The Digested Twenty-first Century (24 page)

Dear John, I am disturbed to hear about your insomnia. Siri suggests that continuing our correspondance may improve matters greatly.

Digested read, digested:
Hither and Thither.

Dear Important Person,

Thank you for your illuminating monograph on Tolstoy which perfectly reflects my own anti-existentialist interpretation of his character; one that I iterated some years ago, I recall. I wish I could say more, but I have a busy few decades of intense social-climbing ahead, starting with an irksome but necessary trip to America to have dinner with the new president. It will mean I have to miss Joan Sutherland’s magnificent Lucia at Covent Garden, but I will be back for Callas.

You ask me for my thoughts on the Cuban question. I regret they are at present unformed, as I have spent the past month wrestling with the seating plan for the All Souls Dinner. Freddie will not be happy unless he is at high table. I know I ought to be able to find a way of making this happen, but sometimes the Kantian ‘ought implies can’ is fallible. I have also not had time to
commit my apercus on the construction of the Berlin Wall. It is, of course, a great honour to have such a landmark named in recognition of one’s achievements, but I am not sure I have done quite enough yet to be worthy of such a legacy.

What a terrible business the president’s assassination has been! It quite knocked me off my stride for the lecture series I was giving at Harvard and, combined with the ongoing furore about admitting graduates to All Souls, has left me feeling quite out of sorts. My sciatica is unbearable. For what it’s worth, I think Sparrow’s position as warden will be untenable unless the college is seen to move with the times as the Franks Report suggests. But I dare say no one will heed my opinion. So be it. Thank God I have five months’ holiday in Portofino and Jerusalem with Aline coming up.

It was with a deep sense of shock I found myself implicated in underhand dealings to ensure Hannah Arendt’s book on Eichmann was reviewed badly in the
TLS
. Although it is my habit to retain a carbon duplicate of every letter I send, it has never occurred to me that the correspondence of such a minor luminary as myself would ever be placed on record; and thus my passing remarks, unfortunately committed to paper, suggesting Arendt was a minor figure with an inferior intellect who deserved to be ridiculed in the
TLS
, were never intended to be seen as something to be actioned. I also find it extraordinary that evidence has come to light that I voted against the admission of graduates to All Souls. Needless to say, I contest this with the utmost vigour, but not so much that I am prepared to have the matter aired in public.

I am honoured to have been asked to contribute to AJP Taylor’s festschrift. I consider him to have been one of this country’s foremost historians, despite his hopelessly misguided Marxist deterministic analysis of the origins of the second world war,
which I have exposed on more than one occasion. Unfortunately, I am, like Rousseau, in a state of chaos having one lecture and two books to write over the next 30 years and am therefore unable to commit to the project. However, I would like to offer £10 for someone else to write it instead.

The Arab-Israeli war is causing me some distress, not least because I have been so preoccupied with deciding which architect should build Wolfson College, that I have not been able to give it my full attention. Here at Oxford, the hippies and the beatniks have been demonstrating against the Vietnam war. There was a time when I might have had some sympathy, but now I have ingratiated myself as an establishment lackey I am inclined to let bygones be bygones.

I cannot end without voicing one minor irritation. Having invited 12 of my closest intimes to the Royal Box at Covent Garden, it was extremely embarrassing to find we were moved to less prestigious seating at short notice by the Prince of Wales. Please can you ask him to ensure this does not happen again? Yours ever, Isaiah.

Digested read, digested:
Climbing.

*
Anything can happen at backgammon
.

*
Joseph Losey, the celebrated auteur
.

*
Rainer Werner Fassbinder, the celebrated auteur
.

†
This is an exaggeration. Dirk never actually fought the Japanese in the war
.

‡
Richard Attenborough, the celebrated auteur
.

My heart was racing. I hadn’t slept in days. I didn’t even know what city I was in. I had never felt so lonely. But then it’s tough when you’re on a two-month lecture tour. The phone rang in my hotel room.

