A short excerpt from an exchange with my correspondent in Chicago:
Ariel: can literature effect any social change?
i asked my grandfather once.
he might be the wisest man i know. he said,
turgenev, fathers and sons. i kind of saw his point.
but now? is there a point? is there anyone listening?
(besides the FBI i mean, obviously. always listening)
oh im so plaintive. wow.
me: yeah
apparently chat is hard to monitor
thus, the page scandal in washington
anyway
can it affect social change?
I think we’re asked to treat writers decoratively in this country
and also to think of them decoratively
and this admits that we’re powerful
sort of like the way women are asked to be decorative
when in fact they are vital to all life.
so
that’s what I think about it.
Sent at 10:17 PM on Thursday
Koreanish 
Oh, to have such reviews for a first novel! Congratulations! Just found your blog, will have a snoop around now 🙂
There is some terrible fear of intelligence in this country. I think that has a lot to do with the negative attitude, if you can call it that, towards art. Somehow, if you actually care about or appreciate art, you are somehow setting yourself above the common man. I know that art and music and literature have changed my life for the better.
I have no problem with those whose intellectual ambitions go no further than keeping up with TV series. I do however get annoyed that I become the object of some sort of sullen annoyance because I choose to entertain myself in other ways that I find more satisfying.
happy pride with the requisite fashion update and non-news in the midst of no-news spinning on a cgi axis of a wink-wink and plug-plug in the realm of agro gardening and “sex through the city” stabilized with viagra since mind, body, spirit lost the plug-in adapter.