That books are dead, and had an easy death does not mean the orphan bookworms are spared their slow motion Holocaust.

I've written pluriously on this topicⁱ. For a brief bibliography : Cartile au murit (The books are dead) which gives part of the /span> title of today's article and structures a large part of its conceptual underpinnings ; Denunt penal in contra lui Eugen Simion, In opera sa ne masuram, Piinea amara a baietasilor de cartier among many others denouncing the apparentⁱⁱ imposture of more or less establishment-alligned "intellectuals" (the first consisting of a "penal complaint" (a civil law institution) against one of the more notorious cases of Romanian intellectual imposture (the legal proceedings were buried in exchange for political gain for my party at the time - the relationship didn't last much past that) ; the second is just like the first, except he's lazy instead of dumb, yet equally festiviously pretentious, and alligned with the other meta-party in Romanian politics, the soi dissant "right" ; the third, nominally "independent", but otherwise a media whore like all independents - he notably claims otherwiseⁱⁱⁱ, but he's deeply wrong).

Ever the positive^iv mind, I also tried teaching some of the more lively Homer Simpson sperm bodies in that soup^v the basics of writing, through what should have been an intuitive, easy approach : rewrites of their own inept prose. Take for instance Prolog la adevarata poveste a nepotului lui Dracula., Sa facem o pastisa, Literatura avansata : fictiune si autofictiune or any others of this rather plentiful tribe. The exercise has strictu sensu shown complete inadherence of the general-public-with-creative-aspirations to actual creativity, and while it did create a lot of supposedly varied but really quite sadly trite, supposedly veiled but really quite painfully obvious animosity^vi, it yielded exactly zero productive anything. I suppose the fault is mine, for trying to engage toddlers in tennis matches ; and yes I did also write about the very sad toddlerism.^vii

So informed, we are now properly equipped to proceed to quoting a recent production of another of these fine fellows : Liviu Antonesei. You can probably check him out on wikipedia. Here goes :

Mă reîntorc mereu cu bucurie în Bucovina, mai întîi pentru că o parte a rădăcinilor mele, bunici paterni, vine de acolo, apoi, pentru că am prilejul să reîntîlnesc o parte a prietenilor mei, de data aceasta, Carmen Steiciuc, organizatoarea Zilelor Culturale Udeștene, Isabel și Ovidiu Vintilă, InimăRea, Cezar Straton, căruia i-am lansat Dicționarul amoros, Liviu Clement, Liviu Popescu, Mircea A. Diaconu, Alexa Pașcu, dintre localnici, Adrian Dinu Rachieru, Calistrat Costin, Lucian Vasiliu, Liviu Papuc, Nicoleta Dabija, bașcă tinerii scriitori premiați la concursul literar asociat manifestării, dintre invitați. Sigur, al treilea motiv ar fi acela că Bucovina este unul din locurile cele mai frumoase din lume. Meteorologic, zilele au fost diferite, vineri vremea trecea de la ploaie la soare la fiecare jumătate de oră, așa că am mulțumit cerului vă programul a fost de interior – deschiderea, lansări de carte și de publicații culturale, la Biblioteca Bucovinei, momentul editurii Junimea din Iași, la Universitate, expoziția Dada plasticianului ieșean Dragoș Pătrașcu și recitalul poeților participanți, de ambe sexe și toate vîrstele, la Teatrul Municipal Matei Vișniec. Am fost bucuros să văd că recent inauguratul teatru poartă numele prietenului și colegului meu de generație. A doua zi, pe un soare de vară, am mers la Udești și ne-am desfășurat cea mai mare parte a programului afară – în cimitirul așezat pe frumoase coline, au f0st comemorați doi poeți ai locului, care ne-au părăsit, Constantin Ștefuriuc și Mircea Motrici, în curtea Casei Memoriale Eusebiu Camilar, unde s-au acordat premiile concursului literar amintit, în curtea Casei Memoriale Mircea Motrici, unde a avut un nou recital de poezie a tuturor poeților prezenți. Am beneficiat de două momente, recitalul propriu și un al doilea în care am recitat două traduceri proprii, din Rene Char și R. M. Rilke. Trebuie să recunosc că paharul de vin roș sec mi-a dat curajul necesar celei de-a doua urcări în căruță! Da, poeții s-au produs dintr-o căruță! Deși a plecat dintre noi mult prea devreme, cred că MM a foat un om norocos, mă gîndesc mai ales la ce face Dna Rozalia Motrici pentru păstrarea sa în memoria noastră…

The Foucault quote reads "I know what it means to be an intellectual, which is to say a cerebro-spinal individual, posessed of a mind as malleable as possible and a spine as rigid as is necessary", and I am convinced he misinterprets its meaning. The text he produced is not worth the translation ; I'll spare you the inane "advertising", as well as the derpy old dudes discussing how "the cart is charming" and "it has left a mark in their soul" and whatnot further down on the page. At least the ~same derpy dudes discussing whatever tica's ass and how it left indentations on their cock back at Del Rey didn't pretend themselves anything more or above common whoremongers. (Maybe it really was culture ?)

