Brooks, in this asinine column, asks, "Finally there are the rest of us who don't pay attention to what is being written and said in Europe because it doesn't seem that exciting, (Quick, what book is the talk of Berlin? Who is the François Truffaut of our moment?)"
You don't know, Dave, because the movies don't get distributed here, the books translated and published. A young Bellow would not be picked up and nurtured, and he'd end up - as pretty much the only alternative for someone who was at all interested in the, "best that has been thought and said," - among, "those in the academic and literary stratosphere who are part of the global circuit of conferences and academic appointments." They know, of course, what's being read in Berlin (or Asia, or anywhere else outside of these precious borders, guarded by Minutemen) and they know the movies that will be re-made, here at the top, where it's lonely, for domestic consumption, planed smooth to go down easy.
What utter, empty triumphalist bullshit.
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What is up with David Brooks? And who is he, really? I had a lot of fun with a column of his on my blog a couple of weeks ago. And I'm mad he's now in Sunday's paper. Used to be on Saturdays, I'd get the paper and think, "oh yeah" -- and read him. Now on Sundays I'm going to think, "oh no!" But he'll be there, laying in my driveway, uninvited.
His NYT bio is here:
http://www.nytimes.com/ref/opinion/BROOKS-BIO.html
I feel very free to dump on him because he was at UofC, and he should know better (it's a small place, much smaller than most people realize). That early stint in his bio at the City New Bureau, btw, is a fine credential - that's the legwork lab for Chicago reporters.
My beef with him is that he knows *how* to do it, but seems to have devised clever models for himself that remove the burden of actually doing it - it's legwork-at-my-leisure. So the whole Bobo Meme gets very cushy - look at my cohort with a cool eye, take a field trip to some demographically different zip, buy a cheap meal, then head back home to rip out 1500 words with a bit of conservative snark. It's a racket.
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