Arnon Grunberg's Blog, page 473

Selling point

Vision

Brooks in today’s Times:

“Romney is going to have to define a vision of modern capitalism. He’s going to have to separate his vision from the scandals and excesses we’ve seen over the last few years. He needs to define the kind of capitalist he is and why the country needs his virtues.
Let’s face it, he’s not a heroic entrepreneur. He’s an efficiency expert. It has been the business of his life to take companies that were mediocre and sclerotic and try to make them efficient and dynamic. It has been his job to be the corporate version of a personal trainer: take people who are puffy and self-indulgent and whip them into shape.
That’s his selling point: rigor and productivity. If he can build a capitalist vision around that, he’ll thrive. If not, he’s a punching bag.”

(Read the complete article here.)

A vision?

I was reminded of the Leonard Cohen song "The Story of Isaac”:
“The door it opened slowly,

My father he came in,

I was nine years old.

And he stood so tall above me,

His blue eyes they were shining

And his voice was very cold.

He said, "I've had a vision

And you know I'm strong and holy,

I must do what I've been told."’

Mr. Romney should make this song his official campaign song.

Amsterdam

Comfort

José F.A. Oliver is a poet and the founder and artistic director of the literary festival in Hausach, Germany: “Leselenz".
This morning I gave a reading at a high school in Hausach. The kids were fairly interested and rather amused.
After the reading José F.A. Oliver told me about poems he had written in and about Amsterdam. He started reading them.
We were sitting at the outdoor café at Hotel Löwen. Another author mentioned “comforting melancholy”.

Passion

Catastrophe

Tonight, after my reading I had a discussion with a charming journalist working for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
He believed that the euro was a big mistake, because the Germans were paying for the Greek and the Italians who don't believe in the nation-state. (Obviously, this is not my take on it.)
He admitted that he was longing for a catastrophe. The longer we are waiting for the catastrophe the bigger the catastrophe will be.
It was an enlightening statement. We should never underestimate the longing for the Apocalypse. Often rather talented people cannot control this passion.

Gospel

Department of Energy

Thomas Powers on Gail Collins’ book “As Texas Goes…: How the Lone Star State Hijacked the American Agenda” in NYRB:

'But Ted Cruz had not yet appeared on the horizon when Gail Collins was writing As Texas Goes… She was after bigger quarry, Rick Perry, who had been warming up for a run at the White House over the previous several years. Last August, he held a giant prayer meeting in Houston on the eve of declaring his candidacy. The atmosphere of the seven-hour prayer session was not quite that of an old-time tent revival meeting, but close.
“Father, our heart breaks for America,” Perry prayed with eyes closed and hands clasped in front of a crowd of thirty thousand. “We see discord at home. We see fear in the marketplace. We see anger in the halls of government and, as a nation, we have forgotten who made us, who protects us, who blesses us, and for that, we cry out for your forgiveness….
“You call us to repent, Lord, and this day is our response.”
One longed for the late Molly Ivins. “The next time I tell you someone from Texas should not be President of the United States,” she said after the second George Bush mounted the national stage, “please pay attention.” Rick Perry was designed by the God who made him for a royal skewering by Molly Ivins, but God was merciful, and spared him that.
Yet Gail Collins in her thorough and serious way has pretty well taken Perry apart. Her book would have been at the right hand of every Democratic strategist trying to fend off a national Perry campaign, if he were still in the race. For ten minutes last August it seemed he might go the distance. His formal announcement came a few days after the day of prayer, and he soared briefly in the polls. Then things started to go wrong. Collins remarks that Perry “went on to become one of the worst candidates for president in all of American history.” He performed poorly in early debates, did worse in later ones, won no friends when he denounced homosexuality as “deeply objectionable,” worried even Christian backers when he attacked Obama’s “war on religion,” alarmed just about everybody when he said on stage while the other candidates listened in various postures of amazement that he would eliminate three cabinet-level departments when he got to the White House, but could remember the names of only two of them. It did not help a few minutes later when the name came to him—the Department of Energy! Next day a British newspaper said Perry’s campaign was in “meltdown” following “one of the most humiliating debate performances in recent US political history.'

