Subtrahend

Friday, February 28, 2003

    · The eternal Hans Blix. In the future people will be fascinated by this man. They will ask, "Yeah, but what was he really like?" I thought I saw him in my backyard the other day. "Hej!" jeg sagde, "Hvad ar U doeing out there?" And he said: "Oh—I need more time!" Skulking about like some old maniac.

    Later I saw him trying to find his glasses, very agitated. They were on his forehead, of course.


     — posted by P | at 2:06 PM | |

    · So Amelia Earhart wrote a letter to her betrothed (here's the story) in which she revealed that she planned to sleep around, even after they were married. The letter is part of an exhibition at Purdue University. "Curator Craig Martin feels it's a really forward-thinking document that gives insight into Earhart's feminism and independence." So that's what you call it. And what a great pilot!


     — posted by P | at 10:14 AM | |

    · In "The writing of Ethan Frome", published in Colophon, part 11 (1932), Edith Wharton explains that it started out as a French exercise. She was living in France for some reason. Oh, well, let her adumbrate in her inimitable way: "Early in the nineteen hundreds I happened to be spending a whole winter in Paris, and it occurred to me to make use of the opportunity to polish and extend my conversational French; for though I had spoken the language since the age of four I had never had occasion to practise it for any length of time .... " Does that make any sense? How can you have spoken a language since childhood and yet not have had "occasion to practise it"? What she ought to have written is "I had some French lessons when I was a kid" and left it at that. This little piece has a note at the end explaining "Written for the Colophon at Hyères, Var, France". She was an obvious phony and, of course, her books are no good.


     — posted by P | at 9:50 AM | |

    · Charles Krauthammer puts it very succinctly:

    As I wrote last week, France sees the opportunity to position itself as the leader of a bloc of former great powers challenging American supremacy.
    But everyone knew this a long time ago. This has been the whole French Eurononsense thing from day one, and nobody should act surprised or angry. In fact, it's just plain puzzling. What could they be thinking? How do French statesmen explain their behaviour, other than negatively? Ultimately, you just have to come to the conclusion that they're bad.


     — posted by P | at 7:06 AM | |

Thursday, February 27, 2003

    · Hans Sachs was the first to write a poem about papermaking. It appeared in his Eygentliche Beschreibung aller Staende auff Erden, Franckfurt am Mayn, 1568. I guess everyone knew that though.


     — posted by P | at 11:10 AM | |

Wednesday, February 26, 2003

Tuesday, February 25, 2003

    · A scary thought from Mr Kenneth Pollack:

    Mr. POLLACK: That's right. I think that is exceedingly unlikely. One of the problems with Saddam Hussein that we've long had is that he is what I call a congenital optimist. Saddam Hussein has been wriggling out of one tight jam after another and it seems pretty clear right now that he recognizes he's in a tight jam but he's also very confident that he's going to be able to wriggle out of it. What's more, that we know about Saddam is that he believes that if he is not in power in Iraq, his life expectancy will be measured in minutes. He knows that there are thousands of people who want to kill him. Finally, what we know about Saddam Hussein's thinking is he does seem to be a man with pretensions of greatness. He believes he has a historic destiny. That historic destiny includes lashing out at Israel, at the United States, at Saudi Arabia, at other countries, and, in fact, he will try to go out in a blaze of glory and try to strike as many blows against as many of his foes as he thinks he can.


     — posted by P | at 12:37 PM | |

    · An opinion piece in Gazeta Wyborcza argues that the Bush administration, in pushing on to Iraq, is like the drunk in the anecdote who looks for the keys he lost not where he lost them, but on the other side of the street, "because the light's better." Not too convincing, but sobering. However, the idea that neither al-Qaida nor Hamas will materially suffer from U.S. victory in Iraq is not really tenable, since the U.S. will have greater control of the region.


     — posted by P | at 9:46 AM | |

    · John B. Judis in The American Prospect, vol. 14 no. 3, March 1, 2003, on U.S. Iraq policy:

    Like many policy decisions, this one was the complicated and compromised product of different views and different factions within the administration. At any given point, it has contained contradictory aspects, wishful thinking and irrational fears, as well as the more conventional geopolitical calculations.


     — posted by P | at 9:31 AM | |

Monday, February 24, 2003

    · According to this short article, some people put the origin of advanced human language—the kind you and I are used to—at around 50,000 years ago. This is the so-called "late" date. Some people put it at an earlier period. I favour the late date because that is also the period in which people domesticated dogs, and I'm convinced that people only developed language in order to talk to their dogs, their new friends. Who else would they talk to, and what about?


