Tuesday, December 13, 2011

David Mamet is batshit crazy.

Daniel Larison has exhibit A:
In abandonment of the state of Israel, the West reverts to pagan sacrifice, once again, making a burnt offering not of that which one possesses, but of that which is another’s. As Realpolitik, the Liberal West’s anti-Semitism can be understood as like Chamberlain’s offering of Czechoslovakia to Hitler, a sop thrown to terrorism. On the level of conscience, it is a renewal of the debate on human sacrifice.
Do we need any more exhibits? No, I didn't think so. Wowzers. I can't boldface the crazy parts -- it's all crazy.

11 comments:

  1. Keep in mind this is someone who has written, seriously, that he hears more truth in the Limbaugh school of talk radio than anywhere else.

    Something seems to have gone seriously wrong and unhinged in his head about 10 years ago, and it shows in his work. I've wondered since two things: 1) Reassessing really hostile reactions to Mamet from people I respect (mostly women) and 2) Just what happened to the guy, because regardless of those earlier hostile reaction, something really changed.

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    1. Compare David Mamet to Frank Miller, a popular comicbook author who reinvented Batman, who also got on the crazy train to the right of even the lunatic fringe. As they both aged, they both went paranoid loony-tunes. I hope to God that is not what old age has in store for me. My mother is 84, but she is not nuts likes these two. So maybe there is hope.

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  2. A commenter at Larison's speculated that he had a stroke. Obviously I don't endorse that, but isn't that a creepy idea in general -- ya really could *have* a stroke that would derange you moderately enough that you could pass for a kook, or a PETA fanatic, or a Republican.

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  3. "ya really could *have* a stroke that would derange you moderately enough that you could pass for a kook, or a PETA fanatic, or a Republican."

    A friend of mine rebuffed a recruiter from Microsoft, adding that he'd "added a note to his living will file", for exactly that kind of situation.

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  4. Well if you ever wondered what it would look like if David Horowitz and Donald Trump could make a baby . . .

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  5. I think Mamet mistakes anti-semitism for people hating him personally for his smarmy wise-ass self-pity. That's the trigger mechanism for his anti-semitism writ large paranoia. 9/11 scared him and the latent paranoia was unleashed. He decided to strike 'back' in the only way he could without unpacking why he himself is such a schmuck; he is lashing out at the people who have most accepted and consistently appreciated his work, i.e., liberals. It's the Groucho Marx joke, made more famous by Woody Allen, about not wanting to be a member of a club that would have him as a member. Mamet, yes, has become a joke. The only remaining mystery is whether he's a sick joke or a bad joke. I think the Bee Gees presciently wrote their "I Started A Joke" about him, and lo many years later Mamet was born.

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  6. That's a hoot, Hendry. I can think of one or two law firms in my town about which I might should make a similar avowal. My "commit me if ..." file.

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  7. mamet's a nice middle class boy who created a personnae for himself, the glasses, the cropped hair, the razor creased clothing, and snarky personality. and then, with success, it all went south into paranoia, delusions of imperial grandeur, and a hatred of the "liberal." read the essays please, a concatenation of bombast, sexual anxiety, and demented fear mongering that would make a jay leno monologue seem classical platonic relief.

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    1. Also read some of Frank Miller's paranoid diatribes. They are strikingly similar in their delusional vision of the world and venom for anyone who disagrees with him.

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  8. Thanks, Merle, for reading those essays for me so I don't have to.

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  9. I worked at Circle Rep in NYC in the mid to late 70s when he was there directing a few 'lost' one-acts (something adolescent and previously discarded, dug up from the bottom of the trunk) with then gf or wife Lindsay Crouse and the moment he walked into the office and started to speak (in rhyme no less) and I met him for the first time, I could not help thinking, what an asshole. I saw recently on c-span when I happened to catch a recent rant...er... speech...just how right was my initial gut assessment.

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