Phineas at Bay: A Tasting Menu Redux

Between the announcement that I will be speaking at the Trollope Society's annual dinner and letter to the editor of the NYT Book Review,We've had a lot of interest in Phineas at Bay the past two weeks.

Needless to say, I'm delighted. And the spike in sales was very welcome. But, I'd like to encourage the curious who have not yet taken the plunge.

So, to whet the appetite, here is the opening:

PHINEAS AT BAY

Prologue

Mr. Quintus Slide, newly returned from nearly two decades in Australia, where he had been fortunate enough to earn a considerable sum of money, surveyed his newly re-acquired kingdom. Many would have thought that the making of a fortune was enough to justify a man’s career, and would lead one to forget old grudges. Not Quintus Slide. He had been, until the mid-1870s, the editor of The People’s Banner, and when he had lost his job at the broadsheet for going past the line of scandal permitted even the second tier of journalism, it had rankled. So he had written a few scurrilities about a Duchess? As if that mattered, even if she was married to the Prime Minister! The Banner’s proprietor at the time had been weak-willed enough to give Slide the push, making him unemployable, thanks to his editorial zeal in doing the competition down.

With nowhere to go, he fled to the Antipodes, and had profited handsomely; his school of journalism seemed to take root and flourish quite naturally in Australia. And now, he had sold up, bought the Banner outright, and was proprietor and editor both. An unpleasant smile creased his face, and, walking into his old digs in the editor’s office, he called for his secretary.

“Miss Allen!”

“Mr. Slide?” Miss Allen was a petite, handsome woman, whose severe, almost predatory, face was framed by auburn hair and the spiked tips of the winged collars on her blouses. Her rare smiles showed that she could, under different auspices, have been taken for beautiful. As it was, she remained both handsome and a little chilling. Smoothing her tailored skirts to guard against the untidiness she so hated, she seated herself in the chair opposite him on the other side of her desk.

“The file, Miss Allen. Tell me what you have found out about them.”

“Very good, Mr. Slide. You have asked me to research several individuals, and their current status or involvement from a political or social point of view. These individuals were all, I believe known, to you in your previous tenure as editor.”

“Yes, yes; what have you found?”

“Shall we begin at the social summit? His Grace Plantagenet Palliser, the Duke of Omnium. Liberal Member of the House of Commons for Silverbridge, until his uncle the prior Duke died, Prime Minister of the Coalition Government from 187--”

“I know all that, Miss Allen. Since the Coalition?”

“The Duke and his Duchess, Lady Glencora M’Cluskie as was, took an extended tour of the Continent when the Coalition fell. During that tour, the Duchess took sick, and died.”
“Good.”

“Indeed, Mr. Slide? My researches reflect that the Duchess was quite popular.”

“Not with me she b----y wasn’t. What next?”

“The Duke has effectively retired from politics since then—he held office in the early ‘80s, in Mr. Monk’s last Government, as President of the Board of Trade--”

“Rather beneath a Duke, eh, Miss Allen?”

“True, Mr. Slide. My informants tell me that the Duke hungered to be Chancellor of the Exchequer or even Prime Minister again, but the former position is barred to a member of the Lords, and as to the latter, the Duke is respected, but not popular.”

“No second go for Planty Pall, then. Good!”

“His children are all married: Lord Silverbridge to the daughter of the American Ambassador shortly after the fall of the Omnium Government, Lady Mary to Francis Tregear, Conservative M.P. for Polpenno--”

“Popinjay, more like! And how the Duke must hate having a Tory son-in-law! Go on, Miss Allen, go on.”

“And Lord Gerald Palliser to Lady Agnes Kirkness.”

“Never ’eard of ’er.”

“From Scotland, Mr. Slide.”

“Well, that explains that. What about”—and here Mr. Slide’s voice took on an especially eager, rather unpleasant tone, “Mr. Phineas Finn?”

“Mr. Finn held office under Mr. Monk—he was Secretary for Ireland, and First Lord of the Admiralty, as under Omnium. He might have risen further, but Mr. Monk’s retirement due to ill health led to a new Government, and Mr. Finn was not given office. Mr. Gresham did not approve of his independence.”

“Ha! No more did he in the old days. What about now? He used to be thick with Barrington Erle.”

“They remain on amicable terms, Mr. Slide, but Mr. Finn’s independence does not appear to please the Prime Minister any more than it did his predecessor.”