     — posted by P | at 8:19 PM | |

Wednesday, February 19, 2003

    · There's a lot of talk about how Canada needs to beef up its military. Among conservatives that serves a kind of chewing gum: beef up the military. It's probably true, but the question is a fundamentally a political one. We first need to decide whom we want to kill in the coming decades, and why.

    The other day I was reading Mr Sun Tzu's useless little book, The Art of War, and it struck me that he ought to have provided a short chapter at the very begining called "So You Want to Go to War, H'm?", in which he would have talked about war aims.

    I suppose you could go to a couple other dozen ancient Chinese sources which would tell you this. But they were writing about Ancient China.


     — posted by P | at 2:15 PM | |

Tuesday, February 18, 2003

    · Over at Andrewsullivan.com a reader wrote:

    By binding together with one another, the goal is to pull the rug out from under the Bush and Blair administrations in an effort to sow domestic dissent in the US and Britain, to stop the war, and ultimately to trigger "regime change" in both the U.S. and Britain.

    I would agree hyperbolic; but more than "not unconvincing". For weeks I've been trying to figure out what Chirac means by this. That reader nails it, more forcefully and in fewer words than many a full time commentator.

    I couldn't understand what possible good reason there could be for this opposition. It couldn't be personal pique, or national pusilanimity, or even some financial deals. None of these is big enough. It had to be something huge, and relatively simple.

    Chirac has for years been trying to lead Europe, and in a "marxisant", statist direction. Socialism is almost like the undetectable background biosphere of Europe. Their problem is they really have nothing else. And so this is the sufficiently important reason: to decrease (or even destroy) Anglo-American political influence in Europe. For Chirac and others like him it's just plain survival.

    Here's a reflection on this from last year, in Le Monde.


     — posted by P | at 7:50 AM | |

Saturday, February 15, 2003

    · Well, it looks as if the peace-marchers are out in full force, and the media is dutifully recording these "events". It's sort of a carnival, something every young anarchist looks forward to. It's fun, you get out, get some fresh air, meet people, call attention to yourself without actually having to do anything. Then you go home and smoke and talk about it.


     — posted by P | at 10:47 AM | |

Friday, February 14, 2003

Thursday, February 13, 2003

Wednesday, February 12, 2003

    · Notes on Uropia: Here are two interesting quotations:

    Nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won.
    — Wellington.
    Tout soldat français porte dans sa giberne le bâton de maréchal de France.
    — Napoléon.

    Could anything be more indicative of the wide gulf there was, morally and intellectually, between these two?


     — posted by P | at 5:57 PM | |

    · I now see, from consulting other weblogs, that one big sub-atomic particle of contention about the latest Osama tape is whether it proves a link between Hussein and al-Qa'ida. I really don't see what the problem is.

    People who really want "proof" aren't going to get it. No one's ever going to uncover a letter from Hussein saying "Dear Mr bin Ladin: This is to confirm, as per our talks last week, that we are in cahoots," etc.

    For all practical purposes, the two seem to have common goals. Is it so hard to imagine them putting aside their differences for the time being? In fact, isn't that exactly what rival powers have done since ancient times? Isn't that what the history of treaties is all about? Isn't that what made grade 9 history so darn confusing?

    Any really decisive evidence will only be found when Saddam is ousted.


     — posted by P | at 4:06 PM | |

    · Another tape from Osama. Yes, leave it with my secretary and I'll have a listen ASAP.

    Mark Steyn (on "Rightwingnews.com", via Daimnation!) thinks it's a fake and that Osama bin Laden has been dead for quite some time. I don't see why anyone would doubt that, and anyway, does it matter that much? If he's not dead he certainly isn't doing much of anything. I don't call one 16-minute audiotape full of the usual inimical muttering a great deal to show for the last few months.

    And then there is the content: anything new here? If he had said, "Guys, maybe this is all wrong, and we ought to just try and get along with the infidels," that would be interesting. I haven't seen the whole transcript, but the segments played on CNN seemed hardly worth the price of the tape.

    The eagerness with which many greeted this thing made me think a bit of the 1981 Hitler's diaries fraud. None other than Hugh Trevor-Roper was taken in by them.


