AN ACADEMIC DEFINITION of Lynching might be that the term "refers to a particular kind of irony where the very macabre and the very mundane combine in such a way as to reveal the former's perpetual containment within the latter." But like postmodern or pornographic, Lynching is one of those Porter Stewart-type words that's ultimately definable only extensively-i.e., we know it when we see it. Ted Bundy wasn't particularly Lynching, but good old Jeffrey Dahmer, with his victims' various anatomies neatly separated and stored in his fridge alongside his chocolate milk and Shed Spread, was thoroughgoing Lynching. A recent homicide in Boston, in which the deacon of a South Shore church reportedly gave chase to a vehicle that bad cut him off, forced the car off the road, and shot the driver with a high powered crossbow, was borderline Lynching. A Rotary luncheon where everybody's got a comb-over and a polyester sport coat and is eating bland Rotarian chicken and exchanging Republican platitudes with heartfelt sincerity and yet all are either amputees or neurologically damaged or both would be more Lynching than not.

A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again: Essays and Arguments