Roleplaying
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Seminars
| When: | 11 November 2004 |
| Who: | Damien, Elizabeth |
| What: | Damien cites karma when he runs into Elizabeth for the second time in a week. They sit down on the couch and get into an intense sparring match where he gets a good idea of what she is and she gets a good idea what he is. |
Foo.Bar.Com
A cybercafe like no other, instead of just catering to the tech-savy with a wireless connection or having pay-per-minute computer stations, Foo.Bar.Com has free access for everyone. If you've got a laptop but no wireless connection, there's plug in stations for dialup or high-speed. If you want to use one of the Foo.Bar.Com computers, there's no charge, as long as you buy a drink or something to eat. And in the background at all times there is playing a sci-fi movie or reruns of old sci-fi TV shows.
Elizabeth is sitting on a couch in the back of the cafe with her feet propped up on the coffee table and a slim silver laptop sitting on her lap. Mostly ignored on the coffee table is her drink, some sort of brown liquid with a foof of whipped cream on top. Probably a hot cocoa.
Damien pushes open the door to the shop with one hand, the other hand carrying a black briefcase, presumably containing a laptop. He looks mildly less disheveled than the day before, and a bit more put together. First he stands at the counter in line and then orders some ridiculously long winded drink with a dozen names in Italian, confuses the poor counter clerk, changes his order, confuses the clerk again, and finally get a coffee with cream. He turns, surveys the cybercafe, and brightens a bit when he spots Elizabeth. He saunters over to her, coffee in one hand, briefcase in the other, looms for a moment, and then smiles and says, "Hey! Good afternoon! This must be karmic fate, running into each other two days running."
Elizabeth looks up and smiles at Damien. "Good afternoon, Mr. Hirsch. Do you really believe in karma? Here, have a seat." She pats the spot on the couch next to her.
Damien says, as he slides down onto the couch, "No, not really. But it certainly sounds good." He sets his coffee down and opens his briefcase. He pulls out a new, shiny Dell laptop.
Elizabeth admires Damien's shiny new laptop. "Nice machine you've got there," she comments offhandedly. "So, how is the political consultant gig treating you?" Her fingers move across her keyboard, closing one window and bringing up another.
Damien laughs a little bit as the machine boots to the familiar Microsoft logo. "Considering I've been in town 24 hours, not so fast yet. I have some meetings scheduled for the next few days, then I'll get down to work. How is the business of mathematically predicting human behavoir doing for you?"
"If only I were actually doing more of that!" Elizabeth says mournfully. "No, instead I must devote a fair slice of my time to grading undergraduate papers and exams, and then explaining to the department why I need funding for a student grader to take some of the load off of me."
"The perils of academics," Damien says. "You need a whole army of minions to do your bidding and follow out your every will."
"No, no," Elizabeth murmurs gently. "The army of minions are not required for my academic ambitions; a mere squad or two should suffice for that. Now, were I to plot world domination, then I would need an army of minions indeed." She smiles at Damien, ever so sweetly. "But I, of course, am innocent of such nefarious schemes."
Damien brightens. "World domination is a lofty and laudible goal. But you'll need an entire fleet of worshipping minions who hang on your every word to accomplish such a meager task. And once you have the world -- what will you do with it?"
Elizabeth gasps melodramatically, putting one hand to her bosom. "Mr. Hirsch, you malign me!" she chastizes. "Have I not just disclaimed any ambitions of world domination? And yet you accuse me of it nonetheless. Besides," she adds pragmatically, "it wouldn't be any fun to actually rule the world once it was won; the joy lies in the struggle, the battle of wits."
Damien's smile loses it for one singular small moment, but then it seems to pick right up again. "I'm merely an intellectual. While you plot your plots and execute your plans, I will stand on the sidelines and commentate. You get paid better that way, you know, and less stuff on your pants."
"Ah," Elizabeth purrs, "But there is nothing 'mere' about intellectuals; after all, I myself work in academia. It is the commentary, after all, which shapes public opinion. Do not discount your own value so lightly, Mr. Hirsch. Indeed-" Her gaze rakes him up and down. "-your profession may make you a valuable resource to cultivate."
Damien gets a funny look on his face for a moment, and then lets out a bit of tension-breaking laughter. "Possibly. We'll see what comes of it. You're an extremely interesting person, Elizabeth. Do people mostly call you Elizabeth, or by a nickname?"
