Hate the Way You Lie: Eminem’s Video

Does violence at home have a throbbing beat for a backdrop and erotic sex burning up the house? Eminem might think he’s presenting a case against domestic violence, but with lines like these:

“Just gonna stand there and watch me burn

But that’s alright because I like the way it hurts”

pouring from co-star Rihanna’s beautiful lips as her liquid kohl-rimmed eyes show us how caught in erotic fascination she is, we see one long rationalization about how two people caught up in alcohol and sex flame out to a passion-soaked burn.

That’s the song your kids will be humming and dancing to while they watch a glamour-drama of domestic abuse amidst love gone wrong.

After watching Eminem’s “Love The Way You Lie” video, I wonder if it’s meant to warn women from bad boys, or if the message tells us to be more understanding girlfriends, and thus rescue our tortured battering boyfriends. Certainly Eminem shows himself as an alarmingly appealing, if dangerous,

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Which Characters Live in Your Head?

Readers all have favorite books—book we re-read, books that encouraged us, inspired us, challenged us, and soothed us. However, I wonder, is there a difference between most memorable books, and the individual characters who stay with us far after we finish the last page? I think so. I’m not an academic scholar who can deconstruct … Read more

Weary of the Query?

Want to make a writer shudder? Ask them if they’ve queried yet. Recently  I led a workshop on The Great American Query Letter and the participants shuffled in with the reluctance (not to say dread) of women about to try on bathing suits in an open-corral fitting room. A co-ed one. But like a job … Read more

It Takes a Bureaucracy to Raze a Library

According to yesterday’s Boston Globe, writing about the Boston Public Library system: Circulation in the system has risen 31 percent in the last three years.   This in an article headlined: Boston Public Library may close 10 of its branches. According to me: The dollars that a city or state will invest in their libraries, … Read more