Paris once had dozens of repertory cinemas. In those folksy medieval days long before netflix and bluray, the owners of those cinemas more or less dictated what people would be talking about in the cafés afterward. The movies could be good, bad, awful, dated, cheesy – but that didn’t matter because the whole point of the evening was to escape from your unheated, closet-sized chambre de bonne apartment for as long as possible.
So you’d have a month where Billy Wilder was the big thing, then Preston Sturges, then maybe Carol Reed or Kurosawa. Sometimes the programming centered on actors, many of them almost entirely forgotten. But you didn’t care… everybody went to old movies all the time.
During one drizzly February in the mid-eighties, my local was running a Robert Taylor festival. I plopped down my five francs and found a seat in the crowded hall. The feature was Ivanhoe, starring Taylor, Joan Fontaine and another Taylor – Elizabeth.
Refresher: Ivanhoe tells the story of a knight home from the Crusades who allies himself with Robin Hood to restore Richard the Lion-Hearted to the throne of England. Along the way, the dashing Ivanhoe has to contend with a Saxon lady, Rowena, played by Joan Fontaine, and with a Jewish girl, Rebecca, played by Elizabeth Taylor.
Okay, so jousts and tournaments and treacheries took up most of the running time, all shot in Technicolor camp and greeted by the audience with occasional snickers. Then came the climactic scene. Ivanhoe has to make his choice. Both women stand before him, Rowena and Rebecca. He chooses Rowena, the Saxon.
Close-up on Rebecca’s face.
The movie was made in 1952. Elizabeth Taylor was twenty years old.
You get the picture.
From the back of the room, a gruff voice, the voice of a homeless man, the words slurred, “Putain de merde!! Il est aveugle, cet enculé?!!”
Which may be delicately translated as: “Holy shit! The fucker’s blind!!”
The explosion of laughter turns to raucous catcalls and whistles as Ivanhoe and Rowena look at each other lovingly. The crowd loses it, joyfully, and the shouts and jeers make the concluding moments of the movie inaudible.
No one cared. Suspension of disbelief had just crashed and burned.
Utterly and completely.
Il est aveugle, cet enculé?!!
Monday, March 28, 2011
Monday, March 21, 2011
Won't you come home, George Bailey?
The world has changed.
Robbers used to take the money and run. Now they take the money and run the bank.
Churches used to be picturesque outposts of institutional anti-Semitism. Now they’re franchises of the Bangkok red light district.
Schools were joyful factories of drudgery, filled with obstreperous kids and staffed by tough-love teachers. Now they’re a drag on the economy, spreading nonsense about evolution and suckling away at the taxpayer teat.
The business section used to be the most boring part of a newspaper.
Corporations paid taxes.
Spam was something you ate.
White supremacists knew their place.
The United States got into a war only once every decade.
Ke$ha had not yet been born.
Double chocolate-chip mud-pie fudge-infused pancakes did not come with melted cheese and bacon.
Individual mortality inspired literature and philosophy, not lawsuits and twenty-mile jogs in a blizzard.
Self-storage facilities were used exclusively by eccentric collectors who had amassed too much stuff.
Automobiles were a means of transport, not a residence.
Tutankhamen and Omar Sharif represented Egypt.
The Gilded Age was found only in history textbooks.
A special interest meant a hobby, not a lobby.
Soldiers took pictures of themselves raising a flag, not some dead guy’s head.
All other news of the world and the country did not get blacked out when a sports star like LeBron James changed teams or a minor entertainer like Charlie Sheen shot his mouth off.
Israel was sort of cool.
The purpose of a man was to love a woman, not legislate about her womb.
Tyrants, despots and dictators were our bff.
Ignorance was an embarrassment, not a qualification for public office.
Airports were not managed by Benito Orwell.
Vampires were not considered suitable prom dates.
People prayed in private.
Privacy existed.
Robbers used to take the money and run. Now they take the money and run the bank.
Churches used to be picturesque outposts of institutional anti-Semitism. Now they’re franchises of the Bangkok red light district.
Schools were joyful factories of drudgery, filled with obstreperous kids and staffed by tough-love teachers. Now they’re a drag on the economy, spreading nonsense about evolution and suckling away at the taxpayer teat.
The business section used to be the most boring part of a newspaper.
Corporations paid taxes.
Spam was something you ate.
White supremacists knew their place.
The United States got into a war only once every decade.
Ke$ha had not yet been born.
Double chocolate-chip mud-pie fudge-infused pancakes did not come with melted cheese and bacon.
Individual mortality inspired literature and philosophy, not lawsuits and twenty-mile jogs in a blizzard.
Self-storage facilities were used exclusively by eccentric collectors who had amassed too much stuff.
Automobiles were a means of transport, not a residence.
Tutankhamen and Omar Sharif represented Egypt.
The Gilded Age was found only in history textbooks.
A special interest meant a hobby, not a lobby.
Soldiers took pictures of themselves raising a flag, not some dead guy’s head.
All other news of the world and the country did not get blacked out when a sports star like LeBron James changed teams or a minor entertainer like Charlie Sheen shot his mouth off.
Israel was sort of cool.
The purpose of a man was to love a woman, not legislate about her womb.
Tyrants, despots and dictators were our bff.
Ignorance was an embarrassment, not a qualification for public office.
Airports were not managed by Benito Orwell.
Vampires were not considered suitable prom dates.
People prayed in private.
Privacy existed.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Same Old, Same Old...
“It looks to me like if shooting these immigrating feral hogs [from a helicopter] works then maybe we have found a solution to our illegal immigration problem” – Virgil Peck, State Rep. (R), Kansas, 2011
“The Eastern Jew in his homeland knows nothing of the social injustice of the West; nothing of the habitual bias that governs the actions, decisions, and opinions of the average Western European; nothing of the narrowness of the Western perspective, jagged with factory smokestacks and framed by power plants; nothing of the sheer hatred that, like a life-prolonging (though lethal) drug, is so powerful that it is tended like a sort of Eternal Flame, at which these selfish people and nations warm themselves.” Joseph Roth, The Wandering Jews, 1937.
