Trump as Pa Ubu

I know, I know, I said less politics. But, today’s the day that Joe Biden’s election as president has been certified by Congress and Donald Trump told his most fervent supporters to gather in Washington, D.C. to protest. Some breached the capitol, I saw reports of one person having been shot, Senators were evacuated and Trump… fled to the White House and seemingly went into hiding?

It’s amazing cowardice. Nobody is chasing Trump. Nobody is looking to arrest or harm him. What is he hiding from? It all reminds me of some of my favorite surrealist plays, the Ubu Trilogy by Alfred Jarry.

He even looks like Trump!

Pa Ubu, the main character, is the undeserved King of Poland. He’s a parody of Macbeth and Jarry’s math teacher. He has nothing but appetite for food and comfort. He murders only when he has ther advantage. He flees from any other foe. In the second play of the trilogy, he and his family decide that the work of ruling is too hard and that the prisoners, who never have to go outside and are fed daily, have it easy. So they storm the prison, kick out the inmates, and barricade themselves inside.

It leaps from the puppet stage of 1896 and right onto CNN, if you ask me.

Remembering “The Banquet Years”

I’m writing something about a bookworm character who is remembering the books specifically given to him by teachers in high school and college. Among the list are: The Complete Works of Emerson, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues by Tom Robbins, The Firebugs by Max Frisch, Strip Tease by Carl Hiassen, Side Effects by Woody Allen and this gem:

Published in 1955, Roger Shattuck’s vivid telling of the birth of French surrealism is a book I’ve read twice now and think about all the time. I remain sure that surrealism is the foundation of everything going on in the world today and not just in art, or even primarily in art, but in the communications of corporations and governments that are gleefully contradictory when they’re not completely free of information.

I highly recommend The Banquet Years. I may pick it up again soon.

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