Elizabeth shrugs. "To be quite honest," she admits, "the majority of people with whom I interact are my students, who generally call me 'Miss Wilseck' - to my face, anyway. Socially, I generally go by Elizabeth, although I also answer to Liz. I must confess to to some curiosity, though; what makes you consider me extremely interesting, Mr. Hirsch? I find myself fascinating, of course, but few others share that opinion. Most seem to find economics and econ professors dreadfully dry and dull."
"Damien, please," Damien says. "Damien is fine. You just have a much more complex outlook on life than most people, and you're very multifaceted. You're a singular, interesting little puzzle -- and, of course, an academic, a professor, and a mathematician. I would expect no less."
Elizabeth lowers her eyes and murmurs, "You flatter me, Damien." Looking up again, she adds, "And you presume much, on so little acquaintance. Naturally, I find myself somewhat charmed by these flying compliments: complex, interesting, multifaceted. You've done very well in deducing the qualities which I would like to believe myself to have, and thus the ones upon which I am most likely to be vulnerable to compliments. I am impressed, at least somewhat."
Damien leans over and picks up his coffee. He takes a long, thoughtful drink, and then sets it back down. "Perhaps I do presume too much, but I can only call what I see, can't I?"
Elizabeth takes a moment to type something into her computer, and then chuckles. "As I said, flatterer. But do you call the qualities which you truly believe me to have, or the ones which you believe will ingratiate you with me? A tidy puzzle right there, complicated by the possibility that both are partially true, and the question of what your overall goal is. After all, what possible use could a high-flying political consultant have with a mild-mannered academic?"
"Have you considered the possibility that my motivations are nothing more or less than purely selfish gratification of spending some time with an intelligent woman while surrounded in a yuppie intellectual environment like a cybercafe-coffee house and spending a little bit of time doing something other than my job?" Damien asks, the smile returning. "And that I am as transparent as glass? Perhaps sometimes I simply crave conversation a little beyond the normal, and thus the attraction to an ivory tower economist."
"Perhaps," Elizabeth concedes, snapping her laptop shut as she leans forward to pick up her hot cocoa. "But how dreadfully dull if it were true, that you really are transparent! If you would capture my interest, sir, you would do better to cultivate some depth, hidden layers for me to uncover. Although there is a certain... refreshing quality to unsullied naivete, I find it difficult to believe that your career of choice is indicative of a spirit devoid of cynicism."
Damien leans back against the couch, now on comfortable ground. He sets his laptop aside, neglected, and picks up the coffee. "Oh, you certainly cultivate some cynicism in my line of work. I would say, it's entirely cynicism-based. It takes a fine mind to appreciate the absolute ridiculousness of the political system to really throw yourself into this line of work. And hopefully, on other topics, I am neither naive nor all that transparent."
Elizabeth takes a sip of her hot cocoa, leaving a whipped-cream mustache behind. "I did not think you were," she says calmly, "which is why I doubted that your motives were purely the enjoyment of my intellectual conversation which you suggested. Not that I have chosen to take offense at your simplisic diversionary ploy, mind. The use of blatant simplicity as an ironic nod to the subtleties in which we have indulged is one of the more delicate compliments I've seen in a while - if it was intentional, of course. For the moment, I choose to give you that much credit."
Damien smiles brighter. "If anything, Elizabeth, my motives are my own, for good or for ill."
"A vacuously true statement," Elizabeth scoffs, licking the whipped cream off of her upper lip.
Damien laughs again. "Oh, now I'm _vacuous_! Next we'll be sitting here watching streaming Britney Spears videos."
Elizabeth's lip curls as she eyes Damien. "You know better than that," she says primly. "I am not amused by your attempted pun on the colloquial meaning of a technical term. To be funny, a good pun requires wit." She ponders for a moment and then adds, "Wit, and something more than a mere double-meaning. Either a triple- or better meaning for sheer artistry, or a tie-in to another joke that is funny in itself."
Damien takes a long sip of his coffee, contemplates the cup, and then says idly, "It's not always necessary to be funny every moment of the day. Sometimes it's just there."
"True enough," Elizbeth says smoothly. "I only seldom attempt at humor myself; so very few people are appreciative of mathematical jokes. Indeed, I find much of what passes for humor in the popular media these days to be inane and unamusing. I prefer more sobriety in my own life, leavened by a sprinkling of delicate witticisms."
