COSMOPOLIS

"Sex finds us out. Sex sees through us. That's why it's so shattering. It strips us of appearances. I see a near naked woman in her exhaustion and need, stroking a plastic bottle pressed between her thighs. Am I honor-bound to think of her as an executive and a mother? She sees a man in a posture of rank humiliation. Is that who I think he is, pants around his ankles and butt flung back? What are the questions he asks himself from this position in the world? Large questions maybe. Questions such as science obsessively asks. Why something and not nothing? Why music and not noise? Beautiful questions strangely suited to his low moment. Or is he limited in perspective, thinking only about the moment itself? Thinking about the pain.[...] Days like this. He snaps a finger and a flame shoots up. Every sensitivity, all his attunements.Things are ready to happen that normally never do. She knows what he means, that they don't even have to touch. The same thing that's happening to him is happening to her. She doesn't need to crawl under the table and suck his dick. Too trite to interest either one of them. The flow is strong between them. The emotional tone. Let it express itself. He sees her in her wallow and feels his pelvic muscles begin to quiver. He says, Tell me to stop and I'll stop. But he doesn't wait for her to reply. There isn't time. The tails of his sperm cells are lashing already. She is his sweetheart and lover and slut undying. He doesn't have to do the unspeakable thing he wants to do. He only has to speak it. Because they're beyond every model of established behavior. He only has to say the words." "Say the words." "I want to bottle-fuck you slowly with my sunglasses on."  (22-23)

On the occasion of the loungingly approaching premiere of Cronenberg's Cosmopolis (hyped-up for the virilized role of still annoyingly deadpan Pattison)- an excerpt from Don DeLillo's 2003 original masterwork. Despite the major leading role inconvenience in this one and his recent glossed over A Dangerous Method, I still hope DC will return in some style to the ugly assymetries that speak their own art.