“The Eastern Jew in his homeland knows nothing of the social injustice of the West; nothing of the habitual bias that governs the actions, decisions, and opinions of the average Western European; nothing of the narrowness of the Western perspective, jagged with factory smokestacks and framed by power plants; nothing of the sheer hatred that, like a life-prolonging (though lethal) drug, is so powerful that it is tended like a sort of Eternal Flame, at which these selfish people and nations warm themselves.” Joseph Roth, The Wandering Jews, 1937.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Daddy Knows Best
I’m worried about a friend of mine. Actually, I’m worried about his daughters. One is fifteen, the other, twelve; nice girls, smiling, innocent, yet I’ve begun to worry that their father deploys parenting techniques that are – how should I put this? – heterodox.
It all began in the summer of 2009. We live in a small New England city, home to a famous art school and an Ivy League university. The local newspaper announced that an attractive young movie star, known to millions of children for her portrayal of an apprentice witch in a famous English film series about a school for wizards, was going to attend our university in the fall. My friend’s daughters were overjoyed, hoping that they might one day catch a glimpse of her.
My friend proclaimed that he would make that happen. To that end, on a hot September afternoon at the beginning of term, he told his girls that they were to walk through the campus and see if they couldn’t spot her. They squealed with delight.
Did I say it was a hot day? As anyone who has ever been on an American campus in fine weather is aware, such meteorological conditions immediately cause a physiological phenomenon known by specialists of exhibitionist psychology as the Mass Garage Sale Erotic (MGSE), wherein scores of unbuttoned and unlaced biomasses loll about on the grass seeking to tan hitherto inaccessible recesses of flesh in the most public manner imaginable. The mean age of an MGSE participant is 21 years, 3 months.
As they passed through the fine wrought-iron gates and entered the quad, my friend said to his daughters, in a strangled voice they had never heard from him before, “Remember, Daddy used to interview lots of famous people, so he knows that movie stars don’t look the same in real life. She could be anywhere.” He gestured to the college green before them, its acres of verdant lawn strewn with recumbent MGSE practitioners, as if a blizzard had passed through and left hundreds of sculpted, shapely drifts on the grass.
His daughters, as instructed, led him through the green. Daddy had told them that his eyesight was failing, so he would have to rely on them. And, remember, to be a movie star, you have to be really really pretty.
They picked their way slowly through the sunshine. Every now and then they halted before someone, just to make sure she wasn’t the actress they sought. It was important to look very carefully, girls…
Most of those subject to such close scrutiny eventually sat bolt upright, a look of disgust crossing their faces as they saw the rheumy eyes of a vacationing Santa upon them, then broke into a smile once they spotted the girls on either side of him. The iPhone to call the campus police was dropped in the backpack as a warm feeling suffused them: Awwww, how cute, I remember what it was like to be a little girl…
The day drew on, but no actress appeared. He sensed that his girls’ disappointment matched his satisfaction. Then, at a distance, he spotted Aphrodite beneath an elm tree.
“That must be her.”
“Daddy, she’s black.”
“Could be a disguise.”
Miss Brazil put down her heavy book, sat up and adjusted her many adjustables. Her face broke into a wide grin. It was different from the awwww smiles of the others.
“When I was a little girl,” she said, “My father used to walk with me on the beach and do the same thing. I was supposed to ask them if they had any lip balm, ’cause Daddy had forgotten it at home.”
My friend laughed softly at the memory. “The beach… lip balm… genius… pure genius…” His voice trailed off, he closed his eyes.
There was an awkward pause. We were in his apartment, sitting on a sofa, under the portrait of a young woman he called “The Etruscan Babe-a-licious.”
In front of us, on the coffee table, lay open the book we had been examining, “Ophelia Unplugged: The Unpublished Sketches of the Pre-Raphaelites.” I was beginning to understand my friend better.
Or so I thought.
The unmistakable scent of vodka filled the room. His fifteen-year-old daughter stood before us, a full martini glass in hand. She placed it on the table.
“See if the three o’clock is better than the two o’clock,” she said expectantly.
He took a sip.
“The grain juice could be a little colder, honey. Try to get it right for the four o’clock.”
She frowned.
“That’s all right, darling. Now make one for him,” he said, turning to me. “You’d like one with juniper juice, right?”
Intrigued, I followed her into the kitchen. On the counter a well-thumbed volume: “Teenage Bartending for Dummies.” In a corner, covered in dust, an AP Chemistry textbook, a World History textbook, and several school notebooks. She had her back to them, hunched over her task, pitting olives.
I rushed back into the living room. “For the love of God, Montresor!” I exclaimed, “She’s just a child!”
He shrugged, lifted a dainty spoon to a nostril and snorted a pinch of snuff.
I turned away, appalled. What was his other girl doing, stomping grapes in the basement?
I looked around. Where was his other daughter?
“At her sewing lesson,” he explained. His fleshy, degenerate lips creased into what I was meant to take as a smile. It made me queasy.
The twelve-year-old was taking a six-month course, 15 hours a day, six days a week, in the unventilated premises of the Providence Perspiration Shop, a vocational finishing school in the fine old tradition of New England manufacturing.
“Her sister packs her a knish for the three-minute lunch break,” he said in answer to a question unposed.
“Good heavens, man!” I shouted. “What about her field hockey? Her fencing? Why on earth should the poor thing learn to be a seamstress?!”
He rose, the hem of his scarlet silk dressing gown tickling a naked Ophelia on the coffee table as he crossed the room to a tall bookcase. He took out a large flat volume, of the format customarily used for fine-art books about the Trump properties.
“You know, I’ve handed in my manuscript,” he said absently, prising open the glossy pages.
My heart sank. No doubt the tiresome fellow was about to launch into another of his long speeches about his latest book, some incense-and-mirrors rumination on the medicinal properties of mead or the best jousting techniques or some other surefire bestseller topic.
To my relief, he said only, “I shall need a seamstress.”
I now saw the book’s cover: “Ecclesiastical Fashions of the High Middle Ages.”
He spoke softly to himself as he turned the pages: “Curate… abbot… bishop… cardinal…” His eyes widened, his breathing became labored. “Pope!” he whispered, “Pope… pope…”
I cleared my throat, loudly, as if entering the rectory of a Catholic church and thereby announcing my presence so that whatever was going on inside would stop.
“This will be my daughter’s first commission,” my friend said, opening wide the book. A double-spread centerfold showed a handsome man reclining, playmate-style, although his entire frame was covered with a cowled white robe, set off with a jet-black scapular.
