OUTRAGE!

I have it. Why do people continue to clip their nails on the New York subway? This is not your bathroom. This is not your kitchen/living room/bedroom. Clipping one’s nails is something best completed in the privacy of your own home. By doing so, you imperil the eyes and feeble stomachs of your fellow New Yorkers who have to dodge flying pieces of nail aimed at them from across the car. Desist!

To our Ugandan readers who think we are HBO: Apologies for stealing your idea of a lifetime. We will begin making new series about historical shit right away.

The Handsome Furs are underdressed in dc

Caught for the weekend in the bemused city of Washington DC, I found myself lamenting the real lack of hipsters in this over the top, 9-5, working ethic community. This lack occasioned me to question the long standing lament among Columbia University types and other yuppie inhabitants or rather hipster loathing hipsters against this edgy population and may have inspired me to become an ethnographer, chasing down this rare population on the outskirts of civilization, those brave pioneers of gentrification.

Why would DC benefit from a formidable hipster population? The answers are obvious. Firstly, there is a dramatic ebb and flow in the street traffic that parallels those who have jobs. For example, at 1:00 on a Friday I was the only one out jogging (Although we know hipsters do not jog, it is often the case that hipster associates, or more correctly, prey, tend to jog, see theburg.com). Were it the case that hipsters inhabited this city, I would doubtless not be alone. Washington DC also has a formidable racial barrier, as neighborhoods swing quickly from one extreme to another. Hipsters in their search for authenticity would serve to bridge the gap between particular communities and would doubtless spur local business in areas that are not dominated by the neo-fascist array of Starbucks-Caribou Coffee-Starbucks. Finally, there is an implicit lack of bars in DC, and those that there are tend to be occupied by unironic consumers of sports culture or Goths or suits. While bars tailored to specific communities are an essential function of city life, condescension and secret authentic cool places that no one else really knows anything about are prerequisites for urban life as it was meant to be led (see Cicero Ad Fam 82.5 where he talks about a new Cretan cookshop that he discovered before Crassus). Our nation must have a capital which can meet this need.

de officio civitatium

In as much as any columnist of YS can approach anything seriously without being sucked to the cosmopolitan and post-modern vortex which is the empty soul at the heart of this endeavor and as much anyone can ask these sorts of questions without creating a spinoff, I will endeavor to provide an answer. I’ve chosen to focus on current day America for the purposes of this question.

   Partisanism has led to a sort of biasing of government, an us and them mentality which tends to minimize the shared aspects of the governing process, there is truth behind the all americans cliche. But its hard to get at. By what process does one constitue oneself as American? The easiest way out for any nation is universal conscription. Late nineteenth and early twentieth century Frenchmen learned to be French and to speak the common French by means of the army. Yet despite the brief and often harrowing experience we often have with Selective Services, there is no mechanism operating similarly in America. We share the same holidays, the same barbecues, the same times for family gathering, yet none of these are particularly unique, and the days which should in some sense embed us in our national mythology serve as little more than a pretense for three day weekends. It has also been stated that the essence of an American is to have experienced 9/11, to perhaps know the feeling of solidarity. Without minimizing the tragedy, the power of the moment and the sense of connection has been hijacked by sectarian interests, I feel like the proverbial Essene in the Pharisaic temple.   

   A discussion of what is owed is perhaps more than what Americans do. The point of the American democratic-republic is to be overly large, to channel populism and special interests into harmless channels through size. In terms of actual responsibilities to the government, the average citizen never has to do more than pay taxes, potentially fill out the census, maybe vote, and the right to pursue unlimited self-interest. This particular problem is best, I think, exemplified by the Dodge/Chrysler 2.99 gas deal. Its insane, inane, utterly unneccessary and guaranteed to keep America beholden to Middle East potentates. But its a good deal. And that seems to trump the my own sectarian American values. For others, this is potentially essential to being an American. 

     The problem with trying to classify the sepcific responsisbilites of the American citizen to one’s government is that it seems as if America is a republic of self-interest. In some very real sense, all the functions of the civil service persist and are pursued for their functions as fulfilling personal self interest. Even the military, while some can still claim aspects of duty and responsibility has morphed into a sort of functional mercenary force. One of the major draws of the army these days is economic advancement and free education. Our republic is sort of structured to take advantage of people’s self interest. And this is nothing new and nothing shameful. the old Roman republic served as a vehicle for the acquirement of prestige, power, and wealth for the Roman aristocracy. 