“I should have known. Erle always valued loyalty above all else.”

“He still does. One of my informants tells me that he was overheard at the theater saying that Richard III couldn’t have been as bad as he is painted, since his motto was Loyaulte me lie.”

“Eh?”

“‘Loyalty binds me.’ You were particularly interested, Mr. Slide, as to whether there were any connection between Mr. Finn and any ladies.”

“Yes, well?”

“No hint of any impropriety. Mr. Finn appears in public quite often with his wife, the former Marie Goesler, who was in former days commonly styled Madame Max Goesler. She was very close with the late Duchess of Omnium. Mr. and Mrs. Finn appear to be well-suited. His niece, an orphan, lives with them. He spends most of his time in the House, in chambers, or at the law courts.”

“Eh, Finn, practicing at the bar? But his wife’s as rich as Croesus!”

“Yes, Mr. Slide, and very actively engaged in her business. She has prospered these past five years, especially, although I have not been able to trace all her interests. A formidable woman.”

“Takes one to know one, Miss Allen.”

Bowing her head in acknowledgment of the compliment, Miss Allen resumed her report.
“Mr. Finn appears to have taken over his pupil-master’s practice.”

“Probably got the bug after he was acquitted.”

“You mean of the murder charges, Mr. Slide? Yes, no evidence has ever been found to establish who murdered the Duke’s proposed successor as Chancellor of the Exchequer, a Mr. Wilfred Bonteen. Mr. Finn’s innocence having been established, suspicion rested for a time on a clergyman, the Reverend Joseph Emilius, but nothing could be proved against him.”

“Nothing, d’you say? He was convicted of bigamy, at any rate.”

“Yes, leading to the dissolution of his marriage to Lady Elizabeth Eustace.”

“A rum customer herself, Miss Allen—almost certainly stole diamonds from the family she married into, and then had ’em stolen from her—what I calls poetic justice.”

“Yes, Mr. Slide. The bigamy conviction was vacated when the sole witness recanted her testimony, and Mr. Emilius disappeared shortly thereafter.”

“Nothing between Finn and Lady Laura Kennedy? He interfered in her marriage, I know that, though not how, or how much. Her husband went mad, you know, as a result. Aye, and then died, poor d---l.”

“Lady Laura lives a quiet life, Mr. Slide. She was, it is said, her cousin Barrington Erle’s principal tutor in politics, and it’s also said that he owes his premiership to her, but that he sees her seldom these days.”

“A falling out, Miss Allen?”

“I do not think so, Mr. Slide. She sees the Prime Minister periodically. He seems simply to feel no longer in need of her tutelage.”

“And Finn?

“Normally sees her at family gatherings of the Brentford family. The current Earl of Brentford, the former Lord Chiltern, is a good friend of Mr. Finn’s, and the two families spend a fair amount of time together. Indeed, Mr. Finn is godfather to the current Lord Chiltern.”

“A Papist godfather to the heir presumptive of an earldom! What’s the world coming to, Miss Allen? I ask you, what’s the world coming to?”

“The godson has possibilities, Mr. Slide. He is often in the company of ladies of a bohemian tendency, and proclaims himself a socialist. He declines to use his title, in fact.”

“Oh, yes?”

“And he is, lately, often to be seen in the company of Lady Eustace.”

“Really?” Mr. Slide stretched out the word to twice its normal length, chewing it over as though it were a particularly succulent bit of toffee, and added, “And her old enough to be his mother, and a bit of a naughty one, if I remember aright. Yes, that could be quite useful, Miss Allen.”

“I am glad to hear it, Mr. Slide.”

“Keep yer feelers out there, Miss Allen. The People’s Banner is back in business, and Quintus Slide has a few scores to settle, if he can.”

Post-text, Pastiche, Even Call it Fanfiction; It's All Rock and Roll to Me: A Note on Trollope Country

When I told one friend, early in the drafting, about Phineas at Bay, he was decidedly unimpressed at the idea.

"So," he said, gently enough, "you're spending your time writing Nineteenth Century fan fiction."

At the time I was a bit defensive, but let's think about that for a moment.

Yeah, I guess that's true--I am a fan of Trollope's writing, I am continuing his storyline and using his characters, in an effort to create a reading experience that feels like a natural extension of his work, while remaining true to my own authorial instincts and drive.