“Dominican?” I ventured.
“Mmmm.”
“Inquisitor?”
“Grand Inquisitor.”
That was when I noticed the entire ensemble was trimmed with fur.
“Ermine?”
“Sable.”
“But you can’t possibly afford that, my good man! You’ll be a bankrupt!”
He raised a finger, trained his red eyes on mine.
“I know, I know. So I have bowed to the inevitable.” He retreated through a doorway and returned clutching what appeared to be a half-dozen fur stoles.
“Synthetic. Faux-fur boas. They’re for dress-up parties.” He smiled, with easy family-man condescension. “Found them in the tween section of Toys R Us.”
I nodded, impressed.
“Warwick?”
“No, no, noooo,” he tut-tutted. “Attleboro. Just past the Wendy’s.”
“But won’t your daughter… won’t your tween daughter… the seamstress… won’t she want them for herself?”
He stopped short. His mouth fell open. Clearly, the thought had never occurred to him.
The monster.
A girl’s voice wafted in from the kitchen. “Daddy… daddy… we seem to be out of juniper juice. I… I… can’t find any…” Her voice faltered, apprehensive.
My friend recovered himself. He glanced at his watch.
“On your bike, then,” he called out. “Mick’ll still be there. Get a bottle of Gordon’s. Tell him to put it on the tab.”
“Your tab?”
“No, your tab, sweetheart. What do you think your allowance is for? Candy?”
The door closed behind her.
“Kids these days!” he chuckled.
Despite his entreaties, I left shortly thereafter, wondering if my worries had any foundation to them. There are, after all, so very many different ways of growing up. Who was I to say?
I spent the next day in my rooms, lost in thought, the blinds drawn, torturing my canary.
Who was I to say?
It all began in the summer of 2009. We live in a small New England city, home to a famous art school and an Ivy League university. The local newspaper announced that an attractive young movie star, known to millions of children for her portrayal of an apprentice witch in a famous English film series about a school for wizards, was going to attend our university in the fall. My friend’s daughters were overjoyed, hoping that they might one day catch a glimpse of her.
My friend proclaimed that he would make that happen. To that end, on a hot September afternoon at the beginning of term, he told his girls that they were to walk through the campus and see if they couldn’t spot her. They squealed with delight.
Did I say it was a hot day? As anyone who has ever been on an American campus in fine weather is aware, such meteorological conditions immediately cause a physiological phenomenon known by specialists of exhibitionist psychology as the Mass Garage Sale Erotic (MGSE), wherein scores of unbuttoned and unlaced biomasses loll about on the grass seeking to tan hitherto inaccessible recesses of flesh in the most public manner imaginable. The mean age of an MGSE participant is 21 years, 3 months.
As they passed through the fine wrought-iron gates and entered the quad, my friend said to his daughters, in a strangled voice they had never heard from him before, “Remember, Daddy used to interview lots of famous people, so he knows that movie stars don’t look the same in real life. She could be anywhere.” He gestured to the college green before them, its acres of verdant lawn strewn with recumbent MGSE practitioners, as if a blizzard had passed through and left hundreds of sculpted, shapely drifts on the grass.
His daughters, as instructed, led him through the green. Daddy had told them that his eyesight was failing, so he would have to rely on them. And, remember, to be a movie star, you have to be really really pretty.
They picked their way slowly through the sunshine. Every now and then they halted before someone, just to make sure she wasn’t the actress they sought. It was important to look very carefully, girls…
Most of those subject to such close scrutiny eventually sat bolt upright, a look of disgust crossing their faces as they saw the rheumy eyes of a vacationing Santa upon them, then broke into a smile once they spotted the girls on either side of him. The iPhone to call the campus police was dropped in the backpack as a warm feeling suffused them: Awwww, how cute, I remember what it was like to be a little girl…
The day drew on, but no actress appeared. He sensed that his girls’ disappointment matched his satisfaction. Then, at a distance, he spotted Aphrodite beneath an elm tree.
“That must be her.”
“Daddy, she’s black.”
“Could be a disguise.”
Miss Brazil put down her heavy book, sat up and adjusted her many adjustables. Her face broke into a wide grin. It was different from the awwww smiles of the others.
“When I was a little girl,” she said, “My father used to walk with me on the beach and do the same thing. I was supposed to ask them if they had any lip balm, ’cause Daddy had forgotten it at home.”
My friend laughed softly at the memory. “The beach… lip balm… genius… pure genius…” His voice trailed off, he closed his eyes.
There was an awkward pause. We were in his apartment, sitting on a sofa, under the portrait of a young woman he called “The Etruscan Babe-a-licious.”
In front of us, on the coffee table, lay open the book we had been examining, “Ophelia Unplugged: The Unpublished Sketches of the Pre-Raphaelites.” I was beginning to understand my friend better.
Or so I thought.
The unmistakable scent of vodka filled the room. His fifteen-year-old daughter stood before us, a full martini glass in hand. She placed it on the table.
“See if the three o’clock is better than the two o’clock,” she said expectantly.
He took a sip.
“The grain juice could be a little colder, honey. Try to get it right for the four o’clock.”
She frowned.
“That’s all right, darling. Now make one for him,” he said, turning to me. “You’d like one with juniper juice, right?”
Intrigued, I followed her into the kitchen. On the counter a well-thumbed volume: “Teenage Bartending for Dummies.” In a corner, covered in dust, an AP Chemistry textbook, a World History textbook, and several school notebooks. She had her back to them, hunched over her task, pitting olives.
I rushed back into the living room. “For the love of God, Montresor!” I exclaimed, “She’s just a child!”
He shrugged, lifted a dainty spoon to a nostril and snorted a pinch of snuff.
I turned away, appalled. What was his other girl doing, stomping grapes in the basement?
I looked around. Where was his other daughter?
“At her sewing lesson,” he explained. His fleshy, degenerate lips creased into what I was meant to take as a smile. It made me queasy.
The twelve-year-old was taking a six-month course, 15 hours a day, six days a week, in the unventilated premises of the Providence Perspiration Shop, a vocational finishing school in the fine old tradition of New England manufacturing.
“Her sister packs her a knish for the three-minute lunch break,” he said in answer to a question unposed.
“Good heavens, man!” I shouted. “What about her field hockey? Her fencing? Why on earth should the poor thing learn to be a seamstress?!”