     — posted by P | at 12:22 PM | |

Tuesday, February 11, 2003

    · There seems to be no way to type in Russian on this. È òàê...many of the Russian bloggers use a lot of English words though. "Nik", for "handle", for example. Oh yes, the Russian for "weblog" is "veblog".


     — posted by P | at 11:49 AM | |

    · Notes on Uropia: In Die Zeit there is a curious commentary by Robert Leicht on the Franco-German position. To summarize: In France and Germany's secret plan for peace, or whatever, perhaps the big secret is that there is no plan. An alternate plan might be good if, indeed, it was designed to help the commmon good; if so, it has to be talked about before one's allies read of it in the papers. The author concludes that Germany (and France) will end up irrelevant.


     — posted by P | at 7:08 AM | |

Monday, February 10, 2003

    · It's hard to imagine that France and Germany are really quite serious with their new idea of just putting more weapons inspectors in Iraq. The problem isn't that there aren't enough of them; it's that the Iraqis are still hiding everything. More of something that is already not working is a mistake people make — one of those fallacies.


     — posted by P | at 10:06 AM | |

Saturday, February 08, 2003

    · Once again Daimnation! has scooped us with news of Prince Charles's Islamism. But probably it goes a bit further than the happy prince. Both the Foreign Office and the U.S. State Department are full of daft arabists. In fact, people at Foggy Bottom are known for their mastery of Arabic. El Fuqbutt, they call their Department.

    I doubt too much should be made of HRH's hobbies and so on. After all his Mom is the head of the Faith..


     — posted by P | at 9:00 PM | |

    · The thing about weblogs is they have to be current. This is not helped by one's wife coming in and switching off the computer as a means of doing some "housework."


     — posted by P | at 8:19 PM | |

Thursday, February 06, 2003

    · We here at Subtrahend often have no compelling impression one way or another about the latest news, other than revulsion, if it concerns some idiot terrorist outrage. In fact, for us the word "terrorist" is always to be preceded by the word "idiot", for reasons of etymology.

    Take the Passover massacre of March 27th, 2002, in which 22 people were murdered while observing the holiday in a restaurant in Netanya, Israel. That was a while ago now, and everyone has had time to draw some lessons from it. Can anyone say what tactical advantage was won? They achieved what objective? And where did they go from there?

    Well, nowhere, because the terrorists are not fighting a war. They are not taking this anywhere. They have no game-plan. They were not counting on taking out a restaurant so that they might then seize some other, more important objective. In this sense they can neither win nor lose, because it is not war, but idiot terrorism. The whole suicide bombing phenomenon may show us that they have nothing to lose, as some commentators keep saying, but it also shows us that those operatives are convinced there is no point in sticking around long enough to win anything, because there are not going to be any spoils except in Paradise. Which means that, in addition to having nothing to lose, they've also nothing to win. At least not here.

    And so it will continue, until some lucky Arab wakes up, perceives what is happening, and makes the correct diagnosis, and then guides his world out of the past.

    We call that man "lucky" because, if he could do this, he would automatically get the thing that can't be got by threats, bribes, violence, robbery, whining or bids for pity: respect.


     — posted by P | at 5:03 PM | |

    · Over at Daimnation! there is an awfully good excerpt from Andrew Coyne's piece in the National Post about some peaceniks' brilliant new strategy of admiring Saddam Hussein:

    Little by little, the left is beginning to convince itself that Saddam is the hero of the piece. (I need not even mention the example of Colleen Beaumier, MP, whose pronounced judgment on the Iraqi regime was that they ere "extremely charming.")

    Then Mr Penny quotes Orwell's dictum of 1942 that pacifism (while the world was at war with the Nazis) was objectively pro-Facsist. Well, that was true then. It's still a question, however, whether diffidence about the coming war is objectively pro-Ba'athist; whether, indeed, failure to agree with Gen. Curtis LeMay's plan to hit the Soviet Union with nuclear weapons was objectively pro-Soviet. Still

    Of course there is no limit of decency that leftists and anarchists won't step over. That's mostly a sign of desperation, though.

    Oh. The link above to Andrew Coyne will probably go sour after a few days and you might have to go to the columnist's spot, where there are some other good articles to read.


     — posted by P | at 3:25 PM | |

    · While he seems eminently capable, Mr Rumsfeld sometimes strays a little into prissy, schoolmarmish, Franklin Pangborn territory. "Rumsfeld compares Germany with Cuba", says Die Welt. There must be some reason for him to do that. What is it? Is he hoping to shame them into doing something?

