I had a dream last night, the night of the Winter Solstice.
I dreamed I was at a Christmas party – or a holiday party, perhaps, because Bill O’Reilly wasn’t there. But people he would know were there. People whom I recognized, and whom you would too. The place was adorned with glittering Washington journalistical-type people.
It was a weird setting, an indistinct place, with walls that glowed with a soft ethereal light – sort of like one might imagine heaven, or an evening ballroom in a very high-class hotel.
Don’t ask me how or why I got there. I just appeared or beamed in, I guess. My recounting of this dream also is rather impressionistic – it was a real dream, after all, I’m saying.
More on the flip . . .
Like I said, there were familiar faces. And they welcomed me, though they didn’t know me. Apparently I was there as a sort of representative – let’s say an ambassador from Blogsylvania. They greeted me with curious smiles.
There’s Tom Friedman!
I step toward him, say, "Hello Mr. Friedman!"
He says, "Call me Tom, Mr. Blogger!"
I say, "My name’s semiot, Tom. You can call me semiot."
Tom smiles and says, "Nice to meet you, Mr. Blogger."
"I’m not really a blogger, Tom. I don’t have my own blog. Actually, I’m thinking of starting one in 2007, the predicted year of peak blog."
"Well," says Tom., "good luck with that, Mr. Blogger
I say, "So what about Iraq, Tom? How many Friedmans do we have left there, Tom?"
Tom says, "It’s not up to me! It depends – like one of my clever, lucrative book deals analytically hints at and insists – on how fast the Iraqi’s flatten the roads of their ancient, little country and trade in their white or olive-drab Toyota pickups – you know the ones that bearded, round-headed yahoos use to spread the gospel of anti-modernism – for Lexuses. You know, if Iraqis would just recognize their place in the flat world of global capital flows, each and every one of them – Sunni and Shia, Baathist and Turkman and Kurd – could buy a Lexus or two, and be happy, like the entrepreneurial people of India."
"Thanks for that, Tom." I move on.
There is George Will! "Hi, Mr. Will! I do so admire your erudite comments on the passing scene, and your rock-hard insistence on the unchangeable nature of human nature!"
Will, with an expression that reminded me of my arthritic and barbiturate-medicated grandmother – we called her "Nanny" – let on that, "Edmund Burke, of course, said it best, when he pronounced the execution of Robespierre ‘condign punishment’ for the sin against nature that is the fomenting of bloodthirsty contentment among the sans culottes masses of Paris proper and surrounding arrondissements."
I’ll try to remember that, Mr. Will."
"Actually I prefer," continues the rock-adamant Will, "a Puilly Fusse with the foie gras, and a rich hearty Burgundy – a good Burgundy, mind you – with the beuff tartar."
"I’m sure you do, Mr. Will. And bon appetit!"
"Thank you, my boy," says Will. "And now I really must dash, before the Victoria’s Secret closes!"
Next I see David Brooks. He is in front of a bust-length mirror, arguing heatedly with his reflection. I am unsure who is ahead this exchange of views.
Suddenly, the scene changes. I am in my familiar room, sitting in front of the familiar old monitor, clicking in to kos. I have just finished reading an astoundingly insightful article in Harper’s by David Graeber. I want to write a diary, or at least a comment, on it. The argument is that the Right in America does so well because they have learned to keep a forceful separation in the public mind between egoism and altruism – between, says Graber, "value and values." This reminds me of a section of my dissertation, where I argued that Plato’s big lie, his talk about how the elites, borne of the great stars of the firmament, must tell the people that the old stories about the gods – that they were quarrelsome and petty and vindictive – that these old stories must be given the lie. Yes. Now I see, on reading Graeber, that the secret of success for American political elites – their ability to enthrall the watchdogs of the press with the tether of forgetfullness, and to cast a spell of disgruntled loyalty on the masses – these achievements are gained by making of themselves a spectacle of quarrelling gods, who, on the crystalline platform of the public sphere, carve for themselves in greed and in jealously feigned or sincere (who really knows?) precisely to make possible their own personal post-modern noblesse oblige. Plastic-coated, crème-flake babies, cast in portable and ambiguous images of the good life, just beyond the fervid grasp of Mr. and Mrs. America and all the babes in Toyland.. As Graeber says, "Why do working-class Bush voters tend to resent intellectuals more than they do the rich? It seems to me that the answer is simple. They can imagine a scenario in which they might become rich but can not possibly imagine one in which they, or any of their children, would become members of the intelligencia." Ah, Paris Hilton! The twat that launched a thousand shits!
The scene shifts once again. Back to the ethereal drawing room.
There’s Eleanor Clift! Actually I’m talking with someone else. A guy who is vaguely familiar to me, but who clearly is not as famous as most of the others.
I say, "I know you. You work for the Post. I remember you from when I was an intern there with David Broder."
Now I never did really work as an intern or in any other capacity at the Washington Post, let alone for the Dean. But I did used to see him on the Metro from time-to-time as we rode to work in DC. I never spoke to him. He looks much older in the flesh than he does on TV.
Anyway, after I tell this guy about my dreamy internship with David Broder, I look over and Eleanor Clift is raising her hands, palms forward, and bowing in my direction. She is honored and humbled, I guess, to be in the presence of a supposed David Broder intern.
A swirl of excitement now washes the room. Presents! People take a package, unwrap it, and with a hale and hearty farewell head for the exits, somewhere over there in the mist.
All at once I’m face-to-face with someone. At first I think it might be Geneva Overholser. But then, no. She looks more like a cross between Lynne Cheney and Sally Quinn. Let’s call her Lynne Quinn.
I say, "Hello! Lynne Quinn!"
She goes "Shush! You may call me Mrs. Thor!" (This was a dream, remember.)
I say to Mrs. Thor, "You know, I’m really pretty worried about communication technology."
She looks at me with frozen face – I’m unsure of whether it signifies mere disdain or botox.
I say, "No, not so much telecommunications, but sociometry – you know, the science of who talks to whom.."
Suddenly, I notice that there is one present left. Is it mine, or is it for Mrs. Thor?
Just as suddenly, I awaken, compelled to leave the bed to deal with the periodic consequences of my blood pressure medication. Having taken care of business, I rush to the old, familiar monitor, and begin to type . . .