Otherwise, Normal

For the first time I watched the P&L show (called "Altfel" -- which would translate as "Otherwise", "Different") - the December 17 edition.

As it progressed, I was sinking deeper and deeper in my chair, recoiling in horror as I realized that this might very well be the first good Romanian talk show I'd ever seen.

Does it take the two most famous local intellectuals to get to this level of... normality, where Liiceanu aptly placed their broadcast interaction? And by the way, especially since they agree that what they are doing there is "only normal", they should have called their show exactly that, "Normal", instead of the elitist and, given the context, depressing "Otherwise".

The problem is the VOID around them. Their own "normality", because such a rare commodity on Romanian screens, at least, becomes "otherwise", becomes the top of the crop, becomes excellence and their "normal" opinions become... well, "the norm". After 17 years, people of their gamut (or close to it, because honestly, they may be overqualified for the jobs of talk show hosts), people of different convictions and backgrounds, holding all kinds of different views should have filled all Romanian TV screens; theirs should have been only two names of the many competing in the same class.

It is obvious that Liiceanu, who plays host, prepares before coming in front of the nation, unlike so many of the TV "professionals" in Romania. Plesu doesn't, but that's comfortably on purpose, he is the "interviewed" one, he reacts to what Liiceanu draws from the hat, thus preserving a spontaneous quality to their interaction. Liiceanu is ready to improvise as well, he's flexible and excellent in conversation. Plus, he has that masculine velvet in his voice which he modulates with flawless intonation and diction, on a par with a Iures or Caramitru. So maybe he would have made a great actor too, not only an excellent fiction writer. But he had to go and try to become a philosopher first, then an editor! Plesu's presence isn't too bad either -- although I personally dislike the "da" and "pa" pronunciation for "de" and "pe". He should control better his body language (he tends to rub his ear and touch his face in the heat of the conversation) and get his glasses fitted maybe, if all truth be told.

I enjoyed the minimalist set, but then again, their charismatic strong presences can endure and even benefit from being set up against a stark black background, whereas a Stelian Tanase & Mircea Dinescu or CTP & Hurezeanu do need something going on on the set to distract the eye from their fidgety and unimposing posturing. (What's with all these male couples formulas for shows? Intriguing...)

However, yes, that was television!

I'm beginning to get gloomy here. Maybe, after all, finding Romanian talent is not easy. Maybe too many have left. Or maybe the common sense of most "normal" people prevents them from competing with aggressive self-promoters in politics as well as in media, filled with the likes of CTP, Turcescu, Dinescu, Gheorghe, now Bucurenci.

(Eminem, in a distant voice, echoes in my head here: "So won't the normal Romanians please stand up, please stand up, please stand up?!")

The irony was that Liiceanu and Plesu were, in their turn, in awe while evoking the "normalcy" of a Dr. Sinescu whom they had both briefly seen on TV as a guest on a show.

Gee. So it's not only my imagination, or that I don't watch enough Romanian TV, it really is an event when one detects "normal", huh?

The key question is: did P&L contribute to the void around them? Because "good people" (italics in this text to be interpreted in a whisper, with the fixed look in the eyes of the kid from "The Sixth Sense", you know, the famous "I see dead people!"), "normal people" do exist in Romania! They just don't make it to the top for some reason.

Well, since nothing else seemed to work, why don't Liiceanu and Plesu go and use their freaky influence and start branding like crazy. Go detect the normal people, like they did that Dr. Sinescu, and bring them out of the darkness, and whisper subliminally to their hordes of admirers: "We see normal people"!

Oh, wait. They already did that and it wasn't quite right: Plesu just called Bucurenci "a very talented moderator" in an article (written precisely because he hadn't been given the chance to speak during the Bucurenci show) and then graced him with a "one on one" showdown. Not to mention Liiceanu with his "Romanian Kierkegaard"... So, being normal themselves, they're far from infallible and they did do all those branding errors in the past, so no, this is not a good idea. In a normal society, nobody should be in the position of dictating brands like they could, period.