    · Using the bank machine the other evening. At the conclusion of business it emits a mock-triumphant little electronic flourish, and then subsides into some robot cackling: "You happy hedonist, withdrawing a whole 20 beans at a time, must be nice, wonder what the poor people are doing tonight," etc.


     — posted by P | at 11:46 AM | |

    · Lots of people like science fiction. It's entertaining, but the creators of these things always seem to neglect the important day-to-day stuff. For example, on Star Trek the computers that run the place always seem to be working. Always. They seem to have lots of computers and so there ought to be an army of baffled guys in shirtsleeves trying to tinker with them on every floor, but there isn't. So how realistic is that?

    And if they meet any aliens, they're always fluent in English. That means that space, the final frontier, contains fewer bizarre, incomprehensible aliens than my neighbourhood. It means even in the Gamma Quadrant you're never too far from a Burger King.

    Also you'll notice that science fiction writers conceive of actual space flight as the least of anyone's worries. Getting in and out of incompatible orbits and all that geometrical humbug is assumed to be taken care of in the future, no longer a problem at all. The astronaut of the future just has to fret about the great slobbering insects probably in store for him on Planet X (or secretly on board somewhere — under the bed, perhaps).


     — posted by P | at 10:12 AM | |

    · The next head of the U.N.? Just drawing a bow at a venture I come up with the following candidates:


    • F.X Monkeybusiness
    • Husker Du
    • Oriel Sachs
    • Julf Onanist
    • Bozo van den Klown
    • F'Tang-F'Tang Ghali (brother of B.-B.)
    • My cat (I favour her for the job. She's shown herself capable of thinking outside the box, a headache for me, to be sure, but a quality people keep shouting about. But most important: she is completely incorruptible. There is just no bribing or cajoling her to do anything).


     — posted by P | at 10:11 AM | |

    · "US claim dismissed by Blix", according to the Guardian. Say that really fast a few times.

    Since we're on the topic of elaborate theories —

    If you will put some faith in human reason, and in the idea that if a thing is knowable — humanly knowable, that is, and not locked away in the grave or in someone's heart — then people have a good chance of discovering it. This takes some hard work and disipline, however.

    The opposing, rather undemanding position is to deprecate our ability to do this, and to credit mere rumours and will o' the wisps, and even favour them, since they're more exciting and provide some sort of slapdash answer to just about anything. But it's a kind of loser position, because you are throwing up your hands and giving up on rational thought. There is also a measure of arrogance in this position, because it implies that if I can't explain a thing, then no one else can either, and my hobbyist's judgement is just as good as that of a technician experienced in the field. A little like horoscope enthusiasts who apparently believe that the ancient Baylonians had a firmer grasp of celestial mechanics than modern astronomers do.

    It seems as if Hans Blix has been so keen to not find anything, as if he truly would like to believe that Iraq — which, after all, has put down rebellions fairly smartly — really doesn't have anything anywhere.

    To be fair, though, it should be said that all his team is doing is inspecting things. It's a bit like a Royal visit. You can't really blame them for not wishing to be to nosey.


     — posted by P | at 6:32 AM | |

Wednesday, February 05, 2003

    · Lord Kenneth Clark began his 1969 series Civilisation as follows:

    Ruskin said: "Great nations write their autobiographies in three manuscripts, the book of their deeds, the book of their words and the book of their art. Not one of these books can be understood unless we read the two others, but of the three the only trustworthy one is the last." On the whole I think this is true.

    A sobering thought. He devoted that first installment, "By the Skin of Our Teeth", to the near-destruction of civilisation in the early middle ages, and to the powers that threatened it: fear, either of war or invasion; superstition, or an unwillingness to do anything constructive and new; and boredom, or hopelessness. He also sums up its defences: confidence, energy and vitality. This isn't as straighforward as it might seem. In considering our present situation a careful examination of these attitudes is extraordinarily interesting.

    Of course the BBC site is extremely unrewarding, not to say stupid.


     — posted by P | at 9:18 PM | |

    · According to France's Mnister of Foreign Affairs, as reported in today's Le Monde, Colin Powell's presentation was not quite satisfying. Mr Dominique de Villepin admits it contained "des informations, des indices, des questions qui méritent d'être approfondies". But, still: "il appartiendra aux inspecteurs d'apprécier les faits, comme cela est prévu dans la résolution 1441".

