about "This Town: Two Parties and a Funeral (Plus, Plenty of Valet Parking!) in America's Gilded Capital" by Mark Leibovich

 

Mark Leibovich wallows in the networking and social maneuverings in This Town—which is, of course, Washington, DC. He kids DC's political players about the unseemly side of their work but never condemns them. Leibovich paints an absurd picture and sort of shrugs it off. His easygoing prose makes a shrug seem like the natural reaction. This Town delivers the goods for political junkies—especially if you tracked national politics from 2007 to 2013. Hearing how embedded Washington correspondents are is discomfiting. But if disillusion has already set in, the disappointment in This Town lands softly.

something about "Herodias" by Gustave Flaubert

The short piece, "Herodias," appears in Gustave Flaubert's 1877 work, Three Tales. (The other two tales are "A Simple Heart" and "Saint Julian the Hospitalier.") "Herodias" concerns the characters and events surrounding the beheading of John the Baptist.

Flaubert casts as the central figure Herod Antipas, now commonly known as King Herod. At the time of the events, however, Herod was probably referred to as Antipas, and he was seen as more of a governor, a regional figure, than a king. Flaubert depicts Antipas as a weak ruler manipulated by his wife, the title character, Herodias, a princess from a powerful family of vassals of the Roman Empire.

Antipas was unpopular, perceived by his public as sycophantic and idolatrous. Added to the ruler's frustrations was John the Baptist's high-profile condemnation of the marriage to Herodias—a scandal; to marry Antipas, Herodias divorced her first husband, Herod II, Antipas's half-brother.

In Flaubert's telling, Herodias uses her daughter, Salomé, to seduce Antipas and persuade him to take John's head. Flaubert deals us a story rich in politics, sex, and violence, then combines them all in the climactic scene of Antipas's seduction and John's beheading.

something about the weather and power outtages

The soil in the Mid-Atlantic sops up the irony and becomes poison. Blood loosens the ground, and roots stay exposed in the late season of water-cooled air. The thickest trunks pull away when a hellacious wind comes and weakens their will. Yours breaks. Though you're lit up at night, still the main attraction is fallacy.