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Woody Allen and Roman Polanski are on my mind lately. Oh, and add William Friedkin to that list. Their movies (Alice, The Purple Rose of Cairo, Rosemary’s Baby, Macbeth, The Exorcist and Cruising all come to mind. Immersion in these movies gives me goosebumps. I have actually corresponded with Mr. Allen and found him to be a most gracious and (in my opinion) humble human being. I’ve taught these films and they’re part of the American cinematic/literary canon. I’m also a militant feminist and am a fan of Andrea Dworkin, Robin Morgan and Shulamith Firestone. (Dating myself here, I realize.) I’m a mixed-race agnostic bisexual middle-aged male and a damn good writer. My university mentor (and founder of the Women’s Studies program at the University of Minnesota) is a radical lesbian feminist and a Roman Catholic convert. I n my twenties I went through an extended period of intellectual narcissism so profound–in concert with many other university students my age–that I now find myself, forty years later, waking in tears in the middle of the night and recalling all the nasty, spiteful judgmental things I said to people whom I considered less politically cool than me. Actually telling some black kids that their revolution would fail if they couldn’t do it with love in their hearts. I cringe when I remember my part in this bullshit. In any case, the movies and the writers I named above give me goosebumps. I’m as accountable as any of them to the sexism and racism in our culture and can no longer set myself apart from other people and look down on them for the “crime” of simply not being exactly where I’m at. We’re complicated people and we live in a pretty sick and oppressive culture. I call myself out first now….just sayin’….