conan plays for the kids, part 5 (for raymond roussel)

Hi kids,
presumably all been waiting. For my next guest
is the financial editor. An anchor
for CNN Financial News.
And that commentator for Money Line! With that, with me! Lou Dobbs, right.
Well, I have my rent, and our
okay. Now Myron, uh, thanks very much for coming,
now a lot of kids want to know: just
how CNN got started?
They want to know, up,
what’s it like, working on it, twenty-four hour
foreign news
program?
And after—
Basically, also, how do you manage a financial news network? Mean? How do you do that kind
of show? Let’s talk about that.
Very easily.

Right.
That’s not a very early Kantor, thank now. To get the monster is not good, Job,
everybody.
Well, I think. Right now.
Get out. Get your question.
That was what people want to know.
Um,
first of all, let’s talk about this. The bull market has been going on now for fifteen years,
a lot of people want to know: is this going to just continue?
Well, the bull market started in August 1982,
and with a couple of interruptions, it’s, it’s continued to this day,
and it look like it’s got some more steam behind it,
so we can see it,
Keith. Out!
I’m not a bull market! Go on for that long,
whatever, rise as long as kids. Know there has to be a fall. Well, there. A pull. Backs which
we’ve had.
And you know the opposite of a bull market?
That’s right.
Their market. A bear market. Is know that. That’s right,
they did what they were, about the same with the, but if I wasn’t alive—
So my question is this: by do you think at some point we’re headed for a big crash, you
think we’re, were fined for the long haul?
I think we’re not going to see a crash anytime soon.
The economy is doing very well. You know very well that in nation is low.
The econmy has moderated.
Uh, uh, interest rates are going down.
That’s a very good. Unemployment is very low.
It’s really a good scene in the U.S. economy these days!
And that’s why Wall Street is benefiting. Fact: what I,
I,
you, actually,
(the kids don’t know this, but, but my ring here predicted the bull market),
now, a lot of people must be
looking to you for tips, to give stock tips, ever, never, give stock! That,
but I did write, about
fifteen years ago, I wrote a book that said
how to cash in on the coming stock market
and that book started a few months later. After the baby, a book came out.
So it’s a good book. Everyone: you should read that book. And that’s a little of buying now
and the fact is
you can ask me whether I took my own advice?
Digital. I mean, did you, did you?
Are you a rich man?
I’m still working for a living.
I’ll tell you what I think.
Myron-on,
you’ve been very helpful so far,
but I think what you need to do is something that might get the kids interested.
So maybe you could – do a little crazy? That’s when you get like a team. I don’t think the
day,
through all the time,
we’ve not had any better.
I feel my rent, and out just in a row, that day.
It’s a trend that was incredible. Thank you very much.
You know myself, actually.
If you put this on, the chart to see Myron Kandel become, in Alabama,
what’s that on the capital of that?
You see,
as well,
thank you very much.
The upcoming, yeah.
On Wall Street, we have bulls, we had. There is,
we never had, an elephant until today.
I and I want to mention CNN and CNN’s Financial News, that you? Doing on shows
but also
as the kids know, you do Money Line with Lou Dobbs weeknights, that seven
then. There was a real pleasure having you on the program,
my pleasure. To be here
and I hope my grandchildren, I have three grandchildren,
I hope they stay up late enough. The election? Well, Michelle. All it for them,
let’s put it that way.
Let’s go up and down. I think that Larry Magid, both in his stance on the way up to the musical
there.

I guess they want to thank an amazing. Audits, we had our day,
but he won, by all the kids that. Come down now; have talked to a friend of mine.

(Source. Text is from the “Transcribe Audio” feature; I added capitalization and punctuation because we can’t expect Google to do everything for us.)

conan plays for the kids, part 4 (for raymond roussel)