    Briefly, he feels that more inspecting needs to be done. He's quite insistant upon that. No way the Iraqis are going to escape lots more inspection!

    Mr Villepin was apparently born in Rabat.

    He is also the author of a book: Le cri de la Gargouille (Albin Michel, 2002), in which he wonders if the French still have a thirst for glory and grandeur. You'd think it would be a cool story about gargoyles.


     — posted by P | at 1:08 PM | |

Tuesday, February 04, 2003

    · There has been some difference in NASA's public stance on the loss of the Columbia and on that of the Challenger. A factor in this could be that the Challenger disaster was more abrupt and more controversial. But today's NASA is probably also a somewhat different organization.


     — posted by P | at 8:04 PM | |

    · There was an interesting article in the latest Times Literary Supplement — I doubt you can get it online just yet — but it reviewed several recent French books on the topic of French anti-Americanism. It's quite thorough and contains many observations, but I think the author is perhaps a little too rigid. No doubt ideology and recent history (post-1914) can account for much; but isn't it possible to see in this the longer effect of post-Enlightenment Europe's growing alienation from the English-speaking world?

    Another good thing in the article: the author does point out that most French people, as opposed to politicians, vedettes, journalists, and so on, have a positive view of the U.S.


     — posted by P | at 10:04 AM | |

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Bibliography

  Old Books
... without the dust

 

 

· Ors, Eugenio d', 1882-1954. Oceanografia del tedio; Historias de las esparragueras. Madrid: Calpe, 1921.

Eugenio d'Ors was born in Barcelona in 1881, studied law and philosophy, became an art critic and essayist, and gradually developed his own peculiar ideas, exemplified in this delightful, short work, which he wrote in Spanish (rather than Catalan) around 1919. The Spanish Civil War caught him in Paris, where he remained for the duration. Though not an activist, he would have been unwelcome at home because of his Catalan sympathies.

The author, or a character referred to throughout as "Autor", opens his story by explaining that his doctor had instructed him, for the sake of his health, to do absolutely nothing. He's not even alowed to think about anything. "Ni un movimiento, ni un pensamiento!", the doctor says. He therefore spends all his time in a lawn chair looking at clouds, wondering about scents that waft past, in short, doing nothing. And yet everything, in a way. It's a wonderful story about inaction, just the sort of thing for someone who spends a lot of time looking at weblogs.

· Tabori, Paul. The Natural Science of Stupidity. Philadelphia: Chilton Co., 1959.

The author, who was born in 1908, discusses stupidity. He explains how the Yap people of the Pilau Islands use stone disks, some of them the size of millstones, as currency. The largest stones are more like real estate: you could buy one, and your wealth would be ensured. Then he goes on about King Solomon's mines, which he connects with this passage in Kings I, 9.

He has a lot to say about popular beliefs, crazes, and things. It's a shame he wrote long before conspiracy theories really came into their own.

   
  
  Georges Duhamel
Select Bibliography

 

 

Duhamel, Georges, Le desert de Bièvres. Paris: Mercure de France, 1930.

—, Biographie de mes fantômes, 1901-1906. Paris: P. Hartmann, 1944.

—, Chroniques des Pasquier. Paris: Mercure de France, 1933-

—, Essai sur le roman. Paris: M. Lesage, 1925.

—, Fables de mon jardin, suivi de Mon royaume. Paris: Mercure de France, 1961.

—, Israël, clef de l'Orient. Paris: Mercure de France, 1957.

—, Les plaisirs et les jeux, mémoires du cuib et du tioup. Paris: Mercure de France, 1946.

—, Récits des temps de guerre. Paris: Mercure de France, 1949.

—, Souvenirs de la vie du paradis. Paris: Mercure de France, 1906.

   
  

Annals of Public Neurosis

  Peace Tricks
April 2002

 

 

"The month-long standoff at Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Ramallah compound looked to be nearing its conclusion as U.S. and British security experts arrived in the region to implement a U.S.-brokered plan."
—CNN, April 29, 2002.

The current talks between the U.S. and everyone else seem to be even more impenetrable than usual, probably because it's difficult to imagine what they might possibly have to talk about. Surely they have exhausted every topic, scoured every useless path many times over, checked and re-checked even the most unpromising approaches? In which case these talks most closely resemble a kind of obsessive-compulsive behaviour, enacted in the curious privacy of public life. We've no idea what they're saying, or what they really want, but we get daily, even hourly reports of this activity of theirs. We don't get the details, or even the gist, of what was discussed, but we are assured that some talking is going on, and that there will be more talking later.