He rose, the hem of his scarlet silk dressing gown tickling a naked Ophelia on the coffee table as he crossed the room to a tall bookcase. He took out a large flat volume, of the format customarily used for fine-art books about the Trump properties.
“You know, I’ve handed in my manuscript,” he said absently, prising open the glossy pages.
My heart sank. No doubt the tiresome fellow was about to launch into another of his long speeches about his latest book, some incense-and-mirrors rumination on the medicinal properties of mead or the best jousting techniques or some other surefire bestseller topic.
To my relief, he said only, “I shall need a seamstress.”
I now saw the book’s cover: “Ecclesiastical Fashions of the High Middle Ages.”
He spoke softly to himself as he turned the pages: “Curate… abbot… bishop… cardinal…” His eyes widened, his breathing became labored. “Pope!” he whispered, “Pope… pope…”
I cleared my throat, loudly, as if entering the rectory of a Catholic church and thereby announcing my presence so that whatever was going on inside would stop.
“This will be my daughter’s first commission,” my friend said, opening wide the book. A double-spread centerfold showed a handsome man reclining, playmate-style, although his entire frame was covered with a cowled white robe, set off with a jet-black scapular.
“Dominican?” I ventured.
“Mmmm.”
“Inquisitor?”
“Grand Inquisitor.”
That was when I noticed the entire ensemble was trimmed with fur.
“Ermine?”
“Sable.”
“But you can’t possibly afford that, my good man! You’ll be a bankrupt!”
He raised a finger, trained his red eyes on mine.
“I know, I know. So I have bowed to the inevitable.” He retreated through a doorway and returned clutching what appeared to be a half-dozen fur stoles.
“Synthetic. Faux-fur boas. They’re for dress-up parties.” He smiled, with easy family-man condescension. “Found them in the tween section of Toys R Us.”
I nodded, impressed.
“Warwick?”
“No, no, noooo,” he tut-tutted. “Attleboro. Just past the Wendy’s.”
“But won’t your daughter… won’t your tween daughter… the seamstress… won’t she want them for herself?”
He stopped short. His mouth fell open. Clearly, the thought had never occurred to him.
The monster.
A girl’s voice wafted in from the kitchen. “Daddy… daddy… we seem to be out of juniper juice. I… I… can’t find any…” Her voice faltered, apprehensive.
My friend recovered himself. He glanced at his watch.
“On your bike, then,” he called out. “Mick’ll still be there. Get a bottle of Gordon’s. Tell him to put it on the tab.”
“Your tab?”
“No, your tab, sweetheart. What do you think your allowance is for? Candy?”
The door closed behind her.
“Kids these days!” he chuckled.
Despite his entreaties, I left shortly thereafter, wondering if my worries had any foundation to them. There are, after all, so very many different ways of growing up. Who was I to say?
I spent the next day in my rooms, lost in thought, the blinds drawn, torturing my canary.
Who was I to say?
Monday, March 7, 2011
Torquemada Pop Quiz
See if you’ve got what it takes:
1. The medieval euphemism for torture was
a) Passing the chalice
b) Putting the question
c) Tickling the damned
d) Burning the steak
2. The modern euphemism for torture is
a) National securiosity
b) Enhanced interrogation techniques
c) The Huckabee questionnaire
d) Doing a Jack Bauer
3. Bradley E. Manning, the soldier believed responsible for giving Wikileaks thousands of U.S. government documents, is being made to sleep naked every night because:
a) He has bad fashion sense
b) His guards are taking a life-drawing class
c) Underwear constitutes coddling
d) The Empire has no clothes, either
4. Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, 9/11 mastermind, was waterboarded 183 times because:
a) The first 182 times were warm-ups
b) It was a contest sponsored by Waterpik
c) Problematic personal hygiene
d) It was fun
5. The woman in the pictures at Abu Ghraib was:
a) Annie Leibovitz
b) Tonya Harding
c) Lynndie England
d) Barbara Bush
6. The Bush who is most proud of causing excruciating pain is:
a) George W.
b) George H. W.
c) Jeb
d) Kate
7. In which city were the Geneva Conventions signed?
a) Nuremberg
b) Celebration, Florida
c) Wasilla, Alaska
d) The what?
8. In the “torture memo” penned by Bush’s Justice Department, physically violent questioning did not reach the threshold of torture unless it:
a) caused the victim to vote for the Democrats
b) caused suicide
c) caused organ failure
d) caused piano failure
9. The reason people can be found who are willing to torture resides in their:
a) having been altar boys in either Baltimore or Boston
b) having read Ayn Rand
c) having had the Angel Moroni speak to them
d) having lost the Civil War
10. John Yoo, author of the torture memo, recently published a book entitled:
a) War By Other Means
b) War Means Being Mean
c) The Wit and Wisdom of Genghis Khan
d) Check Your Soul at the Door: A Life in Public Service
11. Yoo is presently:
a) a senior adviser to Muammar Gaddafi
b) a possible running-mate for Pamela Geller’s GOP presidential bid
c) a finalist on American Scumbag
d) a professor of law at UC Berkeley
12. George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld are reluctant to travel abroad because they might face:
a) garlic
b) foreigners
c) smaller lecture fees
d) prosecution for war crimes
1. The medieval euphemism for torture was
a) Passing the chalice
b) Putting the question
c) Tickling the damned
d) Burning the steak
2. The modern euphemism for torture is
a) National securiosity
b) Enhanced interrogation techniques
c) The Huckabee questionnaire
d) Doing a Jack Bauer
3. Bradley E. Manning, the soldier believed responsible for giving Wikileaks thousands of U.S. government documents, is being made to sleep naked every night because:
a) He has bad fashion sense
b) His guards are taking a life-drawing class
c) Underwear constitutes coddling
d) The Empire has no clothes, either
4. Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, 9/11 mastermind, was waterboarded 183 times because:
a) The first 182 times were warm-ups
b) It was a contest sponsored by Waterpik
c) Problematic personal hygiene
d) It was fun
5. The woman in the pictures at Abu Ghraib was:
a) Annie Leibovitz
b) Tonya Harding
c) Lynndie England
d) Barbara Bush
6. The Bush who is most proud of causing excruciating pain is:
a) George W.
b) George H. W.
c) Jeb
d) Kate
7. In which city were the Geneva Conventions signed?
a) Nuremberg
b) Celebration, Florida
c) Wasilla, Alaska
d) The what?
