Talk about a cosy duopoly. What a way to start the day. Is it not true that the bounteous reptiles are always giving?
But wait, the pond has a confession. The pond has grown tired of simply interlarding examples of the Caterists rorting of Australian taxpayers by taking cash in the paw grants from the Department of Finance with Caterist blather about the need to stiffen sinews, tighten belts and so on ...
And besides over the Xmas break, the pond has to confess it didn't just read Jeffrey Toobin's book about Patty Hearst's wild saga. It also read This Is Not a Novel by David Markson.
Why not interleave a little Markson as a relief to the dull head-pounding headache that afflicts the pond whenever it contemplates the smug, self-satisfied, righteous, completely upitself condescending air of know it all git that routinely emanates from a standard Caterist column?
Warning, there will be spoilers ...
Around here, the pond should probably note that Markson himself died from cancer and sundry other ails back in 2010 ...
And each time the pond reads a Caterist column, it contemplates mortality and the short time left and the meaning of life, and the sheer meaninglessness of reading a Caterist, especially when there are many other, more amusing things to read ... but hey ho, as futility and other animals are all the go, on we go ...
The one thing that sticks in the pond's craw is reformed campus radicals explaining how they've changed. Especially when they purport to be new moral guardians explaining how we should embrace a risk-loving culture, while sitting comfortably on their arses in an academic chair ...
Actually there's a second thing - it's mates like the Caterists scratching the backs of mates like Furedi, who no doubt has a book to sell ...
Actually there's a third thing. The sense that all this tedious bullshit has been said over, and over, as if there's not something to be said for safe and safe words. Try not having a safe word while in a hog tie with stern nipple clamps, a vibrator stuck somewhere uncomfortable and you're lying on a pile of breadcrumbs ... try mocking the concept of a safe word at that point ...
Oh okay, the pond just flung that one in, in the spirit of Markson, so that instead of cutting to a Caterist grant, we might sample a bit more of non-novel writing, though this time in the pond's ePub form, which, pedant alert, has a fair sampling of typos:
Poor old real Dorothy. Will the fake fraudulent Dorothy collapse while reading a Caterist rabbiting on endlessly? Is there a safe word for a Caterist alert?
Ah, so there was a book to sell. That's why it may be too early to predict lasting effects. There's a sequel in there somewhere ... in the age of Trump.
As for the rest, a comfortable bloody academic and a jumped-up pettifogging research centre leech, sucking on the blood of taxpayers, while telling others to harden the fuck up ... so that the pair can go on living their lives of Riley, it's all too much for the pond to bear ...
So let's have a little more Markson, inter alia this time shoving it up Harold Bloom ...
And now please, no whining or complaining. The pond did fair warning that the brave would have to deal with the full fruits of the duopoly ...
He was happier doing it at his own expense?
Oh fuck it, it's irresistible. It had to happen, but the pond promises it will only list two ...
If Hasluck was happier doing it at his own expense, why don't the Caterists get on with it ... at their own expense?
So much tedious crap, the pond feels the need for another draught of Markson before proceeding ...
Okay, that should take care of accusations that the pond is for the safety-inclined.
There's nothing like Fox's (Foxe if you will) Book of Martyrs to remind the world of the infinite cruelty of assorted creeds and kinds of religious and secular fundamentalists ...
But speaking of cruel fundamentalists, it's time for another, last gobbet of Weisser:
Around this time someone usually begins to wonder who has kicked the till of the CIS, and will be pleased to discover that this bit of public service bashing was sponsored by the likes of BHP Billiton, Shell, ICI, etc etc - see here.
Never mind, shamelessness is the hallmark of the elegant, self-regarding duopoly, and as a result, rather than end with a cartoon, the pond thought it might end with a couple more Markson selections ... because life is short, ennui well advanced, and snickering, sniggering footman full of rich comedy ...
Farewell and be kind? Perhaps, but a self-regarding, self-serving Caterist duopoly really tests the limits of the pond's patience ... waiter, please, a safe word if you'd be so kind ...
The Stibium Kid wishes to speak of the 'huntperson spider' which simply shows that he has understood nothing.
ReplyDeletePerson is a gender specific reference - son - for what, if the joke is to be meaningful, should be a gender neutral term. So it should be peroffspring.
All that good taxpayer money wasted on a bear of such small brain.
Oh and I note that one of the bygone sponsors of CIS was the now BHP ingested Western Mining Company (WMC) which brought back such nostalgic memories of that great Australian, Hugh Morgan (and his other love too, the H R Nicholls Society).
IIRC, Morgan was the only Australian CEO deprived of his annual bonus because he spent so much time indulging in extra-curricular politics that WMC was going down the tubes. Imagine it, a famous CEO actually penalised because he was failing to do his job. Oh yes, there were no 'safe spaces' back then.
Brilliant read.
ReplyDeleteI do enjoy the vision of Cater and Weisser expiring from over indulgence of safe sniffing........although the thought of taxpayer bikkies being used for such crass deeds is annoying.
Agree, Dorothy, a brilliant read!
DeleteDP, seeing that The Australian has still not turned a profit, there is also an argument based on Weisser's logic that both her and her husband should lead the way by example and put their hands up for a 15% cut from their private employer. Tough times require tough action...
ReplyDeleteExcellent proposal Anon. Expect a call from the News Corp board with a proposal you be given a spot ... slash all their wages, perks and privileges the pond says. Let them bring their own bikkies and tea and charge them for the water and the electricity ...
DeleteThis possum dropped off to sleep, it being so hot, and what with all the reading, even though Miss made us a nice big sponge with lovely creamy layers to leaven the dry dollops; still did I nod off and woke dreaming the death of the Catherist dying of strangulation attempting to kiss his own arse
ReplyDelete