BYE

Deep waters: When Patrick McGrath became a US citizen, he thought of Moby-Dick and
its reflections on the best and worst of his adopted country (Patrick McGrath, July 12, 2003, The Guardian)

There's a wonderfully grisly story by WW Jacobs, "The Monkey's Paw", in which an old couple are granted three wishes. What they want most is to see their long-lost son again. The son, however, has just been killed by a piece of heavy machinery in a ghastly factory accident. The climactic moment comes when they hear his mangled corpse sloshing horribly toward their front door, and the old man uses the last of the three wishes to send him back to the grave.

I detect a curious parallel here to my own recent experience. Having devoutly hoped for many years to acquire American citizenship, now that I have it there's a sense that something monstrous attaches to the fulfilment of the wish. That monstrous thing is of course the Bush administration, and becoming an American at this precise moment in history feels not exactly like a poisoned chalice, but it certainly leaves a bittersweet taste in the mouth.

We hear Canada's nice. Posted by Orrin Judd at July 20, 2003 2:51 PM