Greywolf: Prose Stylist
Mo:08:11:07:05:48
As Lakoff and Johnson have pointed out, argument is war in that a lot of the same vocabulary is applied to both activities. Whether they meet on the battlefield or the debate floor, contestants attack, defend and pound away at each others positions or points, employ strategies and tactics, exploit weaknesses and mistakes, and practice faints or other deceptions in order to gain an advantage.
Subtle introduction be damned! Canis Lupus lunges from his lair, fangs bared, dripping with the blood of Neocons, and rips and tears through the thin mask debaters wear, exposing all. In a New Stand on Grammer, practice faints and falls to the ground before our eyes, no doubt completely overcome by The Howler’s mastery of the sentence. How clear now, the ruse of rhetoric. Onward, to the Popinjay!
Using words as weapons, debaters fight to destroy or demolish their opponents’ arguments and force them to concede defeat. Hitch is the sort of chap who treats his debates as duels.
“The sort of chap.” That kills us. After a volley of terrifying military lingo, making us quiver in our armchairs (are we brave enough to rush to battle, or even to send our sons in our stead?), too brush off Hitchens so smoothly, so completely, as if he were just dried blood on an old soldier’s bayonet (yes, we are aware it’s a Sonician metaphor, but we stand on the shoulders of hedgehogs).
But you may have noticed that his favorite weapon is the verbal equivalent not of the rapier or the pistol, but of the 12-bore shotgun.
Is their no honour among the Neocohens of the Jingosphere?
Rather than scoring a nice clean hit on a single spot, he prefers to let rip with both barrels, spraying volleys of shot over a wide arc and peppering his opponent and anybody else standing close by.
And who, who is brave enough to man a defensive position in the face of such a horrific onslaught, armed only with words? Greywolf, Devourer of Canis Lupus Zionwatchus! Protect us and those who stand close by!
So much collateral damage for so little gain. What’s going on here? Or, as Obiwan might have put it, why use a blaster when a light sabre does a much cleaner job? Could it be that the effect Hitch is really aiming at isn’t necessarily the effect a casual observer might think he was going for.
Not what we were led to believe! Conspiracy!
And yet, time too for reflection, for a look into the mind of Hitchens. We can venture thus far only by the side of The Grey Wolf.
And lest we forget, so much erudition in one post. No snob, Greywolf. In His world, Obiwan resides among Lakoff and Johnson, comfortable side by side as if they were Jeeves and Wooster and Mark G. But neither wise Obiwan nor patient Jeeves could never have found, on the blank page before him, such an inspired way to express such a conclusion: Why use a blaster when a light sabre does a much cleaner job? This howler could indeed only have been said by The Howler.
A clean job, Canis Lupus, a clean slice through heart of Hitchens.
Life would be easier for Greywolf if He ignored us, but He works on, helping us develop our relationships with Him. He is the The Howler who works perfection in us, in our prose.
Encouragement for Sonic
We:09:06:06:03:59
“Years ago,” in His Sonic’s phrase, overcome with an uncharacteristic, sudden attack self-doubt and self-loathing, not for his healthy and righteous obsession with Hitchens, but for a confounding, unprecedented insecurity about his prose styling, Sonic – out of nowhere – sang the praises of another, and moaned, in a lonely one-sentence posting, that his own Voice was crap.
It would be to be able to write as well as Wonkette.
But a flood of positive, encouraging comments filled the heart of The Hedgehog
I wish I could be able to write as well as you, sonic.
and our Trogloditette was back in top burrowing form, and on the case – in under 24 hours – with a wicked exposure the Popinjay’s disastrous boozing (the direct cause of which is the deaths of more than 100,000 Iraqi kite-flying children).
“O lord,” shouted Sonic from the wind-swept hill, “thou hast seen my wrong: judge thou my cause, not my prose.”
Greywolf’s Plan for The USA
Th:06:08:06:04:23
When we lose our way, when The USA seems to be drifting as aimlessly as the plot of a daytime TV show, we remember those comments of the Sufferer from Residual anti-Semitism, and we find our way again.
