"My ghost expects censure. But make it personal, Venus; make it your own and not the censure of your group and ideology. Yes, you heard me, young lady: your ideology. Oh, it's a mild ideology, I agree (mildness is its one idea). Nobody's going to blow themselves to bits for it.
"...Your crowd, they're so terrorstricken by generalisations that they can't even manage a declarative sentence. 'I went to the store? To buy orange juice?' That's right, keep it tentative — even though it's already happened. Similarly, you say 'okay' when an older hand would say (if anything) 'I see' or 'Oh really'. 'My name is Pete?' 'Okay.' 'I was born in Ohio?' 'Okay.' What you're saying, with your okays, is this: for the time being I take no exception. You have not affronted me yet. No one has been humiliated so far.
"A generalisation might sound like an attempt to stereotype — and we can't have that. I'm at the other end. I worship generalisations. And the more sweeping the better. I am ready to kill for sweeping generalisations.
"The name of your ideology, in case anyone asks, is Westernism. It would be no use to you here."
—Martin Amis, House of Meetings
Posted by mesh at December 27, 2006 03:59 PM | TrackBackIf I might make a suggestion, I've always thought that you should start a blog posts category called "Readings" and give each "Readings" post a separate headline. That way, if we want to read what you're, um, reading, we can easily find it and show to others. If the party gets that bad, that is.
Also, did I mention that I got a used Playstation 2 for free?
Posted by: Bill at December 27, 2006 04:35 PMmesh, I'll go into your blog and set all that up for you, great idea Bill.
Posted by: Josiah at December 27, 2006 06:33 PM