FEDERMAN'S BLOG [the laugh that laughs at the laugh...]

true cynics are often the kindest people, for they see the hollowness of life, and from the realization of that hollowness is generated a kind of cosmic pity

Raymond Federman, The Twofold Vibration

There can be no conclusion to this book. Conclusion, that is, in the sense of a summary thesis on cynicism. Neither do I present the reader with a neat, climatic ending or lessons for the future. The use of such devices would be to betray everything that cynicism stands for. What has been written on these pages amounts to no more than one introduction to a little known philosophy, prompted by the imaginings of one life out of millions of others. As Nietzsche said, "It is only my truth." The real conclusion of this book will never be known, it is to be found in the exchange between the words on these pages and the thoughts of the individual reader. The most important part of this book for me was the process of writing it and digesting the thoughts of others who had written before me. My greatest wish is that someone else will pick up the torch of cynicism that I have tried to re-kindle and write another book, inspired in part by the pages contained here.

That at least was my intention. Then, just as I was completing the final chapter of this book I made a remarkable discovery---I stumbled across a real cynic. I had been searching for a living cynic, a real Diogenean cynic, ever since I had started writing the book. But either they were too political or they did not laugh or they were too scholarly or like me they could only tell the reader about cynicism. What I was searching for was someone like Diogenes, one of those rare beings who live their philosophy, someone who could show us what cynicism is rather than simply describe it. I am grateful to Raymond Federman for doing just that.

If Diogenes had sought out his tub as a symbolic gesture for his cynicism, Raymond Federman¹s cynicism was born from a tub. Or to be more precise, the small upstairs closet in a Paris apartment into which he had been hastily thrust by his mother just before she, his father and his two sisters were rounded up in the Rafle du Vel d'Hiv' and taken to Auschwitz to be killed. The thirteen year old boy who hid in the closet started his new life with no more than a small package of his own warm shit wrapped in newspaper (The Voice in the Closet). Federman describes being REborn voiceless at a hole's edge on this day 16th July 1942. But he did not remain voiceless, in his 40 year career as a writer he has never stopped talking.

Deliberately avoiding the celebrity status of other contemporary French philosophers, not for reasons of modesty but rather stubborn commitment to his art (he delights in producing fiction that mirrors the chaotic reality of life, refusing for example in Take It Or Leave It, the longest cynical rant in history, to allow the publisher to include any page numbers), no single writer of our age has captured the true spirit of Diogenes more than Raymond Federman. No, not even (sorry Moinous) his old friend Sam Beckett whom he idolizes and quotes at every opportunity. Federman integrates all of the essential modes of cynical discourse: action, laughter and silence into his prolific writing. The victim who refuses to see himself as a victim, was given in that small closet not only the gift of life, but the gift to make others laugh---laugh at a world that he knows to be truly absurd, laugh at himself, laugh at The Laugh That Laughs At The Laugh. But as well as laugh, one will also be silenced in deep contemplation and weep tears, and all on the same page.

And yet, typical of all great cynics, Federman is before his time. He may not reach the legendary status he deserves until after, as he puts it, he changes tense. Published in twenty languages, he remains unknown in Britain and sadly overlooked in his host country. But here is a living example of Burkhardt's all-sided-man. Emerging from Federman's fiction are some remarkable facts and near misses: his exploits as a down-and-out in New York City (and several other cities); as a gambler; as a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne Division; failing to qualify for the 1948 Olympic swimming team by a tenth of a second; and, most incredibly for me, blowing saxophone with Charlie Parker. Now living---not so quietly---on his emeritus distinguished professor's pension and his writing, he is yet sidelined by the literary establishment because he dares to revive the chaos and orgy of Dionysus that once made writing explode the senses.

And so, the reader, who has made it to the final pages of this book, will after all be subjected to a climatic conclusion. For in Federman's writing can be found first hand (as opposed to my own second hand accounts) a parallel reference to every theme that I have already discussed in the preceding pages. Regrettably only fragments of Federman's diatribes can be reproduced here. His aphorisms speak for themselves, but to fully appreciate the rage and humor of his diatribes, and his absolute commitment against the object of his anger and obsession, total immersion is recommended.


Classical Cynicism

he thinks this is the defining act
the actualization of a central image
that of a man standing
on the edge of an abyss
pissing into a hard wind
not a mistake not an idle gesture
but the assertion of presence

Here & Elsewhere


Renaissance cynicism

in Politics TRUE POLITICS there is no room for sentimentality . . . its all played beyond good and evil and if you are one of the losers then Bang! it's you who takes it on the head but if you're on the side of the guys who are winning then it's you who gives it to the other guy it's just a matter of being on the right side at the right time and then you're one of those who those who those who those who those who those who fuck the rest of humanity who beat the shits out of the other guy with contusive clubs with hammers and nails and electric shocks and fingers in the ass and needles in the arm and kicks in the belly and cigarette burns while the rest of humanity continues to vomit its guts while shouting stupid slogans!

