Envy as a nauseous prelude

The care the Belgians took in their production of Maigret was remarkable, when one looks at the copyright. This is a 21st century series that virtually transports the viewer back into the Fifth Republic, a bygone, magisterial age, to steal an excellent adjective from Dana Stevens, who gets paid to turn the lights on when the late Mr. Hoffman juiced himself into the send up of L Ron Hubbard. Ms Stevens found the right word for the era, magisterial-- in the US, it lasted from 52 to 65.

Georges Simenon may be as slithery as an eel to pin down, worth pursuing in his original language, but Bruno Cremer was the best Maigret, and Maigret is the best detection procedural on the face of the earth as adapted for a teleplay. The British can do conspiracy to make the roots of your hair stand on end, with riveting plots, but France simply crucifies when it comes to fidelity, understanding that excellence is derived through attention to detail, the definition of poise to the point of actually being duped into time travel. Maigret is at once an antithesis to the disruptions caused by crippling the body, and at the same time, nearly a brilliant ornamentation of the fusionary aspects between bipedal afterthought and the psychosis of damage hidden in the dark, whether I can chisel an article out of this raw and cooked striving or not, for all his reticence about treating his Parkinson's, Michael Kinsley has vanished from the scene. Whimsy, which carries the voice of his few columns I've seen since he appeared on Charlie Rose trying to control his involuntary spasms, doesn't compensate for his loss of prestige, but he goes down quietly, a gentleman, recognized as a celebrity writer better than most, an astute, perceptive analyst at his peak, none of us dwell on his circumstances, except as a footnote. Slate is a loose jointed progeny, not of Wapo, actually, but of the Time Magazine essayist, which cannot be reproduced on a web page.

Molten Eggs

"You cannot enforce this deal with him;  he's deranged!"-- Chris Kramer, UFOlogy


The one last observation I have to offer about my curious conflation, for the time being, is that I am more forgiving of Marty's acquired prejudices against Muslims than the scofflaw that surrounded him at Harvard and his resignation from The New Republic over them. I was still very active on the TNR site at the time, and remember much of the salient details of the uproar, but Marty has been formed by his experiences much as I have been formed by mine, and he is as entitled as he is cultured, despite the fact that old age has turned him into a Mario Puzo character (and Michael, you successfully bored me to tears only two paragraphs in, despairing for my non-existent byline, alas!). Bigotry is never the sum total of anyone, even those less erudite and flaming in reaction. My experience with the disabled/LBGT activists has taught me this: betrayal is more important than the principles these activists purportedly stand for, that they have no honor, and that they will subvert anything to their own ends, including the Christian faith, or any doctrine, biological science, for that matter, and their minds are not so stable as the psychiatric shift warrants, and though I can be duped, I shall not reconcile with libertines simply because they wear dress clothes and imitate pedestrian modality. I have been too close, seen too many head games, whether or not they involved me, and hurt too often. Human homosexuality is not moral, nor blessed, nor spiritually sanctioned, virtuous.

It is subversive, psychologically twisted, indulgent, and gratuitous, even if its practitioners are happy, or have an untouchable A list status, or falls into queer genius, but I will deal with cultural and literary contributions at a later date.

Lament as I may that I have no fresh series to attach to, I have found rewards in the dead zone of cancellation, and I am finding The Collector of use, as I have mentioned in previous posts, and I hope someone in the industry one day attempts to reinvigorate it. The UFO episode was a decent bit of gamesmanship, and funny, to boot. I am not quite sure where Cooksey was taking all the threads, all the motifs within the mainframe, but suffice to say, I am mining the episodes that exist, and need to review the pilot once more. Remind me that I cannot wilt with surrender back into the literary journal entirely, but a great deal of that is sheer fatigue. 28 submissions a month on average down to two. Do you see what you are sapping out of me? Stingy lurkers, the lot of you.