On The Root

Apologies to the six of you for the extended radio silence. I've been on the road, to Buffalo, NY of all places, mainly to research a book I've been working on for, gee, 33 years now.

I was delighted to discover in the main library there on Lafayette Sq. the original handwritten manuscript of Huckleberry Finn in a small, elegant room of Twainiana open to the public. Twain lived in Buffalo for a year after his marriage as proprietor of a newspaper, the Buffalo Times I believe. He hated it there (if street maps of the period can be believed, his fine home on Delaware Ave.-gone now-was hard by the county asylum for destitute women, and a lead smelting plant) and soon debarked for Hartford. Innocents Abroad had made him wealthy and the hard pleasures of daily journalism pleased him no more.

The manuscript was believed lost for a century until it turned up in 1990 in an old trunk in California (on display) owned by descendants of the library director the pages had been given to in the first place. A great story, and one worth considering at greater length when confronted by the drab and paltry events we are bombarded with every godamn day.

Huck Finn or, rather The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn; Tom Sawyer's Comrade is to this day one of the subtlest novels, and the most subversive, ever written in either the American idiom or the proper King's English. I've been planning for some time a spirited review of it here, including a defence of the so-called boring ending, and perhaps seeing the thing itself will inspire me further towards that goal. (Hint: Twain despised Tom Sawyer, a tiny, manipulative martinet who infects his life and the lives of others with inane fantasies of power and control. That such a little creep was embraced so fondly by the reading public after that book was published, itself an arch portrait of western village life hidden behind a bower of nostalgia, only inspired Twain to create a more ambitious, and acid, satire for the second Hannibal novel; the one spoken in the voice of Huck, his true hero.)

Elsewhere: from the looks of it the Great Gilliard is pretty damn sick in a New York hospital, and here I can only add my constant wishes for his speedy recovery.

JB's In Belize

I am happy to report, indeed my eyes burn with jealous tears of joy, that Joe is free. Go read.

Copyright Infringement Theater Presents. . .

Maybe the best music video yet made. (Though Gnarles Barkley has come damn close a couple times.)



Pretty good song too, right for any occasion.

Nodes In Passing

I've been reading the N.Y. Daily News for only a handful of years less than Wolcott, and find his take on its current condition to be super fine, and a required appendix to my previous post for all you at-sea newspaper types who find yourselves tossed up here.

I suppose one can game anything, including disaster, which is what the less sincere elements of the GOP (being, that is, most of its elected officials in DC) find themselves left with this stormy morning. Such a tactic is mainly reliant, though, on things in Iraq not getting any worse, allowing them to play out their losing hand until the next campaign season begins (in earnest, that is.)

As we have learned, all across the land, in Detroit, and DC, and the boardrooms of news companies, flat is the new up. Victory, then, only means not losing. That may help fudge debate on the Sunday shows from quarter to quarter, but it also redefines losing as losing catastrophically, while making it far more likely.

A recent post at Talking Points Memo, quoted a reader thusly:

The worst kinds of Republicans control almost the whole news Media. The punditocrisy has backed this stupid war completely. The narrative, which will be fed to the American People, by this propaganda machine will not be favorable to a Democratic Congress.

All I have to say is, things change. Call me a dense mid-westerner, but that propaganda machine strikes me as having lost all traction in the real world, where that squalid little man was last sighted at a 28% approval rating. The left side of Blogoland, may be the last constituency to pay any mind to the likes of Hanson and Greenberg, Klein and Russert, Steyn and Krauthammer. There's no denying that they still take up too much print space and airtime, and that they hold unbalanced influence in DC, but, I submit, their powers to sway the public are long gone.

Clearly, though, the popular space they have vacated has not been filled by anyone approaching the caliber of Arthur Silber, a highly intelligent, profoundly moral, and very eloquent man. And while I would not presume to challenge any of his propositions (indeed, I'm in line with nearly all of them), I do think (and think he might agree) that his rage is ultimately binding. To put it baldly, the society needs to find a way forward. To even think of doing so is an exercise in optimism, a belief in the American experiment, which Mr. Silber, certainly justifiably, is unwilling, or unable, to accommodate.

One wonders, though, if America is no better than any other country, than Chad, France or Myanmar, what powers then the strength of Silber's rage. The global reach of our liberalized atrocities, certainly. But, then, any country, given the opportunity would do the same. I propose that what makes Silber, and me, so fucking furious, is the notion that America's promise, corrupted and beaten, still lies somewhere in our vast moral sewer.

Read All About Tit!!

That groaning you hear above the GOP gnashing of teeth, are just the exclamations of a sick-unto-death newspaper business. This past week saw the idiot son, "Pinch" Sulzberger, intimating that there may not be a printed edition of the Gray Lady in five years; news that Sam Zell, a kind-of-interesting local real estate billionaire, is interested in buying the Chicago Tribune, that David Geffen, a kind-of-interesting music billionaire, is interested in buying the L.A. Times, and that one R. Murdoch is desperately trying to shore up the value of his newsprint investments, by adding to the offer of another party for the abovesaid Tribune

Also this week saw a banner headline in America's Paper, USA Today along the lines of: Anne Nicole Death Raises Many Questions. Not Libby Trial..., or Copter Crashes... or Iraq Intel Report... or, well, you follow, I'm sure.