Therefore you don't think I'm going to take you seriously because of a little question like that? Politics my friend (yes you with the mustach) you can shove it up your ass in little capsules (Psitt!) in square round or oval pills (Psitt!) it's delicious for constipation believe me!

Take It Or Leave It

Nietzsche

in the dark I sneaked out
of the window and climbed
behind a cloud to look for god
but all I found were my own footprints

Here & Elsewhere

Fuck MODESTY! Scorn and contempt and hatred that¹s what one learns from ZSCHE damn right scorn and not modesty or humility or resignation or submission or fear! One must shit and piss on all human weakness, well, gentlemen, I assure you he shitted and pissed all over it, and this is why he could call himself without any modesty the FIRST if not the ONLY ONE to have totally squarely integrally radically and definitely shoved aside religion morality responsibility and of course the LITTLE JESUS and his OLD MAN heaven and hell and all the rest

Take It Or Leave It

The postmodern cynic

when we fall into the great void
we recede backwards
at the speed of light
towards our origin
so that we can
be launched
again
into the spiral
of our unfinished destiny

Here & Elsewhere


I was sad to see postmodernism disappear before we could explain it, I kind of liked postmodernism, I was happy in the postmodern condition, as happy if not happier than the previous condition. I don't remember what that was called but I was glad to get out of it

Aunt Rachel's Fur

The cynical artist

What determines the degree of completion of a work is not all the exigencies of art or of truth, it is fatigue, and, even more so, disgust. . . . There is no true art without a strong dosage of banality. The one who uses the unusual in a consistent manner quickly bores his audience, for nothing is more unbearable than the uniformity of the exceptional.

Take It Or Leave It


Action

gentlemen between you and I and without blushing America is hard to take to swallow hard to conquer because do I dare suggest it America it's a big fat broad that one must seize with one's arms squeeze passionately a big sexy bitch with enormous teats a splendid ass and a lovely furry cunt and if you want to possess to explore to search that magnificent bit of geography you have to go a long way and have the desire and the courage not only to speak about it but do something about it and the problem with most Americans is that they don't have the guts nor the initiative to fuck the hell out of their mother land and so instead of really trying to shove their dicks into it they justify their cowardice by simply dropping their pants in front of it and jerk off like a bunch of kids where in fact me gentlemen I wanted to penetrate that mother land yes I wanted to explode to burst inside her ass and inside her cunt I wanted my sperm to flow between her gorgeous cheeks one good time and that's why I decided to love it to love it without shame

Take It Or Leave It


Laughter

Ah the laughing act: doesn't work for you guys because you guys laugh Japanese style delicately with your hands in front of your mouth as if you were coughing! What the hell you guys think that laughter is some kind of sickness? Laugh: ah ah ah! oh oh oh oh ! ah ah ah! Laugh: yes because when some guy weeps somewhere in the world there is always some other guy who laughs somewhere else: happy balance! Never fails its normal equilibrium: laugh or cry it all comes out the same in the end!

Take It Or Leave It


Silence

It was not going very well already in the kingdom of literature since le nouveau roman that great triumph of sing-my-ass we were going quite copiously robbe-grilladized semiotized in full from salsify to chinese lanterns but now we are truly moving tumbling into shit here we are fallen crestfallen to the underlevel of undersollersism into the invertebrate desensibilized by barthist analism zerofied offhandedly materialized getting closer to objects and facts than causes emasculated scientifically by shameless daily gossiping superjerking scenarios moving now towards the immense the endless organic debacle towards the great deluge of low-down tricks the crashup of confusionism masturbatory telquelism drifting on the lacanian raft derridian barge shipwrecked in other words on the sea of fucked up literature where civilisation can be measured assessed rather by the distance man places between himself and his excrement

Take It Or Leave It


That's the problem with talking too much. Eventually you reveal yourself. But when you don't talk you become a suspiciously suspicious character.

Double or Nothing


Therapy culture

This fucking world is saturated with false hopes . . . we are drowning in a cesspool of theosophical emanations, cosmic influences, occult powers, spiritual visitations, stellar vibrations and divine farts, and yes yes it's all shit, de la merde molle et fumante, do you hear me, de la saloperie, de la crasse

The Twofold Vibration


and finally

We all live like cockroaches in the crevices of our twisted imagination

Smiles on Washington Square


One suffers and one suffers from not suffering enough

The Twofold Vibration


between life and fiction there is no difference, when life is at the centre, fiction is at the circumference, and vice versa.

Aunt Rachel's Fur

Reality is a form of disenchantment. The only reason it interests us is because behind it always lurks a catastrophe, or a bad joke.

To Whom It May Concern

Seriousness is a quality for those who have no other qualities.

Smiles on Washington Square

I am caught between the desire for fame and the need for oblivion.

To Whom It May Concern

having oscillated all my life
between the torments
of superficial idleness
and the horror
of disinterested action
I find myself at last
in a situation
where to do nothing
exclusively
becomes an act of
the highest value

Here & Elsewhere