All right, everybody, we’re back. My next guest is a reptile expert from a reptile. And
you need a spooky. A place called Alan Ladd. Pennsylvania, that’s right of what? Killing.
Of, on, please! Welcome, client! The L.A. and
how! Might back
fraud? And naive will not be stolen.
This year, up the sock.
Neither. And that means we’re going to get three classes of animals: the police let the
camera first. Is the Citadel? Biggest frauds. I think you know what I thought. Well, you know
the front line of the time.
This is a giant.
Total a giant. Marine Road from South America, 
this is an African bullfrog.
Uh, both of these be quite large. I’ve seen them both of them. Almost platter sides! Look out!
That this is a case. Not running for the right.
now that,
okay.
Now I should tell you that old
(and through the incident, poisoned) skin,
well, my, not know, if there is a crisis? Well, I think
he’s getting really – that! What he’s doing of you, just for a return to you . . . of them, to put
all that struggle, this animal especially has a large answer (which is due to poison) if a
dog. Regret this.
It would be very distasteful.
Potts explains: in an abandoned ship was invited, it, the (exudes a poison from these glands), and
that would
probably future . . . Don’t listen. Probably wouldn’t do it the second time, that’s right. Although
some. What’s bothering it? It does take place. And try to come out of it. Get all over the
place. A break!
But he’s a very good – as what they got for us, to a man, they get rid of these, I should
point out that. And Indians worldwide are disappearing.
And then comment on this.
What is essentially a response to an entirely different classes is that man will,
and it comes from Mexico, and
South American, Central America, at this public. A lot of money.
I call on Monday.
Okay, and we may have already had to be addressed:
this is where the— Hard for me. Talk to the zoo, and Vermont, Maryland,
and she’s raised this animal to buy. Where – all right, you know
I quit that.
Right.
Arianna that!
A lot of things – no, very inquisitive animals – a constantly pretty – the nose, forty-five degrees,
you know, because I don’t see looking for something to be—
But there is no peace.
You oftentimes see these
going across the bow, out for something, will help make, own, in that Iran and the will, uh,
will get in line here, day in, of— Blood in that area! And will say again: I can’t even get
this inquisitive animal to go across our children.
Well, you know, she’s going. What they hear in court on Monday, time
and being, I mean, she’s not, have any other side on the list?
And though he would not stand up,
ha ha ha,
I, that, outside, its private label, for the State to, were expected it, to have right on top of,
me,
that, as it ought to be “off,”
all,
uh, uh, car!
The key: to make it seem to you that – are at the federal level – that they don’t see some
kids?
Um.
Ron them all! High-tech catch the stand!
Yeah.
Hi.
I’ve got: class; taxes; cash.
The taxes, that I guess that the senate – yet, he’s a little bit nervous! So those is not
I think that, I think it’s a rich, I sometimes, right.
I guess they don’t know.
Wait. I have a question. And quite a while, when right now,
stage fright.
Because of the animal that was made, 
well, see, I don’t get a little bit on that level, to a list of the one, last one to go
around back in a minute and give me a hand here?
Will it take this trial? At this? Is the baby high? Time from Southeast Asia! I,
everybody loves babies!
That’s, let’s get this out of the way right now, to put it all together on—
This is the year of the respondents in a,
when the Giants. Liane, I think that we don’t have many friends in the baby.
Well, it is the UN. By the resulting, you know, when taxes is about to ? Nineteen, twenty inches
long.
He grows up very quickly. The first three or four years as snake could conceivably be only
four years old. I think it’s actually a little— I have a question. What, that, it, but, Pat –
what’s that like this, for a fact, that they have?
Sure.
Reviews for the country’s leaders? That I’d like to say.
I’d like to say: that snake like the board. A monster at some point. I think so.
That’s not going to happen.
I have kids out. Take a look, right?
But it’s not . . .
up . . .
well, you know, I, I . . . Take a little break!
And I,
as we go, live to commercial, I. I find out what kids need. To go to bat for. Raise
your hand.
I mean the snake will take you.
We’ll be right back, folks. I think that’s happened.

Late Night with Conan O’Brien is obvious.
It’s not a game.
Hi.
Don’t listen to what is just going to be. And that is: we have funds that, it would be good
timing. What’s your best? Jury is still out. On Tuesday,
all right. Away, and leave those. Rosie Grier is Michael Rappaport, the music of well . . . Co-chair
of the problem, for that matter of high drama, of Frankenstein, least the I’m not—
Don’t know.
I mean, that’s what they said about this? Does it?

Hi. We’re back, everybody.
Now why?
We have a surprise for you, right now.
You kids like surprises. Down! Check
well, that’s right, Fred.
Right now,
we’ve got a parade of sick
exotic birds. I was sick and died. We’re for a— Idea.
Right
for all of us, and say, hey five! For have had to face that. We’ll
take a break.
That fact, that the fate of fact, that,
so when—

(Source. Text is from the “Transcribe Audio” feature; I added capitalization and punctuation because we can’t expect Google to do everything for us.)

conan plays for the kids, part 3 (for raymond roussel)

Anything that you would send, all right,
that’s an earlier time.
Yeah, I know.
Came right.
Well, that’s, that’s,
We have to be quiet. First woman, President,
all right now, settle down.
That is, again, going to play. Using you kids in the audience,
That’s night and day. By not having is this –
we can use
our advanced computer technology
to look into the future and see with these. Kids are going to look. Like
when they get all—
Prentiss, any kids? What it’ll look like when you’re all, for example, let’s
look at this kid right here.
The that, it doesn’t have that. I’ve read a lot.
That’s not right now.
What the Nazis had, a lot like,
her eyes are going to go – look at that, of – are already there,
what I say now. Look like.
All right, and what’s it look like.
I like the cat, that was going to look like. I’m curious, day but you –
she wanted to hear that.
They all feel, is right, that capital of Lhasa, water
and that will be right back. After this break, that followed, thank you very much.

