Cat Show. 4/30/2021
Cat Show. April 30, 2021. (Good Friday According to The Orthodox Calendar).
VG: Why do demagogues, populists, and other BS artists prefer morning over evening, rise over fall, light over darkness? Is it some sort of a Freudian slip? Lucifer’s name comes from Luce—light after all. The “carrier of light,” so to speak. And we all know what kind of light he's carried.
HOBBS: Are you referring to the recent Biden “Madam Speaker, Madam Vice-President Speech”? Oh, ye, it was earth-shattering. He really showed them, when he declared that “America is rising anew… choosing hope over fear, truth over lies, and light over darkness.” Gee, what a tough choice, yet, we did it again! The Old Joe DeMagogio has really delivered a home run with this one. I especially liked how he exposed the US enemies: “America’s adversaries — the autocrats of the world” –when he painted this picture of nasty autocrats betting that “our democracy can’t deliver,” as if they were the bunch of gamblers coming to Las Vegas to win. One thing is clear: it matters not who wins the bet, Joe's democracy or these little dirty autocrats. Las Vegas is a winner in any case.
ALICE: I can’t deal with this sexist diatribe so early in the morning. This collection of Madams captures the spirit of the age and the spirit of our supreme chamber better than anything. The new sheriff is in town and her name is Madam Vice. So you guys better get on with the program if you don’t want to be treated like a black kid by Chicago cops. And that’s what in store for all those retrogrades like you from now on. And that's exactly what Biden told Putin: no more getting away with your tricks.
HOBBS: Vladimir, had Alice been on this ridiculous marathon fasting with you? Her brain desperately needs Omega-3 acids and phosphorus that only fish contains. Enough already, I worry about Alice. The other day she told me that she prefers female dogs to male cats. How do you like that?
VG: Alice, you can’t really defend this demagoguery. “America’s adversaries — the autocrats of the world.” Haven’t we heard this before? “Soviet Union's adversaries — the capitalists of the world,” “Germany’s adversaries — the Judeo-Bolsheviks of the world,” “Israel’s adversaries — the Anti-Semites of the world.” This Manichean worldview is really pathetic; it testifies only to the mutual senility of Biden and his sycophant press.
ALICE: You guys fail to see the big picture, the true historical shifts behind these occasional slips of a tongue or foot that any old man can do. Vladimir can testify to that. Finally, our political leaders look, speak, and think like America. No more white men in charge. We have a true rainbow coalition out there and that makes me proud and hopeful. It is Springtime for Biden and Democrats, as they sing in an old Broadway song.
HOBBS: It is springtime for Amazon and FB. And Pfizer and Microsoft. And Google and Apple. These guys are raking it in, fooling everyone with their pseudo caring, pseudo community standards, pseudo empathy that camouflages cynicism, contempt, and snitching. Alison mentioned historic shifts. How do we know what’s historic? Bruegel’s famous painting, Procession to Calvary, got it right. What’s important and historic for people at the moment is their immediate needs and concerns, which rarely coincide with a true history, always unfolding in the background. It takes time to reveal the truth.
VG: Interesting point, Hobbs. People have persecuted truth, joined the mobs, betrayed, denied, and washed their hands off for centuries. Yet, at one moment, these not particularly original events entered history and gained their place in our consciousness forever. Bulgakov shared Bruegel’s outlook and gave it a contemporary twist in his immortal Master and Margarita, which describes two Easters, in Moscow circa 1930, and the original one, in Jerusalem of AD 33. I wonder what it takes to be able to see things in a historic perspective at the moment when they unfold. According to Bruegel and Bulgakov, most of the people can’t do that. Yet, some do. Why? How?
ALICE: You two obviously can’t, because you are self-absorbed and obsessive. All you can think about is Russophobia, Western Corruption, and evil NATO. That’s why you mock Greta and other equally self-absorbed and obsessive people, who simply get obsessed over different things, like making everyone wear masks and hide their faces. While in my book masks are historic. Cute face had always enabled dirty men to objectify women, turn them into sex objects. Furthermore, some defenders of face fetishism declare that a face is a window to a soul --another retrograde concept exploited by patriarchy. I say, down with faces and up with the masks.
HOBBS: All I hear from Alice recently is hostility and canceling. She sounds like a maniac incapable of loving. Love, as we know from the greats, enables one to see beyond the surface. You, Vladimir, asked as to why and how some people can see beyond their immediate concerns. It is because they love. And love is transcending, and liberating, and eye-opening. Among those who were in Jerusalem -- Jews, Romans, Greeks, Canaanites —some did love and trusted this strange disheveled dude who delivered some paradoxical teachings in his northern provincial accent. While others just saw a nuisance, a troublemaker. As a black cat, I fully understand this predicament, of which Alice is totally unaware. Most people when they look at me, run away: black cat means trouble; it is bad news, it’s evil. They turn away and throw something at me. It takes a loving eye to recognize that I am more than that. Yes, I do scratch furniture or throw up on clean rugs. But I am not an adversary! I can be a source of great joy.
VG: Ok, ok, Hobbs. You've pleaded your case well. Just a few more days, and you’ll get the best salmon slice money can buy.