Whatever the reasons, under this light, distancing oneself from the Daddy Bears acquires new dimensions. It's not like people hold on to them as a matter of pride, but as a matter of identity, of defining normality. It's really complicated to replace them when not enough normal people are being naturally brought to the public arena by the market selection process.

And maybe that's where the problem lies. Liiceanu mentioned that the need for ratings pushes the plethora of private TV stations to give air time to all those exotic creatures who then become dangerous role models via the gained popularity. In this case, public television should step to the plate, setting the standards and maintaining them.

Instead of being in the business of building them, the Romanian (Public) Television has adopted the practice of "stealing" ready-made TV personalities from private stations. They did, however, strike popular gold with Andreea Marin, but we were looking for "normal" here... Maybe there's something wrong with the selection process of "serious" TV stars?

The RTV director, Tudor Giurgiu, if one is to judge from his past organizational success with the Transylvania Film Festival, should know NORMAL. But no, Bucurenci wasn't "it".

I just realized that I'm doing it again, getting "soft" on the Daddy Bears, being a wuss... What can I do, they're cute and I'm only human here...

The National Intellectual Daddy Bears (NIDB) Blues

You must be thinking: "This UberKritik guy really exaggerates. Why, we have Gigi Becali growing in polls like a tumor, we have OTV and DDTV and everybody they dig out, we have so many hacks in politics, and there he is, complaining about the few people in our public arena who are just... well, maybe not perfect."

It's true, it may look like perfectionism from that perspective. But think of it this way: I have nobody in my entourage who admires Becali or would join his party. And there are sufficient voices in Romanian media arguing about OTV and "manele" and other annoying populist private media catering. As to politics, surely no additional analysts are required.

But the Plesu & Liiceanu (+ Patapievici) - P&L(+P) cult strikes close to home. I have friends who swear by them, I get emails with quotes from or links to articles they wrote, I get asked whether I've watched the latest P&L show, I have family members who step into "Humanitas" libraries as if they were temples of wisdom and who regard the "H" logo as a token of value bestowed upon authors and the "H" books as compulsory reading. For some lazy intellectuals, the "H" is almost the equivalent of a literary prize, not just the result of a publishing decision by a private enterprise that has to survive in a market system.

Liiceanu and Plesu are very charming people and sometimes their words fall upon this nation like drops of nectar. Liiceanu is an outstanding writer, and Romanian fiction has lost a great voice to... I can't say "philosophy", to "non-fiction". They deserve admiration. Any country could take pride in them. However, they'd be two of many comparable figures in France, or Germany, or the United States, to name but a few places where cultural life is, well, normal. But in Romania they are some kind of "godfathers" and their long term hegemony is upsetting, while the general regard they have been enjoying for over 20 years is way, way exaggerated. Someone argued that it's not their fault if people need to look up to some fatherly figures to that degree. But I say these two are too intelligent to not have seen this cult of personalities happening and, instead of stepping back, they quite aggressively went on promoting themselves and their clique -- which is damaging to Romanian culture in the long run.

(Patapievici, their first protégé, the "Romanian Kierkegaard" according to Liiceanu, I never even liked. But most of my friends just accepted him, 'cuz highly recommended, and nowadays he's enjoying comparable demi-god status on even less merit than P&L, and he can also "show them the money" -- as head of the Romanian Cultural Institute. Convenient.)

I wonder how many of my otherwise intelligent and educated friends bothered to open the file of the "Humanitas" editorial choices throughout the years and analyze them. Liiceanu and his editorial team did a below average job selecting whom to project first on the Romanian readers' mind screens, after all those communist years of restricted reading. They had the world of literature wide open to them, and they came back with such slim pickings!

Of course there were some "restitutions" to do, but they left the rest of the field wide open for Polirom and the other publishing houses to actually take over and do the job (although it wasn't precisely the same "job", as they didn't enjoy the influential clout of the "H"). So, despite the initial departure advantage given by the infusion of assets from the state and Liiceanu's fame on the intellectual arena, or should I say his "already made cultural brand", their mission failed, I think. It must have been hubris. They were never big on literature, and I doubt they bothered to seek sufficient counseling at this level, quite crucial to any publishing house.

