The fact that a top US General at war would think inviting a Rolling Stone reporter to hang out with him for two weeks was a good idea is something out of Mad Magazine or a Kubrick movie - in short - it's sort of Sixties/ Seventies retro, and inherently funny, in a Vietnam/Nixon era sort of way. As one aid to Obama asked: what was he thinking? To which the reply surely must be: what, me worry?
THAT HANDSOME MAN A PERSONAL BRIEF REVIEW BY TODD SWIFT I could lie and claim Larkin, Yeats , or Dylan Thomas most excited me as a young poet, or even Pound or FT Prince - but the truth be told, it was Thom Gunn I first and most loved when I was young. Precisely, I fell in love with his first two collections, written under a formalist, Elizabethan ( Fulke Greville mainly), Yvor Winters triad of influences - uniquely fused with an interest in homerotica, pop culture ( Brando, Elvis , motorcycles). His best poem 'On The Move' is oddly presented here without the quote that began it usually - Man, you gotta go - which I loved. Gunn was - and remains - so thrilling, to me at least, because so odd. His elegance, poise, and intelligence is all about display, about surface - but the surface of a panther, who ripples with strength beneath the skin. With Gunn, you dressed to have sex. Or so I thought. Because I was queer (I maintain the right to lay claim to that
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Stanley McChrystal is no diplomat but he is a first class general. I found Obama's summary dismissal of him somewhat hubristic and I fear that he may well live to regret it.
Best wishes from Simon