ME
I had asked Mr. Chih what a real war was, and he answered me thus, after lighting a cigarette: ----- Just this, son: War is the destruction of a country's restaurants (.) -----, thus, the wheel of time brought its revenge. ----- How kind of you to ask (.) ------, he finished. A snippet of prose. Did you recognize it?? Like a dolphin on the seaboard. It's in the last act of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. The court jester asks Malvolio, just before his song: "Long ago, the world began with 'oopa-oopa'; the wind and the rain," and there the play ends. I only wish it were true. When my jewelry company began operations in China, with offices in Beijing and Shanghai, in addition to Hong Kong, we began crushing Guardian and other auction houses with ease. "We're all in with you, Mr. K," the partners would say at meetings. But it didn't even have to be true; I was also leading a great performance. "No tyranny" (I told them) "Have you seen the grooves of the Chinese nuclear ships in the sea walls (?) THAT IS JOY (!) That is exultation (!) The crest runs down the wall and... che paion 'si al vent' - Har - la - llu - K. The sway of the wind. The water is blue and not turquoise. My voice was cold, hoarse, and boring, but I knew my way around a microphone like no other, and I couldn't get that Shakespeare passage out of my head. Chinese art and jewelry investors and gallery owners warned me to keep a close eye on how much my investments would translate into cooperation between New York and Beijing. ----- Want strong allies in China, Mr. K (?) (Mr. Chih said) You can see us with coral or turquoise eyes. I prefer turquoise. But all irises are yellow in this riverbed: yueh; ming; mo; hsien; p'eng. Both constitutive subjects and social classes, in fact, are excluded from our political right. Popolo; peuple; pueblo; people. "We people of the United States," but Lincoln's ambiguities in the Gettisburg Address were even more essential in the French Revolution: "Le peuple, les malheureux m 'applaudissent,'" as Robespierre said. The people as holders of political power, which Confucianism advises to exclude from political power... Topaz against the pallor of dry leaves. Can you already see us with turquoise eyes (??) -----, Mr. Chih asked me.
And so the wheel of time brought its revenge. The cryptic letters K for the original author; and G in "whinligig" (wheel), followed by the nasality of "bring," followed by the soft G for "revenge." And those crazy SS at the end... ------ I can give you an important ally. You also need to strengthen your presence in the American liberal media, to enter America quietly. I will give you the right to nominate (with direct participation) new members for the board of directors of the business. If Mr. Chih nominates himself, at least I won't have to explain to him how the business works from the outside. The water is bluer than midnight. You know well (.) ------, I said. We went down the elevator and through the double doors of the office. KALLIASTRAGALOS. But it was China itself, through the window. ---- Hsin. Continue down the corridor (.) ------, no one at the telephone panel, only a few extensions for the rest of the night. No one in the waiting chairs. Through the window, bare trees marching along the skyline. Lights were off in several rooms. Spkl opened the door to a bright room, with a desk, a filing cabinet, a hard chair, and a compact Chinese man with hard cheeks and stupid eyes.
ResponderExcluir--- They could have knocked earlier (.) -----, he said, holstering a revolver: ----- When I left my job at a state-run magazine and immersed myself in the world of auctions (he continued) I captured every detail. I borrowed a camera, visited the company's auction house in Hong Kong, and filmed the entire proceedings. A blockade hiding the fugitive. Back in Beijing, I even copied the bidding signs (.) -----, he concluded. ----- OK, you tough guy (said Mr. Chih) Quite a man, huh (??) But you know what: Confucius argued that wise and good men, those who achieve a high level of moral progress, are very rare. Unfortunately, many people in China still don't care about improving themselves and being good, so most people come into this office in all shapes and sizes, and they all leave the same size and shape: small and crushed (.) ------, he said. Mr. Chih's Cantonese consonants pricked my ears like acupuncture needles. And the pulsating vowels. The rising wave of those timbres got on my nerves. Back at the hotel, with Mr. Chih's guns in the trunk, I felt as if I were suffocating inside a Chinese Hamlet.
ResponderExcluirThe wheel of time had its revenge. Yet I would prosper while China's new wealth was creating a flourishing art and jewelry market. The specter of an endless, rootless day, spreading across the world from Beijing. Beneath the paler-than-sky blue, the rocky lines arched like a compass. Magnesia rocks and charges of metallic cavalry. I knew that when I landed in New York again, there would be a perfectly distributed hell at sea. The stamping of paws, the fins of dragons, the crashing of waves. THIS IS JOY (!) "Communist, communist, communist (!)" would scream in my ears in Chinatown, the "Democracy Wall" on Bayard Street covering my face with newspapers and posters describing the situation. "But no one in America," I thought to myself, "had the slightest idea what a real communist was anymore." When they were with me, they imagined I was speaking Russian, Chinese, Yiddish, and French, with a dagger stuck in my mouth and a book by Nechayev in my backpack. If there were bombs in the trunk of my car, it was only because the Chinese economy had lost momentum in the last two years, forcing the "state-owned company" to take over our business.
ResponderExcluirMr. Chih would certainly have helped generate a fair amount of market unease with his complete lack of transparency and a few dark cards up his sleeve. By the time the Wall Street Journal realized it and got to work, it would be too late. They would have chopped me into pieces, and the government would have me arrested (which actually happened). It had to be this way, because this is America. The moment the publicity machine is turned on, no other outcome is possible but widespread catastrophe. "The Chinese government's support for shady business ventures and acquisitions around the world is triggering the need for ever more venture capital," which is what you'd expect the Journal to write. At least they didn't publish any photos of me.
ResponderExcluirPost script
ResponderExcluirScrittori, è vietato pensare alla bottéga in ufficio, il concetto de bottéga nuoce alle istituzioni; ai piani dello Stato; allo sviluppo dell´industria; alla stabilitá del tecnocrate. In pandemonium forse andrá meglio