8. In the “torture memo” penned by Bush’s Justice Department, physically violent questioning did not reach the threshold of torture unless it:
a) caused the victim to vote for the Democrats
b) caused suicide
c) caused organ failure
d) caused piano failure
9. The reason people can be found who are willing to torture resides in their:
a) having been altar boys in either Baltimore or Boston
b) having read Ayn Rand
c) having had the Angel Moroni speak to them
d) having lost the Civil War
10. John Yoo, author of the torture memo, recently published a book entitled:
a) War By Other Means
b) War Means Being Mean
c) The Wit and Wisdom of Genghis Khan
d) Check Your Soul at the Door: A Life in Public Service
11. Yoo is presently:
a) a senior adviser to Muammar Gaddafi
b) a possible running-mate for Pamela Geller’s GOP presidential bid
c) a finalist on American Scumbag
d) a professor of law at UC Berkeley
12. George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld are reluctant to travel abroad because they might face:
a) garlic
b) foreigners
c) smaller lecture fees
d) prosecution for war crimes
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Bond. Justin Bond.
When one has spent three years thinking, reading and writing about medieval torture techniques, is there a way to reinsert oneself back into society? Can the thought of the rack and stake ever be entirely banished? Can one join the company of free men and women, enjoy their fresh faces, airkiss their scrubbed cheeks and smile beneath their warm and welcoming gaze, unencumbered by unspoken speculation about their eventual dismemberment? Is there a way, oh lord, is there a way?
Yes, there is a way. Espionage. Secrecy. A mission. Only by feigning involvement in the real world to accomplish an ulterior goal is one able to simulate normalcy and thereby return to civilian life. Call it a stepping-stone, a half-way house, a stairway to sanity.
I got the call last night. Headquarters in Toronto instructed me to procure some valuable matériel unavailable in the socialist hell north of Lake Ontario. I was to get in my car and drive, purchase the items with an unmarked credit card, then, at some later date to be specified, head far, far to the north and somehow sneak the precious cargo of contraband past the vigilance of the Canadian border huskies and their mukluk-shod Mountie masters.
The morning dawned brilliantly sunny, a cold hard day in late winter. Ha, I thought, enjoying the ironies of the cloak-and-dagger. A couple jogged innocently by in the brightness of my rear window, oblivious to the darkness within. I smiled to myself as I turned the key in the ignition, if they only knew…
Business with pleasure, I thought suavely, as I avoided the highway to take a slower, harder-to-tail route. I drove south out of Providence onto Allens Avenue, a.k.a. the Narragansett Bay Corniche, its mixture of tank farms, rusting tugs and mountainous heaps of toxic crud a clever counterpoint to the predictable vista of sea and sky. Then onto bucolic Cranston, a limitless expanse of drugstores and hot dog vendors punctuated by foreclosed clapboard houses and palm-reading shops. When I reached the boarded-up storefront of the place that used to sell week-old grinder rolls and Wonder bread, I knew I had gone too far.
I deftly executed a U-turn and headed to the next stage of my journey: I-95, a ribbon of asphalt stretching from Maine to Florida that is the quasi-mobile home to five million UPS trucks delivering fall-apart goods made in Shenzhen. I merged and soon found myself in familiar company, Massholes passing on the right, Rhode Islanders unfamiliar with the concept of the turn signal, even a few New Jersey plates straining to break the sound barrier, all of the drivers shouting into cellphones and eating something.
I exited at Warwick, Rhode Island, my dread destination Bald Hill Road. Almost immediately it was upon me. Beyond a shivering spinney of leafless trees loomed a sign: Toys R Us.
Yes! There it was… No, wait, it says: Toys R Us Babies R Us. There must be some mistake. I pressed on the accelerator and climbed the bald hill. It had all been too easy, I wasn’t going to be fooled.
Target, Wal-Mart, Chuck E. Cheese, Panera, Best Buy, Barnes & Noble, Ocean State Job Lots, Dollar Tree, Payless, T.J. Maxx, Christmas Tree Shops, Petsmart, Dick’s, Rick’s, Applebee’s, Wendy’s, Republic Tax Returns, Sears, Marshall’s, Yankee Candle… I squinted in the sunlight as I passed the succession of parking lots, around which were artfully arranged the depositories of the I-95 deliveries, dancing up and down the hillside like a winsomely choreographed dog’s breakfast.
But no Toys R Us.
I pulled into Trader Joe’s to get my bearings. I knew the place, it was reassuring, the place where people who don’t like to touch food go to buy food. Lettuce, avocadoes, tomatoes, all hermetically bagged, a cheese section kept close to absolute zero, meat ditto, two aisles of starch wrapped in Trader Joe’s post-apocalyptic unirradiable pouches, then, of course, seven aisles of chips and salsa, ground zero for the organic couch potato.
I felt at home. But still a bit dizzy. I made my way hesitantly to the feeding station. A woman there offered me a viscous dollop of guacamole atop a chipotle-mole-mesquite-low-sodium-jalapeno-infused-free-range tortilla chip. It slid down my gullet and restored me to the lethal acuity necessary to carry out my mission.
“Excuse me,” I said quietly, after looking over my shoulder. “There’s a Toys R Us Babies R Us up the road, but isn’t there just a Toys R Us around here?”
“Nope,” she said. “That’s it.”
Within minutes I was in the store, Toys R Us Babies R Us, expectant, hair-triggered.
“Ma’am?” I whispered to the bent lumbar behind Customer Service. “Ma’am?”
She straightened up. Her red shirt could have said Greatgrandmothers R Us.
But it didn’t.
The time had come for disclosure. At least partial.
“I’m looking for…” she stared at me expectantly… “for four pairs of Justin Bieber 3-D glasses.”
Her face folded into a smile.
“I’ll see, hon.”
The wait seemed interminable. I checked out the cases of Duracell on sale, tried not to think about the consequences.
She returned, emptyhanded.
“We’re all out.”
A bead of sweat pearled on my ashen brow. This could not be.
“Can you call your other stores?”
She looked at me, greatgrandmotherly annoyed.
“We have other 3-D glasses, you know.”
I paused, trembling. How much should I give away?
