Il n'existe pas de relation directe entre “l'homme” et “l'oeuvre”, mais une série de liens complexes et enchevêtrés, un vrai noeud qui les unit d'une étrange façon. Car l'oeuvre invente son auteur au moins autant que l'auteur crée son oeuvre, ce pourquoi j'ai pu parler d'Hergé commme du “fils de Tintin”.

—Benoît Peeters, Ecrire l'image, p. 137.

Labels: Tintin Biography

James enters the room to find Jamilah already seated at a table.

Jamilah: I'll bet your ears were burning, I've been saying such good things about you! All the work. Really just a super job.

James: (Sitting down at the table) Oh!

Jamilah: Peter was very impressed. Everyone is.

James: Peter was?

Jamilah: Yes, and everybody.

James: Talking about me?

Jamilah: Just glowing reviews I've been giving you.

James: Oh—good. When I got your note, that you wanted to see me, I thought it was going to be, you know, stuff.

Jamilah: Oh, nothing like that. Not this time.

James: Okay, good, I was worried. A bit like at school, where you'd get this “PLEASE SEE ME” written on your essay when you got it back. If you had written something disagreeable, I guess.

Jamilah: Oh. Did you make a habit of writing disagreeable things at school?

James: No. I meant: if you did.

Jamilah: Why would you write something disagreeable in an essay? To provoke some sort of reaction?

James: The thing is, you probably didn't think it was disagreeable when you wrote it. It was just common sense. And it's hard to imagine anyone getting all nettled and irate, anyone normal. Nothing to be irate about.

Jamilah: Is it fun to see people getting honked off by something you wrote?

James: I don't think anyone was honked off, just a little irate. And no. Why would I, in a million years, want that? It's no fun at all.

Jamilah: So you don't enjoy the reaction that this squib or whatever provoked.

James: There was no “squib”.

Jamilah: Well, broadside, or salvo or whatever.

James: No, I wasn't trying to have a naval engagement. I don't even—you now how it is, you say something or write something that seems normal, just making some kind of point, or not, and there's some thing in there that bothers some one person. That one thing annoys them, and only them, I think.

Jamilah: You're sure it only bothers that one person.

James: Well, no one else is going mental.

Jamilah: —of the few people that read it.

James: But it's hard to imagine, somebody reading it and then going, “Okay, this is really pissing me off. I must get to the bottom of this. I must seek him out and get satisfaction”. I mean, of all the people that might read it.

Jamilah: Well, why is it bothering him, then?

James: Because he's mental? I don't know. I would steer clear of it if I could.

Jamilah: Avoid the issue altogether.

James: I mean, nobody writes or says something and thinks: “I know what I'll do, I'll conceal these hidden terrible insults only really crazy people will detect, and it'll set them off, ha-ha, should be fun”. Why would you do that?

Jamilah: Most people are polite.

James: Yes.

Jamilah: And would probably not say anything. They're forgiving. They may hear something they don't like and let it go. They profoundly disagree, but, you know—“oh well”. They let it go.

James: Oh, you're saying everyone's pissed off, but they're just being nice about it?

Jamilah: Well, they may not even be aware of it. This one person is saying what they're all thinking but too nice to say, or even think, at first.

James: So this very angry, deranged individual would be their spokesman, in other words.

Jamilah: Well, in that spirit.

James: Too nice to think, in other words, they might not have had these thoughts, might have found nothing objectionable, if it weren't for this nut.

Jamilah: But it's still there.

James: No. Because, first of all, there's nothing objectionable. I didn't intend to inflame anyone. Second, the one person, this nut, finds something to whinge about. Next, he inspires others to join him. They were okay with it at first, of course. But he—

Jamilah: I don't think—

James: —he, like an angler at a stream, nets the one truly innocuous thing capable of distortion, skillfully misreads it, and promulgates his own crazy interpretation among the others. And in their naïveté, like seal pups waddling up to the hunter—

Jamilah: I think you're going a bit far.

James: Maybe. But it's the only halfway reasonable explanation.

Jamilah: Anyway. So I was telling Peter about all this. How great it's been going.

James: Peter?

Jamilah: Kind of, building it up, you know.

James: Well, thanks, but you don't really need to do that.

Jamilah: I have to make everything look well, put everything in the right light. For him, I mean. Sort of focus on your success.

James: It's going pretty well. As you said.