I have no idea whether the Humanitas Publishing House is at least blossoming financially. The Humanitas libraries now carry other publishers' books, so those must be doing well -- and in a way, it was a good thing to allow the "H" temples to be permeated by the market offer, what a relief! They have a faithful following, they did populist moves, such as publishing Paolo Coelho. Although Liiceanu, in virtue of his own cultural brand and mission accepted from the state -- when offered the assets of the former Political Publishing House -- is the last publisher in Romania who should have endorsed Coelho. He may have done it for survival, but I say it would have been less "damaging", from an educational point of view, if big "H" chose instead to make money by publishing someone like Stephen King or John Grisham. These guys sell like hot cakes and they don't provide the pretense of "elevated reading"; just honest, skillfully built thrills, sometimes with anti-establishment undertones. No pseudo-culture, just entertainment.

And I'm not even beginning to discuss the "serious fiction" books that "H" missed. Or the Romanian major authors whom they never promoted. Or the debuts they never encouraged.

As a result, I don't have a basis of discussion with my friends who pick their books following the "H" trail. And the most sickening part of it is that, whenever I try to talk to them about these things, the look in their eyes softens me up and I end up changing the subject, like a wuss. Their list of undisputed national pride items runs so short that taking away Plesu and Liiceanu from them is as cruel as taking away a kid's teddy bear. But it's precisely this fixation that prevents them from accepting other values and expanding their horizons, even in terms of national pride! It's "Plesu forever!" while they have no clue as to who's the Romanian who got the Médicis prize this year...

But there comes a time in a child's development when they say a parent should do exactly that, hide away the teddy bear from their own toddler if he/she is hooked to it to the point of obsession. A friend of mine pretended to have lost his daughter's teddy bear recently. She was sad for a few days, but now I don't think she even remembers that cute little thing. They're meant to be outgrown.

The only problem is that you guys are adults and I'm not your daddy. Chances are, your precious national intellectual "teddy bears" are "your daddies" - they walk, talk, wear cute neck accoutrements, maintain brands that look very patriarchal and are in your face constantly. So, I dunno. Run away from home, culturally speaking, hide in the thick net woods, read reviews on Amazon.com and choose your books carefully... And whenever a "daddy bear" shows up in your range, turn your inner critic "on", set it on "highest expectations", then set the comparison scale to "international", and see what gives. I occasionally take virtual shots at them, but hey, you don't have to.

Let the NIDB sirens blare, looking for your precious ratings. If you're smart enough, you can always watch them from a safe distance, enjoy their bearish charm, but stay free and demanding, out of their reach.

Prolegomena to a Phenomenology of Romanian Mass Media (Just Kidding)

According to the media, every day STUFF (initially called "shit" throughout this article) happens during these never-ending transition times. That is, unless Romanian teams are involved in international football games, when "stuff", like a huge djinny looming large over us, suddenly enters the game and all the imaginable details that surround it, as if it were sucked back into its proverbial bottle. If the international football leagues were re-designed so as to have non-stop competitions and if a sizable portion of the coming European structural funds were poured into Romanian soccer teams, then the whole country might sink into -- or rise to -- some Scandinavian-type daily blissful routine in the running of its other affairs. That would be an excellent excessive-latin-spirit-sucking-device; I might patent it under the brand "Latirin" (from Ritalin, for those who don't get enough pharmaceutical spam.)

Anyway, so every day stuff happens, and on all TV channels the usual media heads are chatting about it. I'm not sure to this day why in Romania, which is an OK country in terms of human potential, just a handful of individuals get rotated like mad on all locally produced TV programs.

This may be an effect of the communist era when, in the 80's, people had access to a single TV channel during as little as two hours of programming every night. Under those circumstances, there was no chance to develop a considerable pool of TV stars. So maybe the Romanian collective TV consciousness was molded around a tight number of people whom it can accept on its screens. That would be my noble, idealistic and compassionate view.

