yelling as you stand in the shower, the temporary hair dye swirling creamily down the drain. She is still yelling as you put on your pajamas. In bed, she says, “I want to fuck,” and you say, “Maybe tomorrow,” and turn into your pillow. Maybe next Halloween will be better.

• From In the Dream House (2019)

  I bring this up because it is important to remember that the Dream House is real. It is as real as the book you are holding in your hands, though significantly less terrifying. If I cared to, I could give you its address, and you could drive there in your own car and sit in front of that Dream House and try to imagine the things that have happened inside. I wouldn’t recommend it. But you could. No one would stop you. Dream House as PicaresqueBefore I met the woman from the Dream House, I lived in a tiny two-bedroom in Iowa City. The house was a mess: owned by a slumlord, slowly falling apart, full of eclectic, nightmarish details. There was a room in the basement—my roommates and I called it the murder room—with blood-red floors, walls, and ceiling, further improved by a secret hatch and a nonfunctional landline phone. Elsewhere in the basement, a Lovecraftian heating system reached long tentacles up into the rest of the house. When it was humid, the front door swelled in its frame and refused to open, like a punched eye. The yard was huge and pocked with a fire pit and edged with poison ivy, trees, a rotting fence. I lived with John and Laura and their cat, Tokyo. They were a couple; long-legged and pale, erstwhile Floridians who’d gone to hippie college together and had come to Iowa for their respective graduate degrees. The living embodiment of Florida camp and eccentricity, and, ultimately, the only thing that, post–Dream House, would keep the state in my good graces.