deluded person actually be brought into what is true—by deceiving him” ( Kierkegaard’s Writings , vol. XXII, trans. Howard and Edna Hong [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989], 53). Burden writes, “The path to the truth is doubled, masked, ironic. This is my path, not straight, but twisted!”
VI. Kierkegaard wrote eight satirical prefaces under the pseudonym Nicolaus Notabene. Søren Kierkegaard, Prefaces, Writing Sampler , ed. and trans. Todd W. Nichol (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987).
VII. Guy Debord (1931–1994), self-proclaimed leader of the Situationist International (SI), founded in 1957. This small group of Parisian artists and intellectuals (it never had more than twelve members) initially hoped to integrate art and life into an indistinguishable whole and eliminate the distinction between actor and spectator. By the 1960s, the group’s anticapitalist critique, inspired by the anarchist movement, extended beyond art to society in general. In Debord’s most famous work, Society of the Spectacle , published in 1967, he argues that images have come to dominate life, that they have become the “currency” of a society that is continually creating “pseudo needs” in its populace. The group disbanded in 1972 due to internal strife. In 1994, Debord committed suicide. Although the French press had largely ignored both the Situationists and Debord’s work, after his death, he became a celebrity.
Oswald Case
(written statement)
To the gaudy denizens of Manhattan’s nocturnal scene, I was known as the Crawler, as in night and club, but my column for Blitz was called “Head Case,” a fitting tribute to Mr. and Mrs. Case, to whom I naturally owed everything. At the magazine I developed my gift for gossip and the art of innuendo, puffing up and smacking down the rich and vain and much-photographed, wheedling dirt out of bouncers and waiters and hangers-on who imagined that fame was a quality that could be rubbed off onto them, when in fact it only laid bare their puny bridge-and-tunnel lives, but I encouraged them in their idle daydreams and that’s how the Crawler trawled them in.
It is a delicate job, penning gossip, a balancing act not to be underestimated, and it is easy to go too far. Mutual dependence must always be recognized, that they need you and you need them. I hit my stride in the late seventies, in the glory days of Studio 54, nibbling up delectable tidbits here and there about Bianca and Andy and Calvin, and I had a blast, those long nights of cocaine and ludes and plain old booze and blind sex in big, fashionably empty lofts, typing for dollars in the late afternoons after I had regained consciousness. I miss those days. They had a patina now lost. Yes, glamour is gone for good, Virginia. It disappeared the moment it became democratic, and every loser could be Googled or find himself a star on YouTube. There is always an exclusive scene in the city, of course. But isn’t there something wearying about yet another celeb puking in a back room or punching a paparazzo or flashing a Brazilian wax job? Ennui set in, especially after I turned sober, the inevitable result of the decision to give up the wonders of intoxication to hold on to my liver and other body parts equally fragile.
I drifted into less taxing forms of journalism, supposedly more elevated, but I have found that the human primate varies little. Grasping and grubbing and knocking over those in your way are omnipresent characteristics of the species, and every little urban band has its own hierarchy and cycles of highly entertaining antics fueled by envy. I turned to New York’s shrinking Culture Pages, strategically written for the declining numbers of middlebrow readers, and I pounded out articles on movies, art, books, and music as a freelancer. I reviewed, and I interviewed. As a writer, I knew that it was my tone that delivered the goods; that is what they wanted, a tone of boredom and superiority that
VI. Kierkegaard wrote eight satirical prefaces under the pseudonym Nicolaus Notabene. Søren Kierkegaard, Prefaces, Writing Sampler , ed. and trans. Todd W. Nichol (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987).
VII. Guy Debord (1931–1994), self-proclaimed leader of the Situationist International (SI), founded in 1957. This small group of Parisian artists and intellectuals (it never had more than twelve members) initially hoped to integrate art and life into an indistinguishable whole and eliminate the distinction between actor and spectator. By the 1960s, the group’s anticapitalist critique, inspired by the anarchist movement, extended beyond art to society in general. In Debord’s most famous work, Society of the Spectacle , published in 1967, he argues that images have come to dominate life, that they have become the “currency” of a society that is continually creating “pseudo needs” in its populace. The group disbanded in 1972 due to internal strife. In 1994, Debord committed suicide. Although the French press had largely ignored both the Situationists and Debord’s work, after his death, he became a celebrity.
Oswald Case
(written statement)
To the gaudy denizens of Manhattan’s nocturnal scene, I was known as the Crawler, as in night and club, but my column for Blitz was called “Head Case,” a fitting tribute to Mr. and Mrs. Case, to whom I naturally owed everything. At the magazine I developed my gift for gossip and the art of innuendo, puffing up and smacking down the rich and vain and much-photographed, wheedling dirt out of bouncers and waiters and hangers-on who imagined that fame was a quality that could be rubbed off onto them, when in fact it only laid bare their puny bridge-and-tunnel lives, but I encouraged them in their idle daydreams and that’s how the Crawler trawled them in.
It is a delicate job, penning gossip, a balancing act not to be underestimated, and it is easy to go too far. Mutual dependence must always be recognized, that they need you and you need them. I hit my stride in the late seventies, in the glory days of Studio 54, nibbling up delectable tidbits here and there about Bianca and Andy and Calvin, and I had a blast, those long nights of cocaine and ludes and plain old booze and blind sex in big, fashionably empty lofts, typing for dollars in the late afternoons after I had regained consciousness. I miss those days. They had a patina now lost. Yes, glamour is gone for good, Virginia. It disappeared the moment it became democratic, and every loser could be Googled or find himself a star on YouTube. There is always an exclusive scene in the city, of course. But isn’t there something wearying about yet another celeb puking in a back room or punching a paparazzo or flashing a Brazilian wax job? Ennui set in, especially after I turned sober, the inevitable result of the decision to give up the wonders of intoxication to hold on to my liver and other body parts equally fragile.
I drifted into less taxing forms of journalism, supposedly more elevated, but I have found that the human primate varies little. Grasping and grubbing and knocking over those in your way are omnipresent characteristics of the species, and every little urban band has its own hierarchy and cycles of highly entertaining antics fueled by envy. I turned to New York’s shrinking Culture Pages, strategically written for the declining numbers of middlebrow readers, and I pounded out articles on movies, art, books, and music as a freelancer. I reviewed, and I interviewed. As a writer, I knew that it was my tone that delivered the goods; that is what they wanted, a tone of boredom and superiority that
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