Patients who show signs of obsessive-compulsive behaviour typically find themselves incapable of getting important things done—or even of confronting their most pressing problems. They therefore busy themselves with something they can do effectively, often to the exclusion of all else. Tidying up the bus shelter, making absolutely sure they take x number of steps before opening the front door, and so on. Obviously, the significance of the activities performed can vary: some things are a fairly useful by-product of otherwise misdirected energies; others are of rather doubtful value, at least to the secular world. So it is with political discussions and "U.S.-brokered" peace plans. Some do produce unusual fruit, though not always the expected one, while others have a more magical quality, as if the participants were involved in some sort of Hermetic, alchemical work designed to bring about peace by causing it to be acted out in a symbolic drama.

   
  

Almost a Complete Thought

 

 

 

· Watching a movie. Wait! Is the guy screwing up my correct view of things? Or was my view untenable to begin with? Certainly he can point to his successful career as proof of some rectitude. But maybe he's so clever, so cunning, that he succeeds in the teeth of madness. A prosaic blend of fantasy and reality!

· I was watching some crime show. The crime has already been committed. Snazzy men and women arrive at the crime scene and take swabs, wear rubber gloves, pose in their outfits. Wait, is this a fashion show? Meanwhile ... let's look at this corpse really closely. Dear me. Ugh, can we stop looking at that for a bit? It's a pretty horrible crime. And so messy!

"Look, Lt. I've been examining some filth and discovered who the 'perp' is."

"Good. Let us now set our jaws grimly."

· I read somewhere that when you are watching TV, your brain is less active than when you are asleep. I find this bizarre, because I often dream that I'm watching TV.

· Most movies are much better with the sound off, so you can make up your own, more entertaining dialogue. Also, it starts to get intriguing. You end up wondering what's going to happen next, because all sorts of inexplicable things keep happening.

   
  

Stories

  A Story
Subtitle

 

 

It's too bad. If I could think of a story offhand, I would write it in this space; that's what you would be reading. Instead, there is only this inconsequential, self-regarding excuse for not being able to come up with anything.

Of course, I think the reader is doing very well so far. Remarkably well. I thing the reader comes out of this whole thing smelling like a rose. He has done his job. No, the reader is above reproach. His record is unblemished. Some readers even go that extra step and look for coded messages in the few paragraphs made available to them. That shows resourcefulness, valour — I think.

   
  
  Reveille
A Miniature Fascist Dictator

 

 

There was a miniature Fascist dictator in the departure lounge of the airport, Ted noticed. About four feet high, eighty pounds, sallow complexion, neatly trimmed black moustache, wearing a khaki uniform of some kind.

Was he planning a small Putsch? A Measure? What pint-sized dreams of conquest did he have? "Our National party is stronger - we are in no way diminished," he may have imagined himself saying. "Now, if I say to you that our Party's goal is nothing less than to revendicate that which we have lost, that which is historically our due; to reclaim our patrimony ..." Is that what was going on in his head? Was he on his way somewhere, or coming from somewhere? Going into exile, or returning from it? Escaping? Seeking?

Ted decided to follow him until he could come up with some further course of action. But the man wasn't really doing anything. Just wandering around with a container of coffee, keeping an eye on the brown satchel and shopping bags he had left on one of the naugahyde-and-aluminium benches. He paused in front of the windows that looked onto the airfield. His nostrils flared at the sight of massed passenger aircraft. Then he sauntered over to the other side of the lounge and studied some posters. Ted pretended to inspect a model lobster trap in a display case nearby.

They toured the lounge in stages and, even before the small man glanced back at him, Ted was already lost in thought beneath an departure-and-arrivals screen. "Am I supposed to do something?" he wondered. "Is there some history going on here, somewhere?" But how would one know?

Ted then discreetly followed him back to the coffee bar. Apparently he wanted another coffee. There were several customers before them, and in the time it took for them to be served, Ted was almost able to identify the small man's scent: Lancôme for Men? His choice of coffee, too, was unusual, a decaffeinated Ethiopian flavour. He went back to his original bench. Ted loitered just behind him, undecided. Unprepared. Shall I say something? What's he doing?

Looking at his ticket again.