In literary criticism, of course, a less judgmental term, post-text, is used. And that works too--it's broader than the kind of direct sequel that I have undertaken, but would certainly encompass it.

But I'm not ashamed to be writing a post-text, or, for that matter, Trollope fan fiction, if you wish to call it that. Because frankly the genre has a long and honorable history. There have been many versions of the Oedipus story, and its offshoots--Jean Anouilh's Antigone, in which the great dramatist cast the eponymous heroine as the Frendh Resistance, Creon as the Nazi Occupation, and the guards as the collaborators (I played the main guard in a production in college), and did so in such a compelling manner that both sides embraced it. Or think of Eugene O'Neill's Mourning Becomes Electra, openly a reworking of The Oresteia. More modern works abound--George MacDonald Fraser's twelve volumes of the Flashman Papers are a post-text to Tom Brown's School Days, with stops along the way at The Prisoner of Zenda.

So, no shame here.

The phrase "Trollope Country," used as part of the title of my forthcoming talk at the annual dinner this year of the Trollope Society USA originated in discussion of on the online reading group, Trollope and His Contemporaries, and was coined by Trollope scholar Ellen Moody. She used it to denote both the familiar territory comprised by the Barsetshire and Palliser novels but also the less familiar, more atypical locations and milieus in which Trollope's less comfortable, less widely read novels are set--Prague, in the case of Nina Balatka, or revolutionary France as explored in La Vendee.

Often post-texts are discussed in terms of working in the "world" or "land" of the original authors. But something about Ellen's coinage of "Trollope Country" struck me. It took me a while to think of it, but it led me to a thought by that earlier continuator, George MacDonald Fraser in his underrated novel Mr. American (1980). The novel, told in the third person (and thus outside of the Flashman Papers, which are ostensibly Flashman's memoirs, although Flashy puts in an appearance), involves an American westerner who comes to his family's ancestral home in England. The passage that Ellen's coinage put me in mind of was this discussion between the protagonist, Mark Franklin, and his soon-to-be father-in-law, Sir Charles Clayton:

"You like land, Mr. Franklin?"

Mr. Franklin gave the question his usual careful concentration, and replied: "Yes, I guess so. I don't exactly think of it as land, though. We call it country."

Sir Charles laughed pleasantly, and nodded. "There speaks the new world. When it has been enclosed, and worked and farmed for centuries,it's land; when it's open, unbroken, waiting to be possessed, it's country.

And that's the thing about Trollope Country--it's country the way Fraser has his characters use the word. Oh, Angela Thirkell appropriated the geography of Barsetshire, and, toward the end of her writing career, she employed as characters descendants of Trollope's characters, but--well, honestly, her characters are not his,her concerns only incidentally overlap his, and she's only taken a tiny slice of Trollope Country and tried too make it land. As I have previously noted, Ronald Knox's Barchester Pilgrimage gives us only fleeting glimpses of Trollope's characters, and moves swiftly to later generations. (Fair dos: He does a nice job, through, in evoking an older version of la Signorina Madeline Vesey Stanhope Neroni, whose charms briefly bewitch John Bold the Younger--the story that comes closest to being a sequel to Trollope's own work in the collection.)

No, Trollope Country is wide open. In the words of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Trollope Country is "just as real as if some giant had hewn a great lump out of the earth and put it under a glass case, with all its inhabitants going about their daily business, and not suspecting that they were made a show of.”

It's wide open. Adaptations give the extant texts a new spin, new viewpoints, subtle changes, but there is room enough for a myriad of different perspectives and takes. In her essay on Phineas at Bay, Ellen wrote that the novel presents "a world just begun, meant to be continued and invites others to do likewise."

Just so. Just so.

Anglocat at the Feast: Speaking at the Trollope Society

From The Trollope Society USA:

2015 Annual Dinner
May 18 @ 6:45 pm - 10:00 pm | $150
“I Run After Units”: Returning to Trollope Country

Our Speaker: John Wirenius, Author of Phineas at Bay

The title of the address that our speaker, John Wirenius, has prepared for our Annual Dinner comes from Lady Glencora’s admonition to her husband in Phineas Redux: “We must go after our nature, Plantagenet. Your nature is decimals. I run after units.” Wirenius’s experiences in his early career as a public defender, and in recognizing his own call to the Church, were informed, he says, by Trollope’s compassion for flawed humanity. This empathy extends to characters others would relegate to the category of simple villains, but as Trollope observed in He Knew He Was Right, “The good and the bad mix themselves so thoroughly in our thoughts, even in our aspirations, that we must look for excellence rather in overcoming evil than in freeing ourselves from its influence.” With this view firmly in mind, Wirenius has continued the story of Phineas Finn, his wife Marie, and their friends (and enemies) in Phineas at Bay (2014). Wirenius picks up twenty years after Phineas’s acquittal for murder, deftly weaving a tale that involves a number of favorite characters from the Trollope canon with elements of romance, political intrigue, and labor strife.