The USA simply can no longer afford to support the expensive lifestyles of the sheer number of scam artists who are scraping a good living off the weak, the meak and the gullible, including the taxpayer. The county can no longer afford to be run as a soap opera. It can no longer afford to maintain a military industrial complex that uses so much energy that it accounts for the equivalent of more than a tenth of the world’s total oil consumption. And it can no longer afford to go on pretending that the 9/11 terror attacks were not an inside job (after weighing up lots of evidence of late, I’ve finally come around to that conclusion). The coins to pay for this game are rapidly running out.
Do you feel it? The incitement, inspiration, and the hope? Rise to our cause! Save the U.S. and with it the world!
How? Break open the piggy banks: if we want our country run as a soap opera, we must pay for it! 9/11 was not an outside job: in want of coins we sacrificed our towers, for what? Slippery oil. So it must be – coins for freedom and soap operas!
Greywolf has spoken (Arrroooo!).
Keep thy Watching heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life Canis Lupus has commanded.
Gallahadianly Defending Paris and Scooter
Th:06:14:07:11:38
He Who Has a Sharp Eye for Things Jewish does it again.
Firstly, both have been doing their best to avoid having to go to jail despite receiving remarkably lenient prison sentences given the seriousness of their respective offenses.
Roll it around on your tounge, the prose, savor it. Do not, however, try to duplicate it, for its quality is its alone.
Hitch’s Gallahadian side often comes to the fore where damsels are in distress, so his defence of The Crimes of Paris (sorry, I couldn’t resist that one!) is totally in character.
Of course you couldn’t have resisted such a clever witticism, Canis Lupus. And you couldn’t have said it better yourself. As if Hitchens could even find the fore where damsels are in distress, blue eyes be damned.
But what chivalrous impulse could have prompted Sir Christopher to allegedly pen a letter to the Court begging clemency for Libby? (Let’s discount the drunk emails to the judge accusation as a bit of maicious libel.)
Through his vast network of insiders (not of the Establishment!) news of the knighthood of Hitchens reaches the desk of Greywolf first. As we are shown, when Hitchens is not pulsating with chivalrousness, he’s penning letters and — no doubt — authoring books, always in a deep, drunken stupor.
If you’ll scan that Slate column again, you’ll see that Hitch used his Paris piece to link her sad fate (cue the violins!) in the hearts of his readers with that of Libby (break out the man-sized Kleenex!), who commands much less public sympathy.
We only scan Slate, for there are no pictures. But notice how Canis Lupus creates a complete mood in his prose: sound (the world’s smallest violin!), touch (man-sized Kleenex for wolf-sized clean up after Greywolf is finished drooling over Hitchens’ latest dirty and suggestive exploitation), and sight (you’re reading it!). No doubt The Master of the One Line Comeback, deep in his bunker, is busily developing the necessary technology to include smell.
We won’t touch the photoshopping. We will simple gape.
(Searching for his weapons of Hitch-destruction) Greywolf wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.
Hitchens AND Amis? Ewww, gross!
We06:06:07:04:34
Our first post featuring Greywolf (bow wow!), he who barks mad at the Popinjay.
Today he introduces us to “an amusing little piece” at Counterpunchitchens. (”An amusing little piece.” As you can see HWHSETJ has what we can only describe as “a way with words” when discussing the writings of Counterpunchitchens, home of JC, may he apologize in peace.)
Greywolf howls out (arooooo!) his discovery that Amis has joined the march along the bloody trail of the Jingosphere. This man – if you can call him that – is Hitchens’s “only friend.” (Play us the world ’s smallest violin, Popinjay. Or join us again on the Noble Left; there are friends a-plenty to be had here. We await you with our warm, blood-free embrace.)
Yes, Greywolf (ruff!) tells us, in the days of yore Amis and Hitch criticized power (bad power!), while of late they fawn it and stroke it until power (and beautiful money!) washes over them like jizz on a porn star.
Greywolf howls: “Amis has always struck me [strike not Canis Lupus Zionwatchus!] as impressionable and naive on politics [So true, so true! Naive and impressionable are the words of Amis, written betwen the bloody covers of unamusing big novels], so I wonder if Hitchens just bullied and pushed him into the [bloody] warpath?