Then I thought of that colleague bludgeoned to death with a hockey puck in the middle of the night, that other bright young thing brought down with arsenic poutine…
“It’s… it’s for these Canadian… Canadian… people I know,” I began falteringly, then raced on. They can’t get the Bieber glasses up there, they’re not on sale at Toys R Can, though they should be able to get them, shouldn’t they? It’s insulting, pathetic, horrible. “Justin’s Canadian,” I blurted out, desperately.
“No kiddin’?”
I sized up my demographic.
“And so was Monty Hall.”
“Really!”
She seized the phone.
After forty rings, Swansea, Mass. picked up. They had one pair.
“I need four,” I croaked.
Attleboro, Mass. had a few of them left.
I thanked my World War One widow and raced out to the lot. Seconds later I was on I-95 racing north, weaving between UPS, Fedex and Da Pasquale Removals, passing on the right, eating quahog tacos and causing a sonic boom. Warwick, Cranston, Providen –
The traffic slowed, crawled, stopped. It was the storied curve near Thurbers Avenue, where accidents should happen and do. I looked helplessly off to the right, then to the left. We had just passed the classy brown and white sign reading “Historic Providence.” But here, like the Christ the Redeemer overlooking Rio, stood the shed of New England Pest Control, on its roof a gargantuan blue bug, a sort of winged cockroach of mercy, rocking in the wind and blessing the immobilized motorists. I bowed reverently then looked ahead. No movement.
The Jeep Cherokee with Mass plates in front of me had two bumper stickers. One had written on it in large capital letters: YOU JUST GOT PASSED BY A GIRL. The other was black, with a figure in white, a naked, pot-bellied middle-aged man with tousled, thinning hair, pissing against the wind. Below him, a small legend: “Ex-husband.”
I turned on the radio. First, NPR, talking about irrelevant things, like world events. I switched to another AM band. Much better. Obama is a socialist, he verbally said out loud that he doesn’t agree with, y’know, the democracy in this country, he’s against us, he’s a dictator, least that’s what everybody else can’t see…
I let the window slide down. The redeemer bug rocked in a slight breeze. Ex-husband advanced a few yards. The sun shone. Home.
We crept through Providence. Then on to Pawtucket. The first police presence of the day made itself felt, on the entrances to the bridge spanning the Blackstone River. The bridge, like the Interstate, was built in the 1950s, but successive governments had pocketed the money destined to recovering it every other year in anti-oxydizing paint, and now the bridge stood rusting, close to collapse, able only to support car traffic. Any truck that takes it is subject to a $3000 fine; hence the avaricious cops, the poorly marked detours and the promise to rebuild the bridge with toothpicks.
I swept by these inconveniences, readjusted my silk scarf. I switched to FM. A plangent voice spoke of Skinsational Day Spa and laser vaginal rejuvenation.
Onto Massachusetts. The first exit was marked South Attleboro. My car crested a ramp and was deposited in front of a mall. Petsmart, T.J. Maxx, Best Buy…
I returned to Via America, I-95, and cruised another few miles under the pitiless sunshine. If there was a South Attleboro, there had to be a northern sibling, I thought to myself with cosmopolitan panache. Skinsational also offered acne-scar obliteration.
The next exit was disconcerting. Instead of the welcoming embrace of fall-apart warehouses, here there was New England in all its postcard glory, a snow-specked hillock of pilgrim forest framing a nestled Dunkin’ Donuts. I pulled into the lot, admiring the Ye Olde Mobil Mini-Marte across the street.
A woman came out of the shop, cradling a super-Dunk mocha, ready to mount her mini-van, a reassuring, sensible corner-kick mom. I called to her before she speed-dialed.
“Excuse me. Is there a Toys R Us near here?”
“Why yes!” she said, eager to help. “Take 95 south to Boston and get off on the second or third exit. You can’t miss it.”
Her phone rang. I went into the store. You took 95 north to Boston.
“Right out of the lot, then right at the fourth set of lights. Go about a mile and it’s on your right.”
Buzz-cut with the RedSox cap seemed entirely believable. I asked him for an Old Fashioned, and dunked it. I then drove through neighborhoods with signs marked “Thickly Settled.”
The Toys R Us stood apart, on a hill, in a small two-business mall. Dwarfing it in size was a jug-wine superstore, but, as I was on a mission, I did not tarry.
“I’m here for four sets of 3-D glasses. We called from Warwick.”
The Customer Service lady eyed me. “You Steve?”
I glanced around, Bourne-like, then nodded. Gawd, greatgrandmother had been indiscreet.
She reached under the desk and shoved them at me. Four pairs of 3-D Glasses. I looked at them.
“Justin Bieber?” I said fiercely.
“Wha…?”
“You said you had… four… pairs… of Justin Bieber…?”
She looked at me, perhaps glimpsing the collapsing continent before her, the mountain ranges falling foaming into the sea.
“I’ll check.”
I stuttered into my lapel, knowing that no Blackhawk was picking up the signal. A child wailed. I don’t remember the rest…
She returned. Sweet, middle-aged, fresh-faced, New England, flinty.
“We don’t got none.”
My inner scream was soundless.
Just like in the torture chamber.
Yes, there is a way. Espionage. Secrecy. A mission. Only by feigning involvement in the real world to accomplish an ulterior goal is one able to simulate normalcy and thereby return to civilian life. Call it a stepping-stone, a half-way house, a stairway to sanity.
I got the call last night. Headquarters in Toronto instructed me to procure some valuable matériel unavailable in the socialist hell north of Lake Ontario. I was to get in my car and drive, purchase the items with an unmarked credit card, then, at some later date to be specified, head far, far to the north and somehow sneak the precious cargo of contraband past the vigilance of the Canadian border huskies and their mukluk-shod Mountie masters.
The morning dawned brilliantly sunny, a cold hard day in late winter. Ha, I thought, enjoying the ironies of the cloak-and-dagger. A couple jogged innocently by in the brightness of my rear window, oblivious to the darkness within. I smiled to myself as I turned the key in the ignition, if they only knew…
Business with pleasure, I thought suavely, as I avoided the highway to take a slower, harder-to-tail route. I drove south out of Providence onto Allens Avenue, a.k.a. the Narragansett Bay Corniche, its mixture of tank farms, rusting tugs and mountainous heaps of toxic crud a clever counterpoint to the predictable vista of sea and sky. Then onto bucolic Cranston, a limitless expanse of drugstores and hot dog vendors punctuated by foreclosed clapboard houses and palm-reading shops. When I reached the boarded-up storefront of the place that used to sell week-old grinder rolls and Wonder bread, I knew I had gone too far.