The dinner will be held on May 18, 2015 at The Knickerbocker Club, 807 Fifth Avenue at 62nd Street, New York, NY. The reception will begin at 6:45 p.m., with dinner following at 7:15 p.m.

John WireniusJohn Wirenius is a lawyer and will be ordained as a deacon in the Episcopal Church in May 2015. He is the author of a series of scholarly articles on freedom of speech, legal history, and, most recently, of theology and the intersection of law and religion. His love for Anthony Trollope’s writing dates back to his first year of college, where, as an English major, he stumbled on first the Barsetshire and then the Palliser novels. Phineas at Bay is his second book, and first novel.

I am very honored to be asked to speak at the dinner of the Society, which not only promotes scholarship and discussion of the great Victorian writer's work, but does so with warmth and wit.

If you are interested in attending, you can register here. I can't guarantee the quality of the speaker--but the company will be superb.

By the bye, Amazon rankings fluctuate wildly enough to give an author agony and ecstasy in a short period. I'm currently ranked #35,789 in Books--by tonight I could sink below the 1 million mark. But for now, just for now, mind you, my sales are better than abject.

Something to savor.

Letter to the NYT Book Review On Marriage, Trollope & Phineas at Bay

From the letters page of the New York Times Book Review:

Bookends: Marriage

To the Editor:

I enjoyed Charles McGrath’s penetrating analysis of the marriage of Lady Glencora and Plantagenet Palliser, later the Duke of Omnium (Bookends, Feb. 15), but was surprised he did not point out how Trollope sets their marriage in counterpoint to the much less conventional pairing of Marie “Madame Max” Goesler and Phineas Finn. That happy couple constitutes a rare instance of a Victorian novelist celebrating the union of two outsiders — a Viennese Jewish widow and an Irish Roman Catholic — who become insiders, and their story takes center stage in two of the six novels.

The continuing fortunes and misfortunes of Phineas, Marie, the Duke and other characters from the Palliser books have become the subject of an intriguing follow-up novel, John Wirenius’s recently published "Phineas at Bay," set roughly 10 years after the end of the series. Wirenius’s book not only continues the story but fleshes out Trollope’s hints regarding the marriage of Marie and Phineas in a credible way, as well as providing an amusing subplot featuring everyone’s favorite adventuress, Lizzie Eustace (who made off with the eponymous diamonds in Book 3 of the series), and her former husband Joseph Emilius, who is not, as it turns out, quite as former as Lizzie thinks.

“Phineas at Bay” also movingly depicts the Duke’s life after his children are all married, and how he ultimately comes to terms with life after Lady Glencora’s death. Like Tolstoy, Trollope paints on a broad canvas and gives us characters who are first, last and always true to the drives and motivations their creator envisioned as he constructed them as lively and vivid individuals.

KAREN CLARK
NEW YORK

That's awfully nice to see in print, and I can only quote Michelle Gomez's Missy, "That is a good point well made. I'm proud of you, sister."

In Memoriam, Edward, Cardinal Egan

I note with regret the death today of Edward, Cardinal Egan:

Cardinal Edward M. Egan, a stern defender of Roman Catholic orthodoxy who presided over the Archdiocese of New York for nine years in an era of troubled finances, changing demographics and a priesthood of dwindling, aging ranks shaken by sexual-abuse scandals, died on Thursday in Manhattan. He was 82.

***
His tenure in New York had mixed reviews. His priority was to restore financial stability to the deficit-ridden archdiocese, and he did it by closing or merging parishes and schools and by raising millions from corporations and wealthy laymen. But he also drew bitter complaints from affected parishioners and priests. He tried to recruit more priests, but with little success.

And as the sexual-abuse scandal widened, he tried to protect the church from liability. In Bridgeport, he was accused of withholding information about accused priests and moving some from parish to parish. In New York, he gave prosecutors files on accused priests, but critics said he was slow and reluctant to act.