So it's either that, or... Could it be cheaper for the TV stations that way? Because I forgot to mention the huge number of hours that each channel's "anchors" are supposed to be spending every day facing the nation.

As a result, watching Romanian TV is like watching a bunch of hamsters doing their... thing. Hamsters don't get very creative. We look at them because they're cute, strangely hypnotic and mildly therapeutic with their exercise wheel routines. So it is with Romanian TV, minus the cuteness and the therapeutic effect. Actually, little do I know about the secret lives of hamsters, maybe they do compete for the "eyeballs", or the "hearts and minds" of innocent humans and they make statistics and ratings and calculate their brand power in their sick itty-bitty brains. It's hard to trust anyone these days, let alone a rodent.

Normally, these overworked TV hosts call to their rescue "guests": journalists, political figures and miscellaneous... let's call them (as they actually might even call themselves) "media consultants". But you'd think that at least at this level you get some variety. Nope. The same professional guests (PGs) do the rounds. I mean, as you zap, you see PG1 on TV1, while PG2 is on TV2, PG3 on TV3, etc. One hour later, PG3 is on TV1, PG1 is on TV2, etc. And sometimes TV hosts do extra time as guests on each other's shows.

Thus, in theory, it is quite possible for someone who wants to spend a doubtful quality evening watching several talk shows on different topics, to see the same four hamster-people all afternoon and evening -- while ZAPPING! Ain't that something? Then the viewer gets to feel like a hamster, too, his or her remote powering the exercise wheel. It's an endearing picture, really: hamsters looking at each other, through the wheel rungs, in stroboscopic redundancy, each thinking he/she is smarter. It keeps people off the streets all over the globe, if you think about it. (But I digress, thought the typing hamster and pressed "enter")

There is a problem with this system of scarcity and recycling, and in winter it becomes supremely obnoxious: with bad weather, traffic in Bucharest often grinds to a halt... And the guests who couldn't make it from one TV station to another are being called in on their mobile phones, and in between the issues at stake we get real time traffic reports, complete with traffic noises and frequent interruptions - very dramatic indeed. While some think it's just frustrating and unprofessional.

And that's because TV stations have not foreseen the problems raised by their "frequent guest programs". (By the way, do PGs get some type of mileage? They definitely should be issued magnetic fidelity cards by each TV station.) Otherwise, you'd think they would have huddled together in the same building, or at least the same neighborhood. But it's not to late: if they were to move their tiny talk show studios into the enormous House of Parliament, that would solve everything, because then all political guests would be just a few steps away, too. Plus, how bad can traffic get on those marble corridors? I say huddle all media hamsters in the same cage, it saves energy and reduces pollution.

If you think that kind of television might as well be called visual radio, you're right. I have friends who record the TV shows they're interested in as MP3s. Why bother with talking heads one sees more often than their friends and family, and moreover, who might not even be in the studio for viewers to admire their new shirts or hairstyles?

But let's get back to the issue of stuff happening. Now we may define several types of stuff:

- regular stuff (RS)-- your daily helping, matters over which people have strong opinions and uphold them, and on TV your usual hamsters are doing just fine debating them over and over again;

- important stuff (IS)-- this kind might even make one want to read a newspaper online the next day, because one's usual opinions may be slightly challenged. The usual hamsters get into heated arguments, and international examples get quoted a lot -- we try to learn from others' experience how to deal with this, when there are no downright European commandments that may be invoked, which would graciously end all discussion.

- very weird stuff (VWS)-- this is the worst kind -- this is the kind of stuff people are not sure what to think about, and it's so localized, so... Romanian in its essence that watching what people do in other countries is futile -- just trying to find similar circumstances is a headache. The overarching topic of my article (because there is one, trust me) is precisely this type of very weird stuff, of accidental, random, if any universal value. In a VWS case, the nation is on its own. The stuff in itself may be more or less important, per se, but its occurrence marks a turning point, or at least defines a trend... It is, in short, the kind of stuff that makes Romanians be Romanians, the stuff that defines the nation and shapes the very "Romanian weirdness of being", to paraphrase Kundera quite creatively, if I may say so myself.