   So far I’ve outlined how there is nothing at the center of the American relationship to the state, besides the nominal gestures that citizens are compelled to make, such as paying taxes, having an American passport and potentially voting. I think at the center is an understanding that the republic is constituted through self interest, that perhaps the needs of most are served through this republic, and this was its sort of essential constitution, life, liberty and property. There is no idealized point in which more was given to the republic for duty and honor, these were all essentially pursuits of self-interest. The American Revolution was the mobilization of popular support through elite concerns. Thus what does the American citizen owe to the American government? Only following the dictates of self-interest under the overarching centrality of the American government. This is what is, but it is not ideal. Rather, we should follow the ways of the Swiss and through extreme localism, re-involve the citizen in American politics. 

        

De institutionibus Suissium

Following the opening assault of the Great Anti-Banger, I too have turned my mind’s eye to that ignoble dwelling of savages, Switzerland and have found it wanting.

1) There was no Switzerland in high Antiquity. Every great nation of the European world has its roots in the Roman Empire. Germany was the unRoman land of the barbarians. Britain is best known for causing the Agricola to be written. France gave us the Gallic Wars and the Caesars. Spain also existed in a sort of strange primitive form as the playground of Carthaginians and Romans, and eventually came under the empire. Modern Greece is entirely based upon reconstituting its ancient past. America is in some sense the idealization of Polybian and Roman Republican ideals gone mad. Much of the legitimacy that Israel exhibits comes from its claims to be an old Judean commonwealth. The same can even be said for the most illegitimate state in the Middle East, Jordan, as a resurrection of the old Nabatean kingdom. Conspicuously absent from this list is Switzerland. While other nations place their beginnings in the the one true civilization, Switzerland is the bastard child of inhospitable mountain tribesmen, lovers of local autonomy, and those able to shoot apples off their loved one’s heads, an inelegant and incoherent beginning to an ignoble nation.

2) The Swiss Guard: Of all the most antiquated institutions of the Middle Ages with the possible exception of  Iceland (next week’s topic?) this one is most deserving of censure. Yet before we go on to heap the scorn and abuse on this venerable institution, remarkable for its protection of the pope’s life, let us reflect upon the fact that this is the last vestige of a once ancient and venerable, and dare I say cosmopolitan institution of mercenaries that was once present throughout Europe. For were the Swiss not the first to use pikes effectively? To fight their own unsung Agincourt on the plains of Germany and in the undulating vales of my own fair Italy(c.f. Virgil Georgics 2 for all the other praises that had to be left out)? This probably has something to do with the fact that the Swiss version of Henry V was written in Romansch and no one noticed. Indeed, were these Swiss not the very men who long antiquated and with particularly ineffective weapons fought the French mob at the Tulieres to the death, for the sake of Louis XVI? Such valor at least deserves some salutations particularly in regards to their cosmopolitanism. For I too, have written a speech or two on cosmopolitanism, yet due to the fiendish pressures of time, was precluded from publishing by an invasion of the Senate chamber by Cilician kittens. Thus, I must in the spirit of this new found spirit disagree with El Salade, for the Swiss were the first to exploit cosmopolitanism effectively. While other nation-states were beginning to become just that, the Swiss were out killing other people for money, proving perhaps the most important dictate of the new cosmopolitan world that was beginning to take shape, anti-Russian is anti-everyone.

3) Romansch. While usually I exhort the foolish children of today to turn to the great and good languages that are now spoken by some few men, I find this dialect utterly appalling. It is a base and brutal corruption of the most pure language ever spoken and I would prefer my books to be burned than to be translated into such barbaric filth. There are Gauls who speak better Latin, Britons even. These Swisses exist by a simple twist of fate. Had Drusus been more thorough, this column would not exist.

Electioneering for dummies

It has often been pointed out by me that elections are of the most terrible sort in this country. There is far too much talking and too little violence, even for one to whom the bread and butter of life is itself words. Hence, let us proceed now to consider what sort of ways in which a man may best go about and get himself elected to office.

I. . Jump in bed with the money and never get out.

II. Find a lot of people to stand around you. Preferably beautiful people. But make sure that they have sticks and knives and know how to use them.

III. Accuse your opponent of sexual crimes. With little boys. Then obliquely suggest that he makes love to his sister on a regular basis and offer thousands of witness. Treat this as actual public business, make the Senate ring with such cries!

IV. Occupy the polling places, squeeze out your opponents and chase down the other candidates with armed gangs.

V. Filibuster. Or check the omens again and again. Declare a religious crisis of state and compare yourself to the Scipiones

VI. Recast history at every turn. Let the polls ring with your virtues and compare yourself to a noble Demosthenes, or a Scipio, or a Camillus, or a Fabius Maximus, while your enemy is a vile bribed foreign traitor, debauched in his own depraved Eastern rites.