Now, call me old fashioned, I am all for the lurid as fodder for the daily press. It is when newspapers are tricked into covering events in TV land that I see them, far from pandering to the masses for gain, slitting their own wrists for spite. A lot of small thinkers, and too many of them work at newspapers, think papers are doomed. They are not necessarily, though if they are to survive, they will have to deliver much different goods to a smaller core readership in more tightly defined metro areas.

They should figure out that those people really interested in the very diverting, and cautionary, tale of the wild Ms. Smith, whom I have enjoyed gazing upon since her Guess Jeans ads days, are going to get their fixes for her online, and modify their coverage accordingly; maybe realize in the bargain that they should not enable TV viewing, that readers they need are pretty tired of the editorial view from the Chamber of Commerce, that their ink-stained nests are fraying by the day.

Cruel events, of course, are whispering the latter. Remember, the value of the Minneapolis Star Tribune was just dropped a stunning 50% by its owners to facilitate sale to Wallstreeters, a drop in perceived valued just echoed by the New York Times for its New England properties. It was this development that likely prompted "Pinch's" call. Someone in the family should tell the boy that the vaunted brand will last, maybe, three years as an exclusive online property, and that others will quickly take its place printing a useful mosaic of sports news, commentary, current events (mainly local at that) and lavish display ads (I was going to add comics, but. . .) for the Tri-state metro area.

I think that the future of the dailies is not online, but in reflecting a world where online journalism and comment are further parts of a daily mix of incidents and proclamations that still require a formal black-and-white organization for interested literate parties. I've gone on too long to provide further details of what this will be like, but think of the possibilities yourself. Geffen and Zell are smart mofo's and I doubt they are as keen on filling the old Chandler/McCormick shoes as they are in ordering ones of their own.

Frankly I can't wait. The old saw that investing is equal parts Greed and Fear is useful in regarding the decay of old biz models. When Fear overwhelms Greed as the driving force of any industry, that industry is headed for where the woodbine twineth. While TV money is crazy, the bedrock of the Murdoch empire remains the heretofor dependable numbers of print. Viewers are far more fickle than readers and a worldwide Murdoch consortium that relies solely on broadcast bids fair to join the Dumont network anytime.

Now, this is just your obdt. svt. speculating. But none of the print organs dare offer any similar analysis, even to debunk it. What they like printing is stuff like: "This shows people recognize that newspapers are cash-flow businesses, they are still very strong in their markets. ... That much interest on the part of billionaires is sort of a positive sign."

Yeah, baby.

Bucko Redux

The previous post was added as a vent for further off-topic discussion with an anonymous writer at the Chumps of Choice blog, an ongoing reading group project for Thomas Pynchon's latest novel, Against the Day, at which I am a moderator.

The whole affair, though brief, was indicative of certain cultural problems that have interested me for a while, which I hope to outline here so completely as to bore the seven of you to tears.

As prelude: The particular passage under discussion this week, includes a nightmarish vision of a demonic town out west, a wasteland ruled by what might be characterized as simian evil. One commenter offered a very thoughtful and enlightening post relating various events in the passage to parallels found in the New Testament; specifically the road to Calvary, the Crucifixion and Pentecost. (That Pynchon, I tell you. . .)

What then fascinated me was that this very erudite individual felt the need to follow up this post with another, basically saying (I paraphrase) how careful one needs to be nowadays in referencing the Bible, as it is a tool of miscreants, and that s/he did not intend any intimations of belief or close association.

Here let me observe that Twain could use his intimate familiarity with the Bible to devastating effect, mainly to scour religious fatheads, and never once apologized for being so well-versed. But he was a sly bastard, and we live in sensitive times.

I followed the scholarly reservation with a post saying, "I can't see how anyone unfamiliar with the NT could presume to call themselves well educated, if only to separate its dross from the gold." And here let me reiterate: I am an atheist. The virgin birth and resurrection are pernicious nonsense. Yet the X-ian bible is laced with often magnificent poetry and profound philosophic inquiries into the nature of human existence. The language and rhythms of the King James version have animated the English and American tongues, in philosophy, political thought and literature, for nearly four centuries, and a person without at least a basic knowledge of its themes and cadences cannot be considered well educated.

And here the monkey swung down from the tree.

An anonymous poster wrote (and again I paraphrase, but I hope not unfairly) that s/he had been enjoying reading the blog until reading my post, quoted what I said above, then added as a final comment, a series of letters along the lines of brrrrthppp.

I deleted the post, explaining in my arch way (and, believe you me, I am one arch motherfucker) why.

The boob persisted; a post which I let stand as illustrative of something, and gave it a dismissive reply. The monk, in a brief post, objected to my tone in doing so. I deleted that. And, in another brief post, also deleted, railed at me and repeated how much s/he had been enjoying the blog until my ill mannered observation ticked them off so. I then disabled anonymous comments.

