Annals of Pin-Dickery

That squeaking in the corner there? No, it's not a little mouse w/ its tail in a trap, it's a conservative trying to show both his macho (Or, in Freudian terminology, "Still trying to show mother something?") & how clever, creative, & artistic he is. (W/o being thought of as a sissy though. Wonder what Klavan thought of 300?) Anyway, it's news to Andrew that David Mamet is some sort of RW type. Take a gander at The Unit ("Herr Doktor Freud, paging Herr Doktor Freud.") Mamet's paean to the boys who commit crimes for us in the name of democracy, Tuesdays @2100 Eastern & Pacific on CBS. Appears that Mamet officially came out of the conservative closet in The Village Voice last wk., & little Andy is all a-twitter.

The left has monopolized the arts for so long that some on the right have lost the knack of them. We love to denounce Hollywood and indulge in paroxysms of rage about the latest artistic insults to patriotism and God. But when it comes actually to producing mature and complex works of art -- or supporting the people who produce them -- a good conservative can be very hard to find.

You don't suppose that has anything to do w/ '"conservatives" being brain-dead receptors of conventional wisdom, authority & tradition, do you? Note, for example, the linking of "patriotism" & "God." Or his summation of Mamet's plays:

searching for remnants of heroism in the rubble of modernity through a hilarious and poetic tough-guy vernacular.

ANDREW (from offstage right, in whiny simpering voice):Oh, there aren't any heroes in this horrid modern world any more. Oh, tough-guy vernacular is just the coolest, don't you think, Bruce? Hold on for these two:

The journey 60-year-old Mamet has made from being what he calls a "brain-dead liberal" to acknowledging the genius of philosophers such as Thomas Sowell and Milton Friedman is a difficult one for an artist. We in the creative world swim in liberalism like fish in water. It's hard for us even to imagine that one might evolve and walk on dry land.

Note that Thomas Sowell is a "genius philosopher."

So now Mamet has grasped the nettle. He will come to find out just how small-minded, exclusionary and intellectually corrupt many on the left can be. Colleagues may abandon him; theater critics will contrive to ignore and attack him; his dependable audience may turn away.

If Mamet's going find "intellectual corruption" anywhere, it'll be coming from the mouth of Thomas Sowell. And wasn't the deservedly dead Milton Friedman alleged to be an economist, rather than a philosopher? That may explain the problem w/ most of his ideas. That & the fact that people like Chile's Generalissimo Pinochet are the ones most likely to carry out his "reforms." And if any one "turns away" from Mamet's art, it'll probably be because it's become propagandist shit, not because he's no longer a "brain-dead liberal." This is awfully repellent too:

Will they turn out for his plays and embrace their excellence? His is a hard language of four-letter words and scorching insights. Will rightists, despite their commitment to good behavior and values, remember that art is an examination of the world as it is, not as we would have it be?

Good behavior, huh? Wholesale murder & torture is excellent behavior, but don't say "poopie-doodie" on stage. Values, he says. They "value" everything, but know the worth of nothing, to coin a phrase. And art (although what Klavan knows of it is beyond us) as examination of the world as it is is exactly why the arts are hardly filled w/ the right wing fantasists who worship Reagan & think Cheney's "So?" is the height of clever discourse. The right wing, however, is filled w/ louts. But Klavan thinks that Mamet may still be able to get some:

He will meet women of intelligence and competence who -- mirabile dictu -- don't despise men and manliness but openly admire them.

"How 'bout belching for me again, big boy? You're such a man, not like those nancy boy artists! And your vernacular is tough as nails!! Ravish me, you brute!!" And let's take a peep at what passes for art (& manliness) in the Klavan klavern. This is straight from Andy's website:

Damnation Street They are two sworn enemies with a single obsession: a woman on the run from them both. Scott Weiss is a private detective. John Foy is a professional killer. The woman is Julie Wyant, a hooker with the face of an angel. Julie spent one night with Foy - a night of psychopathic cruelty that Foy called love. Desperate to get away from him, she vanished without a trace. And Foy wants her back. There's only one man who can find her: Weiss, the best locate operative in the business. She's begged him not to look for her, fearing he'll bring the killer in his wake. But Weiss can't stay away. Now, from a town called Paradise, through a wilderness that feels like hell, Weiss searches for Julie - and the killer follows, waiting for his chance. They are two expert hunters matching move for move - until it ends in gunfire on Damnation Street.

There's further disgusting crap in Klavan's screed, & we can't let this one pass:

Rather than the low and tiresome obsession of the left with the color of people's skins, he will find people who embrace a philosophical colorblindness.

Jeezis Hussein Christ, you fucking asshole, who was obsessed w/ the color of people's skins, & their superiority or inferiority, & how one "race" should be in charge of all other "races" for most of the history of this country? For the right to deny history, & then accuse the left of being "low and tiresome" in its efforts to bring about that "philosophical colorblindness" is as good an indication as any that Mamet is unlikely to

discover thinkers who seek historical and moral truth as if it really mattered[.]

on the right. So Klavan, you pin-dicked overcompensator, if you're man enough to live in Southern California, I cheerfully challenge you to an ass whuppin'. Show us what a hero you are. It'd be worth a few days in jail if we could keep you from writing another book or "adapting" another Japanese movie.