Cat Show 12/4/2020
VG: So I’ve taught my last Dostoevsky class yesterday. Great group of kids. Really learning fast and noticing things that I never noticed.
HOBBS: GWIC. That’s their name. Great While in College. Then they get a job in financial or Silicon Valley sectors, get their life long subscription to NYT and begin to contribute what they can to Democratic Party.
ALICE: What’s wrong than that? Better than never go to college, contribute to NRA, and imagine that selfish Trump will help you get this pickup truck at a great discount.
VG: Two sad alternatives that you've outlined, Alice: elites or those on the bottom of the economic ladder. There are plenty of possibilities right in the middle. Needless to say that those in the middle, the ones who don’t feel that masks are the instruments of slavery nor do they have the need to wear mask when they are alone in the park or in their bedroom, feel squeezed. Their economic power is drastically diminished, and so is their political and cultural representation. People talk about populism, but someone has to represent this middle-of-the road crowd. All we see now is just how all kinds of demagogues, be it liberal or conservative are bamboozling the middle class, and not representing it.
HOBBS: Of course, one way or another, middle classes have a way of making sure that their voice is heard. Elites and their tools among the poor always come up with theories and even practices of diminishing the power of middle class. They invent conspiracy theories, they create scapegoats, they fabricate all sorts of new resets, that would make middle classes irrelevant and subordinate, but all this nonsense does not really have a staying power; people of the middle and of common sense rebel. Reminds me of Russian elites before the Revolution and their obsession with Rasputin. And he was by no means the only nut in Russian court. There was even crazier Monk Iliodor, who couldn’t decide if Rasputin is an angel or devil, if he likes or hates Jews, if he is a part of Orthodoxy or not, if he likes the tsar or Bolsheviks, all the time interfering in politics, sending murderers to Rasputin, making friends with Gorky, and doing all sorts of things that only corrupt elites would find fascinating.
ALICE: Are you suggesting that all the so called influences of today, all those Bill Gates, Santa Klaus Schwabs, Elon Musks and Gretas are the version of Rasputin? The toys that the elites entertain themselves with? Interesting theory, but it is not based on facts. At least not on the facts that NYT considers as facts. These guys are true visionaries, and not corrupt monks, even though I agree that visually they look like Rasputin.
HOBBS: Greta’s eyes in particular. I could never remember who she reminds me of, until I thought of Rasputin’s stare. And by the way, have you ever thought that Elon Musk is behind the entire current obsession with masks. His dream to get us all accustomed to wearing one, then inserting little battery into it along with a computer chip, and then we are all set to do whatever the chip tells us.
VG: Another interesting theory. You are on the roll today, Hobbs. But as we all remember, these crazy monks, seriously as they were taken by Russian society, were just a smokescreen. The beginning of the XX century, ushering serious cataclysms, saw a lot of nuts and occult theories entering the public discourse, until the middle classes, one way or another, put an end to their proliferation. Fighting the devils or proclaiming the need to repent before it was too late – was the domain of all the Rasputins at the beginning of XX century. Hundred years later, we are still fighting devils and demanding repentance before it is too late, only these times demons have turned into scientifically defined viruses and holes in stratosphere, and penance takes the form of mask wearing and recycling.
ALICE: I can’t believe I have to deal with this amount of cynicism so early on Friday morning. Thank God, we don’t have a Monday Morning Show. You can’t talk to Hobbs all the time, Vladimir. Don’t think I am jealous for your attention, but I see how Hobbs poisons your mind with all his negativity. I understand that the last four years the mainstream press had been extremely negative about everything, hoping to tie all the bad news to Trump. But now, with the 2020 Operation DNC completed, things are changing. We are way ahead of Chinese and other geopolitical rivals in amount of Covid cases, and in the amount of vaccines we produce, and in the amount of people we cure, and in the amount of people who die fast and painless helped by our heroic nurses. Once Biden gets installed into White House, there would be great news all over again. There will be springtime for Kamala. Sorry, I meant for America. But Kamala is America. Our country no longer looks like Uncle Sam. It has become much more attractive now.
HOBBS: I am not poisoning anybody’s mind. Vladimir has his own eyes to see. And none of us is as optimistic about Biden as you are. But you are right about negativity, we shouldn’t overdo it. New Year is approaching, and with it, more celebrations, less guests, and more smoked salmon for us. And I don’t mind Vladimir hanging around the house all the time. He keeps the house warmer and watches more films with us. I say, long live Zoom and its inventors.
