Black Sheep Books
Five and Ten Press
3814 Livingston Street N.W.
Washington, D.C.
20015-2803
(202/244-9163)
12. "Sic Transit." 68 pages. Published in December 1999. $6.
By Carl Coon
Author of publication No. 9. Thirteen essays, some satirical, some humorous, all addressing the human condition by a writer who has a distinctive voice, is often eccentric but always serious, possibly a curmudgeon, who admits at times to being an "old fogey." The subjects are power, the military mind, foreign affairs, Morocco, Nepal, marital relations, gender differences, generational differences, New York City, the Pope, cyberspace, and lots more.
Table of Contents
1.Power
2.Marcos
3.The Military Mind
4.Screw-Up
5.Bir
6.Trivia
7.Garlands
8.The Tropicalizing of American Youth
9.Fantasia
10.Mordor is out
11.The Pope Knows
12.The Twilight of American Manhood
13.The Intimacy of Cyberspace
Sic transit gloria mundi. Easy come, easy go. Pride goeth before a fall. Something akin to these thoughts constitutes a kind of leitmotif that carries through at least some of the little essays that Ambassador Keeley has recklessly agreed to publish here, in his "Five and Ten Press."
I started writing them in 1985, shortly before I retired from the Foreign Service of the United States. For many years before that I had been putting words to paper, but almost always it was official, and what I wrote had to be carefully calculated to please some boss, often less literate than I was, and to conform to other constraints too numerous to describe here.
Once I quit the Service, it was great fun to be able to write just what I pleased, exactly as I pleased. The fact that nobody else was reading what I wrote was a drawback, but a minor one. I hoped that maybe some day someone would find my product interesting or amusing, and that vague hope was enough.
This book is in some ways a sequel to "Creatures of the Earth and Mind," which ths Five and Ten Press published in 1998. It differs in that it is somewhat more political, a bit more autobiographical, and for the most part more serious. But don't worry, it's not entirely serious.
If any of you are interested in further exploring, the philosophy underlying these essays, look at my website on the Internet ( http://www.progressivehumanism.com ) And keep an eye out for my new book. It is called "Culture Wars and the Global Village." Prometheus Books is publishing it, and it is due out June 2000.
{ INTRODUCTION }
{ PUBLICATIONS OF THE FIVE AND TEN PRESS 1995-2005 }
{ ORDER FORM }
{ROBERT KEELEY'S BIOGRAPHICAL DATA}
{D.C. GOVERNANCE: IT'S ALWAYS BEEN A MATTER OF RACE AND MONEY}
{ANNALS OF INVESTING
STEVE FORBES VS. WARREN BUFFETT }
{ THE FILE: A PRINCETON MEMOIR }
{ESSAYS FAST AND LOOSE: A CHRISTMAS MISCELLANY }
{LETTERS MOSTLY UNPUBLISHED}
{ INNOCENTS OF THE LATTER DAY: MODERN AMERICANS ABROAD }
{ ESSAYS COLD AND HOT: A NEW YEAR"S POTPOURRI}
{ MSS REVISTED }
{ THREE SEA STORIES }
{CREATURES OF THE EARTH AND THE MIND}
{MY COMMUTE}
{SIC TRANSIT}
{THE GREAT PHELSUMA CAPER - A DIPLOMATIC MEMOIR}
{ THE PORT OF MISSING MEN - A NOVEL }
{ POETRY MOSTLY OFF THE BEATEN TRACK }
{ PARTING THE CURTAIN }
{ ESSAYS NEAR AND FAR: AS A NEW CENTURY DAWNS }
{ RANDOM THOUGHTS, ANECDOTES, AND MEMORIES OF A BOYS' LATIN SCHOOL OF BALTIMORE THAT IS NO MORE }
{ FROM THE HEARTLAND }
{ ONE OF THE VERY BEST MEN }
{ A STORY GOES WITH IT }
{ LOW CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS IN HIGH PLACES: John Mitchell and Watergate. }
{ THE WORLD ACCORDING TO WHITBECK. }
{ AN AMERICAN SOLDIER IN WORLD WAR I. }
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