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Hornswaggle is an alternate spelling of hornswoggle, an archaic word that means to bamboozle or hoodwink. I take my pronunciation from the late Harvey Korman in "Blazing Saddles" -- "I want rustlers, cutthroats, murderers, bounty hunters, desperados, mugs, pugs, thugs, nitwits, halfwits, dimwits, vipers, snipers, conmen, Indian agents, Mexican bandits, muggers, buggerers, bushwhackers, hornswagglers, horse thieves, bull dykes, train robbers, bank robbers, ass kickers, shit kickers and Methodists!" |
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Monday, November 04, 2002Here are three things I'm tired of: 1) Hearing about the genius of Dave Eggers. 2) Hearing about the coolness of Samuel L. Jackson. 3) Hearing about how Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was the greatest song of all time and utterly revolutionized the world. Why, before that single, the human race was shitting in outhouses. Now everyone has indoor plumbing!Dave Eggers is a good writer and he's doing good things for the community out here in San Francisco. But there are so goddamned many great writers out there, I just think Eggers gets too much credit. And let's lay off the liberal application of the word "genius" when it comes to him. If he hadn't lifted so many mannerisms from David Foster Wallace, I don't know where he'd be. Not that we don't all lift mannerisms from DFW. Another funny thing with regard to Eggers, the miasma that lays over him, from my perspective, like a J. Crew madras blanket, extends to his buddy Neal Pollack, whom my friend the Kaiser of Cuyahoga Valley recently asked me (speaking of stealing DFW mannerisms) why don't you link to him on your weblog anyway? Don't you want to send this poor fucking schlub some of your sundry page views? The answer is hell no. I horde my precious seven page views per millenium to myself. The problem with Pollack is that he hangs with Eggers and calls himself "America's greatest living writer." I know that's tongue-in-cheek. But so, kind of, was Eggers' "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius," which didn't prevent me from regurgitating all over it. Finally, after a year had passed, and the stench of the embarassing media hype surrounding the quasi-memoir had mostly lifted, I read the fucking thing and liked it. But not that much. A friend treated me to see writer Jim Harrison in a sitdown at the Herbst Theater tonight as part of the City Arts and Lecture series. Awesome. Had never really heard of him until said friend dragged my pathetic inertia'd ass to see him. And he's great. Let's spread some of the "genius" love in his direction. Samuel L. Jackson. "Can you dig it?" Here's what I can dig. Your ceasing to consider yourself to be god's gift to the human race. People who are really cool don't talk about how cool they are all the fucking time. The worst effect of "Pulp Fiction," which was worth the price of admission just for the Christopher Walken monologue (why isn't there a team of actually talented writers devoted, every single day, to writing scripts for Christopher Walken?), besides the Guy Richie-Madonna holy matrimony, was the resurrection of John Travolta's career. At the time, who knew? Who knew we'd be subjected to "Battlefield Earth," "Michael," "Swordfish," "Broken Arrow" and "Faceoff"? Don't fucking tell me you think "Faceoff" is a good movie. Ooh, John Woo is incredible because, in the middle of ludicrous gun battle scenes, he uses slo-mo camera shots and includes images of doves flying around. It's like, a totally crazy juxtaposition because doves symbolize peace and it's like, a gun battle. Anyway, the career of Samuel L. Jackson, propelled into the stratosphere as it was by "Pulp," is becoming one of said film's annoying consequences. Neal Pollack is pretty funny though. More on what the avuncular Jim Harrison had to say to come. .: posted by hornswaggler 11:37 PM| |
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