In their first phone conversation after 9-11, Martin brought up the subject of Blowback and was immediately rebuked by a furious Hitchens who said that he’d be goddamned if he was going to listen to any loose talk about chickens coming home to roost.
We can see it now: Over whiskies (Holy Johnny Walker Black! When is it not over whisky?!) Hitchens berates pathetic and naive and impressionable Amis. “Join us! There is money here! And oil! Luxuriate in it, it can all be yours!” until Amis succumbs (and who, besides our Triumvirate of Watchers, could resist? Long may they guide us) and joins the bloody slog that is the Jingosphere. “Forgive me” Amis moans, “I know not that of which I speak. Blowback and Roosting Chickens… How could I have? I am naive and impresionable. Help me, Hitchens, you’re my only hope.”
“Follow me, Martin! To War!” “Yes, my master.”
Only, as the Trinity has shown us, they don’t go to war, do they? No, they watch from an armchair bath of oil and whisky, and then they don’t even send their sons! Shame on you, Hitchmis, for not sending your sons to die for your bloody oil.
Imagine: if only the Triumvirate, or even One of Them, had been there to take off the mittens and strike noble blows against The Hitch. But alas, Amis was lost to the Dark Side…
Anyway, I’ve never much cared for Martin Amis’s pretentious meanderings [As you can see, Greywolf is nothing if not eloquent and incisive in his literary critiques!], but I’m interested to see what the Brits on this site have to say about him.
And we wouldn’t have been interested, but we heed the world of Canis Lupus. Speak, Brits, and tell us what you know.
Amis? Crap. I said before. Say it again! We don’t read much now either. Books are a load of Establishment crap, and we prefer to get stewed!
They’re there, they’re annoying and talentless, but they’ve become part of some establishment so you cannot get them to go away. That doesn’t mean Greywolf won’t try! The Establishment – don’t get us started. Not only can we not get them to go, they won’t let us go! They sink their Zionist tendrils into us, and preclude any writers or academic from joining, from establishing. Raise your eyebrows, do you? Check your bookstores! Find a writer who doesn’t support the war, every war! And Academia? God Lord, all Zionist Jews and their Republican lapdogs. Show us an academic who is brave enough to cross swords with the Popinjay: you won’t find one. Only the Trinity has taken up the call. Mr. Sonic, break down that establishment wall!
In my life, I have only given up reading two books out of the three I started. Martin’s pretentious “the Information” is one. its still sitting at home with the bookmark on page 81, and there it will remain. Tiresome waste of time, reading.
Arrogant, pompous, dead eyed, lizard faced….his patrician drawl and air of ‘I’ve been to Oxford and you haven’t’ did NOT go down well with the studio audience or those like me who have only seen a university from the wrong side of the lunch counter.
I picked up The War against Cliche because I liked the title. I just got the feeling that the whole purpose of every essay was to prove to himself and everyone else how intelligent he is, and I don’t need to feel bad about myself anymore. Sonic, tell me I’m OK.
Mark G on the mic: It’s more an ‘internationalist’ novel or at most a Jewish-American novel. I hope I don’t sound anti-Semitic, but Jews and Jewish culture make up a very very small percentage of the American population and life. To put it another way, as an American, I did not personally identify with the novel.
Never qualify, Mark G! Ask instead why do They call every reflection on the Jewish complete control of American culture, out of all proportion to their percentage of the population and life of average Americans, antisemitic? They never say “racist” when we point out that blacks make up a very, very small percentage of the American population and life, but have near complete control over our “pop” culture! Hippity Hoppity here, there, and everywhere, and who can relate to Richard Wright, Bill Cosby, or, God help us, Toni Morrison?
You speak the truth, Mark G, and He Who Has a Sharp Eye for Things Jewish sees all.
I am not trying to say I am more intellectual than Martin Amis but I have a distaste for one of his books. This distaste grows into a wider one for Amis himself. Indeed the horrorism of Amis is both tastless and tastes bad, very bad.
