JD Heyman

I was happy in the haze of a drunken hour, but heaven knows I’m miserable now!

Dear Wags,

The other day, a stranger tossed off something that clung to the hem of our coat. “Being a victim,” said she, “has a certain attraction that’s difficult to resist.” What a pithy way to sum up the last decade or so of history! We have traded healthy individualism for narcissism, a most unsavory exaltation of the Self. There’s a primal vein of selfishness in all of us, but affluence, technology, and boredom have conspired to make it an irresistible force. We seem willing to trade almost anything — institutions, values, family, community, even sanity— for atomized egoism.

Dear Wags,

It’s Tim Walz Tuesday, so prepare be pummeled with trivia. Did you know Mankato’s silver fox makes a mean tater tot hot dish and collects specialty coins? Did you know he once staffed the Minnesota State Fair’s all-you-can-drink milk booth, which is an actual attraction and not a threat? He’s country enough to get under the hood of an International Harvester Scout, but cosmopolitan enough to explain it in Mandarin. His favorite drink is Diet Mountain Dew—buckle up for more Mountain Dew pandering! Best of all, the army vet is a reader—of geeky sci-fi novels and Eric Schlosser’s chilling nuclear history, Command and Control.

Self-Serving Political Memoirs are not Brat. Plus: Anne Applebaum, Dinaw Mengestu, Shalom Auslander, Siân Hughes, and More ...

Dear Wags,

July 2024 will go down in history as an epic month. In a handful of days, there’s been both an assassination attempt on the GOP presidential nominee and a shuffle at the top of the Democratic ticket. Somewhere in the middle of that mayhem, 39-year-old MAGA wunderkind J.D. Vance became Donald Trump’s running mate.

That was no surprise, but it got me thinking about political memoirs. We’re used to politicians promoting themselves through biographies. Kamala Harris published The Truths We Hold in 2019. Joe Biden produced two in recent years —Promises to Keep (2021) and Promise Me, Dad (2017). Barack Obama established himself as a generational leader with Dreams from My Father (1995). Trump, a reality star, not a reader, has passed on this publishing ritual—unless you count The Art of the Deal (1987) as his manifesto.

Evan Gershkovich. Plus: Glen Powell, Natalie Portman, Childish Gambino, Bob Newhart, and More ...

Dear Wags,

To know Russia is be seduced by disappointment. The country’s history is defined by dueling impulses —endless longing for the West paired with endless rejection of it. Russia is the borderland of our values, a kleptocracy of hardboiled realists and romantic failures. It gave civilization some of its greatest literature and is the graveyard of our democratic pretensions.

Russia settled into being a rebuke to the old American optimism long ago. A good Russian understands the world is not on some golden escalator of progress; it simply limps along. To invest faith in individuals and liberal institutions is to exhibit symptoms of brain damage.

Americans seem to be coming round to that point of view. After all Russia’s cold war defeats, that’s a monumental victory. The Soviet Union spun its revolutionary sugar, but behind posters and parades lurked ancient imperial cynicism. The United States, for all its failings, believed its hype. American innocence, a blind spot and shield, had a way of reasserting itself in each generation. Maybe not anymore.

In times of darkness, look for the light.

Dear Wags,

For so many reasons, it’s a disheartening time. You know all the reasons why. It’s so easy to feel like this little democratic experiment is on its last legs. But last week, I visited the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture for the first time. I regret that it took me so long, because I left with an understanding that it’s ridiculously soon to lose hope.

I went with an old friend who happens to be Black. We took in the exhibits and soaring architecture together, sifting through a complex and often ugly history. There’s a lot about that long narrative that separates us; I confronted gaps in my understanding at every turn. But even the most damning indictment of our society holds within it seeds of inspiration, examples of ordinary people who risked everything to transcend differences and make things better.

Her Bright Spirit Would be a Help Right Now

In this dark and precarious moment, I miss my former upstairs neighbor, Dr. Ruth Westheimer. She died on July 12, at 96.

But you know that, because Dr. Ruth was famous. She found celebrity in the 1980s, hosting a New York radio show called Sexually Speaking (or as she might say: Zzzexooally Shpeakinnnk). Her stardom had less to do with boudoir hacks than an unsinkable persona: German accent, hobbity frame, the warmth of a thousand suns.

Dr. Ruth didn’t become a household name until she was in her mid-fifties. Nothing about her aspired to Hollywood’s articulation of hotness. The schtick was that she was a cute little old lady who talked dirty. (In 1982, saying penis on a national TV counted as talking dirty.) This made her an ironic celebrity to Gen Xers who watched David Letterman. Still, about her vocation she was serious and brave. It was no joke, being frank about intimacy when most Americans were terrified of it.

Our DC Correspondent on What Happens When Dems Look for an Escape Hatch. Plus: Anthony Hopkins, Kesha, Holland's Best Bookstore, and More ...

Last Dispatch from Kalorama Heights:

We have reached the part of the disaster movie where somebody screams We’re all gonna die! (spoiler alert: that person always dies). This is a clinch moment for all sorts of reasons, but if you’ve paid attention to American politics over the past half-century, you know panic and dread are the official backup singers of the Democratic Party. Whenever the Dems face a potential presidential debacle, a friend with deep ties to that fractious outfit rings up and says: “Well, what About Oprah?”

