"Above Insolence and Triviality"

Of fishes and fascists

The last two weeks have felt like a year. I think it’s partly because I’m still operating in COVID time but also because of the unrelenting stream of (mostly bad) news. 

Putting this list together, especially at the end of a long week, can be challenging as I’m sure reading it probably is. So, I took some time this morning to revisit some poems by Marianne Moore. I have no idea why but “The Fish,” my favorite of her poems, popped into my head a few days ago. It’s a poem I’ve always loved but in this particular instance I was thinking about how it evolved over time in version after version. And then I realized I was confusing “The Fish” with Moore’s poem “Poetry.” 

Written in 1919, the original version of “Poetry” was 30 lines long. After 50 years of tinkering and revising, the final version was reduced to these three lines:

“I, too, dislike it.
Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one discovers in
it, after all, a place for the genuine.”

I still have many of my books in boxes so I couldn’t find my copy of Moore’s Complete Poems. I had to look for it online. I accidentally googled “Marianne Williamson Fish” and this is the first thing that popped up:

“Marianne Williamson on Twitter: ‘This. Is. A. FISH!’” followed by this image—

Not Marianne Moore’s Fish

It would be an understatement to say I was confused.

One of the best things about Moore’s poetry is her sometimes playful approach to language and her willingness to push the boundaries of form. This is most evident, I think, in “The Fish.” So, before we get to the fascists on the lists, here is Marianne Moore’s great poem:

wade
through black jade.
       Of the crow-blue mussel-shells, one keeps
       adjusting the ash-heaps;
              opening and shutting itself like

an
injured fan.
       The barnacles which encrust the side
       of the wave, cannot hide
              there for the submerged shafts of the

sun,
split like spun
       glass, move themselves with spotlight swiftness
       into the crevices—
              in and out, illuminating

the
turquoise sea
       of bodies. The water drives a wedge
       of iron through the iron edge
              of the cliff; whereupon the stars,

pink
rice-grains, ink-
       bespattered jelly fish, crabs like green
       lilies, and submarine
              toadstools, slide each on the other.

All
external
       marks of abuse are present on this
       defiant edifice—
              all the physical features of

ac-
cident—lack
       of cornice, dynamite grooves, burns, and
       hatchet strokes, these things stand
              out on it; the chasm-side is

dead.
Repeated
       evidence has proved that it can live
       on what can not revive
              its youth. The sea grows old in it.

2/28/22-3/06/22

N.B. The numbers in parentheses indicate the position on last week’s list.

FACEBOOK

Facebook is still acting strangely but I’m not entirely sure it’s because Russian influence of our social media has been stopped (if it has). The right still dominates and although the usual players have far fewer top spots than usual a lot more right-wingers are taking their place. Here are the 70 daily top ten posts for the week:

Ben Shapiro held 9 (12), followed by Fox with 3 (2), and Dan Bongino (08), Breitbart (1), Steven Crowder (1), and Franklin Graham (3) with 2 each.

Nick Adams (1), Daily Wire, The Federalist (1), The Federalist Papers (this is a right-wing Facebook group and not to be confused with the actual Federalist Papers which were written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay), Brigitte Gabriel, Sean Hannity, and the New York Post (1), each had one—for a total of 29 out of 70. Last week it was 37 out of 70.

Occupy Democrats held 11 spots, up from 6, and Elizabeth Warren held 1 for a total of 12 out of 70. Last week it was 8 out of 70.

Occupy Democrats held 11 spots, up from 6, and Elizabeth Warren held 1 for a total of 12 out of 70. Last week it was 8 out of 70.

NYT BESTSELLERS HARDCOVER NON-FICTION

2. The 1619 Project, Nikole Hannah-Jones (3) [Frequently challenged and banned. Can’t imagine why.]

14. The Real Anthony Fauci, RFK, Jr. (13) (Please make it stop.)

AMAZON BESTSELLERS HARDCOVER NON-FICTION

10. 12 Rules for Life, Jordan Peterson (11)

16. The Great Reset, Glenn Beck (5)

17.  The 1619 Project, edited by Nikole Hannah-Jones (19)

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In light of the accelerated push to ban books, some Barnes and Noble stores have begun adding Banned Book sections, which is awesome.

Here are some classics that are among the most banned and challenged books:

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

1984 by George Orwell

Lord of the Flies by William Golding

Almost all editions of Maus are still on backorder but the paperback of Volume I and Volume II are back in stock. They would make a great gift. Let’s keep ordering it.

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APPLE PODCASTS—NEWS

THE RIGHT AND THE ENABLERS

3. The Ben Shapiro Show (3)

4. Charlie Kirk

7. The Glenn Beck Program (14)

9. The Dan Bongino Show (8)

19. Steve Bannon’s War Room (12)

20. Matt Walsh (19)

THE LEFT

10. Pod Save America (10)

11. Pod Save the World (7)

16. The Rachel Maddow Show (13)

SUBSTACK POLITICS NEWSLETTERS

The Substack top-ten is more ideologically diverse across the right-wing spectrum but it still contains a disturbing number of serially wrong anti-democratic writers who have way too many followers than is healthy for our nation. Every single newsletter in the top ten has tens of thousands of subscribers.

This list is very stable and won’t change much from week to week.

2. The Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg, editor-in-chief 

3. TK News by Matt Taibbi

5. Glenn Greenwald  

6. Unreported Truths by Alex Berenson 

7. Common Sense by Bari Weiss, (aka the “Substack grifter,” in the words of Press Run’s Eric Boehlert)

8. The Weekly Dish by Andrew Sullivan 

9. Take Control: Dr. Mercola’s Censored Library, Joseph Mercola (This snake-oil salesman is up one spot from last week, which is the wrong direction.)

Thankfully, the essential  Letters from an American by Heather Cox Richardson remains at number 1.

Judd Legum’s Popular Information is still at 11.

I highly recommend you subscribe to both, as well as Eric Boehlert’s Press Run.

Here are the Glossary of Fascists and Glossary of Pseudo-Intellectual Hacks. I’m constantly updating this so if you have any suggestions you can leave them in the comments. Please note that these lists focus on figures in the media.