old chestnuts refurbished

    It's such a dreary old stereotype - the American as
    Innocent Abroad. Beginning, I suppose, with Mark Twain
    & Henry James & continuing through Graham Greene,
    the world laughs indulgently (as well as enviously & nastily)
    at the earnest, well-meaning dope as he's encouraged to fawn
    his way into the local culture by some wily European, Levantine,
    Asiatic, or whatever....

    Being an Atlanticist, not a Continental, I've always refused
    to join in the mockery.
 
    How dispiriting, then, to watch the hicks still lining up for
    their bottles of Parisian snake-oil - all the while dutifully
    mumbling the required mantras: 'project', 'discourse',
    'gesture', 'prick-centricity', 'decuntstruction', & the rest.

    Scottie B.

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Received on Sun Feb 2 12:43:07 2003