RIHANNA IS TODAY'S MOST FASCINATING PERFORMER, A MYSTERIOUS AMALGAM OF AMIABLE WARMTH AND GLITTERING CHARISMA. WITH HER KEEN CREATIVE EYE FOR LINE AND COLOR, SHE HAS BECOME A FASHION ICON, LIKE AUDREY HEPBURN. YET SHE IS A TEMPESTUOUS WILD CHILD AND INTERNATIONAL ADVENTURESS, LIKE AVA GARDNER. MOST IMPORTANTLY, AS AN ARTIST IN THIS OVERMECHANIZED AGE, SHE BRAVELY DRAWS ON DEEP WELLS OF PURE EMOTION, ENDEARING HER TO MILLIONS OF FANS WORLDWIDE.

Every month, it is woman's fate to face the abyss of time and being, the abyss which is herself.

Masculinity is risky and elusive. It is achieved by a revolt from woman, and it is confirmed only by other men. Manhood coerced into sensitivity is no manhood at all.

There is no true expertise in the humanities without knowing all of the humanities. Art is a vast, ancient interconnected web-work, a fabricated tradition. Over-concentration on any one point is a distortion.

Even the best critical writing on Emily Dickinson underestimates her. She is frightening. To come to her directly from Dante, Spenser, Blake, and Baudelaire is to find her sadomasochism obvious and flagrant. Birds, bees, and amputated hands are the dizzy stuff of this poetry. Dickinson is like the homosexual cultist draping himself in black leather and chains to bring the idea of masculinity into aggressive visibility.

How many modern transsexuals are unacknowledged shamans? Perhaps it is to poets they should go for counsel, rather than surgeons.

Rule of art: Cant kills creativity!