LUDIC LOG

"You're asking me to dumb it down."

"I'm not asking you to dumb it down. I'm asking you to consider your audience."

"I am considering my audience. I'm probably the only person who is. I'm giving them a little credit for a change. I'm not talking down to them."

"I hate to bring base financial considerations into this..."

"That's what you always say when you're about to ask me to compromise my integrity."

"The piece is simply not going to sell as written, Mark. It's too highbrow. I hate to say it like so crudely, but that's the way it is."

"This is ridiculous."

"I know."

"This is not why I got into this business."

"I know."

"It's not even as if it's really arcane or anything. The references to Joyce, to Proust, to Celine -- a lot of people would consider it pretty mundane. Woolf, Beckett, you and I learned all this in sophomore year. I can't believe that the audiences would be that intimidated by it."

"It's not the audiences. You know that. It's the editors."

"Fuck the editors! Pardon me if I attribute a little sophistication and intelligence to my readership. I guess that's a cardinal sin."

"It's all about money with those guys. Reaching the widest possible audience."

"Widest possible audience doesn't mean lowest common denominator, you know."

"I know."

"Shakespeare wrote for public consumption. So did Shaw. It's not like art and commerce are matter and anti-matter."

"Hey, you're preaching to the choir, my friend."

"Well, what's the problem, then?"

"Look, Mark. Do you pay me to parrot your aesthetic beliefs? Or to handle your business?"

"You know what I pay you to do."

"And that's what I'm doing. I'm advising you, as your agent, that rightly or wrongly, you have written above the heads of your audience, and the publishers are not going to accept it."

"At all?"

"In its current form."

"Even if I take out the framing device? I cribbed that from Perec. American audience don't really go for the OuLiPo stuff, I know."

"Even then."

"God."

"I know."

"It's just so frustrating. I hate treating my readers like they're a bunch of second-graders."

"Well, Mark, to be fair, they are a bunch of second-graders. That's Highlights for Children's key demo."

"They'll act like kids as long as we treat them like kids, Steve."

"I know. We've had this discussion before."

"The second-grader of today is the educator and critic of tomorrow. If you raise them on Twinkies that's going to be all they want to eat."

"Look at it this way. Goofus and Gallant are, well, they're a sort of established intellectual property."

"I know. They're absolutely iconic. That's one reason I wanted to work with them so badly."

"Yes. But that works both ways, you see. The editors are very cautious about what they do with the, the brand image, for lack of a better term. It's like the Lucky Charms thing, you remember?"

"How could I forget? It's the same blinkered attitude. 'You can't kill off Lucky, you can't kill off Lucky'. Never mind the ethical lesson it could impart. Never mind the revelatory nature of the piece."

"It was a shame."

"Death is growth, Steve. It's a basic rule of drama. The Greeks knew it. The French knew it. But try convincing General fucking Mills."

"Well, I'm telling you, you're up against the same problem right now."

"What's their complaint, exactly?"

"They feel there's too much moral ambiguity."

"What?!? But...for Christ's sake, it's the 21st century! We're living in a post-modern era! How can they shy away from moral shadings? It's not a Manichean world anymore."

"I realize that. But they feel that the dualistic nature of the characters is a strength, not a weakness."

"You know what? Fuck them. Fuck their whole patronizing attitude. Their readers will let them know what they think about being condescended to. I don't need to be straightjacketed like this."

"It's your decision."

"I'm a man of principle, Steve, if nothing else."

"I respect that. It's very admirable about you."

"Is that book reviewer gig still available?"

"At Cricket? Absolutely."

"Did you send them my review of The World within the Word?"

"They loved it. They won't publish it, because it's spec, but they think you've got a terrific style. They need a 3-page on Merton the Moving Van by the end of the month."

"If I deliver ahead of schedule, do you think they'll let me do the Barthes chrestomathy?"

"I'll see what I can do."