I was a student of contemporary American literature for four years; Don DeLillo’s White Noise stood out. I’m now off to the western half of America for three months to find his ‘most photographed barn in America’… and maybe, just maybe, I might see a few other things along the way…
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- Kobe Beef and Bobsleds… Spontaneous Hijinks in Salt Lake City
- Arches National Park… the last of our visits to Utah’s great national parks
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- Zion National Park: Emerald Pools, Angels Landing, a Prairie Dog, and Butterfly…
- Vegas (Part Deux), Mustangs in Death Valley, and Rob Green’s Howler…
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- Racking up the Miles: Petrified Forest and the Painted Desert…
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I like the lens you are looking through…maybe I will see you on the trail… I will be the smiling gray haired guy with the zany blond companion. All the best! Mike
Dear BeardedBob,
Elsewhere on your blog, you quote David Mamet as being the person who said or wrote: “Hooray for me and fuck you,” which I take as being a brilliantly brief summing up of the meaning of American capitalism. But I can’t find that quote, in or out of context, anywhere else on the web. Can you tell me where you got it, from which of Mamet’s works or quotes, and some information on the context and when he said it?
I don’t intend for you to publish this, but do so if you must. (I suspect that Mamet’s views on the system have radically changed since he wrote or said that. These days he’s turned hard to the right. He now says his favorite philosopher is Thomas Sowell!)
Thanks.
Greetings Sandy, I hope all is well?
Yeah you got me thinking with your musings, so I’ve dug around trying to unearth the quote. Not much joy finding it on the internet other than in a slightly different form, for instance in an interview with Matthew Roudane, Mamet cites ‘So hurray for me and to hell with you’ ( http://www.upstartfilmcollective.com/portfolios/jcharnick/mamet-museum/old-interview.html ).
So I’ve spent the morning trawling through notes from six years ago (when I thought I came across the Mamet quote) and eventually – to my relief – found it (albeit with ‘Hurray’ instead of ‘Hooray’, since amended!). It was amongst a set of notes produced by a teacher/lecturer and, although very brief, I have included the scanned image in the ‘Barn Searching…’ blog post [ http://wp.me/pV8J7-g ].
Although the context and references are lacking, in other notes I have it appears the quote came from 1985… (plenty of time before his turn to the right!), but that’s as good as I can offer. It looks as though it came in an interview, and I’m currently scouring the web to see if I can track it down. Will let you know if I’m successful…
Bob–
Many thanks for taking all the time and trouble to look up where you got that quote from. The source remains fuzzy, as you note, but it reassures me about Mamet’s having said it. If you find out anything more, I’d love to know about it. Thanks again.
Thanks Sandy. I was going to add that in both instances of Mamet stating ‘Hurray for me… etc’ it appears he is para-quoting from another source. So I’ll try and find the source of that, unless of course it is just a general, everyday, axiomatic saying. Which it could well be…