Inappropriate Content: Utah

The dry desert heat in Utah was so much better than the muggy, malarial, marinating heat in the District that I almost forgot how good the weather can be here. Fortunately, I have quickly been reminded: a storm is brewing, and with it, the sort of electric, voodo thunder that wraps itself around the city with such animate intensity that I can almost believe, if not in a divine sky-god, than in the anthropomorphic pantheons of story and song.

Neil Gaiman's gods.

I brought my collection of 'The Sandman' back from Utah. 'Sandman' is a story about ideas, literally—Dream and Death are main characters—and very, very far from my usual reading, which relies on timeliness and clever wordplay, two things Gaiman entirely avoids, with the exception of a brief appearance by Richard Nixon in Volume VIII. He talks about being president.

Nixon: You don't get to make a difference. You don't get to do jack shit. You know what you get?

Young Man: Sir?

Nixon: You get an entry in the history book, and every 15 minutes, every day at Disneyworld, an animatronic puppet wearing your face will smile or nod when the spotlight hits it. So take it for what you can get, kid, and milk it for all it's worth.

Young Man: Sir—

Nixon: Power. That's the only thing worth going for. Forget money. Power comes with money. Forget chasing skirts. You got power, the skirts chase you. Even that dumb [expletive deleted] Jack Kennedy, even he knew that.

Young man:
Sir? What about making the world a better place?

Nixon: I, uh, I'm not following you.