(Read the complete article here -- if you are a subscriber that is.)

One could argue that at least Mr. Perry was being honest. Perhaps more politicians should be willing to admit that all they can offer is a prayer.

I would vote for a politician who would declare: “Don’t expect much more from me than a prayer a day and some gospel music.”

Snack

Shutter

Around 4 p.m. I arrived by train in Hausach for a literary festival: “Leselenz”.
I walked to my hotel. The reception desk was empty.
A charming, elderly woman appeared within two minutes. “Don’t tell this to the organization, Mr. Grunberg,” she said.
The opening evening, a theatrical reading by Ilija Trojanow from his novel “Eiszeit” with live music, drew an enthusiastic response from the audience. The reading was impressive and an insightful addition to the book as well.
Since I didn’t eat before the event I left the venue shortly afterwards to look for a restaurant in Hausach where I could eat something small.
Everything was closed already.
On the outskirts of the small city I found Bablon, Pizza and Kebap – more a snack bar than a restaurant.
I was the only visitor. To be on the safe side I ordered a Pizza Margherita.
Shortly after my arrival the owner let down the shutter.

Change

Lunch

Back in Düsseldorf – for old times times’ sake I had lunch at Café Heinemann.
Nothing has really changed.

(Read this entry also.)

Believer

Tasty

“Do you believe in organic meat?” the taxi driver asked.
Atheists seem to believe that only God can fool you, but there are so many things you can believe in.
I was looking for a diplomatic answer, because I’m agnostic when it comes to organic meat.
“It seems to taste better,” I said.
“Taste, schmaste,” the driver said. “Go to a village and buy your meat directly from the farmer, then you have tasty meat.”
“Yes,” I said, “you have a point.”

Doggie bag

Brothers

On Monday night, I celebrated my girlfriend’s birthday in Delft.
We had dinner with her parents and her brothers at La Tasca.
The food was good, especially the homemade pasta was excellent, but shortly after the main course was served my girlfriend left. She had to meet some of her friends at a bar.
I remained in the restaurant with her parents and her brothers and we finished our meal. (The lemon pie deserves some praise as well.)
I asked for a doggie bag, so my girlfriend could taste the delicious lemon pie. You should take capriciousness as a Buddhist.

Shackled

Enjoyment

“Marginal Revolution” on torture in Turkish prisons:
‘The problem confronting the conscripts nonetheless extends far beyond commanders who are drunk with power. In perhaps the strangest twist in the story of the disko, [rights activist Tolga] Islam says prison guards themselves are chosen from the ranks of conscripts, often from the same group that they oversee — and sometimes torture. “These are people who have been taken from the same group of soldiers, some know each other. And what is most incredible is that, from what we understand, commanders don’t necessarily tell guards how to torture or how far to go. In the disko, they give them impunity to do what they wish.”
It is chillingly similar, Islam says, to a notorious 1971 experiment by Stanford psychologist Philip Zimbardo, where participants were randomly given roles as guards or prisoners in a mock prison. Within less than a week, the mock guards had quickly “become sadistic,” subjecting some prisoners to psychological torture. The experiment was shut down after only six days.
“The diskos are the perfect real life example of this experiment. Guards begin to think, ‘We have this person in our prison for 24 hours. Nobody will stop us if we torture him.’” That disturbing license for abuse leads prison guards develop their own practices of torture, from slapping inmates who make eye contact with guards to severe and prolonged beatings, deliberate malnourishment, confining recruits to cramped and filthy spaces, or leaving them shackled outside in the sun for prolonged periods of time.’

(Read the complete article here.)

Some people will torture, just because they can get away with torture.
Perhaps, contrary to our moral intuitions the degradation of another person is uplifting, for the torturer that is. We feel better because we can make another person feel worse. Some of us would expect the torturer to feel guilty, but all he was feeling was enjoyment.

Strategy

Scholar

A while ago I had dinner with two friends. One of them said: “I’m the foremost Adam Smith scholar in the world.”
This friend is a living example of why modesty is a self-defeating strategy.