Jamilah: Right, I need to focus on that. Kind of bring out the outstanding things, and maybe, put a spotlight on that. Not the other things so much.

James: Oh.

Jamilah: Right. I want to emphasize the good things. Stick to that. So. Can you think of anything?

Labels: Saynètes

“We’ve got to become born-again Canadians, I think, and explain to our kids, our families and our neighbours why the Conservatives are the party they can count on to work for them and for their values.”
—From MacLeans's, via Red Tory v.3.0

What's Mike Duffy been born again as? A gnat? A toad? And what's all this “values” stuff? Isn't that some kind of tired retread from rightwing religious fundamenalism?

I think people ought to be allowed to smoke in bars, but never mind about my values, what are Mike Duffy's? Nothing to do with honest journalism or public service, obviously, so what?

Labels: Failed Journalists Saying Dumb Things

Robin decided to visit Batman in his rooms at the Gotham City Hotel. He found him watching TV and drinking beer.

“Cars for the Summer”, said Batman, mimicking the TV, “exploding with values.” He looked at Robin briefly. “Get you a beer. Oh, that is—d'you want a beer?”

“Sure. Thanks.”

Batman went into the kitchenette, opened the fridge, removed two beers and, as an afterthought, grabbed the J&B from the counter and returned.

“Thanks,” said Robin. They swigged away at their beers for a few seconds. Batman noted that he had one open already and quickly drained that. Then he said:

“So, I dunno. You're probably gonna need a little bit of cash. For going out with the girls and so on—”

“Well, not really.”

“Well, there is some money. I can have some put into your account. Soon. Never fear.”

“That's all right,” said Robin. “Everything's fine.”

“I've gotta—oh, my, what I've gotta do! Gotta go there, gotta go here. Talk to people. Get things moving on the old Wayne Industries front. Are you meeting any nice girls?”

“No, sir.”

“What about that—”

“I am thinking about Gotham City U. Maybe going next autumn.”

“Well, kind of—I guess you know—” and here Batman became side-tracked in contemplation, or in consideration of some half-eclipsed memory that demanded his reluctant attention for several seconds. Robin waited. At length Batman said: “Selling the house.”

“What—you mean—”

“Yeah. The house.”

They sat in silence for a few minutes. Robin went to the bathroom and came back with a tumbler, which he unwrapped and filled with a small quantity of J&B.

“I imagine,” said Robin, “it would be kind of hard to sell with a Batcave underneath it.”

“Batcave! Just pave it over, if I had my way. Of course, you'd know more about that than I. What's he doing in there?”

“I don't know. Just living there, I guess. He has it sealed off, you can't get in.”

“What, heat-vision, melted, fused door thing?”

“Some junk like that. Also he did some super-tidying.”

“Oh, aren't we sensitive to our surroundings! ‘Oh, pooh, what is this? Batman's empties! Feh!’”

Robin smiled. “Something like that.”

“That guy. Y'know, it's funny—just thinking back, here, if you'll indulge me—I thought, when I met the guy—you know, Superman! Compared to me, he had undeniable, ah—”

“Yeah, well, he's got powers and stuff, but—”

“No, no, to be fair, now, Dick: it's not just that, there's a certain, ah, ethical, if you will, envelope that goes with that. He does—or did—live up to it.”

“Bruce—”

“No, no, in no way can I reproach him, for all the grief he's caused—and not just to me—he remains a, ah—remains—certainly, y'know—”

“He's a mealy-mouthed hypocrite, Bruce. Come on.”

“That's a fairly large thing to say, Dick.”

Batman remarked, with some alarm, that Robin had turned his face away, probably to conceal his tears, and said:

“Well, for Goodness' sake, there's no reason to get upset, Robin. Really.”

“I'm sorry, it's just—just—”

“Well, buck up, is all I can say, old fellow. Good Heavens, you'd think someone had died!” After a moment, he added, “You remind me so much of your mother, sometimes. No, we'll be okay. A little setback, that's all. Nothing to worry about.”

When the crisis was averted, Batman said:

“Here, I've an idea: let's listen to Hank Williams.”

“You have your LPs?”

