In Memory Yet Green

Today my favorite link to the outside world, the post office, is closed to honor the memory of Ronald Reagan, so I'm taking time to remember him by reading bits of The Death of Ben Linder and Gioconda Belli's memoir The Country Under My Skin.

Or maybe I'll just meditate on J.G. Ballard's story "Why I Want to Fuck Ronald Reagan":
Motion picture studies of Ronald Reagan reveal characteristic patterns of facial tones and musculature associated with homoerotic behavior. The continuing tension of buccal sphincters and the recessive tongue role tally with earlier studies of facial rigidity (cf., Adolf Hitler, Nixon). Slow-motion cine films of campaign speeches exercised a marked erotic effect upon an audience of spastic children. Even with mature adults the verbal material was found to have a minimal effect, as demonstrated by substitution of an edited tape giving diametrically opposed opinions...

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