Damien looks contemplative for a moment. "There's a difference between crude humor and real wit. The pointlessness of FOX reality shows like 'Married in America' are just crude laughable humor mixed in with pure exploitation of the masses who watch it. Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal" is both the right vein humor and wit. The former is easy, the latter takes work, but the latter is far more satisfying."
"I am somewhat surprised to find myself in agreement with you," Elizabeth says, taking a sip of her cocoa. "I do indeed the Modest Proposal to be a brilliant piece of satire. Such a pity that the art form is being overwhelmed by the sheer volume of dreck. Ah well, one supposes it is Sturgeon's Law writ large." She sets her glass mug down and opens up her laptop again.
Damien actually does the same, putting down his cup of coffee and finally addressing his laptop. It makes various noises as he opens his email. "Arafat is dead. Clients from all over the country are emailing me with what to do. What's really funny is how the Great and Powerful need keepers to tell them how to pull on their pants."
Elizabeth says dryly, "I suspect you overstate the point, Damien. The great and powerful don't actually need you or any other keeper to tell them what to do, any more than the meek and humble do. They have merely been convinced that they do, but the demand is artificially created." She futzes around with a spreadsheet for a bit.
Damien hmms a bit on this point. "Today's media-driven empire forces these people to surround themselves with a support staff to ensure that everything they do and everything they say fits into a 30 second soundbyte and nary a hair is out of place. A single misstep means a quick end to their careers, and a replacement by some identical person who will hire the identical people and have the same 30 second soundbytes."
"And yet," Elizabeth points out, "these same people don't actually need those high-flying political careers. They may think that they do, but once that career reaches its inevitable end, many of them retire to postions in industry or academia and discover that life as a private citizen is not so bad, after all. You've built your career around the fact that politicians are blinded by the lights and the glitter. A fairly safe assumption, to be sure. But if any major shock upsets the current pattern of media functioning, the entire house of cards comes tumbling down."
"Nothing is going to upset the current pattern of media," Damien says smoothly. "There's too much money in it, especially for Murdoch. There's absolutely no point in ending it. They will make more money by accelerating it to some insane fevered pitch where all of political discourse just falls apart into noise. We have no intelligent political discourse now. Why should we have it in the future?"
"A smooth line of patter," Elizabeth observes blandly, "but I shall do you the disservice of giving you a straight answer. Why should we have intelligent political discourse in the future? Because I wish to have it. I need no other reason. The current prating of the media bores me, sir. Certainly, it serves a certain purpose. But is this necessarily the only configuration in which it would prove useful? I think not."
Damien frowns mildly, his face still bathed in the light from his laptop. He types something, and says, "I am too cynical to believe there ever will be such a thing as intelligent political discourse here or anywhere else ever again. The media controls everything, and that media runs off money and profit, so the only thing to do is to mock it or sink into despair or ignore it all and hope we all don't wake up to a theological oligarchy out of the Handmaid's Tale. It is not profitable to have Alexander Hamilton and James Madison arguing over the tenants of David Hume's philosophy of a sound society for months on end. It's only profitable to run pointless 30 second attack advertisements. And those, if anything, are pretty hilarious in context."
Elizabeth smiles faintly. "You are insufficiently ambitious, Damien. You are content to remain a parasite feeding off of the media torrent. Why dream so low? 'The media controls everything' you say; if that is true, then you admit to it controlling you. Would it not be preferable to turn the equation around, to harness the power of the media to your own ends?" She moistens her lips.
Damien looks up from Elizabeth, and says deadpan, "That's a trap. What is it you want to hear from me?"
Elizabeth smiles brightly at Damien and extends one hand to clap him on the shoulder. "Me? Want something from you?" she asks disingenuously. "I doubt that you actually have much that I want at this point in time. I would just like for you to think of me as a friend, and to come talk with me should you encounter any difficulties. I am not without resources, after all, and I take care of my own."
Damien takes a long, long look at the hand on his shoulder and sits there, very still, for a long moment before he drawls out, long and thoughtful, "Alright. A, ah, friend associated with the University."
Elizabeth withdraws her hand and snaps her laptop closed, leaving her half-finished drink sitting on the coffe table as she stands up to go. "Why, thank you, darling," she says, bending over to drop a quick kiss on Damien's forehead. "May our association hall be a long and profitable one."
Damien gives Elizabeth one more appraising look, and then the smile returns. "We still need to do dinner, you and I. Soon."
"Certainly, Damien," Elizabeth says lightly. "I expect it will be a pleasure." And she walks out of the cybercafe.
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