VWS is quite exciting on Romanian media and I'd venture to say that it happens quite often. Romanians have a talent to bring it up. And they are becoming experts and manufacturing it themselves, they no longer wait for chance or the European integration-related issues to spark it up.

They are actually hooked on this VWS, as a nation. They love to define themselves, to gaze at the national navel, to compare notes occasionally, to re-read into their own past things that might have escaped them during the communist period. They are indeed a very narcissistic people and they indulge in this pastime maybe more than the healthy amount, but while I'm writing these very words, I'm falling into the national sin, and I love every minute of it.

Well, what do you think that 90% of this nation's educated people over 40 do when faced with VWS moments?

Because, believe it or not, sadly, these guys have a cookie-cutter SOLUTION!

(Hint: yeaH, tHey turn to someone (or his close friends). And if it sounds like a cult, wHy, tHere are plenty of elements of tHat in tHere, built and maintained carefully over tHe years.)

Achilles, There's a Hole in Your Armoured Sock

With Tchipsy's help I realized that I was mistakenly taking for reckless self-promotion a potential media push of major magnitude. Otherwise, indeed, one cannot explain the new dimension which Bucurenci's notoriety acquired today: a major Romanian newspaper will feature him as a weekly editorial writer. ("The Daily Event" is rumored to be the "official" paper nowadays in Romania, siding with the President and the Democratic Party.)

So. Let's get things straight: this guy is now on the payroll of the national public television and the mainstream newspaper. His previous career stints: webmaster at the British Council. Writer of a blog/novel. Oh, director of an environmental association set up with pals from "Catavencu". Even if we stopped considering the fact that his only formal education is high school, again, how would such a background turn one into a "member of the new Romanian elites"?

Oh, just for you to know: Norman Manea, Romanian author, winner of the Médicis prize this very year for "The Hooligan's Return", had nowhere near a tenth of the exposure given this Bucurenci person lately. Nobody in Romania interviewed him extensively. Nobody wrote heady introductions to his work. Nobody featured him as a member of any elites. He wasn't offered to do a TV show. The President didn't honor him (but he did bestow yet another honor on Liiceanu, of course. Read Manea's bio and his books and compare them, not to Bucurenci's, but to Liiceanu's, and then go explain Mr. President about the unfairness of his advisers' choices so far, I'm sure he'll hear you.) No half-page portraits of Manea's appeared in any magazine or newspaper and most people have no idea he exists.

But we do have Bucurenci as a "member of the new Romanian elites", everyone!

Pushed forward by the old elites, on the principle that "polenta doesn't explode", maybe.

This is getting VERY serious here.

At this point I might, of course, congratulate myself for my superior intuition, but as Tchipsy elegantly pointed out, I already proved enough hubris for a blog by not really doing a good job of endorsing my critique with a more serious literary analysis of the man's "work" -- I was THAT confident that I'm beyond any suspicion of jealousy. (Mea culpa, but I can't fix that right now, it will have to wait.) So, I sensed that this was MAJOR, that it was worth taking some action against, and now history rushes to prove me right (that was quick, about ten days).

I want to find a way to oppose this. Fight the Bucurenci brand and expose the system that pushes it.

My comment was rejected today on the "Evenimentul Zilei" site. Here it is (with an added link):

"Check out a sample of the man's writing, a proof of his limited intellectual quality and his disgusting posturing:

"Într-o civilizaţie dezvoltată armonios inginerii îşi cunosc foarte bine locul, dar cultura românească a ajuns într-un hal de minorat deplorabil în care clasa intelectualilor e compusă, faute de mieux, din doctori, avocaţi şi ingineri. Adică din tot felul de meşteşugari, oameni cărora, prin natura profesiei lor, le este interzis accesul la idee."

It's not that he didn't get a degree, as much as that he's just a crony, a "cultural brand" built and inflated to the point where some serious culture jamming is needed in order to free up room for more legitimate voices in that country.