And he’d been,
mmm,
And now, and demand room, and
this is totally easy.
No.

It’s not, so far, we’ve been having a good time here tonight,
but I do have to stress once again, as nice as everyone’s been here,
if someone starts to miss the day,
I don’t want to do it.
But we’re going to have to take them.
Tonight he lands.
That’s right.
Kids, I know it seems,
it seems out, a deal but not. A lady has not been nice. Place
take another look at ninety, when
these—
All right. Did—
Now we’re going to go shopping. Have done,
many still are,
you can only spend five hundred dollars.
I, right,
this is – what? my— As you know, what
the, that’s silly.

Every time I see that, I get children.
All right.
Ladies and gentleman, Nat.
A couple of kids showed up early today. Most kids showed up from their summer camp.
They came back from summer camp to the show today, but up onto the kids, showed up early,
so I decided to give them a tour
of NBC, and that was a lot of fun.
The kids are real sweet. We had a good time.
Take a look at what happened.

No, we’re going to do it today.
I think you guys, it, to work!
Of NBC, that the National Broadcasting Corp., radio,
I had a nice – if any kids act unruly or misbehave, we’re going to have to get it, or
fox.
Pères meeting with Richard Lewis
isn’t really fun. He’s a really new run. A comic is any –
they think he’s really neurotic
there. Are a lot of – power out! There.
you know, “Al Rokar”?
Overruled.
You saw the movie.
Is that? How? Will? Permit? See the star of the movie
in an end.
This is where we did a show. How? This is a way of, sort of, thing.
That is what is right. Their kids,
doesn’t look like it, but the main campaign
and as many. Them? Throughout the whole show.
But it happened.
Is there anything?
Authorities are now, of the study noted. That. So we know. The show is over.
What’s it? Cites the expenses ceiling.
I don’t think that’s the fastest. I can tell you as well.
You going to be the first people
to see my – I – his natural high, 
except for Julia Roberts. Is that what’s next, for better,
what? Exactly. This is what I do, said
right now.
Europe is what I do every night. And I get ready, to the show.
Right now. Everyone is the latest.
The only – all my – do your homework, automated telephone!
And you know, for a very nice,
now you’re a traditional
watch. Clinton wants to know why.
Past that have found the perfect of,
you come back, and address. We need to ask you, right now,
how is the show? And it would all, only, was great. It was great. It was great. You know, you
know what was in, okay.
Let’s try it.
I like. Itself.
See, that’s what it’s like in here after the shells. That goal,
say up, 
I, I did a story thing, up in all of you, go. Well, no, no, no. You’re a genius. You’re a genius.
Now you guys are all working in television.
Now that is
local radio. This is my hero. Do
what’s also in other Roberts, that can!
Good evening.
Well, it’s a separate lives that robbers,
my, for the economy, can’t see right now! It’s about Robert Stack.
The other hand in the wake of the bill that I did in my restaurant that you, don’t worry,
there’s no water, and Stephanie, that,
think: it’s not hard. Once I got heart out,
they got to do. Is a very good. About it’s Saturday night. Live with it.
Senator, I love that,
and it’s a nice place. To the insurance: do not get paid. But they have to do whatever
we say.
And to do whatever we say? Well, let’s take some votes.
Guns, do a lot better!
We want a balance!
We want it!
As a – that, that not or not, I was crying.
Now gone on strike.
That’s right.
So you left. I want to go.
I don’t know.
They want to add that sandy
he; so we is going to work now.
They can’t. What time is it?
That’s right. It’s four o’clock. Yes.
We’re law.
I.

Yeah. I guess I’m going to take a little break right now, but in— The United States will be
right back, talking with us.