“I do indeed.” Batman knocked back the J&B, poured himself another, and then got up, making his way to the stereo and singing, very much in his own manner: “Cow's gone dry, and them hens won't lay...” He turned to Robin and continued, brightly, pedagogically, “...but we're still a-livin', so ever'thin's oookay!” He then attended to his stack of LPs, humming as he sorted through the Frank Sinatras and Tony Bennetts. Robin stood up and wandered over to the window.

Down below he could see Central Avenue, still very busy with taxicabs and limos, dropping off people or picking them up. He heard Batman fumbling with the stereo behind him and smiled, and said to himself:

“Superman, you cocksucking son of whore. You'll learn to curse the cunt that shat you out before I'm done with you, you miserable fuck.”

Labels: Superman pt. 3

I used to read James Bowman's movie reviews with some interest, until I realised that he seemed to suffer from a sort of indefinable neurosis. Almost every review, no matter what the subject, excruciatingly turned on some rusty blowhard's axis about patriotism or good manners or some damn thing. American Beauty, American Psycho (“Of course the media and the critics in general just love this stuff because it plugs into their two favorite pastimes: feeling superior to Republicans and feeling miserable and alienated about the state of the nation. It is all a pose, of course, but then Ellis's book and Ms Harron's movie are poses too.”), Angela's Ashes (“As a result, there is too much of the besetting sin of Hollywood, which is an appeal to self-congratulation.”), all found to be unmanly and therefore inimical and possibly harmful.

I wondered, how does a normal person get this way? Did something happen to him? A disappointment? A bitterness? Some rancune?

I don't know. But here he is, back in 1993, writing a puff piece about Rush Limbaugh in National Review:

Yes, but . . . Is Limbaugh really an homme serieux, a man with the gravitas to be a - let alone the - republican leader? [“]A lot of very wealthy Republicans consider themselves sophisticated beyond the Limbaugh types,” Bennett goes on. “They miss the point. Rush is extremely sophisticated, extremely smart. The great thing is that, never having been through a university, he is not complicated with pedanticism. He's very serious intellectually. He knows how to frame an issue, how to debate an issue, how to argue ad finem and ad absurdum. He does both. But he is larger than a leader of the political opposition. He represents a shift in the culture. Another ten years of the political change he stands for will take us beyond Republicans and Democrats.” ...

Famous for being fat, he comes across in person rather as an imposing presence: big, but with the grace of a jungle cat - a quality that goes with his yellow-green, cat-like eyes.

He goes on in this vein, practically swooning as he bathes in Limbaugh's cigar smoke, excited, truly enthusiastic.

I become sad thinking of the many assholes in this world.

Labels: Christ What an Asshole

The Insane Detective pursuing nonexistant clues.

But he's almost right.

He passes by the scene of another crime, dimly aware of it, curious, even—other detective are already gathering there, greeting each other, slapping each other on the back. He is tempted to join them. How easy that would be! But his crime scene is elsewhere. No, everywhere. There are no borders to the crime scene. The crime is undetermined, and a man is being sought.

Labels: Crime

After I heard that Michael Jackson had died, I started to have the odd feeling that we, the general public—the witless, idle, starved-for-entertainment, imperious gabies that we are—had somehow killed him. He was like some sort of demented creature that everyone laughed at and encouraged, from his youth on, and look what he turned into: a monster whose survival depended on mass attention, and, therefore, on ever more outrageous behaviour. How did that happen?

You see all these cute kids on TV, in movies, whereever. In many cases, their greatest performance were beaten out of them.

Labels: People

Something I was looking for...

Hysterical realism is not exactly magical realism, but magical realism's next stop. It is characterised by a fear of silence. This kind of realism is a perpetual motion machine that appears to have been embarrassed into velocity. Stories and sub-stories sprout on every page. There is a pursuit of vitality at all costs. Recent novels by Rushdie, Pynchon, DeLillo, Foster Wallace, Zadie Smith and others have featured a great rock musician who played air guitar in his crib (Rushdie); a talking dog, a mechanical duck and a giant octagonal cheese (Pynchon); a nun obsessed with germs who may be a reincarnation of J Edgar Hoover (DeLillo); a terrorist group devoted to the liberation of Quebec who move around in wheelchairs (Foster Wallace); and a terrorist Islamic group based in North London with the silly acronym Kevin (Smith).

—James Wood in The Guardian a while back.

Labels: Hard Line

Well, you know, “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds”. It's almost impossible to say that without seeming like a tedious prat.

Labels: Foolish Waffle Waffle