Thought.is

Before the onset of the Digital Revolution, how many discretely worded ads in the Personals section of the daily paper included some self-aggrandizing variant of “I enjoy long walks on the beach”? Let me answer: All of them.

Of course, Iceland’s perceived humility and honest self-appraisal compels on the larger, global level as well. It is not a powerful nation, so it finds itself free of the fear that afflicts powerful nations, free of that self-fulfilling prophecy of paranoia–the desire to accrue even more power to guard it from that fear. How rare is it to see a country so uninterested in a dominant position on the world stage?

But it won’t be because the plot is so engaging (it is indescribably tedious at times) but because DFW was so damned good at writing that you can’t really believe what you’re reading. If it renders you speechless it won’t be because the prose has taken your breath away, but because you suddenly feel unworthy to be speaking the same language as someone who has so obviously and completely mastered the art of bending it to his will.

This is not some damning condemnation of perceived racism in the movie industry, this is more along the lines of a sad observation that, somewhere along the way, the cocaine that flowed in studio boardrooms like rivers during the hedonistic insanity of the seventies must have run dry and not a single producer left has the balls to take the risk of making a movie out of a story so emotionally complex and staggering in its artistic scope.

Be exact with your photograph. Avoid pomp and do not be inauthentic. ‘Unnecessary flourish’ is redundant. Do not pose. A pose endears you to no one and reveals only yourself playing at something to which you have no claim, and all the world will see you withering on the vines of your pretension.