Don’t make him mad.

Because he’ll eat you.

Young slingers of word or gun have a singular and burning need to prove themselves; it’s the eleventh oldest story in human history.

They need to leave small mudpit arenas behind – where they've bested all the local huskers of corn and tanners of rat pelts with their dazzling display of “I know you are, but what am I? virtuosity -- and swagger into the Big City with balls as big and incapable of cognition as Yorick’s skull. They need to bust loud into the local literary saloon, spin the reigning hemingway away from his game of whist or Reiki Finger Savate and spit in his eye.

And then (before the loogie dies of Xeno’s Paradox halfway to its destination) have every molecule in thier body -- except the nerve clusters -- removed lightening fast and replaced by the hemingway with dynamite and mercury fulminate, basted momentarily together by napalm and specially trained fire ants, each with a single, tiny, burning votive candle clenched in their fists.

Then the Bad Thing happens.

And before the oily smoke clears the hemingway goes back to his book-signing, or inseminating groupies or whatever such entities do during their downtime.

So given that knowledge of this myth and its inevitable ending are as common as seawater, it make one wonder whatever would possess someone to cross the street and poke James Wolcott in the eye.

Because you know it won’t end well.

And yet an astoundingly stupid bit of misbegotten carbon named Michael Fumento decided that it might just be fun.

And here’s how that went.

According to Mr. Fumento…

Wolcott is an uber-pompous contributing editor to Vanity Fair, where rumor has it you're fired on the spot if you're caught drinking your organic Earl Grey with pinkie not fully extended. He's the author of a book attacking the right-wing mass media, and was an opponent of the war in Iraq probably before Bush conceived it."

And then The Bad Thing happened.

Wolcott:

I don't do "fisking," because I refuse to take in vain the name of that brave, outspoken, iconoclastic journalist Robert Fisk. But I will offer a few notes.

1) Actually my head would be a delightful place to visit. So much going on, so many streaking comets of enlightment. I should charge admission so that everyone could enjoy my thoughts.

2) The "Earl Grey pinkie" wheeze at humor by Fumento is evidence of the envy taking tiny bites out of his brain. Two nights ago I attended Vanity Fair's belated New Year's dinner, a joyous bash (imagine one of the livelier orgies in Fellini's Satryicon, multiply by three, and subtract two eunuchs and a retired gladiator, and you have the general atmosphere), which brought my colleagues Christopher Hitchens, Nick Tosches, Annie Lebowitz, Michael Woolf, and so many others under the same pulsating ceiling. Does anyone in their right mind picture Hitchens or Tosches sipping Earl Gray under Graydon's watchful eye and fearing they might spill a drop? I understand Fumento's jealousy of Vanity Fair. Like so many rancorous rightwing underachievers, he resents a magazine--any magazine--that is successful on its own and carries actual advertising rather than being bankrolled by some billionaire madman or non-profit think tank itself dependent on corporate slush funds.

3) I was an opponent of the Iraq War as soon as I understood what the neoconservatives were up to and heard the scaremongering exaggerations and began to fear an invasion and occupation would result in a tragic debacle, and I see no reason to revise my opposition, considering the mess the Bush administration has made and the misery it's caused.

…
Fumento: "If his objection is that the decapitation stuff seems a bit crude, perhaps it's because sawing off a living person's head is also a bit crude. In addition to showing the monstrousness of the enemy, what Wolcott's 'headhunters' are saying is: 'I'll bet you wouldn't like it if this were done to you' and chances are Wolcott wouldn't, insofar as it might interfere with his next wine-and-cheese party at the Ritz."

Me: There is no Ritz in New York. There are Ritz-Carlton hotels, but no one but a rube would refer to any of them as "the Ritz." The Ritz Hotel, of course, is a London landmark. I've never been to the Ritz, but I did have lunch once with Kingsley Amis at the Savoy, if that makes Fumento feel any better, or worse.

Go read the rest here. It goes on and on, long after a humane ref woulda called it.

Suffice it to say, Mt. Wolcott abides.

Of Mr. Fumento, OTOH, naught is left but a shadow flashburned into the wall of his basement.

And the shadow is shitting itself.