Friday, June 3, 2011

At Least Embarrassment Is Not an Imitation. It's Intimacy for Beginners, the Orgasm No One Cares to Fake.

Palin was discussed over Thursday Night Pints. Why wasn't Palin riding shotgun on a Harley her Dukakis in a tank moment, wondered L. She's a grifter, said D. Say, said me, she's not only a grifter but a world class grifter, a once in a lifetime grifter, a genius grifter that at this dawning moment in American consciousness of its empire's imminent collapse understands America wants one last American gold standard conman and Palin instinctively, deliberately, brilliantly, delivers?

Shame you can't write novels, said L. Didn't we have this conversation two, three weeks ago, asked D, each winning a ridiculously priced Scotch. What fascinates me, I said, is how she can simultaneously be both a rodeo clown and capitalist superstar, she transcends either/ors. The stupider she makes herself - what if she's brilliant and chooses to act stupid - the larger and loyaler her following. She brands herself as the anti-what makes her money, and the angrier we get at the tacky obviousness of it, the more money she makes.

You don't believe that, do you, L asked, that she's brilliant and acts stupid for profit. It's wishful thinking, I said, that she's a devious and subversive mastermind, a canny manipulator and brilliant actor rather than a cartoon grifter filling a vacuum in Crackerstan, a cipher and avatar of vacuous late American capitalism and collapsing American empire. There's hope in the former, tomorrow in the latter.












 ABOUT FACE

Alice Fulton

Because life's too short to blush,
I keep my blood tucked in.
I won't be mortified
by what I drive or the flaccid
vivacity of my last dinner party.
I take my cue from statues posing only
in their shoulder pads of snow: all January
you can see them working on their granite tans.

That I woke at an ungainly hour,
stripped of the merchandise that clothed me,
distilled to pure suchness,
means not enough to anyone for me
to confess.  I do not suffer
from the excess of taste
that spells embarrassment:
mothers who find their kids unseemly
in their condom earrings,
girls cringing to think
they could be frumpish as their mothers.
Though the late nonerotic Elvis
in his studded gut of jumpsuit
made everybody squeamish, I admit.
Rule one: the King must not elicit pity.

Was the audience afraid of being tainted
--this might rub off on me--
or were they--surrendering--
what a femme word--feeling
solicitous--glimpsing their fragility
in his reversible purples
and unwholesome goldish chains?

At least embarrassment is not an imitation.
It's intimacy for beginners,
the orgasm no one cares to fake.
I almost admire it.  I almost wrote despise.


3 comments:

  1. I shoulda read through before I emailed you my last question. Clearly, you do NOT hate the motherfucking LA Galaxy enough. Who the fuck are you, to put sleep ahead of Saint Benny, to lay down your head while our boys are off fighting and dying at the Home Depot Center? Fucking chickenhawk, go join the 101st Quietside Rangers.

    Yeah, yeah, I'll probably pass out by halftime, especially if the game is going the way we both expect. I'm really hoping for the burning hatred to keep me awake, but realistically? I'm geezing.

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  2. ...make sure you go back and read the comments.

    I read the comments.

    It seems to me that some of the commentators fail to understand that the G.O.P. (and Team Sarah) base is not made up of noble pioneers on the frontier. It is affluent whites in the suburbs.
    ~

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  3. If Planet ever decides to make a feline horror flick, here's the final shot. That's just awesome.

    ReplyDelete