That just happened. I think of it as my Dems-in-Disarray alarm clock—the point where people reach for an emergency cord to yank. Back in jittery 2019, I actually had a conversation with Oprah Winfrey about running for president. Among other things, she said: “Seriously, who would want that job? You’d have to be crazy.”

For a celebrity, Oprah has a firm grip on reality.

Oprah’s not in the mix this time (pundits are serving Kamala with a side of governors on the lido deck). But she’s right about the presidency. If you don’t start out a little nuts, the job will make you so. All presidents are insulated from critique, dislike the press, and lean on a clutch of loyalists. They rarely trust their vice presidents and tend to undermine them. An oval cocoon makes them dotty and thin-skinned about their achievements. It’s hard to give the world’s most powerful human crappy news, but to be a good president is to resist the embalming process.

Facing Alice Munro. Plus: Taffy Brodesser-Akner, Howard Norman, Mateo Askaripour and More Great July Reads

Dear Wags,

When Alice Munro, a genius of the short story, died on May 13, she was the subject of gilded elegies. Munro author won the 2013 Nobel prize for literature and was beloved far from small town Ontario, which served as the backdrop for her meticulously observed work.

Truth is far more troubling than such fictions. On July 7, Munro’s daughter, Angela Skinner, published a column in the Toronto Star detailing sexual and emotional abuse by her stepfather, Munro’s second husband Gerald Fremlin. Skinner was seven when Fremlin first assaulted her. She told her father, James Munro, who said nothing. She waited 16 years to confront her mother, because, as she wrote in an anguished letter to Munro: “I have been afraid all my life that you would blame me for what happened.”

Michael Crichton's Widow Sparks Publishing Fireworks. Plus: Your July 4 Reads!

Sherri Alexander Crichton was pregnant with her son John when her husband Michael died of cancer in 2008. She was left with a child to raise and a legacy to protect. Sixteen years later, Michael Crichton—mega-bestselling author of The Andromeda Strain, The Great Train Robbery, Coma, and Jurassic Park, and the force behind TV’s Westworld and E.R.—remains a cultural juggernaut.

That’s a credit to his widow, the CEO of CrichtonSun, which protects and promotes his work. To say she’s been successful is an understatement. Michael Crichton’s name still powers multibillion dollar deals. To date, he’s sold more than 250 million books and his blockbuster franchises keep Hollywood afloat. And Sherri Crichton is just getting started.

Dear Wags,

When you are pummeled with takes, when the whole world rushes to its phone to wail We are Doomed, we suggest you set this rattling device aside and take a breath. Sadly, you are not the director of the grand cosmic shit show. You do not get to select whatever craziness gets hurled at you. Colorful catastrophizing won’t bend the arc of history a micron in your direction. The side of the political spectrum with all the liberal arts majors will lapse into days of eloquent flagellation. Wallow while ye may, but if you believe things are truly that dire, then it’s maximally self-indulgent.

Our national pastime is denial. We despise reality so much we’ve nurtured vast industries to stoke our fantasies. We talk a blue streak about freedom while tunneling deeper into virtual dreamland. Well, this is what happens when you get a kick in the pants. Over the next few days, insiders will scramble to figure out their next moves. Advice will be incessantly proffered from all quarters. A decent guy has major decisions to ponder. Oh, it isn’t right or fair—get over it. Real leadership demands sacrifice; you can’t just be for nice-sounding stuff, you must make the case. If not, all those heartfelt posts about looming authoritarianism were disingenuous.

Here We Go Again: The D.C. Desk on CNN's Theater of Vigor

About one in six Americans say they’ll watch tonight’s presidential debate. Which tells us that Americans aren’t entirely truthful. Millions of them will get a gist from viral video clips. From such morsels, constituents seek vibe-confirmation: Is that old guy really so feeble? Is that old guy still totally nuts? When it comes to ticking a box, such questions will only make a difference for an obstinate handful just waking up to this contest. The rest of us will do what we resolved to do long ago.

CultureWag recommends culture—high, medium, and deliciously low. Be a part of our Primo Army by hitting the button below.

Upgrade to paid

It often feels like 2020—the longest year in history—never ended. Back then, we ran aground on shoals of alienation, tribalism, and anxiety. Four years on, we’re still litigating the same nasty stuff. Time marches on; one way of telling is that everybody looks more haggard. Yet we are hopelessly stuck.

More than any polarizing issue, stuckness characterizes 2024 America. Immersive media made a noisy chunk of us hyper-aware and somehow paralyzed. The whole idea of social engagement has been co-opted by an awful version peddled by tech giants—a lazy like or a share, as opposed to flesh and blood commitment. When politics (among other things) descended into race for clicks, it became even more bufoonish.

Julia Phillips, Priyanka Mattoo, Chris Whitaker, Michael Richards, Joyce Maynard, and More ...

Dear Wags,

There’s a presidential debate on Thursday. That’s if the scheduled confab doesn’t implode on the tarmac. We suspect that you are doing your level best to avoid thinking about it. What will the world say on Friday morning? A whole lot of nonsense, obviously! Meantime, it’s helpful to remember that while dread is a reliable revenue driver, it’s a terrible coping mechanism.

Clever tweets will not save us. Why not contemplate doing something, however small, to turn this ship around? We believe in you, and there’s still time. Meantime, our prescription for dealing with the vicissitudes of modern life is more reading, less bleating. Your enormous brain is capable of digesting far more than the day’s outrages. Indulge it. Now, here’s what the Book Squad can’t put down this week.