I deftly executed a U-turn and headed to the next stage of my journey: I-95, a ribbon of asphalt stretching from Maine to Florida that is the quasi-mobile home to five million UPS trucks delivering fall-apart goods made in Shenzhen. I merged and soon found myself in familiar company, Massholes passing on the right, Rhode Islanders unfamiliar with the concept of the turn signal, even a few New Jersey plates straining to break the sound barrier, all of the drivers shouting into cellphones and eating something.
I exited at Warwick, Rhode Island, my dread destination Bald Hill Road. Almost immediately it was upon me. Beyond a shivering spinney of leafless trees loomed a sign: Toys R Us.
Yes! There it was… No, wait, it says: Toys R Us Babies R Us. There must be some mistake. I pressed on the accelerator and climbed the bald hill. It had all been too easy, I wasn’t going to be fooled.
Target, Wal-Mart, Chuck E. Cheese, Panera, Best Buy, Barnes & Noble, Ocean State Job Lots, Dollar Tree, Payless, T.J. Maxx, Christmas Tree Shops, Petsmart, Dick’s, Rick’s, Applebee’s, Wendy’s, Republic Tax Returns, Sears, Marshall’s, Yankee Candle… I squinted in the sunlight as I passed the succession of parking lots, around which were artfully arranged the depositories of the I-95 deliveries, dancing up and down the hillside like a winsomely choreographed dog’s breakfast.
But no Toys R Us.
I pulled into Trader Joe’s to get my bearings. I knew the place, it was reassuring, the place where people who don’t like to touch food go to buy food. Lettuce, avocadoes, tomatoes, all hermetically bagged, a cheese section kept close to absolute zero, meat ditto, two aisles of starch wrapped in Trader Joe’s post-apocalyptic unirradiable pouches, then, of course, seven aisles of chips and salsa, ground zero for the organic couch potato.
I felt at home. But still a bit dizzy. I made my way hesitantly to the feeding station. A woman there offered me a viscous dollop of guacamole atop a chipotle-mole-mesquite-low-sodium-jalapeno-infused-free-range tortilla chip. It slid down my gullet and restored me to the lethal acuity necessary to carry out my mission.
“Excuse me,” I said quietly, after looking over my shoulder. “There’s a Toys R Us Babies R Us up the road, but isn’t there just a Toys R Us around here?”
“Nope,” she said. “That’s it.”
Within minutes I was in the store, Toys R Us Babies R Us, expectant, hair-triggered.
“Ma’am?” I whispered to the bent lumbar behind Customer Service. “Ma’am?”
She straightened up. Her red shirt could have said Greatgrandmothers R Us.
But it didn’t.
The time had come for disclosure. At least partial.
“I’m looking for…” she stared at me expectantly… “for four pairs of Justin Bieber 3-D glasses.”
Her face folded into a smile.
“I’ll see, hon.”
The wait seemed interminable. I checked out the cases of Duracell on sale, tried not to think about the consequences.
She returned, emptyhanded.
“We’re all out.”
A bead of sweat pearled on my ashen brow. This could not be.
“Can you call your other stores?”
She looked at me, greatgrandmotherly annoyed.
“We have other 3-D glasses, you know.”
I paused, trembling. How much should I give away?
Then I thought of that colleague bludgeoned to death with a hockey puck in the middle of the night, that other bright young thing brought down with arsenic poutine…
“It’s… it’s for these Canadian… Canadian… people I know,” I began falteringly, then raced on. They can’t get the Bieber glasses up there, they’re not on sale at Toys R Can, though they should be able to get them, shouldn’t they? It’s insulting, pathetic, horrible. “Justin’s Canadian,” I blurted out, desperately.
“No kiddin’?”
I sized up my demographic.
“And so was Monty Hall.”
“Really!”
She seized the phone.
After forty rings, Swansea, Mass. picked up. They had one pair.
“I need four,” I croaked.
Attleboro, Mass. had a few of them left.
I thanked my World War One widow and raced out to the lot. Seconds later I was on I-95 racing north, weaving between UPS, Fedex and Da Pasquale Removals, passing on the right, eating quahog tacos and causing a sonic boom. Warwick, Cranston, Providen –
The traffic slowed, crawled, stopped. It was the storied curve near Thurbers Avenue, where accidents should happen and do. I looked helplessly off to the right, then to the left. We had just passed the classy brown and white sign reading “Historic Providence.” But here, like the Christ the Redeemer overlooking Rio, stood the shed of New England Pest Control, on its roof a gargantuan blue bug, a sort of winged cockroach of mercy, rocking in the wind and blessing the immobilized motorists. I bowed reverently then looked ahead. No movement.
The Jeep Cherokee with Mass plates in front of me had two bumper stickers. One had written on it in large capital letters: YOU JUST GOT PASSED BY A GIRL. The other was black, with a figure in white, a naked, pot-bellied middle-aged man with tousled, thinning hair, pissing against the wind. Below him, a small legend: “Ex-husband.”
I turned on the radio. First, NPR, talking about irrelevant things, like world events. I switched to another AM band. Much better. Obama is a socialist, he verbally said out loud that he doesn’t agree with, y’know, the democracy in this country, he’s against us, he’s a dictator, least that’s what everybody else can’t see…
I let the window slide down. The redeemer bug rocked in a slight breeze. Ex-husband advanced a few yards. The sun shone. Home.
We crept through Providence. Then on to Pawtucket. The first police presence of the day made itself felt, on the entrances to the bridge spanning the Blackstone River. The bridge, like the Interstate, was built in the 1950s, but successive governments had pocketed the money destined to recovering it every other year in anti-oxydizing paint, and now the bridge stood rusting, close to collapse, able only to support car traffic. Any truck that takes it is subject to a $3000 fine; hence the avaricious cops, the poorly marked detours and the promise to rebuild the bridge with toothpicks.
I swept by these inconveniences, readjusted my silk scarf. I switched to FM. A plangent voice spoke of Skinsational Day Spa and laser vaginal rejuvenation.