If he's forced on you via EVZ too, you'd better snipe at every silly thing he puts out. He's not taking his time when writing, so in every piece there is some blatant bullshit, such as:

"Când nu e bântuit de platitudini absolute, inginerul e frământat de curiozităţi meschine."

So, okay, I was furious, but I was polite. I don't see my post as objectionable and non-compliant with their forum rules. But I'll be back every week, to be sure.

Unless Bucurenci magically turns into a good writer, and then, well, I'd have to congratulate him. Magic does happen, right? Especially now that Santa's closing in on us. Maybe he wished for an educated brain and some extra literary know-how, for "literature to open its vulvae" for him. (Dragos, dahling, "the vulvae" are not the issue. The external part of the female genitalia, as I'm sure Google might inform you, may be important, but not nearly as important as you make them sound.)

Oh, wait. Why would you want to screw literature, anyway? You already did that, remember? And you're doing it every time you try to turn out an essay. Why not take up ballet or painting, you could suck at that for a while?

Speaking of the aforelinked intro to DB, (from the national television's site, no less), let us revel in "a talent so atypical for Romania that the editors fear for his life". There is "pushing a brand", and then there is "shoving it down people's throats"...

And since we're at it, let's examine closely DB's pitch for Eliade:

"Votează cu Mircea Eliade pentru că:

“Până şi pentru Adrian Mutu viaţa acestui tocilar de geniu care a fost Mircea Eliade are numai subiecte tari: cum să-ţi refaci viaţa după ce ţi-ai dat singur foc la valiză şi cum să ajungi cel mai cunoscut român din întreaga lume. În materie de celebritate, fotbaliştii ar face bine să înveţe de la profesionişti!”.

I'll have fun translating for the joy of the non-Romanian masses:

"Vote for Mircea Eliade because:

Even for Adrian Mutu the life of the nerdy genius who was Mircea Eliade is full of hot topics: how to start your life over after shooting yourself in the leg and how to become the most famous Romanian in the whole world. When it comes to celebrity, soccer players had better learn from the professionals!"

If I were Adrian Mutu, I'd resent his "pana si pentru"/"even for" repeated endlessly on prime time national TV. Big time. Besides, it's Bucurenci who should pay attention, since he wants to be in the same business as Eliade. And that's the way you do it, by being a "nerd", studying, reading, and only afterwards writing.

Anyway, the good part about this turn of events is that by promoting Bucurenci with such ignominy the current cultural establishment may have committed its fatal error. This is a huge Achilles' heel, stomping in full sight for everyone to aim at.

Fire at will... You know you have to.

"Read Any Good Brands Lately?"

I was beginning to wonder why nobody else seemed to mind Dragos Bucurenci's rise to fame. I can understand that TV audiences prefer to watch men who are easier on the eye than the current TV lineup. Even Romanian soap operas feature males whose only physical claim to fame may be the absence of a beer belly. Or what if 99% of Romania's gorgeous men (not very many to begin with, see the beer problem) got into the music industry or the modelling business? Here we had someone who couldn't sing or dance, didn't have a model's appeal, was articulate enough and "somehow" got loose in the cultural circuit where he made an easy kill? Or maybe Romania came to a point of such boiling excitement and giddiness before its European ascension that nobody can sit still long enough to read a book anymore, therefore he's perfectly fit for the job? In short, I was imagining apocalyptic scenarios that might explain the apparent insularity of my anger.

Just as I was almost ready to accept that his tricks had worked sad wonders (plenty of those in Romania, unfortunately!) and that this guy with very skimpy formal education had indeed become the uncontested cultural choice of "a new generation", I came across the site of Kiki Vasilescu.

Actually, another blog pushed me there. Its author, tausance, had pitched in a poll Vasilescu against Bucurenci under the headline: "Who is the young hope of Romanian literature?". Wow. Had it come to that? Bucurenci is leading, needless to say.

