The Designated Mourner

National Review, June 16, 1997 by John Simon

The writing has two principal modes. First, the philosophical, as when the TV-watching Jack muses:

Well, at some point we have to draw some distinctions -- don't we? I mean, pardon me, but shouldn't there be some distinction drawn between the things we say, the lies, the "I like poetry," "I like Rembrandt" on the one hand -- and I mean, of course it's important to say those things, because after all if you don't say them then you become simply a zoo animal, you become an empty thing, you're nothing more then really than a large balloon with a mouth, genitals, paws, and an a--hole, a nice great big one -- but still they're lies, they are lies -- and then on the other hand things that are true, like "I'm watching this very nice screen right now, I'm watching it and enjoying it"?

Note that this dialectical profundity is couched in an unwieldy sentence of stumbling syntax meant to seem realistic, but merely stretching a vacuous and vapid play into unconscionable verbosity.

Second, the titillating mode.

One morning in my new apartment I did something funny -- at least I thought it was funny. I put a book of poetry in the bathtub, and urinated on it. An interesting experiment. Then I left it in the tub, and then, later, when I needed to s------ I hadn't planned this, it just came to me as an idea -- instead of s------- in the toilet, I s--- on the book. Just to see, you know, if it could be done. And apparently it was possible, despite what anyone might have told me. So, like a scientist, I noted in my diary that night. "Yes, the experiment has been a complete success."

Note the reliance on italics, a favorite Shawnian trick, like the frequent "ha ha ha"s littering the text.

If you ask why I go on at such length, the answer is that besides Nichols, the prominent Miranda Richardson and David de Keyser participate in this charade, which has been glowingly endorsed by high and low, though not, to be sure, unanimously. Wallace Shawn is not your ordinary ass, but "a nice great big one," and feted to boot.