‘Is that the world’s most abused man?’ asked the voice.

My blood ran cold and I answered in the affirmative. ‘I’m sorry to tell you that Dan Brazell has died.’

Who was Dan Brazell? He was the man who had once fixed my bike, but I had yet to mention in print. Those three years I had never written about because they seemed too boring, suddenly assumed an unbearable poignancy. I could feel another book welling up inside me.

Everyone picked on me in school because I was in foster care. They could sense the abuse I had suffered and bullied me for it. But within days of my foster parents, the Welshes, moving to Duinsmoore Way, it felt as if a cloud was lifting from my tormented inner self. Here I met Dave Howard and Paul Brazell, the first two boys of my own age not to judge me for my lack of self-esteem.

After a few weeks I decided I could confide in them.

‘You have to know,’ I whispered, ‘that I am the world’s most abused person. My mother called me ‘It’, locked me in the cellar for days on end, set me on fire, made me eat ammonia, bombarded me with sub-atomic particles, ran me over with a steam roller and fed me to a great white shark.’

‘Actually, we’d read it all before in your other books,’ they yawned, ‘and we’re bored stiff with hearing about it.’

This was the acceptance I had always craved.

Paul, Dave and I did a lot of crazy things in those years. Occasionally we would break the speed limit and once I narrowly missed hitting someone when I lost control. ‘Wow,’ said Paul, ‘that was close.’ ‘Cool,’ said Dave. I had done something right in someone else’s eyes.

I could feel my confidence rising and I once plucked up the courage to ask a girl out on a date. To my surprise I could sense she found me not unattractive and I bent forward to kiss her. Her mother rushed out and ordered me to leave. ‘Is it because I is abused?’ I asked. ‘No,’ she replied. ‘It’s because you’re so boring.’

Dave and Paul stayed on at school, but I felt the need to get a job. As a victim of abuse I still needed to prove myself. One day Paul moaned about his dad. I snapped. ‘Your dad is great; he once fixed my bike. My dad never told me the three words I longed to hear: “You are famous.”’

The three of us went our separate ways. I became a war hero before going on to critical acclaim as a professional victim. They amounted to nothing much.

At Dan’s funeral, Paul asked me whether closure could ever be achieved. I checked my bank statement. ‘Not for the time being.’

Digested read, digested:
The world’s most abused man sinks to new lows of literary degradation.

In the summer of 2003 the
New York Times
sent the journalist Stephen J Dubner to interview the heralded maverick economist
Steven D Levitt. What were the chances of two men with extraneous initials being attracted to one another? Higher than you might think. Levitt recognised in Dubner a man with a gift for hagiography, while Dubner knew a meal ticket when he saw it.

Anyone living in the US in 1990 could have been forgiven for being scared out of his skin. Crime was expected to rocket out of control within a decade. What happened? It went down. Why? More police? No. It was because the abortion laws changed. All those who would have grown up to be criminals were never born.

Ever wondered why an estate agent sells her house for more than you? She’s better at her job? No. The extra $10,000 you might get is only worth about $150 to her. But when she sells her own house the full $10,000 extra is hers. See. It’s simple when you think about it.

Levitt is considered a demi-god, one of the most creative people in economics and maybe in all social science.

If morality is the way we would like the world to work, then economics is how it actually does work. Freakonomics works on a number of premises. 1) Incentives are the cornerstone of modern life. 2) Conventional wisdom is often wrong. 3) Experts use their informational advantage to serve their own agenda. 4) Readers’ gullibility should never be underestimated.

Levitt is a noetic butterfly that no one has pinned down, but is claimed by all.

What do schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers have in common? They all cheat. I know this will come as a terrible shock but dreary data proves it is true.

Levitt is one of the most caring men in the universe.

Why do so many drug dealers live with their mom? Amazingly, I can prove that most of them earn far less than you might imagine.

