{"id":483,"date":"2020-11-23T10:18:01","date_gmt":"2020-11-23T09:18:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sullivan.ba\/?p=483"},"modified":"2020-11-23T10:18:22","modified_gmt":"2020-11-23T09:18:22","slug":"nonsense-in-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sullivan.ba\/?p=483","title":{"rendered":"Nonsense in America"},"content":{"rendered":"

Albus McInerney edits a literary magazine.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Kim was railing against courtroom shenanigans and other ploys designed to change the outcome of the recent election in the United States.<\/p>\n

\u2018It\u2019s nonsense,\u2019 she said, with considerable feeling. \u2018It flies in the face of observable fact!\u2019<\/p>\n

Dimitri appeared to be in not quite full agreement. \u2018The president\u2019s people aren\u2019t denying<\/em> reality,\u2019 he said. \u2018They\u2019re trying to bend<\/em> it into a different shape.\u2019<\/p>\n

Of all the editorial board I think it\u2019s fair to say that Dimitri is the only one whose views and casual observations, taken in a certain way, might sometimes be construed as having faint but discernible traces of Trumpism.<\/p>\n

Kim may have reached a similar conclusion, because she replied sharply, \u2018Truth is truth, Dimitri! Facts are facts!\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018But life has a way of undermining truth,\u2019 Dimitri said.<\/p>\n

\u2018Derrida?\u2019 Patrice asked \u2013 Patrice has a penchant, common among many of his compatriots, for outr\u00e9 philosophical argument.<\/p>\n

\u2018Perhaps the people will be judged to have lost the government\u2019s confidence. Perhaps the government will have to dissolve the people and elect another,\u2019 I said. It was rather glib, but I wanted to lighten the solemn mood. We were supposed to be discussing a proposed feature on comic verse.<\/p>\n

\u2018I wasn\u2019t thinking about Brecht,\u2019 Dimitri said, \u2018or Derrida, for that matter. I was thinking that the President\u2019s systemic renunciation of observable fact has a certain internal consistency. It wouldn\u2019t be out of place if it had been dreamed up by Lewis Carroll or Edward Lear.\u2019 At this, he launched into an impromptu and rather spirited recitation: \u2018Twas brillig, and the slithy toves, \/ Did gyre and gimble in the wabe: \/ All mimsy were the borogoves, \/ And the mome raths outgrabe.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018You\u2019re right!\u2019 Kim said, which I found more than a little surprising. \u2018And Giuliani,\u2019 she added, \u2018might as well have been quoting from Alice in Wonderland for all the sense he made at that press conference.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018The one at the garden centre?\u2019 I asked.<\/p>\n

\u2018No,\u2019 Kim said, \u2018The one where his hair dye started to run.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Though some at my aversion smile,\u2019 <\/em>Patrice said, abandoning the niceties of post-structuralism for the nonsense verse that we had gathered to discuss, \u2018I cannot love the crocodile. \/ Its conduct does not seem to me \/ Consistent with sincerity.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018Or even sanity,\u2019 Kim said. \u2018There\u2019s surely a possibility that these people have started to believe their own rhetoric.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018No, Kim,\u2019 Rami said. \u2018The president isn\u2019t delusional. He is defiant. The crocodile itself no less \/ Displays, but does not feel, distress, \/ And with its tears augments the Nile; \/ The false, amphibious crocodile.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018The point being?\u2019 Dimitri asked.<\/p>\n

I was glad I wasn\u2019t the only one losing the thread.<\/p>\n

\u2018The point being that if the president really believed he\u2019d won,\u2019 Rami said, \u2018his efforts would be less clownish \u2013 and he would continue to govern, rather than play golf. It\u2019s surely a case of \u201cdisplays but does not feel\u201d.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018And what can be deduced from this?\u2019 Kim asked.<\/p>\n

\u2018Well,\u2019 Rami said, \u2018the trouble with geraniums<\/em> . . .\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Exactly!\u2019 Patrice said, enthusiastic again. \u2018They\u2019re much too red!<\/em>\u2019<\/p>\n

The resemblance between our meeting and the Mad Hatter\u2019s tea party did not elude me. Yet, as I listened, I did rather wish that I shared my colleagues\u2019 facility to dredge up appropriate lines from long ago.<\/p>\n

\u2018And the trouble with my toast<\/em>,\u2019 Kim continued.<\/p>\n

\u2018Is that it\u2019s far too full of bread,\u2019 <\/em>Patrice concluded.<\/p>\n

\u2018Not sure I follow.\u2019 It was an admission I felt obliged to make, though it may have sounded a little grumpy.<\/p>\n

\u2018There is no artifice,\u2019 Dimitri explained. \u2018At least, I think that\u2019s the point. The president will bow to reality in due course, like a spoiled child after a tantrum.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018But he has led millions into a dangerous illusion,\u2019 Kim said.<\/p>\n

\u2018There has always been nonsense,\u2019 Dimitri said. \u2018The trick is to render it benign \u2013 or to channel it in a positive way. Perhaps the next president will be able to do that.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018On the Ning Nang Nong \/ Where the Cows go Bong! \/ and the monkeys all say BOO?\u2019<\/em> I asked. Glib again, but it was nonsense I learned as a child and I wanted \u2013 perhaps just for the sake of inclusion \u2013 to bring it to the table.<\/p>\n

\u2018Precisely,\u2019 Dimitri said.<\/p>\n

And, to my surprise, there were expressions of approval from the others too.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Albus McInerney edits a literary magazine.   Kim was railing against courtroom shenanigans and other ploys designed to change the outcome of the recent election in the United States. \u2018It\u2019s nonsense,\u2019 she said, with considerable feeling. \u2018It flies in the face of observable fact!\u2019 Dimitri appeared to be in not quite full agreement. \u2018The president\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":374,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[131,129,128,133,130,132],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/sullivan.ba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/cropped-banner-K1-1.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sullivan.ba\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sullivan.ba\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sullivan.ba\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sullivan.ba\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sullivan.ba\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=483"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/sullivan.ba\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":485,"href":"http:\/\/sullivan.ba\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483\/revisions\/485"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sullivan.ba\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sullivan.ba\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sullivan.ba\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sullivan.ba\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}