(Source. Text is from the “Transcribe Audio” feature; I added capitalization and punctuation because we can’t expect Google to do everything for us.)

conan plays for the kids, part 2 (for raymond roussel)

Any highlight gets you. Ask for it. He really is still not out. Dustin Hoffman as, that’s
not, be everybody, what I did, not
May. God’s side is one of the eight, it said.
It’s a real tree. Having A on the show, you, this amazing work as an actor, and thanks very
much for stopping by.
No knowing, very good map, not been everybody. Get a man.
Staff and without that,
I’ll, all he’s got.
I’m sorry, but we can’t do that.
You want to see about that, at all.
He just got on a bus. See these dogs?
I—
These kids are so much sharper than I thought.
That is right.
Yes, that’s not like the men, and the fact is that up,
I think,
I don’t want to thank. You did not deal and is currently on trial.
We’ve had some fun
up front,
and we, should I say we, have,
so let’s get down now, this is serious.
Business everybody. All right.

Now kids, I asked up front if you read the newspapers, and I know you do.
And you know the biggest news these days continues to be
the budget agreement
worked out last week by Congress.
Not everyone agrees that the big winner
seems to be the President,
the One. Major concessions in several key areas, in tonight,
I thought, would talk to the man himself, and find out
he accomplished all this.
So, a – ladies and gentleman that, kids, boys, and girls, please welcome live via satellite
President Bill Clinton.
It gets well.
I, I, uh, I.
Welcome, Mr. President, but, he added, let’s get that right to it.
That’s not one of the most
surprising victories last week, a mini-battle over welfare reform,
how did you
manage that?
Yet so much,
sir, we don’t,
not cash!
Mr. President!
It is a presidential aide, really, don’t think the media did a, okay, well, I don’t do it!
All we can,
there,
oh, my hand! I was just think I’ll set out to do that.
That’s a long time. And I’ve got, I, the young, instead at, that’s ever played to, the President!
Of the United States! No power at all! Right. Steve Biko. You can’t get, cannot, talk seriously!
For a moment?
I, I wish you would, yes.
I’d like to address this to the young people in our audience.
Kids, you are this country’s future.
And nothing is as important as your own future. Is the ability to read
not just finished? Reading the book myself,
it was called. Forty are dashed to the bathroom, what! Written by William Agee, that—
That’s right, sir, have actually been made. By the way, the Adversary didn’t, that’s our, we,
get back to the budget. All,
I had no idea what they were on. So that everybody in my genes, your goal of this
some of them sure have seen that.
Well, it’s, it’s Vice President Al Gore, kids, yeah!
I am now.
And you know it’s there, in the area.
I had no idea.
Happened that man, not doorman, goers, one voter, boards like bath time. You know what I mean.
That day, our attitude talking about kids always gets into trouble.
But then they always manges to come out on top.
Now your body.
That’s the video. That is a half,
the local, the, your career, really are.
Still, they do, they do.
Yes,
did you?
And then on the route, her aides said – and as the President’s budget, I think we should note – 
that the first man, how about a – little students that come out, buddy!
All rigth, what is that about? By Hamas, Mr. Obama reminds voters that Franken said it.
Is still. Be know.
A guy that’s going to be there, you know. I know.
Now one for me.
Also, it’s got floated. A friend and I want to go out and vote, now we’re all rising. Regroup!
Well, the able.
The marina. That well, and ndash; I think that.
I’ve got to take a break. We’ll be right back. We’ll see you in just a second

Everybody, we are back. 
Act now. Before we go on, I want to warrant.
I want to warn all the kids
in the studio right now
about a very scary monster
that lives right here in the NBC Building. Not, let me
tell you about it,
kids. He’s called the Board A Monster
because he loves the people
who aren’t having any fun.
And you know what that means? Some. What that means. And he, well, that means that a few kids
started, if he’d start getting
border. You started getting too quiet.
Then the monster will come in. We’ll try and get us into a need. Us, all, that’s right in.
He’s not kidding about this state, kids, get the border monster comes.
There’s only one way.
Began to leave us alone.
And that’s to laugh
and clap, as well as you can see the nose.
We’re not really bored.
He hears that, children,
we’re not sure I was going on,
Is that what you want? A while?
Good for you, that was very – voted against them.
By the way,
kids, I dislike you. Know
the border. Months has attacked the show many times of many, many times, the word for you,
now.

That gets out. Let’s get on to the next part of its shell.
My first guest is a founding member of the kids, and all coming true,
and it seems Wednesday night by news radio
here on NBC. Please welcome,
then falling.
I’m entitled to show, well, I think you’re going to die.
I said that, and a hot day.
It’s not a dissident.
It’s a nice change of pace.
It is the end as well for you. You have kids.
And all you have to adapt. This is the rebel for years. It’s just like being on, yeah,
the, I have a – Two-hundred fifty children,
now take a – It felt that I would have thought that they thought, would prevent not to take
very long now,
now first of all. Over it’s a terrific actor.
To Africa in a – By Putin’s to Zimbabwe, Africa,
and, uh, flew in Iran, and then from there went on to spend Christmas at Victoria Falls. For
a problem, that’s very beautiful. That is good.