Onto Massachusetts. The first exit was marked South Attleboro. My car crested a ramp and was deposited in front of a mall. Petsmart, T.J. Maxx, Best Buy…
I returned to Via America, I-95, and cruised another few miles under the pitiless sunshine. If there was a South Attleboro, there had to be a northern sibling, I thought to myself with cosmopolitan panache. Skinsational also offered acne-scar obliteration.
The next exit was disconcerting. Instead of the welcoming embrace of fall-apart warehouses, here there was New England in all its postcard glory, a snow-specked hillock of pilgrim forest framing a nestled Dunkin’ Donuts. I pulled into the lot, admiring the Ye Olde Mobil Mini-Marte across the street.
A woman came out of the shop, cradling a super-Dunk mocha, ready to mount her mini-van, a reassuring, sensible corner-kick mom. I called to her before she speed-dialed.
“Excuse me. Is there a Toys R Us near here?”
“Why yes!” she said, eager to help. “Take 95 south to Boston and get off on the second or third exit. You can’t miss it.”
Her phone rang. I went into the store. You took 95 north to Boston.
“Right out of the lot, then right at the fourth set of lights. Go about a mile and it’s on your right.”
Buzz-cut with the RedSox cap seemed entirely believable. I asked him for an Old Fashioned, and dunked it. I then drove through neighborhoods with signs marked “Thickly Settled.”
The Toys R Us stood apart, on a hill, in a small two-business mall. Dwarfing it in size was a jug-wine superstore, but, as I was on a mission, I did not tarry.
“I’m here for four sets of 3-D glasses. We called from Warwick.”
The Customer Service lady eyed me. “You Steve?”
I glanced around, Bourne-like, then nodded. Gawd, greatgrandmother had been indiscreet.
She reached under the desk and shoved them at me. Four pairs of 3-D Glasses. I looked at them.
“Justin Bieber?” I said fiercely.
“Wha…?”
“You said you had… four… pairs… of Justin Bieber…?”
She looked at me, perhaps glimpsing the collapsing continent before her, the mountain ranges falling foaming into the sea.
“I’ll check.”
I stuttered into my lapel, knowing that no Blackhawk was picking up the signal. A child wailed. I don’t remember the rest…
She returned. Sweet, middle-aged, fresh-faced, New England, flinty.
“We don’t got none.”
My inner scream was soundless.
Just like in the torture chamber.
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Clueless Irrelevant Apparatchiks
Let’s take a walk down memory lane:
In the 1950s and 1960s the Quiet Americans sent from Langley were warned by the departing French that there was no way to beat back Vietnamese nationalists. Hah! What do the Frogs know, anyway?
Egg dumpling on the face, anyone?
In the 1970s, the Sages of Virginia knew their toppling of the Mossadegh regime in Iran twenty years earlier and their subsequent supporting of the Shah to be a splendid policy with no possible blowback. The poor man is sick? Let’s invite him to the US for medical treatment.
Can anyone say hostage crisis?
In the 1980s the Geopolitical Geniuses of suburban D.C. warned that the Cold War would stretch on indefinitely and that America must increase its ICBM capability and its missile defense system in Europe -- as well as work on its Star Wars interceptors as part of a cosmic dartboard deterrence aimed at the eternal Soviet Union.
Enter Mr. Gorbachev.
In the 1990s, having concluded that history was over and the US had “won,” the Best and the Brightest kicked back a bit, concentrating only on making contingency war plans for whichever country they happened to be misreading entirely. Really, there was nothing to worry about, the forces of freedom, the beacon of liber –
Downtown New York City.
In the 2000s, the Global Experts on the Potomac now knew the score: Arab=Muslim=Terrorist. Let’s bomb as many of them as we can, and, while we’re at it, let’s subject granny to a strip-search at Tulsa International. She could be hiding an Arab… sorry, a terrorist.
Tunisia, Egypt, Libya…
It’s 1848 in north Africa (and elsewhere in the “Arab street,” as it is called in the “overpaid parking lot” at Langley), and what’s on offer from the bloated nationalo-securitamus-intelligenciatic-espionnagery octopus soaking up billions of bucks? Nothing. They got nothing.
Who knew? When they bought the wife a new SUV so that they can both get stuck in traffic going to their super-duper, smart-as-nails jobs as experts on world affairs, there was no app for Al-Jazeera in the beverage center.
You had to pay extra.
Who knew?
In the 1950s and 1960s the Quiet Americans sent from Langley were warned by the departing French that there was no way to beat back Vietnamese nationalists. Hah! What do the Frogs know, anyway?
Egg dumpling on the face, anyone?
In the 1970s, the Sages of Virginia knew their toppling of the Mossadegh regime in Iran twenty years earlier and their subsequent supporting of the Shah to be a splendid policy with no possible blowback. The poor man is sick? Let’s invite him to the US for medical treatment.
Can anyone say hostage crisis?
In the 1980s the Geopolitical Geniuses of suburban D.C. warned that the Cold War would stretch on indefinitely and that America must increase its ICBM capability and its missile defense system in Europe -- as well as work on its Star Wars interceptors as part of a cosmic dartboard deterrence aimed at the eternal Soviet Union.
Enter Mr. Gorbachev.
In the 1990s, having concluded that history was over and the US had “won,” the Best and the Brightest kicked back a bit, concentrating only on making contingency war plans for whichever country they happened to be misreading entirely. Really, there was nothing to worry about, the forces of freedom, the beacon of liber –
Downtown New York City.
In the 2000s, the Global Experts on the Potomac now knew the score: Arab=Muslim=Terrorist. Let’s bomb as many of them as we can, and, while we’re at it, let’s subject granny to a strip-search at Tulsa International. She could be hiding an Arab… sorry, a terrorist.
Tunisia, Egypt, Libya…
It’s 1848 in north Africa (and elsewhere in the “Arab street,” as it is called in the “overpaid parking lot” at Langley), and what’s on offer from the bloated nationalo-securitamus-intelligenciatic-espionnagery octopus soaking up billions of bucks? Nothing. They got nothing.
Who knew? When they bought the wife a new SUV so that they can both get stuck in traffic going to their super-duper, smart-as-nails jobs as experts on world affairs, there was no app for Al-Jazeera in the beverage center.
You had to pay extra.
Who knew?
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