Sipping his coffee, sucking a great deal of air between pursed lips just over the steaming surface of the coffee. Too hot.

Consulting the contents of his satchel once again, just to verify that he had everything he would need for his trip. Ted, peering over his shoulder, caught sight of a volume of Pablo Neruda, Jane Eyre, and a stuffed toy rabbit.

Putting his coffee down, digging with both hands in one of the shopping bags, the one that had some sort of environmentalist logo on it. Nous recyclons!

Recovering a pair of sunglasses. Putting them on! Expensive ones!

"Excuse me - okay if I sit down?"

"Eh? Oh, please. Yes, yes - you are quite welcome."

Ted sat down wearily. "I've been travelling all day, I hope you don't mind."

The other nodded rapidly. "It is very tiresome, all this travelling," he said. "I myself have been up since very early, making connecting flights. And still my day is not over."

Ted seized the thing roundly. "What sort of business are you in, if it's no harm to ask?"

"I am a consultant. Specialising in pharmaceutical trade." The little dictator removed his sunglasses and began to polish them on his handkerchief.

Well, at least he wasn't a jack-booted thug!

"I am not used to talking to fewer than five thousand people at a time", he continued, "for fear of being misunderstood. However, I shall make a beginning.

"It is horrifying to think of the consequences of chance. One man begins a great career as an officer in the European Theatre; another, no less gifted, has his head blown off as soon as he steps out of the landing craft. Why does that happen? Who is to blame? Who will account for it?"

Here the little man swigged his coffee. Ted noted that his hair, seemingly dark brown, was really an artificial boot-brown colour. Ted formed a reply: "Well, I suppose it would depend how you look - "

But the other man was not to be denied: "It is no accident that the corporate hegemony of a small group of - "

Ted sprang into action. More on that next week.

   
  
  Fun at Home
A Pious Memory

 

 

When Chris heard God had invited Himself to the party, he thought it was all over. There was probably no getting around it, though. "What they do on tv", said Bill, "is invite a Catholic priest, a Rabbi, and a minister as well. To sort of get their collective spin on it."

"But this isn't a tv show", said Chris, "it's a party. A little get-together for a bunch of friends, some of whom are leaving in a couple weeks. And anyway, that approach always comes off as a tired, unfunny joke, predictable, you know...I don't know why everyone acts as if tv meant something."

"Yeah. I had this dream I was watching tv last night. But then I realised dreams are kind of like tv, only not as good. We'd better go to the liquor store."

"Just let me get my coat."

God phoned around 8:00 to say He would be along soon. "Want me to bring anything?" he asked.

"Just yourself, man," said Chris. People always brought too much junk. There was always a surplus of snack-food bags and dip the next day.

"Okay", said God. "After all, I am That Am, you know."

People started turning up a little later:

"Sheila!" said Chris, greeting one of his guests, "So you managed to find the address."

"Yeah - sorry I'm late, but - "

"No problem. So, are you excited about your new job?"

"Yes, it's - "

"Dirk!" said Chris, greeting another guest, "Glad you could make it, are you excited about the new job?"

"Well - it's kind of not what I'm looking for, but it's in the right area. And I didn't want to have to move to - "

"And your girlfriend? Is she ...?"

"In Norway." And he began to look as if he would like to scowl, but instead turned to the consuming business of installing some cans of beer in the fridge. Other people skulked around the kitchen. A party had erupted.

A little later Chris noticed God levelling a tequila shot and saying, "I'm gonna have a wicked case of the guilts tomorrow."

God put cucumber slices over his eyes and said, "Look at Me. I am become weird."

Around 2:00 am God hooked up His guitar and started playing "Stairway to Heaven" really loud. Most of the people who had fallen asleep woke up and staggered back to the party. He played pretty well. Then He segued into "Born to be Wild", which He played rather better. The sheer noise was an audial colossus, making the dishes tremble even in the kitchen.

"Get Him out of here, the man's an animal," said Bill.

Chris looked at God from the door into the kitchen. "Oh, I don't know. I don't think he's going to do anything too serious."

"No, I mean the noise. The neighbours'll be like - "

"Any problem?" asked God. He was coming to get some more wine. Since He was no longer playing the guitar there didn't seem to by any need to admonish Him.

A little later something happened. But was that before or after the police dropped by? And later still, God was found lying in the driveway. They carried Him into a bedroom.

Is He ok?

Did He hurt himself?

In the morning they opened the bedroom door to find He had gone.

