Charles Mathewes

Quick little post: politics and demographics

October 24, 2020

This piece just came out, about demographic challenges to the GOP in a post-Boomer America, and it's got me thinking: it's not just about demographics, it's about living after the Cold War, and the slowly unfolding effects of that victory.

The GOP has never gotten over their victory...

Links R Us

October 19, 2020

Just some stuff. Burt Bacharach is amazing, and it’s good to hear he’s doing ok during this whole...

Lordy, there are tapes

October 19, 2020

In case you need to waste an hour, you can listen to me and Elizabeth Bruenig of the New York Times talk about religion in the 2020 race. Good times.

New Batch of links

October 17, 2020

Just some stuff.

Matt Levine writes a newsletter entitled Morey Stuff, and it sounds pretty terrific; I’m subscribing, maybe you should too. “He makes readers feel in on the savage joke that is...

Some new links!

October 14, 2020

Sorry, been a bit off the grid, but trying to claw my way back now. Nice review of Marilynne Robinson’s new novel Jack. This struck me as especially acute: “few read Marilynne Robinson’s novels for plot or social...

End of the week links

October 09, 2020

It's been a long week, for all of us. We need to relax! Here are some things to make you muse, and think. If you don't like them, you don't need to read them. COVID is hitting red counties, and especially rural red counties, just when it is...

Yet more links!

October 08, 2020

My larger writing is going very well right now, but that means I'm saving all my typing for that, really. All you're getting is haikus. I'm sorry. This should change in a couple years, maybe? Well, maybe sooner. But for now, just some quick links and opinions:...

Links!

October 07, 2020

Just some stuff: A really nice brief intro to Czeslaw Milosz’s poetry. I would never have thought to compare him to P.G. Wodehouse, for instance. Did American creative writing programs help create a self-obsessed and anti-political culture, not just in the US...

Some links

October 05, 2020

Just some links today.

Brief intro to Olga Tokarczuk’s novel, Flights. It has this nice suggestion about the book: “If Tokarczuk is a Penelope, weaving her fragmentary narratives together, she...

Small post about public intellectual life in the Trump era:

October 04, 2020

Carlos Lozada is interesting on the intellectual quality of the Trump-era books, not just his ridiculous sycophantic supporters (who don’t deserve a lot of attention, and he doesn’t give it to them), but some of his rather more self-righteous opponents, not a few of whom hoover up a lot of the space of public...