“Well I, I –”
“Uh huh.”
“It’s sad. Followed: it’s very entertaining and fun.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Exactly.”

(Source. Text is from the “Transcribe Audio” feature; I added capitalization and punctuation because we can’t expect Google to do everything for us.)

conan plays for the kids, part 1 (for raymond roussel)

Well good.
Where have all the field manual,
the Late Night with Conan O’Brien,
by the millions will be on the and like everything,
the use radio,
so it’s not too late for,
from the end of the night use migrant Kandel.
White brethren.
You.

Well the show, ladies and gentlemen, that, what an amazing show, the people tonight,
and ladies, I mean you’re watching, is that show home
on television.
I want you to know right now we have an audience fault.
Of kids, can you solve anything?
It’s going to be fun, and he already had eight all night long hault aids, it’s what we’ve
been aiming for.
The Florida party’s more years we’ve been on, that’s right.
Now kids, I want to start out by asking you a quick question, to read the newspaper today.
We all read the news, right?
Well you know what that is, is in the news today, I’m sure you read it, they have a bank.
To do that is a bank repossessed
O. J. Simpson’s car,
to help pay off its debts.
That really happened out.
Yeah, and that, and said hey, why I’ll tell you why, today he was spotted hitchhiking, really
slowly with Al Cowlings, did you hear that?
I like Ally now, I don’t know what, have you heard this,
but according to a new survey, kids,
Washington, D.C.
is the worst place to raise a family,
that’s right, yeah,
however,
it’s still the best place to raise illegal campaign contributions, not.
It tells them you really angry about that story.
Finally, last thing on the agenda for it, started kids, Barbra Streisand,
the on our front yard all right,
Barbra Streisand
has asked the email works gossip show
not the caller about anymore.
That’s right, she does not want to be called out anymore.
Yet the only problem is
now they’ve started calling her
what we had.

Yeah, I said the best for last.
Alleys and on broke the bank,
all right,
okay.
You guys don’t like that, are at worth of items on tonight show,
kids, this is really exciting, we have
from News Radio, day always with us,
I,
we, also have reptile expert
this guy’s going to bring a lot of reptiles out here, really weird animals,
Clyde killings on the shelf.
I think, kids,
I saved the best for last.
That’s right, cats, less than it was on the show at the end of the program tonight,
from CNN Financial News, at my ranch, and Ally.
Politics is so great, and of course,
Max Weinberg,
and as Max Weinberg Seven, get its own, kids.

Well thank you.
That we got a halve.
We got a lot to talk about here.
It’s nice to get all these kids here, it’s very exciting, and it’s so much more exciting,
normally,
we have adults,
and adults are no good, you have adults are beds, are all right, it’s a great gift to the
best, and I live.
We have an audience, how? They can smell pandering.
Mile away so I can be that, was so low, um hum,
now I’m really excited about this jury, we have up all these, that,
kids in the audience!
And they’re very special. It’s, it’s actually,
it’s a nice group, the kids too.
But you at home watching,
probably they’ll the notice,
the particular different kids in the audience.
But some of these kids
look like real life.
Adults. Celebrities.
Here’s the first. When she looks like a real-life adult celebrity, doesn’t she look like
Claire Danes, not,
yes it is, next to it, but it is that right here,
he’s the spitting image of a, and nearly all in a state, that’s right Ted.
Now. What find effective ways is next, in the one issue they helped a lot.
Yes, it looks so much
like we look, and so from that attack,
not at all happy about it, a now, we’ve got a bunch of cattle, well, what kids? Look at these
kids right here, don’t they look exactly like
this Chrysler looks like that.
Uh, that’s forty-five, and then finally hit last. Get everybody.
We going to be nothing. Seems to have.
It’s almost like Dallas.
The medication, you can take that.
I have kids.
Kids ever once, I don’t have any of this.

