Book Selection of the Month: "Proud to Be Right" edited by Jonah Goldberg

ToddSeavey.com Book Selection of the Month (October 2010): Proud to Be Right: Voices of the Next Conservative Generation edited by Jonah Goldberg


Well, how could I not recommend the book -- ON SALE TODAY!! -- that contains my essay "Conservatism for Punks"?  But it also features such items of interest as:

•"Splendid Isolation" by Michael Brendan Dougherty
•"The Consistency of Gay Conservatives" by James Kirchick
•"Seeing the Light in Seventh Grade" by Evan Coyne Maloney
•"Man Up" by Katherine Miller
•"The Leptogonians: Growing Up Conservative in a Disrupted Decade" by James Poulos
•"The Smoker's Code" by Helen Rittelmeyer
•"Ducking the Coffins: How I Became an Edu-Con" by Ashley Thorne
•"Reading Rand: Discovering the Right to Fail" by Joi Weaver

and more.  It's a fascinating array of twenty-two essays all dealing, in their diverse ways, with the problem of how to be conservative in a world that isn't and where it's not entirely clear anymore what the word means.  It may well be a glimpse of the fault lines and battles ahead, too, so find out what's in store.  And at the very least, find out what I mean by "Conservatism for Punks."

And Jonah Goldberg, Helen Rittelmeyer, Ashley Thorne, and I will be talking about it all tomorrow (Wednesday, Oct. 6, 7:30pm) at Georgetown University, in White-Gravenor Hall, Room 201A in room 201A, easily reached by Metro and shuttle bus or other means.  C-SPAN2 may carry it as well and will say so here day-of if they do.

As a conservative of sorts, though, today I'd like to take an unexpected moment to turn our gaze away from punk and look back at our noble forebears, the makers of classic rock:

•Lainie Frost informed me recently of the death of Lynyrd Syknyrd, or rather of the teacher with a name resembling that one who inspired the band, some of them his students, to call themselves that.

•That indie-modernist -- yet conservative -- musician friend of mine, Hannah Meyers, performs tonight, Tue., Oct. 5th, 9-10:30pm, at O'Connell's Pub at Broadway and 108th (and again Thur., Oct. 21st, 6-7pm at Caffe Vivaldi at 32 Jones St.), but I can't see her tonight because, unpunk as it may sound, I'm going to see Roger Waters perform The Wall at Madison Square Garden.  Then again, Bob Geldof is sort of alternative rock, and he played Pink.  (Would Jonah consider The Wall liberal fascism?)

•I am pleased to hear (from Nick Slepko) that the movie I Love You, Man, though I have no intention of seeing it, turns the band Rush into a manly bonding touchstone, leading to the band members actually appearing, playing themselves.

They're Objectivists, you know.