I'm going to start writing on here again soon. In the meantime, in honor of the imminent Republican National Convention, here is a bit from A Hall of Mirrors by Robert Stone. Rheinhardt, a failed musician turned political DJ, is addressing a fascist jamboree in 1962.

"Start talking," they shouted. "Talk." . . .

"No," Rheinhardt said. "Music."

"God and country," they cried from the tent. "God and country."

Ah well, Rheinhardt thought. I do that too. I can do that.

He seized the microphone with a self-confident smile.

"Fellow Americans!" he bellowed—"Let us consider the American Way."

It seemed to Rheinhardt that he had elicited a respectful silence from the stands; thus encouraged, he went on.

"The American Way is innocence," Rheinhardt announced. "In all situations we must and shall display an innocence so vast and awesome that the entire world will be reduced by it. American innocence shall rise in mighty clouds of vapor to the scent of heaven and confound the nations!

"Our legions, patriots, are not like those of the other fellow. We are not perverts with rotten brains as the English is. We are not a sordid little turd like the French. We are not nuts like the Kraut. We are not strutting maniacs like the gibroney and the greaseball!

"On the contrary our eyes are the clearest eyes looking out on the world today . . .

"No matter what they say, Americans, remember this—we're OK! Who else can say that? No one. No one else can say—we're OK. Only in America can a people say—we're OK. I want you all to say it with me.

"We're OK," Rheinhardt shouted raising his arm to invite accompaniment. Someone in the stands was heard to fire a pistol.

"Americans," Rheinhardt resumed, "our shoulders are broad and sweaty but our breath is sweet. When your American soldier fighting today drops a napalm bomb on a cluster of gibbering chinks, it's a bomb with a heart. In the heart of that bomb, mysteriously but truly present, is a fat old lady on her way to see the world's fair. This lady is as innocent as she is fat and motherly. This lady is our nation's strength . . ."