Thursday, January 25, 2007

Their Idiocy

If one can anticipate the other side's defense, one can stress beforehand the idiocy of their arguments.

They may have us believe that Peter Matthiessen worked for the CIA but brought no CIA funds to the Paris Review itself.

But there had to be a reason he was working for the CIA. They didn't employ him to do nothing.

Let's try to picture this. "Go over there to Paris, Peter, and start a magazine in the heart of Europe; a literary magazine, run by Americans but emphasizing the European connection-- but don't ask us for start-up money!"

Is that how it happened?

And what of the Matthiessen perspective. They're in the middle of the Cold War; the CIA has tons of money to throw around-- and indeed is throwing it around on literary journals very much like Paris Review (see Encounter)-- CIA agent Matthiessen knows all this CIA money is sitting there AND HE DOESN'T ASK FOR A PENNY OF IT to help start-up why he was working for the CIA in the first place.

What are we missing here?

The idiocy will continue once we get to old boy Plimpton himself of course, who I'll be discussing further in a future post, unless I accidentally stumble upon some poisoned soup someplace.

3 comments:

Frank Marcopolos said...

OK, I'll admit it, the CIA was paying me to publish The Whirligig to keep an eye on such rabble-rousers as Nick Mamatas, Ann Sterzinger, Jeff Somers, and Richard Kostelanetz.

Just kidding! :)

King Wenclas said...

Hey, if they're still throwing around money. . . .

Frank Marcopolos said...

yeah, i'll take it.

dear CIA people reading this: i have no morals and am willing to take your $$ to publish a lit journal. in light of current events, we can even call it the baghdad review!