I’ve never claimed to be as smart as Amis pretends to be. You don’t have to be an intellectual per se to be able to distinguish btw bogus displays of intellect and the real thing.
And thus did the Disciples of the Triumvirate destroy completely the reputations of Amis and Hitchens. Onward, watchers, to victory!
My wolf meat is to do the will of Aaronovitch Watch that sent me, and to finish his work.
On the Second Day
We:08:17:05:03:08
Breaking rules and pushing the envelope, Sonic makes “roundup” into two words, known ever after as “round up.” And then – whamo! – reckless and brave disregard for a comma! Twice in one sentence. Would that we were so brave with our English, but we take our lead only from The Triumvirate.
The next sentence made us sleepy, cause it had a big word that resembled “idiot” but wasn’t.
Then, the Jooos make their first slimy appearance in the shape of a Man, this one a Fried Man, who, like all Jooos, desires Muslim Blood, preferably Arab.
The writing that follows is not so brave as the scripture of The Troglodyte; we found not a single New Stand on Grammar, or a tossed aside punctuation. And so we became positively soporific. But on, on we trugged, making our way through the Bloody Trail of the Jingosphere.
And yet suddenly we are awakened by a shout out to Irving Howe, he who never succumbed to the bloody and oil-soaked temptations of The Jingosphere, only to give up arguing the world and submit to the life of a Neocon. Irving Howe, where have you gone?! How we need you now, in this Battle Against Hitchens.
We won’t lie. We read the post that day with growing disappointment when She Whose Name Must Not Be Spoken did not descend from Olympus upon Sonic’s keyboard. But we are not the Triumvirate, nor can we dream to be. What they see in this post we can only hope to catch a glimpse of, if The Light of the Watch should shine favorably upon us.
And of course, even then we didn’t know then the glory that would become Christopherhitchenswatch, nor how soon it would come.
The Wind of the Watch blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit of Sonic.
In the beginning, there was inspiration
Tu08:16:05:09:11 (Coincidence? While the Zionists walk the earth, leaving their bloody Jingosphereic footprints behind them, there will be no coincidence.)
Throwing caution and punctuation to the wind, we open with The Inspiration
In the thing that resembles a second paragraph, we hear who played John the Baptist to His Hedgehogness’s Jesus: Behold, Aaronovitch Watch, which roused our triumvirate (we will meet He Who Howls the Lies of Hitchens from the Hills and FGFMWTF soon) to their cause: the beloved Christopherhitchenswatch.
In the third paragraph, our Trogloditeness so succinctly summarized the evil that is Hitchens: Yes! Call out the Neocon Popinjay for daring to mention “cluster bomb” and “Koran” in the same sentence! Blasphemy! Fatwa! Because indeed a Koran upon the heart will save us from any Zionist bomb, cluster or otherwise!
Then our Sonic noticed that Hitchens does indeed have talent when writing “it needs to be admitted.” We have not found where Hitchens used his Pen of Iraqi Blood to write this phrase, but our ignorance only goes to show Sonic’s superior understanding of The Popinjay’s Canon. (We practiced writing “it needs to be admitted,” but were constantly misspelling, misremembering the words, and often finding ourselves at a loss for meaning in life.) And — and! — Our Sonic cuts through all diaphanous wool pulled tight over our eyes and drags us up through the bloody swill left by the Neocons: “Behold! Open your the Jingosphere!” It was all a botched oil grab (YOU try grabbing oil sometime – a more beautiful platitude has yet to be uttered) most well represented by The Former Trotskyist Poppinjay, Christopher – oh, how it catches in my throat to say the hateful word – Hitchens.
How foolish of us not to have seen it ourselves.
But what did it, what woke Our Burrower from his slumber, was that Hitchens, not having blasphemed enough, mentioned She Whose Name Must Not Be Spoken.
And so it was. Periods were bravely tossed aside, the mittens came off the grubby paws, and battle was joined.
And to remember back to that day: The Rebuttal was yet to come.
If we have sown unto you hate of Hitchens, is it a great thing if we shall reap your carnal things?