Now, it seems to me that the yay-hoo could have questioned several assumptions of mine; a discourse not especially germane to discussion of Against the Day, but grist for the mill nevertheless. For example, many profound thinkers in the Jewish and Muslim traditions may feel little or no need to grasp the New Testament. I may have fallen back to the perimeters of the western canon, or proposed a categorical difference between deeply educated and well educated. We might even have debated the value of education in a world where some pretty smart people who graduated from some awfully good schools are doing their level best to fuck the balance of humankind. Indeed, the apostle Paul, in a magnificent passage from First Corinthians (13:1-2) questions the value of any learning that is not informed by compassion; though whether that would have proved or disproved my initial point I can't right now say.

But, sadly, no. The pest was capable of only a solipsistic measure, how s/he felt about the blog, and the tone of my statement.

And here I had a vision of some kid, minted from some college a few years ago, assured throughout his or her life just how important, how paramount, his or her feelings are. Only now, they are out in a world where, to put it bluntly, hardly anyone gives a fuck about how they feel; another victim of a system of higher education based as much on a very commercial, customer-is-always-right sensibility as any lefty postmodern theory or politically correct tempering.

And maybe a situational semiotics is all that can stand in a post-Relativity Theory, digitized media world. (I suspect it's only an excuse for lazy, renumerative thinking, but I don't mix much with academic savants.) The outcome is, though, we are left surrounded by wounded, ungrounded actors compelled less by, let's say, ideas of Newtonian cause and effect than the goads of their own mostly unquestioned inner selves. This is not such a big deal when the poor slobs under discussion are trying to talk about ideas found in works of literature. It is a huge problem, however, when such boobs are yanking the handles of world power.

Jesus wept.

Have At It Bucko

Comments are open.

UPDATE: The matter considered at length above.

The Winter Of Our Disconnect

That squalid creep got applause from assembled Dems the other day after voicing a smarmy apology for constantly referring to their body as the Democrat party, a small-minded slight on a level with the logic that, somehow, Joe Wilson's trip to Niger had to be discounted, because, hey, y'know, his wife is a CIA agent.

The main part of that war criminal's apology to his political rivals was that he don' spekka the englidge rill gut, and so, waddaya 'spec? This got laughs and cheers rather than the more appropriate spatterings of spittle and refuse, though I was not in the room and cannot say if the scumbag came away from the event on point or on notice.

The depressing thing about the lumpen delight with which the fool's admission was greeted is not the prospect of him earning a pass from what I had hoped were his sworn enemies, but that a roomful of our leaders apparently got behind the idea that being a poor public speaker was somehow okay. Every culture based on presumptions of public freedom and personal honor, from the ancient Greeks to the Native Americans, considered high oratory to be the sine que non of political distinction. That is how their leaders were judged as thinking and feeling human beings.

Now, I am by no means suggesting that a facility for public speaking makes anyone a good person. William Jennings Bryan, one of this country's most magnificent orators was a vile racist as well as a stem winding populist. Huey Long could talk the birds from the trees while looting the countryside. But the ability to sway a crowd with the spoken, and written, defence of one's ideas was a testing ground for public life that has been practically abolished by TV; which is why I found Jim Webb's brief address so enlivening. Whether he is an atavistic remnant tossed up by the Old Dominion, or the harbinger of a new, better phase in our debased public life, will have to be determined by events.

I have to admit to being at sea over the pending congressional action versus the war. Not that I am necessarily against compromises in wording or dithering per se. It is au courant in some circles to nag the Democrats for being as mainly pro-war as their opponents, a party of military and big biz procurers no less shameful than the GOP pimps. That formulation ignores, however, the historic presence of such men as Henry Wallace, Adlai Stevenson, Al Gore, Sr., Eugene McCarthy, William Proxmire, Paul Wellstone, Ted Kennedy and Russ Feingold to name but a few. Quibble if you will (Hubert Humphrey, Lyndon Johnson and Bobby Kennedy also stood for principles higher, and people poorer, than themselves), the GOP cannot begin to number a list of noble actors either as long or as ongoing.

I submit that our politics regarding Iraq are not hamstrung now by craven, over-cautions or triangulating Democrats, however many of those rogues there may, in fact, be, but by a certain reluctance to admit the obvious. Neither a crusading hot shot like Feingold nor the party's elder statesmen, like Kennedy and Robert Byrd, have been able to tell the public the obvious, that the war this country started in Iraq is over, and we lost. A new war, which we caused, has only just begun, and our armed forces, along with our strategic and political aims, have not a prayer of prevailing.

The plain truth is that most Americans, traditionally a can-do, problem-solving people, do not what to hear this, however much they know it to be true in their hearts. The next president might very well be the man, or woman, who can summon the oratorical skills to tell the American people what they surely already know, and light a way forward with words.

Copyright Infringement Theater Presents. . .

Mississippi John Hurt doing Spike Driver Blues, while taking the rest of us to school.



This one goes out to our pal Neddie J., another very unique cat with a mad right thumb, along with a stupid left hip. Feel better soon, Amigo.