{"id":157368,"date":"2024-09-07T23:30:34","date_gmt":"2024-09-08T07:30:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=157368"},"modified":"2024-09-07T17:42:40","modified_gmt":"2024-09-08T01:42:40","slug":"the-material","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=157368","title":{"rendered":"The Material"},"content":{"rendered":"

I love this new novel by Camille Bordas<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n* How \u201crape\u201d used to mean someone being dragged into an alley by a stranger, gagged, beaten up, savagely penetrated, and left for dead behind a trash can. How \u201crape\u201d had now come to encompass any sexual act performed without obtaining verbal consent. He was okay with that, in principle: words taking on larger meanings, larger responsibilities over time \u2014 language was a living entity, it adapted to its speakers. But then it seemed to him that when that happened, other words had to step in to fill the vacuum left by the bigger word\u2019s promotion. He felt there should be a word for what \u201crape\u201d used to mean. He wondered how women who had been left for dead in alleys felt about it. The new meaning.<\/p>\n

* \u201cI still haven\u2019t fucked anyone in the city of Chicago,\u201d Olivia said. \u201cChicago virgin.\u201d<\/p>\n

* \u201cBecause our stepfather molested Sally when she was a kid and my mother took a little too long to believe her.\u201d<\/p>\n

* \u201cAnd all this stuff about comedians killing themselves in such high numbers because they\u2019re so sensi tive, because they feel everything so strongly \u2026last I checked, dentists were still killing themselves more than us, and construction workers had the leading suicide rate by profession. Does that mean they\u2019re the better artists? That they should be the ones onstage instead of us?\u201d
\n\u201cSeriously. What did your stepfather do?\u201d
\n \u201cWho cares what he does?\u201d
\n \u201cHe still works?\u201d
\n \u201cYes. He\u2019s a forester.\u201d
\n \u201cHe molested a child and he\u2019s still allowed around people?\u201d
\n \u201cIt\u2019s not the kind of forest where people go,\u201d Olivia said. \u201cAnd Sally never pressed charges.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat bitch has been getting all the attention,\u201d she said.
\n \u201cExactly!\u201d Olivia said. \u201cI mean, right? No one ever asks about me. We\u2019re identical, but my stepfather molested her and not me. How do you think that makes me feel?\u201d<\/p>\n

* \u201cWhy would I come after you?\u201d
\n \u201cBecause I was mean to you in class the other day.\u201d
\n Dorothy wasn\u2019t supposed to say things like that. Never question your teaching methods in front of your students was the rule. If you were not proud of how a class had gone, you either forgot about it or found a way to tell yourself the kids had learned something from the fiasco. In that way, teaching was different from performing. The audience shared part of the responsibility.<\/p>\n

* “after the constant stress of your twenties, the self – doubt of your thirties, and the anguish of your forties, it\u2019s nice to relax a little bit. It\u2019s like biking down a hill now.\u201d<\/p>\n

* his job as a comedian was to grab onto the most horrible of these thoughts and shape them right in order to serve them back to those who\u2019d run away from them. He was in the business of finishing people\u2019s horrible thoughts so they didn\u2019t have to go there themselves.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I love this new novel by Camille Bordas: * How \u201crape\u201d used to mean someone being dragged into an alley by a stranger, gagged, beaten up, savagely penetrated, and left for dead behind a trash can. How \u201crape\u201d had now … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[580],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-157368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comedy"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t