But closer scrutiny raised some major questions. If you understand Romanian, you're better off reading tausance's entry for yourself. If you don't, I'll summarize it for you:

-- it's not the quality of their literary output that tausance is interested in (they both seem to be bluffing "here and there")
-- what is being weighed and discussed is each writer's BRAND, "their image and their notoriety".
-- tausance would choose DB over Kiki, because he wears cool clothes and his blog is "rather clean", as opposed to Kiki's "doubtful taste" in clothing and messed up respective website.

In the end, tausance sums it up: the suggested poll is about "absolute cultural value". "Let there be justice!", the author exhorts, then exits blog post.

I'm taking a break. Like, I need to mourn for a few seconds here.

*****************
This is Bucurenci's audience thinking out loud, "make no mistake about it"... But I can't get into the OBVIOUS issues this attitude poses right now, I have to stick to my topic.
*****************

I don't know about the clothing, but the author may be A BIT right in snobbing Vasilescu's web presence. It's not just a blog, it's a regular custom-made site, so theoretically more difficult to put up and maintain than a run-of-the-mill blog, which takes minutes to set up and maybe a few hours to tweak in order to customize, complete with one's own graphics. But Vasilescu's site doesn't look that great, the information is all over the place, and one has to subscribe to his phpBB forum in order to leave feedback -- and that's oh so 2003-ish! So if he wants to stand a chance against aggressive brand builders with decent blogs like Bucurenci, I would advise him to migrate his content into a blog and get with the program...

I'm sure tausance would advise getting another wardrobe, too.

I will now briefly refer to the writing. You may skip the next paragraph if you don't think it matters.

I am not familiar with Vasilescu's debut novel, but since he touted that he wrote it almost entirely in 30 days, I'm not holding my breath. While it has been done before, it is exceedingly rare to pull off a very good book in that manner. And then I understand that he's not being original, he's just re-writing an old classic, updating it creatively, using today's language, etc. It might be a worthwhile practice for his future writing career, but anyway, as I said, with so many excellent & original (i.e. "from scratch" :)) books on my nightstand, I'm not looking forward to the experience.

Now I talk branding shit again:

What shocked me was his video blog (vlog), "Episode no. 6". The very same elements in Bucurenci's interview for "Suplimentul de cultura" that enraged me had Kiki go berserk! So there is at least one other person in that country who thinks that DB's guts are utterly despicable. So alike were our objections that I'd have thought he predated me, had he not pre-dated me (well, not really, I just couldn't resist the pun.) And it was on this occasion that I had a glimpse of the "Suplimentul" paper version, which Kiki was exasperatedly waving about, after having washed, dried and ironed it.

The horror!!! Obscenely spread on half a page, A HUMONGOUS Bucurenci head shot, I kid you not: the black-and-white photo which is pushed on all the channels and is featured on his blog too, you know, the one where he pensively emerges from behind a dark object (a tire?), unshaved, his huge left eye fixated on YOU, the reader. (Shudder...) Speaking of which, he's peddling a series of beauty shots, like a real self-marketing pro, what the heck. My "favorite" is a warm-toned, flooded in back light photograph, cheesy to the point of disaster. (You may admire this masterpiece, together with some real bad Photoshop experiments signed by Alex Leo Serban, at Atelier LiterNet. If you want to see how a writer/critic tries to do a favor to a beginner but manages instead to embarrass himself to the point of losing credibility, read Florin Iaru's intro. But that's about writing too... Or, is it? I just can't tell anymore when people are doing their jobs of writing/criticizing and when they're just being hacks and... branding.

That awful back-lit image may be for the down market, or whatchamacallit, he's working the field... What do I know about the intricacies of "building a strong cultural brand". Quickly tired with all this, for restful old style I cry. (Forgiveness, Shakespeare!) Like, people write great stuff and editors are happy to publish it and then other people read it and talk about it and recommend it to each other and then the people who wrote the great stuff become famous, and nobody would dare to call them "cultural brands", let alone themselves calling themselves that dirty b-word. (I just channelled Gertrude Stein, must stop NOW!)