What's left ?

There's nothing there. An old dude, unfunny, uncouth, pointlessly posing in glasses. He could be for the same money a retired construction crew foreman, in his hard work pants and unintelligent if belabouredly bovine expression (and before you get started on me for judging the cow by the aspect of its hide - proceed to his blog and let me know what more can you make of infantile attempts at poetry and tired "joeks" and 9gag reposts).

There's nothing there ; try as they might, there's nothing to be had, there never was anything. Empty forms, existing briefly as part of the metabolism of the socialist state, its respiratory byproducts, its secretions intended to make it slide all the better down the throat of its victims back when it was competing with proper monarchy. Without use, or function, or purpose of their own ; without future once that enemy was finally driven out.

Let me explain how monopolies work, for the benefit of the more likely to inherit the kingdom of the Lord among the audience. At first, a socialist supermarket is established in your neighbourhood, at that time supplied by a complex matrix of various independent, aristocratic shops. As it has much easier access to money (by printing all it needs, heh), it keeps prices down, and hires a few local kids to scream all about how the small shops are bad for myriad reason. This works, because you don't care, and soon enough the myriad shops are driven out, one by one, each for "individual reasons" but all together for a very common cause. And once the socialist supermarket's alone, you have no longer something you took for granted, which is to say choice. So it can start selling you shit, at any price, and your options are either to laud the shit, for its manifest quality and cheapness, in the common cause - or else to be upset, which'd be, of course, for very "individual reasons".

"Intellectuals" as they call themselves stand with the life of the spirit in roughly the same relation Koch's bodies stand with the life of the flesh : their mere presence bodes ill, and their sad, bacterial existences do not long extend past the expiration of the body they one time infested.

1. In Romanian, because English is scarcely a cultural language. But I'll give the old bag a push for its money here, and en passant you'll be able to notice exactly how deeply inadequate this language is for any serious proceedings of the mind - a note system no matter how clever is no substitute for a language with actual syntax, actual grammar, and an actual history of usage for intellectual purposes. [↩]
2. This word means "obvious", ie something that is apparent on first pass, without need for further investigation, like apparent rust on a rustbucket ; it does not mean "seeming". [↩]
3. There's a diss track even, "Nu ne-ati facut voi, v-am facut noi pe voi", ie, you [the press] haven't made us, we made you. Things aren't as simple however, Pentru ca nu aveti bani examines the sad truth of the matter in more detail. In a gist, if various retail chains wish to cary their albums but in single copies only, it could only be due to the various retail chains' certainty that the albums will not sell. If the albums will not sell, yet the shops want to display them for brand association, then what could this group be other than a media vehicle ? And so... [↩]
4. You're no longer equipped, today, to comprehend what "positive" meant in this context. To you, proud inhabitant of Wadyia, it simply reads "Aladeen".

   To better people that are meanwhile dead, and who sinfully spared the rod thus spoiling the children that never grew up yet had you and your siblings as the Romanian expression goes "din laba dusa de musca-n pizda", positive, a product of patriarchy, meant the superclass meta-content of the concept of conservativism. Something to do with the ancient Roman observation that the best cure for relieving the infantile mind of its demons is confronting it with the nude reality of nudity, for reality is solar while the "guessed" imaginations of the feverish mind a straight gift from Rica Cripto. Let's leave it at that. [↩]

5. You know that scene ? The very dry thud as they boink heads has stayed with me. [↩]
6. Perhaps the most amusing example is of this is some guy that supposedly doesn't like me because you know, he's supposedly a liberal dontchaknow! Not that there's any shortage of humiliation poured from Trilema's ever sputtering sprinkler heads on Romania's ever stunted genii. [↩]
7. Nicu Alifantis concert, passing reference to an Ada Milea concert, trying to watch Opera, or watch Serban Foarta & Ion Barbu launch 69. This last item actually allows me a great opportunity to drive the point home : two of the "respected intellectual" folk got together to launch a book on the occasion of one's 69th birthday. That fellow had not the curiosity, intellectual or otherwise, to inquire as to his friend's age until AFTER having written it down. Does this behaviour fit your definition of "intellectual" ? Whether it does or it does not - it still is the exact opposite. [↩]