Levitt is genial, low-key and unflappable.

What makes a perfect parent? Research has shown that making a child watch TV in a library is the most effective way of ensuring he gets top grades.

Levitt is about to revolutionise our understanding of black culture. Even for Levitt this is new turf.

Black parents often give their children different names. A boy called Deshawn is less likely to get a job interview than someone called Steven. Maybe Deshawn should change his name.

Digested read, digested:
What is the probability that a collection of often trivial and obvious data will be passed off as brilliance? Regrettably high.

There were five of us living in the Hollywood mansion. Mystery, Herbal, Papa, Playboy and me, Style. None of us used our real names, only the ones we had given ourselves. Irony was already taken, in case you’re wondering. So how did I get here?

I’m not attractive. I’m short and bald. You may have noticed that I haven’t mentioned my personality. That’s because I don’t have one, which is why I had never had a girlfriend.

‘Listen,’ said my editor, placing a paper bag over my head, ‘I’ve heard about a group of male Pick Up Artists (PUAs) who claim they can get any woman they want just by following a set patter, and I reckoned that if it works for you …’

A week later I found myself in a master-class being run by Mystery. ‘First you approach the three set,’ he said. ‘You then
remove the obstacles and neg the target. Play it right and you can close any woman you like.’

I practised relentlessly and turned out to be a natural. Within months I could sarge any bar and was giving classes myself. But success came at a price; it became tough hearing woman after woman saying, ‘You’re the best, Style’ and I longed for something more meaningful. So when I did make a deeper connection with Caroline, I videoed it to remind myself – and her – how sincere I could be.

My status within the PUA community was now legendary. I once heard someone use my lines to pick-up Paris Hilton and some people even started shaving their heads and sawing off their legs below the knee to look like me. It was all rather sad, really, as no one could have ever come close to matching my prime babemagnet quality – an overweening sense of self-regard.

I was concerned, though, that my fame might affect my day job as it became tiring listening to so many people negging me by claiming they had never heard of Neil Strauss, the world’s best writer. Luckily, the important people weren’t put off as Tom Cruise and Courtney Love demanded I should be the journalist to interview them. I like to think neither of them was disappointed on meeting me.

It was the moment for Project Hollywood: five guys, surrounded by an endless stream of perfect 10 babes, living the PUA dream. And yet sometimes, when I was watching myself in the mirror having sex with two porn stars at the same time, I wondered whether there might be life outside my ego.

Please don’t get the wrong idea about me. People think that PUAs are predators; but I’m actually an Averagely Frustrated Chump (AFC). I love women – especially women who are a bit stoned or pissed – but I am in fear of them so I have to turn myself
into something they want. And if you believe that, you’re probably the sort of babe who falls for my patter in bars.

Eventually it all had to come to an end. Project Hollywood fell apart and I met Lisa. She was my one-itis – the woman on whom I had used all my best moves to hypnotise into thinking she had fallen in love with me. This was a relationship we both knew would last for ever.

Digested read, digested:
The American wet dream.

1.
  A grimy terraced house. Not mine, I might add, but one I have driven past. Quickly. Inside, we find peeling wallpaper, stained carpets and Ikea furniture, yet somehow people may have found happiness in such squalor.

2.
  The Greek philosopher Epictetus is said to have chastised a friend for venerating his surroundings, but attempts to scorn the material world have always been matched by attempts to mould it to graceful ends. Yet buildings fall down and moods change, so how can we define the meaning of architectural beauty? We probably can’t, but that is not going to get in the way of my trademark cod-philosophical posturing.

3.
  There was once a clear idea of what was beautiful. The Classical tradition was revered for many centuries and palaces were built in renaissance Italy that would not have been unfamiliar to Marcus Aurelius. According to Wikipedia, things changed in 1747 when Horace Walpole sparked the gothic revival, and since then the advance of technology has
seen a growing eclecticism of ideas. How lucky you are to have me to point these things out.