More Fish Schticks

The Valve - A Literary Organ includes a post in anticipation of Fish's talk on Wednesday here at Irvine. The excerpted omnibus review by Fish that begins by pleading for an end to all omnibus reviews is totally amusing. It almost makes me wish that I were in a Miltonist, just to be able to appreciate better how Fish skewers his opponents on the shish kebab of his highly italicized prose.

But let me quote from Fish's recent lecture and respond to it, because one good shtick deserves another.

Vintage Stanley:

"If you do not want to see as your epitaph, 'She produced the BEST reading of King Lear evah," then you should not be in this profession!"

To which I would respond, I would want to see as my epitaph, "She produced the BEST reading of Dangerous Liaisons , but it made no difference whatsoevah! So she gave it up, and did something else, which also made no difference whatsoevah!"

But Fish's epitaph may read, "He tried to put a ban on the posing of profound questions in academic settings, but it made no difference whatsoevah!"

There is only one deflator allowed in his world, and that is Fish! A decidedly refreshing but infuriating presence.