All true, and Cardinal Egan's record regarding the sex abuse crisis was distinctly poor, though not among the worst. (He, and his generation, were particularly prone to the clericalism I have chronicled elsewhere.) It is a blot on his escutcheon, no doubt.

But the rather chilly obituary leaves out a facet of Cardinal Egan I had the opportunity to glimpse, and serves as a reminder, particularly timely as we near the end of the second week of Lent: We are none of us reducible to our worst acts.

Just about 4 years ago, I spoke at a conference at St. John's University Law School (details here; my own contribution here, or here).

Anyway, Cardinal Egan was the keynote speaker, and he was quite good. Not just in his manner, but he spoke, with a genuine passion, of the Catholic Church's social justice teaching, and of the importance of labor having a voice. (A brief account is here, a fuller version, but behind a paywall, here.)

After his lecture, in the Q-and-A, a young priest--an Opus Dei type (trust me, I'd been sitting one row above him all day)--clearly upset to be challenging a Prince of the Church, but shocked at the "liberal" views the Cardinal had expressed, asked horror-struck, "But--Your Eminence--how can we afford to pay for the higher wages collective bargaining leads to--especially in the public sector?"

Clearly appalled, the Cardinal wasted not a second: "We can begin by ending these damned unlawful wars, to start," he grated out, with a what-is-the-matter-with-you-anyway expression on his face.

At the end of the Q-and-A, the Cardinal greeted attendees. He had mentioned in his lecture a book that sounded useful to me, but I'd missed the title, so I approached him, a trifle shyly. I mean, c'mon. I was raised Roman Catholic, and this was my first meeting with a Cardinal, after all. I introduced myself, and the Cardinal asked who I was. I explained my talk (it was on social justice in Anglican Anglo-Catholic theology), and asked about the book. After shaking my hand, and regretting that he'd missed my talk (he'd been attending a panel himself), he whistled up his secretary.

"Can you hunt out a copy of the Compendium on Social Doctrine for this young man?" He asked.

It was an unexpected kindness, and most generously done, for a stranger belonging to a different communion.

Not bad, Your Eminence.

Rest in Peace.

It's a Fool's Game

From Lewis Carroll, Through The Looking-Glass:

When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’

’The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’

’The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.”

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments today in King v. Burwell, a challenge to the provision of the Affordable Care Act that the Obama Administration has read to allow federal subsidies under the Act to purchasers of insurance enrolling in federally created exchanges in states which chose not to set up their own state-run exchanges (34 of them).

The challengers, recruited by conservative activists who hope to send the ACA into a "death spiral", may not even have standing, as came up today in oral argument. In any event, their theory of the case turns on reading the section subsidies will be provided through an "exchange established by the state" in isolation from the rest of the text, on the theory that it is the only operative language, and, as such, is unambiguous (and thus not warranting deference to the administrative interpretation that treats federally-created exchanges in such states as the functional equivalent of an exchange established by the state itself). In short: no subsidies for those receiving insurance through the federal exchanges.

Now, this is a question on which the conservative justices have not been silent. As I pointed out back in November, the dissenters in NFIB v. Sebelius, in an opinion by Justice Scalia, contrasted the Medicaid expansion provisions (deemed by them to be unconstitutionally coercive) with the federal exchanges at issue here:

If Congress had thought that States might actually refuse to go along with the expansion of Medicaid, Congress would surely have devised a backup scheme so that the most vulnerable groups in our society, those previously eligible for Medicaid, would not be left out in the cold. But nowhere in the over 900-page Act is such a scheme to be found. By contrast, because Congress thought that some States might decline federal funding for the operation ofa “health benefit exchange,” Congress provided a backup scheme; if a State declines to participate in the operation of an exchange, the Federal Government will step inand operate an exchange in that State. See 42 U. S. C. §18041(c)(1). Likewise, knowing that States would not necessarily provide affordable health insurance for aliens lawfully present in the United States—because Medicaid does not require States to provide such coverage—Congress extended the availability of the new federal insurance subsidies to all aliens. See 26 U. S. C. §36B(c)(1)(B)(ii) (excepting from the income limit individuals who are “not eligible for the medicaid program . . . by reason of [their] alien status”). Congress did not make these subsidies available for citizens with incomes below the poverty level because Congress obviously assumed that they would be covered by Medicaid. If Congress had contemplated that some of these citizens would be left without Medicaid coverage as a result of a State’s withdrawal or expulsion from the program, Congress surely would have made them eligible for the tax subsidies provided for low-income aliens.

