It is generally agreed that we live in mean and seedy times: the age of the artificial woody, the entertainment-security complex, and a political system that has vanished in a mist of legalized bribery and impression management. Cast a glance at the Forbes hundred top billionaire and trillionaire losers and try to imagine the fun if some world government seized all their money and burnt it – yes, it would relieve the world of a little pain, but it would do surprisingly little good. The system incorrigibly generates these kind of autistic dinosaurs.
So – in lieu of the bonfire of their vanities – at least we
can, occasionally, peak at their email. This week, as DSK – that’s Dominique
Strauss-Kahn to you Americans – gets officially clamped for pimping, his emails
got sorted out in the press. Now, this is
a press composed of people who, two years ago, were his BFFs (whatever
that means. It is one of those internet acronyms that has the sort of
upshifting, Valley kinda ring to it, which is why I’m using it, but of BFF in general I’m strictly still
WTF?) In other words, the compliant, knowitall press that Segolene so
accurately denounced for their sexism, their middle of the roadism, and their
toadyism – the new chiens du garde like the old chiens du garde, and someone’s
in the kitchen with Dina – have officially turned on the master.
Which gets us to the vocabulary of the emails. Since America
is transfixed, at the moment, with the joys of its newest retro craze, lynching
– making a big comeback in Florida, I hear – the emails of DSK have not, so
far, made it through the grate. The NYT
story about his arrest was disappointingly dreary with filler, no mention made
of the “material”.
Here’s the first paragraph of the story in Le Monde:
[He calls them the girls, the girlfriends, the little
things. Sometimes, even, Dominique Strauss-Kahn uses the word “material”, as in
this text, in july: Do you want (can you) come to find a magnificent, cute club
in Madrid with me (and material) on July 4? Another time, he utilized a
periphrase, those that one “had in one’s bagages” And even evokes, on day, a
mysterious “gift” offered to the painter, Titouan Lamazou.]
Material – now, that is a word to jump on. For DSK was an
economist, and moved in a pluto-world where humanity had been reduced to two
classes: one of “human capital”, the other of ‘innovators’ – aka, rich old
fucks. Long gone are de Sade’s libertines, whose every ejaculaton was aura-ed
with blasphemy. The orgy, now, is papered in business inspirational prose –
just as business inspirational prose is papered in the kabuki language of porn.
The girlfriends were probably as conversant as DSK’s buddies in the wow
moment. It is a virtuous circle of the
vicious, all converging on a magnifique boîte coquine.
One can forgive the rich
much – and besides, one has no choice.
But not their tackiness.
At least one has been busted – a small victory for humanity.
No comments:
Post a Comment