VII. Use your power and influence to the fullest extent. Every one who ever owes you anything, make him do everything he possibly can for you.

VIII. Bribe everyone. Even slaves and animals.

IX. And when it is all over and you are in power, abscond with public funds. Then get set up with some juicy little province, I was always partial to Syria and squeeze it like an olive, so you can do this all over again.

Zodiac: Beyond genre

Perhaps the most terrible part of upholding the toga of the Ciceronian is that one must constantly change ones style, ones topic, and ones very identity, to constantly re-fold oneself into the very salad. I’ve promised the CDS that I would cover Zodiac and so I must, the Ciceronian must always keep his word, excepting when the Catalinarian comes near.

The Zodiac in some sense seems to defy genres. It is not a gory, slasher, revel in the violence serial killer movie of the Se7en/Saw variety. It is not a chilling look at the psyche of serial killers, like Silence of the Lambs. It is also not a revisionist argument for Arthur Leigh Allen, as the Zodiac. It is one of the better movies of the year, but its not great. The realism, the very thing that makes it good, is also what in the end sort of drags it down.

Zodiac begins with upfront, unadorned murders which seem rather wholly unconnected to the rest of the plot. The letters set the movie off, introducing the journalists and an attack upon a cabbie, introduces the excellent Mark Ruffalo, as a police detective. The plot is media-focused, but avidly avoiding the very celebrity hype aspect from which these movies arise. There is a brilliant scene where Gyllenhaal and Ruffalo are at the premier of Dirty Harry together and Ruffalo walks out disgusted by this wet dream cop fantasy. There are also some lovely depictions of police bureaucracy. Ruffalo has to call back and forth to coordinate between three districts to accomplish anything. Its half journalism, half police work and all masculinity. The women in this movie are victims, either actual or psychological of the Zodiac, or sidelined wives who cannot understand the overtly masculine domain which is the pursuit of the Zodiac.

While I’ve glossed over much of the movie, I think the most substantial piece of the movie is the obsessiveness with the pursuit. Paul Avery loses his job, to be replaced by The Jewish Actor, and moves to a boat, because of he no longer can report on crime, just things that may be connected to the Zodiac. Ruffalo’s police inspector wanders across county lines and accusations, hopeless, but refusing to end his search. Gyllenhaal’s character jumps from random clue, to random clue, in an almost entirely unconvincing manner arriving at Leigh as the killer. In the end, the movie becomes more about those who chase the serial killer than the serial killer himself.

Why there are no good holiday movies

Often the Ciceronian has been forced to sit through many Saturnalias, Bacchanals, Orgies, and other such festivities, in which he is subjected to perhaps the worst form of entertainment in all sorts of manners, ranging from the minutely terrible to the overarchingly destructive of which there are not indeed any words to describe. While erstwhile, I would indeed concern myself with rhetoric, I find that the Muses frequently force me to turn to invective, pushed by the most terrible words and ghastly entertainments of what is called an age, to that most terrible of all forms which the rhetor himself cannot control and soon finds his own words turned against him. Thus, in keeping with the overall movie theme of which this blog has turned itself in so many manners and ways, lest he find himself discreetly out of step with the most excellent sorts of contemporaries with which he, being the light of the republic has arranged around himself.

Finding himself lost in the general deluge with which our world celebrates the birth of a crucified barbarian who purports to be the logos of the all-estimable Plato, the Ciceronian is on a frequent glut for entertainment. He looks in all manner of places, but finds that unlike the most noble and excellent pursuits to which he usually turns himself throughout the course of the year, of a cultured and learned sort of light play most suiting to an exceptionally noble mind, he is sunk into the very dreary depths of that most destructive entertainment franchise, the holiday movie.

It is not that it is impossible to make a holiday movie. A Wonderful Life is a good movie, despite all the efforts of the Aeschylean-Frank-Capra-hating-chorus. White Christmas is also lovely and my slaves tell me, that Home Alone was also a unique expression of the joy of the Christmas season, although I myself, could not bear such a base movie in any manner whatsoever. Nay, what I cry out against are the contemptible laughing stocks which purport to be holiday movies that appear towards the beginning of Novem mensem and seek to capture the holiday spirit by means of some terrible ploy, unpoetic, unlyric, plotless, Museless, besotted and beshitted pieces of drivel. Every year the studios vomit forth some of this trash, never just one, but always more, always vaguely comic and always centered around Santa and his merry little band of henchmen. No greater criminal transgression has ever been made against the arts, the neoteroi pale in comparison, even the terrible crimes of that wretch Catiline, are as naught, in respect to this unendurable travesty which fills our mindless age with its shrieking holiday madness.