Kids were over here.
Top job.
But still going on.
There’s something very important here to talk about, yes.
Oh, we’ve lost the kids in the audience already.
We may still have someone at home.
But up,
you know, we have.
These kids seem pretty nice and well-being, and don’t think they sure do this thing for
the most part pretty well, we’ll be a them,
but actually were a little worried, that maybe just made
some kid might miss the Hague, that sort of thing, and what, do we have a ripple? and
in case somebody does sort of start at the bad, you know, being
to allow this in, that’s right, we do have a, we do have a plan, and (implied) he asked if
the kid,
Miss B. Hayes, tonight in the audience, and I don’t think it’s going to happen, this is such
nice kids, but I think it does misbehave.
We’re going to send that kid 1091,
that’s right.
You don’t have to go out, and not a land and kids,
let me tell you something, you don not want to go to 90 when I don’t want to send
you there.
But I might have to take a look at 90, when
none,
these,
I.

You don’t want to go. Their kids,
and believe me it looks, kind of find that
balloons,
any? No.
We’re doing a huge favor, yeah, I spent, like, about, ten minutes, they’re not, about, would.
He went crazy.
All right now. We got to talk for a second.
Kids, they wanted the show to be. We want because we have kids. You tonight, we wanted to be a
fun show.
So we have a very special surprise. We wanted
a big-time celebrity.
to come on the show, and say hi to all the kids.
This is someone who we’ve never had on this show before.
Dustin Hoffman. Tonight is not amazing. Dustin Hoffman’s going to be there.
Frank Lorenzo, this is really cool, that decided, and our kids, you have a choice.
We want this to be a special show you can’t have. Doesn’t come out as himself.
He can come out
as snooty.
Now what do you want.
Okay, Rik, it’s you. Ask for it.
Gary, as, come on out
Dustin Hoffman. As that Snoopy. Everybody come on, I did not.

(Source. Text is from the “Transcribe Audio” feature; I added capitalization and punctuation because we can’t expect Google to do everything for us.)

march 30–april 4

Books

Exhibits

  • “Marina Abramović: The Artist is Present,” MoMA
  • “Ursula von Rydingsvard: Errātus,” Galerie Lelong
  • “Joseph Beuys: Make the Secrets Productive,” Pace Gallery
  • “Bill Albertini: Space Frame Redux,” Martos Gallery
  • “We Between the Lines,” Morgan Lehman Gallery
  • “Donald Judd and 101 Spring Street,” Nicholas Robinson Gallery
  • “Joan Jonas: Reading Dante III,” Yvon Lambert
  • “Stefan Brüggemann: Headlines & Last Line in the Movies,” Yvon Lambert
  • “Allen Ruppersberg,” Greene Naftali
  • “John Bock,” Anton Kern Gallery
  • “Side by Side: Oberlin’s Masterworks at the Met,” Metropolitan Museum
  • “The Mourners: Medieval Tomb Sculptures from the Court of Burgundy,” Metropolitan Museum
  • “Masterpieces of European Painting from Dulwich Picture Gallery,” Frick

Films

  • The Great Train Robbery, directed by Edwin S. Porter
  • Barbe Bleue (Bluebeard), dir. Catherine Breillat
  • Le mystère Koumiko, dir. Chris Marker
  • 2084, dir. Chris Marker
  • Junkopia, dir., Chris Marker, Frank Simeone & John Chapman
  • L’opéra-mouffe, dir. Agnès Varda
  • Réponse de femmes, dir. Agnès Varda
  • Sweet Movie, dir. Dušan Makavejev
  • My Winnipeg, dir. Guy Maddin
  • Time Bandits, dir. Terry Gilliam
  • Shampoo, dir. Hal Ashby

stanley crawford, “petroleum man”

Stanley Crawford
Petroleum Man
(Overlook, 2005)


It’s a truism that most great artists aren’t nice people, in exactly the same way that most great businessmen aren’t nice people, or in the same way that anyone who’s devoted to one thing above all will prove lacking in the rest of life. One starts thinking about this very quickly when considering the work of Stanley Crawford: because he does seem to be that rare example of the artist who seems to understand the problem of living decently. One reaches this conclusion from his non-fiction work, which focuses on agriculture; but one can also arrive there through his fiction. Almost all of it (Gascoyne, Log of the S. S. The Mrs. Unguentine, Some Instructions, this book) focuses sharply on dictatorial male characters who are set on ruining the world, domestically or more broadly construed, in some way. Travel Notes, his second novel, seems to diverge most widely from this plan, but the narrator of that book might be roped into this schema without too much trouble. Though satirical, Crawford’s monomaniacs might be seen as a critical inquiry: what makes people behave this way? And what can be done about them? Crawford’s own response is a life of rural agrarianism in New Mexico, but his continued treatment of these characters in his fiction suggests that he hasn’t finished trying to understand them as a problem.