(Dissent sec. IV(E)(2)) (emphasis added))

Later in the opinion, in discussing severability, Justice Scalia's opinion--joined by Justices Thomas, Kennedy, and Alito--makes clear that the financial burden of the subsidies under the exchanges is a reason for finding the whole statute unconstitutional. The dissent does not suggest that federal exchanges are not encompassed in the universe of those receiving subsidies, which makes sense, because they would be ineffective as a "backup scheme" if such was the case.

So who's surprised that the conservatives will almost certainly read the statute in a manner clearly opposite to their dissent only three years ago?

At argument today, Justices Scalia and Alito were newly skeptical of the Administration's argument, with Scalia saying:

I mean it may not be the statute they intended. The question is whether it's the statute that they wrote. I mean, you know, there ­­ there ­­ there are no
provisions in the statute that turn out to be ill [-] ill­considered and ill ­­[-]ill­conceived.

. . . .

Is it not the case that if the only reasonable interpretation of a particular provision produces disastrous consequences in the rest of the statute, it nonetheless means what it says. Is that true or not?

(Tr. 45-47)

When the Solicitor General pointed out that that principle is delimited by the Court's duty to harmonize the provisions of a statute, Scalia replied:

Well, I disagree with that. You have a single case in which we have said the provision is not ambiguous, it means this thing, but, Lord, that would make a terrible statute, so we will interpret it to mean something else. Do you have one case where we've ever said that?

The Solicitor General did, in fact, have such a case. (Tr 48) Justice Scalia did not address it.

Likewise, Justice Alito:

Well, the puzzle that's created by ­­ by your interpretation is this: If Congress did not want the phrase "established by the State" to mean what that would normally be taken to mean, why did they use that language? Why didn't they use other formulations that appear elsewhere in the Act? Why didn't they say, "established under the Act"? Why didn't they say, "established within the State"? Why didn't they include a provision saying that an Exchange established by HHS is a State Exchange when they have a provision in there that does exactly that for the District of Columbia and for the territories? It says that they are deemed to be States for purposes of this Act.

(Tr. 60)

No wonder Laurence Tribe gave up halfway through writing a third edition of his seminal treatise on constitutional law; it was predicated on the notion that there was an actual good faith effort on the part of the justices to construe the legal instruments before them, and not to carve their own policy--or, worse, political, preferences into the law.

Bonnie Tyler may have been the more prescient legal commenter.

Statler or Waldorf?

On a 3 hour train trip (I know!) tonight, we were fairly crowded--every seat taken.

In the 4 pack seat directly in front of me was an older lady, a psychologist by trade, with some hearing issues, and her daughter. Seated opposite them, when we left, was a lung man, a college student, and his friend. They engaged in a spirited conversation for the first hour of the trip, quite loudly for the benefit of the hearing-impaired psychiatrist. After a bracing description of his high school career--the more talkative of the two appears to have attended Kellenberg Memorial High School, and to have studies under an old friend of mine, so the conversation had, at least some interest. (They spoke highly of my old friend, I am glad to say.) But it quickly turned sour. They were plumbing his mother issues, at full length, and at full volume.

I restrained myself. As did my neighbor, a lady younger than I by a few years.

I tried to concentrate on the first of two novels I had brought with me, a rather twee effort by a well-reputed writer. I managed to finish it.

And then the two youths left at the halfway point. Only for two more to take their place. College students, that is. Again, one talker, one silent type. The talker was in ROTC at whatever institute of learning he attended, and wanted to be praised for his aggressiveness.

The older psychologist batted him around a bit, calling him "passive aggressive" and exploring his fixation with needing praise from strangers. Again, at full volume.

After about an hour of this, I leaned over to my neighbor, "Do you think she'll strangle him?" She giggled and rolled her eyes.

The misguided youth persisted, leading the older psychologist--with some helpful interjections from her younger colleague--to deplore the barbarism of humanity, of which he was a prime specimen.

"Ah," I murmured, "she's going for humiliation, not murder."

"Safer," my seat mate replied.

"And legal."

Of course the little barbarian loved being diagnosed as a little barbarian. Enough to make you despair.

We snarked all the way to journey's end.

So does this make me Statler or Waldorf?