They fail because these movies operate on a formula. There is some sort of holiday related problem, which must be resolved, by means of holiday cheer, and then all will be well again, as the hero saves the day and everyone hugs each other and it is all wonderful. I, as a youth, was oft misled by such drivel, much as a whore may mislead a young man down ways which the more severe and better men of old would indeed not wish. I, once, thought to win over the terrors of the dark of Decem Mensem by means of a light and jovial spirit, an affinity for a certain red and white striped hook, a not middling love for a fat man in red, and a not total disassociation with certain candles over the course of several nights. Yet I found these things to be as untrue and as empty as the very movies which foster such foolish discourse upon those both young and impressionable, such as I, not yet a formidable orator, at that moment was. Now I hold to doctrines mostly Platonic in origin and in contemplation of the sublime, often am able to provide my own lights, in the times we now face. There is however to me a great fear that the very sort of mistake which once moved me in such a manner, may perhaps lead others down this seemingly honeyed path, and for the sake of others, I lead down words of the most keen sort.

While I am somewhat overcame by the disgust and spite I often feel, naturally being rooted in me, as a rhetor attached to the very highest of things, for this time of year, it may most unjustly be said by those men who too little know the true good and ill of things that there is in me a most base and vile nature, because of my liberty in speaking against the sorts of things which all in an imagined consensus purport to hold dear. Yet I speak, merely as one who knows what is good and what is shameful in respect to the labors of the mind and too long have we been plagued by these terrible afflictions masked in the garments of holiday cheer. Is it too much to object to what is unsuitable in respect to its making, ill composed, designed to be incontrovertible and for the purpose of a few swift sesterces? This thing I think wholly vile and myself, not restrained in speaking of what vice that is indeed deserving of the most harsh words.

Qui Scribat de super hominem? Part XII

Continuing in my quest to steal forms from other cultures and make them my own, I present this column to you, O Cornelius Nepos, may my arts and rhetoric skill last through the end of the Cumaean song down through the time of Pollio, again to my own generation!

Often this question has been considered. Many are the great and powerful men who have turned their pens to such a subject. Many of that now ignoble race of the Graeci, dared to ask such a question in the face of a meaningless and often perilous existence. Who can disregard the novel, yet now classic treatise of Plato, who thought that only a philosopher-king could write such a tale? Who can place aside that tattered and worn treatise of the Macedonian, who thinks himself to be superman? One may quail at his diction and his attempts at Atticism, but one is hard pressed to challenge his logic. Even our own, somewhat ignoble and coarser poets have turned their wax tablets to such a consideration, as they mock the concept, each sees in himself a certain worthiness that is categoric of being able to write this unending legend of our day. Often, I too have thought this over, weighing the merits of a Vergilian Superman, or perhaps a Livian. Indeed, for a great deal of time, I thought that only a Cornelius Gallus could do it justice. That is, until I learned Aramaic and grew acquainted with a small yet antique band from the hinterlands of the empire, the Iudaeoi. Who should write the next Superman? The stammaim of the Babylonian Talmud.

1) Anonymity- because no one can identify the stammaim, no one will be able to gain undue credit from the writing. Indeed, the problem with allowing someone to write Superman is that it creates an undue amount of prestige for the writer and expectation from the viewers (for an analogous situation see William Harris, War and Imperialism in Republican Rome, and his discussion concerning the annexation of Egypt).

2) The chain of tradition- Superman is indeed one of the enduring works of our century and composition of a work with such a long prehistory should not be given to one writer in one particular time and place. Rather, let it be written by a group of educated elitists, well versed in the myths from which Superman arose, who can refine, rework, and redact the story over countless generations to produce the next Superman.

3)  In some manner, this final particular trait of the stammaim defies an easy categorization. What the stammaim where able to accomplish in the Talmud was to redact old myths, ideas, and law into some of the most potent ideas which have moved Jewish thought ever since. What was done for Yavneh can be done for Superman. Furthermore, the stammaim will find a way to iron out all of the potential difficulties created by the extraordinary length of the comics publication and there will be countless mutations of the central tripartite cast. With the legend renewed in this manner, in a mere 2-3 centuries, it will easily support a further 5 or 6 centuries with various midrashim, commentaries, historical reconstructions, philosophical texts, and foolish scholarship. In this manner, Superman will enjoy an unending popularity and undergo all sorts of textual mutations, surviving far longer than the son of Octavia.

