Continued from
https://www.debatepolitics.com/blogs/angel/1538-way-forum-5-a.html
Who is the third who walks always beside you?
When I count, there are only you and I together
But when I look ahead up the white road
There is always another one walking beside you
Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded
I do not know whether a man or a woman
—But who is that on the other side of you?
―T.S. Eliot, The Wasteland
On the Way to the Forum
a gory allegory
(continued)
Is this a good time to note that what we are reading here, this little allegory of ours, is “inspired by true events”? Is that the wording? Or is it “real events” perhaps? Or “actual events”? I can’t seem to recall. I mean I don’t recall the precise wording as it has come down to us today. Used to be this note was much more direct and to the point: “This is a true story.” Then it became a bit more cautious: “The following is based on a true story”—and with that we were off to the races! I mean, to be sure, a story can be true, but can events be true? That is where we are today. That is the slipshod semantic space we occupy today. And that, mutatis mutandis, is how characters like that perennial asshole Chopi and that Überslut Btzby and, yes, even Little Miss Hottotrot sucking her crème de menthe through a cocktail straw tonight—how they come to believe, cue the musical sting, that they are real. I don’t suppose it matters very much. We get it. Readers that we are. But it comes down to us from cinema, doesn’t it? The convention, I mean. Against a black screen before the movie proper begins. Sometimes over the opening shot. Never later in the movie. Never late in the movie. Never at the end of a movie certainly. I mean, how would that read? The preceding was a true story? The preceding story was inspired by actual events? What would that add to the experience? A fillip?
Circus Maximus. Roman ludi. Shafts of light sweeping the silhouette horde. The Rainbowspinners come out for another set and Btzby out front of a contorting primal scream. The apotheosis of Skank. .
I pick my way through the crowd, into the lobby, and take the elevator up.
The door opens on a spacious lobby-like hall out of an RKO Depression-era musical comedy. I expect Fred and Ginger in evening clothes and gown to come waltzing out.
I surprise Chopi in his office. Caught at the wall safe or cleaning out his desk. You know.
He reminds me of Peter Lorre. Sort of creepy. Shifty. You know.
He doesn’t recognize me. How could he? We were but avatars to each other back then.
I remind him.
His breath becomes labored. Beads of perspiration studding his forehead. A visible panic rises in him.
His bulging eyes drop all too obviously to the half-opened desk drawer, and the handle of a luger inside.
So I tell him.
I’m Beerbohm, I say.
A musical sting.
Close on the face.
His.
Mine.
Very close on the eyes.
His.
Mine.
His.
A long beat.
Then he makes a sudden grab for the gun...
You know the rest.
https://www.debatepolitics.com/blogs/angel/1538-way-forum-5-a.html
Who is the third who walks always beside you?
When I count, there are only you and I together
But when I look ahead up the white road
There is always another one walking beside you
Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded
I do not know whether a man or a woman
—But who is that on the other side of you?
―T.S. Eliot, The Wasteland
On the Way to the Forum
a gory allegory
(continued)
Is this a good time to note that what we are reading here, this little allegory of ours, is “inspired by true events”? Is that the wording? Or is it “real events” perhaps? Or “actual events”? I can’t seem to recall. I mean I don’t recall the precise wording as it has come down to us today. Used to be this note was much more direct and to the point: “This is a true story.” Then it became a bit more cautious: “The following is based on a true story”—and with that we were off to the races! I mean, to be sure, a story can be true, but can events be true? That is where we are today. That is the slipshod semantic space we occupy today. And that, mutatis mutandis, is how characters like that perennial asshole Chopi and that Überslut Btzby and, yes, even Little Miss Hottotrot sucking her crème de menthe through a cocktail straw tonight—how they come to believe, cue the musical sting, that they are real. I don’t suppose it matters very much. We get it. Readers that we are. But it comes down to us from cinema, doesn’t it? The convention, I mean. Against a black screen before the movie proper begins. Sometimes over the opening shot. Never later in the movie. Never late in the movie. Never at the end of a movie certainly. I mean, how would that read? The preceding was a true story? The preceding story was inspired by actual events? What would that add to the experience? A fillip?
Circus Maximus. Roman ludi. Shafts of light sweeping the silhouette horde. The Rainbowspinners come out for another set and Btzby out front of a contorting primal scream. The apotheosis of Skank. .
I pick my way through the crowd, into the lobby, and take the elevator up.
The door opens on a spacious lobby-like hall out of an RKO Depression-era musical comedy. I expect Fred and Ginger in evening clothes and gown to come waltzing out.
I surprise Chopi in his office. Caught at the wall safe or cleaning out his desk. You know.
He reminds me of Peter Lorre. Sort of creepy. Shifty. You know.
He doesn’t recognize me. How could he? We were but avatars to each other back then.
I remind him.
His breath becomes labored. Beads of perspiration studding his forehead. A visible panic rises in him.
His bulging eyes drop all too obviously to the half-opened desk drawer, and the handle of a luger inside.
So I tell him.
I’m Beerbohm, I say.
A musical sting.
Close on the face.
His.
Mine.
Very close on the eyes.
His.
Mine.
His.
A long beat.
Then he makes a sudden grab for the gun...
You know the rest.
To be discontinued...
