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1:04

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- We've been everything. Separatists, independantists, sovereignists, sovereignty-associationists.

- At first we were existentialists.

- We read Sartre and Camus.

- Then Fanon, we became anti-colonialists.

- We read Marcuse and became Marxists.

- Marxist-Leninists.

- Trotskyists.

- Maoists.

- After Solzhenitsyn we changed. We were structuralists.

- Situationists.

- Feminists.

- Deconstructionists.

- Is there an "ism" we haven't worshipped?!

- Cretinism.

- God no. Think of Guo Jing.

- Who was he?

- An archeologist... With a skirt slit to the crotch.

- Even you remember.

- China opens up to the West. She comes on a cultural exchange. The university sends its trusty radical, me... I enter the dining room of her hotel. I spot her, and die. Beauty that could melt Emperor Qin's terra cotta warriors. I order tea, we make small talk. I can see us doing Pekinese lotus.

- The Szechuan dragon.

- To make myself appear intresting, I dive in: "Your country has achieved so much. We're so envious. Your Cultural Revolution is wonderful!" Her lovely black eyes glaze over. I'm mortified to realize that she's thinking, "He's either a CIA agent or the worst cretin in the West." So much for the lotus and dragon. For two years she'd cleaned pigsties on a re-education farm. Father murdered, mother committed suicide. And some dumb French-Canadian who's seen the films of Jean-Luc Godard and read Philippe Sollers says that the Chinese Cultural Revolution, is wonderful!

- Cretinism doesn’t sink any lower.



- Voluntary simplicity. Scrambled eggs with ossetra caviar and fresh truffles. From Tuscany.

- And to stay in Italy, Castello Banfi Excelsus, a modest vintage.

- Why were we so dumb? Are we to infer congenital stupidity?

- Not at all.

- Intelligence isn't an individual trait. It's collective, national, intermittent.

- Oh, a new theory!

- Athens, BC. Euripides premieres his Electra. Two rivals attend, Sophocles and Aristophanes. And two friends, Socrates and Plato. Intelligence was there. Firenze, Palazzo Vecchio, on facing walls, two painters: Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo. An apprentice: Rafaello. A manager: Niccolo Machiavelli. Philadelphia, USA. Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Adams, Franklin, Jefferson, Washington, Hamilton and Madison. No other country has been so blessed. I was born in Chicoutimi, Canada, in.

- It's a miracle you're not dumber.

- Everyone was dumb, in Athens and Chicoutimi. In Italy you'd have supported the Red Brigades.

- Now it's Berlusconi.

- Philadelphia voted George Bush.

- You see, you're not that dumb.

- Intelligence has disappeared, and it can take eons to come back.

- From Tacitus to Dante was what, centuries?

- The Arabs kept intelligence alive.

-True.

- You're not hungry?

- It won't go down.

- And you?

- No thanks.

- I never thought I'd see the day you'd turn down fresh truffles.

- Alas, that day is here.

- A sip of wine?

- Drink to my health and tell me how good it is.

- I'd like to bow out just like Felix Faure.

- Why am I not surprised?

- I can dream.

- Who was he? Why?

- Oh blessed Felix Faure, the President of the French Republic. His heart stopped beating, while his mistress the admirable Madame Steinheil, kneeling before him, bestowed on him the most glorious blowjob of all time.

- My god!

- His enemies gloated: "She seized him, the would-be Caesar and he had a seizure!". Henceforth Madame Steinheil was known as the kiss of death.

- I should be so lucky!

- It's not our fault if your heart is unstoppable.

- I'd like to remind you that at a certain time, I and several others here blew you most heartily, with enough force to capsize a schooner.

- What do you know about blowing boys?

- Well, sir, our efforts earned gushing praise. Heavens, that's hard to swallow.

- I'm beat.

- Go to bed.

- Aren't you coming?

- Not tonight.

- The Middle Ages, the manuscripts... The barbarians, everywhere, tomorrow...

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