Rome: Season 3

While some may indeed wonder why it is that a man of my position, nature, station, and general eloquence and elocution, may ask why it is that I, a rhetor of the first order, master of the written and spoken word, one who flies above all others, being born upon the wings of a classical education, would deem to speak about something so lowly and plebian as a show on television, there is indeed a reason. It is not a reason of the higher sort, nor of an inspiring sort, this is no Philippic, no brandished rhetorical sword from which you may cleverly abridge and dip into the blood of your enemies, nay this is merely a speech of the basest nature. For I, while great and noble, must obey the dictates of the Caesarian Daily Salad, and must speak in praise of land reforms, of bad consulships and of base tv shows. And all of this a sword has compelled me to do, for although the pen is mightier in creating a work that may be a possession for all time, the sword is of a much better sort in respect to extracting blog posts from the unwilling. Indeed, even my rhetorical high style must be surrendered as I attempt to pass through the eye of the needle which is HBO journalism.

1) The year 69, the historic year of four emperors. It begin with some Nero prequel where he forces everyone to commit suicide and kills a lot of Christians, with Mel Gibson as the commander of the Praetorian guard. Then it would revolve around the entirely insiginificant Jewish characters of Josephus Flavius and the fictional Yohannan Ben Zakkai who seek to twist the Roman empire to their own visions of a Jewish commonwealth on the proviso that every scene was full of tits.

2) The Punic wars, probably beginning around 221. Hannibal could also moonlight as a neurotic serial killer played by Anthony Hopkins, so as to ease the tensions in the modern viewer, the infamous Fabius Cunctor could be played by a computer animated fat Marlon Brando, and the villainous Philip V, in a nod to a lesser known contemporary of Polybius would be a cross dressing Glenn Close. While no battles would actually be shown, the entire season would have to collapse in a tempestous love affair between Scipio almost Africanus, played by Ryan Gosling, and Hannibal, at Zama.

3) Set in a fictional parallel, Cicero decides to raise an army after the death of Caesar by means of his oratory. He invents heavy cavalry and the stirrup, by which he is able to enforce his idealized oligarchy upon the Roman people. After crushing Antony in the south, using only senators and equites, he is elected consul. When Octavian joins with Brutus and Cassius in an attempt to crush this new superpower, he gets into Greece first, as all three are attempting to land there. His war leader, the otherwise temperate Atticus, is played by Gerard Butler, who goes on to massacre the reputation of this otherwise entirely reputable historical figure. Cicero after a giant battle fought at Thermopylae, Marathon, and Platea, saves the Republic, but is poisoned by chickpeas after returning to Rome and crucifying Octavian.

Pro amicitia

Many times, it has indeed been said, that I speak too much of the great and glorious days of times past, in which there were men of unquestionable character, hard moral fortitude, repressed Freudian desires, and the means to withstand all the vices which the world was able to throw at them. While I think this not an unreasonable attempt, the particular flavor of current audiences seems to now allude me, I find myself, Me, the Ciceronian, entrapped in my own meshes of words which lead me to the conclusion, that neither basketball, nor rhetoric, nor censuring the pursuits of overly soft men is it of any advantage of any sort to me, instead, allow me rather to regale you with a brief description of current events and news, to be concise, a History of My Times and those directly Contemporaneous.  But one might say, and one most wise, might indeed say that the things of which I speak are of great moral benefit to them, for indeed I speak not merely for my own enjoyment, but to produce in all you most wise and awesome readers and commentators the sorts of moral virtues which may indeed be beyond reproach. Fear not wise men, against whom the vices of modernity have not yet triumphed. Let us together, join as one to bring back the pristine state of purity that so characterized the latter days, where ancient and good right, looked forward to times made pure by simplicity, more strong and courageous foes to conquer, and lacking of sophistry and artistry which have so come to characterize our very thoughts and actions, in particular, when one could plunge hands into the deep and lovely fertile soil of Italy, as yet made not more rich by the blood of Italians. You may think I have too long spoken, yet I come now at last to the crux of my point. O ye foolish heirs of the Roman power in our land, why do ye kill each other? Why does blood run red in the streets, in the restaurants, in the cars, and at the gas station? Has enough blood been not yet shed, do you not read of the terrible wars our folk have brought against each other? Indeed, I must protest in the strongest terms, that still you and your capos continue to fight for the paltry scraps of little things, heirs to the great and glorious goodness of the republic, indeed, all may yet be good for you here, even though you speak the half bastardized native tongue, now fully gone! O Italians, I call upon you to unite, to train your weapons upon the barbaroi, to make great the promise of all that was ever of manly strength and virility and strength in our land. Why fight and die upon the streets, one for something small, the other for something even less? Allow not the heavy friendships which characterized our darkest age, and carried away all into the abyss of placid Augustanity once more lead to our own destruction. Rather, let there be peace among all the Roman race, and let not the unholy gore of Remus run once more through alien streets.