NogaNote:

I'm still working on my piece about hypocrites and fawning popinjays. I got a little distracted by all this Iranian ruckus about denying the Holocaust and other such trivial matters.

What is it about scavengers that is so repellent? After all, they do serve a hygienic purpose, don't they? But it's a powerful metaphor, one that sticks in the mind.

My own disgust is directed towards the kind of human scavenger one recalls from Zorba the Greek, in which the toothless old hags from Crete converge upon Bubulina's house as she is lying on her deathbed. Not yet dead, and fully aware of what's happening, she sees them steal into her bedroom, finger the bed linen, pretend that they have come to lament her passing while rapaciously eyeing her finery. Eventually, they no longer have the patience to await her death. So they strip the place clean of every object, barely leaving her the bed she is lying on.

A cinematic metaphor that I wish I could erase from my mind. Even as I try to dig up some seeds of pity in my heart for those old biddies. After all, they were the product of years of ignorance, that sucked all the milk of humankindness from their bones, leaving them dessicated, brittle, inured to propriety and basic decency.

The scavenger, I think, is the ultimate hypocrite. Just an idea. I'll be working to elaborate upon it.