“Of Grammatology (French: De la grammatologie) is a 1967 book by the French philosopher Jacques Derrida, in which the author discusses writers such as Claude Lévi-Strauss, Ferdinand de Saussure, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Étienne Condillac, Louis Hjelmslev, Martin Heidegger, Edmund Husserl, Roman Jakobson, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, André Leroi-Gourhan, and William Warburton. The book has been called a foundational text for deconstructive criticism. … Derrida argues that throughout the Western philosophical tradition, writing has been considered as merely a derivative form of speech, and thus as a ‘fall’ from the ‘full presence’ of speech. In the course of the work he deconstructs this position as it appears in the work of several writers, showing the myriad aporias and ellipses to which this leads them. Derrida does not claim to be giving a critique of the work…

This look at feminism in post-1900 literature has two timely inspirations: Margaret Atwood and…Donald Trump.

I just read The Testaments, Ms. Atwood’s excellent 2019 sequel to 1985’s The Handmaid’s Tale. And sore loser Trump is about to (hopefully) leave the White House this Wednesday, January 20.

Trump has been rightly criticized for many things during his dumpster fire of a presidency. The lies, the criminality, the incompetence, the cruelty, the blatant racism, the homophobia, and more. So, it can get a bit lost just how misogynist Trump and his ilk have also been.

There are the more than 20 credible pre-presidency rape and other sexual misconduct allegations against Trump, the crudely sexist remarks, the pathetically few women he named to top administration positions, etc. Of course, amid Trump’s toxic machismo, the females in Trump’s mostly male orbit have been awful in their own right — including wife Melania…

I wrote of my favorite bookstore in Los Angeles when I lived there in the ’60s, Papa Bach. I still have a bookmark from the store that I cherish but periodically misplace in some obscure book I never finished, but Papa Bach has not been around for many years. In 1994 a similar local alternative bookstore in the L. A. area was nearing the end and an article in the LA Times reported this in a rather poignant way. At least we still have City Lights and Gotham (although Gotham is much more literary and less avant-garde).

For our historical reference, here is the article about the Chatterton bookstore in its last days:

Don’t Write Chatterton’s Finale Yet : Landmarks: The bookstore may have fallen on hard times, but fans and employees refuse to give up.
July 29, 1994|LYNELL GEORGE | TIMES STAFF WRITER

At its zenith, it was dubbed…

Original (1960s) Bookmark from Papa Bach Books

It was early 1967: I was still exploring my new Los Angeles home on foot and by bus. (It was to be almost twenty years before I began to drive.) On the north side of Santa Monica Boulevard, just west of Sawtelle, sat a big bookstore with a sign that said Papa Bach Paperbacks. Even at that early juncture, I was a bookstore aficionado of long standing, a habitué of Schroeder’s on Public Square in Cleveland and the Dartmouth College Bookstore in Hanover, New Hampshire.

I still have the books I bought that day: It was a two-volume set, the Vintage Turgenev comprising seven of the Russian author’s novels: Smoke, Fathers and Sons, First Love (in Volume 1), On the Eve, Rudin, A Quiet Spot, and Diary of a Superfluous Man (in Volume 2). The two books cost…

. .Good Morning!

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Welcome to The Coffee Shop, just for you early risers
on Monday mornings. This is an Open Thread forum,
so if you have an off-topic opinion burning a hole in
your brainpan, feel free to add a comment.

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Silent gratitude isn’t much use to anyone.

 – Gertrude Stein

We all know the word argument. By argument, we usually mean that people have some kind of quarrel. People take opposing positions about something and then each proceeds to try to convince the other(s) that they are right. When arguments are heated, participants aim to demolish all objections and perhaps even the people who make them.

This kind of antagonistic positioning is not what we mean when we talk about academic argument. When an argument is academic, we generally mean something much more reasoned. Something which proceeds logically. Something which produces supporting evidence for both claims and conclusions.

But academic argument can – and often does – proceed with the same kind of conquer and destroy mind-set as the non-academic argument. An academic writer may see the purpose of their argument as converting others to their point of view. They think that they have to “prove” their thesis by anticipating…

Former White House Communications Director Alyssa Farrah resigned on December 1. She says that Trump knew full well that he lost the election. He tried to bully state officials into reversing the outcome. He lied to the public and to his followers. The big lie was a hoax. She said Trump should resign.

He fooled Ted Cruz. He fooled Josh Hawley. He fooled the majority of House Republicans. He put their lives at risk in service to his lie. They believed him and joined his effort to overturn the election even after it was validated by the Electoral College.

Of course, he won’t. He will continue the Big Lie and continue to raise millions from his followers and to incite violence as long as he is not in prison for his multitude of crimes.

This is a very satisfying post at the blog “Crooks & Liars.”

The vandals and terrorists who invaded the U.S. Capitol took selfies and posed as they desecrated one of the nation’s greatest civic spaces. They were engaged in criminal trespass and, yes, the far more serious crime of sedition. They went to the Capital to disrupt a process ordained by the Constitution. They struck at our democracy. Many of their faces have been identified. They are being fired and arrested. They humiliated our democracy, endangered the lives of members of Congress and their staff. They broke the law. Anyone who participated in this violent assault on our Capitol should face serious jail time.

Unfortunately, they are being faced with minor charges: trespassing, disorderly conduct, and the like. Not one of them so far has been charged with sedition or anything consequential.

In addition to those listed in this post…

“Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom.
As nations become corrupt and vicious, they
have more need of masters.”
   – Benjamin Franklin

“In questions of power, then, let no more be said
of confidence in man, but bind him down from
mischief by the chains of the Constitution.”
   – Thomas Jefferson

“If a nation expects to be ignorant and free,
in a state of civilization, it expects what never
was and never will be.”
   – Thomas Jefferson

“Character is much easier kept than recovered.”
 – Thomas Paine in The American Crisis

Hold on to the Constitution, for if the American
Constitution should fail, there will be anarchy
throughout the world.”
   – Daniel Webster, 1851

As I looked at the mob, armed with guns and axe handles, smashing the glass on the doors inside the Capitol, trying to reach the duly elected members of Congress, disrupting the business of…

Trump’s violent cultists invaded the United States Capitol today. The president watched on television. He did nothing as his base broke windows, stormed into the Rotunda and entered members’ offices while our elected officials cowered in hiding.

This was an attempted coup, a deliberate effort to disrupt the functioning of government.

Hours went by without decisive action. I am not alone in observing that if the terrorists were black, the police/military response would have been fast and furious.

This is the culmination of Trumpism. Today is a shameful day in American history.