Gettysburg Address -- ". . . a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Memorial in Gettysburg N. P. designating site of Lincoln's famous address 150 years ago today, Nov. 19, 1863.

Thoughts on The Gettysburg Address, delivered by Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, on November 19, 1863

Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. Nearly all Americans know the opening of this speech: "Four score and seven years ago . . . . "

Garry Wills's "Lincoln at Gettysburg" does the math on this opening line. We all should. Subtract "four score and seven years" from 1863 and what do you get? You get 1776. After his now famous opening line, Lincoln continues, " our fathers brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal."

The U. S Constitution, written in 1787, ratified in 1788, was not our founding document. The Declaration of Independence of 1776 was. There is where we find the guiding philosophy underpinning our new nation.

Conservatives always, and Trumpists today, revere and use to their power-hungry advantage the minority control elements in the Constitution--the electoral college, the two senators for every state, daunting ratification hurdles, even the acceptance and support of slavery in its later, racist configurations. The very concept of "democracy" puts them on edge, creates strains of denial in their thinking, dangerous defenses in their actions.

It can all be confounding, perplexing. Many of us were taught from elementary school into high school to revere the Constitution as a genius created "bundle of compromises," even a permanent, almost god-given, document. It's not. Maybe for the day (eleven score and fifteen years ago), but not for the ages. Lincoln ended his great speech at Gettysburg with this admonition: "[we] shall have a new birth of freedom and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

It's time. Again.

I guess you have to live somewhere.

F. Scott Fitzgerald's Gatsby-like mansion.

Gatsby, one more time!

GO HERE

The Great Gatsby now -- podcast discussion

The Great Gatsby now Jun 01, 2012 - 5:46 pm
In 1926, LP Hartley called The Great Gatsby “an absurd story”. Now, it is hard to imagine that F Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel was ever considered less than a masterpiece.

And it seems particularly popular in our recessionary times – with the remarkable eight-hour play Gatz having had rave reviews in York, and now about to open in London; and Baz Luhrmann’s film version starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Carey Mulligan released later this year.

Jan Dalley talks Gatsby mania with Sarah Churchwell, Professor of American Literature at the University of East Anglia; Mark Ball, artistic director of the London International Festival of Theatre; and the critic Matt Trueman.

[Discussion on Financial Times web page]

podcast is here

Gatsby in the movies -- again.

Another Great Gatsby movie coming your way.

GO HERE FOR TRAILER

Bill Nack: The closing lines of "The Great Gatsby"

Fitzgerald's classic  final lines.

Man Meets Book!

If you STILL haven’t gotten around to reading The Great Gatsby, here’s an interesting option.

Borne Back Ceaselessly Into the Past
By BEN BRANTLEY

The most compelling love affair being conducted on a New York stage this season isn’t between a man and woman. (Or a man and a man, a woman and a woman or a boy and a horse.) It is between a man and a book.

“Gatz,” the work of singular imagination and intelligence that opened Wednesday night at the Public Theater, chronicles one reader’s gradual but unconditional seduction by a single, ravishing novel. That novel happens to be perhaps the finest written by an American, “The Great Gatsby,” F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 tale of pursuing the unattainable in the Jazz Age. . . .

Go here for full "Gatz" review