Petroleum Man, as its title suggests, is his most explicitly political novel. Published in 2005, it can’t help but be read as a novel of the Bush administration. Leon Tuggs, the protagonists, deprecatingly refers to his adversaries with the specific epithet (a Reaganism?) “liberal democrats” (the italics are his); their opposite numbers are “Conservative Republications“. Tuggs is a close personal friend of the President; by his own account, he is the most wealthy businessman in America (and perhaps the world), having achieved this position by selling something named “the Thingie®” which is made out of wood, and the precise function of which is left unclear (a nod, perhaps, to what is made in Woollett in Henry James’s The Ambassadors); it is, he says, an “unchallenged tool used to keep track of the proliferating things of the world.” His “liberal democrat” son-in-law informs him that there is “a glob of Thingies® all stuck together the size of a small iceberg floating off the coast of Southern California and that Thingies® have cause the death of millions of ocean-going fish by getting stuck in their gills and seabirds by getting caught in their throats” (p. 86) – but Tuggs, every inch the industrial villain, has little time for such concerns. Tuggs writes the book while in the air in his private jets; with an eye to his legacy, he has embarked on a program to give his two grandchildren, Fabian and Rowena, a series of scale models of every car (with a few planes, for good measure) that he’s owned; each model comes with explanatory text telling, at least in part, his life story as well as detailing his ongoing struggles with the rest of his family and the broader world.

Despite having a family, Tuggs is much better with things than with people; his fortune, he explains, stems from his General Theory of Industrial Sex, which mostly goes unexplained, but seems to stem from his observation that since sex can be found everywhere in the metaphors of the industrial world (nuts and bolts, plugs and sockets, etc.) there is no need to look for it in the considerably messier world of people. The position of Tuggs is that of Ayn Rand: he sees a rational world in front of him (found though the lens of engineering), and is purposefully blind to everything outside of that world – his family in the throes of collapse around him. His grandchildren, to whom his narrative is ostensibly dedicated, don’t seem to be interested in the slightest in his educational program, being, as they are, scions of a wealthy family above all else. But telling his life story through cars owned is the only way Tuggs can express himself: his world is the world of things. He yearns for the day when human advance will finally overtake the natural world:

This should be not far off, according to the figures I am being supplied concerning the paving over of raw land and the converting of forests into useful industrial products like Thingies® and the plans for processing useless icebergs into drinking water and – of course – into bags of ice to help counter the effects of global warming, which I have always regarded as yet another business opportunity, perhaps the greatest ever in the history of civilization. At the present moment, the main tool is the computer – which appears to work flawlessly, however, only in the movies. (p. 130)

The discordant introduction of the computer here points out how oddly anachronistic Tuggs seems as a figure of the American businessman: while everything, of course, can be made from petroleum, his fixation on the thing (as opposed to the human) seems out of place in an American economy that’s increasingly virtualized. His hated son-in-law, a lawyer for an investment, might point the way forward: like most financiers, Chip (note the name, of course) produces nothing but the abstraction of more wealth. (Fabian and Rowena, the reader assumes, probably will never bother to actually have jobs; they trade away their collection of laboriously constructed metal models of their grandfather’s cars for cheap plastic copies and cash to make up for their lack of an allowance.) There’s something almost laudable in Tuggs’s function as a producer: he is monstrous, but in his ridiculousness he is a comprehensible figure: we can see how he arrived where he is. His position at the end of the book is predictable: though he is more wealthy than ever, his family refuses to speak to him, and his long-suffering wife is suing him for “being the source of a drift onto her organic fields of illegal pesticides or herbicides or other substances not approved for organic production” when thousands of miniature hamburgers dropped from helicopters fail to hit his birthday party, as intended.

It’s always surprising how few American novels are about the mechanisms of capitalism and its effect on the businessman: off the top of my head, there’s The Rise of Silas Lapham, Melville’s “The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids,” Nathanael West’s A Cool Million, Gaddis’s J R, Richard Powers’s Gain. It’s a big subject: there should be more.

henry green, “doting”

Henry Green
Doting
(Penguin, 1952)


I’ve been slowly working my way through Henry Green – slowly here partly because I want it to last, and partly because I’ve been slowing my reading down this past year. Doting is Green’s last full novel, but the middle of Penguin’s second omnibus, now seemingly out of print. It’s odd that Living / Loving / Party Going seem to be the Green novels that everyone reads; Dalkey Archive keeps most of the rest in print, but they don’t seem to sell nearly as well as the Penguin Classics; there’s an order of magnitude of difference in the Amazon sales rankings. Does a John Updike introduction really get you that far? Blindness is clearly juvenilia, but Nothing and Doting are as funny and well-plotted as anything in Living / Loving / Party Going. Maybe it’s just that American readers are suspicious of small novels.