"Now what do we do?" asked Chris.

   
  
  At the —
History of Painting

 

 

I am confronted with a roomful of wild canvases, one every three feet or so. I should like to be able to make something of them, of each one, I am eager to look and see. I so want this to be a happy occasion, matching the success of my haircut, clean shirt, and the perfectly-lit, high- ceilinged gallery in which I find myself. The first work is a smear of toothpaste on a background of tar. Okay, I'll come back to it. The next one is a painting of a doll with severe injuries. I would rather not look at that for too long. Next: a smear of something on an untreated canvas. This is interesting. What is that stuff? Has it been melted on? Next: a big smear on a big canvas. It is faintly s-shaped, like a meandering river of industrial waste through an indifferent wilderness. I suspect that polysaccharides have contributed to the very exciting texture. But once again we are confronted with the work.

A man behind me starts explaining the historical phonology of Tibetan, making it all a bit clearer by citing some examples from Proto-Tibeto-Burman, and a few moments later I am smoking a cigarette outside somewhere.

   
  
  Fifty Toyes
A Story for Children

 

 

Before B. retired to his room for the rest of his life, people kept coming up to him and complaining, "I've run out of ideas. I don't know what to think about any more," and he would reply, "How can I help? Why would you think I could help? I haven't had a thought in years. I have stared into space, chatted with people I supposedly know, watched tv, read weekly news magazines. I've watched grown men play with each other as a form of entertainment. I haven't really had to think. Moreover, I am retiring now because of a general lack of benevolence. Also, I can't find my umbrella, which makes my going out a non-starter, kind of. I may set fire to a bundle of words and pour a can of emotions over them later, so - drop in whenever. I would enjoy the company. You know." All this to forestall the observation that he was, himself, lazy and indifferent, or was merely hiding from something. Of course he had books and a tv, so what harm could there be in not going anywhere? However, reasonable people can no longer hope to get very far by argumentation that appeals to reason, since they are probably arguing with unreasonable people, as statistics can be made to show. And as he thought this, it occurred to him: compiling statistics was one of the innumerable things he could do now, in the freedom of his room.
   
  
  Anne of Green Gables
A Part of Our Heritage

 

 

Anne of Green Gables. Anne of Green Gables. Anne of Green Gables. Do people never tire of that? Anne of Green Gables. Based on the novel Anne of Green Gables. I assume there was such a person, once: Anne of Green Gables. I sort of wondered about her after I had heard the name for, oh, the ten thousandth time. I read somewhere that "Anne of Green Gables is a trademark and a Canadian official mark of the Anne of Green Gables Licensing Authority Inc." So you see? If you were thinking of calling your novel Anne of Green Gables, don't. You understand why that would be wrong, don't you? People would accuse you of trying to "cash in", so to speak, and that would tend to cast a mercenary shadow over the spirit of Anne of Green Gables. The argument of the novel Anne of Green Gables is as follows: some people want to adopt a boy who can help out on the farm; they are disappointed when they get a girl instead. This girl is Anne Shirley, later to be known as Anne of Green Gables and, later still, as a trademark and a Canadian official mark of the Anne of Green Gables Licensing Authority Inc. She has red hair and freckles, she is irrepressible, and she proves to be just as good as any boy, in fact much, much better. This bodes well for the whole community. That's the whole plot. Probably quicker to identify it by its children's literature motif number.

The book could have been called Anne of Green Gables Makes Her Bones, but that makes for rather a long title. It could have been more interesting, though: Anne would be the village drunk, stealing other women's menfolk, dealing drugs, and coming home in the morning to threaten her foster parents with the .22 and demand money. Eventually she gets an important job in the government through some people she used to party with. But this is not what happens in Anne of Green Gables. Nowhere do you hear of her being an alcoholic, or having her neglected children taken into charge, or her endless squabbles with social services, or her many appearances in court accompanied by a different leering car thief each time. None of that appears in the novel Anne of Green Gables, or in any of the other canonical Anne books. Why is that?
   
  
 · Here you'll find rather more irrelevant mini essays, roughly categorized somehow. I wish I could be more clear.
· Bibliographical Notes
— Old Books
— Duhamel Bibliography
· Annals of Public Neurosis
— Peace Tricks
· Almost a Complete Thought
· Stories
— Reveille
— Fun at Home
— A Story
— At the —
— A Story for Children
— Anne of Green Gables
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