So much for Greil Marcus.

A thrilling, deeply felt exposition of the cruelty and vision expressed in American life through an examination of chocolate brownies, Draino, L'eggs pantyhose, and John Quincy Adams. Honestly, does anyone *not* posing have any idea of what the hell this guy is talking about?

Seriously.

From the review, it sounds as though Marcus has finally written the American sequel to his European "Lipstick Traces." I tried to reread "Lipstick Traces" recently and found it more tiresome this go-around--the situationist and Dada explorations haven't aged well, since the society of the spectacle has now become something very different and far more paranoid. "Life must hurt" reads very differently in George W. Bush's America than it did in his father's "Don't Worry Be Happy" days.

Or maybe Marcus and I are both getting old.

As someone who took one of those classes, I had high expectations, which brought about great and consuming confusion. There were no answers to these questions, and the classes were responsible for trying to help fill in the blanks.

If I read these pages and find some of the things I came up with, I might be sad! But over all, I am proud that Marcus has been able to create this book, to span so much time, incorporating so many different subjects that can all be tied together because they were speaking to the future, to the next people who would also fight for justice.

What an incredible idea, to think of these people talking to each other, Lincoln talking to Bob Dylan, for example, in their words (they really were!).

But it's nice to know now where that class was heading. It wasn't so clear to me at the time, but it also shouldn't have been. I am glad to have had those questions asked of me, and to have no answer.