Doting follows on from Nothing: like that book, it might be described as a romantic comedy composed of a series of scenes set between two characters. It’s a light subject – and it’s a book that can be read quickly – but not without an undercurrent of sadness that comes out from time to time. The book begins with the middle-aged Arthur and Diana Middleton out for a celebratory dinner at a nightclub with their son Peter, who’s home in London on vacation from boarding school, along with Annabel Paynton, a few years older than Peter and the only daughter of friends of the Middletons (who remain only a threat for the duration of the novel). What she’s doing there isn’t entirely clear to the reader: while she’s almost the same age as Peter, she seems much more interested in his parents, and Arthur, though he has known her since she was a child, is suddenly interested in her. 

The stage is set for a rectangle of relationships; but Peter is soon shoved aside, being sent off to Scotland, and replaced by Charles Addinsell, Arthur’s best friend. (The names, it should go without saying, bear inspection: the Middletons are set up as being a very ordinary couple, Ann functions as a pain in their marriage. “Addinsell” suggests math and business; he’s substituted into a zero-sum game.) Arthur falls for Ann, and starts taking her out to lunch; she is happy to have lunch bought for her & tells her friend Claire that she’s interested in older men. Diana catches Arthur and Claire in a compromising situation when she’s supposed to be going to Scotland with Peter; she goes to confide in Charles and begins an affair of her own with him, although nothing is consummated, to the chagrin of Charles. Ann, jealous of Diana’s place, suggests to Arthur that Diana is having an affair with Charles; this does not displace Arthur but draws him back to Diana, who then tries to pass off Ann on Charles. This succeeds; Arthur then finds himself jealous again, as does Diana. Things carry on: Diana tries to split up Charles and Ann by introducing Charles to Ann’s friend Claire. This set-up works: and by the time the novel closes, with the original foursome back at another nightclub for a last dinner before Peter returns to school, the reader has the sense that everything has returned itself to the original state. Except not quite.

As one might expect, there’s a fair amount of lying in this book, which becomes rather convoluted. Here Arthur is trying to find out if Diana has told Charles anything about what she saw when she caught him with Ann:

“. . . . But she hasn’t said a word?”
“She wouldn’t, Diana couldn’t,” his guest lied in a flat voice. “Her loyalty’s like an oyster, and you’d cut yourself if you tried to open it with an opener.”
“Yet there are men who deal with dozens a minute out of a barrel.”
“Oh,” Mr Addinsell objected, “then, I imagine, they’ve all got their cards, are members of the Union. Any pearls they may find have to go to the credit of the Benefit Fund.” (p. 249)

There are several layers at work here: first, of course, Charles is lying in his response to Arthur’s question, because Diana has said something to him: Diana told Charles that she found Arthur in bed with Ann. Arthur previously told Charles what actually happened – Ann was trying to get a coffee stain out of her skirt, though they had been kissing – so Charles knows that one of them must be lying; as he knows them well, he probably knows that it’s Diana. But there’s also indirection in Charles’s answer: he doesn’t give Charles a flat-out yes or no – Arthur’s question, formulated in the negative, resists such an answer – rather, Charles falls back on generalizations about how Diana’s behavior, which he knows to be false. On another level, though, Diana is loyal: for a comedy based on the threat of adultery, no adultery actually takes place, though there’s every opportunity for it. Rather, Arthur and Diana’s marriage appears to be incredibly stable, like Charles’s oyster: they do appear to genuinely love each other.

Have things returned to normal at the end of this book? Charles, who seems like the force most likely to destabilize the Middleton’s marriage, has been taken out of play with the conveniently available Claire. In the final scene, the foursome has become six, joined by Charles and Claire; but there’s the sense of a lack of closure. The object of Ann’s affection may have moved on from Arthur, though it’s unclear that Arthur is entirely over his infatuation with her; and Diana still seems to feel pangs of jealousy watching Charles and Claire. Peter has been promised wrestling at the nightclub; the wrestlers never arrive:

“. . . . Well, you know, Di, I’m wondering if there is to be any tonight, when all’s said and done.”
“Oh no, Arthur! After you promised those wrestlers to Peter?”
“But if they are to show up, they’re being a bit slow about it, surely?”
“In any case, he can’t have anything. Now should he, Charles?” the mother said, using a suddenly bored voice.
“Got to learn to go without,” Mr Addinsell agreed. (p. 332)

And here (a few page later) the book ends: the situation is unresolvable, but it must be resolved; life has to continue.